What the media expects me to care about today

1.  Jessica Simpson is fat.  A) she ain't fat and B) even "skinny" she's not interesting enough to warrant so much attention.
2.  Who will be on Dancing With The Stars.  If I was interested in which annoying person was the best dancer, I could go to any dance club on a Saturday night.
3.  Rush Limbaugh speaks for the Republican party.  The unifying trait of Limbaugh listeners is stupidity not conservatism.
4.  Christian Bale is mean to crew members.  I say, "Way to go, Batman!"  My work life is complicated by simpletons on a daily basis and their incompetence just makes more work for me.  If I knew I'd only have to work with them until the end of a single project, I'd cuss them all out.
5.  Politicians are tax cheats.  Well, yeah, duh!  My question is if we could collect the names of every letter-to-the-editor writer, pundit, talking head, pseudo-plumber who has complained about this, how many would pass a tax audit?  Unless you can document that you don't have tax problems of your own, shut up.

10 properly snarky thoughts

1. Education is the state-controlled manufactory of echoes. (Norman Douglas)
2. Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much. (Oscar Wilde)
3. Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid (Hedy Lamarr)
4. She got her good looks from her father. He's a plastic surgeon. (Groucho Marx)
5. A government is the only known vessel that leaks from the top. (James Reston)
6. There are times when you have to choose between being human and having good taste. (Bertolt Brecht)
7. The making of a journalist: no ideas and the ability to express them. (Karl Kraus)
8. An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make a better soup. (H.L. Menken)
9. Love is what happens to a man and a woman who don't know each other. (W. Somerset Maugham)
10. What is man, when you come to think upon him, but a minutely set, ingenious machine for turning, with infinite artfulness, the red wine of Shiraz into urine. (Isak Dinesen)

If you want more, buy The Portable Curmudgeon.

5 who deserve being Christian Baled

We have a new national hero in Christian Bale. It’s about time someone had the courage to cuss out an incompetent co-worker. If more of us Christian Baled on the simpletons with whom we have the misfortune of working along side each day, the world would be a better place. So go on, Christian Bale them. I’ve created a simple graphic that you can send them in a follow-up email so that they know, “Hey, nothing personal, you’re just useless.”

Here is a brief list of those who deserve a good Christian Baleing.

1. Congress. Republican or democrat, it doesn’t matter, you’re all useless. You probably can’t even play Marco Polo at the Congressional pool since you’d have to check with your caucus to see if it was okay to say ‘Polo.’
2. Joe the Plumber. Yeah, I know I keep harping on him but he won’t go away. Would someone please poor some salt on this slug? Either that or put him in Congress where he belongs.
3. Rachael Raye. Let me get this straight. An unemployed girl does a cable access show in which she proves that you can make a sandwich in 30 minutes and this naturally leads to multiple television shows, a magazine, dog food, kitchen equipment etc etc etc? She’s the Joe the Plumber of mac and cheese. (Dear God, if she reads this, she’ll take that as a compliment!)
4. Dogs. They pee on nearly everything, eat cat poop, lick themselves, smell to high heaven, expect food and treats, drool on everything they haven’t already peed on, stick their noses in our crotches, scoot their asses across our carpets, eat too fast so that the vomit, chew our remote controls, and wake us up much too early so that they can go outside.
5. Beyonce. I’ll hold my tongue since Etta James just gave her a good old-fashioned Christian Baleing. “I tell you, that woman he (Obama) has singing for him, singing my song, she gonna get her ass whipped ... I can’t stand Beyonce, she had no business up there singing ... my song that I’ve been singing forever.” The only thing I can add is that Beyonce isn’t a name. From here on out, I’m calling her Agnes, as in, “Hey Agnes, you suck.”

Video may have killed the radio star but these 5 ought to be charged with killing the video star

1. The Monkees. If you're old enough to have at one time said "I want my MTV" or watched Night Tracks on TBS while you waited for your cable company to get hip, you may recall that MTV started showing repeats of The Monkees on an almost constant schedule in the mid-1980s. It was all downhill from there. Screw you Mickey Dolenz!
2. Madonna. You've been an annoying drain on society for more than 20 years. How many people stopped watching videos just to avoid seeing you?
3. Rappers. Yeah, you have lots of jewelry, drink Cristal, and occasionally hang out by the pool wearing banana hammocks but all of that is boring to watch. I mean the whole gun thing might have given you an edge for a while but . . .yawn.
4. The Real World. The first couple of seasons were interesting but this show is the progenitor of MTV's entire schedule of videotaped douchbags pretending to be real.
5. VH1. You started as MTV lite, took a detour through 200 episodes of Behind the Music, and now you're the network dedicated to whores and meatheads. I suppose you're back to be MTV lite again.

5 songs you can sing even if you have a frog in your throat

1. It's Not Easy Being Green
2. The Michigan Rag (Hello my baby, hello my darlin', hello my ragtime gal)
3. Froggy Went A-Courtin'
4. Body (From The Presidents of the United States first album. The song is about various dead pets and includes the lines "Worms found a hole in your booty they could enter and I can't get your body out of my mind)
5. Ain't Got No Home by Clarence "Frogman" Henry. If you don't know the song, it's worth finding.

