Yeah, there might be some spoilers in this, so if you haven't seen the finale of the OC, skip this. I'll try to keep it mostly free of hints, though.

Basically, the finale was fairly lame. Tons of touch-feely garbage, along with the reintroduction of some old characters and some new (attractive?) ones. The whole episode seemed needlessly meta, however, in a Delirious sort of way. Characters kept saying things like, "Well, everything kind of went to hell a year ago...", or "everything got super crazy as soon as you left" or even, "these sorts of things don't happen to our family" as if one of the actors was about to turn to the camera, pierce the veil and say "thanks crappy screenwriters".

Nothing bothers me more than when an already melodramatic series attempts to be more dramatic by having formerly good characters fall from grace. It's silly and pointless.

Oh, and the music stank for the finale as well. And there was no explanation for the murder committed earlier. Or at least no one talked about it.

On the plus side, people looked good, the shots were done well, and from a macro perspective, it setup the next season perfectly. However, I have to say I'm looking forward more to the finale of 24 or House.

One final spoiler though: remember kids, if you are using a weapon to "persuade" someone of something, go for the extremity shot. It's less messy but it still leaves a mark.

This is hilarious.

Now get back to watching egg-head orrin hatch drone on about judges.

I love this article in the post. Let's roll the tape:

Among themselves, the squirrels appear to feel the same way, according to Vagn Flyger, a retired University of Maryland professor.

Flyger devoted himself to studying squirrels because, as he explains it, they weigh less than a deer and don't bite like a polar bear. He used to smear a tree behind his Silver Spring home with a mixture of peanut butter and Valium and then tattoo the squirrels that he found passed out below.

When he first did this, more than 30 years ago, there were only gray ones, Flyger said. Now, he says, at least four black squirrels live nearby.

Man, I cannot wait for retirement. Then I'll get some peanut butter and valium...

Two hours before I left work yesterday I had a free evening. Then things went horribly right.

The fact that my car was parked in a garage downtown and my sanity was parked in Glover Park does nothing to detract from the fact that I had a wonderful evening.

Who needs plans that always end up ganging aft agley? Spontaneous ones are superior.

This is the end for the digital NYT readers:

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 16, 2005--The New York Times announced today a new online offering called TimesSelect, which for a modest fee will provide exclusive access to Op-Ed and news columnists on NYTimes.com, easy and in-depth access to The Times's online archives, early access to select articles on the site, as well as other exciting features.

News is, by and large, fairly free on the internet. Commentary is even more so. But let's consider the two head to head on technology issues:

• NYT and WaPo have both setup xml/rss feeds
• NYT has decided to start charging for opinion columns
• WaPo has setup blogs by a variety of different authors
• NYT archive articles retreat behind a wall after a couple weeks
• WaPo articles stay linked forever

Looking at the list, it becomes fairly clear what each company is attempting to do. The Times seems committed to encouraging people to read its work, only to lure them into paying a fee. You can learn about a new opinion column through an RSS feed, but you have to cough up change to read it. You can read an article on the news page today, but if you go to the same link three weeks from now, you have to pay the piper again.

By contrast, the Post seems committed to expanding readership. If you read an article today, the link works for free forever. They continue to promote journalists and columnists to create blogs, like the always delightful Joel. Instead of nickel and dimeing readers, they are simply using advertising revenue streams. Their model seems to be to attract users of the internets to link to them. It's working.

The difference is huge in terms of a user experience. I long ago stopped linking to NYT articles, because I knew in a few weeks, the link would be dead. Now I won't be able to read opinion columns either, so the final reason I read the Times, namely, Paul Krugman, is gone.

Look at the "most popular articles" on each website. The Times consistently has people visiting the op-ed section. The Post has people visiting more hard news articles. I think that sums it up.

Despite the lack of Michael, Tuesday Salon was a success, especially on the culinary front. Best of all, we now have a limited supply of several different varieties of mustard.

Four square attendance was down from last week, but the level of play was up. There were tons of great volleys lasting a couple minutes each. And with shorter lines, it was much easier to get right back in and deal out some punishment to Ronald.

