High Tech Nagging

I am a parent of three children and I am convinced that parenting is far more difficult today than it was when I was a kid. I say this not for the reasons that you might suspect - greater pressure from our children's peers and the media pulling at them to do anything from drugs to piercing every available space on their body; the increased dangers that lie in wait for our kids - internet sex offenders, drug pushers, Paris Hilton. No, what makes my job as a parent more difficult is that there are now more ways available for my mother to say, "I told you so!"

My mother loves being right. I would say that she probably loves it more than sex, but who wants to think of their mom that way?! LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA! Find a happy place, find a happy place!......Okay, all better. Anyway, my mom lives to prove that she knows all when it comes to parenting and marriage, and she feels it is her duty to pass her wisdom down to her young apprentice - me. Put this together with a slight knowledge of the internet and you have a dangerous combination. For example, if I happen to mention to my mother that my oldest child is struggling with math in school, I can expect to receive no less than 3 e-mails with links to web-sites that expound on the benefits of piano lessons to improve math performance, the evils of too much T.V. in my young student's life, and the latest "brain food" diets that I should be feeding my family. This will be followed up by either an e-mail or a voice-mail message by my mom to see if I received, and am following the mom-recommended regimen that will put my daughter on the road to Harvard or MIT.

Of course, I take some responsibility for my mom's nagging. I enable her by, well, talking to her. Furthermore, I'm not totally convinced that nagging is a bad thing. My theory is that nagging has probably advanced our society far more than we realize. The early settlers of America might very well have stayed in Europe if they weren't nagged by their government to follow the proper religion. The pioneers of the American Frontier were probably compelled to "Go West Young Man" in order to escape being told what to do by their nagging parents and inlaws, "You call that a corn field Ephraim? Why I've seen taller ears on my mule than what you've got growing there...." Maybe they figured that taking their chances with rough terrain, wild animals, and hostile natives was a much better deal than listening to, "I toldeth thou so" from their Puritan parents. They say that, "behind every great man is a great woman" and I'm willing to bet that that woman is a great nag.

I am not with out my high-tech counter-attack against my mom's nagging though. I thank the good Lord for caller I.D., or I would have no defense against the incoming barrage of calls from my life coach. I have the added bonus of having talking caller I.D. so that the incoming call is announced, in a robotic monotone, throughout the house. Now if they can only tweak it a little more so that it also announces your caller's intentions: "Incoming call from your mother. She's hot under the collar about the dishes piling up in your sink." God forbid I ever get a video phone or my mother, upon calling me at 10:00 in the morning, would see that I'm still in my pajamas, and then proceed to give me advise on how to manage my time more wisely. I'm sure she would think that blogging is not a productive use of my time......or she might see it as an effective way to extol her advise to the masses and thus get her own blog. If that happens, God help us all.

DOH! - A DEER!

It was while I was driving along the highway and noticing yet another deer carcass on the side of the road that I decided that it would suck to be a deer.

There have been times during great stress in dealing with my everyday life that I have wished to be someone or something else. A bird would be appealing due to the whole "flying factor" - just pick up and fly some place warm when the mood strikes you and poop on those pedestrians who tick you off along the way. If I'm a bird, I'm flying my butt down to Disney World, getting in free, and bombadeering the jerks who rent a wheelchair and fake disability in order to get in the front of the line. A bear would be a good choice - get to gain weight and sleep all winter without anyone saying "boo" about it and if they do, you just eat them - yeah, I could be a bear.

