Offered without further comment, but with full enthusiasm.

Yesterday, just as the Mayans predicted, the world ended.

Today is the new world.

In the new world of today, you do not have to repeat the mistakes of that old world. That’s a big part of what makes it new. It’s also what makes it good.

I’m glad we all made it, and I’m looking forward to what we can accomplish.

A couple of potential solutions:

1. Start arming our children, and also amend the Constitution to clarify that they are part of our armed militia. Or:
2. Everybody who voted for Obama joins the NRA — and then takes it over.

A few years ago, I dubbed our local elementary school’s annual offering “The Talentless Show,” because clearly you didn’t need any in order to get up on stage. Now I see I have company.

I’m sorry to learn of the closing of Hunger Artists Theatre in Fullerton, California, after 16 years of producing new work and brave revivals. They produced my play “Next Time” a few years ago, and many  plays by local playwrights, including scripts that came out of my workshop. I haven’t been down to Fullerton in a while (it’s 38 miles in distance from Burbank — but sometimes that translates into two hours of driving), but I liked knowing the theatre was there.

Here’s news of the announcement, and here’s a further analysis.

My 10-year-old has refused to appear in this year’s elementary school production of the holiday show.

The teacher has tried everything to get him to change his mind.

She’s asked him if he’s sure. (He’s sure.)

She’s reminded him that he knows all the words to the songs, and seems to like music, and so perhaps he’d like to be on stage singing along. (He wouldn’t.)

She pointed out to him that this was his last year of elementary school, and therefore his last year to be in this school production. (He doesn’t care.)

Last week at our parent-teacher conference, she brought it up to me and wanted to know what I thought about it.

“How many don’t want to participate?” I asked.

“Just him,” she said.

“I thought there was another boy.”

“No, he joined in,” she said.

So this other kid had caved. “Well, I’m glad to know he doesn’t give in to peer pressure.”

She looked at me. “There’s no peer pressure,” she said. I think she assumed I meant from the other kids.

“I’m not going to force him,” I said, “but I’ll ask him about it again. I know he likes to sing.”

Later, in the car, I asked him about it. Yes, he likes to sing along, but no, he wasn’t doing the show. So that was that. Part of me was proud of him, even though I knew his grandparents would be disappointed. As for my wife and me, we both thought it presented a fine excuse for missing the elementary school holiday show.

Today I came home and Dietrich proudly announced that he was involved with the holiday show.

“WHAT? I thought you didn’t want to be in it!”

“I’m not,” he said, beaming. “I’m the assistant director.”

It sounded like it had been his plan all along.

As I noted before, last Wednesday I bought a new car, a hardtop convertible. I drove it home with the top up because the weather promised rain.

On Thursday, it rained.

On Friday, it rained.

On Saturday, it rained.

(At this point, we should remember that I live in Los Angeles.)

On Sunday, it rained.

It’s now early Monday. It’s still raining.

I’ve finally started to wonder what I could’ve saved if I’d told them I didn’t need the convertible option.

James Altucher writes, very engagingly, about the first professional website he ever designed, diamondcutters.com .  His client has died, but the site lives on.

Last night, I got a new car. (A BMW 328 hardtop convertible.) When you get a new car, you want it to smell like a new car, so I waited while the dealership detailed the car again. I texted my wife to see if she’d like me to pick up her and our children for a drive. She texted back, “Sure.” About half an hour later, the car was ready, I did a final inspection, got the guy to link my iPhone with the car, then drove off.

It wasn’t too long before I was in Burbank picking up my wife and kids.They got in and I demonstrated how the hard top folds and slides into the trunk. I knew this would impress my wife; children are never impressed by anything any more. We’re driving around for a little bit, and my son, in the back, asks if we can put the top up. Of course, because it’s 7 p.m., it’s late November, and it’s actually cold in Los Angeles — or at least as cold as he thinks “cold” is. So I put the top up. Now we’re driving to my office to pick up some things I need and that I left there when I went to pick up the car. I start to notice something.

“What’s that smell?” I ask. “Is that my car?” Because now something smells very much like engine failure, or a forest fire, or both. Is it inside? Outside? All I know is, it’s all I can smell.

“That’s us,” my wife says. “Dietrich was making ramen noodles in the microwave but forgot to put any water in.”

“He almost burned the house down,” my daughter chimes in.

“Did not!” the accused calls out.

Now the stench is serious. I can barely breathe. I lower the windows. It doesn’t help. I drive home and head into the house, and sure enough, the entire house smells like Smokey Bear’s worst nightmare. My wife makes both kids scrub everything conceivable, while she takes the offending microwave oven outside and sandblasts it with radically dangerous kitchen solvents. (Hours later, outside, with a cold wind blowing all around it, it will still reek of bad campsite.) I run upstairs and open every door and window to try to vent the house — but, with visions of having to have every article of my wardrobe dry-cleaned, I close my walk-in closet door.

