Perhaps Mr. Cook is some new kind of conceptual satirist whose shtick is to behave in the manner of a person attempting to be funny without actually being, you know, funny.
Unfinished conversations, work projects, social commitments, family stressors, all manner of things will attempt to distract you.
He waggles his eyebrows in the manner of Groucho Marx and attempts a spin in his new black leather office chair.
A multifront war among styles begins: Broadway tunes, gospel in the manner of Schwartz's "Godspell," attempts at folk-rock, anthemic choruses with marching band, austere reminiscences of medieval and Renaissance church music.
Crucially, these artists display an eccentricity that seems inherent rather than worn, in the manner of Lady Gaga, whose attempts at the avant garde make me think of the Henry Brooks Adams line: "The American mind exasperated the European as a buzz-saw might exasperate a pine forest".
You will not know or understand of any manner of thing to be attempted, done, or spoken against Her Majesty's Person, Honour, Crown, or Dignity Royal, but you will lett and withstand the same to the uttermost of your Power, and either cause it to be revealed to Her Majesty Herself, or to such of Her Privy Council as shall advertise Her Majesty of the same.
The same might be said of the opening sequence of Mad Men, another lavishly produced television drama series that, in the manner of Balzac's Comédie humaine attempts to link together, through drama, the unravelling strands of American culture and society in the decades following the second world war.
A honeypot, of course, is a computer that's used to "detect, deflect, or in some manner counteract attempts at unauthorized use of information systems".
It was the latest adventure for the Seattle superhero, who has garnered look-how-odd coverage from local and national news media organizations since emerging to attempt some manner of vigilante crime-fighting last summer.
Sachin Tendulkar was particularly unhappy with the manner of his dismissal, his latest attempt to score a 100th international century failing when he was run out for 14 after veering around Brett Lee in his follow-through.
