My Sick Mind

Yahoo 's home page is running a little animation at the top of the screen. Kids and a dog running are around doing something that I can't quite figure out. When I clicked on it (which was the idea of drawing attention to it I suppose) it opens up a screen touting some Back to School crap sponsored by Target, with shopping and games for freaks and weirdos who can't wait to go back to school. It's July 28, for Chrissakes. I guess they'd better get this out of the way so they can start pumping Christmas shopping the day after Labor Day. I can hardly wait [that's sarcasm] for the day (before Hallowe'en) when I walk into the mall and see the festive Christmas lights and the Hallmark store display of tiny little ornaments and a rack full of Christmas cards. That will be followed shortly by news stories about how the merchants are whining about the horrible Christmas shopping season that used to start the day after Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, it's 90 degrees and...

This is supposed to be me if I were a character in The Simpsons. Go to their site , find a photo of yourself and upload it. It takes a little while, but maybe you'll enjoy it. You can even add your cat or dog.

And to prove it, here's a fascinating little anecdote about my day today. I had lunch at this little pizza/sandwich shop in Glassboro that has great salads, too. I had my eye on the Antipasto salad, since I love anything that is "anti" anything else. There were two sizes - small and large. Since they are subjective terms, I had to ask, "How big is the small?", which I realize sounds odd, but I wasn't being graded on it, I was merely trying to order lunch. The reply: "It's big. You can't finish the large." At that point, he made it clear to me that I should order the small. Small it is. I didn't finish it. It was like someone filled a trash can lid with salad and said, "This is small ." It struck me as odd that they would have something on the menu that you couldn't finish. Why have 'large' when 'small' is large? They should have made the 'small' a 'medium', and made a real 'small'. ...

There’s an old axiom in sports that says, "if you notice the referee, he’s doing a bad job". You don’t get any more notice than Tim Donaghy is getting these days, and his shadow is falling over referees and umpires in every sport regardless of their innocence. This particular shadow is being cast through allegations that he participated in fixing games and has ties with organized crime, as opposed to unorganized crime which, by virtue of its name, acts randomly and with no governing body. Tim, it seems, has a gambling problem. That’s a coincidence, because professional sports has a bit of a gambling problem too. Some enterprises, like horse racing, owe almost all of their popularity to gambling. How many people would show up to watch horses run in a circle if they couldn’t bet on who would win? I’m not even sure you could get horses to watch. Sports will turn its back on gambling until it becomes an issue. Then, they are mortified and seek to discipline the people involved. ...

Governor Rod Blagojevich signed legislation Monday making Illinois the latest state to ban smoking in public places — including bars, restaurants and work places. The law goes into effect January 1, 2008. And now, two idiots speak their (alleged) minds: "I feel like it's the Nazi regime coming in here, talking away all of our rights" , said Tim Main, as he cleaned up Mike's Ten-Pin Lounge in Alton. " First they make it so you have to wear seat belts, and now they want to put a stop to smoking. What's next?" Chicago carpenter Rob Nelson saw a chilly future. " It looks like I'll be spending a lot of time outside," he said. Here's an idea: Quit smoking. Oh, that's right, you can't because you're weak and addicted. The alternative is that you won't blow your foul-smelling junk in my face and make my clothes smell like the inside of your lungs when I get home from a night out. What a pleasure it was to go out last Saturday...

"Wow! I never thought Dwight would go postal. It's always the person you least expect and I always thought Dwight would go postal." - Michael Scott , The Office (deleted scene from "Conflict Resolution") Sure, it's always the person you'd least expect, unless it's the most obvious one. In pro sports, the most obvious people are the ones who are the lowest-paid. Referees and umpires. Athletes make too much money to be worthwhile targets for gamblers who want to fix games. They can't pay them enough. Worse yet are referees with gambling problems, and Tim Donaghy is one of those. The last thing we heard about Tim was that he was getting death threats and was threatening to go to the FBI with names of other refs and/or players who may also be involved in the point-shaving effort. Expect Tim to be the next member of the Witness Protection Program. Meanwhile, the Commissioner of the National Football League, Roger Goodell, has ordered Michael Vick no...

NEW YORK - New York City officials assured worried residents, workers and visitors Thursday that the air was safe and free of asbestos a day after a steam pipe explosion rocked Midtown Manhattan. "Every single test we did of the air showed there is no asbestos in the air," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said . Whew. That's a relief. Of course, if they had tested the air and found asbestos (or some other contaminant) they would be honest with the residents, thereby creating a mild panic and leaving the city liable for medical costs and possibly open to a lawsuit. So, of course the air is safe. They wouldn't lie, would they? So, it's a good thing that New York got their restaurants to stop using trans fats, because that stuff will kill you. "The building started shaking. There was steam and smoke billowing out of the ground ... Everybody panicked. You know what it's like now. We grabbed our stuff and ran." —Bryan Kohler, an accountant who works from a sev...