Weekend odds and ends

- See, O.J. Simpson doesn’t just kill people (allegedly), he kills careers too. Publisher Judith Regan was fired from her post at HarperCollins just a month after her aborted “If I Did It” campaign featuring a book and TV special by the Juice. In short order, the O.J. media tour was announced, ripped by everyone and canceled, although NewsCorp’s cancellation was clearly only a result of the public outrage, not of them actually believing they were doing anything wrong. People need to learn a lesson, that associating with O.J. in any way is not going to end well for you, because let’s face it, Collins getting fired was a relatively good outcome for her, considering that the alternative was, well, you know……….

- Guys everywhere, prepare to be dragged to what will ultimately be the biggest waste of $50+ bucks you ever spend on tickets to an event. The Dancing with the Stars (again, a massive misnomer, most of these losers weren't even stars five years ago when their popularity was at its zenith) tour is taking the country by storm, subjecting guys all over to their wives and girlfriends dragging them to watch a live performance that those same guys struggled mightily to avoid while it was on TV. I’ll say this….I don’t like watching dancing, period, but if you like it and you wanna go see the ballet with its professional, trained dancers, go and enjoy. But if you willingly go to see some E-list “celebrities” attempt to ballroom dance and pay good money for the right to do so, you should be permanently stripped of all rights to control your money and credit cards.

- Never saw this coming……former Phish frontman Trey Anastasio was pulled over by Whitehall, N.Y. police for driving under the influence of drugs……yes, I know, someone associated with Phish being busted for drugs, amazing. You can probably still get a contact high just by holding a ticket stub from a Phish concert that took place in 2004. Anastasio had all sorts of painkillers and antidepressants in his vehicle when police pulled him over for swerving and erratic driving. Yet supposedly he left Phish to escape that same drug culture, where it seemed that both the band and every audience member were high by the second song of the set. It goes to show that you can take the lead singer out of Phish, but you can’t take the Phish out of the singer.

- I love how so many in the sports world are rushing to slurp on Texas Tech hothead/coach Bob Knight as he nears Dean Smith’s career wins record for college basketball coaches. Knight’s win today versus Arkansas puts him one behind Smith, who was a class act through and through and one of the true gentlemen in college hoops throughout his tenure. Knight on the other hand, is a raging psycho, a man who has: 1) choked a player in practice, 2) thrown a ceramic vase at an athletic department secretary, 3) thrown a folding chair across the court, 4) told an interviewer that, “If rape is inevitable, why doesn’t the woman just sit back and enjoy it?”, 5) Verbally assaulted a student who had the audacity to greet him in passing with a “Hey, Knight” and 6) smacked a player in the huddle earlier this season. The first five transgressions came during his tenure at Indiana. Yet so many are so eager to forget or set aside those things and many more now that he’s nearing a record. For the record, no matter how high your graduation rate for your players and how many wins you have, Knight, you will always be an ass, a man who treats people like crap even though they’ve done nothing to deserve it.

- Jeb Bush may find himself excommunicated from the Bush family if he keeps this up. The Florida governor and brother of our incompetent Commander-in-Chief W has suspended all executions in Florida after ruling that executioners botched an execution of a convicted killer earlier this week by faulty insertion of needles. On a side note, executioner is one job that you really should be accurate on 100% of the time, because killing someone shouldn’t be that hard when given the precise procedures and instruments and having that person totally restrained….but I digress. When he was governor of Texas, W had the executioners so busy that they nearly had to install a ticket-issuing counting machine like they use at delis to determine what order people are served (or in this case, executed) in. “Number fifty-three will now be executed, please step up to the table…..” Now Jeb is actually suspending executions? Better get ‘em going again before big brother uses his presidential influence to go over your head and get the executions going again, Jeb………

Britney is stupid, lettuce is lethal and Belgians love hoaxes

- Nobody has ever confused Britney Spears for a Mensa member. But it was funny to see that she was reportedly spotted buying a copy of her own album, apparently unaware of the economics of record sales. See, Brit, when you pay, say even the $9.99 discounted amount your terrible CD was probably on sale for in the “bargain” rack, not all of the money you paid goes back to you just because you are the one who sings (not sure I’d call what she does singing, but anyhow) on the album. You might get a small fraction of the sale price back, but in this equation, you lose money regardless. Besides, I am pretty sure the record company could have given you a spare copy, one that a member of their office staff had been using as a coaster or to prop up the uneven coffee table with one leg shorter than the others. But hey, it looks like hanging out with uber-skank Paris Hilton has really boosted Brit’s already sky-high IQ…….

- Taco Bell patrons can stop worrying….well, no they can’t, they’re still eating the semi-food products that the Bell passes off as Mexican cuisine, but they can worry a little less after health officials reportedly isolated the offending item that caused an E. coli outbreak in this great, overweight nation of ours. The lettuce was to blame, so all of you who had lettuce in the “What ingredient in Taco Bell food is most likely to make you ill” office pool can collect your prize. The allegation that lettuce is to blame was met with a predictably prickly response from farmers, who fear that the claims will harm their crops and overall business. Farmers have it tough, I think we can all agree on that, very hard job, very long hours, very little pay, but fellas, if the lettuce made people sick, I think letting the public know that is more important than worrying about your bottom line financially. As someone who generally avoids leafy green veggies and especially Taco Bell food, I am not worried, but a lot of people are, so simmer down guys.

- Amazing how cavalier our society has become when sports owners or city/state officials announce plans for a proposed new stadium complex that will cost hundreds of millions (or in this case, a billion….yes, billion with a “b”). I know that these plans can sometimes end up as pipe dreams, but still when Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones announces plans for a $1 billion stadium complex, I hafta take notice. Jones wants to lure in the Olympics, college football’s national title game, college basketball’s Final Four, the Super Bowl and the annual Texas-Oklahoma college football game, among other things, but I am going to go on record as voting no on this one. Well, unless Jones himself funds or finds private funding for at least $900 million of the project. I know, Texas Stadium, the ‘Boys current home, is considered a dump in NFL circles, but please don’t stick Dallas/Texas taxpayers with an astronomical bill for the next several decades because you want a stadium that will, most importantly in your mind, make you a lot more money.

- A good media hoax will bring hearty laughter into anyone’s day, that’s for sure. Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds radio program back in the 1930s, which pretended that the world was being invaded by space aliens and caused mass hysteria and some suicides, was a rip-roarin’ good time, right? So the Belgian TV station RBTF network thought it would throw out a hoax of its own, interrupting regular programming to announce that the Dutch-speaking part of the country had declared its independence and that the king and queen had fled the country. For some reason, the royal family was not down with the hoax. RBTF defended its actions, saying they helped to show “the importance of debate on the country’s future.” Because I’m sure that’s all you were trying to do, RBTF, is stimulate debate on the future of Belgium. Boosting your ratings or profile had nothing to do with it. Why don’t you all think a little harder next time in your production meetings so that when an idea like this is proposed, you can all put down your Belgian waffles, search deep inside those apparently very tiny brains of yours and come up with a better idea. Now pass me a waffle and some syrup and stop wasting everyone’s time with your stupid shenanigans.

- For years, some Beatles fans have been pissed at Yoko Ono, believing (and perhaps rightfully so) that she ultimately led to the breakup of the Fab Four. Now, John Lennon’s widow has attracted a new kind of whack job who is out to get her. Well, more specifically she hired and fired this particular whack job, but never mind on that. Her former chauffer threatened to release embarrassing pictures and recordings of her and potentially have her killed unless she paid him $2 million. Koral Karsan is the man behind this brilliant scheme, and now he is going to end up in jail. Nobody - chauffer, butler, maid, gardener, pool guy - likes it when a rich person breaks them off, but Koral would have been better off waxing his car, sweeping out the interior, apply some Armor-All to the dashboard and trying to find a new rich person to ferry around. Now, he can contemplate his own idiocy behind bars for a little while.

- “You’ll never take me alive, coppers!” Sounds like a line from the Wild, Wild West or a good gangster movie set in the 1920s, right? Well, Albany, Ga. motorcycle dealer and newly-minted felon is either a big fan of those eras or he simply shares my general distaste for authority figures and an aversion to going to prison. Wright, sentenced to 27 months in prison for bike smuggling (not sure if they were illegal bikes from the black market or he simply smuggled them without paying the proper import tariffs) but failed to report to prison and instead went on the lam. Furthermore, he sent an email to various news organizations vowing “not to be taken alive.” That takes an impressive combination of testicular fortitude and sheer stupidity, but I hafta say in some way I admire Wright. He’ll be caught eventually and have his sentence lengthened, sure, so in that sense he’d have been better off reporting to prison, serving his time and hoping he’d get paroled in 18 months or so for good behavior. Still, it’s always good to see someone give the finger to law enforcement and fight to stay free. As one of my favorite quotes says, “If bound, fight to break free. If you are free, fight to stay that way.” Stay tuned, Andrew Wright “On the Run Watch” is still in its first week…….

- The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are just so darned cute, trying to imitate their big brothers in the American League East, the Boston Red Sox. The Sox pay $51.1 million to negotiate with Japanese pitching phenom Daisuke Matsuzaka, so the Rays go out and find their own Japanese import, pay their own negotiating fee of $4.5 million to the Japanese team of Akinori Iwamura, the Yakult Swallows, and sign Iwamura. The Rays are so pathetic, they find the D-list equivalent of Matsuzaka, just like they always end up with the bargain basement, homeless man’s version of every player of value in baseball. They sign big name managers past their primes, aging sluggers, knock-off Japanese players, each cementing the Rays’ position as MLB’s biggest doormat.

