Something terrible has happened. Terrible, and wonderful, at the same time.
Sammy's Pizza has opened a Bismarck location.

I have no stock or ownership in Sammy's Pizza. I just grew up eating it in the Minot area. It is, put simply, the best pizza under the sun.

You can attempt to argue this with me, but you will not sway me.
I used to stop at Sammy's when I would have a business trip in Minot, specifically to get a pizza and bring it all the way back home. Each time, I'd ask "So when are you opening in Bismarck?

"
So now they have. Great, right?
Yeah, except for my waistline.

I just lost 60 pounds a couple years ago. With Sammy's in town, I'll likely gain it all back now.
Ah well, at least it'll be delicious chubbiness that comes knocking on my door.

And now for something completely different: What's up with the writers at CSI: these days? The new season so far has had stories about rampaging gangs of underage kids who beat the crap out of tourists, a woman found dead hanging from a cross in a catholic church, and it looks like this week's episode will revolve around two missing boys and the CSI: team using the mind of a convicted pedophile ala Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs.
It's like they are just trying to make people angry.

Can I get a side of karma with that?

Erik (the Expatriate Act guy - you know, the second-most-talented writer in his family) and I went to McDonald's for lunch today.
Back up.

Prior to going, I asked a couple people if they would like me to bring them anything. I had no intention of actually getting them something if they said yes, of course. But it makes me look nice.

Anyways, unsurprisingly, my friend Jackie (web developer extraordinaire) declined. She likes to eat what she calls "healthy" food. Like salad.

And, um...

water. So my friend Garrett chimes in (he knows of Jackie's strange prediliction for foods that won't kill her) and suggests that Jackie would probably really like a big cup of trans-fats. I ask and sure enough that's what she'd like.

So, Erik and I set off to forage for meat and assorted accoutrements. I asked him on the way how much money he'd give me if I asked for a big cup of trans-fats. We finally settled on 2 bucks being a fair price for such HIGH-larity.

So, I'm in line, and the anticipation is building. The guy in front of me seems to be unable to comprehend the fact that his order is, in fact, ready, and he can MOVE ALONG now, and it's really agitated the nice lady who is ready to take my order. I almost wussed out, because the prior guy had clearly ruined her lunch hour.

But then she carried that attitude over to me, a bit - just a tiny bit, sorta snapping at me when I paused (which I was doing to be polite to let her key in "without pickles" and "without onions"). That decided it for me, and once the order was placed, I told her "Someone back at the office wanted me to grab them a cup of trans-fat. I don't suppose you sell just that, do you?

"
It is somewhat hard to describe the look she gave me. It was sort of a mixture of disdain, confusion, disgust, and confusion. "Trans-fat?

" she asked. I nodded. "No, I don't think.

..no.

" I thanked her and moved aside to wait for my order.
My burger had onions on it.
And now for something completely different: I, too, would like to suggest that I become copy editor for the Tribune.

Not because I have any talent for such things. Nor because I would enjoy it. Also not because I think the typo was any sort of a big deal.

Just because it seems like something smarmy, snarky and sarcastic would do. And I fit all of those, I think. So come on people!

Let's have a Tribune with headlines like "Pharmers decude that Govt. Aide is Teh Roxx0r!"

You re lucky I m not Chuck Norris.

First, an initiation. For those of you unfamiliar with the Chuck Norris phenomenon on the web, I've included a few links for your perusal. If you don't want to click the links, the basic gist of this blog is based on the fact that Chuck Norris is the most powerful force in the universe.

In general.
Now - on to the story. A group of us went to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings yesterday, and someone noticed that they had a special drink menu.

On the menu was a drink called the Chuck Norris. The waiter noticed us noticing it, and told us that he was actually quite disappointed in the Chuck Norris. He said he thought it should be a foot-tall glass of tequila.

Basically anyone who drinks a Chuck Norris (other than Chuck Norris) really should fall down dead.
This prompted a brief Chuck Norris conversation, as one of our intrepid wing-eating party had never heard of the magnificent power that is generally attributed to Chuck Norris.
At the end of the conversation, I declared* that I was going to make a change in my life.

No longer would I get angry at someone and curse under my breath or make the puffy red-faced grimace face. No, I would simply stare at them and coldly tell them that they are lucky that I am not Chuck Norris.
The beauty of this new way of life is obvious.

For one, it is a much more calm way of living. Secondly, if someone is familiar with Chuck Norris' incredible cosmic power, they would realize the level of my anger with them. Thirdly, if they were not familiar with just how massively omnipotent Chuck Norris is, they would just be confused.