The supply of wood held up well, and thanks to some neighborly assistance, I was ballin in no time. Plus, I got to show off the car to the few people who hadn't seen it yet. Four, Dwight and some friends even got to ride in it.

Why bother with all the kickball drama when you can enjoy Fast Paced Four-Square instead? We're not resorting to flip-cup as a "ritual" either, like the heathens a few blocks over.

Tuesday Salon kicks off today at six in the post meridiem, as usual. You know how it goes...

It's been awhile since I shared any fast-food stories. Last night, while ordering a pizza from Papa John's, I noticed that their internet service was down. Angry, I turned to Pizza Hut to provide me with some hot delicious pizza pie.

Don't get me wrong: I enjoy Pizza Hut immensely. But this is the same place that in the past has "run out" of pepperonis. Twice. So I was a little wary. But I logged into their new system, ordered a hawaiian pizza, and sat back to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Forty-five minutes later, a guy appeared at the door. I had paid with a credit card, but I still had to sign the sheet (since you cannot tip online with PH, which is also annoying). But the guy didn't have a pen, forcing me to run inside and rummage for one. Even after I signed it, he said he needed to "do a rubbing" so he took my credit card and did a quick rubbing against the receipt. Sketchtastic, right? Finally, he says, "you only got one pizza right?" to which I replied yes. He then pulls the top pie out of the box and runs back to his car. I take the pizza downstairs, open it, and discover it's the wrong pizza. Running back upstairs, the guy is already gone.

Furious, I call the Pizza Hut line and get to wait on hold for 10 minutes. Finally, a guy picks up and I explain the problem. He says, "well, what kind of pizza did you get" as if his computer couldn't tell him that. I say we received a small pepperoni pizza instead of my medium hawaiian pizza. The guy then says, "well, medium is actually the smallest size" as if that made a difference. I was going to point out that the pizza I received was

• square
• covered in pepperonis
• with dipping sauces
• sliced into tiny rectangles

instead of the hawaiian pizza which was supposed to be

• circular
• covered in ham and pineapple

Instead I just told him it was nothing like the pizza I ordered. So then he says, "Okay, well, how about if I give you a $5 credit on your next order from Pizza Hut?" I couldn't believe it. It was a $20 pizza with tip, and he wanted to give me a $5 credit! So I said, "um, how about if you give me the pizza I ordered instead?" He said yes, and that it would take another 45 minutes.

Sure enough, 45 minutes later, the same guy showed up at the house. He gave me my pizza, apologized profusely, and told me to "check" before I went inside. I did.

Soon I was eating delicious hawaiian pizza and watching the Dukes of Hazard after Robot Chicken. The evening had been saved in the nick of time. Pizza Hut is rapidly joining Armands as a place I refuse to order from.

It happened again.

A week ago I noticed that due to a series of circumstances beyond my control, if I had chosen to leave my last job either a couple weeks earlier or later, I wouldn't have been able to get my current job. The timing worked out perfectly, and the window was so small, in fact, that had I delayed even a few days in making my decision, I might not have been able to score the perfect position.

I've explained this concept of flow before, almost exactly a year ago.

This weekend I worked incredibly late on Friday evening. As I left Tyson's Corner, I dropped by the apple store to pick up a power adapter for Jenna. (Un?)fortunately, they were out. But I made it back home just in time to hit a local Ethiopian place with Jenna, Michael, and a bunch of other friends on Jenna's side. The service and really, the entire time spent at the Ethiopian place, was a bit of a let down. Afterward though, we rolled over to a party on 13th street just in time for me to have a series of interesting conversations.

So far, the flow was only so-so. Or so I thought.

Yet Saturday, after a not-so-early start, I met Loaf for lunch in my new car. While driving toward Maryland, she mentioned two places she needed to go for two different articles of clothing (one bridal-related). As she called information to get the address of the first spot, I made a couple of turns. By the time she had hung up the phone, I looked around and we were in the exact spot we needed to be. Next to both places. Without any planning on my part.

