Two Notes, One Having Nothing To Do With Sandwiches, One Having Everything To Do With Hams, Dept.

a) on Friday night's episode of Jeopardy!, the returning champion, a fellow named Jared Cohen, was left with only a dollar to wager by the time "Final Jeopardy" rolled around. Not knowing the correct answer to the question, "The original one of these on Mass.'s Little Brewster Island was built in 1716; automation ddn't come until 1998.", he answered "What is Kebert Xela?" which host Alex Trebek proceeded to read out loud. Now, usually "funny" answers unrelated to the question tend to run along the lines of "What is...Hi Mom and Dad!". Trebek, seemingly confused, asked what it meant. Jared (not apparently related to the "Subway sandwich" guy who, I don't care how much weight he lost, must've had to have cauterized his taste buds with a white-hot poker to tolerate eating nothing but Subway fucking subs for months) explained that he'd heard that if Trebek read his own name backwards, he'd be sent back to his own dimension.

Bingo!, a sly Superman allusion (the Man of Steel's impish nemesis, Mr. Mxyzptlk, from the Fifth Dimension, could only be sent home by somehow being tricked into reading his own name aloud and backwards). And a creamy layer of ganache atop the initial allusion in the form of a reference to a Family Guy episode wherein Adam West tricks Alex Trebek into saying his own name backwards, thereby sending him back to the Fifth Dimension.

Needless to say, "Jared" scored mega-super-triple fanboy points with that performance.

b) while at Ikea (where, disappointingly, statuesque Swedish hostesses in starched-but-inappropriately-revealing uniforms are not deployed to assist with one's selection of PRC-made furnishings and utensils, very few of which are in any way tainted by the mischievous Chinese propensity to cut corners and boost profits by introducing toxic and/or lethal adulterations into the manufacturing process), we had the opportunity to use one of the Self Check-out stations. This is always fun since I have few opportunities to scan the contents of my basket at home. As appears to be de rigeur in this situation, the Check-Out station is equipped with a screen which features a computer-animated tutorial/prompt in case the shopper has not been in a supermarket/chain-megastore since the first Gulf War or is, in fact, a member of America's despised-yet-envied monied class. Like other examples of this sort of animated prompt, Ikea's depicts a woman scanning her items, bagging them, swiping her credit card. Unlike others your sobsister has seen, Ikea's includes two noteworthy features. First, the on-screen consumerette, thanks to the marvels of CGI and 3-D modelling, has been given a big ol' ba-donka-donk (which, coincidentally, is also the name of a line of inexpensive wine glasses available for purchase at Ikea). Second, the animation boffins who contracted to develop this video were detail-oriented enough to give the 3-D shopperette a serious case of VPL. Right there, onscreen, the telltale sign of too much ass pressing against too thin fabric.

I was impressed. And remain so. That men should harness the atom and the electron and the mouse to render their own panty-outline fetish and sell it to a major multinational is little short of awe-inspiring. Possible refinements: animated woman with meticulously-rendered cameltoe shopping at Ikea, CGI woman with ragdoll-physics-modelled eraser-tip nipples under sheer blouse shopping at Ikea, 3-D woman with texture-mapped cellulite shopping at Ikea.

Science am grand. And getting grander.