Yeah...It's the Science that makes me Anti Social....

Yeah...It's the Science that makes me Anti Social...

LONDON (Reuters) - A mutant gene rather than anti social tendencies may be the cause of people going to sleep and waking up unsociably early, scientists said on Wednesday.

They made their discovery after studying three generations of a family in which five members suffered from the so-called earlybird ailment officially known as Familial Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome.

The Full Story....

Oh Hell Yeah! I'm calling in to work tomorrow with Familial Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome.

Yeah boss. It's making me antisocial.

They identified the mutant gene as CKIdelta.

People with earlybird syndrome sleep for the same length of time as non-sufferers but typically are wide awake and raring to go long before everyone else is up and about.

We now have a scientifical probability that I'm a mutant. But all I get is the ability to wake up early.

Where the hell are my optic blasts? Where's my mastery over magnetism?

Where is my healing factor?

I'd settle for being able to explode a playing card or two.

I'd be the worst X-Man ever.

The researchers said transferring the mutant gene to mice replicated the human experience but, oddly, inserting it into fruit flies made them sleep longer.

Now that is odd. Frightfully, Dreadfully odd. I'm willing to bet that no less than three guvmint scientists went stark raving, drooling, gibbering mad at that discovery. Those government scientists are bigger pansies than wrestling referees.

Seriously, though. I can't sleep late. I'm up before dawn most days. And not necessarily because I'm making myself get up that early. It's really a pain in the ass sometimes. Like on your day off, and you find yourself up at 5:50, after going to bed after one....

Mitch Hedberg

Mitch Hedberg

Fark had this link. According to this account, comedian Mitch Hedberg has died of an apparent heart attack.

I can take or leave most one-liner comedians. Either their stuff works, or it doesn't more me. Somehow, Mitch's worked for me.

Sad news.

Thursday

Thursday

Howdy.

It's Thursday.

After two absolutely beautiful days here in East Tennessee, I've woken on my day off to rain and a catfight. We have a couple of cats that aren't allowed inside the house, on account of their lack of (or the lack of desire for) bladder control. We feed them on the front door of the house.

Today, the decided to fight about it. I wandered to the front window, and saw that the one we call Doofus had a strange cat backed to the edge of the front porch. The strange cat, a big, long haired gray cat, was skirting the edge, which sits about 20 feet above the ground.

They growled and yowled for a while as I watched. Then, I must have moved, because the gray cat saw me, turned, and jumped the 20 feet or so to the ground. I laughed, because in my mind, I turned it into the Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker confrontation in Empire Strikes Back.

Upon further mental review, however, I've decided that it was a bit more like the Permanent Crimson Assurance short before Monty Python's Meaning of Life, when Matt Frewer is faced with the insurance adjusters turned pirates. With a simple declaration of "Shit," he jumps to be taken by whatever lies below.
----

I had on my list to do today the first mowing of the year. But with it raining, I'll leave it be. I'll move on to the next thing on my list: Lying Around watching TV. The nice people at Netflix have sent me Dog Soldiers and Forbidden Planet.
----

We have a ninth caller. You can stop explaining last Sunday's Arrested Development to me.

----
I wonder what's for breakfast. I'd like a hamburger. But I got no hamburger here. Now I wish I'd caught that gray cat.....

Two Hundred and Forty Dollars Worth of Pudding

Two Hundred and Forty Dollars Worth of Pudding

If you shop around, you can get right around 90 gallons worth of pudding for $240. That's quite a bit. And that's not even taking into account buying in bulk. I'm talking about those little packages of mix & serve that you get 4 for a dollar at the Bargain Barn.

I haven't even checked at a Sam's Club or any of the other warehouse type stores.

And I'm sure that if you'd find somebody who wanted to dicker over pudding (and yea, verily! Who doesn't want to dicker pudding? Awww Yeah!), you could probably get quite a bit more than 90 gallons for your $240. I mean, there are probably many, many people out there just looking to move huge quantities of pudding. Otherwise, they've got a warehouse full of spoiled pudding.

Nobody wants that.

My contention, causing all the headaches, is that I'm thinking Barry and LaVon had the $240, but I'm thinking they got greedy, and didn't maximize their buying power.

It's been bugging me for 11 years.

Now it's off my chest.

Ya'll have a good day.

In which Tommy is a lazy sack of dung

In which Tommy is a lazy sack of dung

Here's a best of, which was written way back in January of 2003....

Because I'm either too lazy or too busy to try writing anything to post. I can't tell the difference, sometimes:

Dated January 20, 2003:

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)

What the Hail?

What the Hail?

New to the BSTommy enemy's list: Hail.

I don't like it. Hail on a tin roof? I gotta think most of the atomic bomb tests were a little quieter.

And for another thing? Its timing Sucks.

I let myself fall into this whole March Madness thing. I remember getting into a screaming fight with the neighbors about them letting the big white rabbit hide eggs on my side of the property line, getting on the lawn mower, laughing maniacally, and then there's a big 7-hour long red blur. All I know is that I woke up naked and covered in blood, watching the Michigan State/Kentucky basketball game.

And I'm all into the basketball game, and the hailstorm starts. And makes it so that I lose local channels on the satellite dish.


Well, I'm marvelling at the hail. No, that's not true. First, I cower in fear and pray to Denver Pyle. Then I get up to look. I took a couple pictures with the phone (March Madness indeed).

This is probably the best. It wasn't the largest, but it was the biggest I could reach without going outside to get pelted by ice:

Well, here we are an hour later. No local channels on the satellite. I get the old antenna hooked back up, only to see that The Simpsons was a re-run, and not a good one at that.

More March Madness. Red blur. There seems to be a fire at the neighbors' house.

I get back in time to see a really good Arrested Development that is either a re-run of an episode I missed, or somehow Buster has gotten his re-grown a hand. I really liked Dan Castalanetta as the doctor, and the whole bit with Ben Stiller and the "Use Your Illusion" DVD was pretty good, too.

So, to conclude:

Hail = Bad
Arrested Development = Good
March Madness = The Jury Will Never Convict

The Office, and a basketball thought

The Office

After watching Louisville make me look smart on my NCAA Final Four bracket last night, I watched the NBC remake of The Office.

And you know, I don't know exactly what to think. Maybe it's too early to make that kind of judgment, so I'll reserve most of my thoughts until I watch another episode or two. They pretty much used the same framework for this episode as they did for the first BBC episode, using even a few of the same gags. I'd like to see the direction they take the show in on their own.

And this'll be getting the positive out of the way first...I liked it enough that I'll watch it again. Scrubs has moved up high on my list of shows to watch, and The Office will be placed in that slot just behind Scrubs. I'll watch The Office again.

There was something that'll bear watching.

In the BBC series, Ricky Gervais's David Brent is a twerp, right? He's an ass. He thinks he's funnier, smarter and much more urbane than he actually is. But there's something deep down in the character and in Ricky Gervais's portrayal that makes you like David Brent, deep down. You root for David, even during his string of embarrassments that make up his downward spiral in the second season of show. There's something likeable about David Brent, so much so that you're happy for him when he manages to get a couple of things right at the series-ending special.

The American Counterpart to David Brent is Michael Scott (hey, they both have two first names), played by Steve Carell, who seems to have that ability to either make me laugh until I cry, or piss me off so much I have to change the channel.