Which would probably make me feel better.
Only one problem with this grand scheme has arisen. Erik stole my line, and has it, right at the minute of this blog, as his IM handle.

I told him he's really lucky that I'm not Chuck Norris, for stealing my line. His reply was that we're both lucky that we're not Chuck Norris because if we were, we'd roundhouse kick each other and time/space would be destroyed.** I thought his response was really funny.

So I'm stealing it, to write this blog. Good thing Erik isn't Chuck Norris.
*It's not often that you get to declare something.

If you have the means, I highly recommend it. It is so choice.
**I replied "Except for us.

Because we'd be Chuck Norris."
And now for something completely different: I am a fan of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I've managed to hook my friend Courtney on it, as well.

There are currently 11 books written. The author claims book 12 will be the last one. Each book is roughly 1000 pages long.

Courtney is currently reading book 10. I'm waiting until after she's halfway through book 11 to tell her that all of the main characters in the story die at the end of book 11. Hopefully she doesn't read this.

My wife and I lost a lot of weight semi-recently (over the past 3 years or so). We did it in a variety of ways, but the most basic was more exercise, less food. We didn't do anything like give up eating a particular food group or anything - moderation, for us, was the key.

I still ate at McDonald's maybe once a week or so. But instead of getting two double cheeseburgers with a medium fry, I would order one double cheeseburger and a small fry. And I'd still feel full when I finished.

One key to the ability to eat less was eating slower (or realizing that my stomach needed time to "catch up" to my inhalation-diet). Another key was more difficult - not feeling like I had to finish everything on my plate when eating out.
Case in point: Friday's Chicken Sandwich.

It's a great sandwich. Bacon, cheese, and a smoky mayo on top of a grilled chicken breast. Comes with french fries.

The thing is, the average human really only needs about half of the dietary content that the meal contains. Friday's charges seven or eight bucks for it (I don't remember exactly how much it is.), but I would gladly pay 3/4 of the price for 1/2 the food.

Why don't restaurants do this? Well, that reason is obvious. Nobody complains about getting too much of something they asked for.

"Hey, I ordered a cup of soup, and you brought me a bowl for the same price!!!

" isn't a complaint you are likely to hear.
I'm certain some of you are reading this right now and thinking "Just don't eat the amount that you don't want, you big whiner." And you're right, that's what I have had to do.

But I will tell you that it's more difficult than it sounds. You're out, conversing, having a good time, and unless everyone at the table finishes eating at the exact time, someone is going to be done first. That person is usually me.

And then I have food left. And I munch.
There are ways around these things.

Throw your napkin on your plate to keep yourself from nibbling when you are done. Drink a bunch of your drink to quickly fill up your stomach. I'm sure there are others.

However it is a waste of food, then.
Restaurants are always trying to find a niche to set themselves apart from the rest of the places that can sell you a sandwich. Why not be the place that charges less, and gives you "human-size" portions?

Hell, the ad agency I work for could help you with branding that - I'm envisioning a group of "normal" looking people walking into a restaurant and getting served ridiculous plates full of food, then looking around and seeing that every other table has a bunch of giant-size people at it (not fat, necessarily, just big, big people). Maybe even the chairs and table and utensils are all oversized. The voiceover says "Tired of getting served giant-sized meals at giant-sized prices?

Come to [INSERT RESTAURANT NAME HERE] where we cater to human beings." Or something.
Ok, time to go eat a 32 oz.

porterhouse and a side of backbacon. With gravy.
And now for something completely different: You may notice that if you want to post a comment, you'll have to actually have a login to the Triblogs site.

Sorry about that, but it's the only way I can see currently to avoid having 150 "Get Viagra" posts from the spammers.
So yeah, most people aren't big fans of reading about other people's kids and how special they are. If you're one of those most people, you may want to just stop reading right now.

Still reading? Ok. I warned you.

My daughter is very cute. I love her to pieces. Not tiny little crushed up pieces, mind you.

That would just be unreasonable.
She clearly got her looks from her mother.
She is just about ready to start walking on her own.

Right now each evening she pulls herself up behind her little push-walk toy and zooms back and forth across the room, looking at her mommy and daddy when she hits the wall with a look that is half annoyed and half needy - basically "Help me turn this around please. Why did I even have to ask you?"
If you lay your head down on a pillow on the floor and pat the pillow she will crawl over and put her head down next to yours.

Then she'll let out a big sigh.
I could go on, but I won't. I'm only writing this to embarass her when she's 14 (scratch that) 16 (hmm wait a minute) 18 years old and going out on her first date.

