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As I Twittered, I have no idea what kind of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will make. I'm just glad the first Hispanic nominee to that bench wasn't Alberto Gonzales. (And yes, I know about Benjamin Cardozo. But the joke works better if we leave him out of it…)

The right wing is probably very happy. They have someone they can rail against and delay and demonize, and it will all be very good for their fund-raising and for trying to convince their base they still have power. But ultimately, unless someone uncovers something juicier than her past rulings, they'll have to give in and confirm her. And it's not like denying her the seat will cause Obama to nominate someone they'll like a whole lot better.

Meanwhile, the California State Supreme Court has upheld Proposition 8. For reasons I explained here, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Same-sex marriage is inevitable…and those who oppose it may become more accepting if it's decreed by a vote of the people, as opposed to judicial fiat or overrule. If a few more states vote it in soon, as is expected, there may not even be a lot of enthusiasm among the "anti" crowd to try and block it when it's on the California ballot again next year.

I'm just glad the court didn't nullify the unions of same-sex couples who married when they could. Wonder if there are a lot of unmarried California couples arguing over why they didn't seize the opportunity when they had the chance…)

That's when I had my Gastric Bypass Surgery. I'm sure for some people the procedure is wrong and disastrous but for me, it was maybe the smartest thing I've done in my entire life. (Admittedly, it doesn't have a lot of competition for that honor…)

People always ask, "Did you have any complications?" Really, no. I've had a few problems but they're smaller and more fixable than the ones I'd have had if I were still carrying around the hundred+ pounds I forfeited. I was pre-diabetic and now I'm not. My feet hurt if I walked more than about a half-mile in a day. Now, they don't. I sleep better. I feel better. More important than you might imagine is that I now feel like I fit into the world better. I can go into a restaurant without worrying that I won't fit into the booth or the chair won't hold me. I don't recommend G.B.S. for everyone but losing weight if you're too fat? Hey, that works.

What else is different besides wearing pants that are five sizes smaller? Well, I eat less. Sometimes, I'm having lunch with someone and can only finish about a third of a normal portion, whereupon I have to convince my dining companion and/or the server that I don't dislike my meal. My taste for sugary things disappeared suddenly in January of '08. One moment it was there; the next, it was gone…and now I probably consume about as much sugar per month as I used to eat in two days. (This is not a usual effect of G.B.S.) My digestion is better as long as I avoid spicy foods. Never liked them a lot and never handled them well…and now I like them less and they cause me more problems.

I can buy clothes at Costco. I don't need the seat belt extender on airplanes. My mother thinks I look like her son again. And until I got a new driver's license photo, I occasionally had trouble proving I was me.

There are others but really, it's just been an amazing change, wholly for the better. I tell you this because throughout those three years, I've heard from quite a few folks who read about what I'd done or saw me at conventions and said some variation of "Hey, if that clown can do it…" and I'm real happy about that. If you can help yourself, great. If you can help yourself and others can profit from it as well, so much the better.

I'm also pleased I did not inspire a flurry of surgical procedures. Most who wrote to say they'd been inspired did not go the Gastric Bypass route. They did it via eating less and exercising more, which is the way to go if you can make it work for you. I couldn't but if you can, you have my respect and envy.

The key thing is just that they decided to do something, as opposed to being hectored into it. Before I tackled my weight problem, I was occasionally nagged by others to do something. Most meant well — I'm convinced at least one did not — but all generally did more harm than good. One friend who, I'm told, tells people that he saved my life with his one lecture will never understand or believe how far he set me back, knocking me off-course with his well-meant (I assume) unsolicited intrusion.

What did help me was the wise counsel of two separate physicians who talked to me in a pragmatic, useful manner, saying things that allowed me to grab onto the problem and take meaningful control of it. I'll not repeat their words of guidance here because they were Mark-specific and might have the opposite impact if applied to someone else. The best thing the doctors did was to not tell me what to do and to allow that to remain my job. They just helped me to get better at it. As I've learned, there's a big difference between taking charge of a situation and being swept along via circumstances that are out of your control. Appreciating that distinction was key for me. Because of it, I think I not only made the right decision but made it at just the right time.

