My Sick Mind

I have a ticket for the Wilmington Blue Rocks game tonight. Big deal, right? Uh huh. Little did I know, it's dog night: Bring your dog out to Frawley Stadium as Concord Pet Food & Supplies will be sponsoring Dog Days of Summer. Me and two thousand dogs. Geez. That's worse than going to Singles Night at Jenny Craig. Why don't they ever have Cat Night? I might take him anyway. Ten bucks says I step in poop. We had a thunderstorm warning last night. The warning said that "lightning is one of nature's number one killers." As though there could be more than one number one killer. Nobody is editing the weather forecast. Or this blog. A riddle for you: If a chair sits in the woods, does it make a sound?

Steve Porter has created a modern classic. It features the iconic Allen Iverson "practice" press conference as well as gems from Dennis Green, Joe Namath, Jim Mora and Terrell Owens. Mike Missanelli has been playing it on his ESPN radio show, and it makes me smile every time I hear it. The video is even better. Kudos to Steve Porter. You're awesome, dude. Words fail me. Visit his web site and hear stuff for yourself.

"Michael Jackson is a 5 asshole having, pterodactyl marrying, werewolf raping, baby dangler." - Patton Oswalt Every time someone near my age dies I start thinking about my own mortality. Michael Jackson was only a year younger than me, but his dying didn't make me think much. He was like a piece of fine china - a little to fragile to be human. I always wanted the job of the guy who used to walk behind him holding the umbrella. If you can't go outdoors without an umbrella over your head, you're way too dainty. Although, I guess he only had one or two layers of skin left, so it stands to reason. The odd juxtaposition of always wearing a germ mask and having a pet chimpanzee is too bizarre to explain. Now, as death often does, the bizarre stories of his life will come to light. What's the over/under for the number of posthumous biographies? I say ten before the end of the year. First though, the autopsy should be very interesting. Michael Jackson died. Now the...

COLUMBIA, S.C. – After going AWOL for seven days, Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Wednesday that he had secretly flown to Argentina to visit a woman with whom he was having an affair. Wiping away tears, he apologized to his family and gave up a national Republican Party post, but was silent on whether he would resign. "I've been unfaithful to my wife," he said in a news conference in which the 49-year-old governor ruminated on God's law, moral absolutes and following one's heart. He said he spent the last five days "crying in Argentina." Boo hoo. Another teary confession from somebody who got caught. Now, he's Mister Apology - lamenting his twisted life. People like that always ruminate on God's law once they're caught. If he had a brain in his little head, he'd have had her flown to South Carolina and his little tryst would still be going on. But he's a dumbass on top of being a Republican. "He left the state unattended," sa...

It's that time of year again. The time when we'll have to listen to so-called professional broadcasters say Wimbleton when they really mean Wimbledon. Why do I find it annoying? Although, it's not nearly as annoying as the women screaming every time they hit a shot, as though they're giving birth. Who taught them to do that? For those of you who may be wondering, giant hematoma leg is healing slowly. No, I'm not taking another photo. Has anyone ever tried Kefir? It's supposed to be one of those "good for you" foods. I've seen it described as a drinkable yogurt that tastes like sour milk. One article said: Beyond the satiety-inducing protein, the probiotics in kefir may also speed weight loss. British scientists found that these active organisms boosted the breakdown of fat molecules in mice, preventing the rodents from gaining weight. I'm guessing I can get it at Whole Foods Market, but wondering if it's worth the effort. I'd like ...

This is one of those stories that sounds like I'm drunk, but seriously... The last thing I do before I leave for work every morning is to make sure I have my wallet. You may remember this item I purchased a while ago , because I don't carry a "real" wallet, but got tired of misplacing credit cards and/or my driver's license. I'm sort of scatterbrained. I blame alcohol, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems. Anyway, this morning I realized that I hadn't seen the thing since Sunday, but I didn't have enough time to look for it unless I wanted to be late for work. The shock left me dumbfounded, so I left the house with nine dollars in cash and a lot of anxiety. When I got home tonight, I tore the place apart looking for it, to no avail. I checked my accounts and made sure no one had absconded with my tens of dollars, so I felt like I was left with nothing but to replace the scattered shards of my life, which included my driver's ...

