Mike Vick's bong, snow in SoCal and Big Brother is expanding his reach

- Rich people should be able to afford more well-disguised bongs, right? Michael Vick, perennially underachieving quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, either is skimping on his bong-purchasing budget or he’s not as smart as he thinks himself to be. Vick was stopped at a security checkpoint at the Miami International Airport on Wednesday when security noticed that the water bottle he was carrying contained some sort of “dark particulate” and a pungent smell “normally closely associated with marijuana.” Additionally, the bottle had a secret chamber and Vick was cagey about the whole thing, refusing to give the bottle up when asked to. So of course, the cops confiscated it and sent it to a lab for testing, and I think we can all see how this one will end. Vick will cop some lame excuse about how it wasn’t his, he’s sorry about the whole thing, it’s a big misunderstanding, blah, blah, blah. Funny thing is, I was once on a flight with him, flying on AirTran from Atlanta to Newport News, Va. (yes, Mike Vick flies discount airline AirTran, but in first class of course) and he did seem very chill and calm. Now I know why, because he was probably baked and in possession of one of his Dasani bongs. Aren't stoners supposed to be a little more creative when it comes to making and disguising their bongs? C’mon, Mike, you can do better than that.

- Is it possible that we are now deliberately making people famous in America for not having talent? That’s the only logical conclusion I can d raw when people insist on including Kevin Federline, a.k.a. K-Dirt, in commercials and TV programs. He and Paris Hilton are famous for……well, neither has any real talent (and no, Paris’ attempt at an album doth not talent constitute, it was an abominable failure and rightfully so, her music blows - of course so does she, but that’s a different story and you’ve seen the videos on that) but they keep popping up on TV and in the news. K-Dirt is now signed to do a Super Bowl ad for Nationwide Insurance’s “Life Comes at You Fast” campaign, playing a guy who goes from starring in a rock music video to working at a burger joint. Ha ha, too funny, whew, you’re slaying me here, Nationwide, that is soooo funny. I suppose K-Dirt does have scoreboard over his ex-wife, who got slapped down when she wanted to do a Super Bowl ad for the NFL, but other than that, dude’s only ability seems to be marrying women way more successful than him, getting them knocked up and then leaving. Is it too much to ask that someone make this guy go away permanently?

- Well this should clear up the whole “Big Brother spying on its own citizens” mess. W. and his administration of incompetent buffoons have agreed to allow a secret independent panel oversee the government’s domestic spying program. So now, some nameless, faceless entity will be helping the government in invading our personal privacy and sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong? What, is this like when the Vice President’s old company, Halliburton, got beneficial treatment in receiving government contracts? Will the administration simply find some friends of W. or Cheney who happen to be in the security business and decide to appoint them to the committee, with handsome financial compensation for their efforts? The “Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court” sounds like a perfectly pedestrian, nondescript name for this group, eh? Well, if the NSA is going to illegally spy on American citizens and butt into our communications, then why not add someone else to the party? Why not let as many people as possible have access to the private, personal communications of private citizens? Great idea, W. Why don’t you go start another war with a country that has done nothing to deserve it. While you’re at it, why don’t you volunteer to be one of the 21,500 new troops going to Iraq and put yourself in harm’s way. Maybe then you can stop constantly f’ing up the life of each and every American so badly.

- Ulterior motives, ulterior motives…..looking that up in the dictionary, and yup, just as I suspected, there’s Barry Bonds’ picture next to the word. Has anyone been more transparently selfish and self-serving than Bonds? He throws innocent teammates under the bus when he tests positive for amphetamines, and now he’s shockingly coming out in support of Pete Rose and Mark McGwire, two guys with exceptionally questionable character and virtually no credibility, being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Rose, of course, is serving a lifetime ban from baseball for gambling on baseball, a charge he denied for decades, then admitted when he wanted to sell his book and try to get the ban lifted. McGwire, like Bonds, is almost universally believed to have taken copious amounts of steroids to boost performance towards the tail end of their respective careers. Big Roid/Red got less than a third of the needed votes this year for HOF induction, and Bonds clearly saw that and realized his own ‘roid-fueled chances for the Hall might be in jeopardy. So he comes out and says that McGwire and Rose should be in. Gee, Bar-roid, if we follow that logic, then that means than when you come up for induction, you oughta be in too! Amazing how that works, isn't it. Why not just come out and say, “I deserve Half of Fame induction, because you can't prove I took any steroids or when I might have taken them, and I’ve hit massive amounts of home runs, so gimme my plaque and bust in the Hall!” You’d be a whole lot disingenuous and although we’d continue to marvel at what a bad guy and an a-hole you are, but at least you’d be telling the truth - for once.

- The apocalypse came to Southern California recently, in case you missed it. Well, what passes for the apocalypse for those in SoCal, anyhow. While most of the country is feeling the wrath of a major snowstorm that, depending on where you live, has dropped several inches (or in rare cases a foot or two) of snow and made live generally miserable, especially driving, the lightest of light snows fell in the southern part of California, sending residents into a near panic. Shoppers in Buffalo, N.Y. were resigned to shopping with flashlights because most places in their city, including stores, still don’t have power due to the storm, but a light dusting that probably melted within an hour or two and wasn’t enough to even roll a decent snowball from terrified SoCal natives. Hopefully none of them were out with their salt shakers, trying to melt the snow away, but they probably have no idea that table salt and salt for removing snow and ice are two different things….just a friendly winter weather reminder from one of the people in areas where snow is an unwelcome regular during winter. No charge for the advice, SoCals, this one’s on me.