Tom McMahon

April Ramblings

• Even tho I moved to Belvidere a year later, it's virtually impossible for me to see the date April 21 and not think of the Belvidere tornado of 1967.
• If the Pope gets to hold Mass at Yankee Stadium, do the Yankees get to play a game at the Vatican?
• Am I the only one who thinks like this?
• Speaking of the Hindenburg, when hydrogen burns isn't that just hydrogen reacting with oxygen, so shouldn't that generate water, so why didn't the water generated put out the fire?

Random Scary Thoughts

• Obama Negotiating With The Chinese
• The Billy Mays Channel
• A Democratic Majority in the Wisconsin State Assembly
• A Hard-To-Pronounce Name Like Blagojevich
• Or Another Term With The Easy-To-Pronounce Doyle
• Bill Clinton Losing His Inhibitions When He's Old
• Muskrat Love: The Musical!
• A 3-Hour Tour With Gilligan, the Skipper, and J-Walk & His Banjo
• Col. George W. Bush, Auctioneer
• Another Cher Farewell Concert Tour
• Keith Richards, Organ Donor
• Mike Plaisted Drinking A Double Espresso
• Brett Favre On Dancing With The Stars
• Me In That Clean Room Suit
• Mrs. Mark Belling
• Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Amway Distributor

St. Patrick's Day Ramblings

• From my post a couple of years ago St. Patrick's Day, An American Holiday: When I went to Ireland I ran across a contest some company was running over there. The 1st Prize was a trip to the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City. Really.
• A couple of broadcasting giants died on this day, 46 years apart. Who? Here.
• Of all the posts on this blog, this one is my favorite.
• Listening to Lou Rawls I actually caught myself thinking "How can he be dead? He sounds so good!"
• Aurora is the big hospital chain in Milwaukee. In their radio ads they use a woman who has a very husky, I've-been-chain-smoking-for30-years kind of voice. Anybody else notice this?
• A question nobody is asking: So is the United Church of Christ OK with Barack Obama's pastor?
• Would you expect people who take vitamins etc to be healthier than most people, or less healthy? Do healthy people enjoy their health and want to protect it by taking supplements, or do they take it for granted? And do people with health problems take supplements in an effort to regain their health, such that they are the majority of people taking them?

Pre-Ides Observations

• Got a new laptop. Now I gotta port everything over. At least I was able to stick with XP and not get sucked into that Vista cesspool.
• I forgot what a great voice Jerry Butler has. Lou Rawls too.
• I loaded two 4GB USB drives full of songs and stuck 'em on the back of my Chumby, which makes a nice tabletop MP3 player for playing all my songs at random. There seems to be a lack of small tabletop MP3 players -- the ones that do exist assume you already have an iPod.
• Is there anything less "green" than an iPod, by the way? Throw it away when the battery is dead. Me? I'm much too much of an eco-warrior for that.
• Since they let you customize your credit cards these days, why not put Walter Sallman's Head of Christ on yours? Then when the store clerk comes back and says "I'm sorry sir, but this card has been declined." you just look at him straight in the eye and say "Don't you accept Jesus?" and remain silent to give him a chance to think. I bet 9 times out of 10 the guy will reconsider and accept your card. I mean, who wants to even take the chance on going to Hell, especially for the lousy money they pay in retail?
• The Wrong Question: What Was Eliot Spitzer Thinking?
• The Right Question: What Was Eliot Spitzer Thinking With?

Marching On

• I'm fine, but my 4-year-old laptop is sick. So posts may be a little light until I get that taken care of.
• I finally broke down and bought a Chumby. Truly a glimpse of the future.
• Here's a question for you: Which is sadder, the grieving widow who ends up dying of a broken heart, or the person who just doesn't understand how anybody could die of a broken heart?

Last Minute November Ramblings

• Our new McDonald's in town opened this morning at 5:00AM.
• After two weeks in the hospital following her heart attack, my wife Nancy is finally at home.
• Coincidence? I think not.
• Is it legal in the USA to use those french-fried onions that come in a can for anything other than a green bean casserole?
• How exactly does one become a bra fit specialist like they talk about on the radio? Do you need a degree (post-grad?), or is it more like technical training of the sort you'd get at MATC?
• While the pen may indeed be mightier than the sword, to really piss people off you need Photoshop.

