Dear loyal TEIH readers. Yes, both of you.

Allow me to begin by setting forth the traditional conversational offering of my people: a video of a baby enjoying Black Flag’s “TV Party.”

I offer this video because I have not been as funny lately as I would like.

I have been more businessy and/or introspective lately than I had intended.

I have referenced Tony Robbins more often recently than is healthy.

I have put off sending my newsletter by a week. You didn’t know that I was doing that until now. This is my way of telling you. Casually, so you can’t get too pissed and throw shoes at me, or at the president. Except that you know Obama is more spry than Bush and probably would have caught any shoes thrown at him by Iraqi journalists and then done some ninja shit to throw them back with all sorts of flips and shriuken, but with no loud noises because ninjas are silent killers. Although, you know, Bush was pretty nimble at dodging the shoes thrown at him. That’s a skill that most presidents don’t have. Maybe Bush is a ninja. Not that I’m accusing, because, you know, I don’t want him sneaking up behind me and slitting my throat. By the way, I was trying to think of that 1990s video game where some character yells “SHRIUKEN!” when he throws ninja stars but I couldn’t think of it. Does anyone know what game that was? Also, I knew this kid named “Ace” in grade school who had razor-sharp ninja stars and used to throw them at the cabinets in his kitchen. Now that was a classy family.

This said, I’ve actually made some really nice headway on the more problematic issues of life. Things are starting to settle down some. I’m finding I have a bit more time.

So I hereby resolve to work on the following. I’d like you, my loyal readers (yes, both of you) to help keep me honest about this:

• I want to finish the book proposal for my much-anticipated fatherhood guide. Because I have a lot to say about fatherhood, which makes me a guru. Except that I think that when you’re a guru, you have to have people actually listening to you. Which I don’t always. What do you call someone with a lot to say on a topic, but who nobody listens to? You know, they have a lot of them on PBS. Bert was one. Ernie too. Oh, right: “Ninjas.”

• I want to edit The Bialy Pimps and offer it as a serialized book online. Production is so much easier and cheaper that way. Maybe I email you a chapter a week as a PDF or something. The cool thing about this is that if nobody buys it, none of you will know. I can be all, “I sold a million copies!” and who are you to figure out I’m lying? You’re not Bert. Bert has a unibrow.

I need to get back to bidness for now, but I’m going to see if I can’t turn up the funny somewhat in the coming weeks.

P.S: Don’t open your coat closet. The one near the door. Bert’s in there.