This past week was spent in NYC visiting my l'il sister and her partner in New York City, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, setting for that 1977 classic OMG CLICK HERE FOR THE BEST MOVIE EVAR!!!!. It was a lovely time, as evidenced by the photos she's posted, filled with merriment and tears and temperate climates and a lovely 14 mile, roundtrip run from their 'hood to Coney Island, where I'd yet to have visit. It really reminded me of a Springsteen song. Especially in December. And I'm not referring to the happy, "Glory Days" Springsteen. Think unemployed mechanics and old men with holes in the toes of their shoes feeding the seagulls.

Yes. AWESOME.

The 5 days following Christmas involved a trek up to Montreal, to hang with girlfriend (YES, girlfriend) Ann and her sister's family on the outskirts of the French-Canadian-identity-crisised city, and a sufficient blast was had by all, particularly 12 year old Morgan and 10 year old Finn, who systematically received and destroyed Guitar Hero 2.

Then, New Year's Eve day struck. And, as the voice over guy from Behind The Music has told us time and time again...."everything changed."

12 year old Morgan, out in the back yard with some equally as lightly mustached friends, lay sprawled on his stomach in the snow beside the dormant air conditioning condenser, it, hibernating for the winter, when an idea crept into his pre-pubescent brain cells:

"Will my tongue stick to that thing?"

This tragic tale of tongue woe is being blogged simultaneously in at least two other locales on the www, so I will, instead of relating events as I saw them unfold, share my own take on this natural phenomenon; an experiment as old as time itself:

Men. Are. Dufuses. We'll try anything once, even against the starkest, strictest warnings against said actions. "But why?!" you confused females of the species demand.

I figure it's nature playing the odds.

For every one million, ten thousand, two hundred nine, "HEY EVERYBODY! WATCH THIS!" moments before some stupid dope in Arkansas takes a leak on an electric fence, there are breakthroughs: Galileo, Da Vinci, Einstein, George Washington Carver, Pauly Shore...these are our heroes.

So shake not your head in the direction of fair Morgan for his budding curiosity. One day, this may very well be the man you thank for the curing of diseases, the creation of the next, great, planet-wide communication network, or, better yet, the abolition of Pauly Shore films.

Think of the possibilities.

Dream, people. DREAM. And do not judge.