A decapitation and some very ineffective firefighters.....

- It was a stupid idea last year, it’s a stupid idea this year and it will be a stupid idea every year it is done from here on out. The stupid idea would be the two-week layoff in between the NFL’s conference championship games, set for this Sunday, and the Super Bowl, not happening until February 4. All of the momentum and excitement that builds during the first three weeks of the playoffs comes to a screeching halt while we all sit on our butts and wait for the big game. We get dumb stories about things no one cares about, capped by a Super Bowl media day where players get asked the same inane questions two dozen times by media members from all around the world. You get stories like the one we got in college football when there was a 50-day span in between the end of the regular season for Ohio State and OSU’s appearance in the title game, with QB Troy Smith waxing poetic about the virtues of In-And-Out Burger, with its crispy, fresh lettuce and tomatoes and toasted bun. Two weeks is just too much time and serves no real purpose. The teams are ready to go, all the possible angles can be exhausted in one week, so just stick to the normal schedule and stop f’ing around and wasting time, NFL. One more week of trying to keep your sport in the spotlight isn't worth it. Besides, you have your own TV network, the draft is coming shortly and people already follow the NFL pretty much year round. So go back to one week between games and then maybe I won't have to hear about Peyton Manning or Tom Brady’s take on why Quizzno’s has the best tasting subs because they use the freshest veggies and the best cheese.

- Well, it’s about time someone took charge of this: a judge in Britain ruled that she alone, not a jury, will determine the cause of death for Princess Diana and her boyfriend in a crash nearly a decade ago. Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss decided that she would be the one making the call on this, and quite frankly, I’m relieved. After all, no one has paid any attention to this matter at all. No one has written multiple books about it, no one has made documentaries or TV specials about it, no one has debated it endlessly even though it happened ten damn years ago and it really isn't relevant to any of us at all. Oh wait, everyone has done exactly that. So you know what, Baroness, who gives a frak? Decide the matter, don’t decide it, who cares? She’s D-E-A-D, and she’s not coming back, no matter what the cause of her death. She has no effect on my life or the lives of anyone but a few select people who knew her and had actual ties to her while she was alive. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter and I have no idea why we’re still hearing about this ten years after the fact. Then again, people Like Oliver Stone were still making movies about JFK’s death multiple decades after it happened, so maybe we’re stuck with this one for a while too. Now if you’ll pardon me, I’m going to go smash my head into the wall for a few minutes.

- Irony lives here. Here being Draper, Utah, where a major fire broke out in, of all places, a fire station. What’s worse is that the blaze actually gutted the building while firefighters slept through it. I’m sure citizens of Draper feel very good about their prospects should their own home catch on fire. If the firefighters in your town can't even wake up and put out a fire at the actual fire station, how can they help anyone else? It took a police officer passing through the area to see the flames and smoke, but my question is what did he do then? Did he call the fire station? What do you say in that case? “Hey, did you know that your building is on fire? Yeah, the fire station, the building you’re in, the one where you have all of the equipment to, y’know, put out fires? Think you might wanna wake up and take care of that?” Better still, two firefighters were injured when they slipped and fell on ice that formed when water was pumped onto the fire to put it out. Great, fellas, so not only do you let your own building burn while you sleep, but you get taken out by some ice on the sidewalk when trying to put it out. Memo to Draper residents: use all fire retardant materials in any and all future construction projects. It’s your only hope.

- I said it before, and I stand by it: I have got to get myself involved in the beauty pageant industry. Tara Conner, the boozing, partying, sex-crazed winner of the Miss America pageant was Exhibit A, with her clubbing and make-out buddy, Miss Teen USA, Exhibit B and Katie Rees, Miss Nevada USA (banned following slutty pictures of her popping up online), Exhibit C. Well, make room for Exhibit D, Ashley Harder, Miss New Jersey USA, who has had to step down from her title after getting knocked up. She voluntarily resigned, but it just goes to support my theory that beauty pageant contestants are 1) hot, 2) love partying, 3) love sex and 4) tend to be of exceptionally questionable morals. What guy can't get down with being around hot, blonde chicks who love to knock a few back, go clubbing and get their freak on with lots of guys and sometimes other girls? See, the fact that Donald Trump is in the beauty pageant business is yet more proof that the Donald is a model for success that we can all aspire to.

- Whether you are on board with the death penalty or not and regardless of how you feel about the justice that America is supposedly bringing to Iraq, this is a grisly story that has to make your stomach turn. With Saddam Hussein now executed, justice is being administered to some of the former members of his administration. Justice in this case means they, like their leader, are being hanged. Problem is, one of those hangings went really, really awry. Awad Hamad al-Bandar, former head of Hussein’s revolutionary court, was decapitated during his hanging, which of course was not supposed to happen. The gruesome scene, which thankfully I haven't seen pictures of, came after a terrified Bander repeated some Muslim creeds and words of faith and was put into the noose. His head was pulled off of his body, and although he was going to die regardless, this is enough to make your stomach turn and make you very, very queasy. I can't believe I’m saying this, but it almost makes the American execution method of lethal injection look humane by comparison.