Like I said, it might be too early to judge a character based on a single episode. But based on this one viewing, the difference between Brent, on the BBC version, and Scott in the NBC version, is that I root for Brent, on some level. I wouldn't mind at all for Michael Scott to get everything that's coming to him. I just didn't like Steve Carell's character on the same level I liked David Brent.

When something bad happened to Michael Scott (the speaker-phone conversation/"Godzillary" conversation comes to mind), I enjoyed seeing him squirm.

I think it may be a question of subtlety more than anything. There are lots of little, subtle pieces of humor in the BBC's Office that I don't know are going to show up in the American version. Steve Carell's performance, so far, lacks all the little things that made Ricky Gervais's David Brent so watchable and likeable.

I caught the tail-end of the NPR review of the show last night, and the reviewer made a good statement.

In the mockumentary style, the characters need to be as real as possible. In the BBC version, they do a great job of making everybody seem as real as possible.

In the American version, so far, everybody feels like a TV character.

And given the general use Joe America has for things subtle, I don't have much hope for the American version to have a lot of it.

Still, it made me laugh a little. Not screaming, crying guffaws, like the first BBC Office did. But I'll try to watch it again.

Back to basketball....

I finished the evening by watching Arizona destroy my bracket. I was feeling pretty punk. I'd picked Louisville for the Final 4 in the Albuquerque division, pretty much the only thing I'd manage to get write in that "suckhole" part of the bracket. I thing West Virginia should win Saturday to make it to the Final Four, just to give me one more F You from that corner of the page.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty punk, and then I watch Oklahoma State lose to Lute Olson and his Arizona basketball team.

My strategy with my bracket, if I had one at all, was to pick against at least one of the big favorites, because I felt like everybody'd be going with them. I picked against Illinois, except that I had Oklahome State doing the bumping off honors in the Round of Eight.

What's more, I had Okie State going over Louisville in the Final Four, and eventually losing to North Carolina in the Championship. I wasn't necessarily thinking the Illini would lose. I was hoping like hell, so that I'd be alone at or near the top when the time came.

I said last weekend that I didn't think I could win the thing, because I didn't do well picking in the first couple of rounds (friggin' Albuquerque region), and while I wasn't dead yet, the leaders in the pool had picked well the first couple of rounds, and had a lot of what I had in the Final Four. If I did well, so would they.

What a bunch of crap, this basketball garbage is.

Anyway.

Let's go do the work.

The Last Word from The Ultimate Warrior

The Last Word from The Ultimate Warrior

We were all waiting for it. We can all let this go back to being what it should have been in the first place. He's arrived with the last word on the entire Terry Schiavo matter.

Here is the Ultimate Warrior's commentary on the events surrounding Terry Schiavo.

I enjoy reading Warrior's commentaries. It's tough to slog your way through them sometimes all the time. Calling his commentaries a little wordy is like saying Kojak's a little bald. Warrior has one of those computers built without a 'delete' key.

A sample passage:

Outside of this, I have the customary ignorance and half-ass know-how to offer like everyone else. None of us spouting off our own queer three-cents have the factual details of what happened 15 years ago when this woman suffered this tragedy, or since. And up against an emotionally sensitized clock, none of us ever will. Whatever truly happened in the courts for the last seven years, whatever doctors and medical experts have determined about Schiavo’s short and long term prospects, and what the bedrock constitutional legal realties are none of us will ever, veritably, find out -- not from any of the frothy televised mouthpieces anyway. Not with all the immediate, on-the-fly spinning, mistranslated half-truths and photo-optic powerplays going down. Sure, Michael Schiavo is a cad and scoundrel. There’s nothing to doubt here. He should have saw through to a conclusion Terry’s end-all fate before he got on with his life. It’s 'death till us part' -- 'till I’m a vegetable' doesn’t meet the standard. If he’s a knave though, what do we call the conniving cowards bleeding blood from this Republic’s laws? How about President, congressmen and senators.

Look at that!!!! That's ONE PARAGRAPH!!!!! Holy Crap! This is the interweb! There are nekkid pictures one (1) click away. Honestly! He needs to break some of that text up! Otherwise, I'm gonna get bored and go back to looking for nekkid Keira Knightley captures, and forget this bullcrap wrassler commentary.....

But I digress.

I like Warrior's commentaries foremost because they show that he's put some thought into whatever he's thinking about. But I appreciate that from just about anybody. If you can put your viewpoint into words without resorting to sneering at and calling the other side names, I appreciate it. And I'll read it.

Whether I agree with Warrior's thought processes or not, that's a different story altogether. I don't need to be the choir to anybody's pulpit (to be frank, if I agreed 100% with anybody, I'd be worried. And if I'm looking to agree 100% with somebody who calls himself Ultimate Warrior years after his wrestling career has ended, I should probably not be allowed to participate in the democratic process at all). Suffice it to say, I appreciate it when somebody takes the time to enunciate their ideas.

Because I'm so bad at doing so myself, sometimes.

But let me tell you this. I especially appreciate it when somebody comes from out of the blue (like the Warrior) to give their thoughts. Mostly so that I can tell whether I'm within shouting distance of the Edge of Reason, or not.

But when it comes to the Warrior, mostly I like reading what he's writing because the reader-in-my-head reads everything he writes in the same style he always cut his old WWF promos. His words aren't so much spoken as they are growled and thrust at you from a snarling, painted face. Every line is read spastically, with no resemblance to the normal speaking cadence you and I have come to know, where you pause at commas or at the end of a sentence....pauses come to the Warrior simply when he runs out of breath....

The warrior paces as he talks, he stalks each line, he pounces at you to make his point. His arms pump and gyrate in time to whatever drumbeat he's hearing. He's a bottle of barely contained passion, piss and vinegar.

And he's wearing tassles. Never forget that. As he's yelling his points, he's growling, he's spitting, his head is shaking from the strain he's putting into shoving each word out from his diaphragm and through his neck. He's wearing tassles. Pink, orange and yellow tassles. Tied just above the biceps on each arm.

Kind of like what you find hanging off the handlebars on a five-year-old girl's bicycle.

And no matter how crazy, how loony, how just completely bongo-off-the-wall the ideas being spewed here are, I enjoy what's being said because of the image in my head.

Perhaps I would read more political thought if I knew the writers were wearing tassles and facepaint. At least then their vitriolic, self-righteous chest pounding would be amusing.

One With Nature

One With Nature



BSTommy in his natural habitat.

The Tree Pee. It's one of the great joys of being a guy, I think.

I'm not terribly keen on people sneaking up behind me and taking a picture, mind you.

But not so much that I won't post it on my blog.

It beats the hell out of having to actually write something.

Another funny

Another funny

I liked this one too:

Two Indians and a Hillbilly were walking in the woods, all of a sudden one of the Indians ran up a hill to the mouth of a small cave.

"Wooooo! Wooooo! Wooooo!" he called into the cave and then he listened very closely until he heard an answering, "Wooooo! Wooooo! Wooooo!" He tore off his clothes and ran into the cave.

The Hillbilly was puzzled and asked the other Indian what that was all about. Was the other Indian crazy or what?

