My Sick Mind

Brian Regan

The Who A Quick One While He's Away from the "Rock and Roll Circus" - 1968. Introduced by a 40-year younger Keith Richards

I'm off to Connecticut to see The Dave Matthews Band (again), so I'll try to entertain you for a while until I return sometime Sunday afternoon. I don't know what the gas prices are in Hartford, but I'm sure to find out. I filled up the tank on Friday, but the 250 mile trip will make it necessary to fill it up before I get home, which adds another 50 bucks to the trip. I have this weird thing about cleaning up the car when I go on a little trip. Friday night, I stopped and hosed it down and cleaned the windows and - most of all - checked the air in the tires. Since I had my oil changed at one of those big chain lube joints, I figured that the air pressure would be good. As it turns out, the big chain lube joints use those worthless pencil air pressure gauges that are as worthless as tits on a bull. The tires were grossly over-inflated, so I'll have to wait until Saturday morning to adjust them because (as everyone knows) you don't bleed air from hot ...

I was talking to a co-worker today about movies, and movie theaters. One that I recommended, she had never been to, and asked, "Is it clean?" Clean for a movie theater, I guess. Then, the thought occurred midway through that I never understood the way people leave their trash on the floor at the movies. They take in a bag of popcorn and some over-priced beverage, finish it during the film and then leave the trash on the floor for a kid with a plastic bag to pick up when the movie is over. I never figured out how that became the custom, and immediately reasoned that it's because the theater is dark and they can leave junk without anyone knowing exactly who left it. Then I realized that people do the same thing at baseball games. After the game, the stands are literally littered with trash, presumably for some stadium employee to pick up after the fans are gone. Mostly, it's brightly lit, so the darkness argument doesn't stand. That leaves me with the sam...

I've gotten quite adept at yelling, "Get off the phone!" to drivers who appear undeterred by the fact that it's illegal in New Jersey to drive while using a cellular phone. The law that passed in February has been a miserable failure. Drivers know that there aren't enough police to police the law, so they have continued their behavior, and as it is with most laws, the people who are most affected are the ones who respected the idea to begin with. Such is life. I screamed it at a neighbor who was yakking while waiting at the intersection as I was coming back from a bike commute. She was a hundred feet from home, yet found it necessary to call someone while she was driving. She said something back, but due to the Doppler effect, her whiny tone was lost to science, and thankfully I have no idea what lame excuse she yelled out the window. Since gasoline is reaching 4 dollars a gallon in the area, there was an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer today telling us t...

We're big on blame. We love to find out who is to blame for something that sometimes is beyond anyone's control or impossible to explain. That doesn't stop us from trying to assign blame because that's what we love. Find a human tragedy and you will find a person to blame. Find a product at fault and you will find a corporation to blame, whether or not the humans involved partook of the substance of their own free will. People smoke cigarettes and sue the tobacco companies for selling them. People eat too much and sue the food producers for making them fat. It's generally someone else's fault and rarely do we take responsibility for our own actions. It's especially true when there are large sums of money on the line, as there was Saturday during the Belmont Stakes. NEW YORK - Trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. still blames jockey Kent Desormeaux for Big Brown's stunning last-place finish in the Belmont Stakes. "I don't want to hurt anyone, especially K...

Sometimes I wish I was more of a smart-ass. I used to be, before age crept up on me and I started to value the way people perceived me. I think it passes, though. I think, as we grow older - older than I am now - we decide that we don't care how people think of us because they have no perspective and their tiny lives are no comparison to the length of time we've spent here. That happens when we're old and cranky and we think we've seen it all. I haven't seen it all. I've seen some of it, and I'm not that big a fan. There's a lot of nonsense that I have to put up with on a daily basis just to make it to the next day. Nonsense that requires a response, but because I am Politeness Man, I find it difficult to reconcile. For instance: I'm in the local convenience store (because it's convenient) and all I have on the counter is a turkey wrap, and the clerk asks, "Is that it?" Politeness Man responds, "Yes," because that's his...

"55 miles before noon, huh? good for you. doesn't your ass hurt though? man, mine does after about the 15 minute marker. and i have a gel seat too!" - Kimmyk There is mine. What, you don't think it's a great seat? You can look hard, but you won't find an ounce of gel. It's the slit down the middle that makes is special. And if you think that's neat, you should see the shoes. It's way too hot around here. On Monday, we'll be in our third day of 95-plus temperatures. The local news stations are having a field day, literally. They've sent reporters outside to tell us how hot it is, as though we can't stick our heads out the door and find out for ourselves. I know genius, it's hot outside. These are the same nitwits who send reporters out when it snows and remind us to stay inside and don't drive unless we have to. Now, they send reporters out and tell us that it's hot and make sure we take care of our pets and drink...