If I Ever Got To Be Really Really Rich Here's One Of The Things I'd Want To Do

I'd open a disco in New York City, right in the heart of Manhattan. I'd name it Schindler's Disco, to appeal to the local clientele. It would be a really exclusive spot that everyone would want to get into, and here's the neat part: when those arrogant German tourists tried to get in, I'd have the door guy ask them "Are you on Schindler's List?" and when they said no he would shoo them away. That would make them think twice next time, eh? Anyway, if I ever got to be really really rich that's one of the things I'd want to do.

Three Mid-October Thoughts

• I think Kashi's new slogan ought to be "Seven Whole Grains On A Mission To Annoy The Hell Out Of Everybody". Sheesh.
• Baseball Trivia: When Babe Ruth retired in 1935 he held the records for home runs (714) and strikeouts (1,330). Since then two players have beat his home run record, while over 60 have struck out more.
• In 1987, Mr. Potato Head surrendered his pipe to the U.S. Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, and became the spokespud for the American Cancer Society's annual Great American Smokeout campaign.

Early October Ramblings

• Longtime former Minnesota Vikings Head Coach Bud Grant played a couple of seasons in the NBA, for the Lakers.
• The conventional wisdom is that The Flintstones and The Munsters were the first TV series to show a husband and wife in bed together. But I just saw an episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy jumped in Ricky's bed when they were scared by a burglar. An asterisk for the trivia books.
• I think all the contestants on America's Next Top Model should be given American Gladiator-type names at the start of the competition. You know, Laser, Nitro, Turbo, that sort of thing.
• Max Showalter/Casey Adams, the actor who played Ward Cleaver in the Leave It To Beaver pilot, also had appearances on The Twilight Zone, The Andy Griffith Show, and was one of the salesmen in the opening scene of The Music Man.
• Harry Shearer, who was also in the Leave It to Beaver pilot, had earlier played the role of Harry Beaver on The Jack Benny Program. Irony, eh?

Weekend Ramblings

• Does it seem like Brent Musberger has been around forever?
• I don't watch football games with girl announcers. Not only that, I bad mouth the products advertised and short-sell the stock of the advertisers.
• Those Wendy's commercials are really irritating.
• So are those AT&T cell phone commercials that have the people going silent.
• Wal-Mart made a good move adopting their new slogan. It was time.
• Sen. John Ensign (R - Nevada) on the Democrats and Iraq: Our goal is to win -- what’s theirs?

Early September Ramblings

• Milwaukee lost its classical music radio station when it switched its format to light jazz recently. We still have two stations that play polka music, however.
• There was a Patrick Duffy-Suzanne Somers Step By Step episode where JT sneaks out to watch the Packer game during the church service. Fake! Packer games are never on during Sunday morning church in Wisconsin. And if by chance there is a conflict, say due to a playoff game on Christmas Eve, Wisconsin churches will move their services rather than conflict with a Packer game.
• I think it would be really neat if the Weather Channel would have all its meteorologists talk like Peter Lorre for one day.
• What should be done to that woman who tried to outrun a train and ended up killing her two kids? Do you take her other kids away from her? Do you send her to jail? What do you do?
• 155 people were killed in California alone in the last 24 months by debris on the road.
• A Big Band/Swing blog and so much more: The Palomar.
• Jobert has a new project: Coffeespark.
• Leave It To Beaver will turn 50 on October 4. It made its debut the same day that Sputnik was launched. Which one, Leave It To Beaver or Sputnik, has had the greater overall impact on mankind? Sputnik had the bigger impact initially, but Leave It To Beaver has been on the air more or less continually for 50 years.

