My domain host has been upgrading its Spam Assassin, knocking off spam that would've reached my eyes in the past. Now the survivors have become few and far between. But they've been survivors for a reason.

Take the pre-Christmas e-mail from "Rover."

The subject line didn't beat around the bush: "Ever wonder what your dog is saying?" No, I said to myself, I don't have a dog; but had I a dog or were I a dog I would have been interested. "Rover" had e-mailed to inform me of the Bow-Lingual, a "smash hit from Japan" that now was an "Oprah recommended" product.

How did it work? Simply. You'd put the special collar on your pooch, then let the built-in microphone talk wirelessly to your handheld digital panel. The panel, my friends, would translate.

Now, I know what you're saying. You're saying if the good Lord had wanted dogs and humans to understand each other, then dogs would be speaking English or humans would be fluent in Bark. But slow down, Cynical Sam. Your ethnocentrism concerns me greatly. Su perro habla quizá español "“ you never know.

In other e-mail matters, Ron Popeil offered to sell me Ronco's Showtime Rotisserie. The spam was the most surprising I had received in a while.

Back in journalism school, one of the professors said the best two magazine profiles she ever read were of Frank Sinatra by Gay Talese (read "Frank Sinatra has a cold") and of Popeil by Malcolm Gladwell (read "The Pitchman"). I agreed on the Sinatra but not on the Popeil.

What would I have put in the Popeil's place on the best list? I didn't know. But simply putting the two next to each other eliminated the Popeil for me by comparison. While Gladwell's work was terrific, his mountain to climb was far shorter than Talese's. I had considered a couple degrees of difficulty. Access was high for Popeil; iconography was low. The reverse was true for Sinatra. Giving nods for both factors to Talese, the gap between the two became sizeable.

But this Ronco Rotisserie spam got me thinking: On the difficulty scale of literary capture, did the e-mail pitch move Popeil closer to Sinatra or further away? Gladwell had written his profile in 2000 "“ when in business some ignored the paper tiger and others mistook it. Gladwell put Popeil's life in the former category. With the Internet nowhere to be seen, QVC was the frontier worth conquering. Back when TV was king.

Three years and change later, how different would writing that profile be? The paper tiger's lost its stripes; the smarter old business has begun doing smart new business. Maybe most significantly, the art of the pitch has gone a long way toward becoming wallpaper. Pop-ups, digital imposition, enough telemarketing to require do-not-call, and of course spam. The sales media had decentralized and so had the sources. In the spam I had gotten, the source wasn't Popeil or Ronco but a third-party e-mailer with a little known name "“ Bingoboingo.com "“ and a better known reputation for spam.

With so much growth in context, I think the question arises: Should a new profile be written at all? Access to Popeil would likely be the same for the writer, but iconography would be more complicated. In the age of the throwaway sell, has a truly great salesman become more important or less?

Me: what about the rotation tho/

My friend Omar: wood, prior, clement, zambrano

Omar: maybe maddux

Me: if they got maddux, that'd be huge

Me: they need an old man to weight them down

Me: zambrano needs that

Omar: i think hell be a lot better this year

Omar: the postseason taught him a lesson

Me: what lesson was that?

Omar: that he needs to be a better pitcher

This post contains spoilers. I'm not kidding. If you haven't seen Return of the King and are still planning to, this post will give away the entire end of the movie. You don't want that, do you?

Don't blame me if you keep reading. I'm going to talk about every ending this movie's got. If you don't want to know what happens, please scroll down to the next bold-faced text and continue there. This is your last warning.

Anyway.

Watching Return of the King last weekend, I got to thinking.

I was in second-to-last row at the Uptown theater, as historical and still alive as movie theaters get in Washington these days. The screen's most likely bigger than your house, and the sound's received all the upgrades necessary over the years.

Remember the Lost World trailer? The one where the lightning flash burst out of nowhere in the dark and told you something had survived? When that trailer played at the Uptown, I jumped more than any trailer before or since has made me jump.

That's a quality movie theater right there.

It was surrounded by so much history that the neverending endings of Return of the King got me thinking. I knew all the endings were coming; mentioning their length was virtually a requirement for film reviewers this holiday season. But even still I was surprised. Fade out, pause, fade in, repeat. A movie series that was achingly sifted and synthesized suddenly couldn't make up its mind.

Each ending had its own hue and tone, like director Peter Jackson wanted to spin each a different way but in equal amounts "“ to move ahead balanced and yet slow down. This goal was admirable. With nearly 10 hours of motion passed, carefully weighing how to cease motion was important.

But in trying for so many angles, Jackson may have lost his unique focus. Spreading his storytelling vision so widely opened the door "“ unavoidably "“ to sharing with other tales. As true to Tolkien's vision as Jackson may have been, some of his endings came across in the movie theater as familiar.

With some analysis and without further adieu, I give you:

The List of Where You've Seen

All of Those Return of the King Endings Before

(in the Order in Which They Occurred)

1. Saruman is locked up. The Godfather III Ending. The ending that did and yet didn't happen, this movie series device openly and prematurely extinquishes a character from a previous film. The purposes may be myriad: to work around an actor's death or contract dispute, to retreat from a bad casting decision or to disentangle a convoluted plot. "Where's Saruman? Oh, we took care of him. Don't worry, he's locked inside here, no need to look. Tom Hagen? Of course, inside too, no worries."

