It's what I get for declaring how often I'd be contributing blog entries. Mea culpa.

When I left the house on Friday to see Iron Man (which was well worth seeing: one of the best comic-book screen adaptations), my home Internet connection was working fine. When I got back, it wasn't working. Turn it off, turn it on again, three different computers, try each, yadda, yadda.

Trying again Saturday (Free Comic Book Day -- did you get yours?), it still wasn't working.

Sunday (a mini-convention in Oconomowoc) morning, Sunday evening, the same.

I'm at the office this morning -- which is why I can post right now. I've reported it to the provider. We shall see. Snarl.

About the acronyms: DAN! stands for Defeat Autism Now! and it's a controversial treatment for autism. I don't give much of a hoot about the controversy; I know that in the case of 5-year-old Grandson Devon the DAN! protocol has helped incredibly. Yes, it's anecdotal -- but there had been no progress until the experiment of removing gluten and milk from his diet resulted in almost instantaneous progress many months ago. So this anecdote in this case says it's doggone well worth the experiment, folks.

GFCF is what the diet change is called, and it stands for gluten-free, casein-free. And, boy, is it fun shopping for groceries when you're trying to follow that protocol! All those good-for-you multi-grain "healthy" cereals and breads are off-limits for starters. My beloved Cornell Bread recipe is entirely based on what GFCF diets can't have: nonfat dry milk, wheat germ, and soy flour.

Oh, yes, that's the third torment. Even GFCF cookbooks seem to shovel in the soy. And, in Devon's case, anecdotal though it is, diet restrictions include soy -- at least for the time being.

But there was a development yesterday that I haven't seen in any of the (admittedly limited) hunts I've made on bookstore shelves and online. Daughter Valerie mentioned that Devon loves it when his meals are prepared with Ghee but, she added, it was expensive. But, I replied, Ghee is just clarified butter! See "remove gluten and milk" in that first paragraph! Ak!

Yes, it is -- but, in clarifying the butter, you remove the casein! Didn't see that in the GFCF cookbooks I checked -- at least one of which kept using "non-dairy margarine" as a butter substitute. (Ik.)

Heck, clarifying butter is easy; I used to do it in preparing meals where I wanted the butter without the low smoking point. Commercially available Ghee is apparently hard to find and expensive when you locate it. But butter? It's in every refrigerator case. And Ghee has lots of advantages; you can even keep it at room temperature for a month or so without its going rancid.

To clarify butter, you bring it to a boil at medium while stirring (keep an eye on it; you don't want to burn it). Skim off the foam -- and keep skimming it, This process takes about 7 minutes, at which point, the butter will be golden and you'll have skimmed all the froth. You can let it cool a bit. Then carefully pour it through fine mesh (like a fine strainer or three layers of cheesecloth) into Pyrex or similar dish, leaving the brown solid residue in the bottom of the pan. Store the Ghee in an airtight container -- but it'll keep OK at room temperature. And then you can use it in GFCF food preparation: no soy, no need to avoid butter in recipes.

And a final tip (which a friend told me this morning, when I shared the Ghee anecdote): In a lot of baking, you can try substituting applesauce -- measure for measure -- for oil or shortening in recipes that call for it. As opposed to Ghee, I haven't tried that for myself. Just saying.

Or something. In any case, tomorrow is Iron Man Day, and the Appleton Hollywood theater has showings at 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12:30, 3:30, 6:30, and 9:30, according to my.yahoo.com. (I have the Fox Trot Sunday strip among my my.yahoo.com choices -- and note that there's even an Iron Man reference there.

That should mean I can get shopping (including camcorder cassettes for Free Comic Book Day recording Saturday) done in the morning and still take my pick of afternoon show times. Mind you, it looks as if thundershowers and temperatures in the upper 50s will be the norm for the weekend -- but they grow us tough in Wisconsin. We can do it.

And I'll spend part of the weekend brainstorming with John Jackson Miller about this site to figure out what items I can add. We'll both be at a mini-comics-convention on Sunday -- and I hope to come out of it with a schedule of Stuff to Post. Stay tuned.

According to my calendar, spring arrived March 20. This morning, when I left the house to drive to my daily morning swim, I found the ground covered with a layer of snow.

I post this as a note to warn myself a year from now that, well, that I live in Wisconsin and should be prepared.

But I haven't seen a single mosquito here in 2008. Hah!

You may have seen my April 14 recommendation to check out Linda Holmes' blog.

I'm just letting you know that she now has her own website, where her comments continue. I continue to recommend both her topics and her skills at expressing many things I believe but don't say as well.