Suing Kanye, ripping PETA, life is good

- Is this the NFL or the CIA? You’ve gotta begin wondering how much of a difference there is between the two, because for the second time this year, a player or coach has alleged the existence of a snitch or mole within their organization. First it was Oakland Raiders coach Art Shell, he of the blank, dumbfounded sideline stare when he’s supposed to be actively coaching his team, claiming there was a mole inside the Raider organization who was badmouthing then-offensive coordinator Tom Walsh to the national media. Walsh has since been demoted and could soon be back to running the bed and breakfast he was operating for the seven years before Shell hired him to coach an NFL offense. Now, one of my two least favorite people in sports, T.O., is saying there’s a snitch in the Dallas Cowboys organization who is letting out secrets about him being late for team meetings, sleeping in meetings and other various misdeeds. T.O. says now is not the time to deal with the snitch, but that once the season is over he will take them on. Oh, and let’s not forget the Miami Dolphins allegedly buying audio tapes of recent New England Patriots games and using them to decipher the cadences and snap counts of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. So to recap, we have snitches, moles, secret tapes purchased to decode embedded messages……who’s running this league, Roger Goodell or J. Edgar Hoover?

- Anyone who has played, coached or been around children’s sports has seen him or her. Overbearing Mom or Dad, bent on making the world see that their kid is the next big thing and ready to beat down anyone, coach, fellow players, fans, who doesn’t agree or tries to “stand in my kid’s way.” Usually these parents are bitter, myopic individuals trying to relive their glory days or glory days they never got to have through their kids. Most of the time, you see them at youth soccer games, Little League baseball, sometimes as high up as middle school and high school basketball, football, baseball, etc. Now, parents of three University of Arkansas football players have taken things to a whole new level. The parents of players Damien Williams, Mitch Mustain and Ben Cleveland went to Frank Broyles, athletic director at AU, because they didn’t like the way their kids were being used in the offense. After going over the head of the coach, who by the way has the authority to run his team, the parents then issued a statement, in which Mustain’s mother is quoted, that said basically that all involved parties “concede that the coach has authority to run his team and operate it as he sees fit.” Thank you very much, parents, how magnanimous of you. You are going to allow the coach to run the team, the team he’s paid millions to coach. You, with no authority or jurisdiction here, are going to grant him the right to run things how he wants. Thanks for the stamp of approval, I’m sure head coach Houston Nutt, who guided the squad to an SEC West title and a New Year’s Day bowl bid, is relieved to know that he has your support.

- You’ve done it again, PETA, high comedy, laughs and hijinks galore. Those wacky comedians/civic activists have sent out a letter that attempts to be both humorous and socially conscionable, yet manages to fail miserably at one and be totally irrelevant when it comes to the other. PETA sent the letter to crack on NBA players who criticized the Association’s new, yet soon-to-be-discarded synthetic basketball and claimed, among other things, that it cut their hands. PETA chastised (well, as much as a bunch of deluded, namby-pamby, bleeding heart liberals who have no touch with reality and no actual clout can chastise) the players for being wimps and offered to send them no-animal-harmed-in-the-making-of hand cream to help their ailments. PETA is bent because now the NBA is switching back to the old leather balls, meaning more cows will have to die to make them. Once again, as I munch on my plate of steak, chicken wings, a turkey sandwich and some duck pate, allow me to provide some silver lining on this cloud for the PETA people…..the cows were going to die anyway in order to provide all of the steaks and hamburgers that we love to eat, so using their hides to make the basketballs is just making best use of all parts of an animal that would not have lived even if the NBA had stuck with the synthetic ball.

- Today is Golden Globe nomination day. Wahoo…………I think. Honestly, there are so many awards shows that at present I am drawing a blank as to exactly what industry the Globes honor, but I think it’s TV or film….either way, here’s a question: other than being self-aggrandizing and self-congratulatory, what the hell good are these shows? They honor music, shows or movies that have been on TV, in theaters or on the air for several months, and if said entities are any good, people will already have listened to or watched them. When was the last time you watched an awards show, saw someone win for an album or movie and automatically went out and bought or saw it? People who care about music or entertainment follow it closely enough that they are aware of what’s out there and purchase or take in what they have an interest in. Whether it wins an award or not is irrelevant. After all, most music, shows or movies that a lot of people like don’t win any awards because the awards are given out by snobbish, out of touch groups and organizations that are more interested in perpetuating the status quo and patting themselves on the backs than rewarding artists, actors and others who actually do great work. So best of luck to all GG nominees, I hope you win whatever pointless statue they’re giving out and it validates you and your work.

- Now here’s a fight I don’t want to be in the middle of…..legendary daredevil Evil Knievel is suing legendary egotist and rapper Kanye West for portraying a character called" "Evel Kanyevel" in his video for "Touch the Sky". Honestly, the details of why Evil is suing Kanye aren't all that important, I’m just giddy with excitement over the prospect of these two having it out. But honestly, is a courtroom really the best place to settle a dispute between two guys like this? When you have a guy who has attempted scores of insanely dangerous stunts, including a jump of Snake River Canyon in Idaho that Knievel himself said he went into believing there was a “50/50 chance” that he would die and he’s going after a big time rap star, isn't there a better way to settle this? Maybe have Kanye set up every one of his bevy of tricked out luxury vehicles in a line and construct a ramp for Evil to use in attempting to jump over them all? If Evil clears all the cars, he wins, if he can’t make the jump, Kanye wins, that simple. And with all of the other reality TV crap on the airwaves, you’re telling me you couldn’t squeeze some decent ratings out of an hour program like that? Bring in Judge Judy to oversee the proceedings, give it a corny name like “Knievel’s Court” and slap it on FOX, problem solved.

Wasting tax dollars, sticking it to smokers and boozing it up with Lohan

- So what is a person to do when something they loathe (soccer) comes up against the potential to stick it to a group that they despise (smokers)? I’m conflicted over a plan by the Summit County (Ohio) government to build a new $170 million soccer stadium even though the area has no pro team (thank God) and every team in the area that has existed (Cleveland, Akron, etc.) has folded within a few years at most. So you have the local government wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on something the area doesn’t need, obviously bad……but now comes word that $7 million annually could be raised with a new, additional tax on cigarettes. On the one hand, a gigantic waste of money in a stadium that no one needs. On the other, the chance to screw over smokers. It’s a tough call, because I tend to be bitter against people who drastically increase my chance of lung cancer by foisting their secondhand smoke on me when they light up in places I happen to be. Ultimately, though, I’m going to have to come down on the side of hoping that this stadium doesn’t happen, because the cigarette tax isn't going to cover the entire cost of the stadium and it’s still going to be a colossal waste of money.

- It’s none of your business…..so here’s why I’m gonna tell you about it anyhow. That convoluted line of thinking is brought to you by Lindsay Lohan, who revealed to People magazine that she’s been attending AA meetings for a year but hadn't said anything because “it’s no one’s business.” Great, so why are you telling me about it now? And why should I care? You aren't wrecking production on one of my movies by staying out all night drinking and clubbing, then showing up too hung over to do your scenes. On a side note, what does this say about Alcoholics Anonymous, that Lohan appears to have become more of a lush after attending AA than she was before? The best therapy for Ms. Lohan would seem to be getting fired from a major project because of her drinking and being unable to find any more roles until she cleans up and gets her act together. Seeing her money dry up might be a good incentive to stop boozing.

- The NBA players have spoken, and the league has relented on the use of the new composite basketball in games. As of January 1, the league will bring back the old leather ball in games, heeding the complaints (loud, plentiful and frequent) of scores of players who said the new ball didn’t bounce right, was hard to grip, was cutting their hands, etc. The Players Association went so far as to file a labor grievance over the ball, but Commissioner Stern made the change before the grievance went any further. Oddly, Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash, a vociferous critic of the new ball, came out against the mid-season switch, apparently feeling it would have been better to finish the season with the new ball and go back to the old one at the start of next season. Nash needs to do one thing: shut up. You sound like a petulant five-year-old, whining to get your way, then when you get it, complaining that it wasn’t the exact way you wanted it. Shut up, Steve, be thankful you got the old basketball back and deal with the change.

- Weighing 85 pounds is looking to be the new Hollywood trend. Waifish Nicole Ritchie claimed that as her weight when arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of weed, and now rail-thin actress Lara Flynn Boyle is reportedly creeping close to the 85-pound barrier herself. I know most people think thinner figures look better, and most guys tend to go for girls on the thin side, but 85 pounds is perhaps a step too far. When you start more closely resembling a toothpick than an actual human being, you have then taken weight loss too far. Somewhere in between one extreme (Ritchie) and at the other extreme, the bloated, belligerent Rosie O’Donnell, there has to be a happy medium.

- Updating a previously reported on issue……the federal government is fighting a ruling by a U.S. District Court judge that the federal treasury must redesign currency in order to accommodate the needs of blind people. They cannot differentiate between the different paper monies, which are all the same size, and apparently have rejected some of my insightful, thoughtful suggestions for fixing the problem. Justice Department lawyers filed an appeal to the ruling, claiming that blind people are “not denied meaningful access” to money based on the way the nation’s currency is designed. Part of my thinks they just don’t want the expense of redesigning and issuing new currency, but part of me says good for them, because the complaining, whiny, gimme, politically correct sect has far too much influence in America. This should be a good battle, though, so stay tuned.

- NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell apparently fancies himself some sort of peace broker/mediation/counseling specialist. The commish called Cincinn-Attica Bengals owner Mike Brown to offer his “services” in helping the Bengals organization in dealing with its eight wayward players who have been arrested this season. Either the commissioner is some sort of Zen, behavior correcting sage, or he is putting on a happy face and making the offer while fully intending to bring the hammer down on the Bengals players when he gets face to face with them. He’ll pretend, for the public at least, to be doing it for the greater good of the NFL, but you know he has to be pissed to see the league being dragged through the mud by these cons in Cincy. So Goodell goes there, gets these eight players in a locked room with no windows and administers some Sopranos-style “encouragement” to them. Honestly, nothing else has worked, and since the NFL apparently does not share my goal of seeing at least ¼ of the entire Bengals roster arrested before season’s end, I wish the commissioner well in this ill-fated endeavor.