2. Frodo destroys the ring. The Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade/On the Waterfront Ending. A two-parter! First, to achieve a greater good, our hero must rid himself of a once-desired object. The object has brought good and bad upon our hero, but now their time together must end. Almost. Our hero must also make the choice to live. Despite having endured a bloody fight and having accomplished the seemingly only objective heretofore, our hero's livelihood has become so tied to the world's fortune that he now must want to see the aftermath of his endeavors.

3. Frodo and Sam sit on the rock. The Hunt for Red October Ending. Two men, honorable but in jeopardy, discuss what they will do if they live beyond their situation. "I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck… maybe even a … recreational vehicle."

4. Eagles rescue Frodo and Sam. The Joe Versus the Volcano Ending. Soothe persisent burning sensations with extra-strength Machina. If you have done a noble deed and are about to be killed by a volcano, a god or a literary representation of a god will ensure you survive.

5. Frodo wakes up. The Wizard of Oz ending. After completing an unbelievable adventure, a gay icon awakes to a scene that begs for psychosexual interpretation.

6. Aragorn becomes king. The Star Wars IV Ending. With the enemy finally defeated, the ensemble cast we've come to know and love is assembled one last time. Displaced leaders return to their rightful seats of power. Humble and unlikely heroes are honored. Where's the wookie?

7. Aragorn kisses Arwen. The Most Movies Made Before Vietnam Ending. Tight embrace, deep kiss, the end.

8. Hobbits raise their glasses. The Abridged American Pie Ending. It's been a long and crazy ride, but now four friends are getting ready to move on. Less than a minute later, one begins pursuit of a much older woman. (The Abridged American Pie Ending is also known as The Rudy Ending, wherein a Sean Astin character leaves behind a hardscrabble life and tries to get into an educational institution.)

9. Sam get married. The Snow White Ending. An evil person in the past has caused food-related trouble for a main character, but now this character must leave behind little person friends and get hitched.

10. Frodo works on the book. The Stand by Me Ending. Following a coming-of-age journey with friends, the central character chronicles how they defeated the old guard and grew closer together. After all, you never have any friends later on like the ones you had when you looked like you were 12.

11. Frodo heads to the Grey Havens. The Cocoon Ending. In return for aiding a mystical people, our protagonists "“ physically and/or mentally aged "“ are allowed to join a water voyage and be assumed into a creative conception of heaven.

12. Sam goes inside the house. The Spiderman Ending. Despite earlier saving the world with the help of an abnormal spider, your friendly neighborhood comparatively unrecognized hero resumes a normal life.

And that's a cool dozen!

Peter Jackson, my hat's off to you. You follow those breadcrumbs back like nobody's business. Please don't mistake my tone. I would rather you had chosen one ending and stuck with it, but I respect you for going to the metaphorical Baskin Robbins and ordering all 32 flavors.

I wouldn't even have minded if you had gone further. You left out the whole "scouring of the Shire" ending of Tolkien's, where the hobbits return to the Shire and have to wage one final fight against an evil overlord. (Or so I hear. I haven't read the books.) This ending could have easily been The Back to the Future Ending. Because even after you save your world and go home, you've still got to deal with the Libyans and the morons in the pickup truck.

Another potential ending could be one you actually considered. According to IMDB, "the film was originally going to end with a voice-over epilogue by Cate Blanchett's character, Galadriel, detailing the fate of the fellowship of the ring after the events of the movie."

No sooner would she have spoken than you would have had The American Grafitti Ending. Used to prominent effect in several generational classics, this finale could have told us about how Frodo blew all his reward money hiring Van Halen to play at his birthday party.

That moment would have been boffo. Boffo Baggins. And to top it all off, to ice the cake, Peter Jackson, you could have done The Ferris Bueller Ending.

Credits roll. Credits end. Then Frodo returns to the screen.

"You're still here? It's over! Go home! Go!"

Tamar Lewin looks at the phenomenon of more young adults living at home after college. Everything the young adults say in the article rings true, but how can they validate moving back home for years? I have trouble validating it even temporarily. (Thanks to Linz for the link.)

I accidentally left off the most interesting Google find from my Step by Step searching. Anastasia Sagorsky, also known as Staci Keanan, showed surprising depth in college, going beyond the typical child actor curriculum (acting and liberal arts) to do an interesting gender studies analysis of nail art.

Religious, secular and unobserved to all of you and yours.

New spam: "Clinically Proven Growth Hormonone Releaser shown to Reverse many of the Symptoms of Aging." Never underestimate hormonones in a spider hole.

Little Saint Nick by the Beach Boys. A Christmas song and a car song all in one: "Just a little bobsled we call it old Saint Nick / But she'll walk a toboggan with a four speed stick…."

Linz can vouch that last week I correctly predicted the U.S. soldier would be Time's person of the year. Next year I'm putting money on it.

I was sorry to read last week of the Northwestern administrator's death from cancer. Kindle had a difficult job at NU, establishing and enforcing student life policy. Students could give him a hard time — seeking shelter some days and freedom others — and so could the campus media.

After quarter after quarter of dealing with Daily reporters, he knew how to "no comment" quickly and often and how to instill the same protectionism into his staff and probates. The result was frustration for anyone who had to cover his territory, as I did for a few months; but he was doing his job.

That took me a while to learn. When I finally did, I realized he traded respect for respect. If you gave him an inch in direction on one story, he'd give you an inch another way the next time. That inch wasn't backing off; other administrators tried that approach. But it was listening and giving a sense of perspective. Intro to Sourcing, sort of.

I saw him walking around campus with his kids once, and I remember being a little surprised. In four years at NU, that's the only time I can recall seeing an administrator walking with family around campus. He looked like a happy dad. According to an old profile of him, the boys ought to be about 14 and 10 now.