Another weekend in paradise. Cloudy, rainy and generally crappy weather all weekend until Sunday at around 6:00pm when the sun came out. Just in time for me to take a stroll to the grocery store and start getting stuff together for work on Monday. I know better than to complain about things that I can't control - like the weather - but Jeebus! I spent a couple of evenings at the ballpark watching the woeful Phillies get swept by the even more woeful Baltimore Orioles. The games weren't part of our ticket package, so I went out of my way to get them, since I'm kind of an Orioles fan. I pay $40 a month for the MLB Package on cable, and when the Phillies aren't on, I spend my time watching the O's. There are probably people in Baltimore who don't do that. Anyway, most fans thought the Phils would get fat off the Orioles, but the forty bucks made me a more well-informed fan, and I wrote to one of the Inquirer columnists and told him that "I wouldn't be su...

I love those green envelopes that come in the mail from my condo association. They're always full of such good cheer. Wednesday's missive was especially wonderful: PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO FULLY READ THIS IMPORTANT NOTICE it said, underlined so that we wouldn't miss the 16-point type face. "It has come to the attention of the Country Creek Board of Trustees (BOT) that person are entering the Country Creek pool compound during hours when the pool is not open." Egad. On several occasions recently, sections of the fence surrounding the pool compound have been cut to gain access to the pool area. The nerve. Each time the fence is damaged by vandalism, the repairs cost the association money, which in turn, costs you [underlined] the homeowners/residents, money. [me] Within the next two weeks, cameras will be installed around the pool compound to ensure its integrity. We are fortunate to have a big beautiful pool and pool compound (there's compound again) to e...

The plus side of crashing my bike and winding up with a giant hematoma is that I can show it off to the girls at the gym. That's right. Hike up the shorts and put it on display. In my best Stewie Griffin voice, " That's right. Crashed my bike. Didn't hurt much. Hit my head and got this ." [hike up the shorts and listen to the gasps] It's as good as a knife-fight scar or a gunshot wound, only better because there's a cool story attached to it. Girls love a good battle scar story. Follow up the story with the tag line, "It was pretty cool" and you have the makings of a legendary tale. If only I could parlay it into a nighttime sex romp or bawdy massage session. Did I just use the word bawdy?

If you think that's bad, you should see the road! This is what happens when you bump into another rider and go down in a heap in the rain. For some perspective, that's my left upper thigh in the hip region, which took the brunt of a collision with someone known only as "Joey the Hat" for reasons too long to explain here. Thinking we could outrun lightning (a thought that last goes back to Ben Franklin) we took off for home at the first sign. The rain pelted us like a last call hooker and two of us (one of them me) touched shoulders and one of us (me) went down on the asphalt, hip first, then elbow, then shoulder and finally a snapping head (mine), whose helmet-covered orb smacked the road with more force than a Mike Tyson left hand. Thinking I was seeing my final day, I felt the impact and quickly got up, retrieved the bike (behind me by 5 feet) and scurried to the relative safety of the shoulder of the road. Then, I waited for what I thought would be a dizzying...

A week away from the world is nice. The morning newspaper is scanned like an Evelyn Wood course and what I'm left with are a couple of things that are blown so far out of proportion that they are impossible to ignore, even on vacation. Sarah Palin repeats on America like a bad tuna salad: David Letterman quipped that the Palin family went to a Yankees game and "there was one awkward moment during the seventh-inning stretch: Her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez." That, says Palin, "crossed the line." What really "crossed the line" was putting Sarah Palin in front of America as a vice-presidential candidate. That's crossing the line. "It's quite a sad commentary on where we are a culture, as a society, to chuckle and laugh through comments such as he made the other night," Palin said. She may believe that Letterman's comments were inappropriate, but how about the premise that what makes someone a legitimate political fo...

