New Year's Eve

1. 5
2. 4
3. 3
4. 2
5. 1

Happy New Years!

6 autographed things I have around the house

1.  Bill Cosby on a poster for his performance
2.  Tracy Bonham on a promotional photo card
3.  Suzanne Sommers on a TV Guide with her on the cover
4.  Stan Lee on a hardbound Photo Journal Marvel Comics
5.  Dick Debartolo on a copy of Mad Magazine and question card from the original Match Game
6.  Aaron Neville on a 1997 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival print

10 nicknames/slogans for my hometown's city limit signs

1. The Jewel of the Litter Belt
2. Strip Mall USA
3. The Prairie Goiter
4. Wherever You're Going, You're Halfway There
5. A Great Place to Raise a Fuss
6. Home of the World Famous Paul McCartney Urinal London Mirror el Periodico China Daily n-tv Radio Infinita (Chile)
7. The Cradle of Cellulite
8. Little Chicago: All the corruption with a fraction of the traffic
9. Crossroads of the Pork Trade
10. The Midwest's Muffintop Capital

7 things that come in fours

1.  Kevin Bacon degrees for my wife*
2.  Blood types
3.  Beatles, Stones, and Whos
4.  Baldwins
5.  Apocalyptic horsemen
6.  Singing barbers
7.  Movie tickets on double dates.


*She was in "Charming Billy" with Michael Hayden who was in "Glory Glory" with Micheal York who was in "54" with Neve Campbell who was in "Wild Things" with Kevin Bacon

GUEST LIST: Five of James Ileks Regrettable Foods Made with Hot Dogs

1. Benedictish Frankwiches
2. Beans and Wieners
3. Mary Margaret McBride's Link Loaf
4. Frankfurter and Cucumber Aspic
5. Hot Dogs*

*this one's mine

The 6 cardinal rules of mustaches.

1. Three words: symmetry, symmetry, symmetry
2. Mustache mass should be no more than 4 eyebrows based upon the eyebrow mass of the individual.
3. At no time should mustache hair and nostril hair intermix.
4. All mustaches should conform to the three archetypal forms: The Brush, The Lip-liner, The Snidely Whiplash (briefly known as the Rollie Fingers.) Slight various on these forms are allowed but varients should remain true to the underlying archetype.
5. One should not grow more mustache than one is willing to groom. Lack of grooming inevitably leads to breaking rules 1 through 4.
6. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Christmas toasts for all.

1. To politicians - May you retire from office with honor before we ever discover what you did.
2. To celebutantes - May the cameras never run out of film, may you never suffer the weight of purpose, and may your mugshots always be fashionable.
3. To CEOs - May your parachutes always be golden platinum.
4. To hoboes - May your life be rich in pies cooling on the window sill and poor in railroad detectives clubbing you on the head.
5. To crazy cat ladies - May you have a kitty vest for every occasion and may life always be as fresh as recently sprayed Febreeze.
6. To smokers - May the weather outside your office building always be warm and sunny.
7. To bloggers - May the world one day recognize your genius and elevate you to your rightful status. Oh, and may you get a life.
8. To pundits - May your words never be hindered by reason, sense or reality and may someone always be willing to point a camera at you in 3 minute increments.
9. To Joe the Plumber - May you forever be the middle-aged, angry bald guy's Madonna.
10. To everyone else - May you have a merry and safe Christmas.

10 places to look for Santa tonight

1.  Santa Claus, Arizona
2.  Jingle Bells Road, Lake, Oregon 97638
3.  Frosty, Alaska 99571 (I don't think there are any children there, just lava.)
4.  Scrooge Road, Neeses, South Carolina  29107
5.  Ebeneezer, Georgia (no kidding, it's a ghost town.)
6.  Mistletoe, Kentucky, 41351
7.  Poinsettia, right there between Peppergrass Street and Woodrush Street off Fawn Glen West in Irvine, California.
8.  Wreath Street, Potosi, Missouri, 63664
9.  Elf School Road, Hayesville, North Carolina, 28904
10.  Humbug Road, Butte, Montana (head southwest out of town on Beef Trail Road and turn left.)

