Just this morning I was whining about the sudden detrioration of my Internet service and posited a preposterous theory as to why. Someone said, “Have you tried rebooting your modem?” and someone else chimed in, “meaning get a couple of new squirrels because they run inside a wheel and that makes your Internet…

I just heard about this! They killed off Kitchenette? ARE THEY INSANE? Does anything anywhere in the entire Gawker universe generate more page views and comments than Behind Closed Ovens? And for what? Another article making fun of how fat Chris Christie is, or pointing out that all the Republican Presidential…

Oh you should definitely go with the bags! Every time I go to my local branch I buy one, they’re little cloth totes, because they don’t cost much and it’s a form of financial support and it’s free advertising for them. Plus it’s environmentally conscious, right? Can you count this comment as a suggestion?

That would be my dog’s reaction. My neighborhood is very dog friendly, you can sit outside at restaurants with dogs, some of the stores have waterbowls and treats behind the counter, etc. My dog would be horrified to see a human poop in a store. He certainly never would.

Years ago a friend of mine interned for a very powerful Senator from one of our western states. No Internet, so you could call (long distance, too expensive) or write a letter. He had some great stories. To hear his stories the West is a land of bootstrappy frontier folks who, in their loneliness, rely on the voices…

Without giving yourself away, could you tell us what people complain about at libraries and what policies could be changed? It all seems straightforward to me, but I just go and check out books, I don’t use any of the computers or attend the adult ed lectures or anything.

My mother used to do this. I do something far worse. I mostly work from home and my husband does too a lot. So days go by when it’s just the two of us working away, and then every so often I’m called into a workplace.

I don’t think that my dog is particularly large but my apartment is fairly large and we have high ceilings and I’m large, tall and wide, so my perspective is off. But when I take him to the dog run he towers over all the other dogs, even though we’re in the big-dog dog run as opposed to the small-dog dog run.…

Ours turned two at the end of August and we were given a specific birthdate, which leads me to believe that he was born in that TN shelter.

I will have to! We still go to West Chelsea Veterinary and kennel our (new) hound at the NY Dog Spa & Hotel (wait until the Upper East Side dog-parent-hater commenter gets a load of that name) so my dog goes to Chelsea quite a bit.

Oh my God I used to live at that dog run with my German Shepard mix, but I moved uptown seven years ago. I remember when it was refurbished it had that log/art installation thing that everyone hated. It also had that running hose or whatever it was, but I don’t remember a pool. I wonder if we know each other. Have you…

This is very buzzkill-y but fascinating to me, in a gruesome way. There were 12 dogs aboard the Titanic. Three survived, small dogs carried into the lifeboats by their first-class passenger owners. The Captain himself, Captain Smith, brought his wolfhound on the trip. Neither survived. One woman was in a lifeboat and…

I am an impoverished non-Upper East Side Manhattanite dog parent and I applaud your initiative in creating a little doggie pool in your dog run. Can I ask which one? Not specific, but maybe the neighborhood? It’s not one of the ones I go to, but I wish it were!

My dog looks exactly like yours! Did I have this conversation with you already? Mine has the same white forepaws, the same color eyes, the same ears, the same areas of fur that look a little coppery in the right light, the same way of tucking a forepaw under him when he’s lying down, it’s uncanny. And my dog is not a…

Your cat is really stunning. Have you ever considered signing him up with an animal modeling agency? I’m not joking. The animals you see in ads aren’t just rounded up off the streets, and they can make pretty good money and can be eligible for residuals, depending on the contract, which is the life blood of many…

That’s interesting about the GDR and the encouragement to have children. I’ve read in many places that the number one form of birth control in the old Soviet Union was abortion. I don’t think anyone had any qualms about it, and it certainly wasn’t preferable, but like with almost all other aspects of their industrial…

I don’t know why you’d put an overweight chocolate lab in a watermelon dress but I’m so glad you did. Happy Monday!

Jeezus, $800? I’d go to Target and buy a magazine rack for $9.99 and hope for the best. (I am not a parent. Your calls to the Department of Child Services will go unheeded.)

The little R2D2 is the best. One of my young relatives had one that blinked and made noises. Does yours? Does your bird try to attack it?

Happy to oblige but neither of those phrases are creations of mine. I stand on the shoulders of giants.