We’ve got to stop naming food after kids, you guys. It’s starting to get ridiculous.

First of all, what is Alexa, and how can it help streamline my daily routine?

Alexa is a virtual assistant program that operates from a tabletop smart speaker system and responds to your spoken commands. You can ask Alexa to help you organize your music playlists, pay bills online, or even order your favorite pizza, all at the sound of your voice.

Alexa also has the ability to access and control your in-sink garbage disposal, and will wait with cold, reptilian intent until such time as you have to reach in there for a dropped spoon, or similar items.

Full confession time: This comic makes me extremely uncomfortable.

I am a lifelong liberal of good standing, with impeccable credentials. On one issue, however, I am an unabashed Goldwater conservative. If there’s one thing that raises my ancient hackles, it’s whenever I see the names Cathy and Casey defiled with a K. Why do parents of the newborn err so egregiously? Why favor the fraudulent over the authentic, particularly in matters of enduring importance?

My wife an I eat a lot of pho. My wife is particularly obsessed with it, and we’ve got so many Vietnamese restaurants nearby that it’s really easy to grab some on the way home from work or school or the gas station or the grocery store or 7-11 or wherever else we might be. I don’t like to think about how much money we’ve spent on pho.