My Sick Mind

This might be as far as I venture out today.

Tonight: Mostly cloudy with snow showers developing after midnight. Chance of snow 60%. Saturday: Windy with snow of varying intensity. The snow is more likely to accumulate during the afternoon. High around 30F. Snow accumulating 2 to 4 inches. Saturday night: Windy with snow, heavy at times. Low 23F. 5 to 8 inches of snow expected. Sunday: Mostly cloudy with snow showers around in the morning. High 34F. Chance of snow 70%. We have been through this before . The Storm of the Century is headed for us and we should run, panicking in the streets for the fate that awaits us. Uh-huh. It was March 1, 2009 the last time they told us to be afraid of the snow. A foot, they said. Some of us rushed out to buy a shovel which, I'm happy to say, still sits in my storage area as shiny and new as the day I brought it home (April 30, 2009), and they tell us that I may finally get to use it. Uh-huh. It's coming. Thousands of people have already rushed out to their local shopping malls...

Yesterday I posted a rather brief and cryptic analysis of the death of Oral Roberts, self-proclaimed healer via God who died from ... some disease. For his trouble he collected millions of dollars from people who believed him because - well, we want to believe I suppose. It's the same reason we want to believe in Santa Claus, or more accurately, why parents want their children to believe. They say it's childlike wonderment or some junk, but it's really our parents perpetuating a myth on our young minds that has its roots in a belief in some healing power or that we are somehow not just amorphous blobs of protoplasm wandering aimlessly - which of course, we are. And we're too young and naive to realize that not only do good kids get stuff at Christmas, but the kid who beat us up in the playground and the one who cheated on his math test got stuff too. Nicer stuff than we got, too. Maybe Santa isn't as diligent as we were led to ... um ... believe? Another fine life ...

TULSA, Okla. – Oral Roberts, who helped pioneer TV evangelism in the 1950s and used the power of the new medium — and his message of God's healing power — to build a multimillion-dollar ministry and a university that bears his name, died Tuesday. He was 91. Roberts died of complications from pneumonia in Newport Beach, Calif., according to his spokesman, A. Larry Ross. The evangelist was hospitalized after a fall on Saturday. Hmmm.

For weeks I've been reading and hearing about a new show on MTV called Jersey Shore that I was told is guaranteed to be offensive to Italian-Americans to the point that it has been protested and at least one advertiser (Domino's Pizza) has pulled its ads from the show. That meant I had to see it. I swallowed hard and watched not one, but two episodes of this show. The premise is that the producers have taken 8 kids from the New York area and put them together in a beach house in Seaside Heights, New Jersey - hence the name. Then, as is the formula, a camera crew follows them around filming their antics. I don't understand what is offensive about it, since the kids portray themselves as "Guido's" and "Guidettes." They are perpetuating the stereotype because they are the stereotype. At first, I thought that the people protesting the show had a point, but now I'm not so sure. If someone goes on TV and calls themself "fat" should we p...

... the most bacteria-infested place on earth is the handle of those hand sanitizers. Thousands of people with dirty fingers are pushing that plunger. ... that, and those pneumatic-tube money carriers at the drive-in bank. Think of the fingers on those things. Ick. ... when the story about the ambulance carrying someone out of Tiger Woods' house surfaced on Tuesday morning, how many of you thought it was either Tiger or his wife, having been bludgeoned by a golf club? ... when it turned out to be his mother-in-law, how did you feel about that? Some things are impossible to live down. President Obama proposed a new program Tuesday that would reimburse homeowners for energy-efficient appliances and insulation, part of a broader plan to stimulate the economy. The administration didn't provide immediate details, but said it would work with Congress on crafting legislation. Steve Nadel, director at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, who's helping write the bi...

Sometimes we do what we're told whether or not we have given it much thought or considered the alternatives. Christmas is one of those times. Holidays in general get me to thinking, and as regular readers know, getting me to thinking is both dangerous and purposeful. Since we were children, we've been indoctrinated with the so-called Spirit of Christmas and all that it entails, including massive debt, some guilt and an overwhelming feeling of obligation. Merry Christmas. But we go along to get along, and if we eschew the tradition (a.k.a. obligations) of the holiday we are committing social suicide and risk being a cast out in our social circle, such as it is. Peer pressure is a huge part of most holidays, and none more than Christmas. It's the reason I can't fault drug addicts and compulsive gamblers for falling in with the wrong crowd. We've fallen in with the wrong crowd too, only our crowd is called Society and we rationalize it because the mob mentality has...

