Okay. Here's a news story for you to read. Make sure you read the Dan Rather comment at the left side of the page.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. The brainlessness of Rather's comment surprises me, though it shouldn't. The arrogance that the military would release this kind of info is a little disturbing on a couple of levels. It just says "here's what we're doing and there's not a thing they can do about it." Maybe it's the scare tactic feel of the whole mess that bothers me. If we were serious about what we intended to do, we wouldn't tell them.

Also, it tells me that if I'm named Saddam Hussein and I'm wanting to fight any kind of war in response, I'm not going to be anywhere within 180 miles of Baghdad. I'll be sitting in my bunker out in the desert with 200 of my elite guard and my finger on a whole bunch of SCUD missiles pointed right at Tel Aviv.

My impressions of the WB's The Surreal Life:

I really think Corey Feldman and Gabrielle Carteris are made for each other. They just don't know it.

Also, Corey Feldman must die. I've dispatched my assassins.

Webster's own Emmanuel "Manny" Lewis is probably the coolest of the bunch to hang out with.

Hammer's pretty cool, too.

And there's entirely too much crying. First Corey cries because of all the drama with Vince Neil and Gabrielle Carteris. Then Gabrielle cries because she didn't have fun at the strip club with the Playboy Playmate and the Mean Chick from the Outback Survivor. Then, Vince Neil has a religious experience, and everybody except Emmanuel "Manny" Lewis is bawling. Hammer doesn't bawl: he's just teary-eyed. But Emmanuel "Manny" Lewis is steady. He's a cinderblock of cool.

It's been pointed out to me that "Same Bush-Time, Same Bush-Channel" may be somewhat suggestive.

Hey! I didn't name him.

It's a good thing I'm not a big drinker. I get to feeling nostalgic every now and then, and tonight it got me feeling kind of low. Just thinking about a couple of people I've not talked to in a while. One, I really screwed up with. Come to think of it, I really screwed up with both, but in two different ways. I screwed up with one for saying something really stupid. And I screwed up with the other for something I didn't find the guts to say.

I don't make too much of a habit out of this. Cold medicine keeps me awake.

I think maybe its time I learned from my mistakes.

Re: President Bush's State of the Union Address

1. President Bush, the Leader of the Free World, the man with his finger on the button, said Nuke-You-Lar instead of Nuke-Lee-Ar about 26 times last night during his address. Not that I'm going to harp on pronunciation, but if I noticed it. If I were Saddam, it would make me nervous. The man can't even say the name of the weapon correctly...don't think he respects it enough not to use it--he doesn't respect it enough to pronounce it correctly.

2. Why haven't we been shown the evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction? I'm all about believing Hussein has weapons hidden over there. Why haven't we been shown? Why the build up? "Wait till next week, when we show the U.N.! Same Bush-Time, Same Bush-Channel!" It doesn't ring right in my head, for some reason.

3. I don't like Hillary Clinton, okay? But harping on her because she's talking to Lieberman during the speech is just petty. Cheney was talking to the House Speaker, too.

Moving onward and upward....

I'm still really frigging sick of head colds, chest colds, sinus drainage and sore throats. When I become king, I'll outlaw them.

Looking back at what I wrote yesterday, you'd get the impression that I didn't like much of what I read at all. It's not the case. I liked Wicked, on the whole, and Stormy Weather was fun, for what it was. I got all the way through each of them. If I don't like a book, I won't read it. That should be recommendation enough.

My Aunt Annette likes the slice of life vignettes I give here. I wonder what a slice of my life would taste like.

There is justice in the world. Here's a perfect example. Just your typical Dog bites man story.

I'm really sick of being sick.

A few capsule reviews of what I've been reading lately.

And one of them didn't have any pictures!

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

I picked this book up because I liked the cover. I'd seen it on my friend Julie's shelf and I took that as recommendation enough. But I also bought it because the blurb on the back cover sucked me right in.

Billed as the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Wicked gives history, motivation, and above all a name to the Wicked Witch of the West, the famed villain of both book and film The Wizard of Oz. Maguire divides his book into five sections, each a definitive moment in the life of the witch, whom Maguire names Elphaba. It is largely episodic, but not condescending. It leaves a lot to the reader to pick up details of Ephaba's life.

I give the book a thumbs up, though the quality of writing in the third section is different. Not better or worse, necessarily. Just more wordy and inconsistent with the rest of the novel--almost as if this section was written well before or well after the other portions of the book. It was a little distracting to me.

On the whole, however, I think rather highly of Wicked, if only because of the juxtaposition it forces the reader to make concerning our existing opinion of the nasty, nasty witch from the movie to the character we come to care about in the novel.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I've had this one on my shelf for a long time intending to read it but never going so far as to pick it up. With all the pro-wrestling, comic books and fast food in my life lately, I had to find something a little more challenging.

I'm sure it's been mentioned, though I've never taken notice, but BNW is a hell of a science fiction story. If you haven't read: it's a world that measures its time from Henry Ford, whose revolutions in industry they regard with the esteem generally reserved for the creation myth. People are a product of industry, living for industry to work the industry. Even in death, their remains are broken down into the simplest forms for re-use.