Now that Rod Blagojevich has no income, 10 classic ad campaigns his PR people are trying to revive so that he can endorse the products

1. Brillcreme - A little vat'll do ya
2. CoCo Puffs - I'm cuckoo and I eat CoCo Puffs
3. Calgon - Lock me away
4. Charmin Toilet Tissue - Cellmate, please don't squeeze my "charmin"
5. Almond Joy - Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you do
6. Trident Gum - 4 out of 5 state senators surveyed recommended I be removed from office. Okay, it was 5 out of 5.
7. Ivory Soap - 99 and 44/100th percent guilty
8. Libby's Canned Food - If it says Blago, Blago, Blago on the label, label, label, you must pay him, pay him, pay him, under the table, table, table.
9. Memorex - Is it live or effin' Memorex
10. Sara Lee - Everybody doesn't like something but nobody doesn't not like me.

The 20 greatest television theme songs of all time

All lame blogs must eventually turn to television theme songs so, as this blog reaches its one year mark, I feel it is time to get this out of the way. This list may seem heavy on nostalgia but realize that the days of good theme music have past. Today's programs rarely use anything other than a previously written pop song or noise. I mean, come on Law and Order. Bong! Bong! ? That's a theme song?

In no particular order:


1. Gilligan's Island
2. Sesame Street
3. Partridge Family
4. M.A.S.H. - this is the movie version with lyrics
5. Green Acres
6. Bonanza
7. Sanford and Son - tribute performance
8. Cheers
9. The Facts of Life
10. Wide World of Sports
11. Match Game
12. Zoom
13. The Dukes of Hazard
14. WKRP in Cincinnati
15. The Muppet Show
16. Peter Gunn
17. Welcome Back Kotter
18. The Addams Family
19. The Brady Bunch
20. Hawaii 5-0

And for desert, here is Hitler singing the theme from The Jeffersons

5 reasons I'm not watching the Super Bowl.

1. I once went to a pee-wee league football game and got upset about a call. I argued with the referee and eventually threw my Cosmopolitan in his face so my probation forbids me from watching sporting events. (This was when Sex and the City first came on HBO and my wife had me drinking Cosmos all the time. In retrospect, this wasn't my most manly moment.)
2. I limit my exposure to homoerotic content to Steve Reeves movies.
3. I'm allergic to chicken wings.
4. Still sore about that football player breaking my sternum.
5. Higher than average IQ acts as a football filter. My brain only registers the roar of the crowd so I don't actually perceive football on the physical plane.

(All right, I'm sorta watching the game but I don't really care.)

Who's making me angry today?

1. Television executives - there's probably 10 hours of worthwhile prime-time programs in any given week and most of them are on Monday nights.
2. Steve Martin - The Pink Panther? Really?
3. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn - you've pretty much known you were going to assume the office for more than a month and now you say you need to figure out what needs to be done?
4. That skank at Target who thought is was okay to push me as she said "excuse me." I don't care if you are a desiccated old crone in a velour sweat suit who just bought some Revlon products and a copy of O magazine, I'll break you next time.
5. That table of speckly, 50 year-old women at trivia night who did their little coochie-popping dance during the music category. Who finds that alluring? What do I take to forget it?

25 random facts about me (some of which may be complete lies.)

1. I have had a pencil eraser shoved somewhere inside of my sinus cavity for 35 years.

2. I once decided to moon my friend through the basement window of his house. As I pressed both cheeks firmly against the window, the glass broke and I fell mostly through the window - imagine sitting on the toilet with the seat up but the rim is made of jagged glass and your ass is in a house. For days following this, it hurt whenever I sat down due to microscopic slivers of ass glass.

3. I applied for an administrative position with Lions Club International. After reviewing my resume, they called to say that they had filled the position from within but wanted to meet with me as a possible replacement for that person's open position. That job would have required me to go to funeral homes and to scoop out the retinas of corpses. Sort of like how you eat a grapefruit but with a sharper knife and vitreous humor rather than citric acid.

4. My friend and I once took his 1968 Dodge Charger Duke Boys-style over a highly pitch railroad crossing at high speed. It took a few tries to get all 4 tires off the ground.

5. My oldest friends know that I've named my colon. Her name is Willhemenia.

6. I once smoked a cigar, chewed tobacco and snuffed snuff up my nose all at the same time. (Vomiting ensued.)

7. One time, I was videotaping a production of "Jeffery." I was one of only two people in the balcony and I shared a polite how-do-you-do with the other man at intermission. Later, I learned that he asked a cast member if I was available and that he was a candidate for State Senate whose placards I'd seen all over town. I was reassured knowing that if I were gay, I'd attract the right sort of man.

8. I proposed to my wife in a cemetery at night. I was dressed as a mad butcher. She was dressed as a cow.

9. I once went into no-appointment necessary salon for a hair cut. The woman at the receptionist desk was wearing an eye-patch, like a pirate. When I told her I wanted a hair cut she led me back to the sinks and washed my hair. "Hmm, I thought, receptionist and hair-washer." Then, she led me to a chair, put a pair of glasses on over her eye-patch and proceeded to cut my hair. I thought, "Well, at least it will be an interesting story." She cut my hair in a bowl cut that was very popular with the 10 year-old boys of that season so I looked foolish, but the cut itself was very professionally done.

