"I could never love a man who was out of his wits."

You know what's sad? I mean, other than child soldiers. Obviously, that's a given. In terms of sadness, child soldiers is sort of the baseline.

Imagine you said, "Child soldiers: Now that's sad." Everyone would say, "Yeah, duh." So we're thinking past that now.

Not that we want to forget the inherent sadness of child soldiers. It's just that sometimes you have to forget the obvious stuff if you want to get anything done.

OK, I just referred to child soldiers as "stuff" ... forget I said that. And you know, I thought the Newsweek-style stories about the loss of American childhood via Larry Clark movies, menstruation at 10, the "hot coffee" mod for Grand Theft Auto, and sexual predators on Myspace was bad enough ... but then this child soldiers thing comes up. Bah. Let's not think about it.

But if we don't think about it, how are we to do anything? Can we do anything?

I hate to be the jerk here, but I really don't think we can do anything. I loved the stories about the two boys in ... Cambodia? ... one of them was named Johnny, I think ... they smoked cigarettes at an early age ... their followers thought they were reincarnated gods ... gah, Trish would know, she's the one who read about them in Tamil Tiger Beat ... anyway, they eventually got captured and I forget what happened to them. I hope those kids are OK.

If they're alive, I'm sure they're OK. Lemme tell ya ... former child soldier: That's like catnip to the ladies. You want a bad boy? Look no further than your local former child soldier. High school dropouts, step aside! Maybe we can ameliorate this child soldier business by telling them that vacuous and increasingly heavyset North American women are waiting for them with open arms.

There, we've solved the child soldier problem, and we've solved it together. That's a lesson to any child, packin' heat or not.

Oh, but to my original question: You know what's sad? Must Love Dogs. You know, the movie about internet dating with John Cusack and Diane Lane.

John Cusack? Cool. Diane Lane ? Scrumptious. Must Love Dogs? Terrible. I've tried watching it with the sound off and that makes it somewhat better; I can pretend the actors are in a good movie, and when they're not talking about Wes Anderson movies and 70's proto-punk they're discussing how Must Love Dogs would have been better if their good friend Dave Bushnell could have been in it with them.

Compared to child soldiers, Must Love Dogs is sort of a minor issue (I'll grant you), but it was on my mind. And now you know how to enjoy it.

Who says the internet is no good? In one evening we've solved child soldiers *and* Must Love Dogs. Let's give ourselves a hand.

All together now ... it starts slowly with just one person, and then eventually we all join in and pick up the pace. Come on, it's easy.