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Fire, Smog, Politics and Baseball Thoughts

The L.A. Times front page had a photo of Los Angeles today that looked like Mordor.

Wednesday was a great day to be a firebug here in Southern California. I woke up that morning to a warm day, already in the 80s, and windy. The forecast called for abundant sunshine, 87° F and "light and variable" winds. That's not what I saw. It was blowing hard, dry and hot. I just knew there were a few arsonists who woke up excited about their opportunity to set fire to some dry brush. Inevitably, one or more of them actually started fires.

I'm not glad not to be living in the hills on days like that.

I'm also glad I don't live in the 909 or the 951. I always thought that traffic was the worst thing about the 909, but it turns out that the air will kill you there. Pollution in the Inland Empire has been found to cause much higher incidents of a variety of ailments. I believe it. I just found out my cousin, who moved to Riverside a year after she got married, has been suffering from asthma for several years. She never had it as a kid. Coincidence? I doubt it.

That's all the more reason to stay in the OC rather than sell and use the money buy a mansion in Riverside or San Bernadino County.

I can't much stand listening to Congressional hearings. Just a minute of two of the testimony from Brownie this week sent my blood pressure north. Yes, it's true that local government did a lousy job in Louisiana, but that doesn't even come close to making Brown a qualified or competent FEMA director. And that lack of competence was painfully obvious both in his performance after Katrina struck and in his pathetic denials of responsibility during the hearings.

The question askers are little less pathetic. Watching politicians demand straightforward answers to their questions to Judge John Roberts was a fantastic irony last week. "Go ahead and continue to not answer the question," said former presidential candidate Joe Biden, as if he has ever delivered a straightforward answer to a question himself.

Say, isn't Biloxi 71% white? And isn't Gulfport 62% white? So, um, how come the white supremacists in the Bush administration didn't do them any better than those poor black parts of New Orleans?

I was reading this syndicated article in the OC Register the other day called Take Steps Now to Protect Assets. It began: "You've worked hard all your life to accumulate a little personal wealth. One frivolous lawsuit could wipe it all out."

Man, I really wish it was that easy. Could you imagine how incredibly weathly I would be if I could just target some hard working rich dude, file a frivolous lawsuit against him and leave him destitute after taking all he had worked his whole life to accumulate? I'd have more money than Bill Gates.

In addition to being a great time to be a Trojan, it's a pretty good time to be an Angels fan. The Angels have made the postseason twice in a row, and three times in four years. They previously made it to the postseason three times in their first 40 years. And they have their first 20-game winner since 1974, leaving Cleveland as the team with the longest stretch without a 20-game winner. I'm so glad Disney sold the Angels to an owner who wants to win.

Now I can sit back and watch the weekend unfold, wondering who the Angels will play and when. I'm remotely rooting for the Yankees to be the opponent, because that makes it possible that the Angels will be playing the White Sox while I'm in Chicago in a couple of weeks.

I can't imagine much more fun than rooting for the Angels in Comiskey Park.

Dry Observation Thoughts

My laptop is awesome. Last weekend, it fell down a flight of exterior steps at the beach house, and nothing broke. Last night, it flew off my lap and landed on the carpeted concrete floor in my den about four or five feet away from me after a big ass spider started crawling across the couch toward me. It's still working perfectly.

I got my first new buffalo nickel in change the other day. I'm still waiting for my first buffalo quarter. I dig 'em. I don't collect coins anymore, but I really do like all the new designs, unlike the boring dead presidents and buildings on the coins in my pockets when I was little.

Secondhand Lions was a great movie. I wonder why I never head about it while it was in the theatres.

The Elizabeth Howard Curtain Call Theater has lost its mojo. The Christians have taken over and ruined it. They edited Grease to take out suggestive lyrics. The actors are mediocre, far below the caliber of prior shows. And they stopped selling alcohol with dinner. They now offer "non-alcoholic wine" which is, I think, a fancy name for $12/bottle grape juice.

If Jesus went to the show, would they let him drink wine? If you wonder, What Would Jesus Do, I think Jesus would try another theater where he could partake of some bread and the fruit of the vine.

They banned alcohol sales at the USC games, too. Eventually, the situation will settle into the same situation as at every other Pac-10 venue (USC was the last school to go dry), but for now, it's ugly.

Many of the drinking fans compensated in one of two ways: either (i) they smuggled in hard liquor (it's so much easier to sneak 6 shots of vodka or rum into the stands than, say, a six-pack of beer); or (ii) they drank themselves silly before the game, so as to have enough buzz to last the game.

The former didn't bother me much, except that their smuggled rum didn't generate any revenue for the Trojans. The latter were a pain in the ass.

Loud and obnoxious, they made asses of themselves in the first half. We had four such fellows behind us. Rooting for the Trojans, but not knowing much about USC football ("Is this the quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy last year dude? He's playing today, right?"), they were the loudest and dumbest fans I've ever met who weren't rooting for UCLA.

For example, they kept yelling "Kill the pigs!", a reference to the Razorbacks, or "Hogs" that USC was playing. Sadly, they were still yelling "Kill the pigs!" when the Trojans honored a dead policeman before the game and brought his family onto the field.

At one point, I overheard this:

Idiot 1: Two yards, how many feet is that?
Idiot 2: There's like, 12 inches to the foot, dude.
Idiot 1: I know, but how many are in a yard?
Idiot 2: I don't remember. I know it's less than 12.

TiVo, by the way, was about perfect. The recording of the Arkansas game was set to last 3:30. At the end of the 3:30, the game had just ended, the credits were rolling, and the announcers were signing off with "So long everyb...." I liked that sendoff.

So long everyb

TV, Rain and Political Fallout Thoughts

I read yesterday that "Everybody Loves Raymond" joined "Barney Miller" and the "Mary Tyler Moore" show as only the third series in the past three decades to win the top Emmy awards in their final season. They are also three popular and critically acclaimed shows that I never watched more than about twice ever.

Summer ends today, but from our perspective, it ended Monday night with the first major storm of the season here in L.A. Back east, newsworthy storms are those that kill a bunch of people, flood entire states and tear down hundreds of buildings. Out here, it's big news when we get thunder and lightning and even a few (gasp!) power outages.

The remnants of a Mexican hurricane brought some pretty spectacular lightning to our house last night. Some of the thunderclaps shook the house, and several bolts hit the ground within walking distance of my house at the edge of the hills. It was our first rain since July 20. At times, it was pretty heavy.

Yesterday morning, the rain left the freeways packed, since people in L.A. and Orange County cannot drive in the rain. This left me sweating a bit when I left for court barely 30 minutes before my 8:30 court hearing ten miles away. I worried needlessly. I got to court well before 8:30, and the judge got to court at about 9:10.

"Terrible traffic," he said. Yeah, us too. But officially, it was no problem, your honor. Actually, he almost made up for it when he heard 24 matters (and I was number 24 on the calendar) in 15 minutes.

The wait gave me time to be entertained by the court employees. For example, it turns out that our court reporter is a poker player. She was jabbering on with the bailiff about her poker expertise. "If you get a king and an ace, you've got something good." She talked about her most frustrating situation, when she has a pretty good hand, but everyone keeps betting. "I just can't bring myself to fold a hand when there is that much money in the pot."

I found myself almost drooling, wondering how I could tactfully get her and her money into one of our games. The bailiff said a lot less, but he clearly knew more about the game. He was much more interesting to listen to, and not just because his voice is a Morgan Freeman soundalike.

Anyhow, after court, I drove back to the office on a crowded road in a pounding rain, after which I felt quite inconvenienced by the weather. Then I came into the office, turned on the computer, and saw the reports on Hurricane Rita.

It sure would be tragic to see a second major hurricane hit New Orleans, but it would be almost more remarkable if the storm hits Galveston and Houston, with all those Katrina refugees taking shelter there. It would have to make some of them wondering if the weather gods were hunting them.

In a less enlightened time, we'd probably be spending a lot of time and energy trying to figure out which of those people committed the sin that caused this storm, but we've gotten past that. I think.

Doesn't it seem ironic that President Bush and his born-again administration is catching such grief over an act of God? They haven't quite found God's favor, have they?

And isn't it remarkable how we trust men (and women) to run our states and our nation when they haven't even shown themselves capable of leading their own families? I believe that a man who can't lead a family shouldn't be allowed to lead a government, but I guess that's too old-fashioned a belief these days, unless, of course, you want to turn in an empty ballot.

The dumbest quote I've read in a while belongs to George W. Bush:

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

Um, Mr. President. I anticipated it. But only because every talking head on the weather and news channels told me to anticipate it.

And have you heard this one?

Q: What is George W. Bush's position on Roe vs. Wade?
A: He really doesn't care how people get out of New Orleans.

But I digress. Actually, never mind. That's all I have to say about that.

Amish Commercial Katrina Football Thoughts

Sometimes, TV commercials remind me of a product that I haven't used in a while, and I then go out and buy some. And those Dr. Pepper commercials are pretty good. But there is no amount of clever advertising that can get me to drink Dr. Pepper. I'd be reluctant to drink that crap if I was stranded by a hurricane.

My favorite new commercial, by far: Coors Light's Love Train NFL ad. The silver bullet rolls in and strangers are high fiving and loving the world, when Raider Fan and Charger Fan are about to greet each other with a fist slam. They recognize each other, come to their senses, and decide not to contaminate each other with a touch.

Survivor Guatemala starts this Thursday. I have Angels-Detroit tickets. I'm going to use eBay or TiVo to solve this dilemma. Probably eBay.

I'm looking forward to the new TV season. I still haven't seen Desperate Housewives, and don't know if I will, but I'm starting to feel like I'm out of touch with pop culture by not watching the show.

I sometimes feel like I'm hurting my dog's feelings when I wash my hands after every time I pet her.

I saw video today of a woman being ripped, by force, out of her dry home on a dry street in New Orleans. I couldn't help but think that if she was black, Kanye West would be going off script and screaming bloody murder about it. Instead, nobody cares.

I think it is weird that a website like http://www.amishcountry.org even exists.

I don't understand why people ever like Johnny Cash as a singer. He wrote some good songs, but he sang like a first-day American Idol reject. Only Bob Dylan had a worse singing voice. And yet, not only do people like his songs, they liked it when he performed covers of other people's songs? Why? It sounds like crap. I don't get it.

I think Christian leaders should be louder in their condemnation of Eric Rudolph. The softness of Christian condemnation of the gay nightclub and abortion clinic bomber is fodder for those Muslim clerics who similarly say nothing negative about the suicide bombers and other terrorists killing innocent people in the name of Allah.

The insurance tab coming out of Katrina is growing and growing and growing. Soon, insurance companies are going to have to rate their rates to maintain their extremely strong profit margins. People will scream about it. And immediately, it will become the trial lawyer's fault. All those frivolous lawsuits will be the explanation for the premium increases. Hear me now and believe me later: rates will go up, and it will have exactly zero to do with anything lawyers are doing.

My hearing is going already. Too many nights in the front row of concerts. The other day, I heard my wife say "That's okay." And it pissed me off, because I thought she said "That's so gay."

Not that there anything wrong with that, per se.

If the New Orleans Saints came to Anaheim to fill the void left by the Rams' departure, Orange County would be home to the Angels and the Saints. That would be so cool, I wouldn't even mind if they called them the New Orleans Saints of Anaheim.

Acts of God, Wet City and Dry Game Thoughts

isI saw a poll on beliefnet.com that asked what effect Katrina had on people's faith in God. An amazing 48% said that the hurricane "greatly increased" their faith in God. As acts of God go, I thought Katrina was a pretty cruel one. It brought horrendous destruction, lawlessness and brought out the worst in a lot of people. There were precious few "feel good" stories coming out of the event. It hasn't helped my faith one iota. If anything, it caused me to wonder why God seems so disinterested in a quirks of nature and their effect upon innocent people.

Maybe half of America is happy that God destroyed a few abortion clinics, like that one group of nutcases was claiming. Or maybe they're happy that God destroyed the street where women flash their boobs right before Lent. One problem: Bourbon Street actually did okay in the storm, and it will still make for a great boob-flashing thoroughfare this next Fat Tuesday.

Maybe they are just inspired by the fact that the NFL team displaced by the storm is called the Saints, and that they went forth and won a game, in a pretty big upset, to open their season.

I've been wondering for a while what stadium that was in all those Katrina damage photos where the high water inundated the field and flooded the first section of seats. I finally found out it was Tad Gormley Stadium, where Tulane plays. I wonder what made God want to ruin Tulane's field, but not LSU's field.

I'm looking forward to my first USC game of the 2005 season this weekend. The nation's leading rushing attack comes to the Coliseum to face the best rushing defense over the past two years. I love early season stats. USC leads the nation in scoring offense with 63.0 points per game. Or Connecticut's 0.0 scoring defense. Wouldn't it be fun to see that hold up over 12 games? How about Matt Leinart's 224.1 passing efficiency, best in the nation. That will be tough to maintain, too.

Most meaningless statistic, in my opinion: total kickoff return yards per game. The more the other team scores, the more kickoffs you return, and the better your stats. I'd rather see a guy get 35 yards per game, with maybe one or two chances per game.

I just got my season seats. They are awful. Not even Fresno State fans should have to sit in seats this bad. Strangely, however, I have those seats for all but one game. The UCLA game is different. I'm on the 35-yard-line for that one. Go figure. What I really want to know is who is sitting in my UCLA seats this weekend.

Speaking of UCLA, they opened as a 6½ point favorite against Oklahoma. Last I heard, the line moved even higher. I don't understand that, but I will try to get a piece of that action, as long as Adrian Peterson isn't suspended for the game. And if I lose, I'll just be grateful that USC's strength of schedule scores improved again.

The Coliseum is going to be dry this season. It was the last of the Pac-10 stadia to go dry. But I'm going to drink if I want to drink. I don't think I'm going to resort to taping baggies of vodka to my chest, like I saw some guys doing last year at the Rose Bowl, but I will find a way. Unfortunately, it'll have to be the hard stuff. Smuggling enough beer or wine in would be next to impossible.

I hear the Elizabeth Howard's Curtain Call Theater in Tustin will be going dry soon. That will kill business. Kill it. Why would they ban alcohol at a dinner theater?

The answer is that a Christian group bought the theater. And they believe that drinking alcohol is a sin.

I guess their Bible doesn't mention how important wine was to Jesus and his followers' daily lives. But in general, my list of sins doesn't include anything that Jesus did.

Drinking wine: not a sin.
Fishing: not a sin.
Traveling: not a sin.
Hanging out with prostitutes: not a sin.

But my wife wouldn't go for that last one, so I'll stick to traveling, fishing and drinking wine.

Better to Be Thought a Fool Thoughts

For my entertainment value, it is better to have you speak and remove all doubt, than to have you remain silent and be thought a fool.

Barbara Bush had this to say about the poor refugees from New Orleans:

"Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them."

I've heard the quote. She sort of giggled or chuckled when she got to "working." Yeah, that's every poor person's great fantasy: a bland meal and a spot on the floor of a sports arena after seeing your neighborhood destroyed by 150 mph winds.

Celine Dion, on the other hand, has too damn much empathy. She had this wonderful comment about the NOLA looters this week:

"Oh, they're stealing 20 pair of jeans or they're stealing television sets. Who cares? They're not going to go too far with it. Maybe those people are so poor, some of the people who do that they're so poor they've never touched anything in their lives. Let them touch those things for once."

Cool, Celene. The party is at your house. Let us know when we can come touch your TV and swipe your jeans.

My favorite moment of the USC broadcast Saturday came when the announcer said

"Dave, what's interesting early in the game is Pete Carroll, obviously the head coach but also the defensive coordinator, he's electing to go with a base 4-3 defense, meaning he's keeping his linebackers in with four, sometimes an empty backfield with five receivers. I don't think that's a wise decision regardless of how much you out-personnel the opponent."

The next play was a 63 yard interception return for a touchdown.

It's not just the people in the paper and on TV pissing me off. I had to take my wife and my oldest daughter to the emergency room yesterday and today, each for potentially very dangerous medical emergencies. On Tuesday, the ER was full of people who were there with minor ailments and illnesses, apparently because they could get faster or cheaper care from the ER. I overheard one woman say

"I've been waiting here for over two hours. I'm about ready to go home and come back tomorrow when it's less crowded."

Bitch, if you feel at all capable of going home and coming back tomorrow, you have no freaking business whatsoever in the emergency room. Get the hell out and leave the place to those of us who need heart monitors, CT scans and emergency surgeries, thank you very much.

Post Hurricane Football, Baseball and Other Thoughts

I'm booking another trip to Orlando next summer. I hope I don't get a hurricane. My brother-in-law and his bride are in the Caribbean right now honeymooning. We worried about them getting punked by a storm while they were gone, but the basin looks clear as can be this week. They're lucky they didn't book the 7 day cruise out of New Orleans.

Here's some of the junk we're talking about when we're not watching, reading or talking about Hurricane Katrina.

The FBI recently raided the Maryland home of Nigeria's vice president. I don't know what that is all about, but I just know I'll be getting emails about it soon.

The Pac-10 is the only conference to place two teams in the top 10 of the final AP football poll in each of the past five seasons, and it leads all conferences with six BCS wins in that span. Of course, half of those wins belong to just one school -- my school, USC.

Would you believe that there is such a career as being a metal shop teacher in a men's penitentiary? It's true.

Anyone who focuses on baseball standings during the first ten or twenty games of the year is an idiot. Slumps and streaks happen throughout the season, and they are no more meaningful in April, or less meaningful in August. The Yankees sucked well into the third month of the season. The Chicago White Sox dominated all year, then recently lost 8 of 10 games. Oakland won something like 20 of 25 in July and early August, then went on to lose 2 of 3 to the Royals, who had lost their previous 19 games. Now they've won a bunch in a row, and the Angels have lost a bunch in a row, and the playoff picture is more unclear than it has been all season.

My brother-in-law went to that Dodger game last weekend that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Brooklyn Dodgers' only World Series title. The 50th anniversary will actually take place in October, but the Dodgers celebrated early because everyone knows they won't be playing in October.

The NL West is embarrassing. On Tuesday, San Diego was two games below .500 and had a 4 1/2 game big lead over Arizona and Los Angeles. Now they are back to .500 and they have a 6 game lead. I am beginning to suspect that this division race is going to come down to the last week of the season, and will be won by a team that suddenly gets hot and goes 3-4 that week.

USC looks like a sure bet to win the Pac-10 this year. If they don't go unbeaten, however, they aren't likely to play in the Rose Bowl. If that happens, I'm rooting for us to go to the Fiesta Bowl. I've been to two Orange Bowls in three years, and as much as I enjoy South Florida, I've never been to a Fiesta Bowl, and novelty rules. Plus, it's a short flight to Phoenix, and with all the talk New Orleans being shut down 12-16 weeks, I wonder if they are going to be able to have a Sugar Bowl this year. Even if they do, post-Katrina New Orleans isn't high on my list of winter vacation destinations.

But we gotta win one before we can win twelve, so this weekend, I'm mostly thinking about Hawaii and that 35 point spread. I don't think I'll place any wagers this week. My picks are just for fun.

Off Key Time of My Life Thoughts

One of the unspoken horrors of the iPod craze is the occasional person who sings along to his iPod, a cappela to us, at the top of his lungs, off key, in a public place. I've seen it twice, which is three times too many.

I just bought a new computer cheap. That brings me to a total of twelve pentium computers: four desktops at home, two laptops, three at the office, and three sitting in the garage. I paid less than $500 for this last one, and its the best computer I ever bought. I remember when Apple computers were $2,995 and came with cruddy little black and white screens.

Hell, I remember Commodore 64s that ran software off of ordinary audio cassette tapes and plugged into your TV. Now, if you want a TV monitor hooked up to your computer, the "TV enabled" monitor is about twice as expensive.

I'm almost ready to buy my Chrysler. With gas prices approaching three bones a gallon, I'm hoping that the 300C Hemis will start showing up on showroom floors with discounts, rather than markups. I went to the Chrysler dealer last month when the employee discount thing was going on. When I found out that the discounts weren't offered on the 300s, I shook the guy's hand, thanked him for his time and left.

He told me to disregard the $5,999 markup, and that he could still get me a good deal, but I told him I was just there to make sure I didn't let a big discount pass, and I'm sure his good deal would still be there in a few months, when I actually need a new car.

"It might not be," he said. "That's cool," I replied. "If that happens, I'll just try another dealer. In fact, I might do that anyway."

The SS United States is in sorry shape. I think something should be done about it, but I'm not sure who should do it.

Law school lasts three years, and I really don't know why. I learned nothing in my third year - nothing - that is of use to me now. In fact, my greatest learning experience in my third year came when I traveled to North Carolina for a moot court competition, and none of the learning had anything to do with the law. It had only to do with the travel. (For example, telling people in Chapel Hill that you live in Orange County will garner only an odd look, since you will be standing in Orange County, North Carolina at the time.)

