My Sick Mind

I know that banking is a business (or industry, depending upon your source) and that competition is fierce, but do we really need this ? For those of you with either poor eyesight or who live outside the Philadelphia metropolitan area, Citizens Bank is running a promotion, the ad for which appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer this week, and is shown above. For the record, it says: Come to any Citizens bank branch today to enter the Citizens Bank Lucky Zero Home Equity Sweepstakes. It goes on to say that "you can't lose" and that all you have to do is mail in your "lucky" card and you'll have a chance at one of the 15 grand prizes of 0% APR Home Equity Loans. But, you'll have to hurry! Perhaps you can click on it and read it in its larger form. I scanned it from the newspaper ad and posted it here, more for the sake of posterity than accuracy. They are running a scratch-off game, in which contestants (i.e. customers) can go into a local Citizens Bank br...

Try as I might, I couldn't stay away from my favorite form of self-expression. I was watching a special "Friday Night Edition of Monday Night Football" on ESPN, when the sheer absurdity of the title prompted me to turn off the T V and seek refuge here. I ran to the Stat Counter to see how many readers I had today, and I was once again drawn to the methods with which people stumble upon this little portal. Among them: Paula Creamer hairy arm man pours gasoline on wife in t-mobile store Dallas sucks T.O. swallows and, the ubiquitous Cecily Tynan. A suggestion to the web searchers: Use the quotation ma rks. It will narrow down your search, since I'm quite sure I've never written about Paula's arms nor a T-Mobile gasoline incident. As far as Cecily is concerned, there seems to be a lot of interest - almost all of it somewhere in the greater Philadelphia region, so I can't help but wonder if it's one of her "people" checking to see what the Blogo...

BIRMINGHAM , Ala. - A federal judge has temporarily barred a producer from selling songs recorded by "American Idol" winner Taylor Hicks when he was still just a gray-haired bar crooner from Alabama. A sworn statement by Hicks' attorney, Michael J. Douglas, said the recordings were poor-quality demos. Distributing them could damage Hicks' reputation in the music industry and cause him "immense irreparable financial harm," the statement said. They should have thought of that before they recorded that lame Ford commercial - which I notice is still using the same music, sans the scratchy voice and lame twitchy-spinning dancing. Hicks' suit says the songs were recorded in 1997, but Smith said Hicks recorded them in June 2001. Hmmmm ... is that because we might find out that he is 4 years older than he says he is, and as such, not eligible for the "American Idol" crown? ...but the good news MILWAUKEE, Wis. - Milwaukee has been ranked by Fo...

According to the Suffolk County District Attorneys office, in Riverhead, N.Y., Annie Donnelly, 38; stole $2.3 million from her employers and spent the money on lottery tickets, buying as much as $6,000 worth of tickets a day in a bid to hit the jackpot, prosecutors said on Thursday. Annie Donnelly, 38, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to stealing the money over 3 1/2 years from her employer, Great South Bay Surgical Associates, where she was a bookkeeper. She was spending about $6,000 on lottery tickets a day, a spokeswoman for the Suffolk County District Attorney's office said. It was not clear how much, if any, she won. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I knew I could steal $2.3 million, why would I spend it on lottery tickets? Could the lottery prize be that much more? I think we have found the definition of "compulsive gambler" or "asshat".

According to WebMD , these are the top 10 prescription drugs that America is taking, and the conditions they are meant to treat: 1 - LEXAPRO Anti-depressant 2 - ZOLOFT Anti-depressant 3 - PREDNISONE Corticosteroid 4 - HYDROCODONE Pain 5 - CYMBALTA Anti-depressant 6 - XANAX Anxiety and panic disorders 7 - WELLBUTRIN Anti-depressant 8 - EFFEXOR Anti-depressant 9 - VICODIN Pain 10 - LIPITOR Cholesterol Do we notice a trend here? America is in pain, and it makes them sad. A recent nationwide story revealed that more than 40 percent of Americans are taking at least one prescription. About one in six people is taking three or more prescriptions. Three or more? Think about it - arthritis, pain, depression, cholesterol, high-blood pressure and contraceptives - between those conditions there are enough pills to fit 40 percent of us. It probably isn't very difficult to get your doctor to prescribe at least two of thes...