"No," said the Indian. It is our custom during mating season when Indian men see cave, they holler 'Wooooo Wooooo! Wooooo!' into the opening. If they get an answer back, it means there is a girl in there waiting to mate."

Just then they saw another cave. The second Indian ran up to the opening of the cave, stopped, and hollered, Wooooo! Wooooo! Wooooo!" Immediately, there was an answering "Wooooo!Wooooo! Wooooo!" from deep inside the cave. He tore off his clothes and ran into the cave.

The Hillbilly wandered around in the woods alone for a while, and then he came upon a great big cave. As he looked in amazement at the size of the huge opening, he was thinking, "Hoo, man! Look at the size of this cave! It is bigger than those the Indians found. There must be some really big, fine women in this cave!"

He stood in front of the opening and hollered with all his might "Wooooo! Wooooo! Wooooo!" He grinned and closed his eyes in anticipation, and then he heard the answering call "WOOOOOOOOO!WOOOOOOOOO! WOOOOOOOOO!" With a gleam in his eyes and a smile on his face, he raced into the cave, tearing off his clothes as he ran.

The following day, the headline of the local newspaper read..... NAKED HILLBILLY RUN OVER BY TRAIN

Funny

Funny

In lieu of original content:

Mary Clancy goes up to Father O'Grady after his Sunday morning service, and she's in tears.

He says, "So what's bothering you, Mary my dear?"

She says, "Oh, Father, I've got terrible news. My husband passed away last night."

The priest says, "Oh, Mary, that's terrible. Tell me, did he have any last requests?"

She says, "That he did, Father..."

The priest says, "What did he ask, Mary?"

She says, "He said, 'Please Mary, put down the gun....'

Books

Books

Remember the caption contest I ran last week?

Well, Kim up at The Unwinding Road was the winner, and I promised a prize.

I told her that I was finally getting around to unpacking a few books, and I found a few books that I was holding on to as loaner copies.

I decided (midway through the thing) to give a choice of one of these extra books as the prize.

Well, Kim's picked Joe Lansdale's A Fine Dark Line



I think she made a good choice. Joe's a favorite writer of mine. But he's one of those names that, in my view, doesn't get enough attention. Joe's a fine storyteller. He's got a great ear for dialogue. He writes stories that tell themselves, and he's not aiming to anything but tell a story. I appreciate that.

I think he's the guy who should be getting the big standee displays and Today Show interviews whenever his books get released.

So that's why I like sharing his work as much as I can.

Today's Funny

Today's Funny

Pete is raising a Pacino fan.

"Friday evening, we're enjoying dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant when the wee one grabbed the bars of the fence next to our table and yelled, "Attica!" Just like I'd been trying to get her do for the last five months, whenever she'd clutch the baby gate and fuss about not being allowed into the kitchen."

Monday Morning Thoughts

Monday Morning Thoughts

Still not dead in my NCAA bracket. Not doing well, but 6 of my 8 elite eight teams, and my Final Four is still completely intact. I don't think I can win any of the pools I'm in, because I think a lot of the leaders have a lot of the same people up on top that I do. If Illinois manages to lose somewhere along the way, though, it'll help me a bunch. Not that I think they will...but everybody else has them picked for the Final Four at the very least. I have the least to lose if they should get upended.

Beautiful day yesterday. High near 70. First day of spring. Went for a long walk early in the afternoon. Took a pee against perhaps the biggest tree I've ever peed against. It was a milepost in my life.

Did anybody see the Jeff Foxworthy roast last night? Who was the Bush impersonator?

And speaking of Jeff Foxworthy...I like Larry the Cable Guy, right? But if one more person says "Git r' done" to me, I might have to break out the brass knux. Honestly, I think we're getting ready to change it to the Tennessee state motto. I'm on catchphrase overload.

And speaking of that roast...what was with the rap act near the end? I get the whole "Sweet Home Alabama"/Redneck thing. But it just seemed like One of These Things is Not Like the Other.

And speaking of mullets....It is fitting, maybe, that we're talking about the roast of a comedian with a mullet, since The Mullet is back posting. It's good to have him back.

Let's go to work.

Sunday Morning Basketball Thoughts

Sunday Morning Basketball Thoughts

This is the only time of the year I pay any attention to basketball. This is probably the only basketball post I'll make this year.

----

Well, here we are in the midst of the NCAA tournament. With 8 games left to play this weekend, my bracket's not been blown to bits. Yet. I don't typically fare well on Sundays.

Gonzaga losing hurt me a little. I had them losing in the round of 8, so Bobby Knight and his Texas Tech team pulling it out against them hurt me some. But by no means as badly as West Virginia pulling off their double overtime upset against Wake Forest hurt my father, who went with his heart and had Wake Forest winning the whole thing.

My Final Four is still alive, and seven out of my eight Elite Eight teams are still active.

But the day ain't over yet. As well as I've done in most of the regions, I've had no luck whatsoever in the Albequerque region. My faith in Louisville, and my lack of faith in Washington as a one-seed may cause me a lot of trouble in the long run.

-----

Speaking of Bobby Knight, the Knoxville area has been Friggin Bananas over rumors of U.T. looking for Bobby to come and replace Buzz Petersen.

Now, I'm not going to comment on the veracity of the rumors. But I'll say this: Tennessee's been drawing flies for their men's basketball games. I think the addition of Bobby Knight would draw people to the arena in the short term.

And what's more, one of Tennessee's biggest problems over the past decade has been team discipline. Bobby Knight could bring a little discipliine.

----

Well...I lied. I will comment on the rumors. I don't think it'll happen. I think Bobby Knight would command more money than either Phil Fulmer or Pat Summitt. I just don't see U.T. shelling out that kind of dough.

Still. Knoxville radio has talked more Tennessee men's basketball over the past week than I think they did over the course of their entire season.

Quotable

Quotable

Danielle says:

Satellite imagery brings to mind a thought I had the other day after hearing the judge's verdict in the Peterson trial. Seriously, what makes people think that they can get away with murder in this day and age? I mean, it is one thing if you are going to flee and go into hiding or something... but if you're just going to go back to your house and act all surprised when the police show up at your door... that seems like a bad plan to me. Big Brother is watching you pick your nose at that stoplight; DNA testing can practically tell if you've farted in someone's general direction. Killing people just ain't what it used to be.

Ain't it?

We Have a Weiner!

We Have a Weiner!

Well, the first BSTommy Caption Contest drew to a close. Voting ended somewhere around 4:17 AM this morning. The judge (yours, truly) after much deliberation, cussing, crying, a fistfight and several minutes spent trying to figure out just why he couldn't get the remote control for his TV to work, we've come to a conclusion.

First, the picture, followed by the caption that made me smile the most (I smiled so much it hurt):



Peter Parker's spidey senses were tingling--but for all the wrong reasons...

The Mad Sister, up at The Unwinding Road, wrote the winning caption.

She wins the prize!

We'll talk more about that later, once I ponder the ethics, legalities and logistics behind mailing an incontinent kitty cat into Canada....

Actually, I did have something in mind to send along. Sad, and scary, but true. If the winner would just give me an e-mail ....

Here are a couple of honorable mentions:

For some reason, Bill McCabe's made me smile:

"My God, Bones. Who would do such a thing?"

