When I read that Lang Lang would auction off his red Steinway grand piano to raise money for an earthquake relief fund, my first thought was this: How the heck did a panda learn to play piano? 

Yes, those big bold letters up there are as confusing to me as they are to you. But it’s real!

Dear Emily: I had a crush on this guy, “Ben,” and we went out on one date. He kissed me at the end of the date, and I thought it went well, but he never called me again. After a week went by I found out my friend “Tina” was seeing Ben and keeping it a secret from everyone.

The key to my happiness was missing.

Dear Emily: I am getting ready to be a freshman in college this fall and I’m completely nervous. I’ve never been good about making friends and I’m scared that I’ll be totally lost and on my own. How will I meet people? 

Your friends and neighbors in Thunderland have quite a show lined up for you, just like we did last summer.

While shopping for a home almost 15 years ago, long before houses were “staged” to sell, I negotiated my way through many a living room piled high with old magazines and wall-to-wall knickknacks. 

Back by popular demand — and, yes, I consider one demand to be wildly popular — it’s the Write Scott’s Column While He Is On Vacation or Performing His Court-Ordered Community Service Contest. 

Wedding season is here. What is your opinion on gift registries? I heard a comedian the other day talk about how they are ridiculous. People should not be able to pick out their own gifts and dictate to others which presents should be bought for them, as well as where they should be bought.

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, the latest happy couple to warm our hearts and not be obnoxious about their love, have welcomed a bundle of joy into the universe in the form of Sunday Rose, a six-pound, seven-ounce human being, all fingers and toes accounted for.

Kermit Love, a costume designer who helped create Sesame Street’s iconic Big Bird character, has died at the age of 91. We never met. (I’m speaking of Kermit. Big Bird and I both appeared in an off-Broadway production of “Road House: The Musical” back in the ‘80s. Ah, good times ... Wait, that wasn’t me.)

Dear Emily: I am 16 years old and have worn glasses practically all of my life. I hate wearing them, and some people at school do make fun of me for wearing them. I told this to my parents and begged them for contacts, but they keep saying I am not old enough for contacts. 

I’ll admit, Tim McGraw’s really inspired me. Like thousands of others through the power of YouTube, I watched McGraw pull a fan out of the crowd at a recent concert in Washington State, where he spotted the fan allegedly assaulting a woman, and cocked his fist before letting security handle the rest.

In 1971, British rockers T. Rex, lead by singer Marc Bolan, encouraged listeners in their second U.K. No. 1 song to “get it on, bang a gong, get it on.”

Saturday was a chance for us here at Thunder 104.5 to put our money where our mouths are. 

Chances are, I will be shot in the head with a nail gun

The Stafford County Sun’s advice columnist EMILY, is looking for advice to give. But, she needs some problems to address first. 

The following is a public service announcement. 

I try not to revel in the misfortune of others. It’s unseemly, for one thing; for another, karma has a funny way of biting you in the tail. 

A good friend of mine always said, “We’ve all got our runnin’s.” Everybody has something they don’t want to admit is a problem, and that’s how it becomes a problem. Some of them are more innocuous than others, of course, but other problems can be debilitating. 

I want my news back. 

The key to a long life? Eat plenty of fatback. That’s what Josie Myers Flowers — or Granny Jo — told me. I was fortunate to receive that life-altering bit of advice at her 100th birthday party at the Friedberg Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, or as my daughter referred to it before we arrived, the Free Bird Moravian Church, a possible indication that we need to spend more time in a house of worship and less tuning in to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gold and Platinum.”

Stephen Hawking has always been among my favorite astrophysicists.

When people don’t participate in cultural norms, we tend to get this you-must-be-from-Mars look in our eyes.

Next week I am going to get tuberculosis, be called to jury duty and be kidnapped in an elaborate plot to avoid going to work for, oh, the next three months.

So I go home after another night in the studio, just a few hours removed from being interviewed by this very paper – thanks for dropping by, Uriah! - and I turn on my television, crack open a beer and set about cooking something edible without setting the smoke detector off. (Guess which one of these I failed at.) During commercials, and before I turned my apartment into a Hamburger Helper flavored Cheech & Chong movie, I saw the question that will forever haunt my mind.

I wish I had a nickel for every question like this: Scott, as a non-certified financial planner, can you tell me whether I should use my upcoming tax rebate to pay down enormous, crippling credit card debt or should I put it toward a Panasonic 65-inch flat-panel HDTV so I can sit on the couch, turn off my brain and forget all about my enormous, crippling credit card debt? 

And the accompanying art of justifying the ticket price

Next week my old friends Michael, Jim, Dwight, Ryan, Toby, Pam, Angela, Meredith, Jan, Phyllis and all the rest will stop over for a reunion of sorts as it has been a solid six months since I’ve seen any of them.

Having a mid-life crisis? Feeling like you haven’t done much with the time you’ve been given on this Earth? Well, paying attention to Kenny Chesney won’t help. If anything, it’ll probably cause you to go even grayer from the injustice of it all.