Hey, remember me? I’m not a new columnist; I just took a brief hiatus from my column so that I could finish my thesis. As of four hours ago, when I turned in my mammoth of a paper, I’m back and ready to continue writing for The Sun… for two more weeks. That would make this my second-to-last column, and since the last column is traditionally wasted on a bunch of goodbyes, thank-yous and other sentimental hooey, this is effectively my last column.

Which puts me in a bit of a tricky situation. I’ve got 950 — now, 850 — words left to say all of the things I haven’t gotten to say, so I need to choose carefully. In the past two and a half years I’ve written about 50 columns, and I probably could have written 10 or so more if I had never bagged. Some of the times I bagged it was because I didn’t have the time to write, but most of the time it was because I couldn’t think of anything to write about; I’d start with some raw idea and attempt to bake it into a column, but (to continue the metaphor) then I’d discover that I didn’t have any butter, so I’d replace it with half margarine and half shortening, and then I’d realize I was out of baking soda, so I’d double the baking powder, and… well, let’s just say the fire department wasn’t too pleased.

Damn, there go another 150.
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