My license plates got stolen last month, so it seemed like a good time to take another giant step toward merging what's left of my identity with the Internet. I did learn something interesting by having my plates stolen, though, because along with the plates the thief, not being a gentleman thief, also swiped the little nuts that secure the plates to the car. So I got to spend ten minutes in Home Improvement with a Nut Expert who deduced that not only were my nuts metric (damn European carmakers and their unruly conformity to a decimalized system of measurement), but they had a special name. The nuts seen above are called acorn nuts. Put that in your squirrel-shaped pipe and smoke it.