This guy in my neighborhood when I was a kid used to bite his toenails. He'd grab an ankle and pull his foot up to his face, crane his head forward, clench the front of his teeth down on the corner of a nail and pull his head back taking a sliver of the nail with him. He would then look away and spit the shard into the air and then go down for another pass. I'm not embarrassed to admit that this is one of the coolest feats I've ever seen.

It's kind of lonely around my neighborhood now that Washington University has let out for the summer. We live on a major student thoroughfare and typically see a steady stream of kids traveling to and from the campus, but have the place all to ourselves in the steamy months ahead while the student body returns home to summer jobs and hometown friends.

A curious sideshow to this annual rite can be found in the local dumpster divers who use this changing of the guard as an opportunity to furnish and modernize their own homes with the remnants of these transient residents. These not-too-proud opportunists range from the lowly homeless guy who routinely visits these receptacles to the gaggle of Asian cooperatives who descend upon these unmanned garage sales like the Sand People of Star Wars. This latter operation proves a greater spectacle given the orchestrated nature of their process. They move in bands and make quick work of a bounty but unfortunately, like copulating squirrels, these projects are a not often witnessed given their skilled and organized methodology.

If Kathleen Madigan stops at a town near you, consider her a must see. I caught her show Saturday night and the woman who is often called the funniest 'female' comic in the country, may very well check in with the top 10 comics, gal or guy, in our illustrious and demanding nation sharing slots with the likes of carlin, miller, rock and seinfeld. Her unique delivery leaves you feeling as though you've just hung out with her at a party for an hour and she floored you with her valley drawl and self-deprecating tales.

The opening comic of the night, whose name evades me, actually painted the best image of the evening when he compared the water in a hot tub at a strip joint to the liquid aftermath of making a hot dog. If you've ever gazed into the murky swill left behind one of these phallic shaped burgers, you know exactly what he means.