Back to reality. After a week off and four days of watching golf (five if you count today watching on TV) it's back to work and the drudgery of everyday life. I chose not to return to Bulle Rock for today's final round for a few reasons. (1) Paula wasn't in contention. (2) It's hot, and I'm tired of being baked by the Sun. (3) After four days of 7am to 8pm traveling, I needed to refresh at home. (4) The final round is best enjoyed on TV. Meanwhile, the cat seems to be relishing his new found freedom. He's been cooped-up here for the week, and a trip outdoors this morning brought back his primal instincts. Shortly after leaving him outside for what I thought would be a nice breath of fresh air, he returned with a baby rabbit in his teeth. I saw him on the porch, but I disregarded what I thought I saw in his tiny teeth as he nonchalantly strolled in the house and deposited the little critter on my living room floor. Not knowing if it was dead or merely uncons...

I had a good feeling about Paula's third round. There was a concert at Ripken Stadium on Saturday night, so our parking/shuttle area was moved to a corporate campus in Belcamp. On the way, I passed a Creamery Lane. An omen? I don't know. It sounded good at the time. She started the day at even par, teeing off at 12:14pm (in the noonday sun, as they say) and it was a challenge for her to stay there, and it wasn't until the 16th that she got into negative numbers with an elusive birdie putt. She managed to finish the day at one-under par, but it will be an uphill (if not impossible) battle to win with so many players ahead of her, and the leader at minus 10. So let's reflect on the week so far: FRUSTRATING: The shitty directions to the Belcamp parking area provided by the LPGA. First, they said, "go west on Route 563" but 563 runs North/South (odd numbers, don't-cha-know). It went downhill from there. We're back to good-old Ripken Stadium on Sunday. ...

I stopped at a Havre de Grace 7/11 on my way to Bulle Rock today to buy a few newspapers. As you may remember (you do, right?) I had my photo snapped by a Hartford County newspaper photog while walking the course with Paula Creamer on Thursday. I was figuring they wouldn't print it, with me being from New Jersey and all, but lo and behold (whatever that means) here it was, on page 10 of The Record (serving Havre de Grace, Aberdeen, Perryville and Port Deposit): It beat the Hell out of the story on page three of the Aberdeen man who was killed while trying to cross Route 40. I took a shuttle bus. Meanwhile, on the course today, I had another opportunity to enjoy the company of Paula's mother Karen. I wanted to tell her how impressed I was with her daughter's kindness toward me on Thursday, and she remembered meeting me the past couple of years on the course. We chatted and walked the course with Paula in the mid-June Maryland heat. The morning started off promisingly, w...

Some things take me by surprise. Mostly, because I'm cynical by nature and partly because I'm just surprised. As faithful readers know, I'm a fan of LPGA golfer Paula Creamer . Following golf requires that one pick a "favorite" and when I attend an event or watch on television, I like to have someone to root for. Rooting for Paula is easy because she embodies everything that I imagine athletes to be: Appreciative of her fans, friendly, easy to like and generally a good person. Two years ago, upon meeting her mother on the course at Bulle Rock, I told her that Paula was "my favorite professional athlete." What happened today cemented that belief. As usual, I spent the day walking the course with her group, which included Nichole Castrale and Kristy McPherson. Today, I went to the LPGA Championship garbed in a custom-made Paula Creamer T-shirt (above) and evidently, was the envy of my fellow Creamer followers . To the extent that a local newspaper...