10. A man with a lot of camera equipment once told me that I had very nice feet and that they would look good in magazines. I considered his offer but did not pursue my modeling career - although my feet remain one of my better parts.

11. One morning five years ago, as I was taking a shower, I heard the sound of metal hitting the shower floor. I thought, "Great, the shower head is falling apart and now I'll have to replace it" but there were no shower head parts of the floor. Instead, there was a single dime. I'd read that one of the most common poltergeist activities was coins materializing in mid-air. I was fairly new to the house so I took this to mean the dime belong there more than I did. I put it on ledge where you're supposed to keep a bar of soap and it's still there today. Now it's tarnished green.

12. When I was 8 years-old, I won an contest sponsored by Borden. They were looking for a new flavor for their Shake 'N Wait Pudding product line. (A plastic cup with an instant pudding mix. Add ice water, shake for 60 seconds and you've got pudding.) If you've ever eaten anything "banana-berry" flavored, that was my idea.

13. Research suggests that Paul Powell's shoebox money may have been brought to my house while his Chief of Staff tried to figure out what to do with it.

14. My least favorite sound is a vacuum cleaner and, like a dog, it causes me a great deal of stress.

15. I once met B.J Thomas in an elevator in Memphis, TN. We invited him to play poker but he did not come to our room.

16. I dated a girl who was a competitive body-builder. I was okay with the fact that she had bigger muscles than me but it was always weird when I took her to the movies. We had to sit in the last row because she preferred to stand.

17. I once proctored a test for a blind student - 100 multiple choice questions for PSY 101. It was so boring, I fell asleep for about 8 questions but continued reading aloud and writing down each of her answers.

18. I once shot an AK-47 with the FBI S.W.A.T. unit.

19. My dog has required emergency penis surgery on two occasions. He now has an unrelated tendon attached to his man-part so that he cannot possibly express his excitement.

20. I am one of George H.W. Bush's Thousand Points of Light.

21. Years after I graduated, I bumped into my faculty advisor. She was born in the late 1920s and was retired by this point. I remember she liked to sit on the floor when she taught and she was old enough that she when got up, she farted uncontrolably. She was great. As we caught up with each other, she shared that she'd had a sex dream about me.

22. Once, while visiting my parents, a childhood friend knocked on the door asking for me. He explained that since we had last spoken he was focusing on winning the lottery. It was key that he win the lottery since he needed to fund his Bat-cave construction project so that he could train a team of ninjas who could battle the anti-Christ.

23. I've had a gun pointed at me in a threatening manner.

24. A football player once broke my sternum in a mosh pit. There ain't no fixing that, it hurts for life.

25. I once took a boat out into the Adriatic to Venice, Italy. My friends and I got lost and walked and walked until we found our way back to the parking lot on the main land. Who knew it wasn't really an island.

(Which are lies? Which are true?)

UPDATE:

1. True 2. True 3. True 4. True 5. Lie, her name is Cynthia 6. True 7. True 8. True 9. True 10. Half lie. I never met that man but I do have remarkably attractive feet. 11. True 12. Lie 13. True 14. True 15. True 16. Lie 17. True 18. True 19. True 20. Lie 21. True 22. True, he's crazy. I was releived when Norman Mailer died of natural causes since, in the 1980's, my friend was obsessed with him and I worried that he might kill him. The crazy friend was living in NYC at that time and was friends with the son of a local man who had written two books on Mailer and was asking all of us to give him Mailers address. 23. True 24. True 25. True

Now that he's been removed from office and banned from holding office in Illinois, 5 ways that Rod Blagojevich can keep his personal quest for the Presidency alive.

1. He doesn't actually live or work in Springfield so there's no reason in the world that he can't keep up his Chicago-based Governorship as if nothing has changed.
2. Have an affair with Sarah Palin. Name love child Spork Palin - the part that shovels is Palin and pricks are Blagojevich.
3. He could get a job with a Chicago-area Morning Zoo radio show. They always need a mentally unstable stooge who's willing to get tazed or stand out in sub-zero weather in nothing but tightie-whities all for the chance to feel the limited spotlight of local fame.
4. Change name to Barack Obama. Hope no one notices.
5. Convince a University of Illinois professor to nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize.

8 steps to a tasty steak dinner

1. Keep it simple with the seasoning: salt, pepper, and a little oil
2. Let the steak reach room temperature before you cook it.
3. Use a cast iron or stainless steel pan - if you only have a non-stick pan, order a pizza
4. Put the steak in a hot, lightly oiled pan and leave it alone. Don't poke it, look under it, flip it. If you can't control yourself, leave the room.
5. Wait until the top of the steak is pooled with juices and the sides of the steak start to look cooked. At that point, the bottom of the steak should be nicely seared. Flip it ONCE.
6. Put the pan in a preheated 400 degree oven. Depending upon the thickness and size of the steak it should take about 5-6 minutes until you flip and another 5-6 minutes in the oven.
7. Poke the steak with your finger to see if it's done - don't cut into it to check for doneness
8. Take the steak out of the pan, put it on a plate, and leave it alone for another five minutes. Walk away if you must since the steak is ruined if you skip this step.