Fall Ramblings

• When exactly did Budapest become Budapescht?
• I wonder how many millions of people have had this unvoiced thought in the past week or so: Gee, those people really are perverts.
• My doctor grew up in the same neighborhood as Julie Haggarty of Airplane fame.
• When we take our cars to get their emissions checked, where are all the trucks and buses?
• My boss at UltraGlobalMegaCorp is the sibling of a well-known Milwaukee radio personality.
• The grade school where I attended 3rd grade thru 6th grade was torn down to expand the St. Louis airport. Now the grade school where I had my first summer job as a janitor's helper is being torn down as well.
• Australia spent $84 million developing a filter to protect kids from porn. It was cracked by a 16-year-old boy in 30 minutes.
• The bloggers of the Milwaukee Left tend to react to what the conservative bloggers are saying, rather than being proactive.
• There's a Hamburger Helper ad running where the Mom is the coach of a college women's basketball team known as The Lady Trojans. That name seems so wrong somehow.
• Portland, Oregon still has a lot of Volksvagen Vanagons running the streets.
• Vanagon is a stupid name for a min-van; Caravan is perfect.
• Exciting!: I've been dubbed a Planeteer by Phil Proctor himself.
• Summer goes by faster every year.

I Got Me A Chrysler That Seats About Twenty, So C'mon And Bring Your Juke-Box Money!

• You're WHAT? Tin Roof, Rusted.
• For Milwaukeeans: are there any more irritating radio ads than those for "The Bog"? Remember, a golf course is simply a pool room moved outdoors.
• Rich Lowry: In the 1930s, the Empire State Building was built in 410 days; more than five years after 9/11, the World Trade Center site still features a gaping hole.
• Please Compare and Contrast: The Ren & Stimpy "Log" Commercial and the original Slinky Commercial.
• Undiscovered Fun: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel TV Critic Tim Cuprisin's podcasts. A bit less snarky than his columns, and you don't need to be from Milwaukee to enjoy them.
• Of course, if Barbara Walters had been in the B-52's it would have been "Tin Woof, Wusted."
• "Whatever you are willing to put up with is exactly what you will have." Double bonus points if you can guess/search/find who said it. Oh, what the hell: Double Bonus Points for Everybody!!!!
• Emusic.com is a great site to get old show tunes, standards, and Christmas music for cheap.
• For the AARP-eligible crowd: Weren't S&H Green Stamps great fun when we were kids? Getting them, licking them, pasting them in the book. The Simple Joys of Life, pre-cable TV.

Bullet Points

• Why Don't Blind People Like To Sky Dive?
  Because It Scares The Dog.
• James T. Harris: "I have no problem telling my kids you will not do what I did. Period. Even if I didn’t do anything. ... And I didn’t!"
• Some crazy Roman Catholic Cult is moving from Chicago out to my old hometown of Belvidere, Illinois. From the article it sounds like they make Mel Gibson look like a Unitarian.
• ScanCafe: Box up all your old photos and negatives and send them in. ScanCafe will scan them for you, then you decide which ones you want. Then they send you your new CD/DVD when they send you back your old photos.
• Mark Steyn: "The future belongs to those who show up for it."
• I'm going to the Wisconsin Blog Summit II on Saturday.
• A quote from Alan Lawson, World War II bomber pilot and Harvard University alumnus: "There is no social problem so large that it cannot be solved by the use of a flamethrower." With the news being what it is, that quote has been popping into my head with ever-increasing frequency lately.
• Nancy L. Paquette: Was Insurance Agent of the Year for four years in a row. But she was selling the policies to herself, using phony names. A friend of mine told me about this case: she used to be his insurance agent. No, really!

Lighter Stuff

• Since VT I've been blogging less serious but still nutritious items -- sort of a bloggy salad, as it were.

Off You Go!

• "Off You Go!" is a British phrase that means "Go Away!", but in a nicer manner. I first heard it in The Day of the Jackal, right after the chief British detective had finished giving his men the assignment of checking every file in some huge Hall of Records. Simon Cowell uses it too, during the audition phase of American Idol.
• Like We Care, Part I: In Milwaukee Time-Warner Cable is running ads that AT&T is trying to get into the cable TV business, but "not on a level playing field". I know they care, but do they really think we care?
• Like We Care, Part II: Also in Milwaukee, the Wisconsin Indian Tribes are running ads to keep the Mohicans from Connecticut from building a new casino in Kenosha. The implication is that we Wisconsin White Folk & Black Folk will be much better off if Wisconsin Red Folk get the money instead of the Connecticut Red Folk. A tougher sell than the cable TV thing, I think.
• Why can't the State of Wisconsin build the Kenosha Kasino itself, and eliminate our Indian Middlemen Overlords?