The single best part of that year of law school: I had a stopover in Memphis on the way back from North Carolina, to see my buddy stationed there at the naval base, and went to see Graceland.

Apparently, word is getting out.

"There is research and volunteer work, but also a lot of bar-hopping and little studying: 15 hours per week, according to one survey at 11 law schools, compared to 33 hours for first-year students. But if it's an extended vacation, it's pricey: $30,000 or more at top private schools."

Yup, that was the story of my third year, except that back then it was only $18,000.

I wouldn't give up the experience for anything, though. For a year, I got to party without consequence, even as the rest of the world thought I was busting my ass working hard as a law student. And for one glorious semester, TGIF was more like TGIT, meaning "Thank God It's Tuesday," because I scheduled my last semester to pack a full day on Monday, a full afternoon on Tuesday, and only one hour (in a pass/fail course) on Wednesday that I cut every single week. I had nothing whatsoever on Thursday or Friday, and only showed up on campus on those days if there was a "Keg on the Steps" event at the law school.

Luckily for me, I recognized even then that I was having the time of my life, and I appreciated it as such. I hope the next batch of 3Ls realizes the same thing, because kids, next summer is going to be a bitch, and then, after taking the bar, you hit the grindstone. Take nothing for granted.

Bad Promotions and Freaky Famous Chick Thoughts

Okay, does anyone on the planet give a damn about Queen touring with some dude named Paul Rodgers? I saw this ad in the paper advertising Queen + Paul Rodgers (which sounds like something a weirdo would carve into a tree in Golden Gate Park) in concert, and it just sounded like the worst idea since New Coke. Has anyone been to see it? Am I wrong? I have no plans to invest in a ticket to find out for sure.

My ticket money, for the time being, is going to major league baseball. Last week, I went to three Angels games, watching the Angels win three times, twice scoring 10 runs, earning me four free batches of Hooter's wings under the promotion that scores each fan free wings if the Angels score 10 runs or more.

The Hooter's wings promotion is stupid. The free wings are only available for 24 hours after the first pitch, and during that time, it's a bitch trying to get a table, and then, if you go in and everyone orders their free wings, the half-naked waitress looks at you like you're a cheap bastard who is probably going to stiff her on the tip, and she responds accordingly with crappy service. I don't even bother anymore. I just leave the stadium knowing that, theoretically, my ticket stub is worth a free order of wings.

I much preferred the old "back to back home runs = a free Domino's pizza" promotion. That one would have hit on Sunday.

For one of the games, we were treated to free tickets in the club section, which was like foul ball central. We must have had about ten fouls end up within a 20 seat radius. Sadly, none came closer than about 4 rows away.

The food in the club level is great. But the garlic cheese fries are nasty. I was tempted to lick my shoes to try to get the taste out of my mouth.

Strangely, my favorite moment of the game was when we watched this one feather float down past us, toward the field, then start drifting back up toward the upper deck. It was pretty cool. I felt like Forrest Gump waiting for the bus.

Sunday's game, at which we did not have club seats, was way too hot. It was funny to watch people sneaking up from their front row seats into the higher seats in the shade. In the upper decks, late in the game, the lower half of the sections near right field were literally empty, but the seats from the shadows up were almost full. I hadn't been to a sporting event in that kind of heat since the USC-Purdue game in 1998. But there was a cool breeze once the shade got to your section, and after the game, the girls got to run the bases, so we stuck around. Plus, we got to see a grand slam by the latest rookie, Casey Kotchman.

Then on Monday, it was back to work. I didn't much enjoy Monday, or Tuesday, for that matter. Work was dreadfully boring, and I was trying to book a short vacation for later in the month, while envying my brother, who has been having a kick ass time on the Disney cruise with his wife and kid. But just before I threw myself a pity party, I found myself taking pity on a sorrier creature than myself. Mark Geragos.

Geragos lost another big trial this week. (Of course, you won't see a reference to this latest verdict on his website.) For weeks, I've been seeing him in court in Orange County, rarely carrying anything but a set of car keys, and I wondered how the guy can handle trying a long cause case without carting exhibits, notes, laptops, whatever, back and forth. Now I know. A losing case is a light load.

Now that Mark Geragos has lost another huge high profile case, I find myself wondering if criminal defense would be a good gig. You can make a fortune wearing expensive suits while watching your client get nailed and sent to prison. Or you can represent people like this miscreant who let her 18-month-old take some giant hits from a lit bong. You can call no witnesses, and put on no defense, and when the bitch gets what she deserves, you draw a fat paycheck for "defending" her. That's even easier than the "jobs" SMU used to give their football players.

It's good to see that Courtney Love still hasn't overdosed; I'm drafting her in the first round of my next dead pool. She's starting to look like a good candidate for one of those before-and-after models to show first-time meth offenders what you will look like after your third or fourth arrest.

And speaking of crazy bitches, how much of a crazy whore must you be to make Paris Hilton look graceful and refined? I'm not sure, but I'll bet Tara Reid knows.

Seven Things Not To Be Thankful For and Other Thoughts

Some more random crap I've been thinking or saying lately:

Tomorrow, I plan to get up early and hike into the hills for an hour. I liek to hike. I would love to hike to the summit of Mt. Everest, but it's too much work and too much danger for me. But I am going to someday stand at the summit of Mt. Everest, if and when they start running helicopter tours to the top.

You don't see a big market for Jack Black lookalikes. Which is too bad for me, because I'll never look like Orlando Bloom, but I could probably pull off the Jack Black look with enough training and preparation.

NFL tight end Kellen Winslow, Jr. still looks to miss a lot of football as he recovers from a motorcycle crash. Apparently, there was no brain damage. Luckily, Winslow remembered how to wear a helmet from his Miami playing days, because he didn't have to put the helmet on much last season.

People in prison should not get to read dirty magazines, except maybe those Playboy issues with Tiffany or Roseanne.

I'm probably not the first person to say this, but a verbal contract is not worth the paper it's written on.

Why don't casinos in Atlantic City have a sports book?

My mother has a desk calendar that lists 4 or 5 things to be happy about each day. They are all slight -- things like: warm sand between your toes; orange juice; and face-licking puppies.

I'm more of a grump than the author of mom's desk calendar. I'm more likely to notice the 4 or 5 little things that suck each day. For example, yesterday:

(1) Turning on the TV and hearing Fran Drescher's voice;

(2) Eating grapes, and biting into one that is unexpectedly sour;

(3) Walking into a single strand of spider web in the dark;

(4) Bandaids that stick to your arm hairs; and

(5) Paper cuts.

Oh, and (6) timeshare dudes.

I hate the timeshare dudes in booths on Mexican streets. You can't ignore them. You can't just politely pass them. They hound you until you are out of earshot. It gets real old, real fast.

Timeshare dude: "So, amigo, you are from Florida? Welcome to Mexico."
Me: "I'm not from Florida."
Timeshare dude: "Oh, but your shirt says 'Florida'"
Me: "Yeah, they let tourists buy the shirts even if they don't have proof of residence."

I've about had it with people trying to explain how we brought those London transportation bombings or 9/11 or the Madrid train bombs upon ourselves. When the mafia warns that arresting drug runners will result in assassinations of police officials, that does not make the bombing of a street in Sicily legitimate or morally equivalent to the arrest, or even the execution, of a racketeer. I don't care how many times the terrorists warn the world that they will wage jihad against civilians if governments don't get out of Iraq, or get out of Afghanistan, or release some murderer from Hamas, or whatever. If they strike back by killing people on a bus, or a train, or in an office building, they are murderers, not soldiers, and they should be punished.

In fact, we should get medieval on their asses. Forget these 22 year sentences. We should just douse them with flammables and set them on fire.

Check that. We should shave them down first; then douse them with flammables and set them on fire.

(7) I hate the smell of burning hair.

Midyear Holiday Thoughts

I can't believe the year is half gone already. I'm gearing up to relax and unwind all weekend. The OC Register says 40 million Americans will be traveling 50 miles or more this weekend. Not me. I'm going a mere 49.4 miles to the beach house.

Here's some of the junk we've been talking about as the holiday weekend approaches.

I just discovered that the Ethiopians aren't a very resourceful people. If you do a google search for "ethiopian inventions" you'll pretty much find nothing.

So, have you heard about the genocide in Darfur? It's the next big thing, next to, you know, guys being forced to pee their pants in Guantanamo Bay. I guess 400,000 dead blacks murdered in an ethnic cleansing by Arabs on another continent isn't politically useful to Democrats. And since Republicans aren't much into protesting, I don't know if we'll have much dialogue on the subject.

I have a favorite new lawyer name: "B. Lawless"

I just found out that my hometown is the nation's safest big city. Number one among cities with 100,000 or more. Rarely, if ever, do I feel like I'm getting my money's worth, but the ridiculous housing prices here in the OC are actually worth what we paid.

What's not worth the price of admission? The movies we have in theaters right now. The big movie blockbuster weekend starts tomorrow. I am not going to see the freak's new movie. In fact, like most of America, I'll probably stay out of the theaters this weekend. The movies just suffered through their worst weekend in 20 years. I can't tell why, what with Herbie, the Longest Yard, Bewitched and Batman on the screens. Can you? You know what we really need? We really need to add a Get Smart movie to the mix.

You know, people are impressed if you join Mensa, but only half of the people in Mensa are smart enough for the Triple Nine Society. If you want to impress me, break out your Triple Nine Society card.

I saw Bono on one of those serious news programs last week. I can't remember which. He was talking world politics and social issues, and he was thoughtful and well informed. I usually hate when celebrities get involved in politics. Those things are best left to the professionals. Bono is a notable exception. He is smarter than your typical politician.

The new Coldplay record is great. Speed of Sound is phenomenal, and several tracks on the record sound U2ish. It doesn't take long for these songs to grow on you. It makes me want to go buy my first iPod. Although I'd buy a LifeDrive instead if I could figure out how to get my MemoryStick data into its SD card port.

Does anyone know how to transfer or convert MemoryStick data to an SD card without using a computer? The killer app of the LifeDrive would be to let me leave my laptop at home while I am on vacation. The wireless internet and 4GB hard drive, with the ability to open word files and exchange emails almost gets me there. If only I could dump my digital photos into it in the middle of the vacation. If there was an adapter or converter out there, I would buy it.

Earphone connections for cell phones are making it harder to tell when someone who appears to be talking to himself is crazy. Now you have to infer from clothing, appearance and context. I don't always get it right. I thought the dude outside The Corner Bakery this morning was nuts. It turned out, he just had a good cell phone and an earpiece.

The Phoenix Suns just traded their second-round draft pick to the Orlando Magic for future considerations. What is the point of trading for the 57th draft pick? Yeah, I know it could turn out to be Manu Ginobli, but...never mind. He could turn out to be Manu Ginobli.

Sometimes, I also wonder why lajor league baseball lets fans vote for all-stars. Cubs shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, who hit .157 in 14 games before getting hurt, is still third in NL voting for shortstops. He was the lead vote-getter a few weeks ago.

I got a kick out of this poll. Sports Illustrated reports that 12% of 450 MLB players surveyed said Frank Robinson is the worst manager in the major leagues. No other manager got as many votes. Mike Scioscia (voted 6th best) didn't have a vote, but I think he'd have agreed.

Oh, and screw Jose Guillen and the whores he rode in on.

Trial Tsunami Statute Thoughts

Yesterday I was positively bipolar.

I had a vase set to begin trial, which rarely happens on any day except a Monday, but this is pending in a court that has trial calls five days a week. My day began at midnight with me going to bed, strangely calm about the pending trial. It's going to be a short and simple one, lasting no more than about three hours. It's mostly one side's word against the other, and there is just slightly more than $10,000 at stake. That's barely more significant than a small claims case. No worries, mon. I was good.

At 3:30 a.m., I woke up in a panic, but not about the trial. I'd had a dream that we blew a deadline in some bankruptcy case. It was a very realistic dream. It was like one of those work dreams I used to get when I was a waiter, except when I woke up, the realism of the dream left me wondering whether it had really happened. After all, I had no recollection of filing the papers we needed to file. I was not good.

But they aren't due yet, are they? I'm quite sure they are not. In my 15 years as a lawyer, I have never blown a statute, and I don't see any reason to have started now. Still, I felt like I had just left for a road trip an hour ago without being sure I had turned off the frying pan and closed the garage door. I needed to double check, or have someone double check for me. But you can't call anyone at 4:30 in the morning to check stuff for you, so I tossed and turned for another hour, finally deciding to make absolutely sure I was good. I walked downstairs, logged onto the computer, checked into PACER and looked up the case. It was just as I thought. Our deadline is in July. It wasn't due for three weeks, which means there is a perfectly good reason why we hadn't filed yet. I was good again.

I went back to sleep for about another 45 minutes before getting up. That left me with about 4 hours and 15 minutes of sleep. I generally want more than that before trial, but I had little choice. I was not good.

I got to court, and sat, and sat, and sat. The judge handled her normal morning calendar; then called the small claims cases (more than a dozen) and did settlement conferences with all of the civil cases set for trial. Once that was done, she tried the unlawful detainer cases and announced that the "limited civil" cases, like my client's, were being put "on the wheel," which means that they wait to see if a courtroom becomes available.

At noon, we were sent away on a one hour call, which means that we have to be available for the clerk to call and tell us to get back to court and call our first witness within an hour. It sounds like a pain in the ass, and, well, it is. But it could be worse. In the Central District of the Orange County Superior Court, they make the lawyers remain in the building from 8:30 to noon and from 1:30 to 4:30, until you get a courtroom. If they don't find you a judge and jury by Wednesday afternoon, you get to leave.

We never got called. We're still waiting. I've had to forego my tendonitis medicine for two days now, because it makes me sluggish and even lightheaded. Like most clients, my guy wants me to be reasonably alert if the case gets called to trial, so I'm skipping the medicine and just tolerating the constant radiating elbow pain. I'm really not good.

At night, we went to the Angel game and saw a bench clearing near-brawl after the Nationals challenged an Angel pitcher who had pine tar in his glove. Frank Robinson, who is older than the game of baseball itself, acted like he was going to throw down on Mike Scioscia. We booed the hell out of the Nats and a few asshats chucked stuff onto the field. A good time was had by all; but, the game went downhill for the Angels after that. Jose Guillen hit a big home run and the Angels lost 6-3. At least we got free bobbleheads. That was good.

During the game, we got word of the tsunami warning on the California coast. This made the young lady next me got into quite a melodrama, which culminated in her leaving the game just moments after our cell phone newsreader reported that the tsunami warning had been called off.

My home is a good 10 or 12 miles inland, far too far from the coast for an earthquake-generated tsunami to reach. However, the family weekend home is right on the sand, and we were all in a bit of a quiet panic about whether a 30-foot wall of water was going to come in an wipe out all our extra furniture and my brand new bottle of Captain Morgan's spiced rum. That would have been bad.

Mom wondered what we should do. Nothing, of course, was the answer. It's not like we're going to go out to the beach and take on the tsunami. I guess we'd have just waited until it was over and headed down to assess the damage. Luckily, it never happened. That was good.

I am glad there was no tsunami. After spending the last few weeks with an irrational fear of earthquakes, this was the last thing my brain needed. Now I can focus on more important things, like keeping my eyes peeled for werewolves.

Werewolf, Dodger and Thoroughbred Thoughts

I like werewolf movies. I eagerly awaited "Ginger Snaps Back," which I finally watched on cable. It was my least favorite werewolf movie since The Boy Who Cried Werewolf.

While I still have a deep-seated fear of werewolves when I'm in the woods, I don't really believe in them. But there really are people who believe in weird shit like that. And you can listen to them every night on the radio with Coast to Coast A.M. with George Noory. Art Bell is on it from time to time, too. Tonight, the feature subject is Brazilian UFOs and "Dr." Roger Leir, the leading "expert" on the subject (for full details, visit alienscalpel.com). The callers sound like Rick Moranis's character in Ghostbusters and the hosts treat them like they are insightful scientists, with comments like "now, are you sure that the aliens aren't merely implanting these memories from a remote location?" Hmmm, good point.

While I suspect that some of the callers are just calling to be funny, I know some people really believe this stuff. I personally know a woman who used to put peanut butter in her hair and wear an aluminum hat to ward off unfriendly telepathic messages. She considered herself a "clairaudiant," which is like a clairvoyant who hears, but does not see, paranormal phenomena. The news last night had a story about a family that leaned aluminum roofing materials against all their walls, windows and doors to keep unfriendly neighbors from beaming radio waves into the home. Sacramento officials have given the family until tomorrow to remove the stuff. I sense a lawsuit coming....

The City of Anaheim's lawsuit against the Angels for changing their name to The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim is set for trial in November. The city's attorney, Andy Guilford, was disappointed not to be getting to trial before the World Series. He's afraid that, over time, people will get accustomed to the new name.

I'm still not used to it. I don't think I will get used to it. LAA v. LAD on the scoreboard just looks bizarre.

I still root for the Dodgers against any team except the Angels, but I think Dodger fans are idiots. They booed Steve Finley this weekend for returning to Dodger Stadium in an Angels jersey. However, Finley didn't leave the Dodgers, the Dodgers dropped Finley. He never got a contract offer from the team after last season.

Fans should be booing Paul De Podesta instead. Especially since the once 12-2 Dodgers have now won just 10 of their last 28 games, exposing them for what they really are -- a weak, middle division team.

That reminds me. My Laker season seat renewal is due in a few weeks. I'll wait until Tuesday to decide. Unless the Lakers get a top lottery pick or Kevin Garnett starts demanding a trade (something that wasn't so unthinkable three years ago), I don't see much hope for this team improving to any better than 5th or 6th in the western conference next year.

I really wish Afleet Alex had won the Kentucky Derby. I love that horse. Even though local Hollywood Park horse Giacomo was still in the running for the Triple Crown, I wanted to see Afleet Alex win. The story behind it is inspiring and the way that horse won the Preakness was awesome. It was a slick bit of riding by Jeremy Rose, too.

Now I want to buy a horse. You see, sometimes, especially when I watch the Academy Awards, I want to ditch the law and try acting again (I did high school drama and once fancied myself to be a future SAG card holder); and during the opening ceremonies at the Olympics, I often want to find some obscure sport that America sucks at in the Olympics and take it up; and when some shitty band sells out the Pond, I want to take up songwriting again with one of my old musician friends who didn't sell out and go to law school.

So now I want to buy a horse and run him in every Triple Crown race. I want to be the owner of a horse that America talks about for seven weeks, and I want to win outrageous purses and then retire him to stud and make a fortune in stud fees.

But with my investing luck, he'd probably turn out to be gay.

Never mind.

Brainless Actress, Jock and Email Buzz Thoughts

Every once in a while, I like to drop a few truly random thoughts, spraying to all fields. Here's some of the junk we've been talking about lately:

I dislike cars with stupid looking faces. Most cars with two headlights look like they have faces. I want the face of my car to look cool. I could never own a car that had a stupid-looking face.

Actresses should just daintily sip their cups of Shut The F*ck Up when the topic turns to politics and world events. Every time an actress has something interesting to say about politics or world events, it is boneheaded. My favorite comment ever was Cameron Diaz and her "If you think rape should be legal, then don't vote." Strictly speaking, I agreed with her. People who think rape should be legal are seriously messed in the head, and people who are messed in the head can do us all a big favor by getting drunk and staying home on election night. But her message -- that George Bush was going to legalize rape -- was just asinine.

Today, we were sitting around talking about Maggie Gyllenhaal and her comment last week that the United States "is responsible in some way" for the attacks on the World Trade Center. One of the guys asks, "What makes the viewpoint of Jake Gyllenhaal's wife so relevant in the first place?"

Um, she's his sister, dude, not his wife.

"Oh. She's not married?"

No. She's still single.

"That makes more sense, then. Because she can go f*ck herself, man."

I fancy myself to be a bit more refined, but I'm with that guy.

What do you think about Jose Canseco and his equally talented but unaccomplished steroid-free brother getting popped for almost three-quarters of a million dollars for brawling in a bar in 2001? A jury awarded the ass-kickee $232,308 against Jose and $506,600 against his brother. Next week, the jury decides how much to award in punitive damages. Since both Cansecos pled guilty to charges related to the battery, they are almost certain to get popped for a bunch more.

Incidentally, being an intentional tort, that is non-dischargeable in bankruptcy court, too. And having exhausted his last few dollars worth of celebrity by appearing in The Surreal Life, I'm guessing Jose is going to have to flip a shitpotful of burgers to pay off that judgment.

I like crimson and gold stuff. I recently noticed that the Smallville Crows and Hogwarts both have the same team colors as USC. Fiction writers know where to find goodness in imagery.

I dislike mission statements. The only thing I hate reading more than a mission statement is a manifesto. I have one family member (related by marriage, not blood) whom I could picture writing a manifesto. I'm keeping a close watch on that mofo.