10 Christmas films that should be burned with a Yule log.

1. Shrek the Halls - 2007
2. Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July - 1979
3. Frosty Returns - 1992 (Ah'll be back)
4. Home Alones 2-4 (should we need a plural form of Home Alone?)
5. A Family Circus Christmas - 1979 (This must have been the year that grandmas took over the television networks and demanded a Christmas special for the whippersnappers)
6. A Wish For Wings That Work - 1991 (when the bloom fell off Bloom County)
7. The Little Drummer Boy Book II - 1976 (Just in case you thought the baby Jesus hogged all of the attention.)
8. Deck the Halls with Wacky Walls - 1983 (For those who wondered how sticky elastomer cephalopod's spend the holidays.)
9. Santa Claus - 1959 (Santa battles Lucifer who wants all the good children of earth to do evil. Really, look.)
10. Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus - 2004 (Steve Guttenberg's gift to us all.)

They don't write 'em like these ten anymore.

1.  Robert Riskin
2.  Francis Goodrich and Albert Hackett
3.  Norman Krasna
4.  Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder
5.  Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht
6.  Donald Ogden Stewart
7.  Herman Mankiewicz
8.  Dudley Nichols
9.  Leo McCary
10. Julius J. Epstein

7 things that come in fives

1.  Olympic rings
2.  Presidential Johns (Calvin was a middle name)
3.  Dolby channels
4.  With the exception of Uri Geller, George Kreskin, and the creepy boy from the movie, senses
5.  Tires that come with most cars
6.  Little piggies
7.  Blogojevich IQ points

Leftover Cake

1. To me, coming from you,
Friend is a four letter word.
End is the only part of the word
That I heard.Call me morbid or absurd.
But to me, coming from you,
Friend is a four letter word.

2. Heads of State who ride and wrangle,
Who look at your face from more than one angle,
Can cut you from their bloated budgets
Like sharpened knives through Chicken McNuggets.

3. Jesus wrote a blank check,
One I haven't cashed quite yet.
I hope I've got a little more time.
I hope it's not the end of the line.
Yeah, Jesus wrote a blank check.
One I haven't cashed yet, all right.

4. But when you speak to her,
Her eyes light up.
The music spills right into your cup.
It's so abrupt and it's so concise.
There are pies on a carousel.
Have a slice.
But watch out.
She ain't no good for you.
I say watch out.
She ain't no good for you.

5. They're too late'
Cause nobody's going to save us
We're rubberneckers' dream
We're burning gasoline
Go, take your economy car and your suitcase
Take your psycho little dogs
Take it all away

6. Well the more you try to shave the cat
The more the thing will bit and scratch
It's best I think to leave its fur and to listen to its silky purr.
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it really is.

5 exceptional chunks of Cole

1. Well, let me see now, Cherry Pies ought to be you, (Autumn skies ought to be you)
The Pulitzer prize ought to you, (Romeo in disguise ought to be you,)
Columbine ought to be you,(Sparkling wine ought to be you)
All of Beethoven's Nine ought to be you(Every Will Shakespeare line ought to be you.)

2. Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies.
On my Cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise.
I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in.

3. You do something to me
Something that simply mystifies me
Tell me, why should it be,
You have the power to hypnotize me?
Let me live 'neath your spell
Do do that voodoo that you do so well
For you do something to me
That nobody else could do

4. I've got you under my skin.
I've got you deep in the heart of me.
So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me.

5. At words poetic I'm so pathetic
That I always have found it best
Instead of getting 'em off my chest,
To let 'em rest - unexpressed.
I hate parading my serenading,
As I'll probably miss a bar,
But if this ditty is not so pretty,
At least it'll tell you how great you are.

