1 Happy St

Courtesy of FoxNews.com.

Ohio police have arrested a man who was caught on tape allegedly having sex with a picnic table.

Art Price Jr., 40, of Bellevue, Ohio, was arrested after a neighbor videotaped him engaged sexually with the metal table, according to a report on FOX19.com.

Price was seen on four separate occasions, always between 10:30 a.m. and noon, having sex with the picnic table, Bellevue Police Capt. Matt Johnson told the TV station.

"The first video we had, he was completely nude," Johnson said, noting the table in question had a hole in the middle intended to hold an umbrella.

Price, a married father of three school-age kids, faces felony counts of public indecency because his house is near an elementary school, according to the report.

"[He] earned it, and I feel proud for him. It's about time. The same way I throw my players under the bus, I will also say good things. Believe me, Brian made my job a little tougher for a couple of years. He forgets that there are still some people in Chicago that want to kill him.'' - Crazy Bones Guillen after Brian Anderson made the team

What's that sound? I think it's the sound of baseball season about to start. Nice.

[Editor's Note: The nickname 'Crazy Bones' comes courtesy of Ken Tremendous. I think it's brilliant, so I'm using it]

I hate texting words that have an N and an O back-to-back. Or a P and an R. Or the worst of all, an M followed immediately by an O and an N. It forces me to have to press the right arrow in between each letter and it kills my flow. I suppose I could avoid pressing the right arrow and simply wait for it to give me back my cursor, but who has time for all that? I got messages to send Baby!

Editor's Note: There is no clever blog title that has to do with texting. Believe me I tried. I could have gone all "my BFF Rose" on you, but that's completely played out and it wasn't all that funny to begin with. Hence my horribly lame Color Me Badd reference.

Was it Color Me Badd, or Colour Me Badd? I think it was color, but did they ever explain why? I mean if you're gonna to go with the misspelling on badd, why not go the whole 9 yards and go the Canadian route with colour? Boyz II Men did it. They could have gone with just the Z or just the Roman Numerals, but no, they went with both. Overkill? Perhaps. But who's to argue with the guys who brought us Motownphilly? Certainly won't be me.

I hope you enjoy your weekend. I'll be gone for a few days as I take a brief vacation, but I'll be back on Tuesday or so better than ever (doubtful). 'Til then.........

...oh and Happy Birthday, Brian.

Earlier today, I was part of a large CC of people in an email from a friend of mine. It went a little something like this: "Hey you guys, just a reminder it's Jeremy's birthday on Saturday, so don't forget to wish him a happy birthday."

Thanks for the heads up, right? Of course. Either I wasn't part of the CC to remind everyone what tomorrow is, or I don't rate all that highly within my group of friends.

My sensitivity strikes again.

- I haven’t yet figured out if people who use the term "waiting on line" rather than "waiting in line" do so because of where they grew up or because they’re morons. It’s gotta be a geographical thing, no? Kind of like saying "have a catch" versus "playing catch"?

- I'm not making any sense again.

- Why do country singers get to wear that awful over-sized hat everywhere they go with nobody ever questioning it? Yes I’m looking at you Trace Adkins of "Celebrity Apprentice". No matter the social situation, they have that stupid hat on. It’s weird. Okay so they’re country singers...it’s part of the uniform I guess. But you don’t see football players walking around with their helmets on, do you?

- Is that even the right analogy? Country singers and their flaming hat versus football players and their helmets? Eh, I’m leaving it.

- If you can make it through these 10 minutes without your face melting, I will present you with an award of your choice.

- I can’t be the only person who has noticed how badly HBO has sucked recently, can I be? Do they have any other shows besides "In Treatment" and "John Adams"? At this point, I’d even take "Entourage" back.

- When I drive into work in the summertime, there’s a road on the way in that forces me to stare directly into the sun. In the winter, the sun will be off to the right. This morning I noticed that it’s almost in my eyes again. It’s going to suck for the 5 minutes that I’m on that road each morning, but it also means that good weather is coming. This is my version of seeing a robin for the first time.

- On that note.......yeah I got nothing. Maybe my next version will have two last notes. Enjoy your Wednesday.

