I finally talked the Powers That Be here at Dyscern World HQ into springing for a Wii console. I'd been doing some hand-eye coordination experiments with the rhesus monkeys, and wanted to see if they could actually play a round of virtual golf. Turns out that, not only can they, they're averaging 6-under-par for 9 holes. Those are PGA Tour numbers, and if I play my cards right, we're all going to retire fat and happy.

In NYC this week, for the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF ). All the best designers congregate here every year to show off their latest offerings -- chairs, tables, cabinets, this sort of thing. I kind of have a thing for contemporary design. You might think a furniture maker convention would be a boring crowd -- not so. These guys can party, and the Russian studios always have the best vodka. Also, the most fashionable couches on which to pass out.

I haven't jumped on the iPhone wagon yet, but many friends and colleagues have, and so I am relentlessly subjected to this unique brand of tech fetishism. These guys can have entire conversations about what kind of wallpaper they're considering. Even the lab monkeys here at Dyscern World HQ Labs have gotten into it. One of the rhesus females, we call her Wilma, just downloaded a set of Hannah Montana themes. This place is weird sometimes.

In my line of work, you have to trust your instincts. I've been out of the espionage game for a while now, but back during the Cold War, the only way to navigate a world of moles, agents and double agents was to go with your gut. To ignore your instincts was to risk a bullet to the abdomen. On the rain-soaked, midnight streets of Prague. As the voluptuous Russian assassin coldly lets down her hair and lights a cigarette…

It's becoming clear that, in the unknowable Darwinian system that determines the survival of social networking sites, Facebook is now the planet's dominant species. Friendster pioneered the genre, MySpace and LinkedIn are certainly competitive predators, but Facebook currently reigns supreme in terms of pure pop culture ubiquity. I could go on, but my metaphors are already dangerously mixed.