Ask Mr. Smartypants

Lane Filler, 37, is a national award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in hundreds of newspapers all over the world, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Charlotte Observer, San Jose Mercury-News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Kansas City Star and, well, a lot of other ones but he doesn't keep careful track. Maybe we should ask his mother.

He has worked as an embedded reporter in Iraq and Kuwait, covered three presidential elections, and can convert celsius to fahrenheit, and vice versa, in his head.

Currently, Filler is a columnist and editor at the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, a New York Times-owned newspaper in Upstate South Carolina.

The book

"Ask Mr. Smartypants" is the perfect book to buy when you want to make someone you know happy, or, someone you don't know, because if you buy it Lane Filler will be really happy. And we assume you don't know him.

If you know him and you have not bought a copy (or six) already, it's on. Seriously. He does not take that well at all.

I'm just saying, I would not want to be in your shoes if he drops by unexpectedly to borrow $500, or a pound of myrhh ,and sees your bookshelves bearing no copies of "Ask Mr. Smartypants."

Uncool, man. Unfreakin' cool.

Team Filler: Squad of Adventure

The columns of Lane Filler, taken together, describe a fully-formed world that local readers have come to love visiting each week. The primary inhabitants are his wife, Angela Filler, advertising director for Skirt! Magazine in Greenville, South Carolina and Quinn Filler, 7, future athlete, moviemaker, princess, actress, doctor, wife, mother of 17 and professional criticizer.

Then there's Rosie, the Boston Terrier puppy that ties it all together in a tight little package, or would if she had thumbs.