They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This one, uncovered by an unnamed source who discovered it in an old scrapbook on sale for $1.50 at a garage sale, is worth about a million. Thanks to the source. You know who you are.

It cannot have escaped the attention of many that cartoon representations of major prophets are all the rage. Whether you are a band wagon jumper or have been genuinely interested in this phenomenon down through the years, you are likely to find this step by step guide to drawing one particular sage most enlightening.

I  guess the only question I have here is where are Simon and Theodore?

Not for nothin', okay—and yes, this is my second post of the day after missing most of 2006 and 1/12th of 2005—but getting back to the brushes with greatness thing I started way back near the dawn of man, I was in the Borders Bookstore on Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks last Monday night with The Teenager  in tow (she swears it was the other way around) and I spotted a celeb right there out in the wild. (That's a gorgeous 80 word sentence for all you run-on fans out there in Strunk and White Land.)

It was as if I were peering at him from fifteen feet away through the palms of a potted plant (say that five times fast) near the Literature section, for indeed . . . that's how close I was while he dallied out in the wild, fastidiously studying the shelves of the Mystery section. (51 words)

"Luka!" I thought to myself, for I was the only one within brainwave-shot. "That's the guy who plays Luka Kovac, the good looking, yet brooding Czech or Yugoslavian or Bolivian doctor on the long-running NBC series, E.R. ."

I considered going up and interrupting his momentary pursuit of Agatha Christie or Dick Francis or Earl Stanley Gardner. Then I thought better of it.

Remember way back in the beginning of this series of my brushes with those whose accomplishments are, quite naturally, greater and more attuned to the popular lexicon than my own? One of the unwritten commandments that remain unchiseled in stone to this day because they are, you know, unwritten . . . is that in Los Angeles you generally don't approach a famous person in his or her private time out in the wild because A) Down here they are everywhere and 2) It's just so uncool because (see Rule A).

So, tempted as I was, I did not go up to this relative fictional medical superstud who leaves all the nurses swooning. I am, if truth be told, waaaaay too cool for that. Besides, what am I supposed to say to him as he searches in vain for the latest Ellery Queen—"Hey Luka, I enjoy your work?"

For you see, as much as this pains me to admit, this actor has been on E.R. for 3-5 years now in a highly visible role, and I do not know his name. And I'm the guy who remembers that Fred Gwynne and Joe. E. Ross ("oooooh-oooooh") partnered together as Keystone-like cops on the early Sixties TV comedy Car 54, Where Are You?

The good news here, my friends, is that 1) only three of you know this embarrassing tidbit of moral failure on my part and B) it's likely none of you check in here anymore since my Houdini-like vanishing act of recent vintage.

And finally, there's 3) as fun as it was to spot this big-time Hollywood hunk out in the wild and gaze upon his visage from afar (or aclose, depending how you measure) his sighting does not even begin to approach the level of greatness upon which the rock of my personal Top Ten Brushes With Greatness is built. It's possible, as big a deal as this actor currently is, he might not even be able to crack my top 15. That's the kind of star power we're gearing up for after we've already chronicled my heady personal exposure to Albert Brooks, Al Jarreau, and Molly Ringwald. And were not even in the Top 5 yet.

So what I'm saying is, it's been a nice rest. We got through Christmas, we got through New Years, and we are darned near ready to take on St. Valentine and all those dead presidents. So stay tuned in the coming days for resumption of the mighty countdown on the pop culture super highway of success.

 I hope you found your mystery novel, Mr. Goran Visnjic, because A) no one can even pronounce your name and C) that's why no one remembers it.

Let's see . . . one post since November 29 . . . including ALL of December taken off . . . I guess my need for a good, long vacation, coupled with my exotic fear of overexposure in print, has left me tanned, rested, and ready to resume my 52 post per year pace which has no doubt left The Three of You™ with heads spinning.

So we'll take a brief detour from the ongoing excitement that is my top ten list of brushes with greatness to pursue another list of sorts.

In December of last year while most of you were slaving away foolishly at keeping your blogs and readership growing, I was branching out and basking in the Columbus-like discovery of new blogs to add to the good ship aggregator, RSS NetNewsWire. To date this jewel of the blogging fleet is a Mac-only application. Worshippers of the Dark Side eat your hearts out.

During this quest I discovered a site whose name I have since forgotten but whose author was bearing down to the finish line of a very worthy goal. He had determined in January of '05 to read and finish 50 books. (He just missed it at 49. You'd think he could have snuck in The Little Engine That Could on New Year's Eve.)

Now there was a time in my life and perhaps yours, dear readers, when 50 books would have been a drop in your literary bucket.

"50 books? P-tooey . . . I hawk a loogey in your general direction you spittoon of a goal. I can and will read 100, 150—perhaps ever 200 books just to show you who is the intellectual giant around here."

Certainly those are numbers easily attainable by The Teenager, whose self-fulfilling email address is noveleater@************.something . She devours books. She inhales them like carnivores breathe in huge chunks of uncut steak. 200 or perhaps 250 books read in one year might begin to approach a worthy challenge for her annual book consumption.

But as an adult with a job, social commitments, family needs, and 79 other types of media pulling on my sleeve begging, "Pick me . . . Pick me!!!!" I  find 50 to be a monstrous challenge—the Mount Everest of word digestion goals.

And so I have set 50, in this my fiftieth year on earth, as my hill to either climb or die on. To date, I'm doing fairly well, though, at the moment, just a tad off the pace having finished only four volumes.

Because I know that each of my Beloved Triad® lives and dies with discovering the minutia of my life, I will be revealing month by month how I am doing and what I have read. Without further adieu I now present my Books For the Month of—well, wait just a minute. Let's enjoy just a bit more adieu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . fine—now let's go to my list of Books I Read in the Month of January.

1. American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story by Cynthia True (finished 1/9/06)

2. God's Debris by Scott Adams (1/17/06)

3. Don't Eat This Book by Morgan Spurlock (1/19/06)

4. Right Turns by Michael Medved (1/28/06)

I have hundreds, nay, thousands of books at home and even more on my amazon.com Wish List. So how any one gets picked, let alone read, let alone finished is generally beyond my understanding. Much of it has to do with which books I happen upon when I've just finished one and begin to scout another. I do find, however, that books have the best chance of being read by me during their first two weeks in my possession. After that they are relegated to the back list where each can languish for years in the relative obscurity of my bookshelf.

By the way, each of these books were wonderful. I enjoyed them immensely. Not a stinker or a clinker in the bunch. I imagine I'll have some sort of awards show in late 2006 for the best of the best. Perhaps we'll have a party and invite all the authors—a nice, tasteful affair with just The 54 of Us™.

Betcha can't wait for that, eh friends?