It's a cold, cold world. And, honestly, I came to really dislike most of the characters. Normally, it's a bad thing, but you keep reading because you want one of them to prove that the paradigm that exists in their world is wrong.

What surprises me a little (although it probably shouldn't) is how coldly Huxley treats his characters. The glimpse into the world of Brave New World is almost like looking through a looking glass. We focus on one, sometimes two, characters at a time at length. But never for very long, as characters drift from view, melting into the periphery and then floating back into view. And characters that initially are likable shift quite quickly to the other side.

Like the people in the book. They're important for a little while. They do their job, I guess.

Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen doesn't write books. He writes zany road-trips through Florida. And, to be honest, I got my fix, now. I've read enough Carl Hiaasen for a little while. I got SW for Christmas, and pulled it off the shelf to read at bed time.

And one night as I went to bed, I read for about a hundred pages. It's actually not the book I should have chosen. See, I'm a sucker for zany characters and the situations they hurl themselves or get hurled into. As I read, though, I kept having the faintest feeling that I've read all this before. And the next morning, I realized that my problem is that two characters in Stormy Weather appeared together in another of Hiaasen's books that I've read (and they may appear in others--I seem to be reading Carl in the reverse order that he's published his books). But also troubling me was that all the other characters appeared, in form if not name, in each of his other books.

So you're not reading for the characters. It's the situations.

You'd think.

In the end, I was too distracted by the overall zaniness of the whole thing to really be amused by it.

Call it a result of reading four of Carl's books in a year's time. I'll take a break before reading another.

I give Stormy Weather a Z for Zany!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Batman: Captured by the Engines by Joe Lansdale.

Okay. This one's a guilty pleasure. Batman's my favorite comic character (behind Angar the Screamer and Roadblock from the G.I.Joe comics, and also Foofur).

Joe Lansdale is one of my favorite writers. He writes guy stories. Lots of fights. Lots of cussing. Mostly taking place around his hometown of Nagodoches, Texas. His website is here He has free stories. I recommend him on that account, too.

I wanted this book. My buddy Keith gave it to me for Christmas. For which I am grateful and indebted.

I'll also say this: this Batman novel, printed when the hype surrounding the 1989 Tim Burton Batman film was waning, is a guilty pleasure.

Kind of like when you're impressed by a big ball of phlegm you've just produced.

Only this wasn't as pleasurable as that, surprisingly enough.

It had everything I wanted, ultimately, but apparently it wasn't enough.

The trouble is Lansdale has his own stories, and Batman has his. And under the best circumstances, they should meld fairly well. But here, they don't. And what happens is Lansdale uses a bit of license in order to make the characters fit into his stories a little better. I almost want to call it another case of Carl Hiaasen Zaniness, where none of the characters conform to regular conventions.

Its failings as a Batman story: Batman's a little melodramatic in his journals, for my tastes. The whole thing where Batman and Jim Gordon are buddy/buddy--I always felt they were respected business associates. Lansdale's portrayal of Alfred really bugged me.

Its failings as a Lansdale story: Joe seems to have a problem writing characters who actually have their shit together. Everybody's got to have some kind of identifiable flaw in their makeup, be it physical or mental. I don't need to get inside the head of Batman that much, and I think that's the biggest failing.

I've been blasting it. The good stuff? Lots of good fight material. I can't write fights, so I'm always impressed by somebody who can. There's some actual funny stuff. In the end, the story stays true to itself: nothing happens that shouldn't.

Yeah.

I like having the book because it combines two of my favorite things.

You'd think pizza and snickers bars would go pretty good together, too. But in the end....

Chest crud. Lots of phlegm. I need a quality cough expectorant.

Bill's feeling a bit arrogant over here.

The fact of the matter is public opinion on the matter creeping downward. We may fight in Iraq, but the public won't tolerate much beyond that, especially if the economy continues to slump. A draft? It's political suicide. Fifteen months ago, you might have been able to get something like that through, some manner of compulsory military service. I don't think so, now.

My favorite part of the Super Bowl? Well, I liked the Reebok commercial where Terry Tate is running around tackling people in the office environment. The "advertising critic" on Good Morning America hated it, saying nobody in America will buy a pair of Reeboks because of that commercial. Maybe, but I'm of a mind to buy a pair of Reeboks to spite the "advertising critic."

But even better? The Saturday Night Live Weekend Update show. Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon are funny. The drunk girl bits are stupid, but so is Adam Sandler, and look where he is now.

At one point, a photo of an elephant with a leg raised over a horse, both are in circus regalia. Tina's caption is: "Horse don't belong in circus! Elephant belongs in circus!"

Maybe you had to be there. Great, funny stuff.

Lots of movie ads.

I liked the Hulk ad. The Hulk itself looked good.

Saw the Daredevil ad. I'll see it, but I'm not enthusiastic.

Bad Boys II!?!???!?!??!!!! What the hell is that? After Kangaroo Jack, Jerry Bruckheimer should be lynched.

Yeah.

You know what's a bitch?

I'm feeling sick again. I used to never get sick, but I've fought off different colds, stomach viruses and the various galloping crud that just goes around.

And everybody in the house is smoking, and it's irritating the hell out of me. I can't tell if that's what's bothering me most, the smoke, or not.