Sometimes I’ll be driving home from work in the evening and I’ll hear an old song on the radio that I’ll try to sing along to, but there will be a common lyric that I can’t quite make out. Then I’ll spend the next few minutes going over it in my head. Big old Jed left the light on, don’t carry me too far away. Those can’t really be the words, can they? And then the song will end and I’ll think to myself that I should really do a Google search on the lyrics when I get home because that song is old and there’s no reason for me to continue singing it incorrectly. Plus it could get real dicey in a social situation. Like I could be at a bar one night and that song could come on and without even noticing it, I could start singing it out loud and someone would be all like "Dude, you’re an idiot, those aren’t the words." And I’d be all like "quit calling me Dude". And they’d be all like "whatever Dude, you’re still an idiot". And I don’t need all that drama. I just want to have a beer and play darts.

Of course, by the time I get home, I will have completely forgotten that just 10 or 15 minutes earlier while I was in my car, I was telling myself to remember to do that Google search. Instead, I’ll get inside and take off my coat and I'll go into the kitchen and check out the mail that’s sitting on the counter. There won’t be anything good, just bills. Then I’ll ask Jill how her day was while we start preparing something for dinner. She’ll say it was okay but there was this guy who came in that she had to x-ray that had his hand crushed while he was on a job site by a 1000 pound beam and he was screaming in pain and it was awful. Or something like that. I’m sure I won’t be paying all that much attention. After dinner, maybe I’ll sit down and watch The Hills. I mean a movie or a sporting event or something. Definitely not The Hills. And then a few hours will go by and right before bed I’ll log in to check my email, yet I still won’t remember to do that Google search.

So then like a week or so later I’ll be in the car again, but this time I’ll be on my way to work. I’ll be listening to the radio again, but I’ll turn off Mike and Mike because they’re talking about college football and college football is lame. So instead I’ll turn on a music station and there it will be. Big old Jed left the light on, don’t carry me too far away. Son of a bitch. A week ago I was supposed to do a Google search on this busted song so I’d stop singing the lyrics wrong.

Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to remember to do it when I get into work.

[Editor's note: an email from Conti has caused me to regret my decision to go with the Steve Miller song. I guess it's still good, but "wrapped up like a douche, another runner in the night" would have been funnier. Oh well. Can't win 'em all]

I watched the movie "Alpha Dog" last night on HBO. I remember when it first came out it made headlines because J.T. was in it (he may be Justin Timberlake to the novice, but he'll always be J.T. to me). I didn't see it when it first came out though because I don't see movies at the theater anymore (blame Jill), especially good one's that are worth seeing and have something important to say (more blame for Jill). But late last night I happened upon it and the very first scene drew me in. I thought to myself "hey, it's that J.T. movie from last year". Jill noticed what I was watching and she said out loud, "is this the movie with Justin Timberlake from last year?" Novice. But yes it was. And it started out pretty fast. A lot of young kids doing the drugs and partying and taking their clothes off and mouthing off to their parents and listening to the rap music and whatnot. You know, typical California stuff.

But then the movie started throwing me subtitles. Something along the lines of "witness # 1", followed by the next scene that said "witnesses #2-6". And I was thinking "wait a minute, is this a true story?" Turns out, yes it was. Now I was wicked intrigued. Because there's nothing quite like a movie telling me this really happened [sorta] that gets me even more pumped up.

Two hours later, the climactic scene was upon me. Thankfully I didn't know anything about the movie itself before I started watching it beyond "J.T. is in it", so how the final scene played out was still a surprise even though the story kind of holds the audience's hands and directs us to the outcome. If that makes sense [Editor's Note: It doesn't]. But afterwards, Jill had long since fell asleep and I was looking at the clock and it said midnight and I felt dirty. I also felt confused because who has a clock that says "midnight"? I gotta get that fixed. But more importantly, I felt dirty because this movie was dirty. The ending was dirty. These kids were dirty. And not dirrty with an extra 'R' like Christina Aguilera (I'm still not sure what that means). I mean dirty as in "I need to take a bath after watching this movie because I can't believe kids would actually do this." It shocks me that these events really happened. I even went on line afterwards to find out if the moron Hollywood producer took his typical "based on a true story but not really a true story at all because I'm a douche and I'm going to change around a story that's perfectly good on its own because I can" liberty. And it turns out that very few details were changed. All that was changed was the character's names and a few dates. Wow.

I guess what I'm saying is please see this movie. Then read up on the real characters that this movie was based on. And then tell me that people from California aren't crazy.

That poor kid.

You remember this story from 2 weeks ago, right? It was a recap of the less-than-stellar customer service I received from Home Depot where they talked me into signing up for a new credit card. Over the weekend, I received that card in the mail, but my name was misspelled on the statement and the card itself. Yep, I'm Brain.