And now for something completely different: A friend of mine (Jackie Ressler, Web Developer Extraordinaire) turned 30 recently. She's pretty down about it. I keep trying to cheer her up, telling her all the stuff she has to look forward to.

So many milestones yet to hit. First gray hair, for instance. She doesn't seem to be any happier about turning 30.

I don't get it.
:::I'm reposting this because I enjoyed writing it the first time and some spammer jerk decided to post a bunch of junk below it. That problem is solved, but there are just too many posts to delete one-at-a-time, so I'm posting this again for your viewing pleasure.

:::
I've come to love CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. I DVR it frequently. I used to just watch whichever one was on at the time, but now I'm trying to watch the episodes in order - the interplay between the characters (aside from solving the crimes) is much more interesting when it is in a linear order.

I have found that watching the show as frequently as I do (about every other night) has affected how I view the world. I find myself looking at something on the ground and examining it the way that the characters on CSI do, as opposed to the way I used to. Previously, when I saw something on the ground, the thought process was something like "Shiny?

Pick up. Not shiny? Kick aside.

" This attitude really sucked when gazing upon a dusty $20 bill.
Now, I see a piece of garbage and a myriad of things go through my head:
Who left it there?
Does it have any meaning beyond being garbage?

What sort of things can this garbage tell me about what took place at this spot?
That sort of stuff.
Yesterday my friend Nikki was in my office and eating one of those tiny little Butterfinger candies.

During our conversation she unwrapped it and ate it and very considerately took the wrapper with her to her own desk. A few minutes later I was walking out and noticed that the sliver of wrapper that she tore off to open the candy was laying on the floor. Now a normal person would pick up that garbage and throw it away.

I'm kinda normal. I did that, but not until I picked it up and carried it to Nikki's desk and talked about how I bet we could match this sliver under a microscope to the rest of the wrapper in Nikki's garbage, which would almost assuredly have her fingerprints on it.
She apologized profusely for leaving a sliver of a wrapper in my office.

She's a nice person. She's also smart, so she knows not to waste any time trying to figure out my warped personality. I explained the whole CSI thing to her.

She politely nodded and continued working. I even showed her a large black pebble on the floor of my office that had yellow paint on it. I told her that I bet if we "sent it to trace", the paint would come back as a match to standard parking lot yellow paint.

She politely asked me to close her door. I knew she meant with me on the outside.
And now for something completely different: Why is it so easy to get upset over the tiniest little hiccup in our own lives, yet so difficult to exhibit the righteous wrath that we should over monumental injustices in the world?

Just wondering.

NFL in HD! FOX?

BRB LOL

So the opening weekend of the NFL was a success, it seems. Not for my Dolphins, of course, who played a very good game until the final 5 minutes, when Daunte Culp-you know what? I'm not even going to go down that road.

No, I'm here to talk about the fine HD programming brought to my television. The Thursday Night game on NBC was crystal clear and vibrant. Sunday afternoon's game on CBS was spectacular.

The NBC Sunday Night game was wonderful. And last night, watching the two games on ESPN HD, the broadcast was simply amazing (I especially like the tiny little indicator for the score/down/time that ESPN has.)
Wait a minute, you might say - there were games on FOX on Sunday, weren't there?

Why yes, yes there were. I watched them only passingly. I'm sorry, but I've become an HD-sports-snob.

Switching from CBS to FOX on Sunday was like being at the eye doctor when he gives you that "which one is better, lens 1, or lens 2?" test. You know, where one of them is crystal clear and you're like "Yes, that one.

" but he keeps flipping them just to mess with you? Maybe that's just my eye doctor. Anyways, FOX was the grainy, hazy one.

The sad thing here is that the FOX broadcast would have been absolutely fine, if I didn't "know any better." It's kinda like eating mac-n-cheese your whole life and then finally eating a true pasta dish at a nice restaurant. Mac-n-cheese was just fine, but after having that something better.

..it's just.

..well.

..mac-n-cheese.

And now for something completely different: It looks like this blog might be part of our company's email newsletter. So if you're reading this and clicked here from the Communique, welcome! Close the door and turn off the lights on your way out, please.

I just haven't had the fevah for the flavah of more cowbell. Or something.
So Erik IM'd me to tell me I had to write another blog.

I asked him why, and I think he's got OCD or something. Seems I'm stuck on 49 blogs and one more makes a nice round even 50. Ok, Rain Man, here's my 50th.

I was thinking the other day about being the best. At something. Anything.