Boy those Bucs are proving me wrong, aren't they?

"I think barbecue is the great American language, with at least 250 dialects."
--New York Restauranteur and Barbecue Fanatic Danny Meyer.

Wouldn't that make international diplomacy and communication a more entertaining venue? If the Lithuanian ambassador was actually a 350 pound tailgater from a Philadelphia Eagles game? And the only way to talk to America was to come up with new and interesting barbecue recipes and methods?

Bad Barbecue would be considered an insult. The start of wars.

But it'll make communicating with the aliens from outer space a real pain in the butt.

Is it too late for me to join the Professional Bull Riders' Association? Seriously. Not to belittle what it is they do: it's very dangerous. But how much training would it require? You sit on the back of a pissed-off bull, you hold on with one hand and not let the other touch the bull, all while wearing a cowboy hat.

I'm just saying that it's one of those things that you probably wouldn't be able to train for. Not much, anyway. Either you're pretty good at riding a bucking bull, or you're not. I'd think not long after you tried the first time you'd know whether you were cut out for the professional circuit or not.

Granted, I'd have to do some conditioning. I'd have to have a good pain tolerance, but I think my current job has trained me pretty well in that. I'd have to be able to run...at least faster than a pissed-off bull for a few feet. And I'd have to work on my climbing skills. I'd need to be fast enough to scale one of those gates in order to flee the bull.

But I'm telling you, it's not the riders that's crazy. It's those clowns that corral the bull. Maybe that's a job they could give for community service. Say you're sentenced to 60 hours of community service....but Rodeo Clown gets a Community Service rating of 7. So for every real hour of community service you do, it'd be worth 7 on your record. If you survive 4 hours as a rodeo clown, that's 28 off your record.

But they never ask me about these kind of things.

What kind of American Man would get married any time toward the last part of January? You'd have to know that at some point in the future your wedding anniversery would have to fall on Super Sunday. It seems like that's the sort of thing that gets pointed out to a feller well in advance. Or at least at the Bachelor Party. And then it's on his mind forever. Just wait until Valentine's Day and you'll have it covered. It's sappy and easy to remember.

The funniest thing I've seen today? The pug I mentioned yesterday named Maximus. He goes absolutely bananas when it comes to Alpo. You've never seen a little dog frantically going through a whole mess of tricks trying to get somebody to set down a plate of soft dog food. In the space of about 3 seconds, he did sit, shake, speak and roll over--and roll over involves turning two corkscrews, too.

Also, his fun new game is to lose his tennis ball under the wicker furniture in the sun room. He tries to retrieve it through the holes in the design, but is unable to withdraw because his head is too big with his mouth open holding the tennis ball.

He's a neat little dog. A snorting machine. And if you're lying down on the couch, then you're fair game to become Max's new bed.

The Super Bowl is tomorrow. Here's a prediction: Raiders 31, Tampa Bay 19.

But I've bet against Tampa Bay in each of the last two weeks and have been quite wrong both times.

Just call me Big Stupid Trifecta Tommy.

I've been at my parents' house for a little over an hour now. They've got a pug. His name is Maximus. He's a sausage with legs. He snorts. I don't understand how he can see in front of him, as his eyes point in different directions. Instead of pointing in parallel lines, they point out at about a 15 to 20 degree angle. It seems that for a couple of inches between his eyes, he should have a blind spot. It's something, perhaps, I should test in my spare time.

For the past hour, he and our little black lab mix Sally have done nothing but wrestle. In the living room. In the sun room. Under my chair as I write on the internet.

Also, he snorts. A lot. I know that's the pot calling the kettle black, but a spade is a spade. And a snort is a snort.

And he's ugly. He took a walk in the Ugly Forest where an Ugly Tree fell on him.

We would shave his ass and make him walk backwards, but we can't tell the difference between his ass and his face.

There's an article in the Daily Post Athenian. No arrests were made locally over the last 24 hours. Due mostly to the cold.

Batman says criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot. Apparently they don't like the cold, either. Batman should use some of that Mr. Freeze technology. Make it 2 degrees, all the time. He'd have it made.

Jon Lieber signed with the Yankees. Granted, he won't be available to pitch, more than likely, until the middle of next year. Still, doesn't that give the Yankees seven legitimate starters?

"He's my favorite Rollins in the public sector."
----Bill Bacon, on Henry Rollins

"Keep that one."
----Bill Bacon, on his quote about Henry Rollins

It's snowing again in Middle Tennessee. Not bad. There's about 2 inches on the ground, but it's also on the roads. And nobody can drive around these parts. Probably me, included.

But we made it home alive and unhurt.

Tonight, at NWA-TNA, the son of one of my favorite wrestlers called me a name.

David Flair, the son of "the Nature Boy" Ric Flair, called me a Fat Little Bitch.

I'd said that when Mike Sanders referred to the "talent" in the stable he's a part of, that it didn't mean David Flair had talent.

David took offense. In character, most likely. But he constantly looks lost in the ring and out, so I'm only 98 percent sure.

What I said was true.

What he said was partly true.

The site, after all, is called Big Stupid Tommy.

My alarm clock....has died.