Poke-o-meter - what to look for when you poke your steak

If it feels like poking grandma's stomach - it's still raw inside.
If it feels like poking grandma's nose - it's medium, time to take it out of the oven
If it feels like grandma's crusty old toes - it's well-done, you're better off putting her toes in your mouth than the steak.

5 more television programs on which Rod Blagojevich plans to appear

1. COPS (although he was arrested by FEDS)
2. Shear Genius
3. To Tell the Truth (yes, it's no longer broadcast but once Blago sets his mind on something you can't convince him he's wrong)
4. Trading Spaces (his Chicago-area home for a Federal prison cell)
5. Divorce Court (he's booked for this show sometime next year)

6 commercials we can all do without

1. Anything trying to convince me not to be a meth-head.
2. ANYTHING INTRODUCED BY BILLY MAYS!!!!
3. Roni Deutsch. Let me get this straight. You make enough money to owe $30,000 in taxes but you end up paying less than me thanks to Roni? Fine, but everyone who pays all of their taxes should be allowed to punch Roni Deutsch in the kidney.
4. Anything with people licking Oreo cookies. This is a fetish for 0.005% of the population and disgusting for everyone else.
5. Anything that suggests that a cartoon bear can't wipe its butt without leaving toilet paper residue.
6. Anything that takes advantage of the limited intellect of those who feel they need a hemi. Can't they just buy a typical 8-cylinder gas-guzzler and save $10,000?

Okay, Anthony Bourdain, who is on my television right now, has made listing irrelevant. He asks, "What's hot, humid and smells like a turd slathered in warm durian?" It's the Furnas hot springs which is "like a wet fart." How rank are the springs? "If you've ever nibbled egg salad scraped off someone's taint."

5 deals with the Devil

1. On Borrowed Time (1939 movie with Lionel Barrymore)
2. Devil Went Down To Georgia (Charlie Daniels song)
3. The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings (4ACV18 Episode 72 of Futurama)
4. The Devil and Daniel Webster (Stephen Benet short story which inspired a movie)
5. American Idol (you don't think Ryan Seacrest has made it on talent, do you?)

5 things you'd find in Rod Blagojevich's hair.

1. An FBI listening device hidden during his weekly grooming.
2. A metal file he's stashed for his eventual imprisonment.
3. More hair - he has rows of scalps much like sharks have rows of teeth.
4. Amelia Earhart, D.B. Sweeney, and Jimmy Hoffa. They're living a comfortable life in a 3 bedroom cottage just north of his left ear.
5. A numbskull

5 ways our country might have benefited had we shown the wisdom to put a hobo in the White House.

1. A hobo would have met with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told him a sad story about his abusive father and ended up getting a confirmable cessation of the Iranian nuclear program as well as a plate of hot beef stew and a five dollar bill.
2. A hobo would have solved our unemployment problem one odd job, mowed lawn, or painted fence at a time.
3. A hobo would have ended our mortgage crisis by pushing for a stimulus package that provided bindles and tattered suit coats to anyone in danger of losing their home so that they could hit the open road and sleep under the stars.
4. A hobo would have moved the US capital from Washington DC to Britt, Iowa. The government could have operated just as effectively but for much less cost in the hobo capital and DC could have been sold off to rich robber-barons.
5. A hobo would have declared "Big Rock Candy Mountain" as our unofficial national anthem and the lure of cigarette trees and hens that lay soft-boiled eggs would have led us all to a new age of cooperation and unity.

Happy Birthday AKA I have no idea what to list today

1. Sir Francis Bacon
2. Grigori Rasputin
3. D.W. Griffith
4. George Balanchine
5. Robert E. Howard
6. Ann Sothern
7. Sam Cooke
8. Bill Bixby
9. Graham Kerr
10. Linda Blair

5 words that were added to the American Heritage Dictionary on President Obama's first full day in office.

1. Hopeify

2. Hopetimistic

3. Hopegasm

4. Hopertunity

5. Hope-head

In addition to the Lincoln Bible, other Presidential items that Barack Obama used on his first day in office.

1. As he took his oath of office, he wore a pair of George Washington's wooden underpants beneath his suit.
2. Repurposed a cadre of Cheneybot-2000 Mark III model cyborgs from aggressively attacking the left on Fox News to aggressively attacking the rim on the basketball court.
3. Accepted his duty to begin making minimum payments on Thomas Jefferson's personal debt. It's true what they say about making minimum payments - you'll never pay off the debt.
4. Took the ceremonial inaugural bath in the Taft bathtub using the original Taft bathwater - it is bottled up after each inaugural bath and includes the the schmutz of 17 presidents.
5. His first duty was to add one name to Nixon's enemy list. (He chose Richard Simmons.)
6. He now has unlimited access to the Billy Beer Brewery, which has been in constant, yet secret, production for more than 30 years.

5 things going through George Bush's head as he tries to fall asleep tonight.

