There won't always be something witty or cryptic or cryptically witty in this here space, pardner. Some weeks I just don't have the juice, you know? Hard to concentrate with all these bombs going off. A character in Doug Liman's new movie "Go" said, "If everyone had the kind of sex I have, there would be no war." I won't make further comment on that - after all, this is a "down week" - other than to say that most battles are won by keeping those home fires burning. Alone or in pairs, you need to do your bit for world peace. Or world piece ... oh, whatever. Don't touch me with those unwashed hands.
 

"Compared to tough competitors like The Onion and Suck, this one-man operation is about as funny as a winter booger, and cheesy as Don Ho." Gee, I don't know about that - there's a special circle o' hell reserved for Don Ho. (It overflows with tiny bubbles.) Tim Cavanaugh's humor site Simpleton just doesn't belong in the hot spot, despite a straight, non-belligerent interview with glib "Wear Sunscreen" author Mary Schmich. (Sure, you were just in the right place at the right time. Sure. You just made my list, lady.) If Simpleton is a cheese shop - and I don't at all agree with Cavanaugh's self-deprecating appraisal - well, at least it's Brie. "Fun with death masks and pulldown menus" gives a funny face to Dadaism, "Loco-grams" finds the Crazy Gold on the sidewalks of America and "Big Stupid Idea" puts the screws - at last! - to Maureen Dowd. Hell yes, it's funny. And it's grown fresh daily, just like a winter you-know-what.
 

George Lucas has seen the future of filmmaking and film is nowhere to be seen. The Big Jedi believes the time is now to embrace an all-digital system of filmmaking, delivery and projection. It's a swell idea, one that the founders of the Digital Film Festival have espoused since well before you saw that first Phantom Menace trailer. The revolution is here and now: films from their travelling festivals, a "how-to" primer for would-be Jedi, even a ShockWave game that allows you to make your own digital flicks - complete with club chicks and aliens, just like the ones playing in analog at the multiplex right now. Viva digital!
 

My friend and counselor Dayvid once wrote a poem about Johnny Marr. Back then, Marr was hot, hot, hot; The Smiths hadn't been dead that long and people were still wondering what Johnny was going to do, to catch up with former collaborator and faux-desolate soul brother Morrissey. As it turned out, he did a lot of collaborating - with The The, with Talking Heads, with Bryan Ferry and most importantly, with New Order vocalist Bernard Sumner. The duo took the name Electronic and released - to my ears - two of the most underrated dance-pop records of the past ten years. Now, Sumner and Marr are due to release a third record - "Twisted Tenderness," April 19 - and I wonder: will you finally receive them? Will they get their critical due? Will Dayvid write a poem about Sumner? The band's official site has some song samples, which is all the proof you need, when you get right down to it. Nice background wallpaper, too.
 

NATO notwithstanding, nothing brings the cream of human nature bubbling up to the surface like a good, loud backfire. To call what you do flinching doesn't quite do it justice; your feet, locked in place, attempt to retract into the safe haven of your head. Howard Stone's Pavement Terror page puts those block rockin' beats to work. Finding the delivery van he once drove could be induced to backfire on command, he did what any sensible prankster would do: mounted a hidden camera to the rear of the van and caught unwitting pedestrians in mid-retraction. This is the very nature of humankind, and boyoboy, is it ever funny when it happens to someone else.

Okay, so I'm a little jealous of Mary Schmich. So what? Any columnist in America could have written "Wear Sunscreen" too - we were just, you know, busy. Baz Luhrmann, if you're listening, be aware that I can set this entire column to a pop-techno beat. Just book the studio time.