5 exceptional pieces of Cake

1.  She's got a serrated edge
     That she moves back and forth.
     It's such a simple machine.
     She doesn't have to use force.
     When she gets what she wants
     She puts the rest on a tray
     In a zip-loc bag.
2.  Red flowers bursting down below us.
     Those people didn't even know us.
     We didn't know if we would live or die.
     We didn't know if it was wrong or right.
     I bombed Korea every night.
3.  You won't admit you love me.
     And so how am I ever to know?
     You only tell me
     Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
4.  Now due to a construct in my mind
     That makes their falling and their flight
     Symbolic of my entire existence,
     It becomes important for me
     To get up and see
     Their last second curves toward flight.
     It's almost as if my life will fall
     Unless I see their ascent.
5.  I want a girl who gets up early
     I want a girl who stays up late
     I want a girl with uninterrupted prosperity
     Who used a machete to cut through red tape
     With fingernails that shine like justice
     And a voice that is dark like tinted glass

5 sorts of people who have a hard time blending into a crowd

1. Tuba players
2. Muppeteers
3. American Gladiators
4. Osmonds
5. Any of those famous people who have no particular talent, skill, or reason to be famous but they're always in US magazine walking on red carpets or appearing in traffic court or feuding with other curiously famous people or getting out of cars with too-short skirts worn on days that they must have laundry to do since they never seem to have any underpants to wear. They could easily blend into a crowd, since no one knows who the hell they are, but they're always saying, "Over here! Look at me!"

6 actual Capital City nicknames for Blagojevich

1.  Hot Rod
2.  Ram Rod
3.  Blago
4.  Blojerkovich
5.  The Hair
6.  Elvis (read the 4th paragraph for an early indicator.)

10 toys Santa brought me.

1. Gumby and Pokey board game
2. Fisher Price parking garage
3. Any and every magic kits produced in the 70s
4. Ricochet Racers - western set
5. Evil Knevil motor cycle and stunt car
6. Steve Austin action figure with space capsule and operating room
7. Various Skittle games - SkittleBowl, SkittlePool, SkittlePoker
8. Vertibird - Arctic rescue set
9. Show and Tell record player/slide show
10.Smackaroo - that was so cool

7 things that come in sixes

1. Flaring nostrils in a menage a trois
2. Flags that have flown over Texas
3. Nick and Nora pairings
4. Beers or abs, depending upon which you prefer having
5. Anne Boleyn fingers
6. Little chocolate frosted donuts
7. Simpson's pets: Santa's Little Helper, Snowball I, Snowball II, then in quick succession Snowball III, Coltrane, and Snowball V - renamed Snowball II to avoid buying a new food bowl. Stampy (elephant), Plopper (pig), Princess (pony), Laddie (police dog) , Mojo (helper monkey), Bitey (possum) were only guest pets.

8 Manilow songs that have nothing to do how cool I may or may not be.

1. Mandy
2. I Write the Songs
3. I Am Stuck On Band-aid Brand
4. Looks Like We Made It
5. American Bandstand
6. Can't Smile Without You
7. Copacabana
8. Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There

10 last lines from great movies of the 1990s

1. Kevin, what did you do to my room?

2. Do I still have to sleep in the cupboard.

3. I do wish we could chat longer but I'm having an old friend for dinner. Bye.

4. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that, he's gone.

5. Mr. Hammond, after careful consideration I've decided not to endorse your park.

6. Sure I could have stayed in the past. I could have been king. But in my own way, I am king. Hail to the king, baby.

7. You met me at a very strange time in my life.

8. Tell me I've led a good life. What? Tell me I'm a good man. You are.

9. I'm a star. I'm a star. I'm a big bright shining star. That's right.

10. Son of a bitch. He stole my line.

5 reasons I'm not a good Christmas party guest

1. Egg nog sort of tastes like milk that you've dropped a Renuzit air freshener in.
2. How many cheese balls are considered dangerous to one's health?
3. Okay, you have a Santa hat. I get it. Now take it off and shut up.
4. Peppermint makes me belligerent and alcohol makes me hateful so no thank you, I don't want to shoot some schnapps with you, you party animal you.
5. Oh, gee, thank you. Had I known that you . . . what's your name again? Frank? You're in purchasing, right. Yeah, well had I known that you were going to buy me this nice Christmas ornament and put it in this festive gift bag with a fistful of Hershey's kisses I would have stabbed myself repeatedly in the throat and I'd be in the hospital now having a considerably better time.

8 dead ladies I have a crush on (from when they were young and undead and by that I mean among the living and not that they were zombies.)