1.  I should have cleaned the refrigerator really good.  I'm never going to get my security deposit back on this place.
2.  Now I can finally focus on clearing that brush.
3.  What am I gonna do?  I told Scott McClelland we'd sit in rockers on the front porch and reminisce and he turned out to be a real d-bag.  I hope he doesn't call.
4.  I'm really pumped about that Presidential Library.  I'm gonna hire Laura to be my librarian. That'll keep her out of my hair.
5.  WHEW!  Thank God I ran the clock out on this crap-storm.

8 fish movies

1.  Big Fish
2.  The Amazing Mr. Limpet
3.  Splash
4.  A Fish Called Wanda
5.  Day of the Dolphin
6.  Jaws
7.  Monty Python's Meaning of Life
8.  Finding Nemo

5 thoughts after finally watching the new Indiana Jones movie

1.  I like his hat.
2.  There was really excellent color saturation in the Nevada bomb city (maybe the highlight of the movie.)
3.  The credits were given in a clear, easy-to-read font.
4.  I didn't pay to see it.
5.  I can't regain the time I spent watching it but at least I didn't die while I was watching it so that it was the last thing I ever experienced.

10 things that, if said to a 10-year-old boy, might be confused for flatulence

1.  Pulling the rip cord
2.  Crop duster
3.  Launching Sputnik into orbit
4.  Sousaphone
5.  Papa Smurf
6.  Victoria's Secret
7.  Reap the Wild Wind
8.  Backdraft
9.  Foghorn Leghorn
10. 3-2-1 Blast-off

5 reasons that I'm really pumped about having a broken pipe.

1. I don't have to mop the floor now.
2. I've never really done any drywall work before so now I can learn all about it.
3. Maybe Joe the Plumber will stop by (oh, wait, he's not actually a plumber.)
4. If my pipes were okay, I couldn't stay home waiting for a plumber and I'd have to go out in that cold.
5. My savings has grown unmanageably bulky so this will knock it down a peg or two.

10 answers to musical questions.

1. Of course I've seen the rain. What? Do you live underground?
2. You should go. No, stay. Wait. Yes, go. Now!
3. Nuttin' much, Marvin, what's goin' on with you?
4. My love is approximately 8 feet deep.
5. Because the road is hard, gravely and potentially dangerous.
6. Because I don't think I can be friends with someone who would name their band War.
7. No thanks, I need to be a little drunker to dance.
8. We're in BIG trouble if God is one of us. We're kinda jerks.
9. You know, they teach everyone how to tell time in first grade so yeah, we all really know what time it is. Right now, it's 25 or 6 to 4.
10. I can hear you just fine but my name's not Tommy.

I would make it to Hollywood if American Idol focused on these 5 talents instead of music

1.  Eating pizza
2.  Snoring
3.  Slowly getting fatter with each passing year
4.  Obsessively collecting copies of old movies
5.  Listing

Lions!

1. Leo (MGM)
2. Aslan (Narnia)
3. The Cowardly (Oz)
4. Lambert the Sheeply (WB cartoon)
5. Detroit (NFL)

5 things that are unbelievable about the premiere of 24.

1. The U.S. Senate would be in the midst of a hearing a 8 a.m. - yeah, right.
2. Tony Almeida survive not one, but two death scenes - as, if.
3. Jeanine Garafalo could pass an FBI employment clearence - no way.
4. Jack Bauer could survive for two hours without a cell phone - I wouldn't bet on it.
5. I'm actually tuned in even though I couldn't get through the last season and it didn't air at all last year - what a loser.

GUEST LIST: Ten Movies that didn't deserve to be remade

1. King Kong
2. Willy Wonka
3. The Day The Earth Stood Still
4. The Manchurian Candidate
5. Willard
6. Carrie
7. The Fog
8. Psycho
9. The Poseidon Adventure
10...and coming soon...Footloose

8 things you might find on a sushi menu in the midwest

1.  Bacillus cereus
2.  Shigella
3.  Vibrio cholerae
4.  (Spicy) Salmonellae
5.  Scombroid
6.  Vibrio parahaemolyticus
7.  Hepatitis A
8.  Vibrio vulnificus

Why are hobos so healthy?

1.  Forever roaming from town to town burns 500 calories an hour.
2.  When hobo jocks sit around asking "how much can you lift?" they're referring to their bindles.  Repeatedly hoisting a bindle from the ground to your shoulder promotes lean muscle development and strengthens the core.
3.  Canned beans are a good source of fiber and, for pregnant hobos, folic acid.
4.  Tripping over baggy pants and falling to the ground while intoxicated is actually a hobo-yoga sequence:  Adho Mukha Scansana (Downward Facing Hobo) followed by Ardha Chandrasana (Hobo Half Moon - or Full Moon if the baggy pants end up around the ankles) followed by Shavasana (Corpse Position AKA The Dead Drunk Hobo.)
5.  Lice cleanse the blood of free radicals and are a natural cholesterol lowering agent.

8 pretty good vampires

1.  Bela Legosi - the original
2.  Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula
3.  Chris Sarandon in Fright Night
4.  Adrian Pasdar, Lance Henrikson, and Bill Paxton in Near Dark (A family of vampires so they count as one.)
5.  Frank Langella in Dracula
6.  Wesley Snipe in the Blade Trilogy
7.  Willem DeFoe in Shadow of the Vampire
8.  Amanda Donahoe in The Lair of the White Worm

What's wrong with Roland Burris?

