This Week’s Cartoon: “Mr. and Mrs. Perkins Go Gift Shopping 2011”

This year’s installment was partly influenced by a recent trip I made to an upscale kitchenware store. Even though I’m not a 1% chef, I do enjoy ogling things like 15-pound cast-iron skillets and knives bearing vaguely-Teutonic insignias.

For those unfamiliar with the Carrier IQ controversy, a guy discovered an unremovable program on his smartphone that was sending his text messages and other data to a third party, the mysterious Carrier IQ. Al Franken has launched an inquiry; Carrier IQ claims the information was sent due to a bug. Of course, I’m following this story closely since I just got an Android phone so I can finally read those $@#! QR codes.