If I had more hours in the day, I would spend them blogging.  It’s primal.  I want to blog like early man wanted to paint on caves.  Yet just like early man was too busy hunting and gathering to paint all day, I am too busy researching and teaching to blog all the time.

In 1996, my friend Andy Foster downloaded a screensaver on his computer from the Duraflame Firelogs and Charcoal website.  Whenever Andy stepped away from this computer for more than five minutes, the screensaver would kick in with an animated loop of a roaring fire in a chalet fireplace.  The logs on the fire were, of course, Duraflame-brand firelogs.

Most of my peers had screen savers that looped pictures of their favorite sports teams or singers.  So seeing someone with a screen saver that praised the virtues of synthetic logs was peculiar.  “I didn’t know you are a Duraflame fan,” I said while warming myself in the virtual heat of his animated fire.

“I’m not,” he said.  “I’m a fan of the screensaver.  Besides, how many people out there are fans of Duraflame?”

Before social media sites like Facebook and Twitter I wouldn’t have been able to give him an answer.  But now I can: 202.

Facebook allows its users to register as “fans” of products, personalities, and beliefs.  So when you access a user’s Facebook profile you can see what that user is a “fan” of.  And right now, 202 of those users are Duraflame fans.

That’s an impressive number of fans for synthetic wood.  It’s even bigger than the number of fans for Krystal’s-brand hamburgers (101).  But it pales in comparison to the fan-damoneum of Star Trek (the TV show has 130,553 fans; the 2009 film has over 300,000), singer Norah Jones (524,503), and Starbucks (over 6 million).  Even the Nido R. Qubein School of Communication, where we teach roughly 500 undergraduates, has more fans than Duraflame (234).

I don’t know if Duraflame should feel bad for having fewer fans than my school, though.  Having a large virtual fan base may not generate more brand recognition—after all, you already have to know about the brand to become a fan of it.  I also don’t know if registering your “fandom” on Facebook leads to more sales—being a “fan” costs you nothing, and more often than not, the fans get no goods from the brands in return for their virtual devotion.

But I do know this: it’s been fourteen years since I last saw Andy, and I still remember the company that advertised on his monitor.  And he wasn’t even a fan.

Something tells me that Hot Tub Time Machine will be the Snakes on a Plane for 2010.  The title pretty much reveals the entire plot.

I have discovered the secret to losing eight pounds in two easy steps without changing your diet or exercising.

I know it sounds too good to be true.  I know it’s true, though, because I am living proof that you can lose eight pounds in a week easily.

Here’s how you do it.

Step 1: Get a stomach bug from your toddler on Sunday.

Step 2: Get food poisoning on Wednesday.

Losing weight will never seem easier!

The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that PCs are prepubescent Apples.

Today Anne Marie ran 13.1 miles.  On purpose.

I, on the other hand, spent the morning fighting a stomach bug.

She crossed the finish line and got a medal.  I vomited up my breakfast.

We both felt better after a nice, long nap.

The “Mr. Plow” episode from The Simpsons has some of the most memorable lines of the series.  Here’s one:

BART: Who’s up at 3:17 AM watching TV?

HOMER: Alcoholics, the unemployable, angry loners.

Today, you can add “Jim Trammell” to the list.