The screens were frozen, the forums almost deserted,

A hush fell over the YouTube comments;

The mercury sank in the mouth of the caucus crew.

So ABC News reported Tuesday.

That’s a strange sentence.

It’s amazing how much air you can take out of any announcement by inserting “as the elevator doors closed.”

Can we talk about that halo, please?

I understand that the fundamental undergirding principle of all newsweeklies these days, almost to the exclusion of all others, is to Be Talked About. “Nothing is worse than not being talked about,” they say, in editorial meetings. “Not even Photoshopping some sort of weird Candy Land hula hoop over the president’s head.”

Today the Social Security Administration released the top 10 baby names for 2011. As it turns out, I had great preparation for this last week, when I wrote about the man currently known as Tyrannosaurus Rex Joseph Gold (formerly Tyler Gold).

“It is a sobering thought,” said Tom Lehrer, “that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.”

I always feel some variant of this when Mark Zuckerberg’s birthday rolls around. Mark Zuckerberg is 28 now. Just 28? Sure, in Internet years, that’s 60, but still.

Recent archaeological discoveries suggest that the Mayans didn’t cut off the calendar on December 23, 2012, as we had so long believed.

This certainly throws a wrench into all my plans.

Other than, “I’m John Edwards,” nothing says, "I will never be president of the United States” like “Hey, I just became a citizen of Switzerland.”

All I know about Switzerland is that it is hard to invade, they are partial to small marshmallows, and sometimes when you least expect it, singing families led by Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer come strolling over the Alps.

For the past several months, I have been deluged with e-mails wanting to know if I have made plans yet for Mother's Day.

Only a few of these have been from my mother.

The revelation that Mitt Romney, in high school at Cranbrook School, once led what Post reporter Jason Horowitz describes as “a prep school posse” to tackle John Lauber, pin him down and cut his bleached-blond hair has proved troubling to quite a few. If that’s a good-natured prank or shenanigan, say they, I’ll eat my hat. This was cruel and callous and no wonder the other participants and observers felt so terrible later.

It is a handy thought.

You don't need to diet. The world will end soon.

You don't need to budget. The world will end soon.

“I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” the president said.

Lieutenant Scheisskopf had the facts at his finger tips. “It’s Yossarian’s name, sir,” he explained.

— Joseph Heller, “Catch-22”