My Sick Mind

WILMINGTON, North Carolina - Traffic was backed up and police were called to control the crowd after a Wilmington gas station accidentally set the pump price at 35 cents a gallon. The Wilmington Star-News reported Friday that hundreds of drivers flooded a BP station for the cheap gas after the price dropped around 9 a.m. Thursday. Station employee Shane Weller said the price for premium gasoline was supposed to be $3.35 a gallon. He complained that customers paid the cheaper price all day without saying a word. It was all the extra traffic that led station employees to the mistake around 6 p.m. They found it after calling their district manager, looking for permission to changing the price as a way of stemming the flow of customers. That's the ancillary effect of the cellular telephone. In the late 1970s, when gasoline was an obscene 65 cents a gallon, and there was rationing and people complained, there was no way to find out about a dumbass gas station attendant underchargin...

The Office is back and everything is right with the world. For those of you who don't watch, you're missing out. But that's OK, I've been hearing that I'm missing American Idol and I don't give a crap. Tonight's episode was one of the best ever. It bears re-watching, which I will do on NBC.com. The latest Barack Obama ad, which aired during The Office (buzz kill) tells us: "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is the United States of America." That's a nice sentiment, but it's completely erroneous. Anyone who pays attention knows differently. Can he honestly tell us that Utah is the same as New York City? That Alabama is the same as Minnesota? He's kidding, right? If he thinks that message is going to carry him to the White House, he's got another think coming. The term "United States" is a geographic distinction, and in no way relates to the politics that each state represents. I think Bara...

I'm feeling overly cynical today. Go figure. It's a short trip from my general cynical mode to the "overly" mode, so you'll forgive me if I seem a bit put off. First, it was Major League baseball and their unusual rules, combined with the magic of cable TV to start me off for the night. I returned at 7:15 from a pleasurable bike ride to flip on the start of the Phillies-Mets game that I was told was on ESPN2 - in Hi-Definition - for which I pay a premium. But the game wasn't on ESPN2. Instead, it was on Regular-Def Comcast channel 8 in a fuzzy square screen that, if I wanted, I would have kept my old TV. I'm guessing that Major League Baseball or Comcast (equally spawns of Satan) have some rule involving the broadcast of a game in a local city, which means we here in the greater Philadelphia area have to slum-it with the fuzzy TV picture while the rest of the country gets the Hi-Def. That makes good nonsense. Meanwhile, I'm paying for the Hi-Definiti...

MEXICO CITY — The Absolut vodka company apologized over the weekend for an ad campaign depicting the southwestern United States as part of Mexico amid angry calls for a boycott by U.S. consumers. But the ads, which ran only in Mexico and have since ended, were less than ideal for Americans embroiled in an emotional debate over illegal immigration from their southern neighbor. More than a dozen calls to boycott Absolut were posted on michellemalkin.com , a website operated by conservative columnist Michelle Malkin. The ads sparked heated comment on a half-dozen other Internet sites and blogs. Really, a dozen calls ? Out of 310 million Americans? What a furor must have developed at Absolut headquarters, which, according to the map is somewhere in Venezuela. ABSOLUT: Hey, remember that ad with the big Mexico thing? AD GUY: Barely. I think it was just for the Mexicans. ABSOLUT: I know, but guess what? We had 12 people complain about it. AD GUY: Wow. That doubles our projected exposure. A...

WASHINGTON - Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has stopped telling a story of a pregnant woman's medical tragedy after an Ohio hospital challenged its accuracy last weekend. But recent accounts of the episode have omitted key details that suggest there was more truth in the essence of Clinton's tale than her critics, and even her presidential campaign, have acknowledged. Since early March, the New York senator has often told campaign audiences a heartbreaking story of a young Ohio woman who began having problems with her pregnancy. She said the woman was twice turned away by a local hospital because she had no health insurance and could not pay a $100 minimum charge . I'm not going to bore you with the story. If you really want to read it, click the link above. Otherwise, it's worth skipping in lieu of your personal time. Suffice it to say that Hillary re-told a story that she got second-hand. Those of us in the real world call that a bullshit story. At ele...

Models present creations of Top & Bottoms by Phuket Mermaids during Bangkok International Fashion Week March 23, 2008 . Alright, so I wasn't going to post the photo - until I realized the name of the Mermaids was ... go ahead, try and pronounce it. I don't think I could make up Phuket Mermaids and Bangkok out of the blue. It's serendipity. Meanwhile, it's more than 24 hours since my marathon weekend drunk-fest and I think I'm just now starting to catch up on the brain cells that are bouncing around inside my head. I'm tempted to go back to that little bar on Chestnut Street where the Bachlorette parties were, but I fear that serendipity, being what it is, is impossible to re-create. Those of us who try are destined to fail. Perhaps it's best left to memory? Phuket.

Now I know how Keith Richards feels every day of his life. Since it only happens once a year or so, I suppose I'll recover. I have no idea how Keith survives. I think he's some kind of superhero. My friend's Bachelor Party Marathon went off fairly well, considering. Like many things, I was happy to participate but also glad that it's over. In spite of weather forecasts that consisted only of the word "rain", we made it through a rain-free weekend in New York and Philadelphia. Honestly, is anyone held accountable for the accuracy of weather forecasts? If they were to be believed, we would have shit-canned the whole thing. They told us there was an eighty percent chance of rain from Friday night through Sunday morning. Nary a drop. Considering that it's the first weekend in April in the Northeast, we couldn't have asked for better weather. I got to see Yankee Stadium again. I was there about 12 years ago, but since they're tearing it dow...