I liked Jessica's, too:

"I swear, if he asks me to do ONE more thing, I'm out. Being "The Apprentice" isn't worth it!"

And Dan came out of left field, and I almost went with this one....

"I like eggs."

And this caption made me smile, but not nearly as much as the name it was posted under:

"Every drag queen knows, working the floor at Mega-Con is the worst." ---Grotesqueticle

I laughed myself stupider.

Well.

Thus endeth the Caption Contest. I got good response. A decent way to fill up a couple of days. Thanks to everyone who came by to read. Maybe we'll do it again sometime.

Like the next time I find some picture on my hard drive and have no memory of putting it there myself.

Just take comfort that my reaction upon seeing the picture was much like yours.

That's right.

It's scary, but strangely alluring.....

Today's Reading

Today's Reading

For no reason.

Ach! Zombies!

Caption Contest

Caption Contest

I'm going to keep this at the top until Friday. I'll declare a winner Saturday morning. More original content can be found underneath this post.

Sometimes, you wake up with nuthin'.

This morning, I got nuthin'.

How's about a good old caption contest?



And what's a contest without a prize?

The winner will be judged by yours, truly.

Not only will your name live on in infamy for all time as the winner of the Inaugural BST Caption Contest Challenge.

But you will also recieve one (1) piece of Official BST Memorabilia.

That's right. I will pull, at random, one piece of something or other from the Big Prize Bin and send it to you.

(Warning: I was looking in the Big Prize Bin the other day, and there were several Punches in the Mouth in there. So, I may pull, at random, a Punch In the Mouth out of the prize bin.)

Go.

March Madness

March Madness

The ol' ENCEEDOUBLEAYE Tournament starts today.

I've watched all of 23 minutes of college basketball this season.

Yet I've managed to drop money on two different office pools, and I'm contemplating a third.

Bobby Knight came to me in a dream last night, hit me over the head with a chair and said "St. Mary's is gonna win, Nancy Boy!"

When I mentioned that it seemed untoward of him to recommend picking against his own team in the tournament, he turned into my high school Latin Teacher, set fire to stagecoach led by Andre the Giant I was driving with his firebreath, took up Keira Knightley in his arms, and flew away in the tornado of his own creation.

And then the snakes attacked.....

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day

This is a repost of something I wrote last St. Patrick's Day. It's just one of those things that fell out of my head one morning as I tried to think of something to write.

Originally dated March 17, 2004....a St. Patrick's Day Celebration at the BSTommy Compound.

It's not been a good one folks.

I didn't wear green, last night. The co-worker I scared last week got his revenge by punching my arm every time he saw me, and telling me I should have worn green. I kept telling him he was doing St. Patrick's Day wrong, but he didn't believe me.

And then, I got home and was going to make the traditional BSTommy St. Paddy's Day Breakfast (Scrambled Eggs), and in the midst of tranferring that feast from frying pan to plate, I managed to drop the sunsabitches on the floor.

Given the general disrepair of the BSTommy Compound, I decided that the 5-Second Rule did not apply, and I put my eggs down the garbage disposal.

Then, things got really bad.

As I turned away from the sink, I caught a little movement out of the corner of my eye. It was smallish, darkly colored and running along the baseboard, under the table.

Jeezus! I said. That was a big mouse!

And then I saw it run behind the garbage can. Yeah. Too big to be a mouse. Begorrah! I've got a rat. I cussed a green streak (in honor of the holiday).

Watching to make sure it didn't run under the cabinet, I slowly took the hammer out of the junk drawer, grabbed the trash can, jerked it away from the wall, and I attacked!

I'll give myself a little credit. I displayed some surprising agility and quickness for a big man. And some deadeye hand-eye coordination.

One bop with a hammer. And it was dead.

But it wasn't until I'd had a moment to breathe, to see what exactly this bleeding dead thing exactly for what it was.

It was an animal, and it was smaller than a breadbox, but the 20 question similarities diverge there.

A wisp of smoke rose from smoldering remains of the pipe that lay broken in two by its side. It's little green hat and coat were now turning a remarkable shade of crimson. One tiny shoe with a little silver buckle had come flying off its foot, and had come to rest by my own giant-sized-by-comparison hoof.

I kept looking at its beard. It's wonderful, fiery red beard. Which was now two horribly different, remarkable shades of red.

Rats don't have beards. Nor do they smoke pipes or wear little green coats. Or tiny black shoes with silvery buckles on them. No, rats certainly do not.

But Leprechauns bleed the reddest blood of all.

I don't think this is going to fare well for me. The Notre Dame football team came over about an hour ago and beat the snot out of me.

There are a whole boatload of snakes writhing around the apartment now, all of them speaking of deep brogues and cursing haven been driven from their homeland.

And, with apologies to Frank Cho, I think I've contracted Potato Famine.

And the worst part? The leprechaun was protecting his pot of gold, which was hidden in the BSTommy Compound. In my sock drawer, no less. The two little guys who came to get their friend took the pot of gold, too...mentioning in passing its value of nearly $13 million.

No folks. It ain't been a good one at all.....

File it under "Things I Don't Like"

File it Under "Things I Don't Like"

Coming in at #31,544 in my life's list of things I don't like:

These little security tabs some companies are putting on their DVD's, to make it harder for thieves to steal the DVD.

Because it's making it terribly hard for me to steal the DVD's.

Stoney, Y'all: A Cubs Post

Stoney, Y'all!: A Cubs Post

The good thing about starting your work day early is that it ends earlier. Usually.

It did end early today. But after last night's bout with insomnia, I didn't have much energy to do anything after work. I was flipping through the channels, and somehow decided that it a documentary on gasoline on the History Channel was some good TV.

I dozed for a while, woke back up, and started flipping through the channels, and saw that ESPN2 was showing a little spring training baseball. Angels and White Sox.

I missed the initial introductions, and I'm kinda groggy, trying to read on the interweb when I realize that one of the announcers on the ESPN broadcast is none other than Steve Stone his own self.

I haven't commented much on Stoney's departure from the Cubs' broadcast team last year. I did do think his leaving is a shame on a couple of counts.

On the first count, Steve's voice is one I just associate with baseball. I really got caught up in the game in the mid 80's on WGN, when it was Steve Stone and Harry Caray (with Dewayne Staats [or was it Stantz] taking Harry's place in the booth in the fourth through sixth innings). It's just one of those constants.

I'll admit that I got a little tired of his style which, to be fair, occasionally borders on pedantic. And, I didn't like at all how he and Chip Caray meshed after Chip took over in the broadcast booth after Harry's death. But I quickly found out just how good Steve Stone was when Joe "Hey! I'm the Dumbest Man Alive" Carter took the color spot in the WGN booth. I was happy when Stoney came back.

I'm sorry that he left on the basis of continuity. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. His is just one of those voices that I've come to associate with baseball. Not that others' voices don't work, or do even better. But his is one I came to know first. That I don't get to hear that on a game-to-game basis sucks just a bit.

Stoney's departure sucks on a whole other level, too. I didn't get to watch much WGN baseball last year. No cable for a while, and no satellite until recently. I had to hear of Stoney's tussles and arguments with certain players on the Cubs team second and third hand.