However, a deer's life is not one I envy. They are the Rodney Dangerfields of the animal kingdom - they get no respect. Deer are surrounded by the threat of imminent death. I imagine that if a deer possessed human qualities, we would see a bunch of paranoid, chain-smoking cynical deer who are in therapy twice a week....Maybe Dennis Leary is a deer in disguise. And a disguise is really what a deer needs to escape the bullets that wiz by their heads every hunting season. Of course, the deer population is so large that if they are not hunted by either man or beast, they would starve to death for lack of food. Then of course our furry friend can meet its fate by automobile - can't even run away from its miserable existence in the forest without the fear of ending up as a hood ornament on a Chevy Impala - which is just cruel irony if you ask me. To add insult to injury - a dead deer isn't even removed from the scene of its demise on the highway. It is simply pushed to the side of the road and spray painted orange so that it can be avoided by on-coming traffic. So if you are that deceased deer, not only are you now sprawled out for all of rush-hour traffic to see, but your butt has been tagged with orange graffiti - not a flattering color I might add.

You know, when you add all the factors of a deer's life up - guns, over-population, starvation, predators, getting killed by a drive-by, graffiti - you have....the ghetto. Maybe deer could expound upon their harsh life in the wood-ghetto though the music of rap. Deer - the rap artists of the animal kingdom. You could have Snoop Bucky-Buck, Lil' Fawn, Dr. Doe, and Bambi Elliot. They could rap about Chronic (Wasting Disease) and drive pimped-out John Deer tractors. "So I'm on a mission. Ya betta jus' listen. Time to give props to the deer that we're dissin' - Peace Out!"

I Dream - Therefore I Am

Do nudists have recurring dreams of being dressed in a public place?
Do gorgeous movie stars dream of kissing an ordinary un-famous face?
Does the dream of falling from a height leave stuntmen without a care?
Do birds dream (if they dream) of walking everywhere?
If dreams are our subconscious fears as Freud was known to say,
Then did Sigmund have recurring dreams that dreams all went away?
Some very deep and profound thoughts fill my philosophical cup,
But they must now all cease for the alarm is ringing......and now I must wake up.

Cheap Cable Reality Stars

I am married to a frugal man. He prefers the term "a good steward of money", but that's like calling a virgin "a good steward of sex" - neither one's going to be giving it up any time soon. I call it like I see it - my husband's cheap (which, ironically, you can't say about a virgin). So naturally, being married to a penny-pincher, there are certain things in our married life that reflect his extra tight grip on the wallet. One of them is our cable service.

We have "basic cable" - not even "standard cable" - basic. No HBO or Cinemax for us. I've made the discovery that we don't have Discovery, it's no laughing matter that we can't get Comedy Central - I can't even get my MTV. I am lucky if I can get to watch Scott Baio in any number of reruns of Happy Days, Joannie Loves Chachi, Diagnosis Murder or my personal favorite - Charles in Charge. TV THEME SONG BREAK!......"A new boy in the neighborhood, lives downstairs and it's understood. He's there just to take good care of me, like he's one of the family....CHARLES IN CHARGE of our days and our nights, CHARLES IN CHARGE of our wrongs and our rights. And I see, I want CHARLES IN CHARGE OF ME!"

Ahhhh, that was fun.... now where were we? Oh yes, cheap cable. We have the TV version of AM radio. To be perfectly honest with you, it really doesn't bother me. I figure, the more channels we have, the more crap we have to choose from. As such, in having cheap, cheap cable, I am obviously out of the loop in regards to the latest trend towards reality shows. The newlyweds, Nick and Jessica, have not crossed the threshold of our home. Queer Eye has not had an influence on my fashion-challenged husband - although, every time I catch him wearing his shorts with tube socks and stark white sneakers, I threaten to call the Fab Five for an emergency make-over. However, they say that necessity is the mother of invention (or the root of all evil.... something like that), so I have found my own Cheap Cable Reality Stars.

My first reality star I discovered while flipping through my oh-so-few channels can be seen on that widely-viewed network - EWTN. That's right - Catholic TV. There you will find the cutest little nun since Sally Field flew across our TV screens. Mother Angelica is a sweet little old lady whose face reminds me of one of those baked-apple dolls you see in gift shops. Now I must admit that my Catholic up-bringing might be shedding a bias on my opinion, but as she sits in her wooden chair giving her viewers spiritual counsel with a little bit of spunk in her voice, I am completely mesmerized. Mother Angelica has been plagued by recurring minor strokes and so during some of her telecasts, she wears an eye patch and becomes.......Pirate Nun - Arrrrrrr!
Okay, I am so completely going to Hell for that statement. I'm going to go say 3 "Hail Mary's" and 2 "Our Father's".