My friend these last 15 years, faithful and dependable, asking only a plug from which to suckle his life's milk of electricity, is no more.

Let me say a few words: Pal...you've been with me through thick and thin. At the house in the subdivision, and then the house in the woods. In the dorm at Gracy Hall. In the apartment. There've been good times. Remember 1989, when the Cubs made the playoffs? There've been bad times...remember our fight when I thought you ate my egg sandwich? We didn't talk for days, but we worked through it. Like friends do.

I hope up in alarm clock heaven he will forgive me.

Forgive me? Whatever could Big Stupid Tommy have done?

I hope he forgives me for dropping him last night when I was setting his alarm to wake me this morning. He fell from my hands, hit the corner of the night stand. He looked okay, except for the dent on his clock radio's speaker. When I asked, "Plastic Man (for that was his name), are you alright?" he answered with his customary, stoic silence. I smiled, but when I awoke in the middle of the last night, my bladder full to the brim, it was, according to my friend, 14:81. Since we have no hours here on Earth in excess of 81 minutes, and I didn't live on military time (that I'm aware of), I knew that his brain had been hopelessly scrambled.

I woke up with the sun this morning. I stared at my clock. I looked at my watch, knew that Plastic Man was to raise the alarum using the Bob and Tom Radio Network at 6:35. Alas, 18:88 passed without incident, as did the next 18:88. 18:89 came, and there was the briefest burst of static, but just that. And nothing more.

I said a few words this morning, wondering all the while if alarm clocks have souls. The lens fell out of the right socket of my eyeglasses. I take that as a sign from the Lord: Yes, alarm clocks have souls, now go to work!

Or maybe it was the Ghost of my Alarm Clock! Maybe it was Plastic Man who unscrewed the right lens!

If it was, don't do it again. Do you understand the ironic, vicious circle that is not being able to see to fix the thing that helps you see?

That makes me happy, that his spirit is with me. That means that my grandmother, our Pomeranian Mitsy and my Alarm Clock Plastic Man are with me at all times. It is also a little troubling, because Mitsy never liked me and was always trying to bite my little fingers and face.

Visitation will be held at my apartment next to the trash can in my bedroom, for as long as that particular bag stays in that particular trashcan. A Memorial service will be held at the opening of baseball season. In lieu of flowers, send money to Big Stupid Tommy, so that he might memorialize Plastic Man at Wrigley Field.

It's what Plastic Man would have wanted.

Thanks, Buddy. And God Bless.

Plastic Man, the Alarm Clock
(1986-2003)

Titans lost. Thus continues the streak where none of my favorite teams in professional sports has won a World Title. The Raiders are just good.

For roughly 3 minutes today, I changed the template to something terribly girly.

Then I changed it to something else. It wasn't any less girly. But girly, in a different, better way.

In the end, I think I've settled on this. So don't ask me again.

Amen

If I were an animal, I think I'd be a Koala. A big, pissed-off Koala.

When I woke up this morning it was 3 degrees. Even I can count that high. It's a little too cold for my blood. It's 0 degrees up in Clarksville. If I was the girl Mickey Dolenz was calling up there, on that Last Train, I'd think there'd be a fight. "Why'd you bring me up here without telling me it's so freaking cold?"

Poor Mickey Dolenz.

I don't have anything to say tonight. The cold has frozen my brain. My lips are chapped. My nose hurts. I know that somebody living in a harsher climate might happen across my blog and be astounded at the depths of my wussiness. After all, it was 28 degrees. I used to like the cold. I used to be much stupider than I am. But I was smaller. Somewhat. If I'd been blogging in, say, 1994, we could have called the site Not as Big but Much Stupider Tommy. But I wouldn't have known then that I would get bigger, or that I would get less stupid so as to have a comparative title (Much Stupider)....so the site in 1994 would probably have been Big (but presumably growing) Very, Very Stupid Aloysius.

That used to be my name. Really.

"The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't."---Mark Twain

I like that.

I'm reading Gregory Maguire's Wicked right now. I'll not post my opinion until I finish, except to say that I'm enjoying it so far.

It's snowing in Middle Tennessee. Although, I guess I should say that it snowed. I went out to check the mail a few minutes ago and it had pretty well quit. Some folks made a mighty fine man of snow between the office and the K building. I thought it flipped me off, but I'm pretty sure it was my imagination.

Network television has pre-empted all programming this afternoon, talking about the number of wrecks and stuff going on around the roads in Middle Tennessee. You'd think none of these people had never seen snow in their lives.

I don't know if it's a trait stationed around Middle Tennessee, though I suspect it's not....Why are those who don't feel the need to slow down in bad weather? When it rains, it's bad enough, but if the stuff on the ground is frozen, then you need to slooooooow down. Some people are really frigging stupid.

Of course, I've not done anything this afternoon. I read a little bit, and I've probably checked my e-mail something 12 times since 10 this morning. I watched a little bit of Ocean's Eleven, but got about an hour in before it started losing my attention.

What are you doing today?

Last Thanksgiving, when I was over in East Tennessee with my folks, my Dad and I took the opportunity to head out onto the town.

So naturally, we went to Burger King. It was good.