Later, because I was unable to score Jenna's power adapter on Friday, I hit another apple store and managed to find one for her there. Because I needed to go to Bethesda to get the power adapter, Loaf and I ended up having lunch at the local Rock Bottom. Due to time constraints, we decided to eat inside, which was directly responsible for me running into an old co-worker at my previous firm, who had been fired due to some extremely bad things he had been doing at the firm. Again, only a series of events led me to the restaurant in time to see him. By the time I returned to the city, it was about three minutes away from pouring. Yet I helped escort Jenna and Jill and two other friends to a party and a house, respectively. In the process, I got completely soaked, delaying my return to the house significantly and forcing me to bail on my planned dinner with Kristen. Washing and drying my clothes took forever, which left me not much time before a planned b-day event for a friend of Jenna's who had been out with us during the bad-Ethiopian evening of the previous night.

With mere minutes to spare, I ended up grabbing a bit of sushi with Heidi and showing off the car, albeit with the top up. Here's where the flow really started to crest: my abbreviated dinner left me back at my house about ten minutes after the b-day celebration was due to kick off at the Saloon. I made it back home, parked the car, and walked the few blocks there, only to be told at the door that they were at capacity and I couldn't come in. The guy did say that if my party was already there, that I could join them, so I said I'd look for them.

Unfortunately, the b-day girls weren't there.

Fortunately, several people I knew were!

So I asked quietly if I could pull up a chair and the guy at the door dropped by and asked the other people at the table if they knew me. (Just to test, I guess.) They all said, "yeah, of course, it's Edward" and I was in. Scanning the group of people, I realized that in fact, I knew far more than one or two. A couple of them had worked with Deborah at an old job of hers. Another ran a sailing group that Kevin and I occasionally dropped by. And others had come to Tuesday Salon.

Some time later, the women in question who were hosting the event (but couldn't get in the Saloon) made it inside to inform me that they were relocating to Bohemian Caverns. I said I'd join them there later, as I was having a great time instead with my adopted table. Some time after that, one of the people at the table who was friends with one of the b-day girls got a phone call informing us that they had moved again, this time to Stetson's. Without my connection to the table, I would've been in the dark again.

And so I found myself at Stetson's discussing Sycamore Island and the Outer Banks and Crash with a bunch of people who were even cooler than the earlier group. Everything had worked out perfectly, down to the precise minute. If I'd been delayed or had sped up at any point, nothing could have been so perfect.

It it, really, the best possible way to enjoy an evening: to know that it took a billion tiny chances to come out the right way. It happens to me a great deal but it never ceases to amaze me.

It also drove home a point I had realized earlier that day: that I hate people who willingly avoid others who are not like them. In each group of people I joined during the evening, I was the outsider, the person who wasn't supposed to really be there. Yet I had a great time with everyone at both places. Limiting oneself to certain groups of people is the highest form of arrogance, even if it couched in terms of derision, such as saying, "well, I don't want to hang out with them because they are

• wear blue ties
• are jerks
• are republicans
• are racists

Okay, who am I kidding? The latter is truly, beyond the pale. But most times people aren't racists or homophobic. They just like to wear blue ties, and you don't. Getting beyond the petty differences is important to me, because the idea that our differences define us is such an outmoded concept. Guess what? You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. And wishing to hang out with snowflakes who melt at your temperature is a silly distinction, because we all do.

Writing someone off, to say that you'll never hang out with them again, is the most egregious form of social slapdowns. To say the same thing about certain groups of people is just as bad. Everyone, no matter how strange, has something interesting about them. The trick is finding it.

However, with all the said, despite being a hypocrite in general, I'd be willing to hang out with the same said people who are unwilling to hang out with others. Perhaps I could show them a thing or two about expanding one's comfort zone.

Sunday dawned poorly, but ended up incredible. I got to put tons of miles on the car, and hit some serious Virginia back roads with a fury. After driving fifty miles, I realized my mouth hurt from smiling. The drive back was especially enjoyable, culminating in some late night barbecue chicken and family guy fun with some nearby neighbors.

Any weekend that ends with an Epic Chicken Fight is a good one.