Admittedly, this happens to me all the time. I can't even tell you how many times I've received an email or something from someone where they start off by calling me Brain. Pointing out the error to the people who do it is something that I gave up a long time ago because it really is a common mistake for people. For whatever reason, they can't grasp the difference. But this time, it's not an email mistake; this is on a brand new credit card. We're not starting off on the right foot here.

So I called their customer service number and I explained to gum-chewing customer service rep Tessa that I just signed up for this card 2 weeks ago, but I'm reluctant to activate it because on it, my name is spelled B-R-A-I-N rather than B-R-I-A-N. A simple problem and a quick fix, right?

Yet here I sit on the phone on hold while gum-chewing customer service representative Tessa investigates my problem.

A good few minutes goes by before she finally comes back. "So your name is spelled B-R-A-I-N, right?"

"No," I say. "That's what it shows on the card, but it's wrong."

[momentary silence]

"Oh," she says. "So you spell it with a Y?"

Fantasmic.

[Editor's Note: If any of you can guess what Brainy Brian is (as mentioned in this blog title), you get a gold star]

A husband and wife are sitting quietly in bed reading when the wife looks over at him and asks the question....
WIFE: "What would you do if I died? Would you get married again?"
HUSBAND: "Definitely not!"
WIFE: "Why not? Don't you like being married?"
HUSBAND: "Of course I do."
WIFE: "Then why wouldn't you remarry?"
HUSBAND: "Okay, okay, I'd get married again."
WIFE: "You would?" (with a hurt look)
HUSBAND: (makes audible groan)
WIFE: "Would you live in our house?"
HUSBAND: "Sure, it's a great house."
WIFE: "Would you sleep with her in our bed?"
HUSBAND: "Where else would we sleep?"
WIFE: "Would you let her drive my car?"
HUSBAND: "Probably, it is almost new."
WIFE: "Would you replace my pictures with hers?"
HUSBAND: "That would seem like the proper thing to do."
WIFE: "Would you give her my jewelry?"
HUSBAND: "No, I'm sure she'd want her own."
WIFE: "Would you take her golfing with you?
HUSBAND: "Yes, those are always good times."
WIFE: "Would she use my clubs?
HUSBAND: "No, she's left-handed."
WIFE: -- silence --
HUSBAND: "Sh##"

h/t Daniel

Now for a few groaners:

- A proton walks into a bar and says "I'll take a beer." The bartender says "are you sure?" and the proton says "I'm positive."

- Bacon and Eggs walk into a bar. The bartender says "hey get out of here. I don't serve breakfast."

- A neutron walks into a bar and says "how much for a beer?" The bartender says "for you? no charge."

- A 3-legged dog walks into a bar in the old west and says "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw."

And finally........

A man is about to get married. He's at his future in-law's house days before the wedding. He finds himself alone in the house with his future sister-in-law (of course), who is younger than his bride-to-be (of course) and has all of the physical qualities that are important to the superficial man. She says to him, "I'm about to go upstairs to my room. Follow me up there and I'll give you a little something to enjoy before you get married." His jaw drops as he watches her go up the stairs. She turns around just long enough to give him a wink. Just then, the man takes off running in the opposite direction and bursts through the back door. Outside, all of his future in-laws are there, clapping and cheering. "Congrats, you passed the test," they all say. His future bride is there too and she has tears in her eye. "Sorry to have to do this to you," she says. "But we just had to be sure that you'd never compromise our relationship." The man had done good. He passed the test.

What's the moral of the story?

Always keep your condoms in your car.

Happy Monday!!!!!

Hi, everyone. Yes, I'm alive. And thanks for all the well-wishes. You can stop calling the house though. Especially you, Jeremy. It comes up UNAVAILABLE on the caller ID, but I can hear you breathing!!!! Pervert!

Anyway, sorry again for my absence but I promise I have a good reason for being away, and I can get a doctors note if you don't believe me. As I'm sure Brian has told you, I have a kidney stone... again. Oh he didn't tell you? He just let you go on thinking that I was slacking off and he was holding the fort by himself? Well I'll show him when its time for bonus checks here at 1 Happy Street, Inc.

Anyway, as you might remember, I've had this problem before... and once again, my right kidney has decided it's not going to pull its weight. I've got a stone about 7mm in diameter that was discovered several weeks ago. The pain has ranged from dull to excruciating but has been pretty constant since the last week of February. Thank God for Vicodin.