My next cheap cable reality star likes to hang out with the stars - literally. Jack Horkheimer is better known as the Star Gazer and can be seen on PBS during a night of insomnia or nursing an infant (which is how I discovered him). Actually, he used to be known as the Star Hustler and dressed the part - gold chains and all - until political correctness took over. Now he just wears polyester sweat suits ala Tony Soprano. There are so many things I like about this guy - the first being his name. Jack Horkheimer - sounds like something that you would order at the deli. "I'll have a pound of Jack Horkheimer - shaved, not sliced." Next, is his obvious love for the science of Astronomy. This guy is way too excited about telling the audience where they can find Uranus in the night sky. My guess is that it would be most visible during a full moon, but I'm no expert (hee, hee!) Mr. Horkheimer delivers his nightly star-gazing reports with a wild-eyed smile and a raspy voice reminiscent of Harvey Feinstein as he leaps from planet to planet on his green screen set. He even has a signature sign-off, "Keep looking up!" which I think beat out Jack's first choice of, "Horkheimer Out!"

Ooohh! Gotta go - informercial guru Don Lapre is on TV telling me how I can get rich enough to upgrade my cable service.

The Enemy Within

I am the mother of 3 small children - ages 7, 2, and 9 months. They are adorable to look at - my husband always says that the world would be a more beautiful place if we kept having children. He says that because he's a man, and therefore - having not gone through the child birth experience - doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. And, with his low threshold for pain, the world would be a less populated place if he were to birth our offspring. Besides, even if his theory were true, the world might be a more beautiful place with one hip-widening, belly flabbiness exception - me! After three children, my once athletic body is headed for early retirement. Jenny Craig has her work cut out for her.

It was while I was looking in the mirror one day and contemplating the miracles of liposuction, that I came up with my very own conspiracy theory - What if children are a secret terrorist plot to destoy society? Now I know this is not a politically correct statement to make - after all, we are talking about children - cute, adorable, fun-loving children. But that's what makes it so perfect - nobody would ever suspect them! I started imagining what the planning meetings for this devious plot would sound like. I also imagined that the terrorists would have cheesy French accents - I don't know why:

Okay, first we will weaken ze bodies of ze unsuspecting pregnant females by giving zem swollen ankles, hemeroids, and ze wimpy bladders zat will keep zem in ze toilet every ten minutes or peeing a little on zemselves when ze laugh - (insert evil laugh here - HA, HA, HA, HA!)

Next, we will deprive zem of ze sleep by instructing our infant agents (via a secret code transmitted through ze baby monitor) to wake up every 2 hours with ze loud crying. If ze parents start to zuspect anyzing, ze babies will diztract zem with ze spit-up and ze poo-poo. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE! (insert evil laugh here - HA,HA, HA, HA!)

Next, I imagined the instructions given to the tiny toddler terrorists:

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to wreak havoc in ze lives of your parents. Your voice will always be loud. Your main weapon will be dirt - spread it everywhere ezpecially on ze walls and ze newly shampooed carpets. Rezist naps - zis iz zer only way to control you. If ze try to restrain you, you can use one of ze two methods of defense - ze wet noodle if zey try to pick you up, and ze ironing board if ze try to make you sit in ze car seat. Cuteness will be your cover. Your code name is Schnooky Poo.

Of course, we parents are not without our own ways to counter-attack our pint-size terrorist plotters. We can deploy the verbal machine gun whenever our toddler terrorist is about to touch something or someone they shouldn't - "No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no!"
There's solitary confinement - "TIME OUT! Go To Your Room!"
And the old tried and true method of appealing to their weakness - Sugar. "If you're good in the store, Mommy will buy you a lollipop the size of your head!"