How do I hate Michael Irvin.....let me count the ways

- You know me, I am helpless in refraining from comment when my two least-favorite sports figures, Michael Irvin and Terrell “Sleep Disorder” Owens do something moronic. So when the two of them do it in tandem, it’s like I’m a rat in a cheese factory, I don’t know where to go first. How about Owens saying he basically gives a lackluster effort because he’s just not “that into it” while on the field? He makes, if you break down his salary this season over the 16 games in the NFL regular season, it comes out to $625,000 per game. Yet you can't muster up enough interest to play hard all game? You admit you’re dropping passes because of your lack of interest. Then Irvin, Dallas/T.O. sycophant/Kool-Aid drinker through and through, has the gall to say after the piece airs that T.O. is having “a great season.” Ass hat, the guy himself just admitted he’s played poorly, everyone who has watched him says the same, yet you’re trying to snowball us into believing that he’s having a super year? How stupid are you? Apparently much dumber than I thought, which is hard to do. T.O. could shoot heroin at midfield, kick a puppy and garrot a dozen Cambodian refugees in the end zone and there’d be his buddy Irvin, saying, “Oh, T.O., he’s a great guy, he’s doing the best he can, you all need to lay off of him.” ESPN, fire Michael Irvin NOW! He’s a blight on your network and an absolute travesty and offense to anyone who watches football on ESPN.

- Allow me to announce, on behalf of Barack Obama, that he will be running for president in 2008. Dude is an eloquent speaker, a polished politician and a charismatic leader. He should run away with the nomination for the Democrats assuming he runs. Hank Clinton can’t hold a candle to this guy, and quite frankly, she’s far too scary and has the angry feminist vibe that should send all guys in a ten-mile radius running for cover. She’s too militant and hostile, too polarizing and wouldn’t be a force to unify the different factions of our nation. Not saying Obama is the cure for all that ails America, but given the choice of seeing either he or Hank on the ballot and potentially in the Oval Office, the overwhelming choice for those with an IQ of above 70 would be Obama. Oh, and veeeeeeeery clever spot on Monday Night Football, saying he has reached a decision…….about his beloved Chicago Bears. Ha ha, good one, ESPN. Obama came off alright, not too cheesy, but you can't think of something more amusing than that? Just stick with Hank Williams singing the intro and forego the celebrity cameos you seem to think are interesting to viewers.

- Remember Eric Rudolph, the Atlanta Olympics bomber? He’s spending the rest of his life in prison in Florence, Colorado, but writes in a series of letters to The Gazette of Colorado Springs that the maximum-security federal prison he lives at is designed to drive him insane. Hey paco, you mean that you were perfectly sane when you bombed the Olympics in 1996? Really? What did the Olympics ever do to you? Were you bent about not being able to get tickets for the women’s gymnastics final? Were you bent that the mascot for the Games was some sort of amorphous blue blob that no one ever figured out? And I am tremendously sorry that you, whose irresponsible and malignant actions killed and injured people, feel that the prison you are kept in isn't nurturing and comfortable enough. That’s why it’s prison, idiot, it isn't designed to be a home away from home, it’s there to keep whack jobs like you away from the rest of us.

- Kudos to the Cincinn-Attica Bengals, who had their eighth player arrested this season, with the most recent arrest being cornerback Deltha O’Neal. Other arrests Bengals have been: DE Frostee Rucker, spousal abuse; LB A.J. Nicholson, burglary; WR Chris Henry, DWI (one of five arrests for Henry); DT Matthias Askew, resisting arrest; G Eric Steinbach, operating a boat under the influence; LB Odell Thurman, DWI; WR Reggie McNeal, resisting arrest and drug possession. This kind of commitment, dedication and team unity can only portend to good things for the team. “If one of us is arrested, then every one of us has to get arrested” has to be the new team motto. Henry is the leader in the clubhouse/cell block for now, but I don’t doubt for a second that one of these felons-in-waiting can catch up. I know guys get roster bonuses for playing time, touchdowns scored, etc., but do the Bengals give out similar bonuses for nights spent in the hole or total felony convictions in a season? Warden/head coach Marvin Lewis had better get control of his team before he doesn’t have enough players not locked up to field a squad.

- Living in a northern state, snow is a four-letter word that I’ve come to despise more than just about any other. Winter seems like an interminable eight-month nightmare, a snow-and-ice laden torture chamber that makes driving difficult and outdoor activities miserable. So when I hear about a town such as Lepe, Spain….I want to vomit. Repeatedly. Lepe, which hasn’t seen actual natural snowfall since 1954 (hang on while I Priceline a ticket to Lepe and check out the price of real estate there), is creating artificial snow for 15 minutes every day at exactly 8 p.m. as part of its Christmas festivities. Why anyone would want snow is beyond me. Maybe the residents of Lepe, who come to a virtual standstill in awe of the fake snow, would like to come to my house and scrape the ice off my car windows every morning and shovel the inches of unwanted white crap from the driveway. Enjoy the lack of snow, Lepe, because you wouldn’t be so joyful if you had to regularly deal with the real stuff.

Ohioans hittin' the hard liquor, Nicole Ritchie burning some tree........good times all around

- From the Bureau of Not Stunning News…..Ohioans are purchasing (and theoretically consuming) increasing amounts of hard liquor. Sales have shot up 25 percent in the last decade, and honestly, who would be surprised by that? After all, these people do live in Ohio, where winter is an eight-month odyssey and Northeast Ohio has less sunny days than any other area in the entire country. That kind of weather alone is enough to drive most people to vodka, tequila, rum, etc. The liquor industry tallied $640 million in sales in Ohio last year, and the total gallons sold was the highest total since 1993. Add to the equation gawd-awful sports teams like the Browns, Indians and Reds and it’s easy to see that Ohioans are seriously in need of something to dull the pain and blur their memories.

- The Heisman Trophy ceremony has become one giant commercial, with about 50 minutes of pointless blabbering and about five minutes actually devoted to presenting the award. This year’s broadcast, more anticlimactic than your average, predictable teen slasher movie, lingered on for way too long before reaching the inevitable conclusion of Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith winning the Heisman. With only three candidates invited to the ceremony in downtown Manhattan, that left even more time for banter, postulating and yammering by scores of talking heads. And oh, in case you didn’t know by the scores of commercials crammed down your throat, Nissan sponsored the award this year. That the Heisman has a sponsor is laughable….sponsors are needed to provide backing for things that otherwise might not have the funding or support to happen. So why does the most storied award in college sports need a sponsor? You’re telling me it couldn’t be presented without a sponsor? Really? Cut the crap, take the show down to half an hour and don’t waste our time with all the extraneous garbage, ESPN.

- Now here’s a cat fight that millions of guys would pay to see, assuming there were bikinis and jello involved, how many guys in the 18-49 age bracket wouldn’t plunk down a large amount of money to see top-heavy songstress Mariah Carey duke it out with adult film star and former California gubernatorial candidate (seriously) Mary Carey? Mariah wants to trademark her name, fearing fans would confuse the two, and also to prevent Mary from singing. Right, because no one could possibly tell the two of you apart. One has eight-octave range, wears skanky outfits like skin-tight NBA jerseys passing for dresses and makes bad music. The other…….well, she does what adult film stars do. So ladies, I think we can all agree that this need not go to court. Simply pick out your favorite bikini, hop in the jello pit and when the bell rings, come out swinging.

- Metallica and other artists have spent a lot of time b*tching about copyright laws, Napster, etc. here in the U.S. Many other artists, like the Beastie Boys have gone on the warpath against the “illegal” copying and sharing of CDs. So the British perhaps are feeling left out, and so Paul McCartney, U2 and Eric Clapton are going into battle against the British government to protest the current British copyright laws that only protects sound recordings are performers rights for 50 years. In America, the same laws are for 95 years. Under the British laws, some of the Beatles biggest hits could be up for grabs as early as 2012. It always cracks me up that artists who charge a couple hundred bucks for a concert ticket, twenty-five dollars for a t-shirt and seventeen bucks for an album are so concerned about things like this. I understand you wrote the songs, but how about you just be happy with the hundreds of millions you can rake in from your music in that 50-year span and stay quiet.

- A quick review of the Billboard charts…..the Hannah Montana soundtrack is three spots above the new Beatles album, Love, on the charts, which has to be another sign of the apocalypse……Akon still has two of the top three singles, which still is an abomination…..a song by Bow Wow titled Shortie Like Mine is another top 10 single, which is quite a well-crafted song title for a song that surely contains equally skilled and thoughtful lyrics (please shoot me in the head if I ever have to listen to that song)…….Jim Jones has a top 10 single and a top 5 Hip-Hop single, and no, I’m pretty sure this is not the same Jim Jones who cultivated a cult following before forcing his followers to drink the toxic Kool-Aid, although even if it was I still would have no interest in listening to the music.

- Nicole Ritchie, coming to a driving safety course near you. That could actually happen after the waifish (seriously, 5’1, 85 pounds!) wannabe actress/reality TV skank was pulled over for driving the wrong way on an L.A.-area freeway at 4:30 in the morning. She admitted to being hopped up on Vicodin and marijuana when cops pulled her over following calls from two concerned motorists. I’m actually having a little bit of a problem processing this, actually. Not the driving the wrong way, not the painkillers.…..I’m talking about the hippie lettuce. After all, if you are just over five feet tall and weighing in at a robust 85 freaking pounds, odds are you don’t eat much or often. But I think we all know that smoking tree usually leads to cravings for Doritos, Cheetos and other foods that really aren't good for your figure. Seems like a difficult balance to strike, staying that thin and smoking something that gives you a bad case of the munchies.

Weekend rants

- So Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic rant doesn’t appear to have affected his box office cred with moviegoers. His latest directorial effort, Apocalypto, topped the box office charts over the weekend, grossing an estimated $14.2 million. The Holiday, Happy Feet and Casino Royale were in the next three spots, meaning that for the first time in quite a while, none of the four highest-earning movies of a given weekend absolutely blows. Kudos to movie fans for going to see films that have actual quality and watchability to them. The total haul for Mel’s movie wasn’t overwhelming, but it was enough to prove that people aren’t still bent about the intoxicated remarks he made last summer……..well, except for Jews, who I imagine might still be a wee bit upset. But other than that, looks like most people have forgiven Mel or at least forgotten what he said.