I've come to the realization that I probably won't ever be the best at anything. Decent volleyball player, but not even close to the best person I know (or even play with). Pretty solid video gamer, but best?

Hah. Fastest typist? Maybe among the people I know, but 96 WPM is far from the best.

So I'm trying to shrink down the categories. "Best Diet Mountain Dew Drinker who has had averaged at least one Diet Dew per day for the past 15 years" is a possibility. A lot of my possibilities end up with "in this building" or "with the last name Kingsley" or something like that.

Some of them have to combine the two, such as "Best Elvis Impersonator in this building with the last name Kingsley."
One thing I may be the best at, but it is unfortunately immeasurable - "Best Guy Who Wonders About Stuff But Is Too Lazy To Research It And Therefore Makes Up His Own Explanations." For example - the origin of the word Mean.

I found myself wondering, the other day - did the phrase "He is mean." used to infer that a person was average, rather than that a person was not nice? Rather than go to dictionary.

com to look up the etymology of the word mean, I just wondered about it, and then let it go.
Sadly, there's probably someone out there who is better than me at that, too. Maybe I could be the best at not being the best at anything?

And now for something completely different: My "friend" Marci likes to "make fun" of me when I do things like "using unnecesssary quotes" and "stating the obvious" like that Microsoft Word and Excel are different things. She's "mean." By which I might mean "average".

As we near the time for our upcoming company cro-shoe tournament, I've begun my training regimen. For all of you out there who hope to become a cro-shoe ace, make sure to avoid following these tips/instructions:
1. Practice throwing your ball using the "granny shot" freethrow method.

2. Brush up on lame jokes involving "balls", "sticks", "poles", "broom", "sweep", "sand", and "ethonocentric monoculturalism".
4.

Eat lots of pie. Not really much help with the croshoe game, but who doesn't like pie, seriously?
5.

Use all of the Calculus you were forced to take in college to calculate the precise angle that is the ideal release point.
7. Sleep/eat/work with bowling balls taped to your wrists to build up croshoe muscles.

8. Prepare flame-yellow color coordinated wardrobe, complete with yellow/orange flaming swim trunks. You know, so people are intimidated by your cool factor.

And now for something completely different: "Son your ego's writing checks your body can't cash." - James Tolkan (Stinger) - Top Gun
This is a warning to any of you who might be considering doing what I did over the weekend - changing the batteries in your smoke detectors. They really should have this warning on the battery packages and stuff, like from the surgeon general or something.

Don't put 9 volt batteries in your pocket if you have a dime in that same pocket.
There. I've said it.

You have been warned. If only someone had warned ME, I wouldn't have been hopping around the living room trying to empty my pocket of an extremely hot battery that made contact with the (similarly extremely hot) dime (which acted as a conductor between the positive and negative posts of the battery).
Finally got the battery out of my pocket, onto the floor, and then proceeded to kick it around until it was cool enough to pick up, because the 10-month-old baby who was sharing said living room space with me thought that the battery would be an extremely fun toy.

You may ask why I didn't just pick up the baby...

I was still trying to get the dime out of my pocket.
I imagine if you looked in the window at that point, I would have looked, well, mad. Dancing around kicking and essentially running away from a baby.

Oh and once again shrieking like a little girl.
And now for something completely different: I have to say nice things about the car rental agency that I complained about previously. Last week I had another company trip, reserved a vehicle, and ended up with a totally sweet brand new Tahoe.

Very nice ride.
As I mentioned earlier, I attended Erik and Jessy's wedding last weekend. Before the ceremony started, the lucky groom was standing out in the entry area of the church, conversing with family and the like.

I caught his eye from across the room, and we gave each other "The Nod". Most of you have done The Nod at one point or another in your life, I'd imagine. It is a very subtle head motion, yet it conveys so much:
1.

I see you there.
2. I recognize that you see me, as well.

3. I am currently occupied, but would speak with you if I were not.
4.

Your fly is down. (Oh wait, that's a different nod.)
When did this trend start?

Did Caesar give Brutus The Nod? Further back, maybe - Noah, working on his Ark, stands up and rubs his aching back, spies a neighbor, gives him The Nod, and resumes his toil?
And now for something completely different: As I was driving this morning I found myself wondering - where did the idea for grid-pattern-roads within a city?

Such a good idea. I mean at one point there had to be a bad system in place where everyone with money made a road between his/her property and, say, the local pub. There had to be a gazillion (to use the technical term) different criss-crossing roads.