I think his leaving is a shame here, in that all the nastiness that arose surrounding Steve Stone was the perfect opportunity for a team leader to step up and do anything...either defend his teammates to Stoney and the media, or tell Moises and Mercker to shut the hell up and play ball. Nobody did that.

That...or Dusty Baker could have, you know, done his job and made his team get over distractions (even distractions that aren't making themselves distractions) like what the announce team says. Guide them through the season, instead of letting them wander aimlessly like a 25 headed monster with a chip on its shoulder that says "I deserve to win the Series without even trying..."

All the rigamarole that arose surrounding Stoney arose from Stoney doing his job, in my mind, like he always had. Somebody should have stepped up on the other end of the conversation.

If I'm wrong, correct me. I just feel like Stoney got a bad deal last year, and I think it's a shame that he felt like he needed to leave after the season.

Anyway.

There's not a lot of action so far in today's game. It's a spring training game. It's good to watch on an afternoon home from work. Beats the hell out of doing chores.

Stoney'll do a good job. Haven't heard if and where he's going to turn up this season. ESPN could do a lot worse than to have him on staff. I'll take Steve Stone before Joe Morgan any day of the week, for those ESPN broadcasts. I haven't been paying all that much attention, though. I think I'll go look that up.

Tuesday

Tuesday

Why do we have to start Tuesdays so all-friggin' early?

Honestly. I can't afford to miss a minute of beauty sleep.

Bedtime Wrasslin' Thoughts

Bedtime Wrasslin' Thoughts

This year's Wrestlemania is taking a decidedly nostalgic turn. For me, the biggest draw so far has been the Piper's Pit segment, where Piper interviews Stone Cold Steve Austin. And I can't help but say it's fitting to put Hulk Hogan in the Hall of Fame. There we have, for me anyway, the three biggest draws for the show not having wrestled an active match at least since 2003.

Tonight's Monday Night Raw decided to follow that nostalgic path, as we saw Shawn Michaels team with his former Rockers Tag Team partner Marty Janetty. Janetty, decked out in more tassles than any man should ever wear, held his own in the tag match against Le Resistance. The only time he really showed age was in the nip-up that wasn't (I don't hold it against him, because Shawn didn't really nip all the way up from his prone position either).

Let me say this about the former Rocker. He was really hyper. He's lost a step, but could still work better than half the guys in the locker room.

But Janetty wasn't the only thing that came from the Eighties....

Jake "the Snake" Roberts made his return to Raw, and did he do so in a Big way.

It's nice to see that Jake's conquered a couple of his demons, but did he have to eat them afterward?

Bill had the best line of the night...Look! David Crosby ate Jake "the Snake" Roberts!!!!

Jake, a bit heavier, a bit balder, and even off his talking game just a little...could Still talk circles around Randy Orton, who finally seemed to be acting something the heel heading into his Wrestlemania confrontation with The Undertaker. I'm all about the nostalgia, mind you. To a point. I enjoyed seeing Young Master Orton take a short-arm clothesline from Jake. I wanted to see the DDT. The crowd wanted it. We all knew it wasn't to be....but it doesn't keep us from hoping.

Also...no Chris Masters again. Hopefully they've decided, at the very least, to reboot him after Wrestlemania. We are hopeful that he's been sent to OVW to learn his craft just a little better. So as not to break former ECW Champions' faces.

A decent effort from the WWE team. Can't think of anything that really pissed me off. But I'm also deliriously tired. Give me some time to think on it....

Random Thoughts on the Weekend

Random Thoughts on the Weekend

I write tonight with a thunderstorm lurking over the hills, growling, grumbling and kicking purple lighting into the sky.

It's not really the type of night you'd want a cold front coming through you're neck of the woods. We've had a couple of excellently warm days the past couple of days. Much, much warmer than had been predicted the last time I'd heard anything from the weather goobs, Thursday or so. I'd gone into the weekend expecting 40's as the high....Saturday was up in the 70's, and this morning it was as high as 65 before the clouds started rolling in.

A cold air mass pushing into an area of warm air creates rough weather. Tornadic activity isn't rare in this neck of the woods. They're one of those deep-seeded fears in my psyche, tornadoes are.

In fact, the list of my terrors goes like this:

1. Tornadoes
2. Mr. T
3. Bears
4. Midgets
5. Midget Bears.
6. Midget Mr. T's.
7. Radio Personalities.

-----

I went out into Middle Tennessee this weekend, to see friends. Like I said, we had a couple of wonderfully warm days to enjoy.

We enjoyed the weather, but we also spent a little time indoors (the night time), watching a couple of movies.

We watched The Jacket.

I have two lines of thought on this flick.

First, as a movie fan, I thought it was a good movie, but not great. It involves one too many leaps of faith, both on the part of the viewer and on the part of characters within the movie, for it to be considered very good. I liked it, with reservations.

However, BSTommy, the horndog Keira Knightley fan, gives this movie his highest possible recommendation. For the several of you who reach this site by searching for nude pictures of Keira Knightley, I've got no pictures for you. But I do recommend that you go see the movie The Jacket. It's the movie for you.

----

I've never seen the Kelsey Grammer Sketch Comedy Show. I will not watch it. Ever.

I have no doubt that it will still be running when Arrested Development is having its season shortened in the name of the same old joke from Seth McFarland and a 3-night-a-week karaoke contest.

----

My friend Jason's house has the lowest sitting toilets I've ever seen. Seriously. I mean, doing your duty there would require going into a catcher's crouch.

----

Dave Attel's line from Arrested Development on Tobias: If he's straight, I'm sober....that cracked me up.

----

The trailers for Sin City look pretty cool.

----

I leave you with this joke, which is pretty stupid, but it made me smile:

There are two Mexicans who have been lost in the desert for weeks and they're at death's door. As they stumble on, hoping for salvation in the form of an oasis or something similar, they suddenly spy through the heat haze a tree off in the distance.

As they get closer they can see that the tree is draped with rasher upon rasher of bacon. There's smoked bacon, crispy bacon, life giving juicy nearly- raw bacon, all sorts.

"Hey, Pepe" says the first bloke "Ees a bacon tree!!! We're saved!!!"

"You're right, amigo!" says Pepe.

So Pepe goes on ahead and runs up to the tree salivating at the prospect of food. But as he gets to within five feet of the tree, there's the sound of machine gun fire, and he is shot down in a hail of bullets.

His friend quickly drops down on the sand and calls across to the dying Pepe.
"Pepe!! Pepe!! Que pasa hombre?"

With his ! dying breath Pepe calls out... "Ugh, run, amigo, run!! Ees not a Bacon Treee.

"Ees" "Ees" "Ees... a.... Ham bush!"

Short Fiction

Short Fiction

In a little rush this morning.

Sheila had this piece from Michael Chabon, where he comments on the state of short fiction in the publishing and literary world. It's a good read

I'm a big short fiction fan. It goes along with both my short attention span, and my complete inability to read in public without some asshat deciding that I'm simply waiting for a conversation.

I think I might say more later, I'm awfully late now, but I do want to offer a little more upscale content than your ordinary average pro wrasslin' commentary you seem to find here more and more.

I'll leave you with a couple or three links I've found online to some of my favorite shorts....

