You might have noticed I’ve mostly abandoned this blog. If you’re looking for me, the best place to find me nowadays is on Twitter.

However, if you are an old fashioned, early twenty-first century type who prefers blogs to Twitter, and you simply must know what I’ve been up to… My new book How Not To Kill Your Baby comes out next month. It’s a parody of pregnancy and parenting books.

And as of today, I’m a New Yorker author. Woohoo! You can read my piece here.

Google has a cool new feature: you can search every book they’ve digitized for a specific word or phrase, and then chart how often it appeared by year. I’m sure this will be invaluable to language historians, but I’ve discovered an even more important use: you can use it to search for time travelers.

For example, here’s what the graph looks like for the word “Internet”:

That’s right: from the dawn of written language, up through the late 1970’s, not a single human being in recorded history used the word “Internet”– except a little flurry of people right around 1900. That clearly marks the chrononaut’s first landing point in the time stream.
Now, imagine you are history’s first time traveler. You wish to summon more of your ilk, to enjoy the wonders of the early 20th century. How might you contact them? Why, with your iPhone. Here’s a chart of how often the word “iPhone” appeared in printed documents:

You’ll notice a major spike in the mid 1940s, suggesting heavy time traveler presence during World War II.
In fact, once you start searching, the evidence is astounding, from the use of Google during the Civil War through the appearance of both “www” and “http” in 1902. But I will leave all that as an exercise to the reader.

My previous two Yankee Fog posts were a year apart. This one is a mere 10 months after the previous one. Why, it’s practically instantaneous!

Given that Yankee Fog has been more or less abandoned, I will forgive you if you react with some skepticism to the news that I’ve started a brand-new blog. But I have.

It’s called Caught Dead In That, and it’s nothing but funny photos of gravestones. That’s right: funny photos of gravestones. I believe that officially uses up the last remaining unmined humor topic on the internet.

Seeing as it’s been precisely a year since my last post, you have no doubt deduced that I’ve abandoned all pretense of updating this blog regularly. But for anybody still following me, here are a few things I’ve been up to recently.

A short story of mine called “Eugene” was published at Popcorn fiction. While you’re there, check out the archives. There’s some really brilliant stuff. My favorites include A Best Friend Named Rick and March 6th. I’d also recommend Unconditional, but I have to warn you that it’s every parents’ worst nightmare, so read with caution.

I wrote a few episodes of a new animated series called Shelldon, which premiered last month on NBC. The first of my episodes is scheduled to air this Saturday, November 7. It looks like the second of my episodes will air November 28. I should note that, as usually happens with freelance TV writing, my scripts were rewritten pretty thoroughly after I handed them in, so I have no idea how much of my original script actually made it to the air. (Unless the episode turns out to be a staggering work of genius, in which case, I will insist they didn’t change a word)

Finally, last week, I was a guest on The David Feldman Comedy Podcast, where I discussed a topic about which I am widely recognized to be the world’s greatest expert: the contents of my freezer. I don’t mean to oversell it, but this is probably the single most important subject in the world at the moment, so I know you’ll want to listen.

Flickr has photos of today’s headlines from the UK papers. I’m sure the next time the Brits go to the polls, we’ll return the compliment with similarly dramatic coverage.

My favorite headline is on the far right of the photo above. It’s from The Star, which considers Barak Obama significant, but not quite as significant as the attractive young woman it identifies as “Abbey Clancy in thigh-high boots.” It might seem from The Star’s headline that they’re thanking us for our choice, but, on closer inspection, they seem to be thanking us merely for having an election:

Unfortunately, I can’t find the full article online, so it’s not clear to me exactly how “American election fever save[d] a million British jobs,” but once again, let me say: you’re welcome.

I would like to congratulate my fellow Americans for making a historic choice. At long last, the greatest barrier in America has been broken.

That’s right: for the first time in history, the President of the United States will have a rabbi for a cousin.
Mazal tov, Barak!

Not surprisingly, the election has received considerable interest over here. Last night, I was out at a movie and the gentleman sitting next to me heard my accent. He asked where in the US I was from, and when I told him Washington, DC, he said, in the mildest, most polite tone imaginable, “Tell me, is that a region that tends to trend towards McCain or Obama?”

I’ve lived here long enough to know that this is Britspeak for, “I’m dying to know who you voted for but it would be rude to come out and ask.” So, by way of answer, I unbuttoned my shirt, revealing the Obama t-shirt underneath.

The English reserve melted away. He got a big grin and clapped me on the shoulder. At that point, the movie started, so we didn’t get the chance to talk further, but afterwards, he told me he was going home to watch the results on TV.

So, random English guy who sat next to me at the movie, on behalf of America, let me say, “You’re welcome.”

Apparently, John McCain feels he is needed in Washington, DC, on Friday, and he therefore can’t attend the scheduled debate. Senator Obama disagrees, and plans to attend.

Fortunately for Senator McCain, there’s an easy solution. He has already chosen the one person in America he considers most qualified to step in for him if he can’t fulfil his duties: Sarah Palin.

So why not send Governor Palin to debate Barack Obama?

Surely if she’s qualified to negotiate with foreign heads of state, she can handle a debate with one little US Senator. And while she’s busy dazzling America with her extensive grasp of international affair, Senator McCain can… well, he can do whatever magic economy-fixing voodoo is so important that he has to do it Friday evening.

It’s a win-win!

I’ve been looking for some good Obama babywear, with no luck. The best I could find was a rather tacky looking outfit with the on-the-nose message “Babies for Obama.”

So I came up with a slightly more interesting slogan. And thanks to the exceptional design talents of the folks at Hunt Smith Design, it’s now available for purchase at Spreadshirt.com:

Here’s how my local pub is celebrating the 4th of July. (Apologies for the low-quality cameraphone image.)

In case you’re wondering, “Fancy Dress” is Brit-speak for “costume.” But aside from that one Englishism, they’ve got everything spot-on. Ah, how many a 4th July did I spend in my youth, dressed up as George Washington and playing “Shot The Balloon!” To this day, a good game of Hoopla brings back the scent of apple pie and cowboy cocktails.

God save the President, my friends. God save the President.