Manly!

Climbing into the cabinet beneath the sink had more to do with Houdini than home improvement, but I managed it. With the help of my new adjustable pliers I got the water turned off—discovering, in the process, that we have a random small pipe that spits water out onto the kitchen floor when that knob is turned that way. But I had towels, and it gave the cat something to cock her head at. Years of mineral buildup and oxidized bronze held the faucet innards in a death-grip, but an hour of grunting and yanking and cursing loosened them, and when I drew them out of the pipe they looked like little elves' wind instruments—I couldn't hold a grudge. The lubed-up replacement cartridge slid slowly but easily into the moist pipe (stop sniggering, Perkins), and the deed was done.

After a year of developing upper-body strength from operating our slowly seizing kitchen faucet, we can now produce water with the merest touch of a pinky. It's a joy.

Standoffish

I mentioned Standoff as a show to watch for this season, mostly because it features Ron Livingston (Office Space) and Gina Torres (Firefly). Neeeeever mind. Sometimes I enjoy hostage negotations, and sometimes I enjoy banter-driven romantic sitcoms, but, really, I don't think they needed to hook up on a drunken Saturday night and produce this mildly retarded offspring. From the hamhanded newscaster exposition to the complete inability to generate any tension in either of the first episode's hostage situations to the wince-worthy way the female lead needily slurps up affirmation from the male lead to the cardboard supporting characters who either meat-headedly oppose our protagonists or issue incomprehensible orders to them, nothing—nothing at all—works. We don't want the leads to get together, we don't care when they don't, we quickly grow bored of their drop-of-a-hat on-and-off status. (They had three major rifts in the first episode. "I hate you!" "I love you!" "Kiss me!" "Why don't you care about me?" "I'm leaving!" "Let's have sex!" "But I thought I was hating you this act!")

Ron, Gina, I love you guys, but...no.

Also known for its purple helmet

From the department of inadvertent euphemism:

"This worm is the stuff that legends and fairy tales are made of," worm supporter Steve Paulson declared. "What kid wouldn't want to play with a 3 foot-long, lily smelling, soft pink worm that spits?" [link]

Seriously, though, the worm sounds awesome.