1. He smells like tacos.
2. He once dated Dick Durbin's wife and things got weird. I swear, I'm not making it up.
3. He is really Rod Blagojevich in elaborate prosthetic make-up.
4. He's so mean he once shot a man for just snoring.
5. Actually, there's no more wrong with him than any other politician. Harry Reid is just being a grand-standing poser. Come on, Harry! Read the Constitution and slow down when you get to the 17th Amendment:

"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from
each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each
Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the
qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of
the State legislatures.

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the
Senate, the executive authority of each State shall issue writs of
election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature
of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary
appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the
legislature may direct.

This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election
or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the
Constitution."

Having purchased a copy of Geek Monthly, 5 things I now know about geeks.

1.  They enjoy reading poorly written articles.
2.  They enjoy knowing more about things that were interesting a few years ago.
3.  Based upon their admiration of G4 hosts, they have very limited understanding of talent.
4.  They recognize the difference a few degrees can make when cooling ones PC processor.
5.  They are worried about the softening Manga/Anime market.

7 things that come in threes

1.  Homo genera - homo habilis, homo erectus, homo sapiens
2.  Asimovian Robot Laws
3.  Gorgons
4.  R's
5.  Condor days
6.  Homer hairs
7.  Arms in the exciting amusement park conclusion of The Fugitive.

10 quaint phrases to describe crazy Uncle Charlie's condition.

1.  His ascot is too tight
2.  His spreadsheet doesn't balance
3.  His ukulele needs tuning
4.  He's got salt in his sugar bowl
5.  His sled slides uphill
6.  His bull's got udders
7.  His dictionary's missing its R's
8.  His economy has abandoned the gold standard
9.  His turkey ain't stuffed
10.  His Duck Soup's all Zeppo

10 post-holiday thoughts

1.  Stop avoiding overeating at holiday events and start avoiding overeating at non-holiday events.
2.  Stop feeling guilty every time I hear a bell ring.
3.  Abandon goodwill and return to good riddance to my fellow Man.
4.  Banish indoor evergreen to the storage shed.
5.  Drive through streets uncluttered by yokels who have commenced yonder to the big city for shoppin'.
6.  Free to associate with others without fear of debilitating and unrelenting merriness.
7.  Able to again rot brain with television now that the networks are showing some effort - like there's no need for new programming during the second half of December.
8.  Cookies are once again simply tasty and not tasty and jolly.
9.  Able to finally refill prescription which prevents visions of sugar plums.
10.  Eggnog once again just a bad idea and not a reality.

10 things I should try to accomplish this year.

1. Lose 10 pounds
2. Considering buying a new house
3. Clean old house
4. Lose 10 more pounds
5. Write something worthwhile that doesn't involve a list
6. Go on a vacation - not likely if the new house happens
7. Develop interesting vices so that next year it will be easier to set goals.
8. Complete sleep study and usher in a new age of snorefree perkiness
9. Visit Des Moines
10. Publish My Daily List Volume One - on sale this spring.

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?  

A 5-day week-end by the numbers.

1.  1 night with too many margaritas - yes, it was enough delicious margaritas that I have no choice but to declare too many.

2.  4 days with pie.

3.  2 Thanksgiving dinners

4.  2 days in which working from home was a primary activity.

5.  3 bad night's sleep

5 signs you need to find a new place for trivia night.

1.  Lack of beer and/or an inadequate plan to provide beer.

2.  Moderator is a jerk.

3.  They plan a music category without ever having testing the sound.

4.  A heavy reliance on multiple choice.  (If you're writing a trivia question and realize that the only way to guide your audience to the answer is with multiple choice options, abandon ship.  You don't have a trivia question, you have a random fact that no one cares about.)

5.  The writer has an almanac and isn't afraid to use it - one tediously boring question after another.

5 types of psuedo-hoboes

1.  Bedouin = sand hobo

2.  Transient = hobo who pays daily rent

3.  Hippie/Dead Head = Patchouli-scented hobo

4.  Professor = hobo with a 403b account

5.  Gypsy = Eastern European hobo

Thankful list

1.  Mrs MyDailyList without whom all of my lists would enumerate why I'm so sad and lonely.

2.  That my parents raised me with the proper mix of fear and shame and food.

3.  Work that is focused on looking out for other's best interest rather than simply looking for ways to separate them from their money.

4.  That no one is shooting at me or likely to be shooting at me (and I'm kind of a jerk so that lack of violence shows just how peaceful my personal world is - I'm just asking for it sometimes.)

10 last lines from great movies of the 1970s

1. I was cured all right.

2. But Charlie, don't forget what happened to the man that suddenly got everything he wanted. What happened? He live happily ever after.

3. Don Corleone

4. Sex and death. Two things that come once in lifetime. But at least after death, you're not nauseous.

5. I used to hate the water. I can't imagine why.

6. Just wait 'til next year.

7. This was the story of Howard Beale, the first known instance of man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.

8. The horror. The horror.

9. Life is a state of mind.

10. Bonjour papa.

10 perfectly good things (often found in short supply) of which you can never have enough.