Now, I must go. I just found my should-be-napping 2-year-old in her crib with all her clothes off - "Look Mommy - I nakey!".......I think I've been infiltrated.

It's A Small Parking Lot After All - Our Search For Our Car At Disney World

The following story is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the incredibly stupid....

My family and I are huge Disney fans - we have a nice collection of Disney DVD's started, our rec-room is a shrine to all things Disney (Mickey Mouse phone, a Disney princess playroom, etc.), our two-year-old daughter is convinced she's Tinkerbell (she was conceived with some happy thoughts and pixie dust, so who knows!) and if the Disney company ever reveals that Walt is indeed frozen, we'd probably try to bid for him on e-bay. He'd look nice next to the big screen T.V. So now that I have hopefully painted a successful scary picture of our obsession, you will probably conclude that the Mecca for Disney nuts like us is - of course - Walt Disney World.

It was with great excitement that we set out for Florida in our pimped-out Disney mini van (um, "pimped" is not an officially licensed word that the Disney company uses to describe things - so don't tell them). Have you seen a tan mini van with a Mickey Mouse antennae ornament, a Disney trimmed license plate frame that reads, "Been there, done that, going back", and soap-written words on the windows that read, "Disney World or Bust"? Yeah, that's us - we know we're idiots, just keep driving.

Once in the "most magical place on Earth", we pulled out all the stops. We went to character breakfasts to get Chip and Dale's autographs (which in Disney World, are not hunky men wearing nothing but a bow tie and a g-string). We spent way too much money in the gift shops buying stupid hats. Side note - only in Disney World can a person be taken seriously by others while wearing a Goofy hat with floppy ears. We ate all the best foods - Dole Whips, Chocolate Covered Mickey Ear Ice Cream Bars, and Ghiradelli Hot Fudge Sundaes which, if I want to keep this a family-friendly post, I won't say what they were better than. Let's just say that if I had eaten a Ghiradelli's Hot Fudge Sundae before I met my husband, I would be an overweight single woman with no kids.

It was on our first visit to the Magic Kingdom where we made our fatal mistake. So happy and excited were we to actually be at the House of Mouse, that we hastily parked our car, collected all our supplies for the day (stroller, video camera, stupid hats, etc), and took the monorail over the moat that separates the parking lot from the Magic Kingdom.....without making a mental note of where we had actually parked the car. We quickly came to realize our mistake at 10:00 at night after an exhausting day of fun when we got off the monorail, scanned the vast expanse that is the Magic Kingdom parking lot, and realized we were going to play a game that wasn't anywhere in our Disney Travel guides, but was a major motion picture - Dude, Where the Hell is our Car?

The Magic Kingdom parking lot is so huge that there are tram-cars that transport Disney visitors to the furthest realms and outer regions of the asphalt expanse for those unfortunate enough to be parked there. We at least knew, thankfully, that we were not in that category. We had been one of the first families to arrive, so our car was somewhere up near the front of the lot. That still did not make our job any easier. Our effort in futility began with an incredulous statement from my husband, "Let's just look for a tan mini van near the front."

"Um, honey - that describes every other mini van in this parking lot", I say trying to stay positive.

"Yes, but ours has the Mickey Mouse antennae ornament on it."

"Have you forgotten where we are vacationing!?" I say looking at an array of bobbing Mickey Mouse antennaes starring back at me.

"Well, I remember that we were parked facing grass...."my husband says with a thoughtful stare like he's Columbo trying to figure out "who dunnit".

At this point, I was thinking to myself that I hope my husband is never called to be an eye-witness for a criminal case because his testimony might begin with, "Well, I remember he had a face..."

" I think we are parked in one of the sections named after a Dwarf..."says my hopeful husband.

