One of the problems with living with a large group of people, or working with a large group for that matter, is that there is always someone with a birthday or anniversary or graduation or something equally personal and irrelevant to everyone else, coming up. This means that there are those do-gooders out there who insist on commemorating these events, primarily by taking up a collection for the purposes of buying a "group" gift.

Why these people insist on taking up these unwanted and irritating causes I have no clue. Actually, I think I know exactly why they do it. This way they get to pick out the gift, present it to whoever and get the lionshare of the credit. Today I got hit up for no less than three different "voluntary" contributions: a get well card for Scott (he had his head shaved by Son Goku), a cake for Iceman (it was his anniversary for joining the X-Men) and a one month supply of Slim Fast for Beast (who is marking one month sugar free).

The parade of people marching into my office with their hands out-stretched seemed unending. I want to tell them where they can go put that hand, but then I'm the bad guy. Sigh. There's no winning.

And to make things worse I was running late for a rather important engagement. Tonight is the world premiere of Deadpool's new television show. He promises for it to be quite the show. I had been thinking about asking Emma Frost to go, since being next to her would insure me a picture in the paper. But instead I decided to ask Gaia. With her reality warping powers, I figured she could always get us out of there in case things get boring. Or crazy. Yes, more likely crazy.