- Count me among those hoping the Red Sox fail in their bid to sign Japanese pitching sensation Daisuke Matsuzaka. I’m not a Yankees fan (YANKEES SUCK!) or a fan of any other team that might attempt to sign him if the Sox don’t, mind you. I just hope for their sake that they don’t end up ponying up that $51 million negotiating fee, money paid to Matsuzaka’s Japanese team, then pay an additional $100 million to Daisuke himself. The $100 million is the amount his agent, the loathe-able Scott Boras, is looking for in terms of total contract value. So imagine that they give this guy a six-year, $102 million deal. That’s $17 million in salary per year, plus if you
break the negotiating fee down across the life of the contract, that’s about $7.3 million per. In other words, $24 million-plus per year for a guy who’s never thrown a Major League pitch. Call me nuts, but you can get two top level arms for that amount, $12.15 million annually for each. Besides, I have heard reports that in his career already, especially in high school and right after, he pitched crazy amounts of innings and pitches on far too little rest. He seems like a candidate to flame out big time, and even if he’s a 20-win pitcher for the life of his contract, he’s not worth $24.3 million per, none of the past decade’s Cy Young winners have made that much, nor should Daisuke.

- Thanks to the ass hats at the American Film Institute. I’m trying to figure out of their lists of the 10 best movies and TV shows from 2006 are a joke or if they are really that stupid. Maybe an 8-ball of coke was involved or some LSD……all I know is that any list of movies that includes Borat¸ The Devil Wears Prada and Dreamgirls among its top 10 is irrelevant. Are you serious? A pathetic attempt at cross-cultural homor featuring lame gags and a phony accent, a chick flick about a fashion magazine and….well, I’m not even sure how to describe Dreamgirls, other than: bad. The TV list is a little better, especially since it includes Heroes, the best new show this season. I don’t have HBO, so I can’t say yea or nay on The Wire, but Friday Night Lights and The Office aren't bad choices either. But where are Prison Break, Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls? I know the WB isn't an established network, but to deny shows like Mars just shows a tremendous amount of ignorance on the part of the AFI. The lists were supposedly compiled by show biz insiders and professional critics, but I have to wonder if they all got together and sniffed paint fumes in a poorly-ventilated room before doing the voting.

- Can someone explain to me why people are still writing about and investigating the death of Princess Diana nearly a decade later. She’s dead, people, D-E-A-D. The Kennedy assassination, this ain’t. She wasn’t shot, she died in a car crash. If her driver was drunk, it doesn’t change the outcome. People were far too obsessed with her life (why, I don’t know. I don’t really think she merited the attention given to, say, the Pope, Mother Theresa or people who actually made a major impact on the world and weren't simply members of an outdated monarchy that’s little more than a figurehead). The Brits and anyone else who spend any further time looking into Diana’s death need to realize that there’s a world going on around them right now, one filled with actual problems that matter to people living here and now, not a decade in the past.

- The “Naïve and Ignorant” Award in sports for this week goes to…….all of the University of Idaho fans and players who are surprised/bitter than head football coach Dennis “Vagabond” Ericsson has left UI after one season to take the head coaching job at Arizona State. Ericsson has coached at two stops in the NFL, four others in D-1 football, with ASU being his fifth college stop, following Miami (FL), Oregon State, Washington State and Idaho. I’m sorry, Idaho sycophants, you thought an accomplished coach who has won two national titles would stay in Spud-ville, a bottom-level D-1 program, and eschew a chance to coach at Arizona State, a Pac-10 school with in a conference with an automatic BCS slot every year? A school with a better stadium, better practice facilities, better academics, more money and much better weather than Idaho? How did you not realize that this was going to be anything other than a long layover for Ericsson in between better jobs? Be thankful you landed a coach like him for one season, and lament your own naïveté in believing you could keep him there for any sort of prolonged run.

- Each year I skip the Super Bowl half time show largely on the principle that I hate pregame and halftime shows, which are a waste of time where nothing happens of relevance to the actual game on the field. So this year, the NFL has………given me an especially good reason to skip the Super Bowl halftime show by choosing Prince, or whatever the hell he calls himself now, as the main act. The sexually ambiguous, horribly coiffed soul/funk/just plan bad musician will be performing some of his overrated, sad-sack songs and underwhelming the shmucks who actually do watch halftime. I will continue to use it as a time to refill on snacks and drinks, use the bathroom and do other things that are higher on my priority list, y’know, stuff like clipping my fingernails, dusting under the refrigerator and rearranging my sock drawer.

Rich Rodriguez reverses field, tithing at an ATM and Prison Break comes to Cancun....sort of

- All the makings of a happy football season in 2007 at West Virginia. Head coach Rich Rodriguez has reversed field, declining the offer to become head coach at Alabama in order to remain at WVU. How much better can it get, a guy who had all but left, ditched the Mountaineers for a “better” job and more money, returning to coach the team he nearly left. I’m sure the players and fans won't look at him any differently just because he almost ditched them……..of course, one thing can cure any ill feelings or bad taste left in the mouths of players and fans alike: winning. You can be sure that if next season, the Mountaineers go 12-0 or 11-1, all will be forgiven and forgotten and Rodriguez will be hailed as a coaching genius, at which point we can go through this whole ordeal of will he or won't he leave again.

- Can a drive-thru window be far behind? That’s the next logical step for Stevens Creek Community Church in Martinez, Ga., which has installed two “Giving Kiosk” ATM machines outside its sanctuary. Churchgoers can give by swiping their credit or debit cards, thus avoiding the hassle of needing exact change when the offering plate comes by. I think I’ll hold out for the drive-thru, though, because who wants the hassle of getting out of your car and actually going inside of the church? I’d much prefer talking to a church representative through that audio nightmare of an intercom system they have at the bank, the one where you can't understand the garbled speech of the teller and you also get to send your materials in the little plastic tube to the building. Maybe next Stevens Creek CC can throw up the podcast of their services on iTunes and people won't have to actually attend at all.

- This can't be good for tourism. More than 150 inmates in a Cancun jail overpowered guards using knives and bats (why are that many bats available to them? they must have a hell of a rec yard) and escaped. About half of the escapees were quickly captured, by the remainder are still being sought. I’d check for them tanning on one of the fine tourist-laden beaches or at a resort, having cocktails with an American couple from Minnesota celebrating their twenty-fifth anniversary. “Come bask in the Mexican sun…..with 75 escapes convicts” is a promising new slogan for Cancun’s board of tourism. Until these guys are caught, though, you might want to avoid getting into an argument over who was first in line at the restaurant, because getting seated first is not worth getting shanked in the leg.

- Hooters has competition in the shameless, pander-to-the-lowest-common-denominator arena for restaurants. Because everyone knows that guys just can't keep from fantasizing about nurses (umm, sure, we all fit that stereotype, that’s not insulting), the Heart Attack Grill in Tempe, Arizona is attempting to capitalize on those supposed fantasies. The eatery features, among food that will send you to an actual hospital for heart surgery quicker than imaginable, waitresses in skimpy nurses outfits, including high heels, knee high stockings and cleavage bearing shirts. This would be funny in a frat house, stupid, sophomoric sense, but when you start serving burgers with two pounds of greasy meat, four pieces of cheese and a pound of bacon and French fries cooked in pure lard, that’s just nasty. Nursing organizations are bent because they feel the restaurant is insulting and demeaning to actual nurses, but let’s face it, they have no real leg to stand on. Owner Jon Basso is free to operate his business as long as he’s not violating the law, even if it is insulting to nurses. But c’mon, man, America is fat enough without you serving lard fries. I’m predicting a drastic rise in heart disease and heart attacks in the greater Tempe area in the next couple years……

- Amazing how people jump at the chance to get their hands on the actual truth, at least parts of it, about the mess in Iraq. Having been fed a string of lies by the Bush administration since the debacle began (any luck finding those WMD’s yet?), the American public snapped up enough copies of the Iraq Study Group’s report in paperback form to catapult the book to No. 18 on the Amazon.com bestseller list. Admittedly, this book isn't the same scintillating reading as the newest John Grisham book and won't be making an appearance in Oprah’s book club, but it will be nice to find out what the hell is going on over in Iraq without having the facts filtered and distorted by the Bush administration, seeking to cover their own arses, not give us the truth.

- Wesley Snipes has turned himself in on tax evasion charges, thus proving that the law may not be able to get you if you are a double murderer (allegedly, eh O.J.?), but if you try to skimp on paying your taxes, you WILL be caught and punished. Snipes, in Namibia filming the ironically titled Gallow Walker (trying to cheat the IRS basically ensures that you will be hanged), returned to Florida, attended a court appearance and was then given clearance to return to Namibia, although he must be back in the U.S. by January 10 for his trial. Once again, it’s nice to see that famous people are treated the same as everyone else, because any of us would be allowed to leave the country with charges of $12 million tax fraud hanging over our heads, right? God bless America.

- I shouldn’t need to ask this, but I will. What the frak is President Bush doing (how many times do we all ask that question on a daily basis? 25? 50?) filming a humorous video for the White House website featuring…….his damn Scottish terrier?!?! The video has numerous administration officials in it, along with the Prez, Emmitt Smith and Dolly Parton. I don’t begrudge a President for needing to unwind and have some fun, but c’mon, go running, play golf, whatever. Don’t waste time and I am sure many taxpayer dollars on glorified home movie projects. And why do I get the feeling that with Barney the dog on screen with W, the more intelligent “actor” is the one with four paws and a tail?

Hatin' on the Grammys, finding some decent movies....finally

- Because I am always on the lookout for the crap, drivel and refuse that finds its way into theaters and causes people to pay $8.50 to see it, when a movie weekend rolls around with multiple films that are actually watchable (maybe not great, but watchable), it’s cause for celebration. This would be one of those times, thanks to three movies, two live action dramas, Apocalypto and Blood Diamond, and one an animated sci-fi romp, Renaissance featuring the vocal talents of current 007 Daniel Craig). Set aside Mel Gibson’s drunken, anti-Semitic rant if you will, because Apocalypto, a look at the ancient Mayan civilization set in the action genre, is more than interesting enough to go see. It might rely a little too much on the blood and guts, excess gore crutch, but overall the story of a man straining to escape capture, slavery and separation from his family is a good one. Blood Diamond is the much-hyped Leo DiCaprio film about diamonds illegally mined in South Africa and the political and social atrocities surrounding them, and despite the promotional machine working overtime, the result is a good movie that, even though it is Hollywood slick through and through, may still raise debate on an issue that many people are still extremely ignorant of. The wild card among the three movies is Renaissance, which if your area is anything like mine, is only playing at more artsy, small theaters but could be the best of the trio. It’s set in Paris in 2054, where a researcher at the massive Avalon corporation is kidnapped and a police detective, voiced by Craig, tries to find her with little evidence to go on. The entire movie is in black and white animation, with nevertheless vivid imagery that helps along a good but not stellar storyline. It’s a departure from the norm, though, and worth your time if you were unfortunate enough to get sucked into Borat or Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj and are now looking to evict those images from your movie-going mind.

