It’s Friday, and until I can think of another stunt, Friday means ferrets. Here’s a bit of ferret hula … thanks to Rob Lanham:

Like I said last week, it’s important to be patient with strangers’ weird obsessions.

I draw the line at ferrets, though. From Virginia Beach (neighboring my hometown):

Authorities removed nearly 200 animals from a Virginia Beach home, including 89 frozen ferret carcasses. Police spokeswoman Margie Long said animal control agents found more than 100 live ferrets …

Animal hoarding of any kind is sad, creepy and cruel. But something about the ferrets add an exponent to the whole production.

In the words of Rudolph Giulani: “This excessive love that you have for ferrets is something that you should examine with a therapist.” This may be the ONLY point that Rudy and I agree upon … take a listen for yourselves. Please try to ignore the egregious spelling and Ron Paul propaganda surrounding this clip — just listen to the audio and try not to spit.

And before you Ron Paul nuts unload on me, try to bear this in mind: just because Ron Paul has a few good ideas and a LOT of support online doesn’t mean that he’s some sort of conquering hero. Internet hype couldn’t fix “Snakes on a Plane”, and it’s not going to turn Paul into a president. Hang it up, people. You guys are two clicks away from compulsive ferret-touching yourselves.

All kinds of dorky hobbies are out of the closet now that the geeks have inherited the earth. Sci-fi’s a big enterprise now (har har) … now that “Lost” and computer programming is big business, all the nerds like me are out of the closet and partying in the light, blinking while our eyes adjust to the brightness of the pop-culture spotlight.

Loving comic books was once an express ticket to a lonely lifetime in Mom’s basement. Now they’re big, big blockbusting big business. I dated an actual human woman once who took me to see “300″ and “Spiderman 3.” It was her idea. Here in New York, a grown man can wear a Batman t-shirt out in public without shame. It’s a beautiful thing.

Now that all us nerds are out basking in uncloseted comfort, we owe something to the rest of the world. We shouldn’t forget what it was like to be punished for something as simple as liking things the rest of the world didn’t get. We got to be respectful, got to be patient with strangers’ weird obsessions. Even when it’s really, really tough to get.

Seeing a guy on a unicycle just breaks my heart. I imagine him in a completely empty apartment, empty save for a pile of burger wrappers and dust bunnies … and a unicycle lying in the middle of the floor. He says aloud, “Well, that’s it. Everything’s gone, all of it. The worst is over, but one thing’s for sure: I’l never get laid again. Might as well learn to love this unicycle …” Heartbreaking. But it’s not my place to judge.

A Segway — that’s the unicycle 2.0. It’s even more pathetic than a unicycle because it doesn’t even require any physical skills to operate. Cops that ride Segways around might as well be on My LIttle Pony big wheels for all the respect they inspire. But I digress.

On one level it’s pretty easy to keep an open mind. Live and let live and just work for the weekend, and it’s all gonna be cool.

However, ferret lovers exist on an entirely different level altogether. Ferrets are kinda cute, I’ll give them that. But so are subway rats. Ferrets are long rats, plain and simple. And there’s something about die-hard ferret lovers that really, really creeps me out:

I keep watching this thing, over and over, and I’m trying to stop judging, trying to get beyond to a higher place. But man, NOTHING’S gonna make that okay.