1. Loretta Young
2. Bette Davis
3. Joan Blondell
4. Carole Lombard
5. Ruby Keeler
6. Myrna Loy
7. Alice White
8. Louise Brooks

10 unrealized presidential firsts of 2008 candidates

1. John McCain - first president to hang an onion on his belt
2. Hillary Clinton - first president to appear on Cheaters
3. Rudy Guiliani - first president to dress in drag and be touched inappropriately by Donald Trump. Really.
4. Mike Huckabee - first president to be punched in the throat by Chuck Norris for breaking a campaign promise
5. Mit Romney - first president, with great rigidity and hair spray, to let the dogs out (who who who who)
6. Mike Gravel - first metaphorical president.
7. David Kucinich - first president whose newspaper photographs included the caption "shown actual size"
8. John Edwards - first president to appear on Cheaters
9. Cynthia McKinney - first openly crazy president
10. Fred Thompson - first constipated president, at least according to Huckabee

10 presidential firsts

1. First president to live in the White House - John Adams
2. First bachelor president - James Buchanan
3. First assassinated president - Abraham Lincoln
4. First president to ride in a car - Teddy Roosevelt
5. First president to be born in a hospital - Jimmy Carter
6. First president to pursue women's votes - Warren Harding
7. First president to throw out the opening pitch - William Howard Taft
8. First president to be divorced - Ronald Reagan
9. First president to be sworn in by another president - Calvin Coolidge sworn in by then Chief Justice William Howard Taft
10. First president to kill someone outside of war (that we know of!) - Andrew Jackson

BONUS: First vice-president to share a name in common with a Funkedelic - George Clinton

7 things that come in sevens

1.  Harryhausen hydra heads.
2.  Bad luck years for broken mirrors
3.  Head holes
4.  Virtues and Deadly Sins (depending upon what rocks your boat)
5.  Brides for brothers
6.  House gables in Salem, MA
7.  Texas Hold 'Em cards

EXTRA:  If you're not from around these parts, you may realize that Star Trek's Seven of Nine played a role in Barack Obama becoming the President of the United States.

Totally awesome poetry from my high school years

1.  Love is like a shadow on me all of the time.
2.  She got a camouflage face and no money.
3.  And my heaven will be a big heaven, and I will walk though the front door.
4.  And she'll tease you, she'll unease you
     All the better just to please you
    She's precocious, and she knows just
    What it takes to make a pro blush.
5.  Sounded sad upon the radio with a million hearts in mono.
6.  It's time to bring this ship in from the shore and throw away the oars forever.
7.  You were workin' as a waitress in a cocktail bar
    When I met you; I picked you out, I shook you up; and turned you around
    Turned you into someone new.
8.  Temptation, frustration
     So bad it makes him cry
    Wet bus stop, she's waiting
    His car is warm and dry.
9.  Don't tell me you don't know what love is
     When you're old enough to know better
     When you find strange hands in your sweater
     When your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote
     I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions.
10.  I want to walk in the open wind
      I want to talk like lovers do
      I want to dive into your ocean
      Is it raining with you.
11.  With auburn hair and tawny eyes
      The kind of eyes that hypnotize me through.
12.  I can't seem to face up to the facts
       I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax
       I can't sleep 'cause my bed's on fire
       Don't touch me I'm a real live wire.
13.  It's poetry in motion
      She turned her tender eyes to me
      As deep as any ocean
      As sweet as any harmony.
14. At my bedside, empty pocket, a foot without a sock
     Your body gets much closer
     I fumble for the clock
     Alarmed by, the seduction
     I wish that it would stop.
15.  Sometimes I feel like I've got to run away
      I've got to get away
      From the pain that you drive into the heart of me
      The love we share, seems to go nowhere
      And I've lost my light, for I toss and turn I can't sleep at night.
16.  I heard you on the wireless back in Fifty Two
       Lying awake intent at tuning in on you
       If I was young it didn't stop you coming through.
17.  I have lots of friends that I can ring at any time
      Can mobilize some laughs with just one call.