- The Iraq Study group releases its findings, says the U.S. should be withdrawing from Iraq by early 2008………so of course W isn't going to listen to them. His response to the suggestion was lukewarm at best, although he did re-state the need for a “new strategy.” Great, but if you keep rejecting every new idea that is presented to you, how is a new strategy going to take place? Maybe what you mean is “a new strategy that I totally agree with and one that makes me and what I’ve done in Iraq so far look good,” in which case keep waiting, because that strategy doesn’t exist. W said the group’s studies were “worthy of serious study” and of course, those kinds of glittering generalizations are what make our country’s political process so great, eh? Nothing here to dispel the fear that we’re in for two more years of parsing words and talking
around the issue, at which point a new president will be elected and that person will have the distinct displeasure of cleaning up this mess.

- Who among us hasn’t gotten stuck on a plane near an annoying, loud, overactive small child or baby? Few things ruin a flight faster than one of these tots crawling around, getting in people’s way, spilling things or necessitating trips to the bathroom with their parents at the most inconvenient times. A close relative of this problem is the uber-fat person who spills out from their seat into yours and makes for a most uncomfortable ride. Combine the two and you have, somewhat, the situation that forced itself upon passengers on board a Wednesday flight from Mexico to Chicago. A 42-year-old woman actually gave birth on the plane, and a doctor on board delivered the baby. What a pleasant way to spend a long flight, witnessing that scene and the disturbance it caused. Isn't it recommended that women that close to their due date don’t fly? Of all the travel nightmares to experience, other than a hijacking or crash, that is at the top of my list for things I never, ever want to see in person on a plane.

- Promises from college football coaches are becoming as worthless as campaign promises from politicians. The most recent example is new University of Alabama head coach (and former West Virginia head coach) Rich Rodriguez. Rodriguez, a WVU grad and professed lover of the state and university, apparently loves money more than either of those two things. He spent the early part of this week proclaiming his love for West Virginia, red-necked citizenry and all, then today bolted for a 6-year, $12 million contract to coach at UA. His former players at WVU were pissed, including offensive lineman Dan Moses, who theorized that maybe it was all about the money. Ya think, Danny? No matter how many times a coach promises you anything, especially that he plans to stay at a school forever, assume he is either a) lying, or b) really, really lying. Rodriguez should not have made promises he couldn’t or didn’t intend to keep. Mountaineer fans and players are angry, but they are also naïve if they truly believed Rodriguez would stay there his entire career. I fault him for saying those things, but I also have to fault the fans and players for buying in to them. Enjoy the crazy jack UA is paying you, Rich, and never, ever schedule a road game at West Virginia if you want to come out alive.

- A quick review of the Grammy Award nominations….idiotic. Ok, so that might be a bit too brief. The biggest problems: eight nominations for Mary J. Blige, for starters. Her music has been awful for as long as I can remember, so Frankenstein cross of soul and R&B and hip-hop, complete with boring videos filled with bad dancing. She is apparently attempting to be the black Celine Dion, which would be awful even if you were successful at it. Compounding that egregious error are multiple noms for Justin Timberlake (if he is nominated for album of the year, you can assume one of two things, either a) only four other albums were put out in a year and they needed a fifth to round out the group, or b) the drugs are smoking copious amounts of peyote. Either way, you’ve gotta be kidding me - the guy sound like the fourth Chipmunk on meth, and you think his was one of the year’s best albums? Add to that mess multiple noms for former American Idol Carrie Underwood, including New Artist of the Year. On sound principles alone, any and all former Idol contestants should never be eligible for a Grammy, VMA, etc. And the fourth (but far from last) big time mistake is that the Dixie Chunks, er, Chicks got nominations too. This has nothing to do with their anti-W comments, because I’m with them there. This is about lackluster, snooze inducing country-pop music that no self-respecting music fan should ever be caught dead with in their iPod. Did the voters for the awards look anywhere but the pages of people magazine and the music listings for songs used in popular teen dramas and sitcoms? Otherwise, there is no way to explain a New Artist category that includes nothing but mainstream artists such as James Blunt, Corrine Bailey Rae, Underwood, Chris Brown and Imogen Heap. Now all I need to do is find out when the Grammys will be held so I can be sure not to watch them……

- Stunning news from the baseball world……Barry Bonds has resigned with the Giants. Owner Peter McGowan went on a rant at the end of last season about the team relying too much on Bonds, about how he would not be the centerpiece of the squad next season, then he went out and signed Bonds to a one-year, $16 million contract. Yeah, because guys making more than anyone else on the team, guys chasing the most hallowed record in baseball, guys who cook up their own reality show and have their own plush leather recliner in the locker room next to their locker are never the centerpiece of a team. Not that Bar-roid was going to any other team, but the Giants will be worse off for having him next season and the sooner he breaks Hank Aaron’s record and retires, the better life will be for all baseball fans, teams and players. The only possible solution that could trump that would be a career ending knee or shoulder injury to Bonds this season before he breaks Aaron’s record of 755 home runs, because that type of injury is one happy ending we can all get with.

- As a regular watcher of all four ESPN networks (excluding ESPNU, because next to no one gets or pays attention to it), I’ve come to the conclusion that a three-pronged campaign needs to be waged to rid the airwaves of a trio of ESPN personalities who, for lack of a better term, suck. These three are shtick recycling, cliché spouting, loudmouth ignoramuses who are more tired and played out than anything else on TV. If you watch ESPN at all, you can definitely guess two of these guys: Chris Berman and Stuart Scott. The third, serial T.O.-and-Cowboys apologist and loose cannon Michael Irvin, would be as easily picked out if he’d been on the air as long as the other two. Berman, with his ridiculously stupid, forced nicknames for players, repetitive colliloquisms and a routine that hasn’t been updated or revised in 20 years, may love football and may be enthusiastic about it on air, but his act is older than dirt. Same goes for Scott, who has managed to invent an inane language of his own that goes above and beyond the hip-hop/urban slang into a stratosphere so lame and incomprehensible that most of the time, you just sit there and think, “Huh? What the h*ll did he just say? All I understood was the fifteen times he said ‘Boo-yah’ during that highlight.” Irvin is someone I’ve written on before. His background as a former player doesn’t make him a good commentator, and with his racially insensitive comments about the ethnicity of Tony Romo recently, Irvin continues to show that his only “ability” is to say dumb things and to say them very loudly. As previously stated, it’s my belief that a person’s IQ decreases by five points every time they listen to Irvin talk.

Mocking Gwen, laughing at the Barry Bonds spectacle

- Few things are sadder in the sports and entertainment worlds than when an aging, past their prime superstar tries to hang on when they should hang it up. A boxer like Evander Holyfield is a prime example, a man who has been bruised, battered, beaten and has suffered substantial brain damage from fighting, yet won't quit even though every fight he’s in, you fear he’s going to die in the ring. What I never thought I’d see, though, is an aging Barry Bonds having to fly to Major League Baseball’s winter meetings to campaign for a job with a team, any team. Bonds’ former team, the San Francisco Giants, has been lukewarm at best about resigning the steroid fueled slugger, and so far this off season, other teams have shown nothing beyond a tepid interest in him. So the Barry Road Show is in Florida at baseball’s annual meetings, seeking desperately to drum up some interest in signing him. It’s bizarre, sad, depressing sight to see him rolling through the hotel lobby, on the prowl for the execs of some unsuspecting team. I would say it’s akin to watching the Rolling Stones at an awards show, pleading with record execs to give them a new record deal. Bizarre, right? After all, they are among the most famous and most successful music acts of all time. Well, Barry is one of the most famous and successful baseball players ever, and now he’s openly pleading for a team to sign him, only no one wants to. The Stones and Barry do actually have a lot in common, too. Both are aging, past their prime, have relied heavily on drugs for their success and will end their careers in their respective Halls of Fame. Biggest difference right now is that the Stones are the only one of the two that will be going out with some dignity. If Keith Richards can stop falling out of coconut trees, that is…….

- Let me start by saying I love football. College especially, but pro and even high school football are among my favorite sports. I watch dozens of games every week during the season, often bending the rest of my schedule around the games. So when I say that the NFL’s new concept of Thursday Night Football sucks, you know I mean it. For the final five weeks of this NFL season, the league, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to slap one game a week on Thursday nights on its own NFL Network. Forget that nearly all cable providers aren't airing NFL-N due to a financial dispute with the network. It’s just dumb to string the games out to one more night when they’re already on Sunday all day and Monday night too. Quit diluting your product, NFL. Also, if your local team happens to be playing one of these Thursday night contests, as I have found out with this week’s game, whatever mainstream network has TV rights will also get to show the game, which means………yes, your favorite shows on that network are preempted! This week, that means FOX will not be showing my beloved The O.C. in its regular time slot, but will instead broadcast it at one freakin’ o’clock in the morning. Super….I not only get to have a terrible football game between two bottom feeding teams jammed down my throat, but the show I actually want to see will air at 1 a.m.? Awesome, way to go NFL.

