As a writer and commentator, I consider it my civic duty to warn people about potential hazards. So, dear readers, take note: there is a bomb in your refrigerator.

No really, I mean it. In fact, there may be as many as 12 incendiary devices in your fridge. I say this because according to a news report I saw last night, people all over North America are being maimed and injured by exploding eggs.

This is because lots of people are apparently trying to cook their eggs in the microwave... whole. Unfortunately, one of the nasty properties of sealed containers, like eggs, is that they don't do well under pressure. Nuke them for too long and you'll have microwave shrapnel in the wall, and of course, egg on your face. A trip through the kitchen will be like, well, walking on egg shells.

And when your appliances start blowing up, it really makes you think about the fragility of life... and all the other big, eggistential questions.

What really worries me though is that my microwave instruction manual clearly says "Do not attempt to microwave the following items: soda cans, eggs in the shell, hand grenades, sealed glass bottles and/or nuclear devices. The Surgeon General suggests that doing so may cause small objects to hurtle toward your softer bits at high speed." This must mean that people are operating complex devices without reading the manual, or they don't understand the warnings.

Either way, perhaps a brief household safety primer is order here:

Electricity - I know Uncle Bob once said that sticking a knife into the toaster was a quick and cheap way to get a perm, but do you really want to smolder for hours afterward? Or forget most of your high school years? Try to avoid direct contact with this stuff.

Toilet Bowl Cleaner - Never mix this with bleach, as it forms a deadly gas. Recent research suggests that this gas can later solidify into a blob and Hollywood has already demonstrated how dangerous those things can be.

Gasoline - In general, it's a good idea not to combine gasoline with any of the following items: matches, a lighter, household chemicals, Uncle Bob.

Shampoo - Okay, maybe this doesn't qualify as a safety hazard, but darnit it smarts when it gets into your eyes. Be careful.

Garden Hose - Often overlooked by safety experts, this common item deliberately drapes itself across high foot traffic areas, causing people to trip and fall. As deadly as the common garden rake, it is also known for hiding in tall grass and attacking lawnmower blades. Handle with care.

Power Tools - You should never use any of these without a) safety glasses, b) safety boots and c) keeping Uncle Bob at a distance of about 30 meters.

Step Ladders - Don't let a black cat walk underneath them. Or was that breaking them caused seven years bad luck? Or maybe you're not supposed to open them inside the house. In any case, just remember that the top rung is not a step.

Dark stairwells - Either install an overhead light or keep a flashlight handy when negotiating these, otherwise that thing that goes bump in the night will be you.

Scissors - Don't run with these. In fact, if you took any of this safety primer seriously, perhaps you should put them down and back away. Slowly now...

Ah, there's nothing quite like real estate shopping to bring home to you exactly what kind of "purchasing power" you really have.

The process begins with a trip to the bank, where a sharp-eyed analyst will review your finances. He or she will look at your income, your car payments, your credit history, your bank accounts, how much your first born is worth in collateral, the number of gold teeth you have for potential extraction, and the exact distance between your knees and the ground so the "payment guarantor" (a guy named Guido) can adjust his swing accordingly.

After this analysis, during which time it was revealed that you have an excellent credit rating, several thousand in savings and a great gross debt ratio, you will be told you can afford: a straw bale house in rural Wawa.

Okay, so maybe you'll be able to buy something in metro Wawa; the next part of the procedure is even worse. That's because you must now start perusing the real estate advertisements. This is a cyclical process that works as follows:

1. You read through the ads rejecting all of those properties not suited to your needs (i.e., anything less than six bales high).
2. You find a few ads that describe houses that sound absolutely perfect (i.e., "Look honey! It's got barley fibre doors!")
3. You arrange to visit the property and discover that the ad photo was taken with the Real Estate Agent Camera, which is designed to make the home look three times bigger than it really is, filters out unsightly objects like the auto wrecking yard next door, and is just enough out of focus to hide the peeling paint or missing shingles.
4. You start back at Step 1.

If you're house shopping right now, I feel your pain - and I have something that may help. I have painstakingly researched and created what may be the world's first Real Estate Agentease to English dictionary. Some of the most common estate ad terms have been translated below:

Cute: You cannot swing a cat without hitting all four walls.

Cozy: You cannot swing a gerbil without hitting all four walls.

Handyman's Special: Possibly it's just best to knock it down and start over.

Bargain House in Country with Acreage: Your spouse will suddenly be seized with a mad desire to raise hogs. Or possibly alpacas.

Income Property: Provides a steady stream as long as your tenants do not do something silly, like default on their payments and then suddenly take a keen interest in pit bull dog ownership.

Quiet Location: Located out beyond even rural Wawa.

Immediate Possession: Code for owner is trying to unload this property in a hurry.