Today's vocabulary word is a common word, something you find around work, school or maybe even around the house. I'll offer some clues, and let's see if you can unscramble today's word. Clicking on the blue links will provide a premature answer - so save them till the end! Microsoft Word tries to separate it into two words, or change it to sashay or ascot . There is a web site devoted to one, with a picture of President Bush on the home page. You can buy a t-shirt with one on the front... ...or buy a CD with a song title that is one. A YouTube search will yield 46 results. You can even do a news story search and find one . You can find it in the Urban Dictionary ... ...or read Carmen's blog , where it has common usage. If you are still wondering what it is; It could also be defined this way ... Cook County prosecutors say a 29-year-old man traveling with his mother desperately didn't want her to know he'd packed a sexual aid for their trip to Turkey....

I like to look at the Stat Counter at the bottom of the screen, to see where my readers are coming from. Some of you I know, but the ones I don't are intriguing to me. As we know, Blogger is owned by Google, so the searches on the world's most popular search engine will show our little blogs as well as other research sites. After two posts about the Little League World Series, I had a reader come up as a result of searching "Little League fucking" which makes me think about my audience more than I'd like. Others came about from "Little League obscenity" which is more reasonable. I've also had more than a few hits as a result of searching for local weather-caster Cecily Tynan, and probably one more today, if the angry "anonymous" post from something I wrote a long time ago is any indication. Whenever I rant about Dubya, I get a search originating from Federal Triangle in good-old D.C. That makes me cringe a bit, but I figure I have the Co...

SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) - Staten Island manager Nick Doscher and one of his players were reprimanded by Little League World Series organizers Monday following an incident during the New York team's 1-0 loss to Lemont, Ill., in which the player yelled an obscenity and Doscher responded by striking him. Staten Island, trailing by a run, had just turned a double play in the top of the sixth when the unidentified player swore as the players huddled in the dugout before the team's final turn at-bat. The obscenity was clearly heard on ESPN's prime-time broadcast of the game, just before the network cut to commercial. It appeared that Doscher then struck the player with an open hand. "Little League International was extremely disappointed in the behaviour of the player and coach involved in the incident," the organization said in a statement. "Because the incident was not noticed by any umpire, the Little League International Tournament Committ...

We still aren't sure if the networks jumped the gun in reporting that JonBenet Ramsey's killer had been aprehended (since his story is full of holes) but the creepy little guy had a much more interesting back-story that newspapers and television glossed over. This was the last paragraph in the Philadelphia Inquirer's lengthy story today: Hours before Karr's departure, a doctor at a seedy but popular clinic in downtown Bangkok specializing in sex-change surgery said Karr had come in for treatment. "He was one of my patients," Thep Vechavisit of the Pratunam Polyclinic said. He refused to provide further details. Bangkok, where Karr lived on and off for two years, is regarded as a major global center for sex-change operations. The Pratunam clinic advertises sex-change surgery for $1,625 - a bargain compared with U.S. prices, where male-to-female reassignment surgery can cost tens of thousands of dollars. First, I'm not sure that I would be looking ...

The Little League World Series started last week and will continue until Sunday. All weekend, the games were on the TV, with various countries sending their best and brightest 12-year-olds to Williamsport, PA in search of the championship. I think even Thailand has a team. Check their birth certificates. As with most things, I have mixed feelings about this spectacle. Mostly, I object to putting a 12-year-old on TV in a competition either before or after grown-ups are playing the same game for profit. The commentators (some of them former major leaguers) make the viewers think that the kids are real ballplayers, describing their actions as though they were talking about the Yankees. These kids aren't ballplayers any more than JonBenet Ramsey was a beauty queen. They're 12 years old. The games were on ESPN almost non-stop last weekend, and they will be on this week, as the teams are whittled down to a precious few, with International Semifinals and something called the Ur...

I have to be very careful with this because it is a sensitive subject, but I have a problem with the continuing saga o f JonBenet Ramsey and the return of her alleged killer. First, this John Mark Karr (they always have three names) is a creepy MoFo to begin with. He has that Lee Harvey Oswald blank stare that tells me I'd better not trust him to look after my cat let alone my child. His head is too big for his body and he wears his pants way too high - but I digress. Before takeoff from Thailand, Karr took a glass of champagne from a flight attendant and clinked glasses with Mark Spray, an investigator with the Boulder District Attorney's office , who sipped orange juice. That's a little odd, don't-cha-think? Is champagne an appropriate beverage for an alledged child killer? Mostly though, I have a problem with dressing a child up like an adult and parading her around in beauty pageants and whatnot. It would appear to me that the parents could have used psychological...