- People love money, that much is obvious. The fact that they are willing to do things that are 1) humiliating, 2) degrading, 3) illegal, 4) unethical, 5) revolting, 6) most any other adjective you can think of is evidence enough. Clearly, that love of money that is the root of all evil doesn’t decrease or diminish the older you get. Take as Exhibit A 81-year-old Ruby Carter of Texas, who had a brilliant idea to get her hands on $2 million. No, she didn’t plan to play bingo or hit the lottery, ol’ Ruby had something much more sinister on her mind. She wrote a letter to NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr, formerly of the Green Bay Packers, and threatened to ruin his reputation by exposing a secret relationship between the two of them back in 1960. The only problem? No such relationship ever existed, and thus Starr refused to pay and turned the matter over to police. Ruby was arrested and will be charged in the case, and you really could see this one coming. What, you think that just because you say you are going to expose a fake relationship with a famous athlete, that means it actually happened or that the athlete will pay up? Why? If he doesn’t even know you, why would he pay? I know you can become senile as you get older, but what kind of ass hat doesn’t realize that when you write a letter with a return address on it, people can figure out who you are easily? Putting an octogenarian in jail might seem a little harsh, but I hope Ruby gets to spend a couple years behind bars just on the basis of sheer stupidity.

- I can't be the only one who laughed out loud and laughed for a prolonged period of time when I saw the first video off of and commercial for the new Gwen Stefani album, can I? After all, this is the same woman who once bristled at criticism that she didn’t truly know how to rock, claiming that her band, No Doubt, had once toured with U2. Yet here she is, after a hiatus, coming back at us with more glammed up, sparkly, glittery, slickly produced pop crap. Every one of her videos is like a giant celebration of excess, but not in the rock n’ roll, sex, drugs and rock type of excess. This is more along the lines of a female version of Elton John, outrageous, flashy costumes, lots of dancers, heavy reliance on synthesizers and not an ounce of rock to be found. Gwen has her market, namely teenage girls, but last time I checked, that demographic is all about pop, the Britney and Christina set of the population, not about rock. Gwen needs to make up her mind, because if she ever tries to make the claim to know how to rock with the music she keeps putting out, I’ll be laughing even harder and longer than I did initially.

Fighting obesity and heart disease in NYC, all while people b*tch about college football

- The fight against obesity is apparently going to get a real shot in the arm courtesy of New York City. The place famous for great pizza and bagels, Central Park, Times Square and having more rats than humans has now become the first city to ban all but the most miniscule usage of trans fats in cooking at any and all eateries in the city. Trans fats tend to raise bad cholesterol and have been directly linked to heart disease, so I would have to salute NYC for taking the stand, even if it might alter the good taste of some foods and make life more difficult for restaurants citywide. Violators of the new ban would face fines of at least $200, although I have to wonder exactly who is going to police this law and how. Thousands of overweight New Yorkers who love binging on greasy fries and burgers are going to be upset about this, but I salute Mayor Bloomberg for the effort, because in case you hadn't noticed, America is becoming obscenely fat and honestly, it’s disgusting and depressing to look at.

- Far too many people are b*tching about college football bowl games, right on schedule. This happens every year, sports commentators and media lament that there are far too many bowl games, they start too early, they have funny names, they feature teams people don’t know, blah, blah, blah……..shut your cake holes, whiners. Thirty plus bowls is a lot, and really, we could do with a number in the high twenties or so, but I for one am not going to spend time whining about it. I love college football, it’s one of my three favorite sports, and any chance I have to see more of it is a chance I will take. Furthermore, the complaint that unfamiliar schools that “no one cares about” play in many of them………those teams matter to their fans, as I can attest. Last year, my alma mater made it to its very first bowl game and I, along with tens of thousands of fellow fans, made the trip to the game and had a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It was great, a fantastic and exciting game and definitely worthwhile. So for those out there who have a problem with any of the bowl games, just don’t watch. Your mocking of them isn't funny or clever; it’s trite, tired and played.

- Sucks to be an Iranian citizen right about now. Aside from the oppressive heat, gobs of sand and desert and what not, the oppressive governmental regime isn't making life any more pleasant. The Iranian government has blocked access to YouTube within its borders, meaning if you live in Iran, you have to travel to a neighboring country if you wish to view the hilariously funny clip of William Shatner performing Rocket Man from a few years ago. The same treatment is being given to porn sites and sites of groups opposing the government, but I have to ask why YouTube is being lumped in there. Do you not want your citizens to be able to laugh and to see that there’s actually a world outside their borders? Oh wait, that’s exactly what the Iranian government wants. Just one more reminder why even though America is greatly flawed, it’s still better to be living here rather than in places like Iran.

- We all knew that Taco Bell food was 1) not actually Mexican food, 2) not at all good for you and 3) of questionable origin and composition, but add a fourth characteristic to that list: it can give you E. coli. Yes, now not only can you get indigestion, gas and heartburn from making a run for the border, you an also get food poisoning! Doesn’t that sound like something you’d be interested in? Eleven Taco Bell restaurants in the New York/New Jersey metro area all use the same food distributor and were the source of an outbreak that made at least three dozen people ill in recent days. Nine people remain hospitalized as a result, including an 11-year-old boy with kidney damage. Yet another reason to avoid Taco Bell, as if I needed one. Y’know, heating up ramen noodles on the stove might not seem like a glamorous dining option, but I can safely say that it won't send you to the hospital with kidney damage……….

- Not surprisingly, Disney sold more than five million copies of Pirates of the Caribbean Two: Dead Man’s Chest on its first day in stores Tuesday. Amongst all of the movies that have come out in the past year, Pirates was definitely one of the better ones. Something to consider for movies currently out in theaters, ones of dubious quality and lackluster cinematic value (see here Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj)…..what does it say about your movie when more people buy a DVD of a movie they’ve already seen than are willing to pay about half the amount to go see your movie in theaters? Because truthfully, at the end of one week for each in their respective theatrical venues, I’m willing to bet that Pirates will be much more popular on DVD than Rise of Taj will be in theaters. Of course, all that means is that we’ll see the latter on DVD in about two months as well.

Lax courthouse security, PS-3 related death and oh yeah, Fergie still sucks

- Remember that scene in The Recruit where Al Pacino’s character tells Colin Farrell’s character that the way security works at the CIA is that intense scrutiny is placed on everyone going in, but once you’re inside, no one pays much attention to you? How comforting is it to know that courthouses seem to run the same way? Need proof? How about a freshly convicted felon simply walking out of a courtroom once his conviction is read and vanishing into thin air? It happened in Ohio, where Ronald Nesby, Jr. heard the judge read his conviction aloud in the Summit County Common Pleas courtroom, then stood up, walked to the back of the room where he hugged his brother, then walked away. A search of the area failed to turn up Nesby, who is now being sought by police. Seems like a fair question to ask how someone, especially a man with a felony drug conviction hanging over him, could just walk out of a courtroom with no one stopping him. What exactly is the bailiff there for? Did no one yell stop or give chase right away? Shouldn’t people have been bursting out into the hallway, shouting for someone to stop Nesby before he got away? Don’t know about you, but I would feel very safe in that courthouse, knowing felons are free to come and go as they please with no hassle.

- Suddenly the losers who camped out several days for the right to buy the new Sony PS-3 don’t seem quite so bad. When you contrast them with the two college students in North Carolina who severely beat a fellow student and stole two PS-3’s, people who just camped out for one and took it home to play it don’t seem as bad. Amazingly, things didn’t turn out too well for Peyton Strickland, one of the two dudes who stole the game consoles. He was shot to death by police who were serving an arrest warrant on he and his fellow PS-3 thief. Strickland, a student at Cape Fear Community College, and a friend who was a student at UNC-Wilmington stole the consoles from another UNCW student the day they came out in stores. The reason for police shooting Strickland? Apparently he was holding a game controller in his hand when answering the door and police mistook it for some sort of weapon. Great……and this was a special police task force whose job it is to help the university cops serve arrest warrants. I’d hate to see what might happen if non-specialized forces were in on this sort of thing……..But once again, good things always happen when one person is willing to assault and rob his fellow man for a video game system. Well done, guys.

- David Letterman will have at least one year to try and reach the top of the late night ratings without having to step over nemesis Jay Leno to get there. Leno has already announced his plans to retire from The Tonight Show in 2009, with Conan O’Brien taking over the spot. Letterman just inked a new deal to stay on The Late Show through 2010, meaning he’ll be on the air a minimum of one year after Leno steps down. Rumors have the value of the deal at $30 million annually, which is just stunning. Where else besides pro sports can you get $30 million a year for being runner up year in, year out? Even A-Rod doesn’t rake in that much jack for failing to be the best. My prediction: Letterman isn't going to overtake O’Brien, just like he couldn’t overtake Leno. The hangover effect from Leno’s tenure will carry O’Brien for the first year at least, and Conan might actually do a good job in the role. But hey, Dave can take solace in knowing he has those kick-ass Top 10 lists going for him………..

- Nobody wants Barry Bonds. Seriously, no Major League teams seem to be eager to sign the aging, roided up, size 11 head sporting, broken down slugger. Maybe they’re following the logic I’ve been laying out for a while now, that the hassle of bringing in Bar-roid isn't worth it. The intense media scrutiny, major distraction and surly demeanor weighed against bad knees, terrible defense and a few long home runs just doesn’t make sense. The San Francisco Giants, Bonds’ old team, are in no hurry to resign him but maintain that even though they have thrown crazy money at free agent outfielders Carlos Lee and Alfonso Soriano and continue to pursue a trade for slugging outfielder Manny Ramirez of the Boston Red Sox, that these things in no way mean they don’t want Bonds back. Sure, because what better way to say you want a player back than to try to sign or trade for three star players who happen to play the same position? It’s not that I think it’s a bad decision not to bring him back, I just wish ‘Frisco would be honest about their plans. Then again, if they don’t get any of these other guys and are forced, er, decide to bring back Bonds, they can’t openly say they don’t want him. Tough place to be in, but hey, they do possibly get the thrill of seeing Bar-roid break the MLB career home run record, knowing no one wants him to break it and everyone believes that he will do so on the strength of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.

