Ain’t technology wonderful? Here I am, stuck in the basement obsessively keeping up with weather and tornado warnings on TV, radio and computer all at the same time — and smiling with delight at new pics of my week-old nephew. Born to my younger brother and my sweet-and-precious-even-though-she’s-a-Yankee sister-in-law in Maine, this adorable baby does have an actual name but to me he’ll never outgrow what his parents-to-be called him when he was only a tiny image on a sonogram: Splinter, as in A Little Piece of Wood. Can’t you just smell that precious new baby goodness? Splinter’s mom and dad will make excellent parents, and “big brother” Thule, their Siberian Husky, will help, I’m sure. And in no time whatsoever, it’ll be two years later and, just like grandson Capt. Adorable, Splinter will be playing with trains and flirting with girls and demanding yellow crayons instead of red ones. And by the way, it’s a lot harder to build these train tracks then it looks! Not to mention any names, but one day somebody decided to help the Captain lay out a new configuration and that person got hopelessly confused and couldn’t even create a simple circle that would bring Thomas back to the station safe and sound. Thankfully, the Captain had it figured out. And I believe “laying toy train tracks” should be added to the list of brain-boosting activities.

And on another rant, I climbed up on a (Dove for Sensitive Skin) soap box in my weekly newspaper column, http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100423/ARTICLES/4235001,  and explained exactly why I’m mad at Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, John Edwards and Kate Gosselin. I mean, it’s fine to make mistakes and do stupid things and choose wrongly — just don’t look me (and by “me,” I mean all of us) in the eye and lie about it. Except if you’re on Survivor. Then I sort of expect you to lie. And tell me all about it.