I really like attending services at very old churches. I love going to mass at missions here in California. I'd love to visit Notre Dame in Paris or St. Patrick's in New York. I have recently enjoyed the San Luis Rey and San Fernando missions.

On a less pious note, I like Penn & Teller's "Bullshit." Penn & Teller look ike buffoons, but they are really smart guys. And Bullshit is a great show. I wish I'd that of that first. I dislike when Penn & Teller's "Bullshit" is about circumcision. I hated seeing video of circumcision, or, for that matter, almost anything with frontal male nudity. So I had to pass on the Bullshit last night.

And on the subject of bullshit, I really don't believe the news today about how reading email lowers your IQ as much as smoking pot. Part of me just doesn't want to believe it, because I read a ton of emails, and I'd probably rather be smoking pot, from what I've heard about smoking pot. But then I read the rest of the story, which, apparently, was written by someone who, presumably, reads email more frequently than he or she smokes pot. It included this statistic:

Nine out of 10 people thought colleagues who answered messages during face-to-face meetings were rude, while three out of 10 believed it was not only acceptable, but a sign of diligence and efficiency.

What?

Let me read that again.... Yep. It says that at least twenty percent of those polled think it is an acceptable sign of diligence and efficiency to be rude. That makes no sense at all. Those people clearly need to stop reading so many emails and hit the bong. At least, I think that's what it means.

But what do I know? I read 250 frichen emails a day.

Bad Dog, Bad Street and Baseball Mentality Thoughts

You read about the subpoena for Murphy Smith, who received letters from jail written by the accused, but turned out to be the defendant's 5-year-old dog? When prosecutors found out it was a dog, they excused him, but joked about how friendly it was, and that it would have been a good witness. Bullshit. The real reason they decided not to call Murphy as a witness was because it's a shih tzu. That's a stubborn, arrogant breed. It would have made a weak witness.

But it would have made good Court TV. All the housewives would have watch it. Why do women watch what they watch on daytime TV? Does anyone know? Other than Oprah, I mean.

I know this: if women watched women's sports like they watch soap operas, maybe professional women's leagues would thrive. But they don't, so they don't. I don't think women watching soap operas can be blames for the failures of the Lakers and the Timberwolves, though.

Mercifully, the Lakers home season is over. I only went to three games this year. Does that make me a fair weather fan? I don't think so. I still root for them. And I'll never go Clipper. But I can't stomach being there in person to watch them embarrass a once-proud franchise. It hurts less if I watch it on TV, especially if they are losing to the Kings.

Have you ever noticed how lots of idiot businessmen declare themselves the "king of" whatever they sell? Why don't they ever call themselves the pharaoh? I think that would sound ten times as cool. "Come down and buy a washer and dryer from the appliance pharaoh." I would give my business to an appliance pharaoh. Who wouldn't? But no one's doing it. Do a google search for pharoah and "half off sale" and you get nothing.

If you were shopping for a house, would you even consider looking at what "Dork Street" had to offer? I wouldn't. But there are a bunch of idiots who bought or rented homes on Dork Street in Pico Rivera. One guy complains that he can't get a job because people think his resume is a joke. That's funny. But not as funny as the joke we used to tell the kids from Pico Rivera. "So where do you live?" "Pico Rivera." "Oh, I used to live there. Then my dad got a job."

Now my dad's retired, and we're at Starbuck's and he reads the headline out loud: "More Injured Pelicans Found." Without a moment's pause, I replied, "I never even knew they were lost." I got not even a smirk. Hey, Chandler Bing would have thought it was funny.

Ive added a new thing to my list of stuff to do before I die. I'm going to steal this guy Banksy's idea and surrepticiously hang my own art in a well known museum. When I do, I will post pictures right here.

Oh, and with all this Terri Schiavo stuff going on, I want my wishes to be known. They are these: When I die, I want someone to put a cell phone with a full battery in the casket. You know, just in case. In fact, pack an extra set of batteries, too.

Add this to the long list of things that gross me out: this fat guy at the ball game who eats peanuts and leaves peanut shells all over his fat front. Lucky for you, google can't find him.

And add this to the things that amuse me to no end: After two weeks of major league baseball, the Dodgers have the best record in baseball after winning 10 of their first 12. And the Yankees dropped into last place after losing 8 of their first 12. Oh, they rebounded after getting humiliated in the papers by George and all the fishwrap hacks, but one would think that an average payroll of $50,000 per player, per game would be enough, all by itself, to motivate these guys to play hard every inning.

One would think wrong. No, the Yankees have seen the need to hire a motivational specialist. I hope they go a better guy than that dude from the Natural. "Losing ... Is Like a Disease ... As Contagious ... As Syphilis."

If he tried that speech on the Atlanta Falcons, it wouldn't go over well. They aren't even afraid of a thing as contagious as genital herpes.

You just can't motivate these kids anymore.

Uninspired Cynical Digression Thoughts

After hearing of the Pope's passing yesterday, we headed down to the beach house and caught the Saturday vigil mass at the old mission church. The mass started at 5:30 p.m., but the mission was full at 5:15 p.m. Luckily, we got there early.

I wanted, even expected, to be inspired. Instead, the focus of the sermon and a post-sermon discussion was fundraising. "We want money" was the theme. The Pope and the "power of prayer" were secondary themes.

Great, so why don't they just pray for money?

Crap, did I just type that out loud?

As an added non-bonus, the gospel reading was my single least favorite passage from the gospels -- the tale of doubting Thomas. Not only do I not like that passage, I don't much believe it.

Depending upon which version of the New Testament you read, the story of Thomas either implicitly or expressly contradicts the other gospel accounts of Jesus's first appearance to the Apostles. In John 20, Jesus appears to all of the twelve except Thomas, and Thomas then fails to believe until the second appearance of the risen Jesus. But Mark 16 and Luke 24 tell a different tale. In their versions, Jesus appears to all of "the eleven" (Iscariot was off and dead) and they all believe -- not a word is written about Thomas being absent, much less later expressing doubt and demanding to finger Jesus's wounds.

John, who clearly did not like Thomas, rips Thomas for his skepticism, and uses the story of his doubt and Jesus's reaction to it as justification for God's apparent love of blind faith and those who embrace blind faith.

So instead of being inspired, I was sitting there thinking about how the doubting Thomas story actually increases my own doubt, and while marveling over the irony in that situation, I figured I had better start daydreaming before I think something really wicked that will damn my eternal soul.

So it occurred to me: Robert Downey, Jr. turns 40 tomorrow. Who saw that coming? Am I the only one amazed that Robert Downey, Jr. outlived both the Pope and Terri Schiavo? Where is the MSM on this story?

I wondered what the next Pope will call himself. I wondered why there have been no popes named Michael or Lawrence, but there have been popes named Hilarius and Sisinnius. I don't think a pope should take a name with "sin" right in the middle of it. I'm rooting against "John Paul III" as well. I'm ready for another Pius, or a Boniface, or an Honorius, or a Benedict, or an Innocent. Alexander would be okay, too. I could call him Pope Lex IX.

I figured I'd put some of these thoughts into my blog. So I pondered my blog. I just cracked 100,000 hits last week. Is that a lot? It looks like I've finally passed the 1,000 per day mark on a consistent basis. Am I qualified to sell out yet?

Why do chicks still dig the rockers even after they start to look like shit? Vince Neil is starting to look like a Roseanne Barr with light hair. Unlike Vince, however, Roseanne still doesn't get the chicks. Ellen, on the other hand....

I read this weird statistic the other day: 22 percent of singles avoid sushi on a first date. This implicitly means 78 percent would go for it. I love sushi, but on a first date? What if you get bad sushi? What if your date gets sushi burps? Who wants that? Luckily, I don't do first dates anymore. My wife and I are probably on our 300th date or so.

I see that Jesse James Hollywood got busted in Rio and extradicted for that murder he allegedly masterminded a few years ago in Santa Barbara. So much for my running joke about stealing all of my client's money and moving to Rio. It's not the haven I thought.

I heard how the NFL is planning to offset traffic pollution in Detroit for the Super Bowl next year by planting a bunch of trees there in the middle of winter. This sounds stupid for two reasons: (i) nekked trees in the middle of winter put out little or no oxygen; and (ii) each tree they buy and plant is a tree that someone else won't be planting somewhere else, so there is no net gain. So what is the point?

Cynics don't make good environmentalists, do we?

Rants on Hypocrisy and Forgiveness

Today was a nice day for me. My family went with me to Mass at Our Lady of Angels Cathedral in L.A., celebrated by the Cardinal, and looked at some relics of the crucifixion before we went to visit my favorite museum from childhood, at the La Brea Tar Pits. As I turned a year older, the visit to the museum made me feel younger.

But later in the day, I thought back and found myself wondering why I had wanted to be at that particular church, which is the home of Cardinal Mahony, a church leader who I think may be wicked. I'm not alone. As the congregation celebrated Roger Mahony's 30th anniversary as a bishop, a protester outside the church quietly held a "Phony Mahony" sign and spoke calmly to several people who approached him.

My once-favorite priest, Mike Baker, liked to bugger little guys my age when I was in elementary school. I didn't know then, of course, but the church found out about it later and Baker was eventually confronted by Mahony. He admitted to the sexual abuse. "How many?" Mahony asked him. "Two or three" he answered. It was a lie, of course. That sort of question cannot be honestly answered "two or three." If you are a priest, and you've sexually abused children, when the number of victims is still just two or just three, you know damn well whether it is two, or it is three. It is only when the victims become too many to recall that you might forget one or two. The bishop must have known Baker was lying. But he did nothing. In fact, Baker's secret was kept secret, and he was given further access to children. That was wicked. Mahony may have done many good things in his life, but that was wicked.

This sort of wickedness causes me to question everything I ever believed about my church and my religion. If I cannot trust these holy men to be honest with me about whether they are child rapists, or they are harboring child rapists, what moral authority do they command when they tell me to honor the sabbath, or give up stuff for Lent, or tithe, or not say "God Damn" or whatever? The answer: a lot less authority than they had before I knew Mike Baker was a child rapist, because I've discovered that their authority is based on reputation, rather than character.

Isn't character more important than reputation? Put another way, don't you think it is more important to be good, than to be perceived as good? I used to think I knew. I no longer do.

I know a lawyer who is extremely dishonest, but has a great reputation. He seems to be doing very well in a case against a younger sole practitioner who seems to lose every credibility battle in the case. But how can he sleep at night? The answer, of course, is that he sleeps just fine. He thinks he's perfectly normal. He is either in denial or he's a sociopath. Either way, he has no regrets.

In this life, it seems, reputation is much more important, to the extent that you can have one without the other. "But what about heaven and hell?" some would ask. I don't know. I'm not at all sure it matters in the next life, either. All you have to do, my Christian friends assure me, is repent and accept the Lord, even on your deathbed.

Today, as the family of Jessica Lunsford is preparing for her funeral, the church she attends held services in which the pastor urged his flock to forgive John Evander Couey for kidnapping, raping and killing the little girl. I would never do that in a million lifetimes. To err is human, and to forgive is divine. I am not divine, and no pastor should ask me to be. I would not forgive. I would mete out retribution, and leave the forgiveness to whomever doles it out in the afterlife.

FaithGambler had an interesting discussion recently about forgiveness and salvation, in which Reid posed the possibility that Jeffrey Dahmer had accepted God and his soul had been saved before he got his earthly reward at the end of a broomstick or a mop or whatever it was that was used to beat him to death in prison. I reject that possibility.

I never have understood or believed in the concept of a just God accepting a deathbed redemption. I reject the notion that Hitler could have been saved on his deathbed. His immortal soul, if there be such a thing, was damned beyond salvation long before he picked up his last pistol. I don't even like seeing such themes in fiction. What in the world was Darth Vador's spirit doing at peace with Yoda and Obi-Wan at the end of Return of the Jedi?

Perhaps that line of thinking explains why my personal experience is that there is no surer sign that I'm going to get screwed than to find out that a prospective client or vendor has a fish on his checkbook or contract. When they end up, inevitably, screwing me, and I call them on it, they either deny being dishonest or they claim that I'm the asshole. The most obnoxious one ever responded by saying "Well, I'm not perfect. Only one man was. And his initials were J.C." As if that solved anything.

Every so often, they don't address their own conduct, but instead, throw the "you have faults, too" argument back on me. "Next time you feel perfect," one guy said, "try walking across water." What a crock of crap. True, the first stone might be best thrown by he who has no sin, but that doesn't give anyone the right to jerk me around for the rest of my life just because I stole my first pack of baseball cards as a ten-year-old. (Be that as it may, I actually have walked across water. Granted, it was very, very cold water, but frozen water is still water.)

Now, I'm not saying that all Christians are wicked, or hypocritical, or that everyone who professes faith is a liar. But I've noticed that for every quietly devout person, there seem to be an equal or greater number of prostheletizing fake Christians who will try to disarm you with their claims of piety so that they can better succeed at whatever improper goals they set out to achieve. And for every faithful prostheletizer, there are several who are all talk and no walk, and I'm sick of them.

Anyhow, I've come to the conclusion that morality and religion are barely interrelated. Suddenly, I feel much older.

Random Nothing To Do With Thoughts

Q: Do you know the difference between baseball and the L.A. mayoral race?
A: There's no crying in baseball.

Yesterday, L.A. Mayor Jim Hahn's voice broke and he sounded like he was ready to cry like a little girl during a fairly blunt debate with local radio hosts John and Ken. If I had a vote, and it's a shame that I don't, since L.A. and the OC are apparently one and the same now, I would cast my vote for anyone but girlieman Hahn.

This has nothing to do with the mayor, but I've taken a look at the Dodgers' roster this spring, and I'm not impressed. I guess one of the hidden advantages to managing the Dodgers is that you can save a bundle by reserving that October Caribbean vacation six months in advance.

This has nothing to do with the Dodgers, but I've noted that I'm suspicious of bald guys that have beards, but maybe I shouldn't be. If I was bald, I would consider it a major injustice to have to shave my face. Maybe I will someday be a bald guy with a beard.

This has nothing to do with bearded bald guys, but when I hear Blur's "Song 2" come on the radio, I have a very difficult time not flooring the accelerator. That is a great song to speed to.

This has nothing to do with speeding, but I've been told that no word in the English language rhymes with "month." I can't dispute that, but I have noticed that if you have a frontal lisp, month rhymes with bunts, dunce, hunts, once, punts and, um, others. Yeah, I know I left out an impolite one, but I can't really picture someone with a frontal lisp using that word.

This has nothing to do with frontal lisps, but did you hear the great news? They found found Tutankhamun's penis. Or, at least, they think they did. After it went missing in 1968, they think they found it "loose in the sand around the king's body." Now, finally, the song Detachable Penis, by King Missile, makes sense. The whole thing -- the band name, the song name, the concept -- it all ties together. The song is about an Egyptian Pharaoh whose manhood was mistaken for a cat dropping for 36 years.

This has nothing to do with kings' missiles, but how funny is it to hear New York Senator Hillary Clinton calling for greater government and parental scrutiny of the television that children watch and play, saying kids are suffering from a "silent epidemic" from media sex and violence? What does she think they are watching, documentaries on her husband's presidency? When my fifth grader comes home and asks what a "Lewinski" is, which family is more responsible for that -- the ABC family, or the Clintons?

This has nothing to do with getting a Lewinski, but what in the world are people doing giving kids snacks made of poisonous plants that can break down into cyanide in one's digestive system? In the Phillipines today, parents were carting off the bodies of their dead children from hospitals after a snack of cassava killed 27 kids and made 100 others sick at an elementary school. Cassava is poisonous unless it is peeled and thoroughly cooked. If eaten raw or prepared sloppily, digestive enzymes turn it into poison cyanide. Two cassava roots are enough to kill. In the Phillipines, they carmelize it, deep fry it and give it to kids. What could possibly go wrong?

This has nothing to do with carmelized poison roots, but don't you think that frosting your friend's brownies with semen is a little bit severe as a revenge prank for your friends putting peanut butter in your cheese sandwich? I agree. Our opinion, however, is not universally held.

This has nothing to do with man-juice brownies, but one of the few areas in which I condone discrimination against the blind is in the arena of gunplay. Does the Second Amendment give blind guys the right to keep and bear arms? If so, my allegiance to the Second Amendment is waning.

This has nothing to do with blind gunmen, but the headline reads: "Ex-Dentist May Face Charges in Semen Case." May? May? As in, "or may not?" If I was pharaoh, any dentist who put his man-juice in syringes and squirted them in his patients' mouths would get death.

Do I hear any nominations?

Broken Sports, Celebrity Strikeouts and Bird Flu Thoughts

If you don't believe the owners when they say hockey franchises are on the verge of going under, consider this recent news bite: The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, just one season removed from playing in a seven game Stanley Cup Final, just sold for a reported $75 million dollars.

To put that into perspective, the Cleveland Cavaliers last traded hands for $375 million. The Ducks are worth one-fifth what the Cavaliers are worth. Man, that is sorry.

At these prices, Peyton Manning wouldn't even have to work two years to pay for an NHL franchise. Manning makes $42 million per year.

The city of Anaheim honored the Ducks last night for their off the ice community service this year. They won't be gathering any honors for on-the-ice performances. Although I must say, it's nice not to have to listen to depressing King scores every morning this late in the season.

Will the Lakers improve now that Faber v. Bryant has settled? More importantly, how much do you think she got? Guilty or not, if I was Kobe, I would have paid $2 million in a heartbeat to avoid deposition testimony that would have ended, for life, any hope of another endorsement deal. I'm guessing that Kobe would draw the line at paying her more than he paid his wife. How much was that diamond, $4 million?

WTF? There was some dude in the paper yesterday who came to California, all the way from Knoxville, just to hold a sign outside the Santa Maria courthouse that said "Michael We Love You." That would be crazy even if the guy was clearly innocent, which he isn't.

Clearly guilty: R2D2 got busted for DUI while driving his specially equipped car that lets the two foot six inch tall "actor" drive, at least when he's sober. You R2D2 drive. Can you imagine how that exchange might have gone? Kenny Baker gets pulled over, and the cop walks up.

Cop: You been drinkin' a little tonight son?
R2D2 guy: Just two drinks, officer.
Cop: Shit. You're only 14 inches tall. You must be drunk off your ass.
R2D2 guy: Um.... These aren't the droids you're looking for?

I watched part of the Oscars Sunday while destroying and throwing out dozens of old legal files. It was hard for me to care about the show, in part because I was busy tossing and shredding files from the July 2003 shredding list, but more so because I saw almost none of the nominated films. I didn't see any of the films nominated for best picture, director, actor or actress (lead or supporting). I had no idea if the performances were great. I was a man without an opinion. I hate being that guy.

Spiderman 2, which won best visual effects, was the only winner I had seen, other than the animated stuff. Out of all the nominees, I saw nothing except the cartoons, wizards, and superhero movies. I feel so uncultured.

I'm not real big on fashion, either, but I noticed that Rene Zellweger looked like hell and seemed really uncomfortable in her prom dress. Some people thought she was dazzling. I thought she was an Ian Michael Black clone.

Antonio Banderas can't sing. That was as shocking as Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen splitting up.

Martin Scorsese should have won, from what I read. And he looked like he thought he was due. But he lost again. Perhaps if he trimmed his eyebrows, more people would vote for him.

Sean Penn really is a joyless prick. Sean, Spicoli, they are jokes, dude. That MC behind the mic is a comedian. There is a reason that microphone wasn't handed to a college professor, or a war protester or an engineer. We want to be amused. And frankly, you bastard, we spend enough money to have earned the right to poke fun and you and your colleagues. You are clowns, there for our amusement. In appreciation, we buy popcorn and other overpriced crap in the overpriced theater that helps fund the extremely high salary that we begrudge you. If you don't like that system, go get a job selling Pergo or something.

Hillary Swank's "poor girl from a trailer park with a dream" shit was old the day after she won her first Oscar. I'm sick of her already.

And Al Pacino looked like he just woke up with a bad hangover.

Spike Lee is no longer cool. Even the Sailor Moon crowd thinks he looks like a dork.

But for the show, each segment was short, and there weren't many protests. I liked that. The last thing I want when my comedian is poking fun at Jude Law is the see some bitch wearing a second-hand cotton dress that says "fur is murder."

PETA is still raging over the way chickens are being treated before they get slaughtered. I don't get it. I don't completely understand all those reincarnation rules, but I'm pretty sure that if you were born as a chicken, it means you were a pretty bad person in your previous life. And if you get that new avian flu and kill a bunch of people, then next time you're coming back as a single-celled canine rectal bacterium.

This new avian flu scares the crap out of me. Right now, it cannot pass from person to person. You can only get it from bird saliva or bird poop. But one day, it is going to infect some Vietnamese chicken farmer who already has another flu virus that can pass from person to person, and it's going to mutate into a contagious form.

If that mutant strain remains as dangerous as the current strain -- which kills more than half of those infected -- it would make the AIDS epidemic look insignificant by comparison.