"You do know that there are seven Dwarfs, right?" (and I'm thinking that we are probably parked in the "Dopey" section)

"Ahh Crap."

Well, after a bit of aimless wandering and a little Divine Intervention, we found our mini van (parked facing grass) in the Minnie Mouse section ( she was the elusive eighth dwarf in Snow White, but got left on the cutting room floor). Next time, we're taking a plane. Hopefully we'll remember what terminal we board at or we'll have a lot of convincing to do when we try telling our kids that Disney World has been moved to Cleveland.

It's The End of the World As We Know It....

There's been a lot of interest lately with the "End of Days". Arnold did a movie about it, the "Left Behind" series of books are best-sellers, and now NBC has a hit on their hands with "Revelations". People want to know how the last chapter of human history ends. Well, I think I got it all figured out. Forget the psychics and political analysts - watch the animals.

You know how they say that animals have a sixth sense when it comes to danger - dogs run away just before an earthquake, horses jump fences to escape an impending tornado, and when the recent Tsunami hit, not a single animal was found among the carnage. So as I'm watching the latest news reports, I'm starting to see a disturbing trend that no reporter has picked up on yet - the animals are going crazy. Whales are beaching themselves, Elephants are stomping through store-fronts, Buffalo are roaming onto tennis courts, and right now on my local news, a wayward bear has found himself up in a tree...and I don't live anywhere near bear country. Where are these animals trying to escape to? I'm telling you people, these pachederm prophets and whale wise-men know something we don't and they're trying to get the hell out of Dodge.

This leads me to an interesting side note. The proponents of evolution and natural selection obviously don't believe their own theory because if they did, they wouldn't be trying so hard to capture and suppress these animal escapees. If humans are the result of "survival of the fittest" then why don't we just let these wild beasts alone and see what happens? We don't because we've all seen "Gladiator" and know the end result. The world would be ruled by tigers....and Russell Crowe - scary thought.

So the next time you watch the news, don't be surprised to see footage of an escaped Gorilla carrying a sandwich board that reads, "Repent Sinners, The End is Near."

"Oy" To The World

I love Christmas. It's my favorite holiday - hands down - and in my family, we go all out. We hike out to the tree farm to cut our own evergreen, live on a steady diet of hot cocoa and candy canes, view "It's a Wonderful Life" at least 20 times ("Zu-Zu's petals...there they are!"...."Teacher says, 'everytime a bell rings, an angel gets its wings'."), and start playing Christmas Carols the day after Thanksgiving. It's this last point that got me to thinking.

As I was listening to my favorite Yule-tide tunes this past Christmas as sung by Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond, I was suddenly aware that something was wrong with this picture.....Hmmmm, what could it be? Oh, I know.... Neil and Barbra are JEWISH! Now, I love my Jewish brothers and sisters - have Bab's greatest hits and I've seen Neil in concert ("Sweet Caroline...Ba, Ba, Ba!") - but I must ask, "Why are they singing traditional Christian holiday songs?" I mean, when they are singing, "Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Savior's birth..." umm, no - according to your traditional Jewish teachings, your Savior hasn't arrived yet - His flight's been delayed. Now I know they have the right to sing whatever song they want. I'm just saying it's as believable as Elton John singing a love song to "Nikita".

Then I got to wondering why this phenomenon doesn't go both ways - I think some traditional Chanukah songs as sung by popular non-Jewish artists deserve some equal air-time on the radio. How about "The Dreidle Song" as sung by the Chairman of the Board - Frank Sinatra? "Dreidle, Dreidle, Dreidle...Doo-Bee, Doo-Bee, Doo!" Or "Hava Nagela" as sung by Elvis Presley?
"Ha, Ha, Ha, Hava Nagela!....Thank you, thank you very much."