The Inhabitant of Carcosa, by Ambrose Bierce. (I enjoy this one greatly).

The Cask of Amontillado, by Edgar Allan Poe

A Rose for Emily, by William Faulkner

And, I point you to Joe Lansdale's site. He always has a short piece of fiction up.

A book Meme

A Book Meme

I saw this over at Straight White Guy's, and I figured I'd give it a whirl.

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

Am I one of the books the firemen burn? To be honest, I would really rather not be a book in Fahrenheit 451, then. I'm allergic to fire.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

I was once taunted mercilessly for saying out loud that Psylocke of the X-Men was hot.

The last book you bought is:

I'm trying to refrain from buying anything, lately, using the excuse that I've got a single bookcase at home devoted solely to books I own but have not read. So it's been a little while.

I bought my mother a book for her birthday on how researcher Temple Grandin used her personal experience with and understanding of autism to understand animal communication. I think it's called Animals in Translation.

For myself...let me think....It's probably the book I'm trudging and tromping my way through called Beyond the Shadow of the Senators, and it's about the interplay between the Washington Senators and the Homestead Grays before the integration of baseball.

The last book you read:

Jon Stewart's Naked Pictures of Famous People. I'm thinking "Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold" has moved onto my list of favorite short stories. I read that particular story three times. Funny stuff.

What are you currently reading?

The book about the Senators and Grays, which is slow going mostly because the writing is so spotty. It tends to get bogged down little details. And by bogged down, I mean entire chapters are devoted to items that could have been given a couple of paragraphs.

I'm a bullshitter. I smell similar work.

I'm also about to finish Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, his book about hiking the Appalachian Trail. It's one of those books that's been recommended several times. I've not been let down. It's an interesting read, and it's made me smile several times.

As a coincidence, a news story ran in the paper yesterday about 4 hikers needing to be rescued from the snow in the Smokies in the past day or so...they were hiking from Fontana Lake to Clingman's Dome along the AT and got stranded without proper provisions for the weather. Bryson and his hiking companion Stephen Katz spend a bit of time in the Smokies. Just one of those weird coincidences.

Five books you would take to a deserted island.

There is a question here. Do other people know that I am stuck on the island, and they can come get me in a couple of weeks?

In this case, I want:

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Confederacy of Dunces
The Stand
The Essential Harlan Ellison
Jim Bouton's Ball Four

Or am I stuck there until help comes?

Because as much as I like books, if I'm stuck there until help comes, I'm gonna want something that shows me what to eat, how to clean it, how to fix myself when I get hurt. At the very least, I want something large that I can burn for warmth.

How about a nice survival manual, a nice book on edible plants, and, say, three unabridged dictionaries. For fire.

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why

We'll pass this one on to:

Sheila, because any time she talks about a book, it tends to end up on my "I might wanna read this" list.

Len, at Dark Bilious Vapors, because anytime I look at his site's title, I have to the urge to call into to work, saying I can't come in because I'm suffering from Dark Bilious Vapors.

Steven, because he locked his wife out of the house last night, and probably needs something to occupy his time.

And also, because I can't count, The Evil Hippy. Because he needs to update his site more.

In Which Tommy Ranks the Rocky Movies

In Which Tommy Ranks the Rocky Movies

This is the order in which I appreciate the Rocky movies, from least favorite to absolute favorite:

Rocky V
Rocky IV
Rocky II
Rocky III
Rocky

Here's a task for you. Take out a pencil and paper, and write the word "Rocky" a lot of times. I dunno. Twelve times. Notice how funny it starts to look after you've written it several times. It's not as funny as bicycle. But almost.

Here's something about the movies. The first hour of Rocky II is probably the strongest and most interesting of any of the five movies, as we see this schlump who's been rocketed to stardom struggling to parlay it into some manner of continuing success outside of the one thing he is good at. I think there are a lot of folks who run from what they are best at, for whatever reason. For me, though, the movie loses steam when it has to go for the happy ending.

Think how much of a downer it would have been if Rocky II had ended not only losing to Apollo Creed, but losing badly. A neck-breaking knockout in the first round. I don't think America could have stood it.

Rocky IV would have been better, if not for the several different musical montages we have throughout. Several. I will say that it was one of the very minor surprises in my life to find out that Dolph Lundgren was not actually from another country, but that he was just quite adept at playing large foreign guys.

Yep.

A Dorktivity Brush with the Somewhat Famous

A Dorktivity Brush with the Somewhat Famous

I've played quiz bowl against Mark Dawson, a Tournament of Champions winner on Jeopardy, who is participating in Jeopardy's currently running Ultimate Tournament of Super Champions (or whatever it's called).

Not important, so much. It's just cool to turn on the TV and say "Hey! I've played quiz bowl against that guy!"

Tuesday Morning Wrasslin' Thoughts

Tuesday Morning Wrasslin' Thoughts

Yep. A wrasslin' post.

A couple of you have taken time out of your schedules to say that you don't like these.

Skip 'em then. Jeez. Is it that hard? I write here to amuse myself, more than anything.....

I haven't posted a wrasslin' thought in a while. I've had too much caffiene this morning. I wrote for a while on other projects, but I still have nervous energy for my hands.

Just a couple of thoughts on the WWE as we mosey toward Wrestlemania.

I want to talk about Randy Orton for a second. We're forcing Randy Orton into a match with the Undertaker, right? Part of the Undertaker's legacy is that he's never lost a match at Wrestlemania. What is he? 10-0, 11-0...something like that.

Okay. My advice to the WWE is this: Listen to the crowd. The crowd hasn't been buying Randy Orton as a face all that much. They cheered for him not so much because he's a great face, but because Triple H is so successful as a heel. Say what you will about Triple H, he knows how to play up his heelishness so that the good guy will look as good as he possibly can. He's probably the best at that little part of the psychological performance since Ric Flair was in his prime. He has that much charisma.

Unfortunately, for Young Master Orton, Triple H's charisma doesn't work unless he's fighting Triple H.

I thought maybe the WWE had started to realize that last night. Randy Orton comes out to challenge the Wrestlemania-undefeated Undertaker....and he was finally acting like a heel again. He was cutting one of those legend-killer promos that he is adequate at. (Note, adequate...not good...)

And the crowd was lapping it up. The Undertaker, by virtue of his longevity in the WWE, and his track record at The Biggest Show of the Year, and by virtue that he's probably the biggest fan favorite (in a tie with Cena) over on Smackdown....he's gotta be the de facto face in the match.

The WWE has made the mistake again, I think, that there are fans of one show over the other (Raw fans and Smackdown fans). I don't think that's the case. I think most fans watch both shows...or at least are aware of the happenings on both shows. Most fans are still aware that the WWE is one company, and that the product on the shows is so similar that each is indistinguishable from the other. What I'm saying is that there are far fewer fans loyal to one brand or the other than the WWE would like (and would like us) to believe.

As such, we have this match with a legend and this pretty boy who can't even tie a necktie. Orton is up there saying he's going to end the Undertaker's legacy? Bullshit! The Undertaker will tie this simpleton in a knot.

The fans know this. They're booing Orton pretty much roundly.

And I'm thinking to myself...they've figured out that the WWE isn't buying him as a face...they're setting him up as the heel in this match they're shoehorning him and the Undertaker into....