If you don't believe me, read your history books about the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic that, in less than a year, killed over 40 million young healthy people in developed countries like the U.S., Spain, England and Germany.

If I had been born two centuries ago, if the flu didn't get me first, I would have died of strep throat and fever before my 32nd birthday. I'm glad I wasn't born two centuries ago.

Random Baby and Making Thoughts

Congratulations to my wife's penpal in England who just had a healthy baby girl. I appreciate the Sheffield United jersey they sent me a bit back, and I bought the Matt Leinart jersey for her husband, which I will ship across the pond as soon as I can catch up in all the stuff my clients are hammering me to get done during business hours. I think we'll throw in some baby girl stuff, too.

I've been in court and deposition and mediation constantly this month. Sometimes, and in particular, while I am in deposition, I worry that I might use up all my words and be rendered mute. But I can still type.

We have this one guy on our office floor who always going into the bathroom with a copy of the L.A. Times, and he reads the whole thing and leaves it on the floor for everyone else to read. He'll sit there all morning, it seems, unless someone really pollutes the air from the next stall over. It's happened a few times. Sadly, I've never been able to force him out, so I never have anything to read unless I wait until after lunch to go in there.

According to Scott Peterson's website, it looks like Laci's "real killer" still hasn't been found. He's probably hiding in the same incredible hiding place that conceals Ron and Nicole's "real killer."

In a completely unrelated link, I found some other Peterson family's 2003 Disneyland vacation slideshow. I've just learned how to make those myself and I dig 'em. I don't like this family's choice of music though. Disneyland pictures being shown to the tune of Randy Newman's "I Love L.A." makes about as much sense as calling an Anaheim baseball club the "Los Angeles Angels."

I sometimes wonder when the new "morning after" pill is going to be made available over the counter. Because there is no way I could ever get a prescription for it, and I could have a lot of fun slipping an empty box of morning after pills into the medicine cabinet at certain cocktail parties.

FleetCenter in Boston has been auctioning off single-day rights to rename the stadium and give the proceeds to charity. No deed so good goes unpunished. The winner of one day's rights chose Fark.com UFIA Arena as his one-day name. UFIA, for the uninitiated, is an acronym even cruder than MILF.

Does anyone use the word "metrosexual" anymore? I never liked that one. All I wanted to know was whether I could represent them in a discrimination suit. I found that I could not. Thus endeth my interest.

I don't know which sexual position produces the ugliest children, but I'll bet Lyle Lovett's mom knows.

That's all I know for now.

A Lack of Understanding Thoughts

Now they are talking about maybe not cancelling the NHL season after all. I'm not sure I really care. I'm a hockey fan. Sort of. I used to have a mini-plan for the Kings back when Wayne Gretzky played, and the games were at the Forum. I was at the Ducks' opening game, and had Ducks 20 game mini-plans a few times. I went to the NHL Finals when the Ducks played New Jersey. I'm no Canadian, but I'm the type of fan that hockey really needs and wants in the U.S.

And I don't really care one way or another if they strike a deal. I'll be slightly pleased if they do, I suppose, because I can probably get a couple of tickets two rows behind the glass for about 90% below face value on eBay, but if I can't, I'll skip hockey this season.

Are there any worse negotiators than NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman? Best and final offers were not best or final. Lines in the sand were drawn early in the dispute, and then both sides caved, months after caving would have been productive. Even then, neither side caved far enough to get a deal done before cancelling the season.

I read today that the NHL lost $1.8 billion over the course of the last collective bargaining agreement. If that is true, I wonder why they are even negotiating. If my business lost even a measly billion dollars, I would just move on to something more profitable.

Replacement players are not going to work, either. With world class talent, the NHL isn't attractive enough to rate putting the championship games on a major network. With a bunch of scrubs, they'll be lucky to strike radio deals.

Los Angeles racial politics also continues to confuse me. The recent shooting of a 13-year-old car thief has black community leaders furious. The basic story is this: at 4 a.m., police see a car rip through a red light. Thinking they have a drunk driver, the cops give chase. During the pursuit, they learn that the car has been reported as stolen. Eventually, the car comes to a crashing halt, after which the driver is told to come out of the car. Police do not know the race or age of the driver, who puts the car into reverse and rams the police car. A cop opens fire, and when the smoke clears, a black teenager is found dead behind the wheel.

People are asking why police shot the driver of a cop-car-ramming stolen vehicle. They are implying that the shooting was part of a organized campaign to shoot and kill young blacks. They are talking of "taking back their community", not from car thieves and gangsters, but police. The family is rumored to be hiring Johnny Cochrane's firm to sue the pants off the City of Los Angeles.

What everyone should be doing is asking is why a thirteen year old is out in a stolen car at 4 a.m. They might also consider asking police to better protect them from car thieves and dangerous drivers. But that won't help black leaders gain notoriety, and it won't get the family a great big cash settlement (which they could spend on parenting lessons), so they aren't asking those kinds of questions. Instead, they complain that the police are demonizing this little car thief, who, in their world, is "just like any other little kid." In my world, little kids don't steal cars in the hours just before dawn, but maybe I'm the one who lives in a f*cked up backwards world. I don't know.

I don't understand Rick Neuheisel's wrongful termination lawsuit against the University of Washington. He gambled. He should have known better. Bidding on teams to win money is gambling. College coaches should not gamble. It really isn't that complicated. And he admits that he lied. Or, as Bill Clinton would also put it, he "wasn't entirely truthful." I find it quite embarrassing that a graduate of USC's Gould School of Law would pursue such a case. I guess it's true that you can take the idiot out of UCLA, but you can never take the UCLA out of the idiot.

If he had come to me as a potential client, I'd have told him to call the Trevor Law Group. Back then, before they all lost their bar licenses, those guys took shitty cases and tried to settle them. I don't know. Maybe once I know all the facts, I won't think the lawsuit is frivolous, but I know I wouldn't have taken it.

The only good thing about the case is that it made Ricky cry on the stand. That was funny. Someone needs to tell him that there's even less crying in football than there is in baseball. And there's no crying in baseball.

Finally, I don't understand Debbie Gibson getting nekked in Playboy. I stopped wondering what she looked like nekked in 1988.

The Failing Lake and Other Show Thoughts

The Grammy Awards got their lowest TV ratings in a decade last weekend. I didn't even know they were on. Oh well, I'm sure they sucked anyway.

I used to think that "Trading Spaces" on TLC was the worst show on television. Giving the neighbors $1,000 to impose their bad taste upon your home is just hideous. Then I saw "Clean Sweep," where they throw out all your stuff, and I thought it could get no worse. Now I've seen "It Takes a Thief," in which people let real burglars break into their houses and steal their stuff. Can it get any worse?

If you say "It Takes a Rapist," you are going straight to hell.

With little fanfare, "Grounded For Life" ended last week. I liked it, but everyone else must have thought it sucked. It lost me when "Joan of Arcadia" joined its time slot, but I'd have watched still if it was up against, say, "Joey".

Ice Cube is starring in a family film, "Are We There Yet?" Yes, Ice Cube has sold out and joined The Man. Easy E must be rolling over in his grave.

Chick Hearn must be doing the same. I still love my Lakers, but to be perfectly honest, aside from Kobe, I like the Clipper players better. The Lakers have declared this "The Year of the Fan." I guess it could be. It sure isn't the year of the Laker player.

Still, I'm not that impressed with the fans, either. Maybe it's because any homeless guy can now afford a lower level seat, especially when the team is Kobeless. Maybe it's because the crowd is not quite as sharply dressed, the chicks are not quite as hot, and not nearly as slutty in their attire. Maybe it's that too many fans come disguised as empty purple seats.

Up close, I'm sure they are easy to tell apart, but from my seats, Brian Grant looks like a dead ringer for Lisa Leslie.

You know how the announcer always says when it gets to the two minute mark? There's always that one guy who stands up at, like, 2:04 left in the half, and yells "how much time is left?" I love it when someone commits a foul at 2:02 and exposes that guy as an asshat.

I'm almost starting to miss hockey. I miss the fights. I miss the Zamboni machines. If my local hockey team offered to let me ride its Zamboni, I'd do it in a heartbeat. My local hockey team won't be playing any games this year, however. So no Zamboni for me. Fights, on the other hand, I might get.

Last week, I saw perhaps the single funniest thing David Letterman ever uttered, and it barely got a giggle. While interviewing Paris Hilton, Dave presided over the following exchange:

Dave: "What kind of stuff have you been doin?"
Paris Hilton: "Oh, I have my Paris Hilton perfume; I'm like, launching that everywhere. And doing movies and albums."
Dave: "Movies? What kind of movies are you in?"

Five people, if that, laughed quietly. I guess the rest just sat there with Cosby pudding pop faces. If I was in the studio audience with 100 clones of me, we'd have laughed ourselves incontinent.

His next conversation, about who she dates, was almost as funny.

Paris: "It doesn't matter about looks anymore. That used to be what it would be about, it used to be about looks, but now it's like, looks fade, so whatever."
Dave: "What are mistakes a first date guy might make?"
Paris: .... blah, blah, blah, "or if they like, try to kiss me, I hate that. [audience laughs] Unless they're hot."

In other words, looks don't matter. What matters is whether you are "hot." I'm still trying to grasp the difference.

Trademark law is pissing me off. Paris Hilton has trademarked the expression "That's hot." The Donald has trademarked the expression "You're fired!"

So, the next time I walk in on two female interns making out in an empty office, and I blurt out something like "That's hot, but you're fired," I still have to worry about the sexual harassment claims and the wrongful termination lawsuits, but now I also have to worry about busloads of trademark infringement lawyers showing up at my door.

I know I'm going to get busted. Just the other day, I told a friend that I used to think Julie, my cruise director, was hot. On the other hand, I thought Vicki, who was more my age, was not hot.

I wonder what I owe Paris Hilton for saying that.

Maybe I can capitalize by trademarking some other common phrase. Perhaps "Oh, shit!" If I could trademark that one I might make a fortune. Of course, I'd rather have the more lucrative "Oh, f*ck," but I think that kid who played Ralphie in "A Christmas Story" might already have that one.

Ding, Drug and Bad Driver Thoughts

I hate commuting into L.A. for an 8:30 court calender. I love arriving to find out that my case is first on the calendar. I hate when that happens and the first words out of the judge's mouth (after "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen"), is "I will be calling the calendar out of order this morning. Let's start with number two." Aw, shit.

Another unhappy judge in L.A. has shot himself in the head. Judge Jeff Wiatt shot himself shortly after he learned of an investigation into his alleged child sexual abuse. Did he do it? Of course he did. No innocent man kills himself over the mere mention of a false accusation.

Like the judge who did it last month, Wiatt was among the leaders in 170.6 peremptory challenges. Lawyers in California get to "ding" a judge they don't like, just once per case, automatically. In the Chatsworth court, Judge Wiatt was what lawyers-in-the-know commonly referred to as an "automatic 170.6". There was no less pleasant place to be than in his courtroom. Now we know why. Wiatt was a miserable man who sexually abused children.

The world would be a better place if athletes were forced to pay the full stadium price for all their food and beverages. They might appreciate their fans more. On the other hand, it might force more of them into drug trafficking just to make ends meet.

For example, the NFL's leading rusher from the 2004 season is off to prison for the offseason for putting a deal together. Let's hope he hits the weights and stays off the cell phone.

I've been to prison exactly once in my life, to take a deposition of an inmate who had attacked one of my clients. It was seriously creepy, and it made me want to never break the law in my entire life.

Somewhat less creepy, but creepy nonetheless, is when people sniff their fingers. Where has the finger of that finger-sniffer been? If I don't know, we are never shaking hands unless I can smell the hand soap at two paces.

It bugs me a bit that restaurants have to post signs to remind their employees to wash their hands after they wipe their asses. If they need signs to remind them to wash after they wipe their asses, who or what will protect us when they pick their noses and scratch their ears?

I went to Carl's Jr. for breakfast the other day and the dude took my order for a breakfast burrito and asked me if I wanted fries with that. No, I do not want fries with that. What kind of person eats fries with breakfast?

Hash browns? Sure. Tater Tots®? Maybe. But not fries.

Spicoli was right. People on 'ludes should not drive. Chicks on cell phones, either. Almost every time I find myself behind an apparent daytime drunk driver, it turns out to be a woman on a cellphone. The news bears this out anecdotally. Name one famous man who has killed people driving while using a cell phone. You can't come up with one? Okay, now, name the females.

I win.

Celebrity females don't know how to drive drunk, either. Stockard Channing especially doesn't get it. When you throw back some vino over dinner, and you are way over the legal limit, you drive carefully. In contrast, driving along the shoulder to pass a traffic jam miiiight draw police attention. So what does she do? Why, hit the shoulder, of course. I mean, who would figure her for a DUI suspect, right? DUI suspects always try to hide the fact that they are drunk. A contrarian like Rizzo could maybe drive like a drugged or drunken maniac and get away with it. It was an interesting theory, but it does not work in real life. She was in court last week to discuss the matter.

I have a favorite new commercial: Bud Light's "She's annoying, but I'm desperate." When will people in commercials learn to shut their mouths when parrots are in the room? Bud Light is on a roll right now. "Wardrobe Malfunction" is a hilarious ad. So is the one with the skydiver whose instructor chucks a case of Bud Light out of the plane to get the student to jump, and the pilot goes after it instead. Man, that is funny stuff. I'm going to go drink a Bud Light right now just to show my appreciation.

I have a least favorite awful commercial: Re/Max's "Finding a new home isn't a job for amateurs. True, but only a f*cking idiot goes on a burro into the desert, or wades into gator-infested swamps to look for a house. They must think we are stupid, stupid, stupid, and we're going to watch the ad and think, "Damn, I better call Re/Max, or else I'm going to end up looking for houses in the jungle." Re/Max sucks.

That's...that's about all I have to say about all that.

Tiltin' Variety Show Thoughts

My kids' school had its first variety/talent show of the year tonight. Some of the acts were really cute. Some were really bad. My favorites were really short. My girl lip-synched the part of Jane in a Tarzan song. It took zero skill, but it was quite cute. When my daughter tried out, with virtually no rehearsal time, and made it, I wondered what kind of criteria they were using to pick the acts. It is now clear to me. Uniqueness is a plus. Cuteness is huge. Talent is optional. The formula works. I was actually entertained, even when my kid was not onstage.

Most memorable: a mixed group of "divas" performing a medley that ended with a hairy arm-pitted Britney Spears raising his arms and "knocking out" the other divas.

Most sorry but memorable: two girls who did a duet of Colors of the Wind had to wait an awkward full minute for their music. (Overheard: "If this act is a cappella, they are choking.") Then they had not one, but two microphone malfunctions. But they carried on and did their number to a rousing ovation.

Worst idea of the night: a group of third grade girls singing "Teacher's Pet" to an eighth grade girl playing their teacher. Girl-girl crushes might happen from time to time among certain girls, but I don't really want to see third graders glorifying it.

One dad snuck a performance into the show by playing a ukulele so his first grader daughter could do an extremely good hula dance. I, on the other hand, maintained my anonymity. I sat in the balcony, right next to the spotlight, which reminded me that the air is full of dust. Lots of it.

Several kids and groups had their parents do full on MTV type music videos, some of which were shot on film at a variety of remote locations. They were pretty neat, but in some respects, they sort of backfired, because everyone's heads were turned to the wall where the MTV was playing, and the kids were up there performing to ears and jawlines instead of faces. Sometimes technology rocks. Sometimes, it's too much.

Example given: I just found out that they are planning to float wireless internet access into the air at several beaches. I see two ways to respond to this news: (i) by asking what kind of idiot wants to work on the Internet when he should be enjoying the beach; and (ii) by wondering how great it would be to be able to do work, including accessing the web, while kicking back on the sand?

I can't make up my mind. Maybe I'll head down to the beach with my laptop and see whether it seems cool or pathetic. But that's another day.

Tonight, it's cold, and it's raining like we're not in California. I'm too cold and tired to go to the beach. Actually, I'm so freaking tired that I'm thinking about claiming to have a drug problem and checking into a detox program just for the rest and relaxation. Since I don't have 28 days to do a rehab, I think I'll just play some poker or watch Tilt.

I love Tilt. Love it. It's roughly half poker, half mob show. It's "Rounders" meets "the Godfather." In other words, it is the perfect entertainment device for me. However, the technical advisors to the show blow it from time to time. In the third episode, Don Everest hooked his whale with a $140,000 call and a $140,000 raise that was placed as part of a string bet. Any 3-6 player knows better than to do that. Ever. The "World's Greatest Poker Player" would have known better, too.

I'm more than a bit annoyed, too, with the scheduling of the program. It seems to constantly get delayed by sporting events on ESPN. Consequently, it might start at an odd time, and end, at, for example, 10:07 p.m. That screws with my TiVo, and it pisses me off. So I might not stay with the show, even though I dig it when I can see it.

That's all I have on my mind at the moment.

Botched Attempt 90s Free Speech Thoughts

So far, I haven't heard of anyone I know being on the Metrolink that hit that jackass's SUV on Wednesday, but the story is still hitting close to home. Is it too much to ask that despondent people bent on committing train suicide do so while on foot? At least that way, the only harm done to strangers is delay their arrival. And, for God's sake, if you change your mind and decide to remove yourself from the tracks, take your f*cking SUV with you!

I hope he is convicted, sentenced to life in prison without parole, and never permitted to kill himself no matter how badly he wants to die.

I love the picture of that meteor that landed in Cambodia. It looks like God spit out his gum and aimed it at the Cambodians.

I've been TiVoing and watching those "I Love the 90s, Part Deux" shows. Having made it through half of them, it is now becoming quite clear to me that I stopped paying attention to the world for several years, as I started working long hours as a young lawyer, and spent my rare spare time with my new wife and baby. Movies? Don't remember them. I never saw Species or that To Wong Foo thing. Hell, I never even saw The Usual Suspects. Songs? Never heard them. Number one chart-toppers from the early 90s ring absolutely no bell for me.

Some of this stuff, I must confess, I don't know about by choice. For example, it is by choice that I don't know how to "vogue." And it is definitely by choice that I never saw a single frame of Cop Rock other than what they showed in commercials during other programs. But I don't even recognize the college radio cuts for most of these years. That's a bit sorry.

Those shows also remind me that Juliette Lewis isn't that pretty, and she doesn't even have a smoking body; and it makes absolutely no sense that Brad Pitt would stay with her for like, three years. I mean, this guy had Jennifer Aniston, and that wasn't good enough. But Juliette Lewis was worth three years? UFR.

The 90s shows aren't nearly as funny as the 80s ones. I still laugh over just the thought of that old PSA from the 80s, when Bob Barker deadpans, "Animals do not transmit the AIDS virus. You can't get AIDS from a cat." It makes me want to call Bob up and explain to him that the person who said what he heard was not referring to actual cats, and that, as it turns out, you actually can get AIDS from a pussy.

Is Madonna still going by that new name? Is it sticking? I haven't been paying attention.

Johnny Carson is dead, and that is sad, but those talking heads who are droning on and on about how he will be missed are late with their story. Johnny Carson has been missed for a decade. He became dead to me when he left the Tonight Show, vanished from public life and stuck us with Jay Leno.

It was like that with Reagan, too. Ronald Reagan was dead to the world years before they finally put him in a casket.

Is it too soon to start mourning Dick Clark's passing?

I have a colleague whose client was just diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, and she still isn't done paying off her student loans. God really should have a rule that you won't start forgetting your college education until at least a year or two after you are done paying for it.

Damn, that new Airbus A380 is huge. And, lucky for Thailand, they are going to be getting six. If they know what's good for them. The rest of the world is dumping cash into Thailand and other tsunami-pounded nations like the future of the world depended on it, but the European Union is threatening to mess with Thailand's fishing tariffs unless Thailand buys six of those new $260 million airplanes. It's enough to almost make you feel good about how the U.S. is spending slightly more on tsunami relief than Iraqi occupation.

Before his recent execution, California convict Donald Beardslee raised the single most creative absurd legal argument I ever read. He argued -- I swear I did not make this up -- a First Amendment claim, based upon the fact that the pancuronium bromide was going to prevent him from audibly and consciously expressing his pain during the execution, thereby denying him his right to free speech under the First Amendment. The court denied the appeal in one of the most sterile replies I've ever seen. "Framed in this manner, Beardslee's argument is tied to his claim that there is a risk that he will be conscious when the final two drugs are administered. On this limited record, he has not made that showing. Therefore, in the context at this stage of the case, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying preliminary injunctive relief on Beardslee's independent First Amendment claim." They could have just as easily written "Ask a stupid question...."

I found the NCAA's official list of unofficial college football champions. USC has a total of 16 teams that were number one on at least one widely accepted ranking, including every single ranking for 2004, most of the rankings for 2003, and even a couple of rankings for 2002. This means that Carson Palmer's 11-2 Orange Bowl winning Trojans staked a better claim to the national championship in 2002 than 13-0 Sugar Bowl winning Auburn did this year.