He'd been suffering from a cold for the previous week, and he mentioned, in passing, as we were leaving Burger King that he was able to breathe through his nose for the first time in several days. He added that he'd actually pulled a booger from his nose. He was quite proud, and I was proud of him. I think we had a bonding moment.

See, with this cold, I can't breathe through my nose, either. Strangely enough, there's nothing up there to pull out that might be clogging the works. It's dry as a bone.

To those of you who know me, that I pick my nose with furious abandon should come as no surprise. Typically, I wait until those private moments where I have a napkin or toilet paper handy. It's like being a treasure hunter and a scientist all at once. (You examine what you find, don't you?) Even the most sophisticated among us look at the tissue after they blow their nose. Don't you look down on me.

Today, January 16, 2003....we hit a new low in blogging!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And in a conversation with my buddy Matt, I brought up pro wrestling something like 4 times. Not intentionally--I consider myself somewhat well-rounded, and we were discussing a number of diverse and unrelated topics. Perhaps I'm wrong about my well-roundedness, because everything, somehow or another, brought us back to the topic of professional wrestling.

We end Day 2 of the Cold of 2003. I give it a C+. It's clogged my head up pretty good, and coughing up a good amount phlegm, but all it takes to knock it out so's I can work is some Dayquil and a packet of Goody's Headache powder. I mean, really, what kind of a germ worth it's salt will allow a man to work 8 hours and go to an NWA-TNA show, too? Honestly, I feel a little run down, but that's nothing a little sleep wouldn't help.

This cold bug ain't nothin'!

I'm a wussy. A little panty-waist cough will have me whining for days on end. But I'm struggling through this one. That doesn't say much for this cold bug.

A note on people taking kids to wrestling when they're sick: If your kid is too sick and too tired to hold his head up to watch "the American Dream" Dusty Rhodes lay a clubberin' on some chumps, then the kid is probably too sick to come to wrestling. Just a suggestion from your Uncle Big Stupid Tommy.

I almost crushed that kid's head like a melon. We'd stand up to yell at somebody, and he'd try to lay down across three seats. And I wasn't paying attention to what was under me, and I would have squashed the kid's head had something not excited me back to my feet.

Phlump. That's the dull sound that the head would have made--like a rotten pumpkin hitting an old wooden barn. Mushy, like biting into a soft apple, yet sadly satisfying, like a burp after a large meal of turkey and RC Cola. And then people would have called me names and talked about what a terrible tragedy it was.

The real tragedy? Johnny Cash probably is too old now to sing a song about it.

Last night's WWF Raw Tenth anniversery show was a real disappointment. It had been hyped up as a big event, with past superstars and present. Unfortunately, the past superstars were Classy Freddie Blassie and Mean Gene Okerlund.

Bobby "the Brain" Heenan had been advertised along with Mean Gene, but when it came time, it was Pat Patterson on stage with Gene.

Of the guys nominated for the Man of the Decade, only Shawn Michaels was there. No Undertaker (who's with the company but out on injury), no Mick Foley (who won something else earlier, and who lives 30 minutes from New York City), no Bret Hart (ultimately not surprising, but think of how great it would have been for Hart and McMahon to bury the hatchet)...no Rock (except via satellite)...and no Stone Cold Steve Austin...arguably the man who turned the WWF away from bankruptcy and eventually lead them to beat WCW.

I know it's wrestling, but just once, I was expecting something really cool, and they failed to deliver.

It was more like a scaled down Slammy show. Lose the award show angle and just play it like a retrospective.

The opening montage was good and the piece saying to goodbye to all those guys who've died was pretty good....though Andre wasn't technically a Raw wrestler. He died not too long after Raw came on the air in 1993, and (I think) never appeared on the show. I could be wrong about that. Still, it was good to include him.

A thought from another blog: "Just because you've confused me doesn't make you right."

It's not specific to anything that's happened in my life lately. But it applies.

This cold I have sucks. It especially sucks when it's 30 degrees outside, and your nose decides to finally free up the flow and start running, but your face is too numb to actually feel it. And then, you reach up with the back of your glove to rub your nose (just to make sure it's still there), and you come back with a paw full of mucus. My head hurts.

BEGINNING OF THE WORK RANT

I won't talk much about work. But there are a couple of people there who shouldn't be allowed to blow their noses without supervision. Mostly, they're trying to cover their asses while not trusting me to do my job.

I'm not like other people. I try hard not to screw people over. I'm better than that. I'm better than them in that way.

If I've said I'll do something, I'll do it. Lately, I've not been trusted to do even that much.

Anybody got a better job out there?

END OF WORK RANT

The Raw Tenth Anniversery Show comes on...actually in about 1 minute. I'll watch that.

I woke up this morning with a cold, I think. I think my roommate gave it to me. Vengeance will be swift.

There was a message on our answering machine yesterday afternoon that sounded suspiciously like an Etowah-working friend of mine, but the muppets' singing in the background leads me to believe the call might also have been from Hollywood. And since I missed it, my chance at international fortune and fame will probably not swing by again.

It's just been kind of a bummer of a week so far.

Two months! I've been blogging for Two Months!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Throw a Party.