But I gave them too much credit.

Eric Bischoff comes wandering out, wanting to praise his young superstar for representing his brand so strongly in the Biggest Show of the Year.

I've kinda liked how Bischoff's character has come around in recent months. He's not a face or a heel, based on his performance and actions. He's a prick. He's an asshole. But he doesn't favor any individual, group or stable. He works to prove that He's the boss. (Personally, I think the best thing they could do with Bischoff is amp up a feud with Vince McMahon).

But I appreciate his tweener status as a character. But I will admit that it leaves him on somewhat ambiguous terms with the audience. They haven't really given Bischoff a strong part to play in any particular storyline. So, the audience is unsure. Do we boo him? Do we cheer him? He's an asshole to Triple H early in the show so we cheer him. Then he's an asshole to Benoit the next hour, so we boo him.

I'm fine with that. I don't think we need The Boss as a constant character in a wrestling show (I actually think it'd be refreshing to have a show with a silent boss that we never see). But if we're going to have a tweener boss, I think that means we need to leave him out of areas where we're trying to establish face or heel character for somebody.

Somebody who has trouble establishing it on his own, like Randy Orton.

Back to the point....

Bischoff comes out, praising his superstar. And Orton decides he's going to play Stone Cold to Bischoff's McMahon? Granted, it's the only way it could have gone once Bischoff wandered out to the ring, Orton giving Bischoff an RKO. As I said before, Bischoff's not a heel, per se. He's just the prick boss that the fans don't have a lot of strong feelings for one way or the other (despite what the WWE thinks and would like us to think.)

But Orton RKOing Bischoff is a face-type move, or at least we are led to believe by Orton's post-attack posturing.

My biggest gripe about the WWE since it defeated WCW and acquired them, is that the WWE is slow to adjust. They seem completely unable to adjust midstream. We've seen Orton getting a lukewarm reaction since the end of his feud with Triple H. The fans want to boo him. Instead of adjusting to that, the WWE wants to continue to ram their agenda down the viewers' throats.

They want a face/face match for the the Orton/Undertaker match at Wrestlemania. Maybe because the want to amp up that Smackdown/Raw competition (especially with the other cross-brand match being a defined face vs. heel match, with Michaels playing the face and Kurt Angle playing the heel).

There are a couple of ways this match at Wrestlemania could go.

One, Orton could beat Undertaker. We're supposed to be happy with the fact. If this happens, and the Undertaker is forced to give Orton "The Respect Handshake" after the match (you know, where the legend killer is given his due respect...Foley, Benoit and Flair all gave Orton Respect Handshakes...fans were somewhat dubious at the Benoit and Flair editions.)...

Under this scenario, The Undertaker has to give The Respect Handshake, and Orton is forced furthermore down our throats as a World Champ Contender for the duration of his career, Lex Luger style.

Under another scenario....Undertaker beats Orton at Wrestlemania. But Orton goes crazy and makes it his goal to destroy the Undertaker. Undertaker's getting up there in years. He's been in the WWE since 1990. Maybe it's time to retire. Maybe they could do a slow burn on a Taker/Orton feud and let Orton retire the Undertaker a year from now..

One more thought? We've got Ace Cowboy Bob Orton going in the Hall of Fame this Wrestlemania. His schtick? The cast. Maybe Cowboy Bob could show up wearing the cast at Wrestlemania, and cost Undertaker the match. Orton could win, go to Smackdown (or Taker could come to Raw via a post mania draft), and Taker could exact his vengeance upon Cowboy Bob and Young Master Orton.

I've been writing for a long time, and I'm probably repeating myself, so I'll wrap this longish post up....

A couple more thoughts:

No Chris Masters fighting a jobber on Raw on the Road to Wrestlemania? That's a good thing. Randy Orton is one Lex Luger too many for my money. If I never see another Chris Masters match, it'll be too soon.

Do Trish Stratus and Chris Jericho share the same brain? Those are two funny Canadians.

Lastly...I was dialing through the radio the other day, and I happened across John Bradshaw Leyfield's radio show. The little bit I heard would put him somewhere in that rightwing/libertarian strata, though he didn't come across nearly as nasty as most right wing talk shows. I listened mostly for the novelty of a wrassler hosting an intelligent sounding talk show (he tried valiantly to deflect any talk of wrassling....)

Things That Are In My Brain This Tuesday Afternoon

Things That Are In My Brain This Tuesday Afternoon

Just a few random thoughts this Tuesday Afternoon, when Blogger's been quite a bit annoying....

Not much going on in my neck of the woods this blustery March afternoon. Day off. Did some writing this morning. Sent a few stories off. It's been a few months since I've done anything in that regard. I've managed to shake off some of the laziness that is inherent in my genetic makeup as far as the writing goes.

Just a little of it, anyway.

So, I sent a few things off. This time, I didn't include the nude photos of myself. I've been clued in on the fact that inclusion of such a thing, in some circles, isn't so much a gesture of good faith as it is grounds for prosecution. It's just proof that the smaller our world gets, the further apart we get.

Watching a little spring training baseball this afternoon. Rangers and Giants. Reacquainting myself with my utter and complete hatred of Mr. Rick Sutcliffe this afternoon. Rick is one of three broadcasters working the game for the nice folks at ESPN (ehsp' in). Sutcliffe comes from the Tim McCarver/The Viewer is a Blinkard Idiot school of broadcasting. And, if anything, Sutcliffe is even more in love with the sound of his own voice than McCarver.

In Sutcliffe's defense, he does work a little better with his broadcast partners. In that he gives them time to speak, and he's even established a repartee with Erik Karros, who is working the game for ESPN. He's asking a lot of questions and waiting for answers. McCarver generally wants to make sure he's the one giving the answer. Lots of pitcher vs. hitter talk, even early on (second inning), from these two.

I'm reading Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. I'm about a third of the way in. It's been recommended a few times to me, especially a few months back when I asked here for somebody to recommend a book.

Like I said. Not a lot else going on. Just going to rest and relaxate some. Ya'll do the same...

Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch: the Official Review

Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch: the Official Review

I have tried Burger King's Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch sandwich.

I never had a problem with the Big Rock Candy Mountain song. But if you sing a song about a sandwich to that tune, it'll be forever implanted into my brain.

I will warn you. The sandwich does not take you to a heavenly place, as Darius Rucker and Brooke Burke would like to suggest. In fact, I never went to anyplace else while I ate my lunch of a TCBCR.

But it's tasty enough.

It is a bit pricy, though, for a fast food sandwich.

I think the frontman for Hootie & the Blowfish should therefore be hobbled, Annie Wilkes style, for making me spend so much of my hard earned money. I mean, it's not like I have Hootie cash to be blowing on expensive chicken sandwiches.

Today's Funny

Today's Funny

Today's thing that made me laugh and laugh and laugh, cough a bunch, throw up a little in my mouth, and then laugh some more:

"If Latigo Flint had been there, Watership Down would have been a much shorter book...."

Your Parents are also your Big Brother

Your Parents are also your Big Brother

Yeah, I'm 4. The world's pretty cool. The Wiggles are on TV. I can eat solid food (hot dogs in mayo are my favorite). I've managed to kick that nasty habit of eating things I find under the couch. I'm not crapping my pants anymore...although I've got a minor problem about peeing the bed. But I am out of the diapers. I'm making friends at pre-school. I'm beginning my athletic career by playing wee-ball each week. And I'm finding that technology's cool.