Hehe.

Inaugural Playdate, Inmate and Bad Fad Thoughts

I originally started this as a collection of random thoughts posts. Lately, it's become more of a mix of web portal and USC football soapbox. My random thoughts junk is built as a memo file on my Palm Pilot. When it gets full, I post it and start another one. Usually, I go a week or so between full memos. Today, I've got a full memo in just a day.

Rick Neuheisel -- with whom I attended law school -- can't get a job as a head coach while his lawsuit remains pending against his former employer. That's as shocking as Louie Anderson testing positive for french fries or Paris Hilton testing positive for latex.

Someone has been hacking into Paris Hilton's emails. For most of us, that would be the worst invasion of privacy ever, but in Hilton's case, its no big deal, relatively speaking. If I caught the culprit, though, I would slap him upside the head for extending that hook-nosed bitch's fifteen minutes of fame. When is she going to go away? She's like a horrible fad that won't end.

Fads amaze me. Some fads are really cool, but most are pretty lame in the cold light of hindsight. Lame fads have included: 3D movies, Furbies, mood rings, baby on board signs, streaking dudes, unicycles, waterbeds, sea monkeys, telephone booth stuffing, afro haircuts, bellbottoms, coonskin caps, leisure suits, platform shoes, zoot suits, mirrored disco balls, louvres on hatchbacks, pet rocks, pogs, Beanie Babies and Pokemon.

Cool fads have included: the Rocky Horror Picture Show, baby in trunk signs, panty raids, streaking girls, hacky sacks and toga parties.

I think that, in hindsight, the latest fads -- magnetic car ribbons and colored cause bracelets -- will be judged as lame.

I hold it to be self-evident that car magnets suck, because if they were cool, they would never be seen on a car for more than a day before being stolen.

I also think colored rubber cause bracelets suck. The Live Strong bracelets were cool, but they became just another way to conform. And now there are so many wannabees that they all suck. Do you hate Bush? You need to wear a blue "Count Me Blue" bracelet, or a black "I Did Not Vote For Bush" bracelet. But the blue bracelet could stand for Hope, Juvenile Diabetes Research (light blue means the same; so does Orange), or half a dozen other things, including an anti-bullying symbol that seems to be a whoop-ass magnet. Red might mean you are a USC fan or a Bush voter. Jungle green supports our troops. Orange also means Lupus Awareness. Yellow still means cancer awareness but pink, more precisely, means Breast Cancer Awareness, for now, at least. It'll be gay pride any day now. Rainbow also means Breast Cancer Awareness. That'll mean gay pride soon, too. Because anyone can make a wristband of any color for any cause. And now they're doing it. So nobody knows what any of them mean.

That's lame. But not as lame as protesting in the snow with a misspelled f-bomb. Seriously, people, what is the point of freezing your butts off to protest an inauguration? The people who agree with you will still be exactly the same the day after your protest. And the people who disagree with you are just laughing at you, saying, "Look at those poorly dressed idiots freezing their asses off in the snow."

Save it for a better day.

Though I'm not a very strong Bush supporter or hater, I listened to his speech. I can sum it up in one theme sentence: I want to tax the shit out of you so that I can pay to send your friends overseas to get shot trying to impose freedom and democracy on an ungrateful and suspicious world.

I'm not impressed.

You know what does impress me? The work of those JibJab guys. Their latest animated music video, Second Term, (dedicated to Elvis) is pretty funny.

Almost as funny -- the Rams getting their asses beat in the Georgia Dome last weekend. The beating was poignant to former Ram fans here in the OC who would like to see Georgia's dome lopped off and tossed into the river.

Yesterday, I noticed that Rich Garcia, accused by some teammates of being gay, ended up with a Playboy Playmate of the Year as his girlfriend. Now, the report is that Mike Piazza, who once called a press conference to deny rumors that he was gay, is engaged to a Playboy Playmate. Is this a Rock Hudson move, or were the accusers simply as wrong as a wrong person can be?

If Richard Hatch starts dating a Playboy Bunny, I'll have my answer.

Richard Hatch, WTF? You didn't declare your Survivor winnings? I thought you were smart. You thought that the IRS workers don't watch Survivor? I knew you won a million bucks. My mom even knew you won a million bucks. You had to have known that the person who looked at your return would probably know, right off the top of his or her head, that you made a million bucks. You must be stupid, stupid, stupid.

Or -- wait a minute -- is this just a plot to get laid more often? There are probably a lot of big strong men eagerly awaiting sex with you in prison. You freaking genius....

Martha Stewart is already planning a new reality show to start filming once she leaves prison. I don't admire her for cheating on her securities transactions, but I admire her ability to think outside the box in a way few inmates can.

California's first death row inmate to be put to death since January 2002, Donald Beardslee made no last statement and ate no final meal. Some protester outside the gates of San Quentin held a sign that said "Death Penalty Racist." Not in California, dude. And certainly not this time. Beardslee didn't have a drop of color in his blood. Neither did Stephen Wayne Anderson -- the most recent California execution before Beardslee.

Anderson, like Beardslee, had no final words. That's as it should be.

Money, Cheetos and Bad Hair Gay Girlfriend Seeker Thoughts

Now that I own my own business, I long for the days when I could steal all of the office supplies I needed.

I remember a funny story last year about Japanese building owners buying toilet flush-noise makers for ladies rooms because Japanese women were flushing to mask the noise of their bunghole sounds. I don't know what it's like in Japan, but here in California, men have no such sense of embarrassment. If you are a man, once you enter that stall, you can make almost any sort of body noise you want, with no sense of embarrassment.

I disapprove, however, of grunting noises. I really don't want to hear those. Slurping is not good, either.

I heard on the news than Donald Trump will be teaching seminars on how to make money in real estate, at various locations around the country, for a fee of one million dollars per day. He's been bankrupt how many times? And people are willing to pay a million dollars, as a group, to hear him speak? That is absurd. From this day forward, I will no longer be nearly as shocked or disgusted by athletes making one, two, ten or twenty million dollars a year. Compared to Trump, Shaq and his ilk are a bargain.

I hate people who sign up for reality programs and then bitch about the stuff they are called upon to do for the prize of $1 million, or $50,000 or whatever they signed on to win. Gas, grass or ass, nobody rides for free, right? So, why did you think it would be different on a show called Survivor or Fear Factor? You know the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts? Beer nuts are less than dollar, and deer nuts are under a buck -- and in your mouth. And whether you eat it or not, you will be humiliated for our entertainment, so you might as well suck it down and stay in the running for the money.

I like cheetos, but not those other kinds of cheese puffs. The cheep ones look like dead, dehydrated, carrot-eating mealworms. I have no desire to eat dead, dehydrated, carrot-eating mealworms.

A bad haircut can make anybody look stupid. Want proof? I offer Albert Einstein.

Would you ever give up a close friendship for a million dollars? How about $100,000? You probably said no to both questions. I know people who have said no to both questions, but then took a job in another state that paid less than $100,000, and which, effectively, ended every close friendship they had. I guess if you're working for the money, it seems less crass than if you just take a lump sum and stop seeing your buddies without explanation.

I know that ladies are not supposed to wear white after Labor Day. What I don't know is whether it is currently "after Labor Day."

Overheard at the gym: Ballhandler who came in for layup knee-first: "I'm sorry, man. Are you okay?" Defender who took a knee to the gut: "Yeah, you missed me just high. If you'd come in 2 to 12 inches lower, that would have hurt like hell, though." Ballhandler: "In your dreams. Your ball."

Remember hearing about Jeff Garcia being gay? If he is, he is the master of all closet gays in the nation, because he's not only dating a Playmate of the Year, he has her so jealous of his ex-girlfriend that the two rivals catfight.

Of course, if I was gay, and made a lot of money as a quarterback, I'd want a pretty girlfriend, too.

In fact, even if I was blind [and single], I would still want to date pretty girls. Do you agree or disagree?

Food, Art and B-Movie Life Thoughts

I am out of it. Having focused all of my attention on USC football and business at the office, I have completely lost touch with artsy-fartsy stuff. Music, film, art, I am out of it. I just found out that Pearl Jam has a new CD out. I didn't even know Pearl Jam was still together. Take a look at any list of 2004's top ten movies and you will see at least eight movies I haven't seen; and probably at least five movies I wouldn't like. I need to start getting out again.

Among the roots of ancient olive trees, archaeologists have found bits of stone jars of the kind the Gospel says Jesus used when he turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Some people believe this is proof that the miracle at Cana was true.

Now, I'm not saying it didn't happen, but this is not evidence that it did. It's like someone digging up a charred building in Texas 2,000 years from now and saying it is proof that David Koresh was divine.

I am older than Jesus was when he died. That makes me feel very old.

If Elvis had never sat down on the toilet that fateful day in 1977, he would have turned 70 yesterday, and he would probably be bigger than ever. Maybe even 400 pounds.

Worst insult ever uttered on the big screen: in The Exorcist, possessed little girl Regan looks at Father Damien and says, of his recently deceased mother, "Your mother sucks cocks in hell." That's a pretty low blow (pun intended). Regan's voice in that scene was provide by late actress Mercedes McCambridge, who was damn near 60 at the time. McCambridge died about a year ago.

Here is an underrated way to make a room full of people laugh themselves silly: Bragging about how your son is so clean, because he showers five times a day. Then deny that he pleasures himself five times a day.

Retired porn actresses complain that men don't want to date them. That's true. Many men would judge them. The rest don't have the balls. Well, not balls, but, you know.

Straight guys should not wear speedos. In particular, straight, middle-aged Cuban men should not wear speedos on the beach with their young sons, who are also in speedos.

I now tell Nigerian businessmen that if they send me $500 earnest money in cash or money order, I will open an account and do their bidding. None have taken my offer yet.

\Women rarely say "pull my finger." Sadly, women rarely pull the fingers of their men. Why? Because men enojying defilng the environment when their fingers get pulled. Funny? Sure, once. But it's all downhill from there. You see, having your finger pulled can feel really good. When your hands are tired, dry or sore, a hand massage feels great. But even a firm tugs on the fingers can bring relief. That's why, when I say "pull my finger," and my wife does it, I just smile and thank her.

This is a cool list of foods to eat before you die. I've had all but 11, 32, 35, 36, 40, 42, 48 and 50. I plan to try all but one of them, not because I don't like any particular one, but because I'd hate to eat the 50th item and immediately drop dead.

Never date a woman who believes in the perfect match, because eventually, you will disqualify yourself by doing something that her soullmate would never have done. The exception to this rule is when you just want to bonk her for a while and then move on. Disillusioning her about your imperfection is a great way to get her to break up with you when the time is right.

Do they have a "What to Expect" parenting book that deals with the teen years? I'm going to need one of those soon.

Two Buck Chuck is the break homeless drunkards have been waiting for, but I'm sick of it. I can afford $4-10 for a bottle of wine. Sometimes even more, although I can't really tell the difference between a $10 bottle of wine and a $100 bottle of wine.

If you watched the Jets-Chargers game yesterday, you might have noticed that all of the players who were introduced on TV announced their college alma maters, with one exception: Charger Donnie Edwards announced that we was from Chula Vista High. What college was Edwards too ashamed to state his history with? UCLA.

You may also have noticed the discussion of Jets offensive coordinator Paul Hackett being under fire in the media. It can't help that Hackett's successor at USC, Pete Carroll, is on top of the football world.

Carroll is going to be offered as much as $5 million a year to coach some crappy NFL team that has fired or will soon fire its coach. But he's still making seven figures at USC, and, like I said, he's on top of the football world. I'd be surprised if he left even for that outrageous NFL cabbage

Want proof that money doesn't buy happiness? How about this quote: It was Ted Turner who said, "Life is like a B-grade movie. You don't want to leave in the middle of it, but you don't want to see it again."

Ted, you must be living the wrong life, because I dig it. I think life is like the best movie of the year. But that's just me.

Spiders and Condo Dude Thoughts

I think it is good that Disneyland closes late at night because that's when the really big spiders come out. The last thing I want when I'm enjoying an amusement park ride is to have a really big spider smack me in the face like a pigeon on Fabio.

When one of my kids is lagging behind someplace like Disneyland, I call her Dragon Butt, and that seems to quicken her pace a bit.

Doesn't germicide sound like something that involves killing Nazis?

Euphemisms should be banned. "Ethnic cleansing" sounds like a nice idea until you learn than it involves killing a lot of people. And "pro-choice" sounds like nothing but goodness, when, in fact, it involves support for something quite unpleasant, even horrible.

In law school, I had a classmate named Joe Condo. Joe was a pretty cool guy. He passed the bar on his first try, but only spent two weeks as a California lawyer before going "inactive," reportedly to practice law somewhere well east of Los Angeles. I've lost track of him. Anyhow, during our second year of law school, we had a real estate transactions course, and on the first day, the professor passed around a seating chart. Like the rest of us, Joe wrote his name on the chart. The professor took one look at the chart and asked who was the smart ass who called himself "Joe Condo." He sure felt stupid when he found out that was the name Joe's parents had given him.

I also had a commercial transactions class that included a student named Kreditor. That was fun sometimes, too.

Depeche Mode's almost-a-hit single "It's No Good," the first great love song written from the perspective of a stalker, would make a great theme song if they ever do a remake of The Graduate. There is little question that Benjamin Braddock would be considered a stalker today. Rather than a remake, I'd love to see a sequel to The Graduate, maybe one told from the perspective of Carl Smith.

Here is a great packing tip for cruise passengers: clear liquor (rum, gin, vodka) with a little food coloring looks a lot like mouthwash, especially if you pour it into an empty mouthwash bottle.

I once told my then five-year-old that if she kept misbehaving, I would leave her on the street corner like an urchin to beg for crumbs and sips of milk. "Da-ad," she complained, "I've been drinking Sprite, not milk!"

I can easily be fooled with a clever lie about Mexico. I believe almost anything I hear about stuff south of the border.

Would you believe that people pay eBay a small fortune in listing fees, just to NOT try to sell something? 'Tis true.

After drifting off in all these random directions, it's time for me to get back to work.

Wednesday Random Thoughts and Observations

Being Irish, people expect me to drink beer and whiskey. I half-disappoint them. My favorite drink is a tall Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum and Diet Coke. Maybe if I was a pirate, I would drink whiskey, just to be a contrarian.

As the Scott Peterson jury stood before the microphones on Monday, it occurred to me that we completely trust juries to sentence death penalty defendants to death, but we somehow think that juries who rule on civil cases are dangerous and crazy. Why?

My best guess is that the murderers can't afford as much commercial airtime as the insurance companies, so the insurance companies' lies are believed by more people.

When I was a senior in high school, USC sent me a pretty cool poster that I hung in my bedroom. At the bottom was a cryptogram. I wasn't particularly interested in solving it. But after staring at it one sleepless night, I decided to take a crack at it. "If you can solve this cryptogram, we believe you have what it takes to attend the USC School of Engineering," it said. So, in the same code, I sent them a letter that said: "I need scholarship money to attend the USC School of Engineering." I got a financial aid package a few days later.

Have you ever wondered how people do some of the amazing things they do? I did. And when I asked people, I found something remarkable. [This is going to sound like the promo for an informercial.] What I found is that people do amazing things by simply deciding to do them.

Like starting a business: most people think that you need to be rich to begin a business. I look at local business people and realize that, before they started their businesses, many of them were nothing more than the dregs of humanity, fresh off a boat or a plane, who decided to do something and did it.

Sometimes, though, just doing it is not a good idea. Example: Hey, dude, go kick that security guard's ass. Oh, I don't know. C'mon, just do it.

I've done it, sort of. I have been banned by two Nevada casinos. Once was for life, basically for cursing and fighting, including shoving a security guard out of my way. The other ban was just for the day, for refusing to remove my Depeche-Fucking-Mode T-shirt.

I was at a game the other day and I stopped for a minute to look at my Palm Pilot (to look up where my friend was sitting), and some security guy came up and told me to move because I was creating a fire hazard. "I'm not flammable, and even if I was, I've got this beer to put me out," I told him. "You're blocking a fire exit route," he explained, unimpressed with my argument, as if I'm just going to stand there if the place bursts into flames....But I had already found the seat number, so I just moved.

I was in San Clemente a few weeks ago, at a Mobil station on El Camino Real. Gas was $2.39/gallon. Fifty yards away, Unocal was selling the same gasoline for $2.15/gallon. The signs were well marked. And yet there were people buying gas at Mobil. What in the world would make someone pay five bucks a tank more, just to avoid driving an extra fifty yards?

Every time the sprinklers come on, my dog tries to attack and kill them as if they were alive. It's not a fair fight, since the sprinklers can't move an inch. And yet, after the fight is over, my dog always looks like she lost the fight. Especially on a cold day like today. My dog is an idiot.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

I'm in a good mood. I slept soundly last night after not sleeping at all on Friday night. We were getting ready for a garage sale, and the sale began at 6:00 a.m., and we weren't ready for it until 6:00 a.m. Fortunately, almost all our old furniture, clothing, computer equipment and unused kitchen stuff sold. We made a few hundred bucks and our garage is longer a threat to kill us under a mountain of fallen junk.

A friend of mine just graduated from college, again, and had an old-fashioned rager, featuring ice-luge shots and a keg or two. I attended for a while to escape the shrieking mass of slumber party attendees at my house. But I couldn't leave the home last night until I had put TiVo back together again. Our TiVo broke a while back, and my wife and I have been Jonesing for TiVo for what seems like an eternity. I now have a TiVo 2 unit, which lets me record one thing and watch another. TiVo Series 2 is the single greatest television-related invention ever.

Oh, and Matt Leinart won USC's 6th Heisman Trophy last night. That was great. This year's Heisman race had a bunch of interesting firsts. It was the first time two sets of teammates had been named finalists for the award. It was the first time high school teammates had been named finalists for the award. It was the first time every finalist had played for an unbeaten team.

Reggie Bush had two teammates in the group. His college teammate, Leinart, won. His Helix High School teammate, Alex Smith, came in fourth.

Leinart is the second player from Mater Dei High School to win the award. The first was Notre Dame's John Huarte. Thus, Mater Dei High has more Heisman Trophy winners than UCLA.

Charles White was honored as the Silver Anniversary winner, and this year's ceremony harkened back to White's 1979 season. White, also a Trojan, beat out Oklahoma's returning 1978 winner, Billy Sims, just as Leinart beat out Oklahoma's returning 2003 winner, Jason White.

The West Coast had gone more than 20 years without a Heisman winner, and now USC has two in three years. USC's Norm Chow is the first coach ever to teach three Heisman winners -- Ty Detmer, Carson Palmer and Leinart. Chow might be back for a fifth year at USC now that Stanford has hired Pitt coach Walt Harris. With Harris leaving Pitt and Urban Meyer leaving Utah, the Fiesta Bowl now features two teams whose coaches work for other schools. It should be renamed the Lame Duck Bowl.

Did you catch the Division II Championship between Valdosta State and Pittburg State? It was actually a great game, but I noticed that there were a ton of empty yard-line seats. Sure, those lower division playoffs are good at determining a legitimate champion, but nobody cares pays obscene money to the participant schools.

I've booked my flight to the Orange Bowl, which looks like one of the best matchups ever. It's the first time the AP top two preseason teams went unbeaten from start to finish, and they match up in the first game ever to feature two Heisman Trophy winners playing against each other. It also features the two frontrunners for next year's award -- Reggie Bush and Adrian Peterson. That is, they'll be the frontrunners unless Leinart turns down $15 million to play in the NFL and White applies for and received a 7th year of eligibility. I think both scenarios are equally implausible. I just hope this isn't a curse year, like 2001.

Remember 2001? It wasn't very long ago. Oregon ended the season ranked No. 2. Colorado won the Big 12, but Nebraska played for the national championship against an unbeatable Miami. Illinois won the Big Ten. LSU, Florida and Maryland rounded out the BCS bowl list. This year, Oregon, Nebraska, Illinois and Maryland are sitting home for bowl season, Colorado is 7-5 and going to the Houston Bowl (whatever that is), LSU has dropped a tad to the Capitol One Bowl and even Miami is out of the BCS and the top ten, and playing Florida in the Peach Bowl.

Compare: Oklahoma was unranked from 1993 to 1999 before winning the championship in 2000. USC and Utah were banished to the Vegas Bowl in 2001, but are now unbeaten BCS participants. Not that I think this means UCLA and Wyoming will be the great teams of 2007, but now you understand why Notre Dame fans think three years is enough time to give a new coach to taste success.

Random Wednesday Thoughts

So, I was looking at the news story about that hunter who shot and killed six people, and I noticed that the killer is 36-years-old. And I thought, "man, that dude looks way older than 36." Then I briefly felt guilty for pondering such a trivial thing.

