::BECAUSE AUSTIN DOUBLE-TOOK WHEN I USED THE PHRASE "BOY HOWDY" THIS MORNING::

The 2005 Lyttle Lytton Contest winners are up. You know, the contest for "the most atrocious first line to a novel," only for sentences 25 words (or less) long.

Second place: "Man oh man, you're gonna like this book; boy howdy," from D. Stevens.

First place cracks me up, from E. Davis:

"John, surfing, said to his mother, surfing beside him, 'How do you like surfing?' "

Excellent.