Luckily, as was the case with the last stone, I shouldn't have to pass it whole. The stone is still in my kidney and is expected to stay there. If all goes according to plan, I'm going in for a procedure on Monday to break it up into a zillion pieces. After a couple days of recovery, I should be back in the swing of writing daily bits of hilarity so Brian can stop writing about banking.

Below is a picture from my CT Scan. Pretty cool huh? The arrow is pointing to my stone. Isn't he cute? I named him Steve. My stomach is near the top of the image, and no I don't remember eating that. Ok, I have to get back to writhing in agony on the floor of my cubicle.

See you all soon.

I have no doubt that the headline writer for this story had a blast writing it. I totally would have added the word "prosthetic" to it though. I mean if you're gonna go crazy with a headline, go all the way with it.

h/t The Donald

Today we salute you, Mr. Takes his NCAA Brackets Too Seriously. You don't want anyone hogging in on that $90 pot. Sure, filling out a bracket is a crapshoot and your co-workers are laughing at you [you're an expert], but that's not stopping you from coming by my desk every couple hours to ask if you can make another change to your picks. So crack open an ice-cold Bud Light, Mr. Bracket Man, because we all know, when the tournament is over and UCLA has beaten North Carolina, you'll be the one laughing.....at us.

[Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis, MO]

Have you ever noticed how many different meanings the word 'screw' has? It's a verb for sex, as in "let's screw" or "hey, you wanna screw?" It's a noun that sometimes refers to a prison guard, as in "look at that screw over there" or "I don't think I trust that screw". It's a verb for being in trouble, as in "uh oh, we're screwed". It's a verb for cheating someone out of something, as in "dude, I can't believe you just screwed me". It's a verb for wasting time. My dad was always good for this one, saying things like "you better quit screwin' around back there" or "sit down and quit screwin' around". It's a verb for making a mistake, as in "damn we screwed up". It's even an idiom; "I think the guy who sits next to me has a screw loose" or "no for real, he has a screw loose. Someone should do a background check on that guy. I'm scared to come into work sometimes. We're all gonna die one day." And of course, it's a noun for a type of fastening device, as in "can you hand me that box of screws?" or "damn it, I stripped the head on this screw."

The odd thing is that for almost all of them, you can substitute the word "screw" for "f#ck". As in "hey, you wanna f#ck" or "I don't think I trust that f#ck" or "uh oh, we're f#cked" or "dude, I can't believe you just f#cked me" or "sit down and quit f#cking around" or "damn we f#cked up". I think the only place where substituting "screw" for "f#ck" doesn't work is in the context of the idiom and the fastening device. But I'm gonna try to change all that. Next time I find myself putting up some drywall or something, you may just hear me say something like "hey, can you hand me a box of those drywall f#cks?"

Who's with me?

You're not? Well then screw you!

Woman goes for Leg Operation, Gets New Anus Instead

I read that headline here.

My 1st thought when reading that headline was "that can't be accurate."
My 2nd thought was "I should probably read that story because it sounds funny."
My 3rd thought was "I wonder where I should go for lunch today; I'm getting hungry."
My 4th thought was "hey, weren't you about to read that anus story?"
My 5th thought was "holy crap, that headline was accurate."

I'm sorry to bother you again with more of this economic garbage (hollow apology alert!). I wish I didn't allow myself to get worked up over something I have no control over. So I'll keep this one light and on the humorous side. I'm not entirely sure what the context was in which this quote was given. It could have been an off-the-cuff remark given to a reporter in passing, but reading it out of context makes the man seem like a moron.

"The situation is very bad, the situation is getting worse, and the risks are that it could get very bad." - National Bureau of Economic Research President Martin Feldstein

This is the top dog. El Presidente. The man we go to for answers. Something tells me he's not very bright, he's getting dumber, and eventually he won't be very bright.

This is what I was talking about on Monday; the fallout of the Bear Stearns takeover for $2/share. I understand this part because if something similar happened at my company, I'd be directly effected. It's in my best interest to understand this part. Regular employees* seeing their retirements disappear overnight. People who had $50,000 worth of stock options on Friday have $500 worth of stock options today, all because it turns out that the people who are running their industry decided that there was no such thing as a high-risk loan.

* By regular employees, I'm talking about the 9 to 5'er. People who take the train or bus into work. The M-F man or woman who answers phones and gets 2 weeks a year for vacation and sends their kids to public schools. Now they're broke.

