So since you already know who he is and love him, the only T that needs crossing, the only I that needs dotting (with a heart?) is to make sure that you're following his new monthly podcast project, the Pod F. Tompkast. Episode two came out this week and now that there's a whole two piece body of work, it seems like the time to bring you in on it, if you are not already "in." Are you in?

M. SignalStation: Pandas are not known for their grasp of the structure of English and the importance of punctuation. Being native to China, it's a miracle they understand enough English to even get to the point where they can order sandwiches, so some credit has to be given, regardless of the price paid by the waiter's family and the owner of the establishment.

A: This is what the internet was invented for. To enable you to find the answers to these questions. But apparently you're too busy, so here you go: The Marcels (Cornelius Harp, Fred Johnson, Gene Bricker, Ron Mundy, and Richard Knauss) are responsible for adding the former to their rendition of "Blue Moon" and The Edsels (George 'Wydell' Jones, Larry Green, James Reynolds, Harry Green, and Marshall Sewell) are responsible for the latter, unless there was some uncredited song-writing going on for either outfit. This took all of five minutes of research. Seriously, you could have answered this for yourself. Does your mommy still dress you? Does she pre-chew your food and let it drip into your open, crying mouth?

You sicken me.

Q: Are you keeping it real?

A: The ugly little truth about drug addiction and all attempts to outlaw chemical substances is that the reason that all drugs work on the human body is because we've already got these chemical receptors built into our very neural system that have been designed to accept the drugs... and that's because the human body already has analogs-- if not the chemicals themselves-- already inside of it. The drugs wouldn't work on us if we weren't already making them ourselves. We just don't have ready access to them or their effects. There have been times when patterned carpet has seemed to be undulating for me. That's a fact. There have been times when I've wondered if I'm a particularly complicated avatar for some other being and every task I'm faced with is some sort of mini-game that they enjoy playing with. Right now, I'm playing the type-letters-into-a-glowy-box game and I think I'm winning. So to answer your question: I have no idea. How could I know what "real" is?

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Q: How can you mend a broken heart?

A: There are many theories about this. Some believe that the best unguent is time itself, applied liberally. Others-- those who have spent time studying at medical institutions-- have a variety of clamps to apply, sutures to stitch, shunts to place... but I personally think the best answer is to turn the question on the questioner and say "What do you have against broken hearts, Mac? Some of my best friends are broken hearts!" And it's true. We have a club. We keep scrap books of stuff stolen from ex-lovers. We write poetry in anonymous weblogs. Perhaps you've read our work?

In college, was dating an artsy girl. We were both fans of the band Nine Inch Nails. Bought a card from a convenience store because it had a crying baby dressed up as an angel. Took it home and wrote some NiN lyrics from the latest album inside: Your god is dead / and no one cares.

Mailed it off to the girlfriend, thinking she'd enjoy the pairing of weird cutesy baby image and nihilistic lyrics.

Turns out, when a girlfriend gets a card in the mail, she's expecting something nice. Maybe a note about how you're doing. Kind words. Not 2nd person gloating about the end of hope, or somesuch.

Whoops.

Comedian-slash-legend-slash-cooking-rat Patton Oswalt just set out on tour today with bearded up-and-comer Kyle Kinane and lucky us, the two of them have decided to document the occasion by insulting each other on Twitter. I'll be seeing them in three weeks when they hit Cobb's Comedy in San Francisco, so I'm hoping there'll be weeks of this ahead of us:

@kylekinane: @pattonoswalt a veggie sandwich from Subway? Act your tax bracket already.

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@kylekinane: It's adorable to see @pattonoswalt adjusting the dashboard vents like he's tall enough for them to be effective.

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@pattonoswalt Asheville update -- @kylekinane just bought a bag of pemmican and 10 min. w/ a clean woman for 3 skunk pelts.

When a carnie was attacked or in trouble, he would yell "Hey, Rube!" and all carnies in earshot would rush to his aid. Circus pioneer and legendary clown Dan Rice called it "a terrible cry, [meaning] as no other expression in the language does, that a fierce deadly fight is on, that men who are far away from home [traveling circus workers] must band together in a struggle that means life or death to them."

— Wikipedia entry for "Hey, Rube!"