And then someone came up with Streets and Avenues (not to be confused with Chutes and Ladders (which is not to be confused with Snakes and Foxes)). Here's to you, Mr. Grid-Pattern-Road-Guy.

So the wedding was last weekend. Sorry, that should be The Wedding. Erik and his lady love are officially hitched.

Erik can now begin using phrases such as "the ol' ball-n-chain" and "let me see what the boss (my wife) says."
The wedding was, unfortunately, a major catastrophe. I think it all started when Erik's cousin Eddie showed up offering people "real" tomato ketchup, talking about the metal plate in his head, and asking to borrow money.

I'm out five bucks. Then there was the paparazzi getting in everyone's way, looking to snap that million-dollar photo of the happy couple.
Things took a turn for the worse during the ceremony, when Erik started off his vows: "I Erik, take thee Rachel.

..JESSY!

I mean Jessy, of course...

Jessy wait!" and then she bolted. Once everyone calmed down and realized that Erik was just thinking about which Friends episode NOT to emulate and got confused, things were back to normal.

Until the crazy ex-boyfriend from 8th grade showed up when the minister asked that fateful line about "If anyone here should object to this wedding, speak now or forever hold your peace." Dude went on a long diatribe about how ever since freshman year he's known that she was the one for him, and how could she marry this guy? Then he realized he was at the wrong wedding.

Finally, the wedding was over. Well, almost. The best man tripped during the exit and "defrocked" the maid of honor, which took a few minutes to sort out.

Oh and when the videographer announced that he was sorry but he had forgotten to remove the lens cap and could we do "another take"...

well let's just say he won't be heard from again...

until the body is found.
The reception was fine, if you like hot dogs. I love hot dogs.

I could eat a million of 'em. Hot dogs, peanuts, and sauerkraut cake. An odd mixture, but enjoyed by most of the guests, it seemed.

The dance, on the other hand, was a complete disaster. One of the groomsmen apparently had an "in" with Sean "Puff Daddy P. Diddy G.

Slice Diddy Daddy Wallawallabingbang Slappy" Combs, and got him to MC the party. Which would have been fine, except all he had was one Mariah Carey CD, Wierd Al Yankovich's Greatest Hits on cassette, and an old 8-Track of the Bay City Rollers.
Ok naturally everything above is a damn lie.

In reality, the wedding was one of the most elegant and graceful ceremonies I've ever attended. Bride and Groom looked positively radiant (Erik may punch me later for calling him radiant - oh well), the reception was a wonderful affair with very good food and some entertaining stories (I especially liked the one about when Erik and Jessy met), and in general the whole thing went off without a hitch.
Well, ok, there was one (important) hitch that took place.

And now for something completely different: I'm a sneaky person, it seems. Around the office I often seem to startle people - they were apparently completely unaware of my presence until they look up and see me (or my face is so ghastly that they are spooked by it). Today I approached the cash register at a local business, purposely dragging my feet and trying to make noise, as the attendant was looking the other way.

She still didn't hear me and so I patiently waited until she looked up. Shock again. But I truly go into "stealth mode" around when the wife and baby go to sleep.

I get so stealthy that I could evade ninjas in a forest filled with dry twigs while wearing concrete shoes. In fact, I'm so stealthy that I just read this column over your shoulder and left and you didn't even know I was there. Honest.

I was talking with some of my coworkers today about an episode of CSI that I recently watched - I forget the name of the episode, but the basic story was an old-school poker legend died of lead poisoning and they couldn't figure out why. Finally they realized that the guy ate the same type of candy every day, all day, while playing poker, and had for 30-40 years. Turns out the "Chocobees" or whatever they were called had trace amounts of lead in them.

Finally it was too much for his aging body. Grissom's final line of the show was "I guess you could say it was Death by Chocolate."
After discussing this with my peeps, we decided that the writers of the show just really wanted to use "Death by Chocolate" as the final line of a show.

..so the wrote the whole show backward - from last line to first.

So, we decided to see if we couldn't do the same. I'm no professional scriptwriter, and I don't want to write for pages and pages, so this is going to be truncated. The cliche "final line" that I was supplied with by my man Jared was "Never Trust a Skinny Chef.

" So here we go:
Opening Scene: Night. A photogenic young couple is splashing around having fun in the pool at what is obviously a large Vegas casino. Things start to get amorous, so they move to one of the poolside cabanas.

As they enter, they stumble over something in the dark. Looking closer, it is the corpse of an overweight man with a goatee. Screaming ensues.