Weekend Thoughts

• Political consultant Mike Murphy on the Dennis Miller Radio Show 4/5/07: "Hillary's campaign reminds me of the World's Greatest Dog Food Company: They got the great jingle, they got the best trucks, they got the best label, they got the best scientists, they got everything, but they crack open a can of it and the dog takes a sniff and doesn't want to eat any."
• Doesn't it seem like Tony Bennett is one of those immortal characters out of a Twilight Zone episode? You know, the ones that stay the same while everyone else around them ages? Tony Bennett has been a singer for the old folks ever since I was a kid. Robert Goulet, too.
• Speaking of The Twilight Zone, watch for this the next time you see it on the SciFi Channel: If it says The Twilight Zone in the opening credits, it's from Season 1, 2, 3, or 5, when the shows were a half-hour long. But if it just says Twilight Zone (without the "The") then that episode is from Season 4 when the show were one hour long.
• I'm the consensus type. John Dvorak explains: There are two basic types of computer users: the cutting-edge type and the consensus type. Personally, I'm a consensus type—even though that's not as cool as the other kind. Without explanation, I'm sure every reader already knows what I'm talking about. Cutting-edge types are the people who go out and buy all the latest gadgets, everything that gets chatted up on the boards and blogs as being cool. Half the time the stuff doesn't work, and half the time it does. But even when it works, it's agonizing in one way or another. Indeed, consensus computing is the way to go.

Rambles

• PCL Linkdump has a post on General Tire's jingle Sooner or later, you'll own Generals. It seemed like I was always hearing this jingle on the radio out in San Francisco in the 1970's. (That is, when I wasn't hearing "Matthew's TV & Stereo City, 6400 Mission Street, Top of the Hill, Daly City!" ) As it turns out, General Tire owned radio station KFRC-AM in San Francisco, which I listened to a lot (one of the 5 pre-sets on my AM car radio). Another 30-year-old minor mystery solved.
• If you accidentally hooked up an electric chair backwards to reverse polarity, would you inadvertently give the condemned man immortality instead of killing him?
• James T. Harris quotes Chesterton: “There is a real sin in being as bad as your society; but it is not the same sin as that of being deliberately worse than your society.”

Kibbles And Bits

• Kathy has a question for those who think Hitler was a Christian: What church did Hitler go to every Sunday? What was his pastor's name?
• Belated congratulations to Reasoned Audacity on their 2nd Blog Birthday!
• Frontline producer Stephen Talbot on the demise of TV news reporting: I will say this. I interviewed Connie Chung for this program -- it was one of many interviews we could not squeeze into the final show -- and she got very excited describing the good, enterprise reporting she did as a young, pioneering Asian-American woman reporter in the Watergate era. After reminiscing about her work back then, she stopped and said, "Why did I ever give that up?" I responded, "Maybe because of the money? [the money she was offered to become an anchor and host]" And she smiled and said, "Oh yeah, the money."
• That's the same Stephen Talbot who played the role of Gilbert on Leave It To Beaver.
• Joe Sherlock on the possibility of GM buying out Chrysler: "Such a marriage would bring together Neon craftsmanship and Cavalier quality. I can hardly wait."
• Mark J. Perry at Carpe Diem passes along this Arthur Godfrey quote: "I'm proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is...I could be just as proud for half the the money." A quote right up the alley for Frank Lasee.
• Another one from Kathy: Look, we gave the Indians booze and they gave us cigarettes. I call it even.

Bloggy Bits

• Did every 1990s sitcom on Disney-owned ABC-TV have to have the obligatory two-part episode on their Trip To Disney World? I've watched them on Step By Step, Full House, and the family says it also happened on Roseanne. Any others?
• Downloads now account for 9 percent of the audio book market.
• I always wondered why Kohl's had a line of women's clothing named Sag Harbor.
• Philip Greenspun says that the snowbound Kim family was originally spotted by a businesman flying his own helicopter who was looking for the family. I'd love to read an Into Thin Air type account of this semi-successful search and rescue.
• Frank Lasee passes along this Robert Heinlein quote: There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.
• Check out BusinessWeek Video when you're in the mood for something a little more substantive than YouTube.

