My Sick Mind

I've been thinking. That's dangerous, I know. I've been thinking about the way things are now as opposed to the way things were then . However, in order to really understand the difference between now and then, one must be old enough to know the difference between color television and black and white television, and a time when there were programs "presented in living color" and how special it was. This isn't about TV, but it's a good frame of reference. The reason we need a frame of reference is because most of the people reading this are unaware that there was a time in which, if one didn't have the cash to purchase an item, one could not own that item - unless one could secure a loan from a bank. Cars and houses were the big-ticket items in those days. Anything else would have to be purchased with cash. I remember my parents saving money to buy a new car. A brand new 1964 Ford Fairlane cost my parents around $2,200, which seems cheap until you ...

If all the world's a stage, where does the audience sit? The NCAA tournament continues, and I can't help but wonder what all the fuss is about. From the looks of the TV (which is after all, the final authority) they're playing to half-empty lower-level seating in Detroit. It makes me think that the tournament is the sports equivalent of the lottery. It's popular because people can wager on it, but they don't have to actually watch it to know if they win. All we need to do is check the scores and check our picks to know whether we have a chance to win. It doesn't help that the games are being played in football stadiums, where the worst seat in the house is barely in the house. How many people who play bracket pools actually watch the games? If you buy a lottery ticket do you watch the drawing? Speaking of sports (which I was), it's now more expensive to go to baseball games: CHICAGO (AP) - It will cost a lot more to root, root, root for the home team th...

Mi Mente Enferma . That's how My Sick Mind is translated into Spanish. I had a reader today from Columbia, South America and the link translated the blog to Spanish, via the smart folks at Google. I had no idea. To see your blog translated, click on your Buddy link on the right of the Spanish page. Click here to see Mi Mente Enferma ( Lo que está en mi cabeza, derrama sobre el monitor del ordenador ). The girls are playing golf this weekend at Superstition Mountain, Arizona; outside of Phoenix. Take a minute and wander over to the Golf Channel for the coverage. If only to see the beautiful course and the background. I think I know where next year's vacation is going. The NCAA tournament is back this weekend, where the cream should rise and Cinderella will find that the shoe doesn't fit. By Sunday, we'll be down to the so-called "Final Four" which, although it does contain four teams, it is by no means final. There will still be two games left. Speaking of ...

"We are bound by the secrets we share ." Every time I went into my Netflix Queue, I saw this title on the page. We'll think you'll like "Notes On a Scandal". As though Netflix could determine that I enjoy deep character studies and stories that had layers that required some thought and exploration of ones deepest feelings. Films where nothing explodes and there is absolutely no CGI. Netflix wore me down. I put it in the queue behind "I Am Legend", mostly because I like the stars and partly because I figured Netflix had a keen idea. I liked it from the start, which is odd for me. Generally, I have to be drawn into a story and get acquainted with the characters, but this film drew me in from the start and I had no trouble finding the angles of the story and the complexity of the plot as it unfolded. Kate Blanchett and Judi Dench. Can it get any better? I submit that it cannot. Both were Oscar nominated, Dench for lead actress and Blanchett for supp...

A vast ice shelf hanging on by a thin strip looks to be the next chunk to break off from the Antarctic Peninsula, the latest sign of global warming's impact on Earth's southernmost continent. Scientists are shocked by the rapid change of events. The Wilkins Ice Shelf was stable for most of the last century until it began retreating in the 1990s. A previous major breakout occurred there in 1998 when 390 square miles (1,000 square kilometers) of ice was lost in just a few months."We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years, but warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing it to break up," Scambos said. A new study of glaciers in a portion of the Antarctic finds 84 percent of them have retreated over the past 50 years in response to a warmer climate. The work was based on 2,000 aerial photos, some taken in the 1940s, and satellite images. The climate in the region has warmed by more than 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 Celsius) in the l...

The final two minutes of the Marquette-Stanford game Saturday night took about a half hour to complete. Why? Because sports, like life, places an undue burden on the final minutes rather than the first. The referees forced several time-out's running to the scorer's table asking for extra time to be put back on the clock because the official scorer started the clock too soon. My question (because I love to ask questions) is, who was watching the official scorer with ... say ... 13 minutes left in the half to make sure he was re-starting the clock correctly? My answer (because I love to answer my own questions) is: Nobody. We don't pay as much attention to things at the beginning as we do at the end, which is why sports emulates life. Last-second field goals are supposedly more important than the one he missed in the first quarter, ninth inning home runs carry more weight than the strike-out with the bases loaded in the first inning and buzzer-beaters beat the 30% three-...

I don't watch NCAA basketball much during the regular season, but for some reason I watch almost non-stop during the tournament. It has nothing to do with wagering big bucks on pools. I'm only in two. One is with 3 other people over bragging rights (and lunch) at work and the other is over on Sparky's blog for some beer. I like to win, but neither of them detracts from my enjoyment of a good game, even if my pick loses. The action is on the TV on CBS, who has brought out their farm of announcers to broadcast the games. I'm guessing that the only reason most of these guys have a job is because there are 32 first-round games to show. Otherwise, they'd be at home watching on TV like I. Yesterday, a player named Young made a key basket, and the color man screamed, "Only the Young survive!" What? That doesn't make sense. They're so anxious to come up with the next big Al Michaels 'do you believe in miracles' quote that they reach (over-reach...