1. friends and family (awwwwwhhh)

2. IQ points

3. toys

4.  hair follicles

5.  dollars left over after paying the bills

6.  vacation days

7.  polite drivers

8.  beers in the fridge (not that you need to drink a lot but they always seem to be gone when you want one.)

9.  brain cells (at least the useful ones.)

10.  shopping days until Christmas

10 perfectly good things of which you can have too many.

1. Dogs (dedicated to Marty)

2. Jobs

3. Expectations

4. Spouses

5. Houses (dedicated to John McCain)

6. Doctor appointments

7. Cooks in the kitchen

8. Italians (Sunday dinners can be difficult)

9. Elvis's

10. Clowns (a word for which a plural form should never have been allowed.)

After a pathetically obvious product placement for Nextel in "24: Redemption" 5 equally awkward ideas for the next season

1. Zip-loc Bags "New human-head size. Loosens the tightest lips."
2. Neosporin "Heals third-degree burns inflicted by the brother of a tribal warlord with a red-hot machete."
3. Chicago Cutlery "When you run out of bullets, there's always Chicago Cutlery."
4. Jack Daniels Whiskey "Nothing takes the edge off a bullet wound like a shot of Jack"
5. Red Bull "It keeps you awake like there's no tomorrow."

8 ways to keep your feet warm this winter

1.  slippers

2.  wingtips

3.  loafers

4.  moccasins

5.  sneakers

6.  jackboots

7.  mukluks

8.  Birkenstocks

10 curses you can use in mixed company

1.  Nertz!

2.  Judas Priest!

3.  Sugar!

4.  Fiddle sticks!

5.  Cheese and crackers!

6.  Heavens to Murgatroyd!

7.  Jeez Louise!

8.  Horse feathers!

9.  D'oh!

10.  Cheney in a hammock!

10 last lines from great movies of the 1960s

1.  Did you hear what I said Miss Kubliek, I absolutely adore you.  Shut up and deal.

2.  I'm not even going to swat that fly.  I hope they're watching, they'll see.  They'll see and they'll know and they'll say, why she wouldn't even harm a fly.

3.  Your going to live a long life, in a cage.  That's where you belong and that's where you're going and this time for life.  Bang you head against the wall.  Count the days, the months, the hours until the day you rot.

4.  Nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valence.

5.  Mein Fuehrer, I can walk.

6.  Do you know what you are?  You're all stinking sons of . . . 

7.  I've got a flat tire and I ain't got no spare.

8.  Well, Tillie, when the hell are we going to get some dinner.

9.  You finally did it!  You maniacs! You blew it up! Goddam you!  Goddam you all to hell!

10.  Good.  For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.

9 things that cost more than one share of General Motors stock.

1.  any hamburger at Hardees

2.  a gallon of diesel

3.  64 box of Crayola crayons with built-in sharpener

4.  the toll on the New York Thruway from exit 24 Albany to exit 31 Utica

5.  12 ounce can of Classic Spam (or Turkey Spam, Lower Sodium Spam, Spam Lite, or Hickory Smoke Flavored Spam.)

6.  a ticket to the 7 pm showing of Porky's, March 19, 1982

7.  three 10-15 count jumbo shrimp

8.  Starbucks tall Carmel Macchiato - tall means small

9.  one pound of rubber bands

10 ways to keep your head warm this winter.

1.  bowler

2.  beanie

3.  porkpie

4.  fedora

5.  cap

6.  fez

7.  stetson

8.  panama

9.  newsboy

10.  beret

He may be man's best friend but there's still 7 things that bug me about my dog.

1.  He's always licking me.

2.  He wakes up every day at 6:30 am, even on week-ends.

3.  The smell of rotten sewage pours out of his mouth.

4.  He pees on everything.

5.  He won't let us dress him in funny hats.

6.  He sleeps in the bed and barks in his sleep.

7.  He's required 3 after-hours emergency vet visits

6 great features from Mad Magazine

1.  The fold-in back inside cover.

2.  The Lighter Side Of . . . 

3.  Spy Vs. Spy

4.  Mad's Maddest Artist, Don Martin

5.  Sergio Aragones margin art

6.  Movie and TV parodies

6 oils I have sitting around the house.

1.  Motor oil

2.  Safflower oil

3.  Mineral oil

4.  Olive oil

5.  Avocado oil

6.  Baby oil

OH MY GOD! MORE BEARS!

1.  Paddington

2.  Gentle Ben

3.  Bad Idea Bears (go see Avenue Q)

4.  The Icee Bear

5.  Bobo, Mr. Burns only friend

6. Fozzy Bear

7.  Snuggles

8.  Those awkward butt-wiping bears from the Charmin commercials

9.  The Berenstain Bears

10.  Fuzzy Wuzzy (if memory serves, he wuz a bear)

10 last lines from great movies of the 1950s

1.  You know what they say. 'My son's my son 'til he gets him a wife, but my daughter's my daughter all of her life.'  All of our life

2.  Well thank you, Harvey.  I prefer you too.

3.  There's nothing else.  Just us, and the cameras, and those wonderful people in the dark.  All right, Mr. DeMille.  I'm ready for my close up.