Black History Ramblings

• Congrats go out to Lovie Smith, the first African-American coach to lose the Super Bowl.
• But seriously, just consider how talented the man had to be just to get to the Super Bowl with Rex Grossman as quarterback.
• Via J-Walk, did you know that the phrase "Black History Makers of Tomorrow" is a trademark of McDonald's Corporation?
• Lost in the hype over the first African-American coaches was the fact that Prince was the first African-American entertainer ever to play in the Super Bowl Halftime Show (not counting Ella Fitzgerald, Mercer Ellington, Chubby Checker, Michael Jackson, Patti LaBelle, Diana Ross, James Brown, Boyz II Men, Smokey Robinson, Martha Reeves, The Temptations, Queen Latifah, Stevie Wonder, Mary J. Blige and Nelly, Janet Jackson, and the Grambling University Marching Band.)
• Both Robert E. Lee and U.S. Grant were slave owners at one point in their lives.

Random Stuff

• Question: Would it be OK to call Hitler a Homo? I fully realize that it's not acceptable to call a homosexual person a "Homo" any more, just like it's not OK to call a Japanese person a "Jap" nowadays. But this is Hitler we're talking about? Do the same rules apply? Why or why not?
• Why do the same college kids who think Christianity is too weird end up taking a liking to Zen Buddhism? To me, Zen makes Catholicism look rather straightforward.
• From Phil Proctor: There was no US Mail delivery on these days:
  • December 31: A Sunday
  • January 1: New Year's Day
  • January 2: Day of Mourning for President Gerald Ford
  This is the first time ever in our lives that there was no mail delivery for 3 days in a row.
• Milt Rosenberg has some great interviews online.
• Leonard Maltin: How many actors can say that they have a costarring role in a hit movie playing right now, in January of 2007... and also had a memorable role in a movie of 1927? The answer is, just one: Mickey Rooney, who’s still going strong at the age of 86.
• A Milwaukee TV news truck fell through the ice on a lake. According to local police, the crew was shooting "something ice-related".
• From Mitch's Blog, I learned that when Martin Luther King, Jr, was in school, he actually got a C in public speaking.
• From Bill Geist: The Maine Tourism Director has been fired after 12 years. It seems his wife had a "ILOVENY" vanity license plate. Oops.

Really Good Ideas

• I'd like to see the countries of Austria and Australia merge to form one big country, Austrialia. Arnold Schwarzenegger could be the new President. I always got these countries confused when I was a kid (admit it, you did too) but if they merged it wouldn't matter.
• Also, if Austria and Australia merged it would make it harder for Hitler if he ever came back to power. Just try to Anschluss The Land Down Under, you creep.
• Post-menopausal women with osteoporosis are much too scatterbrained to remember to take a pill once a week. I learned this from TV.
• Now that The Flying Nun has osteoporosis wouldn't that make it easier for her to fly, since her bones would be lighter?
• I've had this idea for over 20 years now: Re-name all the countries in Wisconsin for dairy products, then put the name of of the driver's country on the Wisconsin license plates. Then, whenever a Cheesehead drove out of state, he'd be promoting Wisconsin's dairy industry. Clever, eh?
• Also, tornado watches would be more fun with dairy-themed county names.
• A number of professors and Methodist ministers are protesting the proposed George W. Bush Presidential Library at Southern Methodist University. So much for that whole "Open Minds. Open Hearts. Open Doors." ad campaign the Methodists have been running for the past few years, eh?

Thoughts

• Did you ever stop to think that if we had fought against the French instead of the Germans in World War II that the name of that Elvis movie would have been Heil Las Vegas instead of Viva Las Vegas?
• The 1975 hit song Convoy was co-written by singer C.W. McCall and Chip Davis. Davis would later go on to form the musical group Mannheim Steamroller.
• I had fun watching The Ramones 1979 movie Rock & Roll High School on TCM the other night. It's probably the high point of Clint Howard's acting career. Poker commentator Vince Van Patten was the inept-with-chicks Jock.

