That Athena doesn’t give a damn about Hannah Montana. I do believe she lumps the show in with all the other live-action tween shows like Drake and Josh and iCarly and The Suite Life of Zach and Cody, which she unreservedly believes are pure evil, which is of course something I encourage.

That said, there is no live-action kids’ show today that approaches the pure vomitrociousness of the live action kids’ shows of my youth, like, say, the terrifying horror that was Big John, Little John, which appeared as if it were produced with the money sucked out of pay phones:

The kid star of BJLJ, incidentally, is Robbie Rist, who is perhaps better known, depending on your age and/or geekitude, as “Cousin Oliver” from the Brady Bunch, “Dr. Zee” from Galactica 1980, and the voice of Michaelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies of the early 90s. That’s right, three decades rocking the cultural margins! So, of course, he has a Web page. Well done, Robbie Rist. Well done, indeed.

(Phone rings. It’s a FRIEND, in California)

Friend: So, I’m here in San Diego, and everything is on fire. All of California is on fire. Fire reigns here.

Me: That’s very nice, but I think your fascination with this fire thing has blinded you to the actual big news story of the weekend.

Friend: Which is?

Me: Dumbledore is, like, totally gay.

(Pause)

Friend: That’s insane.

Me: Which part, that he’s gay, or that it’s the big news story?

Friend: Either! Both! Is this gay thing in the books somewhere?

Me: No, JK Rowling said something about it at an appearance. Someone asked if Dumbledore ever knew love, and Rowling said something like, ‘well, he’s totally gay, and yes.’

Friend: Was she kidding?

Me: No, apparently Dumbledore has this mad crush on a guy, who then turned out to be evil, and Dumbledore was slow on the uptake because when you’re infatuated, you miss details.

Friend: Like your boyfriend being completely and utterly evil.

Me: This is what I am led to understand.

Friend: That’s just crazy.

Me: I don’t see why it’s a surprise. He always did have such fabulous robes.

Friend: And this is really what the rest of you people have been talking about all weekend.

Me: Well, I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of the situation. It’s Dumbledore. You’ve just been consumed with your silly little fire.

Friend: Being consumed in fire is more like it.

Me: I think you need to focus on what’s really important.

Friend: Not burning to death?

Me: No, no. The secret inner lives of fictional people in books you haven’t bothered to read.

Friend: I’ll get right on that.

Me: Do. Because now we’re all wondering about McGonagall.

Friend: What, like she’s a Templar or something?

Me: See. Now you’re getting it.

After three weeks, I’m still getting people popping up claiming to be surprised Whatever is still an ongoing concern because their RSS feed has not been updating. So for anyone who still needs it, here’s the current RSS feed:

http://scalzi.com/whatever/?feed=rss2

Please update if you need to.

I know some folks are concerned about me missing out on some readers because of RSS confusion, but the fact is I myself so rarely use RSS feeds for anything I really can’t be roused to care all that much. I figure sooner or later the people with the faulty RSS feeds will either get curious and show up here and be amazed it’s an ongoing concern, or they’ll simply assume I’ve died in some horrible way, cycle through their grief and get along in their lives without me. Really, either works for me.