The irony is that the company they work for is supposed to be good at investing. A federal bailout? Who's bailing out these people? A [bleeping] shame.

I'm not going to pretend that I understand exactly what happened the last few days in regards to Bear Stearns. I do know that a company that was worth billions last week and billions beyond my wildest dreams about 14 months ago was sold for pennies on Sunday to JP Morgan. I can grasp that. Friday they were worth X. Sunday they apparently were worth X/10. I guess I understand. But how does that happen? How can a company that has a building worth approximately $1.2 billion be sold for $236 million total? And how does the CEO of that company go on television one day and say that he does not see any pressure on its liquidity and his company has about $17 billion in excess cash on its balance sheet, and then a few days later his company sells to a competitor at such a ridiculous discount?

I don't know the answers to any of those questions. And I have a feeling that a lot of people who are a lot smarter than me don't know the answers to those questions either. What I do know is that thousands of littler people who work for Bear Stearns or JP Morgan will probably lose their jobs while a guy like Alan Schwartz will get to keep his or get a crazy buyout.

Capitalism at its finest [worst].

It's March 17th. You know what that means, right? It means it's time to get drunk and fill out college basketball brackets.

Every year, I seem to take the lead in our office by running the pool. It's a tricky job because you never know who might not approve of office gambling. To avoid any hassles, we don't play for money [as far as you know]. So earlier while preparing brackets for everyone interested in playing, I managed to jam our office's main printer. I was attempting to print off 30 brackets but the printer jammed right in the beginning. So I opened up the main door on the printer and there were 2 printed brackets stuck inside different parts of the machine. You should have seen me over there frantically taking apart the whole thing. People kept walking by saying "Brian you alright?" as I was covered in black ink and there were printer parts lying all over the floor. So like 5 minutes goes by and this guy walks up behind me wearing a Xerox shirt and he says "you didn't try to print something on this machine, did you?" and I said "yeah" and he said "well the [he names some kind of xerox printer part that I'm not familiar with] isn't working so it keeps jamming so I'm replacing it now" and I said "oh I'm sorry, do your thing".

Now I was nervous because I didn't get a chance to cancel my job so I knew there were like 27 or 28 college basketball brackets waiting to be printed as soon as this guy fixed this thing. So he replaced the part, and sure enough, here they came. He looked at them and said "are these yours?" and I said "uh, is it an expense report?" and he said "no they're college basketball brackets" and I said "hmmm, no those aren't mine".

Then he left and I grabbed them.

March Madness indeed.

Some people call this an unbelievable story. I call this "Tuesday".

h/t TBL

A 22-year-old aspiring singer from NJ turned hooker? Didn't Piper Perabo play her in a movie once?

This story is already a day old, so there's a good chance you've read it already or seen it on the news. But if not, I'll recap as best I can. I'm still not even sure I understand all of it since the story itself asks as many questions as it answers, but here goes:

You know what? Never mind. I don't have the strength to type my own thoughts on this thing. Read it for yourself. The whole situation is insane.

Bonus to whomever knows the movie quote that inspired this blog title.

h/t Conti

Him: "Were you just in the bathroom?"
Me: "No"

[5-10 second pause]

Me: "Why do you ask?"
Him: "No reason."

Okay then.

This is currently my favorite Wikipedia page. It's for an amusement park that is no longer open. Here are some of the highlights...

Action Park was a popular waterpark/motor themed park open from 1978 to 1996 in Vernon Township, New Jersey, on the property of the former Vernon Valley / Great Gorge ski area, today Mountain Creek. It featured three separate attraction areas: an alpine slide; Motoworld, where patrons could operate motorized vehicles on land and water; and Waterworld, with many water-based attractions such as waterslides.

Its popularity went hand in hand with a reputation for poorly-designed, unsafe rides; inattentive, underaged, underpaid and sometimes under-the-influence employees; equally intoxicated and underprepared visitors — and the poor safety record that followed from this perfect storm of circumstances. At least six people are known to have died as a result of mishaps on rides at the park, and it was nicknamed "Traction Park", "Accident Park", "Class Action Park", "Danger Park" and "Death Park" by doctors at nearby hospitals due to the number of severely injured parkgoers they treated.