New Year's Ramblings

• President Ford was born in 1913, before the start of World War I. That's a long time ago.
• In 1913 Confederate and Union veterans met for the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.
• Whatever happened to Betty Ford's first husband? I can't find out a thing about him. William Warren was his name, and he and Betty were married in the 1940's. They later divorced. Is he still living? I don't know . . .
• LSU wears the colors of my high school football team, so I gotta root for them.
• Boise State.
• I went down to Illinois to visit my folks during Capital One Bowl Week. That's where I was. I also got to see my brother Tim.
• My Dad, Mom, and I went out for lunch at Cracker Barrel one day. There we just happened to meet my Dad's twin brother, my Uncle George, along with Aunt Betty and cousin Ted. They live 60 miles away, and were just there by coincidence.
• I just bought my first purchase on eBay.
• Wisconsin beat a tough Arkansas team. And I thought former Wisconsin coach and current AD Barry Alvarez did a nice job up in the booth for the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

The Non-Dairy Queen Blizzard of 06

• We had a big snowstorm in Milwaukee on Friday, so I didn't go into work.
• Be sure to check out the TV coverage of this storm as blogged by columnist Tim Cuprisin.
• We are truly in The Golden Era of Broccoli. I went to my local Wal-Mart Superstore to get some frozen spinach and brussel sprouts (all those antioxidants, you know) and all I could find was broccoli, broccoli, broccoli, broccoli, broccoli, broccoli, and okra (this is Wal-Mart we're talking about, remember?). Finally found some tucked away between the various broccoli offerings.
• It's funny how the same conservatives who always mention how much Wal-Mart has done to improve the lives of poor people never mention Burlington Coat Factory, where you can get a really warm coat at a pretty cheap price. Very important here in Wisconsin.

My Eyes Are Getting Better

• Did you know that diabetes can cause nearsightedness? I didn't. In fact, diabetes earliest sign may be an abrupt change in your eye glass prescription. As my blood sugar levels have gone down from 512 to 109 (this morning), my eyes have gotten better. What's weird is that I can now see far away using the bottom section of my bifocals, the half that is normally used for reading. And for reading, I can go without glasses. And my eyesight can change somewhat throughout the course of the day. It will be interesting to see where it all settles out.
• I'm getting down into the normal range. Doctors typically start you out with small doses of diabetes medications, and then rachet the dose up step by step until your blood sugar is in the normal range. I'm just about there.
• I got a great suggestion from Jack and Charmaine Yoest that I should put my latest level on this blog. I think I might just do that. You know, just a little number over in the sidebar with no explanation, so only long-time readers would know what it means. Now I just have to figure out how to do it easily.

Floyd Patterson vs. Muhammad Ali on ESPN Classic

• Everybody listened to these fights over the radio back in 1965. The pay-per-view, such as it was, was a closed-circuit feed to a local movie theater. I can't remember that any of my friends' dads paid to see it.
• Watching it now, it's amazing how excited the crowd got when Patterson threw a wild but ineffective punch. Nobody really liked Cassius Clay very much at first.
• The fight went 12 rounds, but you got the feeling that Ali could have ended it pretty much any time he wanted. Patterson looked like you or I would look fighting Ali: flat-footed, staying in one place, gloves up protecting his head.
• Part of the fun of watching an old fight is trying to guess in what round it will end. 

Odds And Ends

• In a pinch, you can use your Magic Bullet blender if you don't have a Bass-O-Matic.
• I wonder if Mick and Mimi from the Magic Bullet infomercial are married in real life?
• I wonder if the Magic Bullet infomercial is real life?
• Four words that could change America: Roller Derby with Segways.
• Could be neat: A panorama of the Battle of Gettysburg, made with Legos.
• Friday I watched Air Force beat Army. They were ahead 43-0 at halftime. It reminded me of a high school game where we got beat 60-0.
• In that game a kickoff returner ran out of the end zone, then ran back in and was tackled for a safety. I had never seen that before.

Neat Ideas

• I think Pat Sajak would be a great host of The Price Is Right, now that Bob Barker is retiring.
• I think Deepak Chopra would be a terrific color analyst on Monday Night Football. He could analyze all the plays in Ayurvedic terms.
• I used to really like David Letterman, but he's turned into an ass.
• I used to not like John Kerry, but right now I could just grab him and give him a great big hug.
• Quiz: What city used to be known as Truth or Consequences?

