Working on Something
In light of recent events, I'm re-writing Harry Chapin's "Cat's In The Cradle." Here's the start:

The inspector arrived just the other day
He came through the door in the usual way
But there was food to cook and bribes to pay
He took the cash as I looked away
Then he was sayin’ all at once, and his anger grew
He'd say "This is gonna go bad for you, man
This is gonna go bad for you"

And there’re rats in the kitchen at the Taco Bell
Now that I notice it, what’s that smell?

Another Bloodzilla Moment
Want to make green tea ice cream? Of course you do. So you surf over to Amazon and find Nissin Green Tea Ice Cream Powder. And it's so easy. Let me quote how easy it is: "just add milk and a egg york." You've got plenty of egg yorks don't you?

"Bloodzilla moment" - an instance of "you can't make this stuff up" named after the comic Bart Simpson described as "A vampire dinosaur! You can't make this stuff up!"

This May Not Strike You As Funny
But if you've been looking at eBay listings for guitars for a while, and know something about guitars other than PRSes, this is fall down funny.

Yeesh!
Kelloggs has a new product - Special K Cereal with Chocloatey Pieces. First, it must be noted that the word used is "chocolatey." Nice. That means it is not necessarily chocolate. Just of a chocolate nature. Inclined toward chocolate on the great chain of being. That's a pretty common evasion in products. Like "Froot Loops" don't have to have any fruit in them because they're called "Froot" loops. If they were called "Fruit Loops," there would have to be fruit.
But that's not actually the genesis of this post. I saw the television ad for the new Kelloggs cereal. The idea of the ad is that all these chocolate candies start moving into the cereal box. But they make one huge mistake. The first chockies they have getting animated are a couple of pieces left on a pillow as if in a nice hotel. The problem is that when the roaming chocolates shed their wrappers and start moving over the pillows, they could not look more like cockroaches. Ick. I like chocolate but I'll not be trying the roach cereal.

A Quick One
Which is actually a Who album. This is just a musical quick one but it's Cross-centric. Here is an mp3 (about 20 minutes as I recall) of an interview with Mike Cross on No Carolina radio. If you're "not familiar with the weirdity that is Mike Cross," please give the interview a listen. Mike's down to earth friendliness, good humor and musical ability all come through. I'll blog the show either later today or tomorrow.

It Be Prezzies Day My Peops!
Have a happy federal holiday. Two quick music notes for the nonce: The Mike Cross show on Thursday was brilliant. Better than the two I saw last year. I'll give it a full post shortly. And the other notable is my latest buy from the iTunes music store: "Flathead" by The Fratellis (link goes to a music video on their site). Don't know it? Of course you do. It's the song in the new iPod commercials. I love the "da da da da" chorus. I've also listened to their song "Chelsea Dagger" which is pretty good. I like this band of "brothers."

Fears In The Deep Dark Heart Of The Night
I see an ad for the Dyson vacuum and then I lie awake until the hour of the wolf worrying that my vacuum cleaner is losing suction. Maybe if I just stop vacuuming I can get some sleep. No. If I solve that, the nightmares of Ty Pennington breaking into my home so that he can tear it down and then walk away without rebuilding it will return.
I think I need to borrow some meds form the Enigmatic Misanthrope.
Oh, and one more thing, having seen "Sideways" and some episodes of "Grey's Anatomy," I really, really can't stand Sandra Oh.

This Is A Post With A Link
A single link. But it rich with Walken goodness: Eight great Christopher Walken sketches from SNL. Yes, including the census taker sketch.