And then people start watching me through my teddy bear.

The teddy bear sitting in the corner of the child's room might look normal, until his head starts following the kid around using a face recognition program, perhaps also allowing a parent talk to the child through a special phone, or monitor the child via a camera and wireless Internet connection.

Yeah. That's what we need in our society. More means for parents to become even more distant and disconnected from their kids.

Now, I'm not a parent, so I'm sure that there's somebody reading this who's saying to themselves "this guy just doesn't know what parenting's all about."

Well, dare I say that it's not about ignoring your kid while you yell into a cellular phone. Kids love that. Knowing that that invisible person in the telephone is more important at that moment than they are.

It really bugs me, too, when I'm driving down the road and I look into the S.U.V. or the minivan next to me, and I see with the kids in the backseat glued to a DVD screen showing Power Rangers or SpongeBob, and up in the front seat, the parent's on their cell phone chatting busily to anybody BUT their kids? Does that shit bug anyone else? I mean, that's part of the time that my folks spent talking to me.

No, it's not all meaningful communication. But if there came a moment on one of those interminable trips from my house in Tennessee to my grandparents' in New Jersey that I needed to ask one of those important life questions (Where do babies come from?; why does the American League have the D.H.?; how is syrup different from jelly?), I knew that my folks would be there to answer those questions instead of screaming "Shut Ya Head I'm talking to the bastards at Work!"

It bugs me.

And now, we're gonna be able to shunt off the parenting to a teddy bear, who watches the kid while you work, and see what the bear sees and you're able to yell at the kid through the teddy bear.

Aren't we instilling this next generation with enough trust issues to fill up a city bus?

My mother popped me out of her, and then wants to talk to somebody else all the time. She spends all her time in another room, doing anything but spending time with me. So I make friends with my teddy bear. We do all sorts of adventures, but to be honest, it kind of scared the Living Hell out of me the other day when the teddy bear screamed at me when I wanted to eat out of the cat box.

And now all the teddy bear does is watch me. Seriously. It's like one of those pictures where the eye is following me.

Maybe it's an experiment. Let's see how many issues we can give a kid when that teddy bear gets up and starts chasing him, threatening to smack the hell out of him.

Although, on second thought, there are so many kids wandering around in our society today who need a whipping, I'd be willing to let childhood toys dole out the discipline. At least somebody would be doing it then. Seriously. I'd like a license to whup a few kids nowadays.

And just think. It was only a few years ago when a kid claiming "the teddy bear is watching me" was a red flag for a serious childhood psychosis. And now, it's just the most modern and advanced of child-rearing techniques.

I found the link at Fark. Which I love like the circus.

Today's Funny

Today's Funny

I first heard this joke from my church's preacher.

Mildred, the church gossip, and self-appointed monitor of the church's morals, kept sticking her nose into other people's business. Several members did not approve of her extra curricular activities, but feared her enough to maintain their silence.

She made a mistake, however, when she accused George, a new member, of being an alcoholic after she saw his old pickup parked in front of the town's only bar one afternoon. She emphatically told George and several others that everyone seeing it there would know what he was doing.

George, a man of few words, stared at her for a moment and just turned and walked away. He didn't explain, defend, or deny. He said nothing.

Later that evening, George quietly parked his pickup in front of Mildred's house and left it there all night.....

A Thought on Lost

A Thought on Lost

Lost is probably my second favorite show behind Arrested Development.

I think Hurley's my favorite character on Lost. So I enjoyed getting to see Hurley's story tonight.

His lottery numbers: 4--8--15--16--23, with a moneyball of 42.

I was doodling, and I wrote them down. Saw this as the show was going off: 4+8+15+16+23 = 66

Moneyball 42 (deep breath) 4 + 2 = 6.

Hurley's lotto numbers, and the numbers that shipwrecked Danielle's ship, and that are etched on the vault lid are 66 and 6.

The mark of the Beast.

Thusly, my bet for what is behind the gate?

Joan Rivers. The most unholy thing in all the universe.

Arrested Development

Arrested Development

Except for the Simpsons, I've got a bad track record with my favorite TV shows, especially if they run on Fox. The Tick. Undeclared. Andy Richter Controls the Universe. Futurama (yeah, it ran four seasons but it was pre-empted for football so much I didn't see a lot of the episodes until Cartoon Network picked it up).

Arrested Development is the only show I set aside time to watch nowadays. Yeah, I watch the Simpsons, mainly because it comes on right before Arrested Development. In the past year and a half, it's lost its "I'm there, period" status.

Well, word going around is that it's facing cancellation once again. At the very least, it's had its episode order cut to 18, to make room for American Dad.

All this from the same network that runs a karaoke contest judged by a snotty Brit and a used up pop star three times a week.

And the thing is, I'm not taking a shot at the network. They aired the bugger in the first place, and had faith enough in it to run it a second season, in a money slot right behind The Simpsons.

Joe America doesn't want to watch.

Well. Joe America can have its karaoke contests, its suck up to a corporate mogul shows, its eat-a-bug shows and its wife-swapping/find-a-husband/trade-your-kids/get-a-nanny reality shows. Me? I get enough of the sad high-school-type/clash-of-psychoses dramas at my job every day just so that I don't need to watch the Puck clone fight with the Richard Hatch clone for three hours on the boob tube each night.

But Joe America can have that. Six days a week, three hours of primetime programming a night, if they want it.

Give me thirty minutes of smart, expertly written, wonderfully performed satire. Give me goofy comedy. Give me something that's meant to make me laugh, but doesn't depend on laugh tracks or shots of other characters laughing at something witty or dumb or mean.

Thirty minutes. That's all I ask.

Hell. I'll take both Arrested Development AND American Dad over any of the multitude of reality mess run any day of the week.

But Joe America wants to watch Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie pretend to be average joes, but not two half hour comedies.

I had a point here.

Oh yeah.

There's one of those online petitions. Sheila had a link up. I never know how much good these things do. But I figured it couldn't hurt to put my name down. You put your name down too.

And do one more thing.

Watch Arrested Development. Watch the show.

I give Arrested Development my highest recommendation.

This doesn't come from the guy who likes Police Academy movies and watches likes the best efforts of TV shows and movies even when they fall short of their intended goals.

This comes from the guy who knows that good intent and good execution are a rare, rare tandem.

Arrested Development is the very best comedic intent, the very best effort and the very best result of TV comedy that you're gonna get. It lets you laugh at what you want to laugh at, and it doesn't tell you what you need to. It's secure enough in its humor that it doesn't need you to laugh at everything.

Hell. I can't think of the number of things I've missed because I was laughing at something else. It's a show that warrants multiple viewings. It's the only thing I can think of that's been on network TV the past couple of seasons that I can say that about. I watch it, and then I say "I need to see that again."

Well. I'm off on a rant here. I'll get off it.

Watch the show. Sign the petition.

Y'all think on it.

Believe it or Not

Believe it or Not

Got the day off. Used some birthday cash.



Hell yeah. Greatest American Hero on DVD.