That's the advice I would offer to young people, which is probably why I'll never be asked to deliver a commencement address. The point is that you should never give up. Good things take time, and if you quit you'll never know the satisfaction of achievement. It took 8 years of evening classes at Widener for me to earn my Bachelor's Degree. Steadily, 3 or sometimes 6 credits at a time I kept at it, and eventually I had the 123 that I needed to get the degree. It wasn't going to happen as quickly as I wanted it to happen, but it surely did. So, don't give up. The prize is within your reach and your slow steady progression will lead to the result you seek. It may seem like it will take forever, but once you've realized your accomplishment, the time will have seemed short and the achivement will last a lifetime. Once you get it, they can't take it away from you.

Check your food products (including, but not limited to potato chips and pancakes), bath towels, steamed-up bathroom windows and worn out (but still useful) shoe soles for images of religious leaders, states or something loosely resembling a well-known public figure. You won't have to worry about attaining that pesky college education or fighting for that big promotion at work. Put your knowledge of abstract shapes to work and earn some big bucks that you can use to pay your big tax bill or fight off those bill collectors. Remember: Somewhere in the world there is a person who has money to spend on junk, and it's up to you to find them and exploit them. ----------------------------------------------------- I got an envelope in the mail today that said "Inside: A one-time money-saving opportunity for you." That's a lot of hyphens. I'd like to save money, so why wouldn't I open the envelope? I felt so special. Inside was an offer to extend my Consumer Rep...

Aside from the odd abdominal machine or "miracle" weight-loss device, the greatest money-making scam in the history of modern marketing is anything designed to improve ones golf game. There are too many devices to list here, and all of them claim to remove your slice, fix your putting stoke or lengthen your drives. Anything you can sell to men that lengthens anything is a sure-fire money maker. Mostly, what they do is improve the bank account of the people selling them. It says here that you can either play golf or you can't, and those who invest money on those devices are ignoring the fact that they should either take up another game or come to grips with the fact that they aren't very good at golf. Which brings to mind something else ... that quote I used on Thursday from "Broadcast News" ... Paul Moore : It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you're the smartest person in the room. Jane Craig : No. It's awful. The rea...

Well, go figure. The original giant Illinois-shaped corn flake has been removed from Ebola. When I clicked on the link, this message appeared ... This listing (110233337338) has been removed or is no longer available. Please make sure you entered the right item number. If the listing was removed by eBay, consider it canceled. Note: Listings that have ended more than 90 days ago will no longer appear on eBay . Oh, I entered the correct item number. You betcha. I checked it earlier today , and the bids were up to $200,000 and the "seller" had added some caveats that the "winner" must have at least 10 ratings as buyers or sellers. Now, another listing has been added with the same phony photograph of the flake and a dime. Only this time, the seller has a different eBay ID and the bidding starts at a dollar with 9 days remaining. Click here to see it, if you dare. One problem ... the caveats remained from the original ad, specifying Thursday as the end date. Thank you...

CHICAGO - The latest eBay bidding war has broken out over a piece of breakfast cereal that is touted as looking like the state of Illinois. Bids are being taken for the item listed by two sisters as “The Great Illinois Corn Flake”. They promise that the piece of cereal, from a box of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, has undergone no alteration. Emily McIntire, 15, from Chesapeake, Virginia, said that she almost ate the 2-inch flake because she was rushing to get to school. “It was almost to my mouth, it didn't look like Illinois at first because it was held the wrong way,” she told reporters. She then noticed the resemblance and said: “Oh my goodness, it's Illinois.” Her 23-year-old sister, Melissa, said that their parents suggested selling it for fun. They are offering free shipping to Illinois. It's here , so you can post your bid. It's a shame if you don't live in Illinois, because you'll have to pay postage. What's it weigh - a tenth of an ounce? Biddin...

Happy St. Patrick's Day. I don't know what that means, but I felt compelled to say it. Today, everybody is Irish, which makes me think that something is about to explode. St. Patrick's Day is another one of those useless American "holidays" that is celebrated but not officially recognized by the Federal government. I noticed, when I was out on Saturday, that several revelers were already in full Patty's Day mode - with the green hats, green shamrocks and green beads. Most of them looked like bo-hunk's, but I digress. I'm confused. Half our time is spent telling people that we're supposed to be a melting pot, and that our differences are trivial. We're supposed to be worldly and accept people for what they are and who they are. The other half is spent telling us how different we are, as we celebrate Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans and every other [slash]American whose country of origin comes before the country to which t...