This all may sound like double talk to some but there will be people out there who will get it, and maybe some of them need to get it. If you have a problem — and this applies to things other than excessive girth, as well — you need to own it. Wrap your brain all around it from every angle. Understand why you have it and why you want to get rid of it…and don't let anyone tell you those whys. They don't know you as well as you know you.

Then, once you're in charge and it's truly your problem to solve, you have a good shot at solving it. That does not mean you have to do it alone. Seek out those who can help you solve it, give you options, teach you about the various solutions. Just don't let it become their problem. Let it remain yours. You have to be The Decider…and let's hope you're better in that role than George Bush was.

It's important to be realistic and to not overdramatize, especially to yourself. People say to me, "You saved your life." I don't believe that. I think I saved myself a lot of health problems down the line. I made my life better but I don't think I extended it any. (Don't try to figure out what difference it makes, so long as I lost the weight. It made a difference to me and that's all that matters here.)

Last night, a lady on Facebook pulled me into chat to ask my advice about her girth, which from the way she described it makes the old me sound like a jockey. We switched to a phone call and I gave her all the stuff I pass off as wisdom, which is pretty much what I just wrote here: Understand the problem from all sides, understand the possible solutions…then pick one. Just make sure you're the one who does the picking and that you don't skip the stage about understanding the problem.

That's about all I have to say on this topic. A happy third anniversary to my lap. It's been nice having one again.

As you no doubt recall, we're soliciting the donation of comics written and/or edited by my pal Len Wein to replace those he lost in a big house fire not long ago. You people are terrific. I've just posted the latest update on the site and as you'll see, we only have a few more to locate for Len. If you can help out, please do. And if you've sent an e-mail and not heard back from me…my apologies. It's taken 'til today for me to have time to update the list and now I can tackle the mail I've yet to tackle.

For some reason, people are sending me e-mails telling me that I got the time wrong for Dreams With Sharp Teeth. I said I'd set my TiVo to record it at 6 PM. I did…and it started at 6 PM here. It's on right now.

Someone sent me an e-mail to say it's on 11 PM CDT. Someone else wrote that it's on at 9 PM Pacific Time. Someone else wrote that it's on at 8 PM where they are but they don't say where they are.

Times can vary because of different time zones. Times can also vary because some cable companies out west run shows "live" from an east coast feed, whereas some time-delay the schedule for two or three hours. You always need to check when a show will air on your set.

I have a DirecTV satellite. Dreams With Sharp Teeth started at 6:00 on my set. Your mileage may…well, you know what they say.

The Sundance Channel is running Dreams With Sharp Teeth, a recent documentary on the writer sometimes referred to as Harlan Ellison. I haven't seen it but I've seen Harlan…known him for close to forty years, in fact. Nothing about him is ever without interest so I can't imagine how a film could possibly be.

I've set my TiVo to record it at 6 PM Pacific time tonight. It airs again on May 28 and May 31 and maybe other times after that, plus I think it's just out on DVD.

One thing I like about Memorial Day — beyond the sales and barbecues and general restfulness — is that we slightly changed the definition of it. Originally, the premise was to remember those who'd died while serving in our military…and that's still a noble reason for the holiday. But understandably, I think, people decided that what we really needed was a day to thank those who are still alive (and maybe currently serving) and to make sure their needs are not forgotten.

I made my first visit to Washington D.C. a few years ago…and everywhere I went, I was reminded of a comment I heard once about the place; that you can't turn around without seeing a monument to those who've died in the service of their country. Not that that should ever be forgotten but I'd sure like to see us doing more to salute those who haven't died when they've served this country. And I'd like to not read news stories about filthy conditions in military hospitals, cuts in military pensions, raging unemployment among veterans, etc. It would also be nice if men and women weren't still dying in service of this country.

Wanna read a long and gushy interview with Jay and Mavis Leno discussing their marriage? Maybe not. But if you do, there's the link.

Tom Spurgeon offers sound advice (and a lot of it) about the upcoming Comic-Con International in San Diego. I concur with darn near all of it, especially the point about how if you're gonna go, you'd better commit to that now and firm up your plans. Those who complain to me that they didn't have a good time at the con are usually those who didn't get the necessities of travel settled well in advance.

Michael Ryan writes…

I am not going to try and convince you of the merits of professional wrestling. Speaking as someone who writes about it and for it and helps promote shows in Montreal, it can frequently be a sordid world where the talent is ruthlessly taken advantage of by the promoters putting on the shows, much like the rest of show business in fact except without even the fig-leaf of union protection that writers and performers like you have.

And this is why you are wrong about Jesse Ventura, specifically about this: "The man's first claim to fame was in professional wrestling, an occupation where you can't utter five sentences without lying in at least two of them.

OK, yes technically this is correct, the same way that it is true of any actor. Unless you would like to suggest that June Foray is in fact a flying squirrel? Would you have said the same thing about Norm MacDonald?

Jesse Ventura played a role on camera. His famous line was "Win if you can; Lose if you must; But always Cheat!" But that character was not him.

(Sure wrestling had a huge advantage of other show business professions that the suspension of disbelief is easier if people believe from the outset that what they are watching is real, an advantage that wrestling no longer has. And you may not necessarily believe this, but wrestling is a story-telling art form. Like any such art form it can be brilliant or wretched.)

From all that I have heard from wrestlers of that time period, Jesse Ventura was a gentleman backstage. Opinionated with an ego like any star, he nonetheless was one of the few wrestlers to stand up to promoters famously with Vince McMahon to argue for the protection of all wrestlers not just the well-paid stars. That the promoters should provide health care and other benefits for the wrestlers and that they should allow the wrestlers to form a union. Rare among his peers, he said this publicly and openly while he was a star and in fact Vince fired him from the WWF as a result. (He landed another gig with WCW soon after.) Unfortunately, wrestlers are as hard to organize as cats and no one has ever been successful at organizing a wrestler's union, but no one ever risked as much when they were a star to try and bring one about.

Having once produced a special for CBS with a cast of pro wrestlers (and Vince McMahon as exec producer), I know a fair amount about that world…and all you say about working conditions is true. All you say about Mr. Ventura's rabble-rousing to improve them is also probably true. But when I wrote about wrestlers lying, I was referring to one key part of their job and it's where your analogy to June Foray or Norm MacDonald doesn't work.

There is no one alive who thinks June is really a flying squirrel and if you ever asked her, she'd tell you that every line she utters that suggests that is fiction. On the other mitt, there are actually people on this planet who think that the outcome of most pro wrestling matches is not predetermined…or at least think the games are a lot less scripted than they are. And whenever I've seen someone ask Jesse Ventura if his old wrestling matches were rigged or planned or fixed, he changes the subject, attacks the questioner, and generally fudges the truth as baldly as any politician he condemns for the same kind of tap-dancing.

Now, granted: Lying about whether a wrestling match was rigged is nowhere near the same sin as lying about C.I.A. intelligence or the circumstances of war. And I suppose a case could be made that since Jesse's wrestling days are behind him, he's just trying to not piss on his old livelihood and perhaps disminish it for those still working in those salt mines. My point was just that his old job afforded plenty of practice at avoiding the truth and fighting dirty…two skills that come in handy when one runs for elected office.

I like Jesse in a way. I don't always agree with him and I don't feel qualified to say if he was as poor a governor as the polls in Minnesota would seem to indicate. But I like that he's not out there parroting Talking Points or hedging his views to protect his political options. I also think it's great to have a few loud Libertarians out there, especially of the kind that don't compromise their views of the Constitution for the sake of personal expediency or gain. He adds a lot more to the public debate than any dozen Democrats or Republicans…even when I think he's wrong. I just think that back in his wrasslin' days, he did an awful lot of fibbing.