I've learned a lot about the world, and even more about myself. It's been a life changing experience. And while I can't necessarily say I'm a better person for it, I truly think the world has become .00000004% of a better place. Give or take .00000004%.

I left one item out of my list last night.

How's this for sports? Wednesday, on Fox, we have the epic confrontation: Man vs. Beast.

I saw the spot out of the corner of my eye after the Simpsons last night. Simply, it was a sprinter coming out of one gate, and a giraffe coming out of the other. Presumably, they were racing. It was probably the most absurd thing I'd seen on TV for a while. I laughed until a wet myself. (I only wet myself a little bit)

There was a 30-second spot where an elephant is trying to pull an airplane, and so are 50 midgets in harnesses.

I wish I'd thought of that.

I've got more than one short story revolving around little people...one of which was rejected for being personally offensive to the reader who read it at whichever magazine I'd sent it to. I assume she was a little person herself.

I'll have to tape it. Wrestling's Wednesday night, but I'm going to have to tape it.

I talk about sports too much, huh?

The funniest moments from tonight's Fox lineup:

1. The fact that Homer thinks Lisa's favorite book is magazines.

2. Chuck Mangione's toilet paper fort in Mega-Lo-Mart.

3. When Dale says that the first person to touch the coke machines will be electrocuted...and after we pull Bill's charred body away....

4. Reece getting disqualified for pooping his pants during the farting contest.

5. Andy's friend Keith having tiny, tiny feet.

6. Andy imagining his friend Keith's being unable to grasp the concept of perspective.

7. Andy imagining his friend Keith lactating at the sound of a baby's cry.

8. When the old couple are cleaning the apartment, and the husband calls the wife a "lazy, stupid diabetic."

And tonight's undisputed champion (and probably my current favorite TV show): Andy Richter Controls the Universe.

I watch it. So should you.

"You clean like you process sugar!"

Apparently, I talk about sports too much.

But what if I don't talk about sports enough? What if I offend them?

I don't think Bill Cowher shook Jeff Fisher's hand last night. Instead, he had to run and yell at the ref.

What bugs me is that all this controversy only sullies what was a pretty good, intense game.

The Titans did everything they could to lose tonight's playoff game. I had me a heart attack, two strokes and something fell from my nose at the start of overtime that hissed and skittered under the couch. Not even to mention nearly choking to death when Neil "Slower than Christmas and Twice as Old as Dirt" O'Donnell comes in to replace Steve McNair for a couple of snaps.

Lance Schulters did NOT make a helmet-to-melmet hit on HEINZ (heh heh heh) Ward, by the way. If he gets fined by the NFL, then we should all go on strike until he gets justice. Folks, we could bring society down with this one....what if this were the beginning of the end? Schulters hit with the shoulder. He hit Ward hard, so hard that the impact sent helmet into helmet, but initial contact was made with the shoulder pad.

Now when Haynesworth drove Amos Zeroueuobobob into the ground...that WAS unsportsmanlike conduct. But, Ye Gods! were it fun to look at and watch.

However, if Joe Nedney hadn't kicked the field goal at the end, I'd have lain waste to some 2200 acres of land in Middle Tennessee.

What the hell is wrong with you people up in Philadelphia? Just because you're at a sporting event doesn't release you to act like an animal.

Fear Not Falcons Fans. Michael Vick (lessin' he gets hisself killed) will lead you to a Super Bowl or two before it's all said and done. He needs to learn to pass in the NFL on a consistent basis, and not decide to run every which way but crazy on every other down.

Tomorrow....I'm not convinced that Oakland's secondary is all that good, even with Charles Woodson. It'll be a slobberknocker out in Oakland. I look for the Jets to upset.

And I see Tampa winning tomorrow.

What's got me worried is how beaten up the Titans were after this game. Both the Steelers and the Titans played their hearts out. Will the Titans be healthy next week?

I know I might be.

So Sleepy.

I'm going to sleep soon.

I hope the tooth fairy doesn't come tonight. For Vengeance.

How can anything be considered a "Monster Putt?"

Steven King's "From a Buick 8" is good because it has the word "mung" in it. It's in first person, though, so read at your own risk. It caused a veritable identity crisis in me. Because the "I" is in the book, but I is reading the book. And I'm not a policeman in the Pennsylvania State Patrol. Anymore.

It's not necessarily a good idea to respond to superiors' commands with "Huh? You Talking at me?"

But it ain't a bad idea, either. What can happen? If they fire you over than, then it was a crappy job anyway.

I wish I had a pet bear to mold and train to my whims. Perhaps a bear that could breath fire. Or shoot blaster beams from its eyes. Or its butt.

Off to sleep. Where I'm Kelly Ripa.

What do you get if you cross a freeway with a bicycle?

Killed

This is the last I'll say on the matter.

The differentiation some folks make between "Hall of Famer" and "First Ballot Hall of Famer" is bullshit. Either a man goes in the Hall of Fame or he doesn't. I think that's what's tripped up Ryno. That, and the fact that he played in a time when 25 home runs in a season actually meant something.

And Bill James lists Craig Biggio at #5 over Ryno on second basemen? What is Bill James smoking?

Coming back hurt Sandberg.

And I like Biggio. But I don't think he's HOF.

