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Yesterday, Manny drew a self-portrait on my bedroom door in permanent marker. I thought Mom and Dad were really going to let him have it, but as usual, I was wrong. But the thing that bugs me the most about Manny is the nickname he has for me. When he was a baby, he couldn't pronounce "brother," so he started calling me "Bubby." And he still calls me that now, even though I keep trying to get Mom and Dad to make him stop. Luckily none of my friends have found out yet, but believe me, I have had some really close calls.

Mom makes me help Manny get ready for school in the morning. After I make Manny his breakfast, he carries his cereal bowl into the family room and sits on his plastic potty.

And when it's time for him to go to day care, he gets up and dumps whatever he didn't eat right in the toilet. Mom is always getting on me about not finishing my breakfast. But if she had to scrape corn flakes out of the bottom of a plastic potty every morning, she wouldn't have much of an appetite either. Tuesday I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I am super good at video games. I'll bet I could beat anyone in my grade head-to-head.

Unfortunately, Dad does not exactly appreciate my skills. He's always getting on me about going out and doing something "active." So tonight after dinner when Dad started hassling me about going outside, I tried to explain how with video games, you can play sports like football and soccer, and you don't even get all hot and sweaty. But as usual, Dad didn't see my logic. Dad is a pretty smart guy in general but when it comes to common sense, sometimes I wonder about him.

I'm sure Dad would dismantle my game system if he could figure out how to do it. But luckily, the people who make these things make them parent-proof. Every time Dad kicks me out of the house to do something sporty, I just go up to Rowley's and play my video games there. Unfortunately, the only games I can play at Rowley's are car-racing games and stuff like that. Because whenever I bring a game up to Rowley's house, his dad looks it up on some parents' Web site. And if my game has any kind of fighting or violence in it, he won't let us play.

I'm getting a little sick of playing Formula One Racing with Rowley, because he's not a serious gamer like me. All that you have to do to beat Rowley is name your car something ridiculous at the beginning of the game. And then when you pass Rowley's car, he just falls to pieces. Anyway, after I got done mopping the floor with Rowley today, I headed home. I ran through the