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Sit-Down Comedian has left the building

My Secret Pet Peeve

I consider myself a pretty easy-going person. Oh sure, I have occasional bouts of road-rage and homicidal thoughts, but for the most part, nothing really gets to me. (okay - that was a joke, so don't go getting your undies in a bundle - which reminds me of another pet peeve involving thong underwear - but I digress) My beef is with our society's obsession and over-use of acronyms and abbreviations. Have we become so lazy as a nation that we can't even take the time to fully pronounce words?

The biggest culprit of this is fast-food restaurants. It's like, "Hey, look at us! We're so efficient at swiftly handing out crappy food that it even reflects in our name! Who has time to say Burger King? That's so slow! We're BK! We'll serve you ASAP and we're open 24/7, 365 - even on X-MAS!"

Sometimes advertisers use acronyms to disguise the politically incorrect message of their product. Case-in-point - KFC. Now we all know full well that that stands for "Kentucky Fried Chicken" That's right - FRIED. Made with the colonel's secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices, dipped in a big ol' vat of grease that would make your arteries clog just looking at it -FRIED! But if consumers were reminded of that, they may not buy the product so instead, KFC comes up with one of the dumbest advertising campaigns ever - "We'll pretend it stands for 'Kitchen-Fresh Chicken'!" This commercial, I must admit, almost fooled me. I was listening to the TV when I heard the people on the ad raving, "Hey, someone brought Kitchen Fresh Chicken into the office!" I was thinking to myself, "Kitchen Fresh Chicken? Where can I find one of those....HEY!" Come on people - changing the name of the restaurant isn't going to magically change the heart-stopping qualities of your chicken. I imagine some good ol' boys from Kentucky with a very convincing gun-rack thought the same thing because these ads were quickly pulled.

I say, if you're going to sell a product that sets you up for a triple by-pass surgery, then own it.
Say it loud and say it proud - WE ARE KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN! AND WE SERVE MASH POTATOES AND GRAVY TOO! Give the public a choice in whether or not they want to risk their health for a few fantastically yummy moments of fried chicken heaven, but don't treat us like idiots. Personally, what keeps me away from Kentucky Fried Chicken is an image that has been burned into my brain of a 500 lb., bed-ridden man on the Geraldo Show that was eating his greasy KFC dinner from his bedside table..."I wash myself with a rag on a stick." (Bart Simpson envisioning himself as a fat man in one of the funniest Simpsons episodes ever)

So now that I have ranted on and on about acronyms and abbreviations, I must be on my way...
T.T.F.N! and TGIF! (LOL!)

Rosie O'Donnell Hates Me

So like seemingly hundreds of other adoring fans out there who have discovered Ms. O'Donnell has a blog site, I have been checking her site daily and adding my two cents here and there when the mood strikes me. I've been pretty casual about it - no blog-stalking messages, no derogatory terms used ( and believe me, I saw plenty of both left on her comment section) - I was on my best behavior. So it came rather as a shock to see a nice banner printed in bold letters across the top of my computer screen: "Banned by webmaster. Your comments will not be posted."

At first, I was in denial: Oh that banner isn't meant for me - it's meant for the crazy guy three posts down who is convinced Ms. O'Donnell is the reincarnation of Mama Cass who visits him in his dreams at night and wants to read his manifesto. However, try as I might to post, I was met by rejection every time. My posts would just - poof! - disappear into cyber-space, leaving me to stare at the banner still printed on my computer screen - taunting me. I felt like a kid being left out of a really cool club because I didn't know the secret password.

Next came the paranoia: Why does Rosie O'Donnell hate me? Maybe she clicked onto my homepage link, read my personal profile, saw that I liked John Denver's music which she secretly despises, and now has a personal vendetta against me and the Denver Broncos. Or maybe she took my joke about the gay Quakers the wrong way because after all, it is a well-known fact that she is indeed..... a Quaker.