Fast forward - key evidence in the crime: victim was killed by blunt-force trauma to the back of the head with an oddly shaped object, which has not been found. The victim's is identified as one Jacob Mercer, owner of several of Las Vegas' finest restaurants. Several fingerprints are found at the scene, as well as half of a shoeprint.

Investigation unearths the fact that a local food critic, Franz Watson, recently got a severe case of food poisoning while attending a gala event that was catered by one of Mr. Mercer's restaurants. In addition, Mr.

Watson had recently delivered no less than three negative reviews of Mr. Mercer's restaurants.
The CSI team brings in Mr.

Watson to ask about his whereabouts on the night of the murder. His alibi is weak, and they get a warrant for his shoes. They discover blood evidence on a shoe that matches the partial shoeprint at the crime scene.

His fingerprints are also matched. When confronted with the evidence, he admits that he had gone to the cabana to have words with Mr. Mercer, in anger over the food poisoning.

He claims, however, that he arrived to find him dead already, stepped into the blood pool, and then took off, knowing it would look like he committed the murder.
Fast forward again - the autopsy reveals that the angle of attack on the blunt force trauma came from someone much shorter than Mr. Mercer.

As Mr. Watson is an unusually tall man, the CSI's are forced to conclude, at least for now, that he may not have killed the victim. New evidence comes to light - the victim was sleeping with three of his employees at three different restaurants.

Amanda Maynard - a hostess at Le Petite DeJeneau, Rebecca Long - manager of Sanguine, and Florence Jenee - a line chef at Poco Loco. All three are attractive. Amanda is a tall blond with modeling aspirations.

Rebecca is a voluptuous woman of medium height, and Florence a very petite brunette.
Fast forward again, to the final scene - the CSIs have determined that Florence Jenee found out about the other two women and confronted Mr. Mercer.

When told to either keep quiet or lose her job, she kept quiet, but tried to poison him, knowing of his allergy to shellfish. The dish with the spoiled shellfish instead went to the restaurant critic, causing the food poisoning. When confronted with this, she confesses that she was dragged to the cabana the night of the murder by Mr.

Mercer who suspected her of attempting to poison him. He slapped her and then turned around to see if anyone had heard. In desperation, she lunged up at him with the base of her cell-phone in hand.

This shattered his occipital bone and caused the strangely-shaped blunt force trauma.
And there you have it. Grissom, watching the confession through the one-way mirror, smirks and cocks his head to the side as he turns to Warrick.

"Our Mr. Mercer should have listened to the warning." "What warning?

" asks Warrick, the everpresent straight-man in this comedy routine. "Never trust a skinny chef." Fade to black, Jerry Bruckheimer, yadda yadda.

And now for something completely different: I can't believe Matt Leinart is still holding out on signing his contract with the AZ Cardinals. He dropped from Number 1 overall draft pick (if he'd gone pro in 2005) to Number 10, and it seems like he's pouting. The problem is, his pouting is: a) making him look even worse, and b) actually only hurting him (less practice reps means he looks less inviting to potential suitors later) and the team that did pick him!

The Cards would probably have picked him number 2 or 3 if they'd had those picks, but they didn't. The got him as soon as they could, so why punish them by holding out for more (ludicrous amounts of) money?
I blame Nick Lachey.

He's clearly a bad influence.
I wondered this myself, as I can be relatively certain that he's never been to Tahiti. Asking him directly received a very clever but very snide remark that really had nothing to do with the question - he does that a lot.

So I decided to do some digging. Here's what I found out:
It turns out that Erik was lost overboard on a family cruise at a fairly young age. He's not a strong swimmer, and would have been lost, but he was rescued by a family of sea monkeys.

They took him to their underwater castle and got him to a room within that had breatheable air. Erik lived a comfortable life there for a few days while the sea monkeys erected some scuba gear for him out of nearby coral. They completed the suit and Erik was just about to leave, when several large shapes formed in the murky shadows of the castle.

"Flee, air-breather! We will deal with them!" shouted the sea monkey king.

Scuba-augmented Erik swam away, and as he turned back he saw the sea monkeys putting up a valiant but losing fight. He was about to turn back to help when the rescue boat saw him and pulled him up.
He only learned later that those murky shapes were, in fact, 400 pound Tahitian women.

So that explains why Erik dislikes them. It also explains why he loves sea monkeys so much.
Have you ever considered letting your dog or other household pet do your blog for you?

It might be more funny.
No. Bad dog.

Go lay down.
I think your blog may be the most insightful, wittiest, and well-written blog I've ever read. Of course, I've only ever read one blog.

