My Sick Mind

HARPER WOODS, Mich. – Police say two men have been critically injured in shootings inside a suburban Detroit shopping mall. The mall has been closed as police search for whoever fired the shots. Harper Woods deputy police chief Jim Burke tells The Associated Press the shootings happened around 6 p.m. when a group of teenagers fired on a rival group at Eastland Mall east of Detroit. Burke says the men were taken to St. John's Hospital in Detroit, and both were expected to survive. He says an 18-year-old was shot in the chest, and an employee at a clothing store was shot in leg. He says there had apparently been a long-running dispute between the two rival groups. I don't have a detailed list, but I can tell you that there have been a lot of shootings at shopping malls over the years. There was the the Tacoma Mall and Hudson Valley Mall shootings in 2005, the Oak View Mall shooting in 2006, the Westroads Mall murder/suicide and the Trolley Square Mall shootings in 2007, ...

A complete lack of enthusiasm for contributing anything meaningful to my life has led me here. Do you think cross-dressers and transvestites wear a tampon once a month? They seem to want all the fun things about being a woman (like looking pretty and teasing stupid men) but none of the bad things. That realization has caused me to lose respect for them. . We had a parade in the city yesterday. I'm surprised that we still have parades, and I'm especially intrigued about their purpose and why people seem to enjoy them so much. It's a series of non-sequitors interspersed with music. A float with two celebrities followed by a marching band followed by a float with flowers and cartoon characters followed by kids dancing ... And people stand in the cold to watch. I think we have them because we have always had them. If the idea of a parade was broached today as a new concept, it would be rejected because they produce no profits. It's all about advertising and filling TV t...

We love our holidays. We're into a big one now, and even bigger ones to follow. This one, we are told, is all about giving thanks for something and realizing how fortunate we are to live when we do - or to live at all. Nice and schmaltzy, as the holidays were intended. But, we don't just like a holiday. We like a holiday with something substantial attached to it. I'm not talking about remembering war veterans, giving thanks or celebrating America. I'm talking about big sales at a store, eating and drinking. The eating thing is attached to this one, to the point that we wish people a "Happy Turkey Day" instead of using the more traditional Thanksgiving name. When I go back to work on Monday I'll be asked what I had for dinner on Thursday. When I say I had chicken, I'll get that quizzical look and the "What, no turkey?" question, which implies that I violated some sacred holiday tradition. In fact, the tradition is the holiday, and we have ch...

I usually ignore those "Caution: DO NOT EAT" packets that come in products that are impossible to eat. That's easy. I'm not going to eat something that comes out of a packet of air fresheners, but to ignore one that comes packed in actual food is a bit more difficult. This Caution: DO NOT EAT packet came in a package of Harry & David Dark Chocolate Butter Pecan Moose Munch, which by the way, contained way more Munch than Moose, and precious few pecans. We need more Moose and pecans, please. Anyway, there it was as I opened the package and dispensed it in a bowl. But avoid it I did. The stores, however, are more difficult to ignore. Salespeople stand outside the store and entice those of us with few resistance skills with samples of their munchable snack foods. I think it's one of those places where you think you're eating something wholesome, when in fact, it is candy. I don't think we would want to know the calorie and fat content of this stuff,...

They say Rome wasn't built in a day. They could also say that Philadelphia's Spectrum wasn't torn down in a day - or month - or a year. In the longest-scheduled demolition in modern architecture, it is rumored that The Spectrum will finally succumb to the wrecking ball Tuesday at noon. By then, I suspect that everything inside the building (including the parts of the building itself) will have been sold - or at least they would try to sell it. It was closed on October 31, 2009. Since then, several schemes have been hatched by the owners to systematically both sell everything that wasn't nailed down and rid the public of some more of their money. I'm not sure if their shameless sales say more about corporate greed or the public's willingness to spend their money on crap. Maybe both. A match made in heaven. They have been marketing Spectrum seats for at least a year. You can buy a pair for your - living room? I suppose die-hard's are putting them in thei...

Nothing spectacular. Just another autumn Saturday in Philadelphia. That's a look down the big spiral staircase at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, looking down toward the pendulum. Next is nearby Logan Circle, with City Hall in the background, to the right. The last one is inside the lobby at the Franklin Institute , looking at the statue of Ben and the shiny floor. The Four Loko experiment was kind of a fizzle. It doesn't taste very good, and it left me feeling more buzzed than drunk. I was supposed to experience a big letdown, as the sugar and caffeine wore off, but it just faded out. They can go ahead and take the stuff off the shelves, if it will make them happy. There isn't anything that would make me want to go out and buy a case of the stuff so I'd have a stash. Just as well. There is a big Eagles game on tonight, and I didn't want to sleep through it. I'm not sure I'm human. At the Institute, there was an electricity display where we were...