This morning I get up and find that the house still smells ashy. All this from one little ramen noodles tub microwaved with no water. Which really leaves me wondering just what’s in those ramen noodles, and in those containers. Then I think about my car. My new car. With the new-car smell. I go outside and get in. Oh, it’s got a new car smell all right — like someone’s been burning leaves inside, like someone has torched the Hindenburg all over again, and all the ash fell right here. To add insult to injury, it also rained. All night, and most of today. So now I’m thinking of getting my new car, my freshly detailed new car, detailed.

This was my dinner tonight. It was supposed to be oysters, and clam chowder, and maybe crab carapace fat. Instead, I had a Mediterranean crepe with greens and rosemary potatoes. Here’s how this happened.

Because I’m in San Francisco this weekend, I figured I’d like to try Swan Oyster Depot for dinner. I’d seen it on one of the Anthony Bourdain shows —  an episode of “The Layover,” to be exact, that focused on San Francisco. I’d been to some of the places featured, including The Tonga Room, but I’d never even heard of Swan Oyster Depot. Bear in mind:  I love oysters. And clam chowder. And crab carapace fat sounded just noxious enough that I’d like to try it just so I could tell people about it and watch them wince. So I got into my car and drove through thudding rain from the Westin I’m staying at 20 minutes into the city.

I found the restaurant with no problem, and even a parking spot only three blocks away. (A near-miracle in this city.) I even managed to claw two dollars in change out of my car to cover the parking meter. I got to Swan Oyster Bar and, as the program promised there would be, there was a line outside. Which was fine — except I needed the restroom. Coffee and water will do that to you. I cut through the line and inside and found that there is no restroom. So I went on my iPhone and found the nearest Starbucks (which has displaced McDonald’s as the nearest bathroom near you no matter where you are), went over there and availed myself of the facilities. When I came back, the line was considerably shorter. I thought, Wow, my lucky day — until the guy in front of me pointed out that the guy in front of him had the last place in line. How did he know that? Because the guy was holding a sign, provided by the restaurant, that said, “Last customer in line.” The guy in front of me said, “Look at it this way:  At least now neither one of us has to wait in line.” I considered arguing it out with the owner, a middle-aged Frenchman who just then pulled up in a van (I recognized him from the show), or maybe making a plea to his vanity — “I came all this way from Burbank because I saw you on this show” — but I suddenly realized I didn’t feel like eating there anyway. Swan Oyster Bar is just that — an oyster bar — with all the clatter of a soup kitchen. I realized instead that where I really wanted to be was that crepe place I had passed on the way here… so I headed over to the crepe place. Hence the dinner above, downed with a Stella Artois, to my great enjoyment.

Other things that happened while on this little escapade:

I passed a Thai massage place. It looked clean and legitimate. My neck was killing me, so I figured I’d get a massage. Their next appointment was 7 p.m. It was 5 p.m. I told them that no, I didn’t want to wait. So then I went to the Around Me app on my iPhone and found another Thai massage place. I headed over there. They told me that they were sorry, they didn’t have anyone available. By now, I was starting to feel like the fellow in the Monty Python sketch who keeps trying to order cheese from a cheese shop that evidently has no cheese. Do these places sell massages or not? By now, I was near the AMC movie theatre on Van Ness. It was only another three blocks, so I went over to see what was playing. I want to see “Lincoln,” but I want to take my family, so that was out. I want to see “Cloud Atlas,” but it wasn’t starting until 7:10; if I felt like waiting for anything for two hours, it would’ve been the massage. Plus the thought of getting out at 10:30 (it’s a long movie) and then walking back to my car in the rain and then getting back on the 101 South back to my hotel at that hour wasn’t proving too attractive. I had my finger poised on the ticketing touch screen to buy a ticket to the 5:30 screening of “Looper” when I realized that I no longer felt like seeing that movie. So I walked back out, having accomplished nothing.

At this point, I was starting to recall the novel “Hunger” by Knut Hamsun, in which the protagonist wanders the city on one failed mission after another while growing more bedraggled and forlorn. This may have been when my umbrella turned inside out in the gale-force wind.

I went back to the Around Me app to see what was nearby and found that now I was near a third massage parlor. I walked the three blocks down to this one and found that this one did not look legitimate. In fact, it looked like a great place to get knifed. Next door was a punk club. I have liked punk clubs in my lifetime, but I don’t want to patronize massage parlors that are next to them. So I trudged back to my car, stopping in at a Walgreens and a Tru Value hardware store along the way in search of a replacement umbrella and finding none. I kept what was left of my battered umbrella open as best I could, until finally I gave up and just decided to get wet.

Once back at the hotel, I decided I’d go sit in the jacuzzi. That would help my neck. So I changed into my swimsuit and walked down and found that the jacuzzi was out of order. The water was warm, but the jets wouldn’t perform. After I called the hotel maintenance man, he made a valiant effort to get them to work, ratcheting away at something beneath a trap door, then going back into the secret machine laboratory to work on various mechanical geegaws back there, and he was still working on it when I gave up on alternating between the pool and the still waters of the jacuzzi and came back up to the room.

Once up here, I did finally get my neck to stop aching. Two vodka-cranberries will do that.