Rambles

• Whatever happened to Deepak Chopra?
• Is this The Golden Age Of College Football or what? I'm switching back and forth between two great games on a Saturday Night. Nirvana, simply Nirvana.
• I'm just starting to scratch the surface of this Diabetes Subculture. I got a free magazine at Walgreens when I got my diabetes prescription filled. It's a magazine just for diabetics. So there.
• Just once I would like to see Henry Kissinger do Ben Stein's "Bueller? Bueller?" bit.
• The Democrats in Wisconsin are running ads against Republican Mark Green accusing him of being a pawn of Big Oil. Don't tell them, but this strategy is way outdated. Since gas fell back from $3.00 a gallon to $2.25, how many people do you hear complaining about the price of gas? Right, nobody cares anymore.
• October is really two months, at least around most of the Midwest. The first part is nice weather, the second is cold, wet, and miserable. Baseball used to play the World Series in the first part, now it plays it in the second. When the Cardinals won, I thought "Thank God that's over!"

Ramble-ings

• Sorry for the light posting lately. Been a bit under the weather. And how come nobody's ever over the weather?
• As I type I'm listening to a 1955 X-Minus One radio drama. Did you know we landed on Mars in 1987? The first thing they did they once they landed was to announce that the Smoking Lamp was lit.
• Whenever the name of quarterback "Joey Harrington" is mentioned, I think to myself "Joey Heisman!" and giggle silently to myself.
• Speaking of quarterbacks, doesn't "Colt McCoy" seem like a too-perfect name, like "Shooter McGavin" was in Happy Gilmore?

Rambling On

• Let's say your beloved Grandmother was murdered 20 years ago. The murderer was never caught. Now you've found evidence that points to the murderer with 100 percent certainty. (Unfortunately, this evidence is inadmissible in court.) You've also found a way to kill him with 100 percent certainty of getting away with it -- they'll never even suspect a murder, they'll think it was natural causes. What would you do?
• Now, a little twist: Somehow, the murderer has found out you know he did it. You're the only one who can put him away for life, or maybe even give him The Chair. (Your evidence is admissible now.) Now what would you do?
• The North Korea nuke video looks like it's from 50 years ago. The equipment, the film graininess, everything.
• The market share for the Apple Macintosh is going down, no doubt in part to those irritating ads Apple has been running of late. Just what was Apple thinking? The PC Guy is a lot more likeable that the Mac Guy, even if he is a doofus.
• A great quote from TV Squad, where they were listing their 5 desert-island TV shows. Here's how one fan explains his choice: " The Price Is Right - The same plot every episode yeah but not many shows can make you yell at a Grandmother from Iowa for losing a sports car because she got the price of a can of corn wrong."

Still Even More Ramblings

• If you were in prison with a 20 year sentence, would you let them give you a shot to put you in suspended animation for that length of time?
• Another one: If you were in prison with a 20 year sentence, would you let them give you a shot that would age you 20 years in 2 weeks? You would get out of prison in just 2 weeks, but your body would be biologically 20 years older. Deal or No Deal?
• Speaking of which, on Telemundo it's called Vas o No Vas.
• I Google Dead People: A few years ago I worked with a young fellow with an alternative lifestyle and a life-threatening disease. His short-term contract with the company ended, and I never saw or heard of him again. My curiosity got the better of me last week, and I googled his name -- it took all of 5 minutes -- and found out he had died just a couple of years after leaving our company. Did you ever google somebody to find out if they were Dead or Alive?
• For a Packer fan, watch the University of Georgia play football is like watching Bizarro World. They have the Packer-like insignia, but it's all the wrong colors.
• Agree or Disagree: Wal-Mart is the most truly-integrated place that most Americans are likely to visit in a week.

