How do you say Hello?

There's putting your worst foot forward, and then there's falling backwards off the roof of a moving train and into someone's livingroom.

Chances are, you didn't have time to comb your hair or think of a good entrance line on the way down, but with a little luck, the drama of your entrance can be parleyed into a favorable impression with your host or hosts.

Sadly, we are not always lucky enough to be catapulted into new social situations without the time to obsess over mannerisms, wardrobe and conversational strategy. Instead, we obsesss and fidget with our appearance, plan various conversational gambits, and think far too hard about which mostly-clean t-shirt to wear.

This has been the royal we all along, foolish audience. Now tell us, do you think it matters if we wear matching socks?

In any case, I generally find that the best way to talk to anyone is just to walk up and talk to them, without a clear plan in mind, relying on my natural charm (minimal) and improvisational talents (highly variable) to carry me through.

This is what I am doing at this very moment.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Eleven Names. I suspect this is the point in the week where all the writers start glancing sideways at one another and arguing about what the theme for the next week should be, but we've never done this before, so I don't know.

If next week's theme is something like the Eating Habits of Nikola Tesla, or Atomic Dinosaur Spacemonauts, you know who to blame.