Suddenly, it dawned on me. I'm a little slow, so you'll have to bear with me. Television has turned music into competition. No kidding. It started with the nonsense known as American Idol, transformed into such other nonsense as Dancing With the Stars , So You Think You Can Dance and the grammatically incorrect America's Got Talent . I was innocently watching Sunday night's football game when I saw NBC promoting a program called The Sing Off (no jokes please) where I assume singers face-off in a competitive talent competition that is probably to be decided by viewer votes (via telephone for money) with a two-hour premiere next week. It is hosted by Nick Lachey (we're supposed to know who he is) and judged by Ben Folds, Shawn Stockman and Nicole Schwerzinger. Go ahead and Google them, because I'm pretty sure you only know Ben Folds because his name is on a group that he fronts. The web site asks us who do you think will win (also grammatically incorrect) ...

Now, finally we can put a number to it. 701,000. Female solo artists account for eight of the top 10 albums on The Billboard 200. Susan Boyle leads the pack as "I Dreamed A Dream" debuts at #1 with sales of 701,000. 701,000 official nitwits in the world. Now that we know that, we can get on with our lives. This is why we'll never do away with these so-called "talent" shows where celebrities are foist upon us. It's a pandemic worse than Swine Flu. It's worse because the only cure is death. I dreamed a dream ... that people actually had to have worked for their art instead of just showing up on a television show and being force-fed to the public. I can dream. MONTPELIER, Vt. – Richard Phillips, the ship captain toasted as a hero after he was taken captive by Somali pirates, ignored repeated warnings last spring to keep his freighter at least 600 miles off the African coast because of the heightened risk of attack, some members of his crew now all...

There's an online poll going on at CBS3 (one of the local news TV stations) asking if the recent Tiger Woods scandal has made you change your opinion of him. I answered "no." The reason I said no is because I never liked him to begin with. It's difficult for a scandal to alter ones opinion when the offender is seen as kind of a punk. Since my only impression of him is what I see on the golf course, what I see is a petulant child who seems to be spoiled by success and whines and moans whenever things don't go his way, throws clubs when he misses shots and berates journalists and fans if they dare to make noise while he's playing. He's a gentleman as long as he's winning, but he's what we humans call a "sore loser," and those types of people like things to go their way all the time. Now, he's apologetic - as we humans tend to be - because he got caught doing something he's been doing for a long time. Presumably, had he not been ...

I'm a bad American. President Obama is speaking on TV tonight, and I'm sitting here wondering which of my DVR programs I'm going to watch to fill the hour. I figure whatever he says I'll read in the newspaper tomorrow. So, maybe I'm not such a bad American after all, it's just a matter of time management. I'm not big on foreign affairs and the Middle East. I've never been. I'd make a lousy Jew, because I pretty much ignore the region. I figure, they've been fighting for five thousand years and they'll be fighting for five thousand more. I don't know of another culture that is as combative. Everything they do over there - Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Iran et al - is designed to bring their hatred of somebody to the front. It isn't the way I conduct my life and I don't understand why a culture would want to propagate that sort of thing. Since I was a kid (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) I've been hearing about tension...

The Tiger Woods story is a microcosm of how we view and treat celebrities and how they treat us. I'll spare you the sordid details, since you've probably already read or heard enough to write your own blog. Suffice it to say the whole story smells and one wonders about the golf club damage to his vehicle and the cuts on his face to the point that we ... um ... wonder. What I'm getting out of the story (after days of agonizing analysis) is a lesson in celebrity treatment and what the public wants from them, which is usually more than they're willing to give. Celebrities want the limelight, the money and fame but when it comes to sharing the intimate details of their social life, they draw a thick line. Unless you're Madonna-esq, in which case you write a book detailing your sexual escapades. But if you drive an Escalade and play golf for a living, you tend to be a lot more close mouthed about your dalliances and the goings-on of your family life. But the celebrit...

It was a strange weekend. I lost 2 pounds. That in itself speaks for what a strange person I am. Where most people eat like ponies and spend three days regretting their gluttony, I ate the usual amount and took a container of leftovers home. I'm funny that way. I was also able to go three days without speaking to anyone. That in itself speaks for what a strange person I am. It's partly because nobody speaks to me and partly because I have nobody to speak to. If the cat could talk I'd be a happier person, but he makes an odd whining noise that I haven't yet been able to interpret. I'll go to work tomorrow and people will ask about my Thanksgiving. When I say that mom roasted a chicken, they will reply, "A chicken?" As though I committed a crime against nature by eating something besides turkey on Thanksgiving. Even though, every big family Thanksgiving dinner I ever attended (many years ago) consisted of people complaining about (a) the time ...