Scott Peterson's mom testified today that Scott is "not perfect" (understatement of the trial), but that he is an "exceptional young man", and that executed Scott would make it "like Laci never existed." I'm not sure I follow that logic. Perhaps if I sire and raise a monster like Scott, I will someday understand.

Families of monsters say the darnedest things sometimes. A 14-year-old [alleged] rapist here in the OC is getting a lot of media attention. His family seems to be embracing it, granting interviews in which they say stupid shit like: "People can say what they want, but only God knows what happened." Nonsense. The kid knows. His victims know. The DNA examiner probably has a damn clear picture, too.

Earlier this week, UCLA's women's soccer team battled to a 1-1 tie with Notre Dame in the NCAA title game, then lost on penalty kicks, 4-3. I note this not because I care, because the only thing less interesting to me than women's athletics in general is a game in which either the UCLA or Notre Dame women are guaranteed to win a championship. Rather, I note this only because I think that penalty shots are a lousy way to decide a championship, and this is a perfect illustration of that, even if UCLA is on the losing end.

Football player Jeremy Wells used to start at center for the Auburn Tigers. Now he is a graduate student and a cheerleader. One guy wrote him an email and said he was an embarrassment to Auburn football. Everyone else has been supportive polite. Add "their football players graduate and go into cheerleading" as another reason Auburn doesn't belong in the Orange Bowl.

Yes, it is true that a seal is an animal that is trained to bounce balls on its chin. But there is no good reason to ever point that out to anyone whom you suspect to be in the Navy.

I had been saving my old Mac SE for two decades, thinking it was a collector's item. I remember how advanced that thing was for its time with the WYSIWYG technology and with that external secondary hard drive with 10 ass-kicking megabytes of hard drive space; and how it cost something like two or three grand, brand new. So I checked things out on eBay and found you can buy one at anytime for about six bucks. I now have slightly more shelf space in the garage than I did before I knew that.

Larry Hagman has stipulated that upon his death, he wants his body to be ground in a wood chipper and scattered in a field, where wheat is to be harvested for a cake to be eaten by his friends and family one year later. Some other dude apparently couldn't wait that long, and jumped in the wood chipper before his time arrived.

Some of you will ban me to hell for saying this, but I've noticed a great deal of anecdotal evidence that guys who have their penises chopped off so they can become women tend to dig tennis. And always have.

Overheard earlier this week: "Dude, those toenails are nasty. You should cut them dogs off and start over."

Disneyland shows are really good. Two weeks ago, we used our annual passes to go to California Adventure just to see the Aladdin show. It was a 45-minute long Broadway-quality production. My favorite moment: when the Genie refers to "I can't make someone fall in love with you" as the "Jennifer Lopez rule." My kids' favorite moment: when the flying carpet zooms out over the audience with Aladdin and Jasmine aboard.

I took a quiz at Disney to see which character I am most like. I am most like Jafar. Boo. I refuse to accept that and will plot to the death to find out who is responsible for this smear on my reputation.

Some dude named Nascar Fan or something like that paid $127.50 for a $125 Wal-Mart gift card on eBay. Thank God the shipping was free, otherwise $127.50 would be waaay too much for a $125 Wal-Mart gift card.

I saw parts of a show about Wal-Mart the other day, and it showed how these Wal-Mart employees are so excited about their poorly paying jobs that they hold rallies at work and do stuff like "Wal-Mart spellouts." Meanwhile, their low pay leaves them as heavy users of public benefit programs like food stamps and Medi-Cal. Which means you and I are subsidizing Wal-Mart's low wages.

One of these days, someone is going to go Full Metal Jacket on Dr. Laura.

My eBay rating is 99.8% positive. One deadbeat screwed me, and then left retaliatory feedback when I labeled him a deadbeat. I'd rip him by name here, except that would cut further into my anonymity, which I value even more than my 99.8% positive feedback rating.

I once had a senior partner jokingly ask me to find some authority for the proposition that "the law is an ass." I initially cited a line from Dickens. However, under a new proposed law, viewers would not be allowed to skip commericals or promotional announcements "that would otherwise be performed or displayed before, during or after the performance of the motion picture," like the previews on a DVD. I have a potential new example of the law being an ass.

I finally got around to watching The Professional, an old Natalie Portman movie from 1994. I liked it. Give me ten years and I can eventually get around to seeing most of the good movies, especially if I can skip past the promos and other junk.

Absurdity In The News Thoughts

The painting on the left sold for $17.4 million. Can anyone explain why? Can we not all paint just as well? Wouldn't it be better to just use that money to pay 1,000 high school seniors to paint 174 similar paintings apiece? You'd probably have enough money left over to buy them each a six-pack of beer.

I don't know about you, but I will sleep well tonight, knowing that "the objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." That quote from John Ashcroft might be the single most ridiculous quote from the mouth of any politician or government official since Ford claimed that Poland was not dominated by the Soviet Union, but why dicker over details? Sleeping well is more important than knowing the truth. In fact, sleeping well can even make you thin. And I'd rather drop 20 pounds than have John Ashcroft tell me how likely we are to be the victims of a devastating terrorist strike in the next 60 months.

Ashcroft would have some competition in the absurd governmental quote if PETA was a branch of government. Despite the fact that truly outrageous animal cruelty is still out there, waiting to be exposed, the PETA folks are busying themselves drawing attention to cruelty to fish. Bruce Friedrich, PETA's director of vegan outreach, was in the spotlight today, spouting such brilliance as this: "Once people start to understand that fish, although they come in different packaging, are just as intelligent, they'll stop eating them."

I respectfully disagree. Worms on hooks are not good bait with which to catch a smart beast. But even if the fish were not stupid, I would still eat them. Show me a fish that can count to 50 by 2s and I will show you a pile of unprepared sushi. Sorry.

You've seen this, right? The sorriest website in the world: www.sorryeverybody.com/
The apologies have been accepted by some.
But not everyone is so sorry.
And some of the apologies are more sincere than others.

The post-election bitterness continues. Ted Rall, Howard Stern and about a gazillion* bloggers are running around pointing out that the states with the highest IQs were largely blue states, while the states with the lowest IQs were largely red states. This supposedly proves that only the unintelligent would vote for Bush. Three problems:

1.  Even if it was true, no inference can be drawn that Kerry was the smart choice, and Bush was, shall we say, not. The IQ chart shows only a correlation, not causation. One would expect such smart people to know that. So, could there be a common factor that explains the correlation? Let's see.... Well, for one thing, the smartest kids are the ones most likely to be sent to political reeducation camps college, where they learn that conservative people are evil, and only flaming liberals deserve respect.

2. It's not true. The data is a hoax. The Economist apologized for falling for it months ago.

3. The blue states aren't really very uniformly blue. If you look at the country on a county-by-county basis, you see a lot of red in those blue states. And, looking at that picture, the clearest indicator of voting preference appears not to be intelligence, but community density. The more dense the community**, the most likely those folks were to vote for Kerry. I noticed, too, that the blue counties tend to stick close to your higher crime areas: Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, etc. Perhaps the election was more about law-abiders prevailing over criminals.***

As always, the absurdity flows freely in the world of sports. I've already vented about Spree's stupid comment about needing to feed his family. Indiana Pacers forward Ron Artest actually topped that by asking for a month off at the beginning of the basketball season so he could rest up after spending boatfuls of time on a rap album over the summer. When the shit hit the fan, he tried to pin the blame on his kids, saying he just needed time with the family, as if all the rest of us assholes get June, July and August to spend with our families, too, and piss it away by recording rap albums. His outrageousness hath caused me to descend into a sentence of profanity. Damn him to hell.

And Maurice Clarett, too. This guy is a thief who fails to observe honor among thieves. Someone needs to tell this asshat that if you are going to let people illegally slip you cash, property and other things of value, you keep your freaking mouth shut about it forever. I hope the IRS audits this jerk. Would you bet even a dollar that he reported any of those benefits as income on a tax return? I wonder if I could collect a bounty for ratting him out.

You might suspect that I'm just bitter about him leading Mike Williams into NCAA ineligibility. Well, that's partly true, but I'm also offended by his transparent lies. He claims that he's not coming forward to screw over the Buckeyes. No, he's doing it to convince NFL executives that he's not a bad guy. As if they care. Remember, this is the same league that lets convicted drug dealers play football with teammates who've pled guilty to obstruction charges in a murder case. And they're going to care about a running back who took a no-show gardening job in college? Pulease. Don't insult our intelligence, even in the red states.

* Gazillion is not a real word; it is used here to connote a very large but unknowable number.
** Dense, in this sense, refers to people per square mile, not, you know, stupidnessity.
*** Not really. See discussion above re correlation v. causation.

Spending Spree Thoughts

As if professional athletes weren't already believed to be greedy bastards, Latrell Sprewell, who makes $14.6 million this, the last year of his contract, is demanding a three-year, $30 million contract extension, or else. Why do you want that, Spree? "I’ve got a family to feed," says Spree.

What in the world do those kids eat?

Here at Lex's house, the Halloween candy is about gone. Everything but the crappy stuff: the single, hard candies, the crappy flat suckers, the colored tootsie rolls, the stuff with coconut and the peppermints that were probably boosted from a restaurant. Maybe we should pack this stuff up and send it to the Spewell kids.

Livestock farmer Chandarbhan Singh is looking for a home for a calf which was born last week with seven legs. He believes that the birth "is of religious significance." To the cows, maybe, but not to me. I remain skeptical of the whole story, having been burned with the bogus story of the three-headed frog.

Boy, am I behind on the gay and lesbian news. I just found out that Hunter Reno, the former model who hosts a bunch of specials on the Travel Channel, and the niece of former Attorney General Janet Reno, and is a former lesbian who dated tennis star Martina Navratilova, but is now married to some male computer entrepreneur.

Overheard on Halloween near a man wearing a tight pink fairy costume: "I wouldn't be caught dead wearing something like that." "Why not?" "Um, because it doesn't keep you warm." "How can you tell?....Oh. Never mind."

The one thing I don't like about digital cameras is how people use them to critique your work. It used to be that you'd stand still for a second at Disneyland, someone would ask you to take a picture of them, you would do it, they would thank you, and that would be the end of it. Now, when you take the picture, they always check out the picture first. Then, if it's good, they smile, pass it around and thank you. If it's not, they force a clearly disingenuous smile, mutter a soft "thanks", or, worse, just nod their head in acknowledgement, and walk away.

Hey, boss, if you don't like the way I take pictures, why don't you hire a damn photographer to follow you around all day?

Have you tried this yet? Go to Google and type "french military victories", then hit the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. Pretty funny. Click the link. It gets better. Do it quickly, because the French might actually have found a country whose ass they can kick.

A federal court has ruled that whales and dolphins have no standing to file suit against the Bush administration over environmental issues. I agree wholeheartedly, but I might change my mind if I saw a retainer agreement signed by the whales.

I love those lists of history's ten most interesting dinner companions. Assuming no language barrier, I think my ten would be: (1) Jesus (2) Muhammed (3) Ramses the Great (4) Moses (5) Abraham Lincoln (6) Da Vinci (7) Socrates (8) King David (9) any tribal leader from Ireland circa 8,000 B.C. and (10) Marilyn Monroe. And I would then beg for another set of dinner guests the next day.

I'm going to sit down during my next settlement conference, when I tend to spend a lot of time sitting and doing nothing, and bang out one of those "100 things about me" lists. I'm going to stick mostly with the frivolous stuff, I think. I'm not sure.

I looked up my town on Wikipedia and learned that I live at 33°41'3" North, 117°47'33" West. That was interesting.

More interesting: I came across this listing on Wikipedia. The median income for a household in the Alabama town of Emelle is $5,833, and the median income for a family is $5,000. Males have a median income of $36,250 versus $23,333 for females. What does a family like that look like? Do they have no more than 1/4 of a female, or 1/7 of a male? How is the median male income so much higher than the median family income? How is the same true for female earners?

Thank God they don't have the appetite of a Sprewell.

Flu, Electors, Lakers and Disney Thief Thoughts

Since my cardiologist is now pretty sure that I didn't have a heart attack a year ago last month, I'm probably not eligible for a flu shot. That's fine with me. I hate shots. To borrow a phrase from John Kerry, I have a better plan: wash my hands and try to avoid rubbing my fingers all over the doorknob on my way out.

USC has won 17 football games in a row. That's a lot. But, as any 80-year-old could tell you, USC won 20 straight from 1919-23 and again between 1927-29. To really enjoy this streak, we need to extend it by at least five more games.

If you get an email from someone offering tickets to the "Orange Bowl match," it's a scam. Real football fans know that the Orange Bowl is a "game." It is not a "match." Matches are played between soccer teams in Latin America and Europe. Games are played between bowl-eligible football teams.

In his new biography, Jack Nicholson writes: "You only lie to two people in your life: your girlfriend and the police. Everybody else you tell the truth to." Add Nicholson to the long list of people on the Laker sidelines that Kobe Bryant has unwisely chosen to ignore.

The Lakers begin their 2004 season tonight, fielding only four players -- Kobe Bryant, Kareem Rush, Luke Walton and Brian Cook -- from last year's Western Conference Championship team. I had four tickets, but sold them at a loss because I just don't feel like going to the game. I'd rather stay up all night and watch the election returns. I still can't decide who I want to win. I know who I'm voting for. I'm going to drink a bottle of white merlot to numb the pain, then I'm going to cast my vote for my choice of the lesser of two evils. I refuse to say which. Either that, or I'm writing in John McCain, with me as the choice for VP.

Imagine if Richard Robb turns out to be the 270th Bush elector and he defects, as he has hinted, and votes for Kerry. If Kerry thereby wins the election, the headline writers will all spew forth the same brilliant puns at the same time: Republicans Robbed. The Rich vote betrays Bush. Or, better yet, supposed he casts a vote for Nader that leaves the electoral college without a candidate who can gather a straight majority of votes. Then it goes to the Republican House of Representatives.

Zogby is predicting a big Kerry victory, with 311 to 325 electoral votes.

I never got around to checking out www.convinceyourmom.com. It's too late now. If I read it and conclude that I should have changed my vote, nothing good will come of it.

If political ads ever tried to copy the format of beer ads, they would all look and sound a lot like this.

The Daschle - Thune race in South Dakota has been ugly. Daschle's people seem to be having a fit over claims that Republican watchdogs have -- get this -- rolled their eyes at some people who did not have identification and had to sign affidavits to obtain their ballots. What a tale. I should have mentioned this in my last post: if, by the rolling of another man's eyes, you can be intimidated into not voting, you are a moron who does not deserve the right to cast a ballot.

I read that Michael Moore plans to have hundreds of cameras outside of polling places in Ohio and Florida on today to watch for attempts to suppress voter turnout. How in the world do you suppress voter turnout in a way that Michael Moore is going to catch on camera? "I'm putting those who intend to suppress the vote on notice: voter intimidation and suppression will not be tolerated," Moore said in a statement. Yes, Michael Moore, the miserable failure, is going to be the guardian of democracy and the protector of easily intimidated voters everywhere. What an ego on this guy! If his ego applied for statehood, it would probably have 6 to 8 electoral votes all by itself.

From the same news source, I read how some fellow is claiming that he "invented" the Disney FastPass system ten years ago. Robery Keyes [that name has to be a typo] said he came up with the FastPass idea nearly a decade before Disney came up with the concept. Keyes said he dreamed the ride system in 1990 after watching an elderly man collpase from heat exhaustion at Disney MGM Studios. Keyes said he mailed a description of his "invention" to Walt Disney World.

I've got bad news for this dude. I came up with the same exact idea three years before he did. My girlfriend and I were total Disney freaks. She later went on to be a Disneyland Ambassador finalist. I sold out and went to law school. But first, on January 12, 1987, as I stood in an unbelievably long line at Disneyland on the day Star Tours opened, I dreamt up a way for Disneyland to use a system where people got their tickets, or a separate ticket, stamped with a time that they can come back and go straight to the front of the line. That way, I suggested, the guest can go all over the park for two hours, and ride other rides, buy food and other stuff, and still go on the ride at about the same time they would have if they had stood in line, buying no food, going on none of the other, emptier rides, and buying no souvenirs. It sounded, frankly, like a pretty obvious plan and I'm sure I was nowhere near the first person to think of it. I'm seriously thinking about digging up the letter and sending it to Disney, because this fellow's idea is valuable only if he's the first to come up with it. It must be "original." And I came up with it before he did.

Where's my $240 million?

Random Thoughts on the Tele

I now know why Jimmy Fallon was on the field making out with Drew Barrymore.

Typepad told me today that I got a couple of referrals from http://www2.foxsearchlight.com/gardenstate/blog/index.html. That's Zach Braff's blog. Zach plays JD on NBC's very funny comedy, Scrubs. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn't figure out where the referral came from. But I noticed that this dude scores about 1,000 comments every time he posts anything. One of the truly underreported benefits of being famous.

Starting Monday, Fahrenheit 9/11 will be available in streaming video online for the bargain price of just $9.95. Personally, I prefer my propaganda to be priced at $1.99 or less, so I won't be shelling out the ducats.

Fear Factor just keeps getting worse and worse. Who comes up with this stuff? Could you imagine being the guy whose job it is to think up disgusting stuff for these contestants to do? I couldn't do it. I'm overqualified. I once dared my buddy to pop and eat what looked like a zit on an elephant's ass. Since I didn't have $50,000 to pay for the dare, he didn't do it.

I watched another one of those asteroid shows on TV the other night. If an asteroid really struck the Earth and made a 1,000 foot wave, how long and far do you think a good surfer could surf that dog?

Roseanne Barr once had a tattoo on her butt that read "Property of Tom Arnold." Arnold joked that it made him the fourth-biggest property owner in California, so she got it zapped off, which, apparently, was easier than slimming down to a comfortable 300 pounds or less.

One of the funniest things I ever heard on TV was this Deep Thoughts quote from Jack Handey:

If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is
"God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is "Probably because of something you did."

I hope God doesn't cry in Pullman tomorrow.

Of Missing Mice and Friends Thoughts

I have way more stuff than I think I have.

My garage is like Six Flags for mice. It's supposed to hold three cars, but it couldn't even hold a motorcycle. So today, I worked on the garage. I figure I must have moved about 2 tons, in 20 pound increments. Tonight, I'm wheezing a bit from the dust (at least, I hope it's just dust, and not, say hanta virus) and I'm feeling pain in muscles I haven't heard from since I was in college, but the mice have been unhappily displaced and my dog is guarding all their old homey places.

My dog is a character. I sent her into the garage to catch mice, and she went at it like a fiend until I went inside. Then, minutes later, I pop my head in the garage and she's just kicking back. So she immediately jumps up and starts sniffing around, as if she's been looking for mice non-stop since I closed the door. Some dogs can crap on your carpet and then look as innocent as a newborn baby just a second later, but not my dog. My dog looks as guilty as Satan every moment of every day. She's fooling nobody.

If it's true that the bank owns my house, it would be nice for the bank to clean my garage every so often. It's in their best interest. It keeps the mice from chewing on the load-bearing walls, so, in a way, it would be a preservation of their security interest.

I saw a bunch of stuff that I hadn't looked at since we moved into this house five years ago, and it has me feeling oddly sentimental. I've had so many friends come and go over the years that I sometimes have to sweep up mouse shit and slide around boxes and photo albums to remember them.

Friendship is a peculiar thing. You never know where it will pop up, or how long it will last. I said goodbye to a good friend three weeks ago tonight.

This particular friendship began the same day my wife and I became parents. My wife had a semi-private post-delivery room. Semi-private, of course, means "not quite private."

Last time I got a semi-private room, I was hooked up to about a dozen heart monitoring wires while some wheezing octogenarian spat God-only-knows-what contagions into the room.

My wife was much more fortunate. Her semi-private room, back in 1994, housed a stranger who would eventually become our second child's godmother. Our baby was born about half a day after hers, and this turned out to be a great common bond for friendship.

She and her husband are great people. We've enjoyed knowing them for more than a decade, which makes them about the oldest friends we have as a couple.

But now they are moving to New Mexico, which, for all intents and purposes, might as well be Argentina. I've been to New Mexico exactly zero times in my life, and now, if I want to see these friends again, we'll have to make a special trip to New Mexico to do it. We'll intend to do it at least ten times for every time we actually do.

I have friends who moved to Seattle over ten years ago, and I still haven't seen them since they came to Orange County to visit about eight years ago. I think about them at least every week, but every weekend seems to be a bad weekend to visit. At least our unlimited domestic long distance cell phone plan will keep us in touch for a while.

Now that you can switch cell phone providers and keep your number, they should start working on making email addresses as portable.

What makes a friend truly great?

This used to be my definition: if you got arrested in New Mexico, and you called your friend for bail money, would he book the next flight to Albuquerque? Would you do the same for him? If you answered yes twice, you have a true friend. I have two of those. Now that I have a buddy who would only have to drive about 40 miles to Albuquerque, it might be three with an asterisk.

If you soften the criteria and substitute a drive to Long Beach for the flight to New Mexico, I might have two or three more.