Jim Caple agrees with me on the Ryne Sandberg issue. Read It here

Even Joe "Big Red Ego Machine" Morgan agrees

And ESPN named him on their Top Player not in the Hall on their Top 10 List

But that's the end of what I'll say on the subject. For today.

I had a dream the other night that my friend Julie was running people down with her car. She said she'd taken it as a hobby. And when I was dismayed at the idea, Julie then threatened to run me over.

When I brought this up to her, she said that she had not taken such an avocation up. However, if her week pressed her more, she might.

Then she said: "But I would never run YOU over. Probably."

Chills me to the bone, it do.

NWATNA starts back up for 2003 tonight. Watch it on your TV. It'll be the greatest wrestling action to ever hit this here planet Earth in the year 2003.

It's a shame. Baseball writers have had my support muchly for these 25 or so years I've walked the Earth. I've read them. I've thought about them. I've bought their wares. There was that month last summer when they needed an air conditioner, and although I was having money concerns of my own, I put in for a new air conditioner and...and I haven't been invited over since.

I say this largely because Ryne Sandberg is my favorite player of all time. How can you not elect simply the dominant second-baseman in the league for over a decade? Offensively, you can put him into a category only with Joe "The Greatest Player in His Own Mind" Morgan and (of late) Jeff Kent. Defensively, he was in a class by himself, surpassed in Gold Gloves and Consecutive Errorless Games at his position only by Roberto Alomar, and then only recently.

And to get as few votes as he did. That's just surprising.

I remember asking Jophes Thomas upon Ryno's retirement if he thought Ryno would make it to the Hall. If I remember the e-mail conversation correctly, Joe agreed with me that he would, but that he might have trouble initially.

I think coming out of retirement tarnished Ryno in the eyes of many voters.

Today was not a good day. The Ryne Sandberg No Getting in the HOF was bad enough, but on the whole, today was simply one of those days when I should have just stayed in bed.

No, I should have gotten out of bed, picked the bed up and crawled under it.

I need one of those deus-ex-machina devices where I can just push a button, and a big magical superhero/deity would come in and lay the smackdown on whomever or whatever is thwarting me.

Are you there Aquaman? It's Me, Big Stupid Tommy.

Mostly likely, though, the thwarting being done would probably be this:

I say something dumb. Magical God comes from Sky, punches me in the mouth.

Says "Shut Up!"

And flitters back up to the Justice League Satellite on the Moon. He points a warning, menacing finger at me as he goes.

My grasp of the theological is astounding, if I say so myself.

Quote of the Day:
"Politics is like the Montreal Expos playing the Cincinnati Bengals....at soccer." --Pat Dixon

Cretch.

It's not what you say, but how you say it.

My only problem with Daniel Day Lewis' portrayal of Butcher Bill in Gangs of New York is that his accent reminded me entirely too much of Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

But other than that, Gangs of New York is quite a good movie.

Animals I have eaten:

Chicken (personal favorite)
Cow
Pig
Turkey
Goat
Ostrich
Lobster
Crab
Clam
Frog
Deer
Alligator
Slim Jim
Various Shrimp
Various Fish (Including Flounder, Halibut, Catfish, Shark and Captain D's)

And possibly Sheep (lamb), though if I have, I don't remember what it's like.

And I've accidentally swallowed a bug before. And I'm sure there are others that climb into my mouth to nest while I sleep.

I've never eaten Duck, Snake, Horse (that I've been told), Turtle, Buffalo/Bison, Rabbit, Squirrel, Oysters (I tried and failed), Bear, Moose, Crocodile, Flamingo, Rhinoceros, Gnu, Heron, Jaguar, Manatee, Three-Toed Sloth, Reindeer, Cougar, Hippopotamus, Penguin, Lion, Clown, Meerkat, Gorilla, Seagull, Hyena, Woolly Mammoth, Gopher (village or no), Baboon, Walrus, Emu, Opossum, Tiger (Sabre-tooth or modern day), Prairie Dog, Kangaroo, Elephant, Timberwolf, Seal, Killer Whale, Apatosaurus, Pigeon, Guinea Pig, Lungfish, Chinchilla, Vulture, Armadillo, Wallaby, Tasmanian Devil, Fire Ant, Anteater, Cheetah (but not for lack of trying), Mouse, Dragon, Sea Lion, Iguana, Manta Ray, Pony, Owl, Cardinal, Muskrat or Goose.

And metaphorically speaking, I have eaten crow. But I choose not to eat the beautiful and noble flying bird.

Shyam Nunley has a great bumper sticker. I'll Paraphrase: I'm not a vegetarian because I hate meat, but because I hate vegetables so much.

Hey look. A Bio

Also, to those wanting their prize from the December 27 post where they correctly answered "Lew Zealand," and wanting the one time cash buyout....the one-time buyout is worth 3 dollars. Collectable from Helen Waite.

The last thing we need on this planet is more assholes, so I'm against the whole cloning thing.