- Wanna live on the moon? You’ve got about 18 years to prepare yourself if you do, because NASA is planning for life on the moon, with astronauts to reside at a permanent base near the lunar pole of the moon by 2024. The scientific research station would house the astronauts, who would clearly only be there in an attempt to escape paying taxes on earth and having to witness the horrible spectacle that is the N’Sync: 20 years later reunion tour. Even if it was for a year, though, who would volunteer to live on the moon? Your life would have to be pretty sad and devoid of connections to friends and family if you’d volunteer to leave the planet to live on the moon. Count me out, although speaking of N’Sync, Lance Bass, former member of the man band, did try to become a cosmonaut a couple years ago, so maybe check with him. Actually, why not take all former man banders - 98 Degrees, N’Sync, Backstreet Boys, all of them - and have them all go live on the moon. Seems a fair punishment for the music they subjected us to. Don’t bother waiting for the moon station to be built either, send ‘em up there now, let them fend for themselves, I’m sure they’ll be fine.

- Back and forth, back and forth………watching President Bush and his stance on Iraq is like watching a game of old-school Pong, only with less intelligent participants involved. W now wants a new direction for the mess known as the Iraq war and is meeting with anyone and everyone who can wear a suit and walk upright in the hopes that someone will give him a good idea. How great is it that he’s not even smart enough to come up with any good ideas on his own, so now he’s meeting with groups and individuals, both inside and outside of the government, seeking recommendations. Actually, maybe we can take this a step further: have W go to his ranch in Crawford, stay there and doodle in his coloring books and allow everyone else to figure this thing out. Have him stay there until, oh, I’d say January 2008…………….

- A word of advice to all music and award show producers: if an act, any act, tells you they plan to perform with giant, eight-foot tall candy canes on stage, you’ll want to pull the plug on their act at that point. It took about two seconds of the very beginning of Fergie’s performance on Monday night’s Billboard Music Awards for me to decide that I was better off flipping back to the channel I was actually watching and suffer through a commercial where Wilford Brimley tries to sell life insurance to the elderly than I would be watching the skanky Fergie sing/lip sync one of her lyrically stunted, musically inadequate songs. Enjoy your time as the new Britney Spears, Fergie, because soon enough everyone will realize that you too are a talentless fraud whose only real ability is looking hot and wearing next to nothing on stage.

- In TV land….what a great “fall finale” for Heroes, which along with Veronica Mars has to be the co-MVP for this TV season thus far. While it’s still exceptionally lame to slap the fall finale tag on a show in an attempt to give it extra clout in the ratings, this week’s heroes ratcheted up the excitement another few notches. The writers and producers continue to do a great job of weaving together the lives of a dozen or so characters from literally all over the world and crossing their paths gradually in a way that keeps you interested while not seeming forced or contrived. The end of the episode dropped what appears to be a major bombshell about the impending explosion in New York, although we all know that these teasers often aren't what they seem to be once things are fleshed out in future episodes. Regardless, I look forward eagerly to January 22, when Heroes returns, along with Prison Break.

Lord of the Rings losers find their mission.....and legions of senators wanna be President

- Losers, dorks, virgins and recluses of the world, unite. Peter Jackson, the master of the hobbits, needs your help. The chubby, bearded, bespectacled director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, has been kicked off a project that will turn another J.R.R. Tolkien book, The Hobbit, into a movie. Jackson posted a letter on a fan site detailing the split with New Line Cinema, and undoubtedly all of the losers who dressed up like hobbits and camped out in line to see each of the Rings movies will rush to his defense, assuming they can do so without leaving the confines of their basement and exposing themselves to actual sunlight and civilization. One pathetic soul even lamented on a message board that Jackson’s dismissal from the project was “like a death in the family.” While I can't say everyone who watched the LOTR movies is a loser, what I can say is that if you liken a director leaving a project to a death in your family, you are pathetic and in serious need of perspective. It’s a movie, dorks, and whomever directs it, you’re going to go see it in your ridiculous costumes, without your girlfriend who doesn’t exist and you’re going to spend countless hours breaking down every scene with your equally pathetic friends on the message boards.

- Speaking of movies, the animated funfest Happy Feet remains on top in box office revenues, at least for this past weekend. Again, hats off to the animated penguins and their creators, as funny as it is to give props to a CGI penguin-themed flick, again I say it’s way, way better than the abysmal crap that’s hitting most multiplexes right now, movies like the above-mentioned Rise of Taj.

- Another cruise ship virus story, good times! This one comes to us from Miami, where more then 380 passengers aboard the world’s largest cruise ship, the Royal Caribbean Freedom, contracted Norovirus and were treated with over-the-counter medication. Ironic that this took place aboard a ship bearing the name Freedom, because it seems like if you go on a cruise ship these days, you are “free” to get seriously ill, “free” to have memories of vomiting, nausea and headaches that last for years and “free” to wish you had done something, anything else for vacation, even if that meant spending two weeks in prison. Soon, they’re going to hand out industrial sized cans of disinfectant, HAZMAT suits and protective gloves to every passenger as they board a cruise ship. So come sail the open seas, and bring your barf bags!

- What’s funnier than being a pretend racist? Personally, I love feigning racist sentiments, tossing out some hateful words, stereotypes and the like just to have some fun and to prove a point. I mean, who doesn’t get a kick out of doing that sort of thing? Washington, D.C. radio host Jerry Klein gets my point. He suggested on air that Muslims be required to get a special crescent shaped tattoo on their body on wear a special armband…..then, surprise of all surprises, he claimed he was kidding and did it to prove a point. Amazingly, many listeners believed he was serious (maybe because he was?) and actually agreed with him. Klein then reversed field and said he wasn’t serious, and that he was proving a point as to how millions of Germans went along with the extermination of six million Jews in the Holocaust. Klein is currently absent from the airwaves, but of course, he explains it’s due to back surgery, not because of the comments he made about Muslims. Perhaps Jerry should shift over to satellite radio with the likes of Howard Stern so he can make all the blatantly offensive remarks he wants with no repercussions.

- Don’t believe the rumors, people. I have not, I repeat not, declared myself as a candidate for the upcoming (if you consider something two years off upcoming) presidential election. I’m many years short of being old enough to run, sure, but it seems like everyone else with a pulse is declaring their intentions to run, so it’s natural I might get lumped in there. Senators Hank Clinton of New York, Barack Obama of Illinois and Even Bayh of Indiana are among those who plan to run. I feel like I need to issue a warning here, that while I realize that our current President is astonishingly incompetent and ineffective, that should in no way encourage every moron who knows how to sit at a desk and speak into a microphone should run for President. Too many people seem to be figuring, “Hey, if this buffoon can be President, than I certainly can. I mean, I actually know how to pronounce the names of foreign leaders, tie my own shoes and issue an order to pull our troops out of places they have no business being!” At the current pace, we’re going to have 75 candidates on both sides of the ballot in the primaries and so many senators will have declared their intentions to run that the Senate will have to shut down so they can all go out to campaign.

- Lastly, clean air will be occupying the air space of Ohio come Thursday. Well, aside from all of the industrial waste and pollution being created daily, I mean. But smoke from cigarettes, cigars, pipes, etc. will be drastically curtailed with new smoking regulations so into place. No smoking will be allowed in public places, and for the majority of Ohioans who don’t want to dramatically increase our chances of lung cancer by choking down those cancer sticks laced with nicotine, that’s good news. For the rest of you, keep your smokes at home so that only your furniture and clothes have to smell like smoke.

How the Billboard Awards might suck a little less, and Rummy was right

- No one pays much attention to office memos, because too often they deal with topics like cleaning the break room, how to submit purchase orders for office supplies and other inane matters. However, a memo submitted by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, i.e. Rummy in my book, might be one the Bush administration pays attention to. Or maybe W did read the memo and that’s why Rummy got the boot. The gist of the document was that Rumsfeld believed it was time for a “major adjustment” in the administration’s policy in Iraq. He added that he believed that what U.S. forces are doing in Iraq is not working well enough of fast enough. This is perfect; someone finally admits that Iraq is one big f’ing mess that we aren’t hnadling right and he’s ushered right out the door. Every day, it becomes clearer and clearer how incompetent our President and his administration are and how stubborn they are in admitting their egregious errors.

- Our nemesis to the south, Cuba, is having some political wranglings of their own. Good ol’ Fidel Castro, tyrant, dictator, fascist and he of ailing health, failed to appear at a military parade held in his honor over the weekend. His brother Raul gave a speech at the event and is the designated successor for his big bro. Umm, replacing a guy who is turning 80 with his brother who is only a few years younger……..might want a better plan than that, Cuba. Because let’s face it, until we get a non-Castro, non-Communist in office there, we won't be able to get fine Cuban cigars here legally and Kramer will still have to hire Dominicans to pose as Cubans to roll crepes on old Seinfeld reruns.
- The Billboard Music Awards won't be quite as bad or pointless this year thanks to a decision by ditz/skank/socialite/bimbo Paris Hilton to not appear on the show. She didn’t like the lines written for her to say, fearing that the jokes might be offensive (and probably over the heads of) her friends. Because as we all know, no one ever makes fun of their peers at awards shows for a cheap laugh. Regardless, Hilt-skank won't be there, so a show featuring a lot of bad music, mediocre artists with minimal talent and an auditorium full of people thinking they’re cooler than everyone else in the room won't suck quite as bad. There’ll be one less media whore mugging for the cameras, but Hilt-skank or not, the BMA’s just aren't worth anyone’s viewing time.

- So in a surprising development, Michigan will not get a rematch against archrival Ohio State in college football’s national championship game. After voters in the two BCS polls, the USA Today/ESPN and Harris Polls, moved Florida above Michigan and some computer polls did the same, the Gators got the nod to face the Buckeyes on January 8 in Glendale for the title. As much pissing and moaning as you hear about this, especially from Bitch-igan, er, Michigan, it’s a huge relief for most college football fans. The BCS is a jacked up system that needs replaced by a playoff, but at least this year we don’t have to see an unwanted rematch that would solve virtually nothing and could have left us with a national champion, Michigan, who was actually 1-1 against the team they supposedly beat to win the title. Thanks for nothing, BCS, you still suck.

