My Sick Mind

Wasn't it just yesterday that I wondered about our local weather forecast? Sure it was . Sometimes, I think maybe I'm a little too rough on our local weather people. After all, they have high school diplomas and nice suits. Plus, there's all those fancy weather gadgets that the stations must pay a lot of money for. That's why their forecasts are so accurate. It's the combination of their extensive education combined with how nice they look and their ability to color maps so nicely. Scroll down to Friday's post with the image of the NBC10 forecast. I don't know what they call it. The one on the ABC affiliate is called AccuWeather, like that's supposed to make it more trustworthy. Generally, they're all the same. Whatever it's called, they painted a pretty rosy picture for our weekend around here. That's why I was so surprised to wake up Saturday morning, expecting to prepare for our weekly 8am bike ride with the shop . It was foggy, which isn...

This is a pretty strange hobby, the blogging. Maybe I'm not the only one who kept some sort of a diary when they were younger, but I would never let anyone near mine. It's as though I was writing down my thoughts and feelings for me , which is strange because I always know what my thoughts and feelings are. I guess I thought I would leave it as some sort of historic marker or something because, after all, when I was 17 years old I thought I was going to amount to something. There was no way on God's Blue Earth that I was going to grow up and be - well - ordinary. As time passed, I realized that not only would I grow up to be ordinary, I would also grow up having a stifled voice. That is, until now. I'm still writing down my thoughts and feelings, but I don't hide the book anymore. I do sometimes hide what I am doing, though. Yesterday, a co-worker who reads it said something out loud about "reading it on your blog." Egad, woman - do you want everyone to...

I just don’t know sometimes. Are the local news stations so hungry for ratings that they will stoop to baiting us to watch? Yes, they are. So, I guess I do know , don’t I? Thursday night, during The Office , local weather guy Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz cajoled us into tuning in at 11 by saying, “See how the coastal storm will affect our weekend weather, tonight.” Sure Glenn, I’ll hang around for another 3 hours and wait for you to guess. Let me run out and buy a lottery ticket too. I have the same chance of being right as you. Rather than be suckered into watching stories about local fires, traffic tie-up’s and missing pets I decided to get some shuteye and allow the weather events to transpire as they will. Then, this morning I did what any right-thinking person would do when curious about something – I went to their web site . Here is how the coastal storm is going to affect our weather this weekend: I guess the coastal storm is going to miss us, but those mid-80s temperatures and ...

Recently , I was more or less forced into subscribing to digital cable. My old TV died and I bought an LCD set for a hundred dollars less than I paid for the old TV 11 years ago. It was an offer I couldn't refuse. The upshot of the deal is that I am paying an extra 5 dollars a month for about a dozen hi-definition channels, which are part of some package that Comcast has put together to make my life more pleasurable. Thanks. Meanwhile, most of the hi-def channels are also available in regular-def, so I am paying for duplicate channels thatI will never watch. Is this making sense? I guess it doesn't make sense to somebody else, too because now, a lawsuit is being filed in California that is seeking to require the cable companies to offer channels on an a la carte basis. The theory is that you would pay for what you want. So, most of us would opt out of the Spanish channels and shopping channels and whatever else we weren't interested in so that we could save a few bucks of...

Yesterday , I got a page hit from The Soap and Detergent Association over that advice column for men in the bathroom. I can imagine their External Relations department, doing their regular ask.com searches to see how the blogs are treating the gang and, fa-foomf ! Up pops the blog. Twice now . What a joy it must be for them to mingle amongst the Mr. Woodcock post and the Homer Simpson quotes. It's just the tip of the iceberg, SDA. I didn't want to make it sound like I'm anti-soap. I use it almost every day. So, as a repeat user, I think you owe it to me to take my advice on soap. Consider this my open letter to the Soap and Detergent Association: First , let's put some sort of industry-wide ban on putting soap in boxes and then wrapping the box in plastic. Once it's wrapped in plastic, the job is done. There is no need to wrap a box in plastic - especially if it's soap. We make enough trash. Let's try making less. Every little box is important. While we...