Rare Find: A term used to make the property seem special without actually meaning anything. See also Unique, Exceptional and Exclusive.

Cozy Kitchen: You must sit in the oven to eat your dinner.

Water Frontage: Expect your basement to flood. Monthly.

One Floor Living: The second floor was condemned by the building inspector as unsafe.

Newer Windows/Furnace: They might be less than thirty years old.

Compact Single Family Home: Your mother-in-law is guaranteed to think the house is very cute and want to move in with you.

Great Room: A room in an awkward spot on the floor plan that can't be used as a living room, dining room, or even foyer.

Vendor is Motivated: Because the property is being watched by the local police.

Feature Home: Agent has represented this property for more than a year and can't move the thing.

Tent, Sleeps Four: What you might want to consider for your next residence to save yourself the trouble and the expense. And it beats straw bales.

I have decided that I am never, ever going to attempt to drive a motor vehicle in Scotland.

I admit that I wasn't keen on the idea in the first place, what with Scots driving up the left instead of the right like I'm used to. And there's that whole roundabout thing. Instead of having nice, neat and orderly intersections with traffic lights, you move from one road to the next by driving around and around in circles until a) centrifugal force finally takes over and your car sails off in some random direction or b) a Scottish driver sideswipes you into a signpost.

But now there's another reason: Scottish officials have decided that the best way to reduce accidents and traffic problems is to remove road cues. Specifically, they plan to narrow some roads, blur the pavement edges, remove the white lines in the centre of the road, and plant trees to remove sight lines. The reasoning is that if the roads seem more dangerous, people will drive more carefully.

Ye. Gods.

Clearly these officials have never been either psychologists or humour columnists. If they had been, they'd know that the best way to get people to throw caution to the wind is to tell them they should be more cautious. People like a little frisson of danger in their lives, even if they have no clue where they can buy frissons. (Incidentally, they're in the bread aisle, next to croissants.)

Don't believe me? Consider the following list of driver types and tell me if you've met any of them:

Triple Chicken: This driver waits to overtake you on a two lane highway until you both are approaching a hill, which is on a curve, and it's pouring rain. Inevitably, they will have to slam on the brakes and cut in front of you in order to avoid hitting the very large transport truck in the oncoming lane.

The Drifter: Either a victim of bad wheel alignment or a firm believer in the power of telekinesis on the steering wheel, this person likes to allow the car to drift into other lanes. Indeed, they are so casual about keeping control of their car that they don't notice you until they've sheared off your side mirror.

Hot On Your Tail: These people suffer from an extreme fascination with mufflers. They must do - they spend the entire trip from Toronto to Windsor trying to park their car in your tailpipe.

Speed Demon: You could be going 160 kph and it wouldn't matter. This driver will pass you as though you are standing still.

Parallel Paths: This person pulls out to pass you but takes nearly 10 kilometres of road to do so. In addition to spraying rain/snow/sleet/hail all over your windshield for 15 minutes, this driver makes everyone else in the passing lane especially happy as they queue up and wait for their turn to overtake.

You Can't Pass Me: This driver, almost always male, will pull his large van/truck/rig to the lane marker so you can't see around him to pass. Should you find an opening and overtake, this driver will be very upset, because clearly your intention was imply he is not manly enough. He will go mad trying to overtake you back.

Bad Timing: You may be the only car on the road for 20 kilometres in either direction, but this driver will wait until you are almost at the road junction before pulling out in front of you. He/she will then putz along at 50 kilometres an hour while sightseeing. Or whatever it is people do when going that slow on a highway.

So do any of these sound familiar? Really familiar? Did you, in fact, recognize yourself?

If so, please move to Scotland. I can personally recommend the roundabouts.

Theoretical physicists have many ideas about how the cosmos came to be, but one of the most popular ones is the one which says that are an infinite number of universes, each of them different. There is, for example, our universe, another one where all your missing socks go, and one for your car keys.

The multiverse theory makes good science fiction fodder, but researchers really need look no further than the Internet for proof of the existence of worlds we can't touch or smell.

Take, for example, the online game World of Warcraft. Here, players log on and take part in a sword and sorcery role playing game. In addition to being able to thump each other with a Hammer of the Naaru or a Multidimensional Sock, players can talk to each other, form guilds, go on raids together, chit chat and exchange messages. I bet some of them go like this:

Bolroth: Hey man, I see you've acquired new armour since our last encounter! [Casts spell]

DarkLord: Yes - this is the good stuff. [Swings axe] How's the wife and kids?

Bolroth: Great! Jimmy's just finished grade four. [Ducks, throws fireball]

DarkLord: Congrats! [Puts up shield, makes stabbing motion.] Sally starts high school this year.

