Thoughts at Large:

•I suppose Michael Jackson’s life is a reminder that you don’t want to peak too early.

•But I do feel better that my debt is a half-billion dollars lower than his.

•His success also proves that singing may be good, and dancing good, but singing-and-dancing is really good.

•Since Bernie Madoff is 71 and will never serve his 150 years, shouldn’t there be a rule that says he gets water-boarded or something to make up for it?

•If there were no women in the world, the throw-pillow industry would collapse.

•My cell phone died weeks ago after being put through a washing machine, and weirdly came back to life the other day, reminding me of those people who suddenly wake up after years in a coma.

•It just doesn’t make me feel good the way the dental technician flees for her life before taking each X-ray while I remain at ground-zero.

•Remember when dermatologists were about rashes instead of Botox?

•I just checked to see how my last book, Up and Running, is doing on Amazon, and saw it’s not first on the best-seller list; or 10th — it’s 909,401. My goal by month’s end is to overtake whomever’s at 909,400.

•A wise reader points out that looking for the remote control for 20 minutes in 2009 is not as efficient as turning the dial manually in 1959.

•One of the reasons I’d make a lousy woman is I have no idea how to put on a hair towel. Where do women learn that?

•I was thinking about Hogan’s Heroes the other day and still can’t quite believe they had a successful comedy series about a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp.

•I read that male drone bees mate and then die. That happens to male black widow spiders, too. And to think men get a bad rap simply for not calling the next day.

•If the Iway is supposed to make traffic better, how come every time they open a new section everyone — especially the DOT — warns of disaster?

•That was smart of Wimbledon to put a roof over center court, after suddenly realizing British events have been rained out weekly for, oh, a few thousand years.

•I just got an email headlined, “Choose an exciting career in accounting.” Nothing against accounts, but … exciting?

•I still don’t see why anyone goes to China or Mexico when you can go to their EPCOT exhibits instead, and then hit the Hard Rock for dinner.

•It’s fine for Iran to insist it’s a democratic country that just had a fair election, but how about the part where the “supreme leader” is an Ayatollah appointed by insiders?

•I’ve missed this entire Jon and Kate Gosselin thing.

•I love the shuffle function on iPods, but it is a bit jarring to go from “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” by Peter, Paul and Mary to “Big Booty Ho’s.”

•I got a new iPhone, which boasts thousands of apps to make life more efficient, so how come I chose one that features a little dog that repeats anything you say in a high voice?

•I also downloaded “The Moron Test,” and embarrassingly, have yet to pass it.

•I’m trying to resist the inefficiency of checking each arriving email while at my desk, but I guess if 30 years ago the mailman dropped new letters through my door every 7 minutes, I’d have checked on those too.

•A reader observes of baseball crowds: “Why is it that the further away from home-plate you get, the more fights/ejections you witness?”

•I think it’s an evil plot that almost every cell phone model has a different kind of charger.

•A Web site called “This Bostonist” just said it’s nice having Rhode Island nearby, explaining, “It beats having Florida’s panhandle on the southern border.” Hey, thanks. I think.

•Aside from the sadness of Farrah Fawcett’s loss was the surprise that she was 62. When did that happen?

•Next you’re going to tell me Tina Turner is about to turn 70. … She is?

•A friend who knows history told me someone else tried to warn of the British before Paul Revere, but the other guy didn’t have as much credibility. Makes you think about reputation.

•Finally, what does it say about work that I just opened my desk drawer and saw: two bottles of Advil, two of Tylenol, Alleve, Zantac, Tums and Pepcid? And I like my job.

mpatinkin@projo.com