I've learned to deal with spam email, for the most part. It's part of the territory. I get plenty of spams that simply don't apply to me.

Various enlarging products, blue pills, replica rolexes, some strange product named C1@L1$, home loans, microcap stock bargains, etc. I get these emails all the time but just write them off as "They figure there is a tiny chance in hell of me actually buying whatever it is they are selling."
Recently, however, I received a spam email that not only didn't apply to me, but offered a service that actually excludes me: "Exclusive Black Singles Site.

"
I don't think anyone who has ever met me could mistake me for a black man. There is no racial stereotyping here - I simply am an obviously white person. And that doesn't even get into the fact that I am very happily married.

So I get an email like this and I find myself thinking I'm on the wrong list, somewhere. But then I started to wonder - what if I'm not on the wrong list? What if there is someone out there who is just mean, and is sending emails about products/services that you just can't use to a lot of folks?

"Cheap dry cleaning" to registered nudists. "Adopt-a-pony" to inner-city little boys and girls. "Free dreidel website" to Mel Gibson.

Maybe I'm on *that* list.
And now for something completely different: My wife enjoyed reading . In fact she laughed so hard she nearly woke the baby.

When I *try* to be funny, I may get a smirk. Mostly I get deadpan stares. But when I'm in a life-or-death struggle with a vicious wild animal, *then* I'm funny.

Sheesh.
My office is located near railroad tracks. Almost on them, actually.

This is normally not an issue. Trains go by 3 or 4 times a day, and shake the office, and dust falls from the ceiling, but generally no problem.
Recently, though, one particular train went through and I think the engineer was a first-timer, or something.

He or she (due to the fact that I'm lazy and don't want to type "or she" anymore, we will assume that the engineer was, in fact, male) was really laying on the horn. A lot. I found myself wondering if there was some kid outside making that "blow your air horn" motion that I used to do to truckers all the time.

Or maybe a cow on the tracks. Or something.
Perhaps he lost a bet - "Ok, but if you lose, you have to go through the entire city of Bismarck with the horn blowing.

"
And now for something completely different: I think I need to get me sumadem yellowjacket traps that Red Sneaker has. Last night while attempting to grill steaks, one particular little stinger-endowed foe harassed me all night. My wife enjoyed the show as I shrieked like a little girl anytime the little bastard got near me.

I missed him twice with the fly-swatter. He eventually flew away, secure in his victory. I considered it a ceace-fire.

This blog was going to be really good. Exceptionally funny. The topic was a can't-miss, knock-em-dead, roll-on-the-floor-laughing topic.

It also had far fewer dashes.
But I can't remember what I was going to write about. It was something that struck me sometime over the weekend.

I thought to myself that I should write it down, or start a draft, or something.
"Nah..

." I thought. ".

..This is so good I'll remember it, for sure.

"
If this were the first time I'd had this happen to me, it might be acceptable. But it happens all the dang time. I've even had people ask me "are you going to put that in your blog?

" And I say "probably, yeah...

it should be some good material." And then I forget it.
In fact, I actually thought to myself a few minutes ago that forgetting blogs would be a good topic to write on.

Then I figured I better write that down or I'd forget it. Then I decided that if I DID forget to write the blog about forgetting to write blogs, the universe might explode or something.
And now for something completely different: I read an article recently about people who get free stuff from companies and are asked to "pass the word" about the product.

For example, a candy company might select a target demographic and send a small bag of a new type candy to each person on that list and ask them to try it, and if they like it, tell their friends. Typically it's something that is not yet on the market. (Oh, one second, had to take a sip of my Diet Mountain Dew, bottled by Pepsico, Inc.

) I certainly hope I never get added to one of those lists. (Mmm..

.that was a tasty bit of snack I just finished - "Pub Mix", sold at your neighborhood Sam's Club). I would never be such a sell-out and "chat up" products simply because someone sent me free stuff.

(Oh, I love this song that I downloaded from Apple's iTunes Music Store onto my Apple iPod Mini). Oh, I better wrap it up here. I should probably step away from my Dell Inspiron laptop for a minute.

Remember all, Fight the Power! Don't sell out to Corporate America! You can be sure that if Dodge sent me an experimental new "Winterized Viper", I wouldn't tell anyone how great it was.

Daddy needs a new pair of shoes...

A friend emailed me a photo today. It's a photo of the next pair of shoes I'll own.
I mean, just think of the utility of these shoes!

Hook them up to your Blackberry and you can avoid having to use that tiny PDA-sized keyboard. Sure, it means you have to stop what you're doing (such as driving, crossing a busy intersection, that sort of thing) and bend over to type on your feet..

