I know what you're thinking: "He hasn't posted for almost a week because he got sucked into that Godforsaken Funny Farm game. Even now, he's stooped filthily over his keyboard, pawing at his chapped lips, and searching for the link between New York and fast food. Poor bastard."
Silly you. Thoughtful reader "mpat" left me a link to the finished puzzle, so whenever I felt stumped (that is, whenever I went 15 nanoseconds without finding a word), I consulted it. And it's a good thing, too, because that link turned out to be fries (?), and the five-letter words I tried -- mouse, roach, thumb, blood, vomit, feces, and semen, all prevalent ingredients in NYC's fast-food gumbo -- were way off.
No, I'll tell you what's been taking up my time, and I'm not proud of it. It's TV. Specifically, it's rewindable TV, now that we've plunked for the DVR service that let's you bend the temporal universe. If you're watching a show, and your child, say, scampers into the room flinging a poopy diaper that he just yanked from his waist, you can pause the show and come back later, after you've scrubbed down the walls. If a character says a key piece of dialogue right when a Cranker rides by, you can 1) rewind it or 2) pause it and run to the fridge for an egg. You can also record all sorts of dreck (that you'd normally miss in blissful ignorance) and watch it later, ad-free.
The downside is that I now have lost all temporal sense. I see my life through the lens of a pause button -- a shapeless void where time is meaningless. And I wonder: If a show is a rerun, and it comes on late (because a game ran long, maybe), and enough people pause it at the same time, can you crack the Earth's spissitude? And is "spissitude" just some word that a Wikipedia geek made up? If Einstein were alive to see this, he'd hop around on all fours like a Great Dane that needs walkies.
Hey, that reminds me. I could have tried urine.