But I'm also not a big fan of how the Clonaid Group has been booted so far out into the lunatic fringe. You can't see a report about them on the TV, read a report in the newspaper or the internet without it being somewhere mentioned that Clonaid is linked to the Raelian group, which (I'm sure you know by now) believes human life is the product of extraterrestrial genetic tampering. I'm on AOL, and the pop up news window mentions the belief in aliens in the headline. IN THE HEADLINE. One of the news readers on one of the Nashville news stations, during the inane chatter that comes between the consumer complaint segment and the sports report referred to the groups' "crazy ideas."

I hope, out of spite, that this Clonaid group did in fact clone a child. Just to show the media.

I don't know. The Conspiracy Theorist in me says the Powers That Be are doing whatever they can to boot these people over to the lunatic fringe. They're trying to discredit them as much as humanly possible. And I'm thinking that even if the genetic tests (should they come) prove that Clonaid did clone a human, this group will still be ridiculed and ostracized. Perhaps its the abortion outrage of the 21st century. Instead of fights and picket lines outside of abortion clinics, there will be skirmishes outside cloning hospitals.

It bugs the shit out of me, guys. Hegemony. The way the "normal" people are doing what they can to make Clonaid and the Raelians seem abnormal.

We possibly have what is the most controversial scientific breakthrough since World War II, but we won't focus on the science of it....instead we laugh at one of their beliefs and the fact that the spokeswoman has a funny French name.

It's not fair, and I'd expect more out of us as a society.

But then, we did buy that Big Mouth Billy Bass by the truckload.

And my name is Big Stupid Tommy.

Bill and I nearly got into an automobile accident today. And we were sitting still. It wouldn't have been either of our faults. Neither of us was trying to eat chili and drive at the same time. We weren't boisterously singing along to an Andy Williams CD. It wasn't raining, sleeting, hailing or snowing. We were minding our business in the left-turn lane at a stoplight.

Bill was taking me to pick my truck up from the mechanic....why don't cars run on magic and never break down, by the way?

We had been waiting to yield, and then the light turns red. Bill's talking. I'm looking straight ahead. Out of the corners of my eyes, I see the traffic waiting on either side of the intersection starting to go. Then I see the white car that's still coming straight in the opposite direction.

I think I said "Oh shit" like seven times.

The white car hit a red car in the intersection. Not too bad a wreck; definitely could have been much worse: the white car missed Bill's truck by like three inches as it recoiled from the impact. It spun around and ended up turned the wrong way in the lane.

We got to talk to a cop. He was the first person in 2003 to ask me if I was related to Roy Acuff. He won the prize. It's a a new record. He asked if we saw it. Bill was pretty high from the crack pipe, and I'm basically incoherent as a general rule, so I can't think we were much help. Somehow, I was arrested for solicitation andusury, but the charges were dropped.

Everybody was okay.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee is a town made for 40,000 people with about twice that crammed in. Add the college crowd (18 year olds who can't drive) to that mix, and you've got a volatile combination. And me being quick to anger means no driving on Fridays.

But I ramble.

Amen.

A momentary review:

Barbershop

It's good. It's a rare movie that's funny because it's funny, not because it's trying to be funny.

The best comedies are the ones where the characters don't know they have to be funny. The situations aren't contrived and the comedy comes out of honest reaction to the event. Mugging is a big no no, Robin Williams, Martins Lawrence and Short and (for the past five years) Eddie Murphy.

I point to the movie Major League, which has become something of a topic of discussion around Casa de Big Stupid Tommy. It's one of my favorite movies, and I was watching the DVD of it the other day. Bill is watching, too, and he's laughing giddily at nearly everything that's happening on screen.

Major League is something of a clever (and increasingly rare) movie in that it relies on the writing rather than the actor to be funny. Everybody in Major League has a feasibly established character. Some are a bit cartoony and stereotypical (Cerrano and Harris), but nobody is outlandish or contrived. Furthermore, nobody has to stretch or do something slightly (or ridiculously) out of character just to be funny.

Major League relies on the story and the interactions between actor/characters to be funny. When Cerrano (a follower of the voodoo doctrine(s) needs more power for the final playoff game, he requests a live chicken to sacrifice. The panic of Wesley Snipes' Willie "Mays" Hayes at the alien (and to him disgusting) act of sacrificing an animal is funny, and conceivable. Tom Berenger's Jake Taylor comes up with the novel and funny solution: he brings Cerrano a bucket of KFC. A passable compromise, at least in the terms of the light-hearted comedy.

Back to my original mission--

Barbershop, which stars (among others) Ice Cube, Eve and Cedric the Entertainer, is a lot like Major League. The Actors seem to have been given strong guidelines for how their characters act, and those characters were strongly defined by the writers. Never once do any of them stray or act outlandishly out of character. There are zany characters. Cedric's Eddie is an old barber with a few unique ideas about how the world runs. But that's his character, so it's believable. He's not zany for the sake of it.

Is Barbershop groundbreaking? I don't think so. Neither was Major League. But Barbershop is legitimately entertaining.

Boy I sure do like Major League.

When Harry Doyle cries out "The Indians win it! The Indians Win It! Oh My God! the Indians Win It!" it gives me goosebumps.

Doesn't "Nip Chee" sound like a 40's era comic book villain? Or perhaps an 80's era WWF bad guy?

Nip Chee, the Wildman from Japan!!!!!!!!

But it's only a brand of crackers. Alas.