Yep, It's Winter
Annoyingly noisy all last night. I find that I don't sleep too well on windy nights and last night was just that. As well as being a night full of precip. All part of the rich pageant of life. Then again, so is post-nasal drip.
Have I shoveled out? Well, as Bobby DeNiro would say. "li'l bit." I've done more than half the driveway and my lousy hip joint and lower back then just put up too much resistance. So tomorrow I'll clean the rest of it off. Lord willing and the crick in the back of my neck don't rise.
I didn't mean this to be all about me. The shoveling is the thing. Snow has a surprising variety of forms. I've shoveled deep snow that held together but wasn't wetly heavy. I've shoveled "day after" snow that crusted over. And that's what I've got now. It's not too deep but it's crusty as a well-baked baguette and pretty heavy. Which leads to my bitch: Just shoveling snow is not too bad. But when you have to break a shovelable chunk off every time you take a shovelful, it adds noticeably to the time and hugely increases the annoyance factor. (sigh) Winter weather. 'Twas ever thus. I will count my blessings as I sit in a house that hasn't lost power once despite the storms. A pot of tea is called for.

New Product News
I see that the good folks at Kraft foods, who are so kind as to bring us television ads featuring entirely babe-a-licious angels who eat only Philly brand cream cheese products, have something new for us: A tub of Philadelphia brand Ready-To-Eat Cheesecake Filling! Oh me oh my! Oh joy abounding! Now those whose options in the million-calorie tub consumption has been limited to frosting have a whole new choice! Isn't progress grand?

A Little Preview
Atlantic Cycling has had its organizational meeting and the season is more or less set. Here's how it lays out in the form of a business card-sized handout we'll be making available to all and sundry.

Do You Remember
When the Grammy Awards actually meant anything?
Right. Neither can I.
For a list of the craptacular list of "artists" appearing and presenting, you can go here.

Lingering Thought
I'm thinking that next Halloween we'll be seeing some number of people dressing in costumes of a space suit with a diaper pinned on over it.

And Again

Comment Would Be Superfluous

Shark Jumping
It's a strange thing to see a television franchise jump the shark on more than one of its shows in the space of a few months. But damned if the CSI people haven't managed it. Exhibit 1: using Cletus Federline as the "guest star" on an episode of the original "who dies in Vegas, gets investigated in Vegas" show. Now the New York show uses the painfully annoying Nelly Furtado as a "guest star." You're not only not like a bird, your not like an actress either. Hmm. One tard per show. At least that works out.
I've enjoyed the CSI shows but I think they've plucked my last nerve. G'bye. Well, except for Emily Procter on CSI: My how yummy. I don't think I can bust that habit yet.

Ripe For Parody
No doubt by now you've seen the story of astronaut Lisa Nowak's bizarre behavior in going after her rival in love for another space man. First of all, if your name ends in "wak," it might not be a good thing for you to act like a wak-o. Secondly, is this not the perfect opportunity for someone with more mad video skilz than I to make an "Astronauts Gone Wild!" video? YouTube is calling. Heck, Saturday Night Live should be calling but they manage to be funny about once per hour and a half now. And having said that, the "Dakota Fanning Show" sketch has to be one of the funniest things they done in a coon's age. (Link is to VH1's "Best Week Ever" site and seems to be as worksafe as possible these days.)

It Cold!
Whoo. We be chillin. I guess it's going on all over. I won't do the obligatory global warming schtick. Actually there's one thing I really like about cold weather - the water from the cold tap runs brain-freeze cold. Very drinkable.

The Soup Bowl
I watched some of it. Yay for the Colts. Yay for Payton Manning. (Yawwwnnn) Commercials. You watch a sports event for the commercials? And men read "Playboy" for the articles.
Sorry for the dyspepsia. But the ship of my life came aground on a big ol' berg of "I don't care." Something must be wrong because I'm not even finding college basketball interesting this year.

So, Anyway
I'm watching TV when the ad comes on with the dude who asks me if I "troubled" by an "overactive bladder." Yeah, man. My bladder's always goin' off on ski trips and scuba diving, hittin' the bars to pick up chicks and I'm left at home to vacuum the backyard and rake the carpet.
No only that, I learn how you get information about incontinence garments on the Intraweb: you log on and just hit CTRL-P.