Brackets. Did you fill out your bracket? How's you bracket? Did you do a bracket? Do you want to get in our braket pool? Bracket ... bracket ... bracket ... bracket. The bracket pool. America's big springtime time-killing obscession between Valentine's Day and Memorial Day. Millions of hours wasted on filling in names of teams that none of us know anything about, except when it comes to the semi-finals, and Gonzaga is in the "Sweet 16" and we feel compelled to tell everyone, "I had them in my bracket." Good for you, buddy. Anything worth paying attention to is worth gambling on. Otherwise, we're only into drinking holidays like St. Patrick's Day and the day before Thanksgiving. The Philadelphia Inquirer, our local newspaper, had the audacity to print a blank bracket in Sunday's paper, expecting us to fill in the names of the teams as they were announced. Seconds after "The Selection Show" the names and filled-in brackets were av...

Saturday was particularly nice around here, weather wise. I had to hang at home and wait to have my dryer vents cleaned, which is not a sexual reference. They cleaned my dryer vents. Afterward, I grabbed the camera and took off for the big city. I was there from noon until 8 at night. Here are some of the photos I took during my visit. That's the courtyard of the Betsy Ross House at 239 Arch Street, where legend has it, she sewed our first American flag. It is a matter of dispute that she indeed sewed the first flag and that she lived in this house. We never let the facts get in the way of a good story around here. We have these charming things called cobblestone streets in Philadelphia. They're charming if you aren't riding a bicycle or walking barefoot. These lead you to the Carpenter House. This is the courtyard behind the Rohm and Haas building that I showed you at night last week . That's it on the left. A short jog down the brick path leads you to ... ... a ...

One of my friends came into work today (not the same sick friend from yesterday) wondering what that song was that he heard on the radio... " Why don't you take a good look at yourself and describe what you see, and baby, baby, baby, do you like it?" Immediately, I didn't know, although I knew it was a Led Zeppelin song, and I knew that they usually didn't sing the titles of their songs. OK, so I admit I had to look it up - Misty Mountain Hop, but I knew it was from "Led Zeppelin IV", which some among us refer to as "Zofo". For instance ... We come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow. How soft your fields so green, Can whisper tales of gore, Of how we calmed the tides of war. We are your overlords. Immigrant Song . Sure. you knew that. Zeppelin is one of those bands that those of us old enough to know, can refer to at times as classic music, even though, at the time we didn't think of it...

I'm exhausted. News events of the past week have left me with little to do but churn out 600-word essays on the current state of American social habits and their effects on the general public. I'm reminded of an exchange in the movie " Broadcast News ": Paul Moore : It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you're the smartest person in the room. Jane Craig : No. It's awful. Stop me if you've heard this: A co-worker reported for work on Monday with a voice that sounded like radio static, insisted that he was "fine" and continued about his day. Tuesday, he came back and attended a seminar with 12 other employees and took a half-day sick. On Wednesday, he finally called in sick and went to his doctor, who told him that he had an "infectious bacteria" in his throat and that his doctor told him that it wasn't contagious, so he could return to work. We know this because he came back to work on Thursday, pr...

Wonder no more, America. Photos of Elliot Spitzer's high-priced prostitute Kristen have been posted on The Smoking Gun . MARCH 12 - Meet "Kristen," the high-priced hooker who trysted with Eliot "Client-9" Spitzer last month at that Washington, D.C. hotel. The 22-year-old prostitute's real name is Ashley Alexandra Dupre (though she was born Ashley Youmans), according to a New York Times report. On the following pages you'll find an assortment of photos that the young prostitute previously uploaded to a music web site and her MySpace page, which describes Kristen/Ashley as an aspiring musician who left home at 17 and has been in New York City since 2004. The story says Spitzer spent $4,300 on her, which ironically violates the Mann Act, an archaic statute that, though rarely invoked, has Spitzer pinned because it forbids "transportation of a person across state lines for purposes of prostitution." "It's an undeniable Mann Act violation,...

We use sex to sell almost everything here in America. Video games, movies, music and food, among other things. We even use sex to sell things to allow us to have more sex and (so-called) better sex, which they tell us is longer-lasting sex, which may not be all it's cracked up to be, if you know what I mean. We have pills designed to give us boners that last 36 hours, pills that make our boners bigger (so they say) and they're advertised on the TV when children and politicians are watching. After a while, it starts to get ingrained in our heads and we start to think that erectile dysfunction is a real disease and that if we're not out boning everything that moves into our field of vision that there's something wrong with us. The trouble with that idea is that not every woman in America is all that anxious to bone us. So, we're left to pay for the privilege, and there is no shortage of women who are willing to accept money for the wanker. However, lots of guys are...

By the latest unofficial count, the page hits over the Kelly Zimmerman story is up over 700. That's about as many as I had when I wrote about Alycia Lane , or when Jane Fonda used the C-word , which was more ado about nothing. Here's a little piece from the latest story: Some Trentonians said they don't understand what the uproar is all about. "No, I don't think it's a big deal, not at all," said George Brewington, of Trenton. "That's just a woman in a bathing suit. " Right you are, George. I'd be willing to bet that most Trentonians don't understand what all the uproar is about. You guys need to do more legwork. The only one who does understand is The Trentonian that calls itself a newspaper. People love the scandal, even if they have to make it up. I think it makes people feel better about themselves if they can find perceived fault with others. They make fun of their weight, hair loss or some other genetic malady in a vein effort ...