4.  Hey Stella!  Hey Stella!

5. Every one of you, listening to my voice, tell the world.  Tell this to everybody wherever they are.  Watch the skies, everywhere, keep looking.  Keep watching the skies.

6.  Robert E. Lee Prewit.  Isn't that a silly old name?

7.  Remember honey, on our wedding day it's okay to say yes.

8.  Shane.  Shane! Come back Shane!

9.  Hello everybody.  This is Mrs. Norman Maine.

10.  Go.  Proclaim liberty throughout all lands and to all of the inhabitants thereof.

BEARS!

1.  Smokey Bear

2.  Yogi and Boo Boo

3.  Sugar Bear (Super Sugar Crisp)

4.  Teddy Ruxpin

5.  Ditka

6.  Care Bears

7.  Gummi Bears

8.  Baloo (Look for the bear necessities . . . )

9. Winnie the Pooh

10.  State o' Maine (read a book if you've never heard of the bear named State o' Maine.)

A moment of silence for the now extinct Bear Stearns

10 musical acts on every entomologist's iPod.

1.  The Beatles

2.  The Crickets

3.  Iron Butterfly

4.  The Yellowjackets

5.  The Scorpions

6.  Papa Roach

7.  Alien Ant Farm

8.  W.A.S.P.

9.  Adam Ant

10.  Bingo, Bango, Bongo, and Irving:  The Mosquitos from Gilligan's Island (AKA The Wellingtons.)  The same episode featured the girls singing as The Honey Bees.

5 Iron Chefs (more fun to say than to spell.)

1  Chen Kenichi

2. Hiroyuki Sakai

3. Masohiko Kobe

4.  Rokusaburo Michibi

5.  Masaharu Morimoto

6 annoying phrases with an assist from Amanda

1.  No ifs, ands, or buts

2.  Hate with a passion

3.  On so many levels

4.  Try and be funny (or any other verb.)  Do you mean "try to be funny" or "tried and was funny?"  If you succeeded in being funny, then the trying part is irrelevent.

5.  So on and so forth.

6.  You rock.  (If you mean "thank you" say "thank you."  "You rock" just sounds like old-people pseudo-slang, fo-shizzle.)

5 don'ts of having a cold.

1.  Don't feel like sitting up

2.  Don't feel like being awake

3.  Don't feel like drinking beer

4.  Don't feel like leaving house (or bed)

5.  Don't feel like making lists

5 good things about the hobo life.

1.  All of your clothes double as pajamas

2.  Beans are a good source of iron.

3.  Life is one big road trip.

4.  No chance of moss gathering.

5.  Monocles are ironic rather than pretentious.

10 last lines from great movies of the 1940s

1.  Throw that junk.

2.  The stuff that dreams are made of.

3.  There's a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that's all some people have?  It isn't much but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan.

4. Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

5.  Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon.  We have the stars.

6.  The Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming . . .

7.  Look Daddy, teacher says every time a bell rings and angels gets his wings.  That's right.  Attaboy Clarence.

8.  Alex, will you come in please.  I wish to talk to you.

9.  Made it, Ma!  Top of the world (kaboom)  He finally made it to the top of the world and it blew up right in his face.

10.  There you are Norton.  The people.  Try and lick that.

Now that he's allowed back in public, 5 things on President Bush's to-do list.

1.  The White House lawn is badly in need of tending.

2. Not too late for some trick or treating - he loves those little Snickers bars.

3.  Presidential peanut butter supply ran dry after the VP debate and crackers with butter and peanuts just isn't working.

4. If he has to hear one more time about her days as a school librarian, he's going to scream.  He just needs a little me-time.

5.  Rove says Zack and Miri Make a Porno is HIL-arious.

10 things I would have voted against had they been on the ballot.

1.  Low-rise blue jeans (Proposition Muffin Top)

2.  That bloated feeling

3.  Cat hair - it belongs on a cat but it seems to be everywhere else.

4.  Teachers who refer to the children they teach a "my babies."

5.  Madonna - can't sing, too old to be a provocateur 

6.  Comcast Cable

7.  Morning Crews, Zoo Crews, The Morning Disaster, etc and every other morning radio blather.

8.  Morons who park at the front door of the grocery store when an open parking space is only 20 feet away.

9.  Florida

10. Gum Snapping

10 good-byes after a long political season

1.  electoral maps

2.  robocalls

3.  stump speeches

4.  people named Tucker

5.  real America/fake America

6.  yard signs

7.  "The View" somehow wandering into my life even though I'm at work when it airs

8.  anything related to Alaska with the exception of "The Deadliest Catch" which is really cool.

9.  everyone named Joe - you hear that Joe Cocker!!

10.  anxiety

3 responses to I gave to the focus group I used to test my new blog banner.

1.  I can't help it if my blog so darn cool that it takes planetary-league imagery to convey its coolness.

2.  What?  This is just something I whipped up.  No biggie.

3.  Does this blog banner make my butt look big?

5 questions from the trivia night that we totally won even though there were 32 other tables and we drank, like, 45 beers.

1.  How many murders where in the1978 movie Halloween?

2.  What was the first Saturday morning cartoon to include a regular black cast member?

3.  Which company makes Lemonheads?

4.  What country did William of Orange rule?

5.  What was Winston Churchill's favorite drink?