One of the great things about modern society is that we can choose to ignore great parts of it and still get along well in the world. Such will be the case on Friday, the day the humans call Black Friday. If we are to believe the advertising, several stores will be left without doors, as they will have been busted by low prices and great deals on stuff we didn't know we needed. Where stores used to open at 9:00am or even as early as 6:00am, they now are opening as early as 4:00am on Friday morning so that ravenous consumers can snatch the latest gimmicky product being advertised at "unbelievable prices." You'll see the lines forming late Thursday night. There will be shoppers in tents, sleeping bags and lawn chairs hoping to be one of the few who pick up that incredible $100 TV [limit 10 per store - no rain checks]. The TV reporters will interview them and they'll talk about what piece of junk they hope to rush in and grab before the 200 people in front of t...

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Even before Adam Lambert 's show-stopping performance at the 2009 American Music Awards was edited for the west coast feed of the awards show, the singer told Access Hollywood's Shaun Robinson that he felt censoring his performance would be wrong. "You know honestly, if I offended some people ... it's apples and oranges. I'm not an artist that does things for every single person," Adam told Access' Shaun backstage following his racy performance of "For Your Entertainment," where he kissed male keyboardist Tommy Ratliff, who is straight. It's great that a guy who has been in show business for fifteen minutes suddenly has a point of view. This is the problem with shows like "American Idol" who foist music on us - it creates controversy where none existed and makes a star out of someone whose biggest previous accomplishment was winning the Air Band competition at Mesa Verde Middle School. Really. Besides, the ...

The cat sleeps peacefully at the foot of the fire. Some things in life are too sublime to mention. The logs cost five bucks but the pleasure is immeasurable. Maybe he doesn't know that. Maybe he doesn't know that I make a special trip to the PetSmart to get him the 71-cent food pouches when I could just as easily get the generic 50-cent stuff from the supermarket. He cares when he eats it, I suppose, but doesn't appreciate the sacrifice. If only people were so easy to please.

LOS ANGELES – California is investigating several companies suspected of bilking churches nationwide of hundreds of thousands of dollars through fraudulent computer leasing schemes, authorities said Friday. State Attorney General Jerry Brown said as many as 30 Southern California churches may have been defrauded, with the same companies suspected of bilking other churches in as many as 10 other states. The companies offered churches free computer kiosks that could serve as electronic message boards and generate advertising revenue, Brown said. "Instead, churches were left with leases as high as $45,000 per year for what amounted to little more than desktop computers and printers housed in podium-sized wooden boxes," the Attorney General's office said in a statement. I'm fascinated by this story for a few reasons: First, a criminal (or criminals) figured out how to defraud perhaps the most trusting group of people on the planet - religious folk. They see the good i...

I'm confused over the title of Sarah Palin's new book, "Going Rogue." I don't know if she means rogue as a noun, adjective or verb. She's so mysterious! rogue NOUN: An unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person; a scoundrel or rascal. One who is playfully mischievous; a scamp. A wandering beggar; a vagrant. A vicious and solitary animal, especially an elephant that has separated itself from its herd. An organism, especially a plant, that shows an undesirable variation from a standard. ADJECTIVE: Vicious and solitary. Used of an animal, especially an elephant. Large, destructive, and anomalous or unpredictable: a rogue wave; a rogue tornado. Operating outside normal or desirable controls. VERB: rogued , rogu·ing , rogues VERB: tr. To defraud. To remove (diseased or abnormal specimens) from a group of plants of the same variety. VERB: intr. To remove diseased or abnormal plants.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – News photos of President Barack Obama bowing to Japan's emperor have incensed critics here, who said the US leader should stand tall when representing America overseas. Obama on Monday was in China, having wrapped up the Japan leg of his Asia trip two days earlier. But Washington's punditocracy was still weighing whether or not the US president had disgraced his country two days earlier by having taken a deep bow at the waist while meeting Japan's Emperor Akihito. Of course, the political media is divided. Conservatives are saying that the bow is a sign of subservience, and that President Obama is showing weakness by bowing at the hand of another world leader. That's precisely the type of jingoistic thinking that gets us into trouble around the world. Conservatives are looking for trouble and will scream at the first sign of something they don't understand. Technically: Bows are the traditional greeting in East Asia, particularly in Korea and...

Cats will be cats, and cats will be cruel, Cats can be callous, and cats can be cool, Cats will be cats, remember these words: Cats will be cats and cats eat birds. "Facts About Cats" - Timbuk 3 I guess there are worse things in life than devoting ones life to a cat. After all, they can't provide for themselves and they can't look after themselves - other than the occasional tongue cleaning or scratching post maintenance. Like those personal ads that proclaim "Likes dancing." Name me 3 guys who would dance if it weren't for women dancing. Can't do it. I also "like fine dining." Big deal, who doesn't? Run an ad that says "Likes mediocre dining" and see what kind of responses you get. I don't think we know what we want, which is why the divorce rate is so high. Otherwise, we'd hook up for life like our miserable parents did. Of course, the job market wasn't as high for mom as it is for new-mom, so that says a lot...