Of course, all of this is assuming, with my Queen-size ego, that Rosie O'Donnell actually cared or even read what I had to say. This could all be the result of a simple computer glich, but it has left me a little wounded to know that somewhere out there in cyber-space, Rosie O'Donnell, media icon, hates me. Oh why Rosie? Why do you forsake me? This is really messing with my head - I might need therapy after this experience.

A Creative Use For Old Cell Phones

I heard a news report the other day that environmentalists are looking for ways to recycle the over-abundance of old cell phones that have been discarded for the latest and greatest in technology. I, as always, am here to help.

Many of us have come in to contact with those mentally troubled people on the street having conversations with themselves and with nobody in particular. They are often subjected to our scorn, fear and ridicule - "Hey, look at that nutty guy talking to the invisible rabbit!" Why should these people be discriminated against just because we can't see the object they are dialoging with? My solution - just give them an old cell phone! Now these dementia patients can fit right in with the rest of society. Instead of us thinking that they are insane, we'll just think that they are conducting a highly productive business deal with their stock broker named "Harvey".

Yes, discrimination against the mentally challenged cured with just a simple cell phone. My campaign can be called - Cell Phones for the Insane. That's making technology work for the greater good.

How To Win at Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

I think that you could completely annihilate the game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and link him to every actor that ever existed if you put Kevin Bacon in the same movie with Samuel L. Jackson and Jude Law. GAME OVER! Why are these three particular actors the hottest thing in show biz lately? Get me their agent!

Talking To Myself

Well, after reading though countless blog-sites, I have decided that blogging is just a high-tech form of talking to yourself. Very few of the blogger's posts have comments after them so it's just a bunch of us ranting to ourselves about anything from being a Jewish vegetarian to being a gay Quaker - REALLY!

What is a gay Quaker? Isn't that an oxymoron? Would you be a homosexual who walks around with guilt and self-loathing? Instead of "gay pride", you'd have "gay guilt" and have to wear a scarlet letter "G" on your chest. I don't know, those two words just shouldn't go together.

I myself am neither gay, Jewish, a Quaker nor a vegetarian. I considered being a vegetarian, but the smell of a good steak is just too tempting. I belong to PETA - People Eating Tasty Animals. (I can't take credit for that one - saw it on a bumper sticker which is where I get most of my mottos) This gets me to thinking - If you are what you eat and you eat a lot of poultry and pork, are you then a pig who flys?

I also have a friend who converted to Judaism right before her wedding but still wanted the song Ave Maria played at the Ceremony. I suggested that she switch it to Oy Vay Maria (excuse my spelling of yiddish words - like I said, I'm not Jewish) but the bride did not think it was funny. The organ player, however, thought it was hilarious.

Michael Jackson

Oh, I know everybody has something to say about Michael Jackson, but mine is just a quick observation about the proceedings of this morning's "Is he going to show up or be arrested" drama.

If the nation was made to sit through how many hours of watching O.J. Simpson's white Ford Bronco maneuver through traffic via an array of helicopter camera angles, then why couldn't the press figure out how to put a single traffic helicopter in the air to find Michael's entourage of black SUV's in order to report how close he was to the courthouse? They could have even jazzed it up with a little clock timer in the corner of the screen counting down how much time remained until Michael's arrest warrant would be issued. This would have been a lot more riveting than watching Michael's attorney pace back and forth looking at his watch and talking on his cell phone.

Ohhhh! I even thought of a good headline - Michael's Pain in the Back Causes Pain in the Neck for Trial Judge

Now why am I not in charge of everything ?

My title choice - an explanation

You know how some people sing better when they are in the shower (which might explain some of the deluded audition participants on American Idol)? Well, I seem to do my best comedic observations sitting down. I also prefer to hide behind the veil of my office chair and computer screen than put it all out there on stage with a bright light and a microphone stand.

Oh, I have secret ambitions of one day being discovered at a comedy club's amateur night, given my own HBO special, and then television series; but until I get my nerve up I'll just have to go on watching Last Comic Standing and yelling at the TV that I am way, way funnier than Dat Phan.