- I’m too young to remember when the National Lampoon series of movies was actually thought of as funny and worthwhile, but I’m old enough to realize what a joke the franchise has now become. Lots of bad movies get made because studios assume, correctly in some cases, that people will go see them simply because of a star who’s in the movie or because, as is the case with National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, that the picture is the latest in a series of movies that people have liked in the past. They’re made because they’ll make a decent amount of money, at least until a few audiences see them and word spreads about how truly awful they are. The Rise of Taj mirrors a bad trend, though, of recycling the same bathroom humor, anatomical jokes and predictable, clichéd storylines that have become fodder for whatever National Lampoon movie someone wants to crank out in recent years. Now, there’s not even a false pretense that the movie is actually going to be in some way new, unique or fresh; they (director Mort Nathan in this case) insult the public’s intelligence by shoveling out a piece of cinematic manure that has no potential for being decent. Hopefully this movie does well on DVD, because it’s going to bomb out so badly in theaters after about two weeks that on video is the last shot it has at making any money at all.

- Collegiate soccer’s national championships for both men and women were played over the weekend………which I am guessing you had no idea about. Soccer is, and will continue to be, the metric system sport of our fine nation. By that, I mean that like the metric system, which supposedly has been coming to the U.S. for years and is going to be the system we all use from here on out, just mysteriously continues to not catch on. Our parents and their parents were told to learn it because it was coming to America, but it never does. Soccer is “the next big sport” for the U.S., because as we all know, millions of kids play it, the world in general loves the sport and events like the U.S. women winning the World Cup back in 2000 was supposed to put soccer on the map. Amazingly, no one cares. Major League Soccer, which ripped off two-thirds of its name from America’s real national past time, baseball, flounders with meager attendance, no media attention and total indifference by 99.99% of the American public. So the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos, champions on the men’s side, and North Carolina, the women’s champs, should enjoy their titles, albeit with the knowledge that really, nobody gives a crap besides their friends and families.

Choke jobs, apologies and Al Sharpton too!

- What a colossal choke job by the USC football team against archrival UCLA. Southern Cal needed only a win, be it by one point or fifty, to ensure a berth in the national title game on January 9 against Ohio State, but the Trojans choked big time, falling by a 13-9 margin and going down in flames in their biggest game of the season. In the process, they have doomed us to a dreaded rematch of OSU-Michigan in the title game, a no-win situation for college football fans. How you can only put up nine points against a defense more porous than the U.S.-Mexican border in rural New Mexico is astonishing. Guess it goes to show that even though they were able to string together a 10-1 record coming into this weekend, the Trojans were every bit the flawed ball club that lost to Oregon State in Corvallis a few weeks ago. Thanks for nothing, USC, a flameout in last year’s title game and gagging big time before you could even make it to this year’s title tilt.

- This is a bit premature, but I’m going to go ahead and say after five episodes that The O.C. is actually better without Mischa Barton and her Marissa character. Not a knock on her, but the show has gotten better by going in a new direction, one it wouldn’t have taken if she’d still been a member of the cast. Truthfully, the character was getting a bit tired and played out, which, if you read quotes from the show’s execs, was a large part of why they killed Marissa off. Willa Holland, who plays Marissa’s sister Caitlin, has aptly filled that general role of troublemaker/party girl on the show and isn't nearly as annoying and predictable (not yet anyhow) as the Marissa character had become. Not as much humor on the show yet this year, although coming off the “death” of a main character in last season’s finale, you had to figure that the first few episodes were going to be more serious. But overall, very good stuff so far, let’s keep it going.

- Michael Irvin is an idiot. I knew that, you knew that, we all knew that. I’ve said it too many times to count, and I’ll keep saying it as long as that idiot, Michael Irvin, being the idiot that he is, keeps acting like an idiot on TV. This time, the idiot made insensitive remarks about the heritage of rising quarterback Tony Romo of the Dallas Cowboys. The remarks weren't enough, at least in the eyes of ESPN, to warrant firing or suspending Irvin, but they weren't right. I find a lot of things Irvin says offensive, as in offensive to my intelligence and actual working knowledge of the English language and the proper way to use it, but racially based comments like the ones about Romo are dumb even by Mike Irvin standards. But I sincerely hope that he doesn’t stop here, because as I said, these comments aren't going to get him fired. So Mike, you need to dig down deep (get some help if you need it) and come up with some really insensitive, wildly inappropriate comments and blurt them out on air. Offend multiple ethnic and racial groups if need be. Do whatever you need to do, just make sure it’s enough to get you canned so I don’t have to listen to your biased, idiotic, self-serving blathering that comes tumbling out of my TV speakers every time you’re on the air.

- The Michael Richards Apology Tour 2006 continues. After appearances on Letterman, Jesse Jackson’s radio show and an apology to Rev. Al Sharpton (is Al really the person most in need of your apology?), Richards will now apologize personally to the four men he insulted with racial slurs in his comedy club tirade. Even by “I made a terribly offensive racial comment” standards, this apology tour de force is above and beyond the call of duty, which is a good thing. As I said before, I am going to give Richards the benefit of the doubt this time unless and until it is shown that he either has already done, or again in the future does, something along the same lines as what he did here. So this apology conference, which will have a mediator, will hopefully be the last we hear of it.

- Famous musicians aren't the only ones hauling large quantities of illegal drugs. No, bingo-lovin’ grannies are doing it too. Take Arizona senior citizen Leticia Villereal Garcia’s bust by police for carrying 10 bundles of pot in her car, a total of 214 pounds of the hippie lettuce, as an example. She explained to jurors at her trial that she survives on a $275 welfare check each month, along with any money she is able to earn playing bingo. Forgive me if I don’t see the logic in playing bingo, i.e. gambling, if you have such a limited income. However you slice it, though, trafficking massive amounts of the chronic is not the way to supplement your income, Leticia. If they’ll bust Snoop and Willie, then they’ll bust anyone.

- Erie, Pa., where attempted censorship is alive and well. A local bishop is vehemently opposing local Cathedral Prep’s production of the musical Urinetown, because he considers it offensive. The school is forging on, albeit restraining from using the actual name of the musical in promoting it or printing it on tickets for the show. However, since the word “Urinetown” appears scores of times in the lyrics of the musical, people are likely to figure out what play it is quickly. To Anonymous Bishop in Erie, Pa., I give a hearty “Stick in the Mud” salute and encourage him to join the rest of us in the real world, where urine is not a sufficiently offensive term to warrant protesting a musical by a group of high school kids.

Tokin' it up with Snoop and Willie

- Americans can take comfort in knowing that ours is not the only overly sensitive, ridiculously politically correct nation around. Austria is right there with us, with lawmakers in Vienna banning Santa Claus from visiting kindergarten students. Those officials claim that the sight of a large, bearded man at their classroom door frightens the children, but opponents of the measure claim it’s because of lobbying by the city’s growing Muslim population. I’d object if I were having some random guy dressed in a Santa costume at my kid’s school, but for a different reason. I’d venture to say that a large percentage of those playing Santa at malls, schools, etc., in America are freaks or pedophiles of some sort, because otherwise why would one voluntarily subject themselves to hours of kids sitting on their lap, pulling on their fake beard and throwing temper tantrums? So I take it back, Vienna isn't being too politically correct, they are in fact doing their children a favor.

- It’s almost too easy: authorities bust Snoop Dogg or Willie Nelson on drug/weapons charges. Not long ago, Willie’s tour bus was pulled over and bricks of marijuana were found onboard, along with some ‘shrooms. Now Snoop is picked up by police after appearing on the Tonight Show and charged with being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, possessing cocaine, transporting marijuana and having a false compartment in his vehicle. Look, I know in football it’s said that officials could call a holding penalty on every play if they really wanted to. Well, law enforcement could bust Snoop and Willie on drug charges every day if they wanted to, safe to say both of them partake in a few illegal substances on a daily basis. So it just seems kinda arbitrary to bust them on some random day when you’re sure they’re guilty every day. What the frak, just let ‘em go, Willie toked up on a tour bus he’s not driving or Snoop getting’ high with his crew seem like less of an issue than a lot of other crimes that go unpunished in this country.

- It’s a shame when a great musical group loses a member and tries to slog onward with a reshuffled lineup that’s never quite as good as the original. So it is with a heavy heart I inform you that The Wiggles, the famed children’s group from Australia, has lost its lead singer, the yellow-shirt-clad Greg Page. A chronic health condition causing dizziness, fatigue and nausea is forcing Page to call it quits. Ironically, dizziness, fatigue and nausea are also feelings induced by anyone over the age of four when they have to listen to any music by The Wiggles. Don’t fear, though, understudy Sam Moran is going to step in for Page and The Wiggles will be just as annoying as ever. Oh, and did I mention these guys are the third wealthiest entertainers in all of Australia last year? People need to start getting their kids hooked on rock n’ roll at a lot earlier age so we can eliminate the need/demand for groups like The Wiggles……

- NBA players don’t like the new basketball the league is forcing them to use this season, nor do they like the league’s crackdown on players complaining to officials about foul calls. That much we knew; players have been b*tching about the ball and the plethora of technical fouls assessed for arguing and have been doing so for months. Now, they’ve filed grievances against the NBA on both counts. Controversy creates cash, I know, I know…….but I think the league might want to reverse field when it comes to the basketball they use. Let the players use the ball they have used for years and are most comfortable with. That much I agree with the players on………but the players need to shut their holes about the technical fouls. Just because you all got used to being able to react like whiny, petulant five year olds every time you didn’t like a foul called on you doesn’t mean you should get to keep doing so. Shut up, stop the histrionics and just play ball, fellas. I know it’s a novel concept, but give it a shot.

- NBC is catching grief from the Bush administration for referring to the Iraq debacle as a civil war. Awesome, W, way to go, ass hat, quivel over semantics and do nothing to address the fact that a multi-billon dollar costing, thousands of casualty causing, no end in sight conflict that we should never have been involved in to begin with rages on. Like it matters how NBC refers to the conflict. What they should be referring to, W, is your absolute incompetence as a leader in this conflict, your lack of planning, foresight, intelligence and capability in planning, initiating and bringing a conclusion to the situation in Iraq. So just keep your mouth shut, because honestly, the term civil war makes it sound like this whole thing is Iraq’s problem and it might actually let you off the hook a bit, not that you deserve it. But don’t worry about peripheral issues like terminology in referring to the war, worry about finding a way to end our involvement in it, k?