.
And now for something completely different: A few years ago, Congress passed the CAN-SPAM act. A local TV network interviewed me about the act.

I "went out on a limb" and said that the act would be a big failure. I said it might actually lead to *more* spam, rather than less. I said I hoped I was wrong, and that it would work great, and spam would go away.

Sometimes I hate being right. CAN-SPAM should never have gone forward. A group of most (if not all) State Attorney Generals actually requested that Congress not pass the law, as it was un-enforceable.

Some may disagree, and say that the act has had positive impact. I've heard of 2, maybe 3 people who've actually been arrested for spamming. The bad news is there is indeed more spam today than before.

Part of that is simply the nature of the beast, and part is the wording of the law, which essentially says it's ok to spam you, but only for "the first time email." So spammers now simply send several "first time emails".
I know that our Congressional delegation is quite savvy when it comes to technology, and they are not afraid to listen to admit when something is beyond them, and seek counsel from various advisors who are experts in those fields.

Unfortunately, it seems that many in Congress are not so open (or have bad advisors).
The biggest problem, here, is quite simply the nature of the Internet. The Internet is a global network, not a U.

S. network. Spam is a global problem, not a U.

S. problem. Congress can enact laws, but unless we're willing to spend a ton of man-hours tracing each spammer, the laws are easily circumvented by using offshore email companies.

I'm afraid I don't have a good answer. If I did, someone smarter than me would have already thought of it, and would have already told Congress, or the FBI, or NASA, or Greenpeace, or the X-Men, or someone.
I'm afraid we're going to come to a point where spam is such a problem that email becomes the opposite of what it is today.

Currently email is open - you could email me right now. Unless I tell some software that you, personally, can't email me, you can shoot me all kinds of info. We're already seeing email systems that don't allow ANYONE to email you unless you specify that it's ok.

They can go to some webpage and submit a request to be added to your email list. We'll probably end up having all email systems set up like that, one day. What a shame.

Another case of a good thing having to change because of a bunch of scumbags.
I was in a line the other evening, and was forced to overhear a (one-sided) conversation that may have been one of the most inane and self-absorbed things I've ever heard. I honestly wondered for a moment if Paris Hilton or Nicole Richie or some other "famous simply because I'm rich" people was behind me.

Some of the more choice comments:
"Can you stop talking? I'm trying to figure out my cellphone."
"Honey how am I going to teach you how to flirt with hot guys?

"
"My phone just doesn't work right in this part of the country."
That last one was the most comforting to me. Until I heard that, I found myself wondering if this woman was actually from around here.

And now for something completely different: "Well see, they wrote all this bank software, and, uh, to save space, they used two digits instead of four. So, like, 98 instead of 1998? Uh, so I go through these thousands of lines of code and, uh.

.. it doesn't really matter.

I uh, I don't like my job, and, uh, I don't think I'm gonna go anymore. " - Ron Livingston - Office Space
My friend Garrett doesn't have a blog. He really should.

He just fed me a juicy subject. It seems that Jimmy Dean (love those commercials with the sun making breakfast for his kids) has come up with a delightful breakfast idea.
Imagine Pancakes and Sausage.

Ok, so I'll admit, I would maybe eat one of these things. Before you say "gross", consider whether you'd eat a corn dog. Same thing, just different ingredients.

Which is sorta like saying that driving a car and piloting an aircraft are the same. But I'd try it. It's been around a while, so apparently I'm not alone here.

But that's not the "new idea." It is merely the foundation. The foundation for the greatest breakfast food ever created.

Jimmy Dean gives you...

Now, take the above, and instead of regular pancakes, make them chocolate chip pancakes. yes, that's right - take that fat-laden hunk of pork intestine, wrap it in a syrup-soaked (and, also, fat-laden) sponge-made-of-flour, and then throw in chocolate to top it off. Make sure to deep-fat-fry it for extra yum factor.

Oh and wrap it all around a stick. Now you can have 5 meals-worth of caloric intake with ONE HAND!
I mean, can you imagine the meeting where this idea came up?

"Well what other things can we wrap around pig-meat?"
"Hmm..

.now that has merit..

.wait - Pimento is pricy this time of year. Keep that in mind for the Winter months.

"
"Done it. Come on people! Give me something here!

"
Then some poor sap comes walking in late to the meeting with a chocolate chip cookie and the rest is history?
I have to go, I think my arteries are hardening just thinking about it.
And now for something completely different: "Me?

I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly.

.. stupid.