It appears that bears are now the new big hipster thing. In fact, you can say that beards are the new goatee. My question is how does this happen? How does it suddenly be that bears are in? Is there some sort of "hipster zero" whose decision to stop shaving inspire hipsters throughout the country to follow suit? Does he make an announcement, send out an e-mail? And if so, how do I get it? Or does he just show up at some club, probably in New York, avec beard and instantly inspire every other mail to grow a beard?

I always wanted to track something like this, you know kind of like what the CDC does in tracking a disease. Just spot a trend and try and follow it and see how it becomes a trend. There's got to be an explination.

And speaking of which, it appears that the word "nice," said with mucho gusto, is now the happening word. It is, in fact, rivaling and just might be the new "hott." It goes like this:

"I'm going to Blowfish for some sushi."
"Nice."

or

"I'm sleeping with both my roomates."
"Nice."

Again, can some linguist track this down and find out how this came to be?