So Larry and Heather gave Joanne and I a breadmaker for our wedding, a Mr. Loaf.

I was, needless to say, overcome with joy. Mr. Loaf was one of my contributions to the registry, solely because of the name. Mr. Loaf, you'll forgive me, is a hugely funny name. Yeah, Mr. Coffee broke this ground a long time ago, but "Loaf" is a much more amusing word than "Coffee." It's like calling a new pair of Levi's "Mr. Pants."

Unfortunately, Mr. Loaf had, um, been around. After opening the box, we found that he'd apparently been bought, abused and returned. Mr. Loaf had seen happier days.

Sad Mr. Loaf. Lonely Mr. Loaf. Dusty, kinda gross Mr. Loaf.

But when we tried to take him back to the store, they didn't have a replacement to offer. They were all out of Mr. Loaves.

They did, however, have a Breadman.

Which, of course, is Mr. Loaf's secret identity, for when he's fighting crime.

So there's this billboard along the 405, just south of the 110, that has a giant car radio on it. The ad is for Arrow 103 -- "All Rock and Roll Oldies" -- and the digital read-out on the radio shows what group the station is currently playing.

And it's accurate. If the radio says "STONES," the Rolling Stones are yet again wheezing through "Satisfaction." "ZEPPELIN" translates into the billionth playing of "Stairway to Heaven."

But sometimes they have trouble with space. The better version of "Blinded by the Light" isn't done by "BRUCE", but by "MANF. MANN".

And tonight, as I'm driving home, the giant radio shows that they're playing:

B. O. CULT

So, of course, I spin the dial over to 103, but it was only "Blue Oyster."

So Michael Huffington has finally conceded the California senate race to Dianne Feinstien, three months after everybody else in the state has gotten on with their lives. Huffington made news nationally at the time of the election by:

1. Having a wife that looked exactly like Ivana Trump, but with bigger hair.
2. Having a wife who was formerly a member of a cult.
3. Having a wife who, from all reports, is a lot smarter than he is.

On such issues do California elections turn.

The election was the most expensive in senate history, with Huffington dumping piles of his own dough into his campaign. When the initial results came back, he refused to concede, stating that the whole shebang was invalid because of "massive" voter fraud. Even in his concession speech, he said that he still believes that's what cost him the election.

After reading about all this in the paper the other day, I thought, well, of course he's claiming something cost him the election. He can't say that he just wasted $28 million of his own money because he's a melonhead.

"Mr. Huffington, you just wasted $28 million of your own money. Why do you think you lost?"

"Uh... The sun got in my eyes."

But it turns out he's right. It turns out there was voter fraud in the election. The crack Entirely Other Day investigative team has uncovered evidence of at least one fraudulent vote that was not only counted, but counted in favor of Mr. Huffington's opponent.

The crack Entirely Other Day investigative team uncovered this evidence because, of course, they cast the vote.

Now, when I think of voter fraud, I think of stuffed ballot boxes and thugs with axe handles and (obscure UCSD joke here) the RIMAC referendum.

But it turns out that it's illegal to be registered at an address where you don't live. It turns out that any vote cast under this mis-registration is invalid and any invalid votes counted in an election constitute voter fraud.

How about that?

Every vote I've cast in my life, near as I can tell, has been fraudulent. I'm registered at my parents house -- it's where I send my important mail -- but ever since I turned eighteen I've either been living at school or in La Jolla or in Manhattan Beach.

I've committed voter fraud, and, melonhead or no, Mike Huffington caught me.

I sorta wanted to take back that Dukakis vote anyway.

So I've figured it out. After months of careful research -- dark nights spent poring over the Necronomicon -- I've figured it out. I haven't quite got the no-G-in-the-Alfa-Bits angle down, but the rest is sliding into place. We hard-bitten journalists don't let anything stand in the way of the truth, least of all common sense.

It should have been obvious long ago, but up till now they've been moving slowly, with patience. It's only lately that their greed as pushed them too fast, and it throws their plan into stark relief, where any dummy -- for instance: me -- can see it.

They're trying to get us to drink more Coke. The bastards.

Oh, sure, their job is to sell Coke and they obviously want us to drink more. But the devious minions deep in the bowels of the Illuminati's Beverage Division have found a way to make us drink more.

Try it yourself. Go to the store, go the cooler, and pick up a single Coke. It's twenty ounces. Those new plastic, curvy bottles; there's twenty ounces in them. Twenty, needless to say, is the average of 17 and 23.

When Coke first started bottling their bubbly little mixture, it was a mere eight ounces a serving. Then the aluminum can pushed the benchmark to twelve. Sixteen ounces arrived later, in large glass bottles. And today, today we're slugging the stuff twenty ounces at a time.

We must be easier to control when we're jittery.

The speed they've been upping the dosage has been increasing, too, with each four ounce bump coming more rapidly on the heels of the previous one. At this rate, by the turn of the century, 7-11s the world over will be stocking single-serving 55 gallon drums of Coke. There's an eye-in-a-pyramid on the side of the Big Gulp.

Why is everybody looking at me funny?

So I'm at my new doctor's, in a brief let's-meet consultation, and we're talking.

"I think a complete physical is really the best way for a doctor to get to know someone," he says.

I chuckle.

"Well, not socially."

So Joanne and I are walking out of the supermarket and, without warning, I suddenly launch into a fit of stereotypical Generation X nostalgia.

"Just think:" I say. "Our kids will never know a time without plastic grocery bags. They won't know that big bottles of soda used to be made out of glass and weigh a ton. They won't be able to imagine when there was only one flavor of Doritos..." I trail off, misty-eyed.

"Wow," says Joanne.

But I think she was being sarcastic.

So I'm in my car at the intersection of San Vicente and Bundy -- yes, that Bundy, as in "the Bundy crime scene" -- and there's a sticker pasted to a "No left turn" sign.

It says, "ET TU OJ".

And it strikes me that O.J. has a pretty good chance of actually seeing the sticker. He lives just a little ways from where I am now and San Vicente is a pretty big street. O.J. could, one day, be sitting exactly where I am, staring at exactly the same sticker.

It's only rarely you get reminded that news happens in the real world.