My Sick Mind

I wonder who the first person was to figure out that you could eat oysters? Something so disgusting, you'd figure that the shell was more useful than the innards, but there ya go. Somebody had to be the first person to try. The crap they give out Nobel Prizes for now is nothing compared to what those people must have done. It's been raining like Hell around here lately. That Forrest Gump rain: " We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath." Friday night , coming home in some big ol' fat rain (the kind they advertise in those SUV commercials) which was a coincidence because that's where i found myself - behind a big ol' fat SUV. Doing 30 miles per hour. That kind of defeats the purpose, I thought. America has been sold a bill of goods that these huge vehicles are safer, yet people will always drive lik...

Usually , people take days off work to de-stress or take a little vacation someplace. Me, not so much. As you know , the two major events in my generall non-eventful life revolve around my burgeoning Ebola business and my daily caretaking of my aging cat. Today, I had to take the kitty for some more bloodwork to find out about his kidney condition. The poor thing is traumatized by car trips, probably because it always ends up in the same place - Raccoon Valley Animal Hospital . They've taken good care of the guy since 1991, and at this point, he knows what's going on before it happens. Generally, it means dragging him out from under the bed to put him in his cat carrier box for the trip. This visit was decidedly more upbeat. Since he wouldn't eat the prescribed diet food, I've been feeding him a paste with potassium and vitamins that the vet congratulated me for finding, and encouraged me to give him more. His weight is back close to normal (thanks, Fancy Feast!) and ...

Here's an interesting idea - I think. Newspapers hire all sorts of columnists: Economists, advice counselors, experts in various fields and people from both sides of the political fence. There is one group that is underrepresented that has a significant voice in America. The lunatic fringe. Hire a deranged street person with typing skills to do a weekly column. Literally, the man on the street. Screw Steve Allen, he had a nice suit and a TV show. Real men on the street have an intersting perspective and I think we need to hear it. I'm not talking about the violent ones who go back to grammar school and strangle their 4th grade teacher, I mean those just plain goofballs who are there because they think it's a real home. I think it would be very entertaining. I'll even start the first column for you as kind of a sample: Today, the squirrels stole my corn. The bastards tricked me. And where are my oatmeal cookies? I'm checking your poop for that corn. I'll get it ...

I'm an American , so I'm supposed to be watching the World Series. Instead, I'm writing this after putting some more junk on Ebola . With 3 to 6 days left on the crap that's up there now, I've got $60 in bids, and they don't end for 3 more days - so that's looking good. I wonder how long I can continue to do this? I should probably be keeping track of this so I can write How I Became an eBay Millionaire . Oh, I am keeping track. Mostly , I'm saving the money because things are really starting to suck at work and I might need some fallback cash. Unless my co-workers are reading, in which case [thumb in the air] everything is swell! Kitty goes for more bloodwork on Friday for his kidney disease. I'm not expecting any good news, but the good news is that he looks and seems healthy. I don't notice all that extra peeing that the doc said he'd do, so maybe it's not that far along? I can lie to myself until the bloodwork comes back. I feel bad...

I have a level of admiration for those people I see wandering the streets with all of their worldly possessions in a shopping cart. It must be nice to be able to hold everything that is important to you in a 3 by 5 foot container with little wheels, convenient for travel. I have no such luxury. My worldly possessions are scattered. Some are still at my mother’s house, some in my subterranean condo storage area, some in my automobile and even more in my domicile, which is neither well suited for piles of stuff nor fitted with little wheels. The thing that never occurred to me as I was accumulating all of these things was, “What am I ever going to do with all of this crap?” At one point – usually while I was amassing it – I figured that I would either continue to enjoy looking at it or listening to it or I would leave it to some close relation in a big estate transaction. Now that I have determined that I will not have any close relations to burden them with, nor do I particularly e...

Regardless of what the jackasses at CNN or Travel & Leisure Magazine would tell you, even though I'm from Philadelphia , I like to think of myself as worldly (if not cynical) about things, especially things that come in the postal mail or the electronic mail. That's why I'm a little miffed at using my time and energy opening this piece of crap that arrived at the home on Monday. The object is for it to look like a recall notice, including the "Your Vehicle" part. I haven't received a recall notice in a while, but I'd be willing to bet it comes from "Program Headquarters" or something like that. What should have tipped me off to the envelope's contents was the 31 cents postage - the sure sign of bulk mail - another name for crap mail. But I opened it anyway, because I figured, if my engine is about to catch fire or my seat belts won't work, I should know about it. As you can see , and I did too, this letter says nothing about my vehi...

Have I told you lately how much I love Philadelphia and how proud I am to have been born there and still live a ladder's view away from the city? I'm about to. PHILADELPHIA, PA (Reuters) - Philadelphia is home to the least attractive people in the United States, a survey of visitors and residents showed on Friday. The city of more than 1.5 million people was also found to be among the least stylish, least active, least friendly and least worldly, according to the "America's Favorite Cities" survey by Travel & Leisure magazine and CNN Headline News . Screw you, CNN. It takes a lot of guts to sit there in Atlanta, of all places, and tell us that we are not stylish or worldly. But T & L magazine editor Amy Farley pointed out the results don't mean people in Philadelphia are ugly or the city is a bad place to visit. "We were asking people to vote on attractiveness, not unattractiveness. Travel & Leisure editors believe there are a lot of attra...

For those of you who think that those of us in the Northeast are progressive blue-staters who have a firm grasp on the concept of reality ... I submit this: DENNIS TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) ― A hard lesson for a second-grader in Cape May County. Seven-year-old Kyle Walker was suspended for one day this month because he drew a stick figure shooting a gun. His mother, Shirley McDevitt, says officials at the Dennis Township Primary School told her the drawing violated a zero-tolerance policy for guns. McDevitt says her son told her the drawing showed a water gun and not a firearm. But school officials won't comment on the matter. This isn't the first time a New Jersey students has been suspended for depictions of weapons. Four kindergarten boys were suspended in 2000 for playing cops and robbers, even though they were using their fingers as guns . To be fair , Dennis Township is about as hickville as we get around here, outside of lower Cumberland County, but still. I know I'm old...

If you get outdoors between now and Monday, cast a gaze in the general direction of Philadelphia. You'll see something that looks like a cross between a tornado and a nuclear blast. Is it global warming? A shift in the tectonic plates? No, the Eagles lost today. Not only did they lose, but they lost in such an ignominious way that fans were seen in the stands, gazing dumfoundedly at the sky and wondering, "How did that just happen?" A team with one of the worst offenses in the NFL - the Bears - drove the ball 97 yards with less than two minutes to go and scored the winning touchdown. A team with one of the worst defenses in the NFL - the Bears - held the Eagles to 3 field goals and a touchdown, and followed that with some questionable offensive and defensive calls that Eagles fans are probably filling out weapons permits right now. They're serious. When that hazy cloud hovers over the greater Delaware Valley tomorrow, you know what's going on. Fans around here g...