Yet More Ramblings

• La Bamba, now that I think about it, is really the Spanish-language Louie, Louie. It's a great song to sing loud, in a crowd, at a party, and nobody expects you to know all the words. In fact, if you did know all the words, your fellow revelers would look at you funny.
• They've really screwed up imdb. Why? It used to be so easy: Click on movie, click on cast member, click on another cast member, click on movie, you've spent hours doing that, eh? But now, sheesh . .
• Can somebody tell me what was the point of the movie Scarface? Mindless violence.
• The Foley thing reminded me of the Konerak Sinthasomphone incident somewhat.
• When someone says "George C. Patton", whose face do you visualize?: Gen. Patton's, or George C. Scott's? I'm thinking everybody under the age of 60 or 70 thinks of George C. Scott.
• A co-worker is on medical leave, and we came up with the idea of all of us bringing in a used DVD from home to lend to him "for the duration", as they used to say in WWII. Everybody will write a post-it note on the back with a short get-well message and a reason they liked their particular movie. Pretty clever idea, eh?

Sunday Shorts

• Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield is the only pop song I know of to use the word moot:
  I feel so dirty when they start talking cute
  I wanna tell her that I love her, but the point is probably moot
• If walking on sunshine is supposed to feel so good, then what's The Big Deal over fire-walking?
• If you re-arrange the letters in the name "Ayn Rand", you get the name "Dan Ryan", the guy for whom the expressway in Chicago is named. Come to think of it, did you ever see them both in the same room together? Hmmmmmm . . . .. .
• Charmaine Yoest is having a contest: Guess the salaries of the heads of the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Interesting stuff! I was off by one dollar on each one . . .
• In Wisconsin kids never get off for Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, Lincoln's Birthday, Washington's Birthday and the like. Oh, they get days off, but it's always to accomodate the teachers. Like when all the teachers all across Wisconsin get together on the last Thursday and Friday in October for their convention in Madison. Too bad they couldn't find a way to fit it in their vacation seeing as how they get the whole summer off.
• The Wisconsin teachers have so much money that their union is one of the sponsors of the Green Bay Packers Radio Network. Must cost 'em a pretty penny, since the Packers are so popular here. And then their commercials are all about how the schools all need more money. It's getting to the point that satire is almost impossible these days.
• Billy Idol was a much better singer than Bob Dylan ever was, and if you don't agree with me then you're just stupid.
• Did you hear about the prostitute who mistook KY Jelly for glazing compound? All her windows fell out . . .

Yet Even More Random Thoughts

• Court TV seldom runs comedies.
• Amnesty International just squandered whatever credibility they had left.
• Of Milwaukee interest: Aren't you glad that founder Ray Vincent isn't on the radio ads for American Equity Mortgage anymore?
• I am soooooo sick of Eric Clapton's Layla. Whenever I hear it on a TV commercial I involuntarily start confessing to crimes I didn't even do.
• Blogs that refer to themselves as "reality-based" remind me of those Communist dictatorships that were known as "Peoples' Republics." Both were/are anything but.
• More and more, people of the Left think that telling someone to "get their head out of their a**" is a reasoned argument.
• Overheard: A guy out in California is drinking a Miller, sitting on his Harley, but the only thing he knows about Milwaukee is Jeffrey Dahmer.
• Any homeowner who has indoor plumbing could have told you that the "Koran down the toilet" was false.
• Besides, Americans will start caring about perceived slights to the Koran only after Saudi Arabia ponies up the money to rebuild the World Trade Center. And that will happen about the time when the Pope sits shiva.
• The medical marijuana decision was that federal rights trump states' rights. Wasn't that what the Civil War was about, what with nullification and all that?
• When they mention a Roth IRA on the financial pages, I think of a Jewish-Irish terrorist group. You do this too, right?

Some Random Thoughts

• George W Bush is the kind of President with vision and character that every Democrat secretly wishes Bill Clinton had been. And it really grates on their nerves.
• The 6th Star Wars movie for some reason reminds me of the Bob Goldthwait quote on why he appeared in Police Academy 4: "Because there were too many unanswered questions left from from Police Academy 2 and Police Academy 3."
• Sometimes Winsor Pilates spokeswoman Daisy Fuentes mumbles and slurs her words, and sometimes Overstock.com's Sabine Ehrenfeld over-enunciates. And Mari Winsor reminds me of The Joker from Batman.
• I got one of those Gilette M3 Power razors that has a AAA batery and that buzzes, and it really works great. Would make a good Father's Day present for some lucky Dad!
• Drivers need to hang up their cell phones and pay attention to the road.