According to Yahoo , this week is National Singles Week . Seriously. It was made up in 1984 by some people in Ohio , of all places. Why couldn't I have found out about this on Monday when I could have enjoyed it? Maybe singles only deserve to know for half a week? Chances are, the single people in charge of this deal sat around for two days waiting for the phone to ring before finally giving in and calling the media. That sounds about right. After the article, there's a list called The Ten Best Things About Being Single . I challenge. 1. You can make last-minute plans with your friends and stay out all night if you want. Sure, stay out all night and get left alone, drunk and tired with no ride home. And when you get home, there's no one there, which stinks because you do your best nasty business when you're legally intoxicated . 2. You can lie on both sides of your bed and have all the covers to yourself. Is that really important? Besides, if you sleep on a Twin be...

Those crazy attorneys over at Lord, Bissell & Brook must have a lot of spare time. One of my latest hits came from a Google search titled "Paula Creamer's feet" which, sadly for the searcher, turned up a post, aptly titled My cat's feet smell like cat litter , a paraphrase of a quote from Springfield's Ralph Wiggum. The post had something to do with Don Imus and Beatles songs, with nary a mention of Ms. Creamer's pes , or anything above her Talus, either. It got me to thinking [oh, that again] about all the crap that people must have to sift through to either (a) figure out that they hit a dry well and should just stop reading, or (b) continue to the end just in case there's some wacky reference from out of nowhere. Mostly, it's "a". So, to all those poor souls who go out in search of those elusive Alycia Lane bikini pics, the Koreans who come here in search of the Big Ass and all my "no referring link" pals who wander over c...

NEWS ITEM: The gender gap has widened when it comes to hygiene, according to the latest stakeout by the "hand washing police." One-third of men didn't bother to wash after using the bathroom, compared with 12 percent of women, said the researchers who spy on people in public restrooms. They reported their latest findings Monday at a meeting of infectious disease scientists. Two years ago, the last time the survey was done, only one-quarter of men didn't wash, compared with 10 percent of women. "Guys need to step up to the sink," said Brian Sansoni, spokesman for the Soap and Detergent Association, which co-sponsors the survey and related education campaigns . First , let's discuss the Soap and Detergent Association. What kind of ... never mind. Next , let's discuss something patently gross and disgusting - men's bathroom habits. In addition to being one myself, I work with lots of them, and although I'm not a member of the force, I keenly obs...

Oh, the woeful display that the once sacred Monday Night Football has become. Now that Sunday night has replaced Monday as the "Football Night in America", the shell of its former self is now on broad display on ESPN whether we want it or not. Remember, the E stands for Entertainment. However, the S stands for sports, and that's the element that is often sorely lacking. What was Charles Barkley's purpose in the booth, other than trashing the Philadelphia sports fans? Get a grip, Chuck. And shut up, there's a football game going on. I still say, and will continue to say, that Suzi Kolber belongs in the booth and Tony Kornheiser belongs on the field, or as far away from the booth as we can get him and still justify his paycheck. Either that or eliminate the third man fifth wheel in the booth altogether. The producers are still living off the history of Don Meredith and the fun he brought to the game. Meanwhile, viewers (and fans) have had to endure Dan Dierdor...

We're a strange bunch, we are. We give such high importance to such mundane things, and almost ignore the important ones. Such is the case with advertising. During one of the football games yesterday, an ad for Wrangler came on, and there's old Brett Favre tossing a football around. He later goes on to tell us that he likes jeans. And we're supposed to buy them based on that. I already know what jeans are, and it won't influence me one way or another if a celebrity wears a certain brand. It may in fact, sometimes do the opposite. Outside of his ability as a football player, Mr. Favre has no other distinguishing characteristics, like a worldly skill or anything. He excels at a game and earns a lot of money at it, so we're supposed to ascribe some intrinsic value to that, so it will make Wrangler jeans look like the jeans that influential people wear. I'd be more likely to accept the advice of a trusted friend or relative, but we can't get them on the TV. I...

PARIS - Arctic ice has shrunk to the lowest level on record, new satellite images show, raising the possibility that the Northwest Passage that eluded famous explorers will become an open shipping lane. With arctic ice levels at record lows, a long-sought route between Asia and Europe may emerge . The official slant from the Bush administration will be: White House encourages trade . Take that, free market economy. Pretty soon, a new shipping lane may open up between Baltimore and Denver. Fresh crabs in Colorado! I can't wait for that one. Then, there was this sickening headline: Ingrid fades to depression as damage from Humberto assessed . Poor Ingrid, and what did that bastard Humberto do to hurt her so? She was such a happy girl before he came into her life. The cad never as much as thanked her for everything she did. I got really worked up until I figured out what was going on. Stinking CNN. If you don't know who Scott Matthews is, I wouldn't be surprised. You can ...