Bolroth: [Dodging sword.] Time flies! [Throws lightning bolt. Waits.] Wow, dude, that armour was really conductive.

DarkLord: [Disintegrating into cinders] Next time, I am going to chop your head off, I swear. Say hi to Cindy for me, will you?

The game provides so much interactivity that many people have formed long lasting friendships with people they've never met in person. There are even reports of players holding weddings online. Yes, I'm talking orc and troll unions here.

One of the more fascinating aspects of World of Warcraft and other games like it is they have created entirely new and quite real economies. People have begun buying and selling "objects" from the games -- things that will help you do better when you play, like weapons, or maps, or potions -- for real money.

There are even people who make a living by playing the game, improving a character to a certain point, and then selling the character for real cash. Yes, you read that right, these people earn money by playing video games, making that reason number 4,758 why *your* day job sucks.

Then there are the hybrid universes - based in reality, but still completely virtual. A good example is Facebook.

Facebook is one of those now ubiquitous "social networking" sites that allows you to hook up with people online. First you set up your own profile, and then add people you know to a "friends" list; they in turn set up their friends lists, putting you in touch with friends of friends... and so it goes.

This is one of those wildly popular phenomena that I did not understand until I signed up for it myself. My conclusion: the makers of Facebook have found a way to push an intoxicating gas through the Internet and out through your keyboard.

Okay, not really, but the site is incredibly addictive. Part of the fun is searching for people you know, or that you once knew. This is like having a high school reunion, but because it's online, you don't have to worry about how to lose the 30 lbs. you've gained in the intervening years. You can post only the most flattering [read: Photoshopped] pictures of yourself, and only connect with the people you're most interested in.

Another key tool is the Status Update. That is, you can tell everyone in your friends list what you're doing at any given moment, and the announcement appears in your friends' news feeds.

Why would your friends care about your daily life? The truth is, they probably don't. But *you* get to see your name in the news feed, and by telling the world (or a least this particular alternate universe) what you're up to minute-by-minute, you can be your own paparazzi. This can be a most gratifying egotistical experience.

This must mean that there's a little Paris Hilton in all of us. And that's a scarier thought than an entire universe of missing socks.

Give It A Rest

Yet again, it has been made clear to me that I'm in the wrong line of work.

Writing for a living doesn't pay much, and running your own business has its ups and downs. I really should just give it all up and become a consultant. I say this because apparently there is good money to be made in ... fatigue management consultancy.

Really. A firm in Britain that does this has just come up with some stunning revelations about work performance. They have concluded that you perform better at work if:

a) You're not on drugs
b) You're not hung over and
c) You've had a decent night's sleep

As a result, I have concluded that:

a) In addition to being underpaid, my job as a humour columnist just got harder because you couldn't make stuff like this up and be believed.
b) Someone, somewhere has paid this consultancy firm good money to tell them this.
c) Possibly they were on drugs, hung over, or sleep deprived when they authorized the expense and
d) I really have to find this person and their purchase order codes.

The consultancy firm has also commissioned scientists to come up with a formula to help you determine when you'll be the sleepiest. This must be because everyone knows that invoking scientists and especially scientific-sounding formulae makes you sound legitimate and ups your hourly rate by nearly fifty percent.

The formula is CDA + CT + KF = TMT, which stands for Circadian Dip in Alertness (your natural biorhythms) plus Chronotype (the timing of those natural biorhythms) plus Knacker Factors (lack of sleep or drinking alcohol) equals Time Most Tired.

I used this formula on myself and determined that I'm most likely to be tired:

a) Just before I go to bed
b) Just before I sit down to pay all the bills and especially
c) If I have just glugged a large glass of wine to help me get through paying all those bills just before I go to bed.

The consultants' website declares that their mission is to 'raise awareness about sleep deprivation,' which I have to admit, would be a tough job given that people who are sleep deprived aren't likely to be very aware of anything. They also probably have a hard time explaining "knacker factors" to anyone outside England. Finally, their site states that they 'offer solutions to combat fatigue.'

So in the time-honoured tradition of capitalism, I'm going to steal their idea and offer my own solutions, at a cut rate of course.

If you are feeling fatigued, you should try the following course of action:

Step 1: Turn off the television. In your heart of hearts, you know you don't really care whether what's-his-name gets kicked off the island, or fired, or wins the bachelorette or whatever.

Step 2: Find a comfy pair of jammies.

Step 3: Turn out the lights.

Step 4: Get into bed.

Step 5: Sleep.

When you wake up, you will feel less fatigued, and incidentally, also owe me $1800 for the consultation. Cheque, money order and most major credit cards accepted. Minor ones too.

And if you actually send me a cheque for that bit of advice, I'll call you a circadian dip.

Then I'll ask for your purchase order codes.