In a week simply simmering with apparently unbelievable events, it's time to separate the wheat from the chaff and decide what is truly weird.

And yes, that last bit is a ringer. While no previous election has featured either a woman or a black man in a frontrunning position, it had to happen sometime, and, in truth, it ought to have happened before now. Barack Obama and Hilary Rodham Clinton are both solid candidates who could well be president on January 20, 2009--or they could be sitting in the Senate cheap seats. My money's on Barack...Americans love a feel-good story. That is largely what elected the last two presidents.

Okay, one down, and three more to eliminate from the land of the weird. My next cut is the Diamond Dave restoration. Yes, Roth has said for years that he'll "never" go back, but hey, when a promoter waves millions in your face and you got fired from your last job after a couple months of work, "never" means eleven years. Even if you have to take orders from Wolfgang.

For similar reasons, you have to strike down the whole Anna Nicole Smith thing as well. She was always larger-than-life (no Trimspa jokes, please). I'm perhaps one of the few males in the world who never (and I mean that) held any attraction for her, but that's not the thing. She was a proud golddigger and self-promoter. She tried to be weird, just to keep the cameras rolling and the cash flowing. I doubt she staged her death (though weirder things have happened), but the mere circumstances of her existence would almost have to decree that she would die mysteriously (to be solved on a very special episode of "CSI: Miami") and that Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband would step forward to claim paternity of her infant child. It's not weird, but it's definitely amusing. And you know what? I bet she would approve of our amusement, as long as the stories keep coming.

Colts or flygirl? Diaper-wearin', pepper-spray totin', love jones-sufferin'...and all that Lisa Nowak versus the hard luck Colts. You know, this isn't a contest, either. Sports is chock-full of the "it's our time" stories. Any Kansas City Royals fan will tell you that the 1977 Royals were not only the best team in baseball that year (look it up), but they were the best in K.C. history as well. Yet they lost to the Yankees in the playoffs and didn't even make the World Series. Few fans would argue with the notion that the 1980 World Series team (which lost to the Phillies) was far superior to the 1985 team that actually won it all. Though, truthfully, Bret Saberhagen was a monster in 1985. Whatever. The fact remains that the Colts were heavily-favored and in fact spanked the Bears decisively. Not weird. Not even surprising. Why do you think people love sports? Because it's full of these great human dramas, like Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning finally getting to hold a trophy.

So we're left with the two parts triangle, one part astronaut unhinged story. It is borderline weird, though surprisingly unsurprising. Astronauts are under intense scrutiny (and now some idiots are calling for more) as it is; that's before you take into account the fairly intense nature of their jobs. I think the reason none have cracked this spectacularly before (there have been plenty of drunks and pill-poppers, according to many books I've read) is that there are so few astronauts. If we were sending rockets into space every week, I betcha we'd have had plenty of these stories by now. I'm just wondering about the guy in this case. He's been quieter than a doormouse. I guess that's the smart play. As for the diapers thing, which is the part most folks think is positively deranged, you've got to remember that astronauts wear the equivalent of diapers when they're in space. It's not exactly a one-to-one thing, but I can tell you that Nowak probably didn't think twice about using them. Simply a practical solution to a real problem. I mean, you don't want your car smelling like piss. That's almost as annoying as your (possibly imagined) boyfriend having a girlfriend he (might) like better than you. Weird? In the final analysis, not really.

All this stuff happened--all of this ostensibly weird stuff happened--and yet, after closer scrutiny, none of it was excessively strange. It was just, you know, people being people. Living their lives. Getting along.

Or not.

Jon Worley thought about quoting the Doors, but decided that would be overkill.