Is it too late for Christmas?

Because I forgot to put this on my list.

Santa should take note for next year.

Great, but ...

Old news, and I'm late to the party: A federal judge in Dover, Pa. has ruled, basically, that the school board there that required its teachers to preach the merits of intelligent design in science class was a bunch of morons, and that intelligent design is not a scientific theory.

That's all well and good. But unfortunately, eight of the nine idiot school board members were cast out of office this fall. The new school board is comprised of folks who are apparently not religious fanatics. So sadly, they're not going to appeal the judge's ruling.

That's unfortunate. Because while it's nice to have a guy in authority -- and a George W. Bush appointee, to boot! -- saying that intelligent design ain't science, Judge Jones's decision sets no legal precedent.

So the next time some backwater hillbillies -- or perhaps some frontwater hillbillies? -- decide to put God in science class, we'll have to go through all of this all over again.

On the plus side, that means that goofballs like Michael Behe will have plenty of opportunity to continue saying dumb things in public, and I will continue to have plenty of opportunity to make fun of them. Still, that's starting to feel like picking on the slow kid, y'know?

Death to prom!

I'm certainly no moral crusader -- certainly not. But this strikes me as a refreshing trend.

Proms suck.

My first prom, my date was an ex-girlfriend who had dumped me (I think, details are hazy) to date some geek at her wacky right-wing church. His mom wouldn't let him go to prom. So she took me. I was a sophomore at the time and thought it was a Big Deal that a junior girl had invited me to prom. What a dumbass. Anyway, the highlight was making out with the girl afterward and convincing her to drop her loser churchboy to get back together with me. A couple months later I dumped her because I got sick of hearing about church. Like I said, no paragon of morality here.

Skipped prom my junior year, basically because I didn't have the guts to ask out this girl I'd pined for off-and-on all through high school. Caused me no small degree of angst. Fortunately, most of my friends were losers too, so if I recall, we gathered together to play Pictionary and watch Saturday Night Live. These were the days when it was still worth watching.

Senior prom remains the worst date of my life. I wasn't going to go at all, mostly for the same reasons I skipped junior prom, until a classmate asked me out, pretty much out of the blue. Can't hurt, I figured. Wrong. Turns out this girl had zero conversational skills, didn't like to dance and had a midnight curfew. Which actually turned out to be a blessing.

So sure, if my parents had been cool and had rented me a limo and a beachhouse and encouraged me to drink and screw all night, I might have a different perspective. But no -- they had to be, like, responsible and stuff.

So fuck prom.

A confession

After much soul-searching and quiet contemplation, I'm ready to make a life-changing announcement to my friends and family. Steel yourselves. Here goes:

I want to see a movie about gay cowboys.

I can't tell you how good it feels to say that. It's like I'm 1,000 pounds lighter. I mean, I thought I might want to see a movie about gay cowboys, but I wasn't sure. It seemed crazy, at first: How could I -- me, Alex! -- possibly want to see a movie about gay cowboys, especially one with such a ridiculously suggestive title? But then I started experimenting ... you know, reading about a movie about gay cowboys (although the NYT review, frankly, is pretty silly -- it was a review in Esquire magazine, headlined something like "The best gay cowboy movie ever," that really swayed me) picturing myself at the theater watching a movie about gay cowboys, that kind of thing.

Oh, and also: That Heath Ledger is just sooo dreamy.

At first I felt dirty. But gradually I've grown to accept it. I hope you can too.