Valentine's Week! Day One ... of one?

Let's discuss novelty desk calendars.  See, I think they have the perfect racket going, because most people don't retain all sorts of information for very long.  That means they could, presumably, reissue the exact same calendar every year with the dates and days corrected and just have the same Dilbert strips looping forever.  In f-

Wait a minute.

According to mine, it says today's Valentine's Day.

OH MAN, I TOTALLY FORGOT VALENTINE'S WEEK!

Man, now I have to cram five days worth of Valentine's related topics into one post!  Okay, okay, I can do this.  Here we go!

Erik Eats Cereal: Apple Jacks

Maybe I was just strange when I was growing up, but I liked to actually know what it was I was putting into my mouth when I was eating.  Frequently, when my parents would serve me a new dish, I'd ask, "what is it?"  Then, upon receiving a response like moussaka, tetrazini, or polenta, I'd then repeat my question, "okay, but what is it?"

I think that might be why I was always leery of Apple Jacks when I was young, because there seemed to be a genuine conflict between the packaging and the advertising.

For instance, let's turn to special guest Julia Stiles:

Okay, so Apple Jacks don't taste like apples, right?  That's fine, Froot Loops don't actually taste like "froot," so I can live with that.  So what do they taste like?

Hey, anybody else remember that time...

...that Julia Stiles educated us what it meant to be a teenage computer hacker?

...oh, the 90s.