And just today I was having an interesting conversation with a 13-year-old friend about how the names of certain companies are becoming bywords and catchphrases. McGyver, Google, Kleenex, Kitty Litter. The list goes on. I told her about the article Spy ran years ago, where they used the words "Kitty litter" without the trademark and got a polite "I know you're going to make fun of me, but I get paid to do this" note from the woman who tracks Kitty Litter mentions that don't include trademark notations and chastizes them. So they ran her letter, followed by "we were gonna make fun of you, but since you were so polite we're cutting you a break. And here's a head-start on next month's quota: KITTY LITTER, KITTY LITTER, KITTY LITTER, KITTY LITTER, KITTY LITTER!"

Then I showed my friend the Cthulhu blog, and took her out for dinner: we started with four kinds of ice cream and ended late at night in a divey Chinatown hole in the wall inhabited by security guards, sinister gambling addicts and artists, chowing down on organ meats. Everything was heavily laced with cornstarch and sodium.

Her vegetarian, pure-living mother would be thrilled, I'm sure. I love being the "Bad Auntie."