Ah, the holidays... a time for love, family, and copious amounts of heavy food. It's always hams, turkeys,and other foods as dense as brick; sometimes denser, in the case of the infamous fruitcake. The point is every dish at a family meal I attend is a heavy, filling one. I'm always left feeling like Jabba the Hutt after a bad mayonnaise binge. I've decided that next year I will kill for a salad.

The Kansas City Chiefs are in the playoffs. The holidays aren't so bad, I suppose.

 You can find more than football statistics and low-carb recipes using Google. It's honestly been one of my first and foremost tools in searching databases for prospective literary agents. More recently, I've been using it to dig for literary magazines to submit to, due to the suggestion of another writer I enjoyed a few beers with. It just amplifies the concept of trying to get published in a world before the internet. In my attempts to get published, the search engine is the oasis in a vast, exhausting wasteland, draining up-and-comers of every ounce of energy and inspiration, swallowing their talent like parched earth does the faintest trace of moisture.

In short, I'd rather drive across western Kansas then go without Google in my toolbox.