Luckily, none of my friends ever moved to Toledo. I never have figured out where Toledo is located, and probably never will. All I know is that it's far; and they have a minor league baseball team that, sadly, is called the Mud Hens; and they have a college with a pretty weak football team that is unbeaten in an even weaker conference.

It's that time of year. I can barely speak or type a sentence without at least a passing reference to college football.

Duffless Dancing Football Thoughts

The family is under the weather a bit, and we had a busy weekend of football, birthday parties and grand openings, so I have been temporarily spared from seeing the new Hilary Duff movie, "Raise Your Voice." The previews boast that this is Duff's best acting performance yet. You have no idea how very ready I am to believe that, but it's not enough praise for me to assume that the movie still won't make me want to regurgitate my popcorn and Diet Coke.

If you do a Google search for "Hilary Duff" film and vomit, you'll find over 6,000 hits, including this review that likens the movie to "Coyote Ugly," "Fame," and vomit mixed in a blender.

My father-in-law is about to turn 60. There was a party for him last night at a BYOB dance club (the kind where everyone knows how to dance for real) where I was way out of my element. I do not express myself with the dance. At one point, they had something called a "gang dance." I ain't havin' no part of anything called a gang dance.

Some old lady came up to me as I was typing this on my Palm Pilot and asked why I wasn't dancing. "You should be dancing, not playing on your computer," she said. I was writing, not playing on my computer, but I answered in spite of my annoyance at the suggestion. "I don't dance." She seemed ready to argue over the point. "Why not?" she asked. "Well, because I don't like dancing," I replied. The club had an $8 cover charge, so I'm sure she found that illogical. "Well, what are you doing here, then," she asked, apparently certain that there was no good answer to her question. "I am just here to sing Happy Birthday to John," I told her. "Oh."

As out of my element as I was, I still enjoyed myself, because I was still buzzing over USC's big win over Arizona State. The victory was the 15th straight for the Trojans and their 18th in a row at the Coliseum. In its last 27 games, USC has won 26 times. It hasn't been this good since I attended USC. Actually, it hasn't been this good since before then.

When I attended USC, Rodney Peete was the quarterback. We expected to go to the Rose Bowl. We expected to compete for the national championship. We expected one of our players to be invited to the Heisman presentation each year. But we didn't expect to win back-to-back titles. It could happen this year.

Just three years ago, I counted the games until USC would be "bowl eligible." For whatever it's worth, USC became bowl eligible yesterday.

In the last week, Arizona State hosted a presidential debate and had one of its professors honored with a Nobel Prize in Economics. This week, Arizona State is USC's bitch. Aren't college athletics great?

Pity UCLA. This week, they had to travel to Cal, where the Bears, still steaming over their loss to USC, vented some frustration on the Bruins. Next week, guess where UCLA goes? That's right. Arizona State, where the Sun Devils will still be burning from yesterday's can of whoop-ass.

The new coaches' poll is out, and Wisconsin has finally cracked the top ten. It well should, since it is one of just five unbeaten BCS teams.

Of the two non-BCS teams still unbeaten, I think Utah is the least likely to lose. Utah plays only Mountain West teams from here on out, and of them, only Wyoming has a winning record. But they do play at Wyoming, where Ole Miss lost earlier this year. Boise State still has to go to Fresno (the Bulldogs are 3-0 against BCS teams and 0-2 against the Mountain West) and Louisiana Tech.

After slowly bleeding first-place votes for weeks, USC is back to 50 of 61 top votes, up from 45 last week. The five new votes all came at Oklahoma's expense. These voters flip-flop like John Kerry, who, incidentally, slipped 8 points behind President Bush in the latest polls. That's even worse than Purdue's latest slip.

Like the presidential election, the football voters really don't know who is best. Looking back at the preseason poll, LSU (3), Ohio State (9), Iowa (12), Kansas State (13) and Clemson (16) were highly regarded. Auburn (18) was ranked below all of them. Now, Auburn is unbeaten and ranked 4th. LSU and Iowa have lost twice, tOSU has lost 3 straight, and K. State and Clemson are both 2-4.

Meanwhile, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech and Notre Dame have all joined the Top 25 for the first time this season. I hope Notre Dame keeps winning, because a win over Notre Dame is much sweeter if they are ranked.

Four Sports Thoughts

When healthy, I can count out loud past 100 on a single exhaled breath. On Monday, I could only count to 44. Tonight, I was back up to 82. Man, with the right meds, in heavy dosage, you can beat back the flu in three days. I'm ready for some hockey. Hockey season starts today, according to my calendar.

My calendar errs. There is no hockey this year. Okay, I’m ready for some football.

Can you believe that there was college football that mattered on TV tonight? It's too late for me to post Top 25 picks for the week. I'll just take a crack at the Saturday games. I'm not sure what do to with Louisville-Miami anyway. I'm taking the Cardinals and the points, but I suspect it was the heart, not the head, that made that call.

Football announcers Ron Franklin and Keith Jackson sure do sound a lot alike, don't they?

Some long streaks came to an end last Saturday. For one thing, it was the first time since 1980 that any team held Texas scoreless. Their consecutive scoring streak was at 281 games, the longest in the NCAA since BYU's 361 game streak ended against Utah last year. The longest current streak belongs to Washington, which has scored in 270 straight games. Washington is at USC in less than two weeks. I can't wait.

The longest losing streak -- 19 -- did belong to Army, but Army won on Saturday. That dropped the loser's title to Louisiana Monroe and East Carolina, who both had 9 game streaks working. A few hours later, Louisiana Monroe and East Carolina had won, too. Now, the loser's crown belongs to Central Florida, which now also has a 9 game streak and suffers the indignity of being the only Division I team without a win this season.

The Lakers started their preseason with a loss to Seattle. Kobe scored a bundle. This could indicate a trend that will end with the Lakers out of the playoffs, and Kobe winning a scoring title. That would suck. I'll just keep reminding myself that the real season hasn't started yet.

Baseball season is over for me now, yet I follow.

Though my teams exited the playoffs quickly, I still see their seasons as successes that they can build upon. The Angels made the playoffs for the second time in three years. That's not a dynasty, but it's a good trend. The owner is willing to spend to get talent, and the farm teams have some talent on hold, too. Dallas McPherson may leave the team able to improve its lineup even if Troy Glaus leaves as a free agent. And the price of beer went down, too.

The Angels' swift fizzle changed my life. I'm not going to do season seats next year. I ate a lot of seats this season. Every time I blew $15 by skipping a game, I consoled myself with the thought that I would get guaranteed playoff tickets. Well, the tickets came. The first game was Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon, while I was at the Fourth District Court of Appeal. The second game was at 7:00 p.m., while I was zipping down the grapevine on my way north to Los Banos, Hollister and ultimately, Monterey. My next tickets were for game five. But there was no game five. And there will be no ALCS. And there will be no World Series. My playoff tickets were worthless to me.

Next year, I will pick and choose the games I really want to see and just buy them on eBay.

The punking of San Francisco was pretty cool, but it would have meant nothing if the Dodgers had been swept out of the playoffs yet again. Well, it turned out to be just one, but the Dodgers finally won a postseason game for the first time since before my children were born. I hadn't enjoyed watching the Dodgers so much since I was a first year law student cutting class to run alongside the Dodger parade with a sign that said "We Kicked Their A's!"

Classy, huh?

This year’s Dodgers were classy in defeat, however. After game four of the division series, with the Cardinals on the field celebrating, the Dodgers jogged back onto the field to shake hands for what may have been the first time in baseball history. I suspect Gagne -- the hockey player who happens to also throw BBs for up to one inning -- started the idea. Hockey teams do it after every playoff series. It is very classy.

I like class. It's my new thing.

The Dodgers then congratulated their fans, clapping at them, waving to them, and sending wristbands, batting gloves, caps and goggles into the stands. "We just lost to the best team in baseball," Gagne said, shaking his head. "And now they're going to win the World Series."

I think he’s right. I hope he's right.

Because it mustn't be the Yankees. The only thing worse than the Yankees winning it all would be the Red Sox winning it all. I do not want the Red Sox to win it. I like the curse. I embrace 1918. I pity Bill Buckner, but Dave Henderson can kiss my ass. David Ortiz can, too. As much as I hate the Yankees, I am chanting Whooo's Your Daaaadddy? along with the New York crowd in my television set. Good grief, has any player in the history of heckling ever delivered a better taunt to the other team's fans?

Red Sox fans, know this: the road to baseball nirvana does not pass through Anaheim. You beat the Angels, you will suffer in future rounds.

You've had a slight taste of it this week when your daddy toyed with you, then let you come close to winning, only to slap you down on your last wobbly swing of the bat. You've had it shoved down your groin in the past.

The only thing uncertain about your failure this year is how painful it will be.

Don't get your hopes up.

Daytime Television as a Stimulant Thoughts

My head is still too messed up to work right, so I stayed home from work today. It's a bit of good fortune, if you can call it that, to be sick on Columbus Day, because the courts are closed on Columbus Day. The last time I stayed home from work sick, I was so heavily medicated that I have no recollection of those two days. So I forgot how bad daytime television can be. This time, I am coherent. I get it.

The good thing about bad TV is that you end up turning it off, and then you can think about other things, like sports, and politics, and religion and all that good stuff that you can blog about, but can't discuss in polite social conversation.

The news today depressed me. Ken Caminiti died today at 41. Christopher Reeve died today at 52. Each died of a heart attack. Both deaths were simultaneously shocking and expected. Both were too young to die of natural causes. But Caminiti had taken steroids and used cocaine, and Reeve had a slew of health problems arising from his spinal cord injury. Supposedly, these things come in threes, like plane crashes. If that's true, Robert Downey, Jr. should head straight to the hospital, just in case.

I recently watched the Basketball Diaries on cable. It was not at all what I expected. I feel violated. I hate movies that have that Less Than Zero effect.

Plenty of songs and poems refer to having broken wings and learning to fly again. Very few refer to having broken legs and learning to walk again. Yet, the latter would seem more relevant, don't you think?

All across the country, Kerry and Bush yard signs are being stolen or defaced. And police are busy investigating the crimes. Is there anything less important?

What exactly is the point of putting up a Bush sign or a Kerry sign in one's yard? Does anyone ever vote for president based upon what signs are in the neighborhood? Ever? I mean, I can understand signs for mayors and city council and school board spots. Name recognition can matter there. But I can imagine someone (not me, albeit) casting a vote for city council based upon who has the most signs all over town. But for president?

In my community, a sign on the lawn means just one thing: You don't want to talk to the owners of this house, because they will want to talk politics.

Say, here's something that didn't happen very often when women and gays were excluded from the military: two active-duty members of the 232nd Medical Battalion (a man and woman) stationed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio have been charged public lewdness after some tourists at the Alamo saw them having sex in a public viewing area. Co-ed fighting troops. What could possibly go wrong?

In a completely unrelated thought, it occurs to me that if I was reincarnated as a vegetable, I would not want to be a carrot. Some people do terrible things to carrots.

Congratulations to Don Nunn, who will turn 12,000 days old tomorrow.

Most Democrats tend to think that thinking people vote Democrat. If so, you'd think that they were smart enough to write their own letters to the editor. Party leaders aren't counting on it. So they have set up a website where you can just plug in your zip code and they will write a letter to the editor for you.

Miracles aren't what they used to be. After Mass yesterday at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in East Boston, the church's statue of the Virgin Mary, which stood in front of the altar, tipped over suddenly and fell to the floor after Mass. Parishioners, noting that this was the final Mass ever at the church, which is being sold off to pay child molestation liability expenses, see the incident as a sign from God.

Sorry, folks. Don't flatter yourselves. If God was paying attention to the Boston Diocese, the miracle would have been a series of lightning strikes upon numerous priests and bishops.

My cough medicine has this warning label: "Do not drive a car or operate machinery after taking this medication." A major brand of children's cough medicine has the same warning. I'll pass it on to my six-year-old.

We'll both avoid driving today.

In Sickness and in Health Thoughts

I'm paying the price for a nice weekend in Monterey. My wife and I got to sneak off a few times to enjoy our anniversary weekend, but it came at a price. In my case, the price is a normal body temperature, a clear nose and lungs, and cool throat and a pain-free brain. I haven't been hit with the flu in a long time, but the roof of my mouth started tingling on Saturday night and now I feel like I want to just cut my head off and replace it with a healthier model. For the next day or two, the wife is going to have to put up with the "in sickness" part of the bargain. I hope she never has to put up with any worse.

You know, sickness comes in many forms. There are some forms of sickness I would not expect any wife to tolerate. For example, Cole Ford, from what I can tell, must be quite sick. Perhaps you've heard this joke:

Q. What do Siegfried Fischbacher and Montecore the tiger have in common?
A. They both know what a mouthful of Roy tastes like.

Now, generally, people who hear this joke have one of three reactions. Either: (1) they think it is funny; (2) they think it's so offensive that it isn't funny; or (3) they don't get it.

Cole Ford has caused me to ponder a fourth reaction: it reminds them that Siegfried and Roy are going to hell, and we, the normal people of the world, must send them there as soon as possible. Or, at least, send them out of the country.

There is a felony warrant out for Ford -- the former USC and Oakland Raider placekicker -- because his van was used in a drive-by shooting at the compound owned by illusionists Siegfried & Roy. No one was hurt in the September 21 shooting, but shotgun pellets shattered windows and left a hole in a wall. A witness told police the gunman shouted that the entertainers should get out of the country. Later, police said they attack was not bias-related. I have trouble believing that.

Once a well-paid NFL athlete, Ford is now a day laborer who moves from motel to motel. He doesn't want me on his jury. I always start with the assumption that the motel dweller did it. For now, though, Ford is a fugitive from the law, considered armed and dangerous. For the first time since the OJ trial, I feel the urge to suppress my normal cry of "Fight On!"

It doesn't matter, I can barely talk with this throat anyway.

[THIS NEXT PART OF THE POST HAS BEEN REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT FAMILY OF THE OFFENDER:

Another sick guy: "J." Until last week, J was on top of the world. At 32, he was a senior associate with a large prestigious law firm, and a sought-after speaker and representative on issues involving equity incentive plans, executive employment agreements and the tax, accounting and securities law issues surrounding such things. It sounds boring, but it pays well, because it is hard to learn, harder to master, and dreadfully dull to focus upon.

J is off his perch, however. He has been accused of paying $140 to $200 to have sex repeatedly with a 16-year-old girl. He got busted when he tried to add her 17-year-old friend to do a threesome. The 17-year-old declined, but let a police detective assume her identity. The detective played along with some IMs, and, after some penile picture swapping, a meeting was arranged. The rest is history. As is J's career. After his little adventure, J is persona non grata at the firm, and unless he is acquitted, he'll lose his law license.

J, by the way, is a graduate of Boalt Hall, the UC Berkeley law school. His arrest takes a bit of steam out of the running joke among Berkeley grads about the declining value of a Stanford law degree. That joke was pretty funny in light of the arrest of Cristina Schultz aka "Brazil", who was paying off her Stanford loans by doing some high priced call girl work. Allegedly.

If J had invested a bit more and hit Schultz instead, he probably could have kept his career. But, for some reason, some people just have to go after the kids, even if it means risking everything they have.

END OF REDACTED PORTION.]

In Tacoma, a jury has convicted Orting Municipal Court Judge Jeffrey Day of first-degree child molestation for fondling an 11-year-old boy who was a former client. That is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to begin to comment. I'll just say this: he'll soon know what it feels like to be the 11-year-old boy.

Hopefully, Judge Ronald Kline will be joining him as a long term inmate, now that the Ninth Circuit has reinstated charges against him stemming from the discovery of massive quantities of child porn on his computers. Though I have had literally hundreds of cases in Orange County Superior Court, I never had a case in front of Kline. Lucky me.

There are some pretty sick people out there. Luckily, I've only crossed paths with the ones who had the flu.

A Common Rose

Having a common name is sometimes a pain in the ass.

For example, whenever I fly, I have to check in early and skip all the self-serve kiosks and head straight for the long line. I'm not getting on the plane until someone checks my birth date to make sure that I am not my namesake who is on the Do-Not-Fly list. I hate it.

Sometimes, having a common name is startling.

Last week, I took the train to San Diego for court. I sat down across the aisle from another attorney, also going to court in San Diego. He talked on his cell phone, quite loudly. During one of his calls, he struck voicemail. He loudly left his name and cell phone number on the machine. The name he left was mine. For a brief moment, I feared that he was going to lean over toward me with a hypodermic needle and assume my identity. Luckily, it was just that his name was the same as my name. I always wondered who that guy was. I sometimes get his phone calls. Now I know.

Sometimes, having a common name is amusing.

When I was in college, I once signed up for a class on the first day of school. The procedure for "add-ons" was to come up to the professor at the end of the class and, if there were empty seats, he or she signed your add card and you got the class. So after a World Political Systems course ended its first day, I walked up to the teacher to get my card signed. There was only one other student looking to add the course. He gave her his name. My name. As he turned to leave, I suggested that he stick around a second. I then told the professor my name. "Oh my!" she said. "I guess we'll have to go to middle initials." Okay, we said, and in perfect unison, we both said "J." We ended up having to put our full legal names on every paper that year.

If I go "ego surfing" on Google, I get 36,000 hits, very few of which are me. People with my name include a best selling author, a famous music critic, a famous soccer player, and a CEO of a fairly well-known company. Among the not-so-famous, just in California, are several lawyers, and about a million realtors, cops, professors and ordinary working Joes.

If any of my old girlfriends ever try to look me up without knowing where to look in the first place, they are going to have to talk, on average, to about 1,000 guys that sound like me, but aren't me, before they find me.

Not that I expect any of my old girlfriends to come looking for me....

Random Post-Week Pre-Game Pre-Pity Thoughts From the Wheel

I finally got my new scanner working today. I'm planning to scan everything I have in storage. It will take months, but by early Spring, I'll be able to start saving $100 a month on storage. That will pay for the scanner and then some.

My list of attorneys whom I would put voodoo curses on if I believed in voodoo was increased by one this month. After 13 years, the list is 9 names long. If you know someone who is really effective at voodoo, put them in touch with me.

I was planning to go to the Stanford game tomorrow, but I've decided to just watch it on TV instead. The decision was based, in part, on the fact that I can't TiVo the game to watch it later. It was based in larger part on my tired brain that doesn't feel like watching the road for 12 hours, roundtrip.

Strictly speaking, USC is not atop the Pac-10 standings. UCLA is. Nationally, though, UCLA trails USC in the polls by 1612 points.

I went to a great wedding earlier this month. It was at Disneyland. It featured the bride riding in Cinderella's glass carriage, an extended open bar, and a bunch of desserts that glowed in the dark. The only bad moment in the evening came on the dance floor. During a Bruce Springsteen song, a bunch of partiers started doing the electric slide. Remember that song "Rock 'n' Roll Heaven"? Well, there is no Rock 'n' Roll Heaven. I know this because if there was one, God would have looked down on that scene and hit the Smite button. And He didn't.

I need to start buying specially tailored suits with, like, three pants each. My suit pants fade a lot faster than my coats. Plus, the pants get ripped about 10 times for every coat that gets torn. It wouldn't hurt to have one of the pants about an inch bigger than the others, either. I figure, if the cost is twice as much as a regular suit, I'll get triple the wear, and within about 2 years, I'll be ahead.

We're going to print our vacation pictures this weekend. It was fun going through the digitals with my wife, remembering the great time we had last month.

I'm sorry Disneyland took out the Country Bear Jamboree. I enjoyed going to that back in Florida. Of course, the primary enjoyment was getting inside the air conditioning and off my feet. My feet were hurting by mid-afternoon, and a 20 minute show was just the ticket. That is, until the bears started bitching at us to clap our hands and stomp our feet. I'll applaud an animatronic bear, but I absolutely draw the line at stomping my swollen feet after walking 3 or 4 miles hot humid weather.

I'm sick of the Vietnam war talk in this election. Bill Clinton proved that valor in wartime has no correlation with your ability to govern. I dislike John Kerry for what he did after the war, but I honor and respect him for what he died in combat. I don't even care if he received more awards than he may have deserved.

As Republican as I am, I am still disgusted by those asshats who wore purple heart bandaids at the RNC. The last thing a warhawk should ever do is insult the soldiers who are out there doing our dirty work.

I have many friends in the service. I have a larger group of guys I knew, and didn't like, who are in the service. And to me, those groups are just one. Whether I liked them or not. Whether we could enjoy a beer together or not. They are out performing a job that makes my job possible. They deserve my respect, and they deserve the respect of every asshat in this country. Even if they screw up.

Next time you feel you are having a really bad day, but be glad you aren't having Owen Lafave's worst day. Pity Owen Lafave. First, his wife humiliated him by boning her 14-year-old student repeatedly. Now, she's refusing to consent to a divorce. She should sign those divorce papers and be grateful that he didn't murder her.

