"Guess what."<br>
"What?"<br>
"Chicken-butt."

Careful what you say!

"We're in the big African Queen inflatable, cruising alongside an anchored trawler. It's more rust than metal - the ship is rotting away. The foredeck is covered in broken machinery. ...

Here's the answer to last week's "I Think the Universal translator Is Broken" puzzle. Except for the <I>huh?</I> part, that is.

I read <A HREF="http://newyorkmetro.com/news/features/16529/">"Up With Grups"</A> in <I>New York</I> and considered linking to it. Its argument that we aging baby boomers, walking around in "youngish" fashions and hanging on to our youthful enthusiasms, represent a new demographic (termed "grups" after the <I>Star Trek</I> episode) ultimately failed to convince me that it was anything more than what Alan From Victoria deemed "hard-hitting fluff."

And now we can watch how their brains change while they grow.

Apparently, their vocal tract changes shape just like ours. Just as long as they don't take up that whole over-melisma-ed <American Idol</I>&ndash;type singing style, I think we're okay.