1:20 a.m. Another day, another cookie. Sunny. You can never have enough cookies. Or enough days.

My little cookie friend today is a bit shy, so I won't say too much about him except that he is on your TV Every. Single. Day. And he will continue to be on your TV, due to the powerful franchise with which he is a valuable entity, until the end of time.

Once he feels more comfortable with this whole web thing, I know he will not mind if I tell you that he is the most well-read person I've met in California, and also a great stand-up who doesn't get to practice much comedy with his busy schedule.

But for now, I will be just fabulously discreet. Shhhh. Not a single proper name will alert those pesky robots who come crawling all the time now across these pages like so many Dust Bowl locusts looking for tidbits to parse, leaving nothing but gnashing and confusion in their wake.

Move on, little mechanical voyeurs -- nothing to see here -- nothing but a simple man and his tasty cookie. Index away ...

Now what the electronic sensors and industrial-strength harvesters will never be able to measure is the true and beating heart of the web. The people who are pressing the buttons and writing up elaborate contributions to this human treasure trove -- gratis. How do you index and codify the random acts of kindness that are being committed here, in the name of humanity, each and every day?

Exhibit A.

Detested tea kettle. (See yesterday).

In literature class, I learned the concept of the objective correlative. That there is sometimes an object that will embody all the salient elements in a story. That you can study the object and learn the secret behind the seemingly random, chaotic fragments that make up an ordinary life.

This teapot is one such object. There are others.

Burned, blistered, puffy fingers. (Ditto)

Obviously, there is no such thing as a completely objective story. There is always the eye of the beholder, the hand of the maker, the feelings at the end of the fingers.

Do you think the same things I think when you burn yourself? That it really really hurts? That it hurts far worse than most other kinds of cuts, scraps, or bruises? And do you then always think about the final agonies of Joan of Arc and the Salem witches?

And how can human beings do such horrible things to each another and still be considered human? And what if a far superior race were to land on this planet and demand to see the history books? I think we would be at a loss to explain ourselves. I think we would be goners.

Where was I? Oh yes: man's inhumanity to man. The future of the human race. A plea for many more sunny days for us all.

I present evidence to the contrary. An story of determination and courage. A redeeming moment. An act of kindness.

Here for your reading pleasure, I present the first of the: