I hadn't seen this when I posted the previous item but something called nerve.com has posted what someone there thinks are the 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time. About ten of them would make my list. In fact, they don't even include the one I'd probably rank as Numero Uno, which would be the take-off on This is Your Life by Sid Caesar and his constituents on Your Show of Shows. They do have the Python "Dead Parrot" sketch as their number one but for some reason, they have an odd version of it posted.

Ignore the question of whether their picks really are the fifty best. Just think of it as fifty links to funny material. Then, after you watch their picks, go watch my choice as the funniest sketch ever done, at least on network teevee.

Next week, I may be going to New York. I say "may" because my tickets are on American Airlines and with them, who knows? Regular readers of this blog have shared big troubles with Southwest Airlines and bigger ones with United. Let us all hope you aren't subjected to a series of steam-releasing posts about American.

April 18-20, I will be a "featured guest" at the New York Comic Con, which is being held at the Javits Center. When I'm not doing panels there, I'll often be found hanging around Booth #1825, which is the exhibit space for Harry N. Abrams Books, publishers of Kirby: King of Comics. I think the premise here is that you buy copies and I write my name in them. (Hint: On Saturday from 1 PM until 2 PM, the legendary Joe Simon will be there to sign along with me. If I were you, I'd go then…and I'd elbow me aside to get Joe's signature.)

When I'm not doing that, I'll be — here's a novelty — doing panels…

On Friday from 2 PM to 3 PM, I'll be one of the panelists discussing the life and times of the great Mr. Will Eisner in room 1E10-1E11. This panel follows a special screening of an excellent documentary on the man, Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, which starts at Noon.

Then from 5 PM 'til 6 PM, also on Friday, I'll be hosting a panel called "The State of Animation," along with a fine animation producer named J.J. Sedelmeier, whose work I've always enjoyed. I'm not sure yet who else will be up there but whoever it is, they'll be discussing where the cartoon business is today, especially in light of new methods of animation and new avenues of distribution. This all takes place in room 1E16.

Saturday from 11 AM until Noon, I'll be back in that same room, 1E16, officiating at the Steve Gerber Memorial Panel. It'll be a bunch of Steve's friends (and I think some family members) sitting around, swapping Gerber stories. Joining me so far will be Mary Skrenes, Buzz Dixon, Len Wein, Frank Brunner and many others. An hour ain't nearly enough time so get there early.

Finally…on Sunday from Noon until 1 PM, I'll return to room 1E10-1E11 to preside over a Jack Kirby Tribute Panel with many of Jack's beloved colleagues. I don't want to mention the names because we haven't confirmed them yet but if you're at all interested in Kirby, you'll want to be there.

And those are my convention plans.

If you can't make it out to the con and you're desperate to get a copy of my Kirby book signed, I'll be doing that on Friday evening, April 18, at Jim Hanley's Universe, a fine comic shop located at 4 West 33rd Street in the shadow of the Empire State Building. I'll be scrawling my John Hancock in any books placed in front of me between 7 PM and 9 PM there.

Other than that, I'll be roaming the streets of Manhattan, annoying publishers and eating at fave restaurants, and I think I'm also going to go watch Nathan Lane play the President of the United States. Click that link to see some funny promos.

This is all assuming I get there. I may spend those days back here, staring at an empty cat trap.

I was going downstairs to check on the trap when I heard the snap. It had been sprung! My heart and I raced down and out to the back porch where, sure enough, I found a trap containing one very unhappy feline.

Unfortunately, it was the wrong unhappy feline.

And boy, was it upset to be in there…kicking, howling, slamming the sides of the trap. When I opened the door to let it out, it rocketed out there doing just under Mach 1 and I thought, "Well, we won't see that one in the yard again"…a prediction that held true for a good eight minutes before it was back and heading into the trap. This time, I chased it off before it got all its whiskers through the entrance.

The Kitten apparently witnessed the whole incident and I thought (again, wrongly) that it would make her less likely to go in there. Not so. A few minutes after I'd reset the thing, she walked in, got a few bites of the food in there…and strolled out, missing the triggering footplate. She's good at that.

We always make that mistake of thinking that an animal has a thought process identical to a human. They can be very smart but not in the same way we can be very smart. Well, some of us can be very smart. I, for example, am dumb enough to be up at this hour, writing a script and running downstairs every twenty minutes or so to see if I've caught anything.

Do you know I've written network television shows that didn't last as long as this whole, as-yet-unfulfilled incident of The Kitten? And some of them were almost as funny.

I'm giving up 'til the morning light and I just closed down the trap. I don't think I could sleep, worrying that some terrified, claustrophobic possum was in there being traumatized. It's bad enough The Kitten's going to have to be in there…and note that I still have an utterly groundless optimism that some day, she will be. So good night, Internet. And good night, Kitten. Wherever you are.

I'm very close to giving up on this. I've been trying since Saturday to get a probably-preggo pussycat into a humane (they assure me) trap so I can take her in for shots and fixing and whatever else a vet can do for this most feral of felines. She walks around the trap. She sits by the trap. She even feigns that she is about to go into the trap. This last is done just to get my hopes up so they can be dashed anew.

So I'm very close to giving up…and I would if I could think of any better scenario. The Kitten is homeless and fertile and will only create a whole litter of others in the same state.

Earlier today, I tried the hands-on approach again. I put on some gloves and had my assistant Tyler standing by with that plastic pet carrier I purchased. I figured it might be easier, if I just picked up The Kitten, to put her in that and then transfer her to the trap. (The vet for some reason requires that I bring her in in a trap, not in a carrier.) It took a half hour of petting and maneuvering to get her into a position where I could pick her up. She did not like it. She did not like it a lot.

She kicked and hollered and squirmed and there was no way to get her little body through the door of the carrier. I finally lost my grip and she sprinted for the adjoining zip code. I've decided this will never work, even if I throw (as some of you have suggested) a towel over her. I think it's the trap or nothing.

Obviously, I have lost track of how many parts this is running.

Still out there. Still mocking me. Last night, we danced around for a couple hours. I was working on a deadline and every time I finished two pages, I'd go down and there'd be The Kitten, hanging out on the back porch, crying and wondering where the usual food was and going everywhere on my property except into the trap.

(Memo to The Kitten: The usual food is there, you pussy. It's in the trap. You have to go in there to get it. Do you understand the concept? Get into the trap!)

More than a hundred of you have sent in suggestions and I'd send you all thank you notes but I'm too busy trying to get The Kitten into the trap. I'm doing everything I can imagine working, as well as a few things I can't imagine will work but they're the kind of things you do when you're desperate. No, I have not tried sedating her yet. Apart from the fact that I don't know what you use for that or where to get it, that just feels so wrong to me. I know the vets will dope her up but they know what they're doing and I'm determined to do this drug-free.

My big problem is that I can't just set the trap and leave it. There are too many other cats (and at night, possums and raccoons) who will get snared. I'm not sure the trap will even spring if The Kitten does wander in and I'm not there to spring it. Twice, she went in, dined and strolled out without triggering the door mechanism.

I'm going to keep at this on the assumption that eventually, she will be hungry enough to get reckless and go in. Or maybe she'll just get cocky and go into the trap just to taunt me, knowing full well she can get out.

By the way: You may recall that I "rented" this trap on Saturday for ten bucks a day, and the idea is that if you don't return it in a week, they charge the cost of buying the trap to your credit card. I think I'm buying this trap. I just wish it worked.

A tour of your new money.

Last night, I was up 'til all hours — 4:30 ayem — alternately working on a Garfield project and dealing with a cat who's almost as crafty. The Kitten, as I call her, was around the yard all evening and I actually lured her into the trap four separate times without managing to spring the door and seal her inside. I found, by the way, that chunks of tuna worked better than anything else as bait.

The trap, as I'm sure I've explained, is a long, narrow cage. You open a spring-loaded door on either end and set a rod to hold it open. Inside the cage, there's a little floor panel that's connected to that rod and when the animal steps upon said floor panel, the rod holding the door open disengages and the door comes slamming down, sealing the critter inside.

Well, that's how it's supposed to work…accent on the "supposed" part.

Twice, The Kitten managed to walk in, get the food and miss the floor panel. Her front paws were past it, her back ones were behind it and she never put her weight on it. Now I know how the Coyote feels when those shoddy, inferior Acme products fail to trap the Road Runner.

Third time she went in, I was standing as close by as I dared stand…just inside the patio door. I was poised to sneak out and spring the trap behind her once she was inside — and I came damned close. It's just that I have feet the size of Cadillac Escalades. She heard me and bolted a micro-second before the lid slammed shut. Missed it, as a certain Mr. Smart used to say, by that much.

Okay, I decided. Fourth time's the charm. I got a mop and I figured I'd use that to trip the door from a few feet away. I waited 'til my nemesis was wholly inside the trap and was nibbling Star-Kist…I slid the patio door open without a sound…I hefted my mop handle and started moving it towards the latch…

And then along came a possum.

This big, homely possum came waddling up to the porch in search of the food that's usually out there. The Kitten got distracted and I could see her getting ready to sprint from the trap. I lunged with my mop handle but it was too late. She was past the barrier when it came crashing down. Thanks, you big, homely possum, you.

By then, it was four in the morn. I was tired of it all and I figured it would be at least an hour before The Kitten forgot about the experience and could be enticed into the trap again…if she even came back at all after that scare. So I gave up. I unset the trap (if I left it open, I'd probably catch the wrong cat again or a raccoon or that big, homely possum) and I went to bed. This morning at 8:15 when I checked, The Kitten wasn't around…and soon the neighborhood was swarming with men using leaf blowers so I doubt I'll see her for a while.

I didn't mean this to take so much of your time, people. If I'd known it was going to take this long, I wouldn't have started doing it diary-style here. But thank you for all the e-mails of advice and I hope to end our long national nightmare soon.

She's still out there and she's still mocking me.