I also pity Mary Kay Letourneau's ex-husband, too, as the mother of his children is prancing all over the news media talking about her plans to marry the student she molested eight years ago.

It's enough even to drive a man into the arms of a pre-op transvestite. Well, at least it's enough to make Jason Alexander go there. Has any man slid farther, faster than Jason? Last we heard, he was married to Britney Spears. That's pretty elite company. Then he sold out, and let her people pay him to consent to an annulment. Finally, he ends up with Dude Looks Like a Lady. Pitiful.

But I can't pity them right now. I've filled my daily quota of pity.

Fashion Is Stupid Thoughts

Yahoo's favorite pictures often include shots from the latest fashion show. Fashion shows amaze me. Not being particularly fashionable, perhaps it is not my place to criticize, but when I see a fashion show, I feel like the smart little serf who notices that the emperor has no clothes.

Sometimes, the model is literally nekked, at least in part. Like this woman, who looks vaguely like Brittney Gilbert, the Sparkwood & 21 blogger who is sick of people saying she looks like "that one chick from Roseanne." Now people can tell her she looks like "that one model with the see-through top."

Other times, they are wearing something, but it doesn't look like clothing. Like this person. What the hell is it wearing, a giant yellow enema bag? Is that a man on estrogen, or is it a masculine bald chick with little boobies underneath those strips of tape? Does her father know what she does for a living?

In general, revealing clothing can be very sexy. But in this instance, it makes the model look like she stepped off the streets of a third world country. Poor girl. She is so poor, she has no clothes to wear.

And the hats. Some of the hats are really weird. Like this one. I'm not sure what inspired this hat, but I'm guessing it was either an acid trip during an episode of Lidsville, or a flashback to that Dumb Donald character from Fat Albert.

This, from what I can tell, is a bathing suit with leaves? Where and why would a woman wear such a thing?

The accessories can be quite absurd. Check out the candy lipstick and tell me that you don't think it looks like the world's worst herpes outbreak.

After the show, the women sure do look different. Did you know that Cybill Shepherd was a model before she was an actress? She was. Did you know what Cybill Shepherd looks like without makeup? Check it out.

The one thing I hate most about the fashion world is that it turns people like Paris Hilton into stars. What in the world is Paris Hilton doing on a runway? She is thin, but she is not pretty. She's built like a skinny little boy (as are many other models). Her nose is sharp enough to whittle wood with, and her eyes are like little rat eyes. I know she has a lot of money, but so does Bill Gates, and nobody treats him like a sex symbol.

Paris Hilton is ugly. And so are lots of the clothes these models are displaying. Doesn't this outfit look like it was stolen from a guy working off his DUI sentence by picking up litter along the roadside? Give me jeans and a t-shirt any day over that crap.

Yes, most fashion shows are stupid, like the models. Many of the clothes are ugly, like many of the models. Then again, there are exceptions, like the Victoria's Secret babydoll girls. But why aren't they on my Yahoo picture list, instead of the skinny, ugly, 100 gallon hat, feather/leaf half-nekked bald masculine chicks?

Strange Praise, Indeed

Objectively speaking, my own religious beliefs are bizarre. Every once in a while, I actually pay attention to the things we say in church and I wonder if we are all crazy. But the beliefs continue to bring me comfort, so I do not abandon them. That doesn't prevent me at all, however, from finding other people's beliefs to be odd.

There are people out there who believe that Jesus has returned. He is a three-year-old boy living in Illinois with his parents. His father is a college professor who was just appointed to a diplomatic position within the U.S. government. He will someday become President of the United States, which will empower him to do battle with the Anti-Christ, who is currently alive and growing up in the Middle East. He has already performed three miracles: drawing upon a torrential rainstorm to douse a wildfire; curing a classmate's leukemia; and causing a van full of Al Qaeda terrorists with a nuclear bomb to crash into the Potomac River. The source of this information is someone within a group calling itself the Circle of Seven. Which circle, I do not know. I just glanced at the article while in the express lane at the supermarket.

I like the young men who meet for a regular prayer group at a Hooter's restaurant in Georgia. Some Bible study members initially resisted holding meetings at the restaurant known for its scantily clad waitresses. "Somebody comes up to me and says, come to a Bible study at Hooters. And my first reaction was ... I can see McDonald's or another restaurant, but why Hooters?" Well, since Christ himself associated with prostitutes and beggars, I don't think any Christians are in a position to judge them just because they study then Bible in the presence of some waitresses wearing tight shirts and short shorts.

But I would feel creepy if I walked into someone's home and saw a framed print of George Bush praying, with the ghosts of Lincoln and Washington praying over him.

I really don't like the in-your-face methods of groups like Repent America, who have things like "Are You Good Enough For Heaven" and a running tally of aborted babies on their website.

I am amused by people who see signs from heaven in unusual places like balloons. In Texas, there works a car salesman who blows up balloons to make people want to come in and buy new cars. One of the balloons has a stain. He thinks it is a vision of the Virgin Mary. I think it looks like genitalia. Would God really try to inspire us with a vague image like that? I doubt it. And would God use a balloon inflator as his prophet? Maybe, but I remain dubious.

I know Jesus saves, but I didn't know He co-signed. Last month, a man drove his pickup to a Chevrolet dealership and demanded that he be given a new car. When asked how he planned to pay for it, he said Jesus would finance it for him. When his offer was refused, the man got back into his truck, rammed the showroom, calmly got back out, walked back into the showroom, sat down and read his Bible as he waited for police.

If you feel guilty about gambling with cards, just remember that a deck of cards is nothing more than a representation of God and Bible stories.

The scariest stories are those of the people who kill because they think God told them to do it. Like this South African woman who believed that her young son was "possessed by the devil" when she hacked him to death with an axe and gouged out his eyes with a screwdriver. The boy was two.

Almost as scary: two churches in Greece celebrate Easter each year by shooting rockets at each other. I hope this firing rockets at each other's churches spreads to fundamentalist Islam.

As for me, I like to think of myself more like the harmless hypocrites who get their praise on (ack!) by stealing Christian music mp3s. Yes, young Christians enjoy stealing Jesus music. And they have their supporters -- people who think that getting the Gospel out is more important than getting paid. While that might be a good argument for trying to persuade artists to forego royalties, I don't really buy into it as a justification for swiping their product.

Then again, its a lot healthier than chasing 72 virgins by trying to blow yourself up with a bunch of innocent civilians.

Missing Orlando Thoughts

Frances is coming! Frances is coming!

I'm less myopic in my observation of the hurricane story in Florida this time. Last time, to the south, there were dozens of people dead or missing. There were countless homes destroyed or severely damaged. There were people stranded for days because they missed their flights home. So what articles did I read? The ones about what theme parks were reopening, and when.

This time, I'm watching more out of concern for the people there, including quite a few whom I met last week. I'm watching, in part, on one of my favorite new sources for news: Fox News 35. I liked WFTV News 9, too.

While I was actually in Florida, the news was all Williams, Williams, Williams. In a nutshell, the stories were as follows: Ricky Williams is an ass. Willie Williams got what he deserved. Mike Williams got screwed.

I agree with that last point. The NCAA sucks. Jeremy Bloom and Mike Williams should be playing college football this fall. If you disagree, you are an ass.

Though its game against Virginia Tech supposedly kicked off the college football season last Saturday, USC was not the first team playing. Glenville State at Murray State and West Alabama at Samford kicked off 45 minutes earlier. Miami, Ohio played Indiana State at some point that night, too. But the USC game got top billing at ESPN Club, where we won a free trucker's hat for guessing that Sonny Jurgenson was the answer to one of their pre-game trivia questions.

USC has just the third longest winning streak in college football. Miami Ohio and Boise State are both on bigger rolls. Well, longer, at least.

Our vacation was almost perfect. We liked our resort. We had fun every day, but we only went commando at the amusement parks on three of those days. There were only two bummers the entire ten days.

The first was when we ordered a convertible from Thrifty and arrived at midnight to find that they were all out. And the guy at the counter was a jerk about it. He didn't apologize. He just gave us a full-size car in parking spot 50. So we went out there and spot 50 was empty. "Oh," he says, "I meant spot 134." And he still charged us the rate for convertibles. I didn't get my convertible until two days later.

The second bummer was pretty minor. Thunderstorms caused three short (30-60 minute) shutdowns of Typhoon Lagoon while we were there. I forgot how intense those tropical afternoon thunderstorms got.

Nonetheless, we had a blast. I got to drive the convertible down the beach at Daytona. The girls and I swam with baby hammerhead sharks. We took a ferry to Caladesi Island for a day of beaching with maybe -- maybe -- 50 other people on the entire island. That ferry ride was one of the best entertainment values I've ever nabbed.

The flights over and back were smooth. We had stopovers on the ride over, but I got to enjoy an underrated pleasure of traveling with stopovers: the chance to read newspapers from three or four cities in one day. I watched very little television for a week, too. Other than a couple of minutes of news each night, lots of Crissa on the Disney Resorts channel, and a few viewings of the world's most annoying commercial for Appliance Direct (See it all & save! I love appliances!), I was Internetless and TVless all week.

Crissa cracked me up. Is there a rule that travel shows need to be hosted by dirty-blonde short-haired dorky chicks? If so, Disney obeyed with their Top 7 Must See Attractions at Disney World. It was a blatant Disney commercial, of course, disguised as a Travel Channel feature, with the requisite dorky blonde shorthair. The most absurd part of it: "Downtown Disney offers some big names in 'Yum!'" Then they showed House of Blues, Wolfgang Puck and ... McDonald's. McDonalds?!? Gross. The McDonald's in the Orlando airport had Happy Meals with apple slices that were stamped "Use by Aug. 27" on August 30th.

In addition to great restaurants such as McDonald's, Downtown Disney had two circles with cool water jets that shoot out of the ground. The kids had lots of fun running through them for something like an hour. That was cheap entertainment. Even cheaper entertainment: two fat ladies walked through the water jet circle, and I was like, "Oh, God, please, please, please, please, now!" I was sorely disappointed. For a moment. Then ... splash! Oh, yes!

I miss Orlando. Even tonight.

More Old News: Olympiad Thoughts

Though the hurricane pattern suggests that we were right on in our travel planning for the Orlando trip this year, we missed meeting Michael Phelps at Typhoon Lagoon by two days. After 10 days in Florida, I piled up a bunch of unread newspapers. So I finally caught up on the Olympics this week. Apparently, it was a fairly interesting event this year.

Eritrea won its first Olympic medal. It would have had two, but marathon silver medalist Meb Keflezighi is now an American citizen. Like me, you might have wondered if Eritrea is a country. Apparently so. But it was part of Ethiopia 3 Olympics ago.

Israel finally won a gold medal. But they still faced Arab scorn as Iran's flag-bearer, Arash Miresmaili, refused to wrestle against an Israeli competitor. It could have been worse. The terrorists never got past the gate.

Check out these medal statistics:

Bahamas: 300,000 people, 2 medals.
India: 1.3 billion people, 1 medal.

But that's still 1 medal better than rival Pakistan.

Is my memory failing, or did Germany win a lot more Olympic medals when it was two countries?

It was sad to see the Iraqi men lose the bronze medal soccer match. But at least the Hussein brothers aren't around to torture them with electric cords on their genitals as a punishment for losing.

All but five participating nations sent female athletes. Can you guess what one characteristic those five nations share?

USC has sent more athletes to the Olympics than any other university. In every Olympics since 1912, one or more USC athletes won a gold medal. This year, swimmer Klete Keller was the one to extend the streak. Several others followed, including two of the women's basketball team.

The men's basketball team sucked. Until this year, they were 192-2 overall. This year, they went 5-3. But there is a silver lining. Now all of America has a taste of what it's been like to be a Laker fan for the last two seasons.

Michael Phelps was awesome. The American women's soccer team was awesome. And the softball team gave up just one run in their unbeaten gold medal tournament. Uber-awesome.

Paul Hamm got the gold, but he was not awesome. I don't think that someone who falls should still be eligible for the gold medal, and the post-medal analysis proves that he shouldn't have won, but the scoreboard rules. Would you give it back? Me, neither.

Several members of the Greek Olympic team were Americans of Greek ancestry, who had never set foot on Greek soil before. If Dublin ever gets an Olympics, I wonder if I might be able to compete for Ireland as an archer or something. I don't think that will ever happen, though. The IOC would probably be terrified that the crazy defrocked Irish priest would take out a bunch of other athletes.

That still leaves poker as my best shot at Olympic gold.

A Brief Biotchfest

My vacation begins tomorrow. I'm going to avoid negative thoughts for several whole days. Before doing that, I have a couple of things I need to get off my chest.

Personally: My car is infuriating me. They say you get what you pay for. They lie. My little Ford Ranger cost about $10,000 brand new. It's been in the shop once - because I snapped the tailgate handle off. It was a cheap repair. My BMW 540 cost about $55,000 new. It's been in the repair shop about 6-10 times per year. Most recently: for a blown fuse that froze the ignition and caused the "transmission failure" light to go on. The part costs four bucks, but the diagnostic tests were $110, and the time to diagnose was more than 24 hours.

Professionally: If you aren't a lawyer, this will not interest you, but I have a greedy little client who is driving me nuts. We won his trial last year, securing a judgment which, before attorney's fees, was about ten times what he was willing to settle for before trial. Even after trial, he was willing to settle for about half of that amount. We recommended that he stay the course. It was the right advice. The court awarded all of our costs, plus almost double the underlying judgment amount in attorney's fees (we put a lot of time and effort into the trial). We have a fee agreement that provides for a percentage, but also provides that if we recover a large fee award, that we will accept the fees awarded by the court and paid by the defendant, and the client keeps 100% of the underlying judgment. That sounds like a win-win, right? Not for this guy. He has tried at least five times to get us to reconsider our greedy position and share the attorney's fees with him. We refused. Now he wants to keep the award for costs, and not pay us back. He thinks that is fair. The defendant is paying him the full value of his entire claim, and he will pay no costs or fees out of pocket to get there. And that's not good enough. It's enough to make you wonder if clienticide is a word.

Publicly: This news story has sent me off to the dusty CD racks. That's me in the corner...that's me in the spotlight... losing my religion. An 8-year-old girl who suffers from a rare digestive disorder and cannot eat wheat has had her first Holy Communion declared invalid because the wafer contained no wheat, violating Roman Catholic doctrine. I hold it to be self-evident that if God made her that way, God would not have a problem letting her have Holy Communion with a rice wafer. The Bible doesn't say that wheat is required. Jesus didn't say wheat was required. In fact, I'm pretty confident that Jesus would be okay with this little girl's First Communion. The fact that my church thinks that her God-given lot in life makes her ineligible for communion causes me to doubt whether my church has any clue about the true path to God. Am I right? I wonder what Bainbridge thinks of this story.

There. I've said it. Now I can vacate.

Free Hooters Wings Thoughts

While still rejoicing over the good fortune of having delayed my Florida vacation until the end of the month, I spent some time watching baseball with my five-year-old daughter. She had a blast, largely because it was free babooshkah doll night. She now has two such dolls, and she's looking forward to getting the third in a few weeks.

I had fun because the Angels had a superb offensive night, scoring 5 runs in the sixth inning on their way to an 11-8 victory. The sixth inning outburst guaranteed free Hooter's Wings for all in attendance.

I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me in the parking lot, too. I drove the pickup to the game. My daughter loves riding in the pickup, because she can see much better from the front seat of the pickup than from the back seat of the Jeep or the BMW. I sometimes hate driving the pickup to ball games because, for some reason, a certain percentage of the population thinks that an empty pickup bed is a good place to dump their garbage on their way in or out of the game. Tonight, however, someone dropped their babooshkah doll into the back of my truck. So now, I get one, too. (My first one was already promised to my other daughter.) I checked it for anthrax and stuff, and it looks clean, so I brought it in and put it on my desk.

I'm wondering what kind of condition Florida is going to be in when I get there. Hurricane Charley hit or grazed most of my favorite places: Grand Cayman, Key West, Sanibel and Captiva Islands, Orlando, Daytona. Sanibel and Captiva got their asses kicked. The latest word was that well over 100 homes were destroyed, with at least as many suffering significant damage, and Captiva was literally cut into two islands. I hope the Mucky Duck is still there. I doubt it, although the barely inland Bubble Room apparently survived.

I had been seriously thinking about buying property there. I'm glad I didn't. It was 18 feet underwater. Congressman Porter Goss, best known these days as President George W. Bush's nominee for director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is probably among those who lost their homes to the storm.

One of the reasons I didn't buy property there was precisely because of this risk. As an absentee owner, I wouldn't be well able to protect my property from such storms, and, although this was an uncommonly strong hit, it wasn't unforeseeable. I pity all those old retirees who had been living in trailer parks in Punta Gorda and Arcadia. They all have convertibles now. People who want to live in trailer parks should move to California. Mobile homes do not hold up well in hurricane territory or tornado zones. But they do a great job of riding out earthquakes. Move to earthquake country, people.

Anyhow, as I munch on my free spicy wings here at Hooter's, I'm thinking that the road trip to Sanibel is probably off. Caladesi Island still sounds good. Daytona, not so much. And while Friday the 13th was unlucky for several million people, I appear to have lucked out again by arriving at my vacation destination just after the big storm has passed. I just hope Danielle and Earl stay to the south.

Hypnagogic Sports Fan Thoughts

I got the strangest spam the other day. It just said:

epicene gargantuan chrysolite superstitious
so thoughtful fractionate referring
unadulterated swastika candlewick slog
plunk koran written ingenue

What the hell is that all about?

I was almost as perplexed by a judge's tentative ruling online last week which read: "[I]f the motion for summary judgment has to be continued or re-briefed due to the amended pleading, that is the way it is got be."

"The way it is got be"? Judge, you must be overworked and underslept. Either that, or you've taken up Ebonics as a second language.

I'm trying to get all my work caught up before my vacation. It's looking pretty good. I might not even have to pull back-to-back all-nighters to get it done.

I slept 11 hours last night. I followed that up with a 2 hour nap. Half of the rest of the day, I was only half awake. I haven't slept this much in a long time. It doesn't look like I missed much. It's been a quiet news day. The only news today, really, was the Greg Maddux story. I have a few weeks more until I start avidly followed the sports page again.

College football season starts in exactly three weeks. I can't wait, especially with my team favored to win the championship. I hope we get back to the Orange Bowl. I've been once. I want to finish the drive to Key West this time. I'm confident enough that I've reserved (refundable) airfare. However, I'm not buying tickets just yet.

I hated it, but that trade by the Dodgers isn't looking so tragic a week later. A series against the Pirates doesn't measure a team's greatness, but their play has been consistent all week.

Thanks to the Angels, Raul Mondesi's career looks done, but Andres Galarraga's looks undone. At 43, Galarraga wants to play one more September in the hope that he will knock out two more home runs to reach 400.

Mondesi, on the other hand, is toast. I wouldn't be surprised to hear about Mondesi doing something really weird soon, like going off to do drugs with OJ Simpson's girlfriend, a la Pedro Guerrero.

The sudden retirement of Ricky Williams left fans of the Miami Dolphins feeling cheated. I disagreed at first. Most of us would love to work just long enough to save enough money and then quit. Robert Smith did. Why should Ricky Williams be any different?

There have been quite a few elite athletes who retired in the prime of their careers. Most had good reasons. Magic Johnson had AIDS. Sandy Koufax wanted to avoid debilitating arthritis. Pat Tillman wanted to serve his country. Robert Smith wanted to pursue non-athletic interests.

Ricky Williams wanted to smoke pot. I take back my initial respect for his decision. Williams is an idiot.

I hope Lamar Odom doesn't retire to hit the bong. To hear him talk, he might actually prefer the huge ducats and the Laker experience, over a few hits from a fattie. When asked if he liked being traded to the L.A. not-Clippers, Odom said: "You ask anybody in the NBA what team they want to play for, when you get them away from their teammates and their fans, and they will say they want to play for the Lakers."

In spite of this unspoken advantage over all other franchises, I thought the Lakers were adrift without a plan until their moves this week. It is now obvious to me. They are trying to become the 1991 Bulls.

If the plan works, it looks something like this:

Kobe = Jordan
Atkins = Armstrong
Odom = Pippen
Divac/Mihm = Cartright
Grant = Grant

If it works, I like it. If it doesn't work, I hate it. I'll get back to you in May or June.

I just got my first look at the Lakers 2004-2005 schedule. The game I was most looking forward to -- Miami -- is going to be Christmas. WTF? Now I have to sell them. I'm not about to ditch the girls on Christmas to go to a basketball game. I still hope to see Miami and Shaq play this year, however. I have two choices. First, if USC goes to the Orange Bowl, I can try to catch Miami at home against Charlotte, Seattle or New York. If USC stumbles, I'll have no choice but to catch Miami on January 14 as I, gulp, attend my first Clipper game at Staples Center.

I guess it's just the way it is got be.