Today began my annual four-day trek to Maryland to see the McDonald's LPGA Championship at Bulle Rock Country Club. It will be my final time, because the tournament is in the last year of a 5-year deal, so next year's Championship will be held elsewhere. In the past, I've added up the total distance I walked during the tournament. Suffice it to say, it's enough to make my feet hurt and my aging knees swell a bit. My love of the LPGA is exceeded only by how much I love complaining. Wednesday is what they call the practice round, but mostly, it's colleting autographs and photographs of the players while they mill around the putting green, driving range and various parts of the golf course. I collected about a hundred photos and some autographs, most notably Hall of Famer Se Ri Pak. To the right is Natalie Gulbis , who you may recognize from her recent appearance on Celebrity Apprentice . I think she was fired. She was doing an interview with a local TV station sho...

Taking dinosaurs off this island is the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas, and I'm going to be there when you learn that. - Ian Malcolm, "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" Speaking of bad ideas, here is the next one in their long, sad history. LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens said in an interview last week that she would "love it" and “encourages” players to use handheld devices to post content on social-media Web sites such as Twitter or Facebook and encourages the use of handheld mobile phones during play , even if it runs counter to golf etiquette. That's right. She'd love it if the players started texting 140-word updates to their Twitter pages during the round. Sure. While we're at it, let's have an update from Donovan McNabb while the Eagles defense is on the field. And what's to stop Brad Lidge from typing while he's sitting around for 8 innings? Hopefully, common sense stops them, because the people in charge are...

Since I've pretty much given up on English-speaking women finding me attractive, today I realzed that non-English speaking women would be equally unattractive. Not physically, but because I'd never know if they were talking about me behind my back. The language barrier. Lunching at the local Chinese buffet - which is Chinese in name only, but is buffet - I observed two waitresses having a conversation in some form of Chinese/Mandarin dialect, and realized that I'd never be comfortable if I was with someone who spoke a fluent second language. Who in Hell knows what they're talking about? WAITRESS #1: 你看到多少禿頂傢伙是吃? (Did you see how much the bald guy was eating?) WAITRESS #2: 我知道。他將在哪裡呢 ？(I know. Where does he put it all?) WAITRESS #1: 我敢打賭，他不會留下小費，無論 。(I don't know. I bet he doesn't leave a tip.) WAITRESS #2: 男人都是一樣的 。(Men are all the same.) What chance do I have against that? Of course, that's assuming that English-speaking women wouldn't ridicule ...

"Cheese crumbs spread before a pair of copulating rats will distract the female, but not the male." - Alfred Kinsey There's a fun little experiment for my men readers. Lay out some cheese tonight and see what happens. I'd try it myself, but I don't have any ... cheese. Right. I was having lunch with a co-worker today, and as we were walking out he told me, "That woman was totally checking you out." I didn't correct his syntax, but I did check to see if my fly was open. I might also have wanted to have either his or her eyesight checked. By the way, if you're in or near a Wendy's, try the Southwest Taco salad. It's a party for your mouth and only $4.79. Partner it up with the Light Lemonade (large because it's spicy) and you have a nice lunch-time meal. Comedian Robert Klein used to do a bit where he said that, if Neil Armstrong wanted to set himself up for life financially, instead of that "one small step for a man..." s...

CULVER CITY, Calif. (AP) - In a chewy chow-lenge, Takeru Kobayashi outlasted Joey Chestnut when the eating titans faced off to see who could devour the most pizzas. Kobayashi, a six-time world hot dog eating champion from Japan, consumed 5-3/4 P’zones in a six-minute span of chaotic consumption Saturday to edge Chestnut. The 25-year-old from San Jose, Calif., wolfed down 5-1/2 P’zones on Stage 15 at Sony Studios. “I’m a little bummed,” Chestnut said. “There’s nobody I like beating more than him, he pushes me harder than anybody.” Jesus, who can eat the most pizzas. That's what we've come to as a race of humans. I like food too much to want to eat 6 P'zone's (whatever they are) in 6 minutes, or anything else, for that matter. I went to see the Wilmington Blue Rocks on Saturday, and had a veggie-burger that I consumed in about 6 minutes - because it was good. Imagine that. Among other things, there was a baseball game to watch, unless, of course you count the mascots, ...