10 reasons that I didn't transfer to Klown Kollege

1. I might want to be a clown but I don't want to hang out with a bunch of clowns.
2. I'm already sensitive about the size of my feet.
3. Easier and less work to get an English degree.
4. Don't like to carpool.
5. OSHA does not regulate cream pie fights, even for those with dairy allergies.
6. Department of Labor statistics suggested that career options were limited to the rodeo circuit.
7. Emmett Kelly scholarship did not cover lab fees and like I could afford all of that seltzer water.
8. Cirque de Soleil has given an honorable profession a Euro-trash taint.
9. Clown nose store does not stock Italian-size. Unclear if this size exists.
10. My application was denied and referred to their lesser sister-campus Kongress Kollege. Any klown can get into kongress.

10 last lines from great movies of the 1980s

1.  Wanna dance?  Or would you rather just suck face?

2.  I'll be right here.

3.  Roads?  Where we're going, you don't need roads.

4.  Do you think you'd be happy doing that?  Well, I don't know.  What are the hours?

5.  You be careful out there among them English.

6.  Sleep tight.  Affirmative.

7.  You're still here?  It's over.  Go home.  Go.

8.  Hey, dad.  Do you wanna have a catch?   I'd like that.

9.  Nice shooting son.  What's your name?  Murphy.

10.  If not Arizona, then a land not too far away.  Where all the parents are strong and wise and capable and all the children are happy and beloved.  I don't know. Maybe it was Utah.

5 nicknames that I've answered to in my life.

1.  GZ which turned into GG which turned into G-string.

2.  Jew-boy (an uninteresting story having to do with a hat that looked like a yarmulke.)

3.  Android

4.  Squidboy

5.  Mydailylist

Now that I've vented my spleen about Comcast, 5 more anatomical cliches.

1.  I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve.

2.  My eyes are bigger than my stomach.

3.  You're getting on my last nerve.

4.  This makes my skin crawl.

5.  Rectum?  I hardly touched him.

10 reasons that Comcast is the worst company to ever exist in this or any other universe or dimension.

1.  18 months later, they still blame our former cable company (which they bought and which no longer exists) every time they cut off service without any explanation.  

2.  I've spent nearly 20 hours on the phone trying to keep Internet phone service active in the past 6 months - they twice cut off the service without explanation and blamed it on a non-existent company.

3.  They said that their system noted our phone outage but that this report does not initiate fixing our phone service - it's our responsibility to call them to alert them to the fact that their system has noted an outage.

4.  If you have any service issues you are not able to set up a service call if any other outage has been reported - if I understand, once someone reports a problem no one else can schedule a service call since fixing that one problem might magically fix everyone else's problem. 

5.  When they finally did set up a service call to fix the phone, they canceled it because they called the phone number (the one that didn't work which they were going to fix) and, since no one answered the inoperable phone, they assumed we weren't home. (They also laughed out loud as they told me this on the phone.)

6.  They began charging me a rental fee for a modem I own and, when asked why they decided to start this charge, they said, "well we knew you had Internet service and we couldn't prove that you had a Comcast modem, so we figured we'd better start charging you just in case it was ours."

7.  When I was experiencing intermittent Internet outages and trying to determine if it was a hardware or service issue, they said they would not tell me if my service was functional without coming to my home and that would cost $45 minimum.   

8.  They have continued charging for phone service for two months since porting the number back to ATT.  They said that since we hadn't dismantled a manifold of cable wires and unbolted the equipment from where they'd installed it that we had to continue paying for the full service fees.  And no, they said I wasn't just responsible for a $3 rental fee, which is listed on the bill.  Having Comcast property obligated me to full phone charges even though the service wasn't functional.

9.  I was told that when ATT calls them to port a number, turning off my service does not initiate cancellation of service fees.  They must continuing billing me for service until I show a little responsibility and call them to alert them to the fact that they've turned off my service.  Of course, this actually means that I have to call them 4 times before they realize they haven't noted the ATT port in their system.

10.  They seem to like to charge for services that aren't provided and then try to convince you that the charges are correct and/or hope that you're too old, stupid, or ill-informed to notice.  Is that racketeering or incompetence?