Leftovers, Anyone?

Writers' strike? No, no. Hunger strike, maybe. Your Lightning Round staffers are way too stuffed to drag ourselves back to the keyboards and plow through the depths of wire copy. We swear it's not the tryptophan. But never fear -- in the holiday spirit, we submit our second annual edition of stories and sites we've been meaning to talk about but pushed aside for a later date... like now.

HIGH-CLASS CONDEMNATION. Many people curse their neighbors, but it's the rare person who can phrase disapproval in a manner you almost savor. BoreMe.com offers several examples of when insults had class:

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."
Abraham Lincoln

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
Groucho Marx

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
Oscar Wilde

We submit one more from that great figure Foghorn Leghorn: "That girl's about as sharp as a bowl of wet mush!"

YOU'RE NOT ALONE. Behold the misunderstood introvert, a personality type dear to your Lightning Round editor's heart -- having been one himself, more or less. Who are they? What's wrong with them? Why are they so lonely, or are they really?

Jonathan Rauch offers a guide to caring for this puzzling personality type:

Introverts are not necessarily shy. Shy people are anxious or frightened or self-excoriating in social settings; introverts generally are not. Introverts are also not misanthropic, though some of us do go along with Sartre as far as to say "Hell is other people at breakfast." Rather, introverts are people who find other people tiring.

Rauch busts several myths, even laying the foundation for an Introverts' Rights Movement:

We can only dream that someday, when our condition is more widely understood, when perhaps an Introverts' Rights movement has blossomed and borne fruit, it will not be impolite to say "I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush."

Yes, silence is golden.

PUT YOUR HAND DOWN. Be very careful in giving a thumbs-up when overseas. And be especially careful with that "V" for Victory sign too. What you don't know could get you punched out. It seems our innocent and happy expressions of digits have rude and obscene meanings abroad. Language Trainers blog breaks it all down in graphic detail. You -- and your hands -- have been warned.

TO TELL THE TRUTH. So you can't afford a lie detector? We can't either. But Ken Osborn of Entrepreneur.com has come up with some dead giveaways to fibbing, among them:

Nose touch: We have erectile tissues in our noses, which engorge with blood when we lie. This causes a tingling or itching sensation that requires a nose touch to satisfy. The absence of a nose touch doesn't guarantee truth, but the presence of a nose touch often means deception. Of course, sometimes a person will touch his or her nose because of a non-deceptive cause, such as a cold. With some practice, you can quickly learn to distinguish a deceptive nose touch from something innocent.

We call it "Pinocchio syndrome." Poor guy. He didn't just itch, he had to get out the belt sander.

REAL TIME? New York City and Matamoros, Mexico sit thousands of miles apart, but they share a strong bond: both are bastions of the ubiquitous fake Rolex watch. Mind you, many of the fakes we've seen are not half bad. But for the uneducated eye, quality is blind.

ProductDose.com has advice on keeping it real, including one obvious giveaway:

The second hand on a genuine Rolex watch features a smooth and continuous movement that often cannot be duplicated by fake watches. Their movements are often in small, jerky increments.

And if it's running backwards, that's not good either.

"JUBILATION! SHE LOVES ME AGAIN!" And finally, in our tribute to beautiful traditions and colorful dances -- your Lighning Round editor has enjoyed both -- we offer this fusion of past and present. You will never think of Simon and Garfunkel's "Cecila" the same way again after seeing it interpreted by a Latvian folk group. Enjoy, and see you next week.