No News is Better News Than This Kind of News

Sorry to pause the general hilarity that normally rules supreme around here, but the grim theme of this past week has been "learning that old friends who you haven't kept in touch with have passed away"-- last week I learned that original Doll's Place upstairs room member Johan died and today I found out that my fraternity brother and Tetris master Pip has also shuffled off this cheesesteak-filled coil . . . both these guys were my age, so I guess that's going to become par for the course in the coming years (and a few weeks ago, I found out a guy I graduated with from NBTHS and that I used to hang out with in Highland Park, a guy that played in all the North Brunswick and New Brunswick bands died: Nadeem . . . so hopefully that's the magic-- curse?-- of three and that's enough of this for a while).