12:26 p.m. It's amazing, really, how complicated this whole process is getting. All I wanted to do was to make the world a better place by posting a few helpful hints each day. I like to fix things up. Cheer people along. Help out. You know -- make the world a better place. Talk about addiction. The sixties are not over, man. Coke isn't wrong. You can teach the world to sing.

If you, too, ever decide to put your thoughts on line, you should heed the sage advice of Matt Coburn and the kind folks over at Diarist.net and read what he has to say about planning ahead. It's too late for me, of course. I've already got a big mess on my hands here, a big unwieldy mess. Mistakes have been made.

I apologize ahead of time for any inconvenience you may experience in accessing these pages. I'm going to be working down among the innards of this pile of files and links and gears for the remainder of the day and into the night -- until I get the kinks out of the lines and all 404 ducks are back in a row. So to speak. I love working with computers. I really do. The problem, whatever it is, sits there mute and patient and unchanging. The error is always human. The answer is always logical. It stays still and waits for you to find it. Take all the time you need.

Speaking of errors. Yesterday when I got up I had a headache from too much pasta the day before that, and too much tossing and turning with the full bright moon, and then, as is typical with a certain kind of headache, I also had a song running through my mind like a fussy child on a Big Wheel on a circular driveway made of broken shells. A record skipping, a phrase repeating. So, as I made the coffee and waited for the wonder drug combo I've discovered to work its magic, I thought I would share my secret.

I mean, there are millions of headache sufferers and I have a big secret, a new solution that really, really works ... I discovered it by accident and I tell anybody who will listen that you don't have to be in pain! No! But that song! It wouldn't leave the front porch, so instead of putting up the picture of the yellow tubes and talking about my sad pasta addiction, I gave in to the noise and went off on a mangy tangent with Cat Stevens and his totally invasive song.

Went looking for the cover, one thing leading to another, couldn't find the album, found another one instead, scanned it, and then the story was getting too convoluted, so I put the tubes aside for tomorrow, my headache went away, and here we are today.

Now, we must backtrack. The tubes are up, but without the pasta connection. Somehow, I thought they would stand on their own, but I was wrong. Thus, the contest is born. First prize is: Dick Clark stays away from your door. Second prize is a secret, but very useful, as well.

The album I couldn't find doesn't actually exist, as it turns out. There's no such thing as Tea for the Tinkerman. It's tillerman: Tea for the Tillerman. A tinkerman hammers and bangs on your small metal objects, sometimes cursing aloud in the process. A tillerman -- well, either he works the rudder on a boat or he works the rows in a field -- either way, you're a lot better off knowing a tillerman than a tinkerman.

But I do have a helpful hint for you. If you would like to really cheer yourself up and make your own world a better place -- and I realize I'm going to get you addicted -- you should pop on over to this particular web site. There, you will hear wonderful songs and hardly any cursing, because better than a tinker or a tiller, John Baily is a writing man.