This is my kind of math. Nobody can say they're wrong, right?

h/t Ridgeway

Over the weekend, I made like Frank the Tank and spent my Saturday at the Home Depot. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time for Bed, Bath, and Beyond, but that's only because the folks over at Home Depot caused me to waste away a good portion of the day. I'll explain.

I had a pretty big order of stuff I needed. I think I mentioned this a week or two ago, but I'm in the process of remodeling* my basement. My list included [4] 6-paneled doors, 500 sq ft. of insulation, and the bathroom vanity that I had ordered the previous week that they were now telling me had arrived. All of it added together was pretty expensive. And heavy. And awkward to push around the store by myself seeing as though I filled 2 flat carts.

* By "remodel", I mean "model". I don't think it would be accurate to call it remodeling because my basement has never been modeled. Up until now, the room has only consisted of a pool table sitting on cold concrete. In a few long weeks, I hope to be able to say it's a pool table sitting on cold carpet. Maybe there will be a dart board too. Yeah, definitely a dart board.

Thankfully, Home Depot had a huge staff on hand to help me wherever I walked. Unthankfully, none of them offered to. Rather, every single employee I came across would say to me "would you like to sign up for a Home Depot credit card?" and I would respond to each of them by saying "I already have one". Then they would walk away and move on to the next customer with the same question. One male employee who saw me struggling with my two carts even ran clear across an aisle yelling at me: "Sir! Sir! Hang on a sec." I thought to myself, "finally I'm going to get some service around here." But no. Instead I got "you should really sign up for a credit card today. You have a pretty big order and I can get you 10% off." When I told him that I already had a card, he asked me if there was a balance on it because if not, he could say that I lost it and I could apply for a new one. I told him to please go away, so he did. By the time I made it to the cashier, I swear at least 20 people had asked me if I wanted to sign up for a credit card and not one of them had offered to help me load my cart or find what I was looking for. I'm not kidding. This is not hyperbole. 20 people. By the time I made it to the front of the store, I was pissed, sweaty, dirty from loading 500 sq. ft. of busted insulation onto my cart all by myself, and in no mood for what came next.

The cashier asked me if I would like to sign up for a credit card [of course] and if so, she would take $50 off my bill. I said to her "I have one already and I just want to get out of here." Her pitch was not over. "It doesn't matter if you have one already. We can get you a contractor's card which offers more perks and services than the card you currently have."

But I'm not a contractor.

"That doesn't matter. We do this all the time. It takes 2 minutes."

Fine. Give me the bleeping form.

I have no idea why I agreed at this point. On principle, I should have walked out of that store and proceeded to burn it to the ground. I was so done with every person wearing orange. But I'm also a sucker. And a moron. And I guess extremely forgiving. And I wanted the 50 bucks**.

** Ding ding ding. This was probably the main reason. I can say in all honesty now though that I will never again prostitute myself for anything less that $75.

The cashier made it sound like the balance from my old card (about $500 or so) would be transferred to the new card with a swift click of a button (I found out later this would not be true), and my new card would provide me with "insider deals" (her words) that only get offered to their best customers, ie. contractors who spend a lot of time and money at their store. Fine. F#ck it. Give me the form.

So as I was filling out the form, the dude from earlier who ran clear across an aisle asking me to sign up for a credit card saw me filling out a form just minutes after I had told him no thanks. And now he was pissed. So he began taking it out on the cashier who got me to agree. And me. Yes, AND ME. He was saying things like "this is my sale. I want credit for this. You told me you didn't want one. That's not cool Man. I have bills to pay too."

I promise this happened.

And then I snapped.

"YOU BETTER MOVE ON. I AM SO DONE WITH YOU PEOPLE AND I'M ABOUT TO GO OFF. IT'S IN YOUR BEST INTEREST TO GO AWAY BEFORE WE'RE BOTH IN TROUBLE."

Yeah, I said something like that. And so he did move on. And 5 minutes later, I had my $50 discount and I was out of there. But not before I had to take 2 trips from the store to my truck with my 2 large carts, and then load all the stuff into the truck all by myself.

So next time you're at Home Depot and someone asks you to sign up for a credit card, do the smart thing and tell them to go away. And then punch them in the face.

[Note: use of asterisks a nod to Joe Posnanski, the best blogger on the planet]

We're the South Side Irish as our fathers were before.
We come from the Windy City and we're Irish to the core.
We drop trou and pee on stuff from Midway to South Shore.
We're the South Side Irish, let's sing it out once more.

[Editor's Note: new lyrics Brian's]

I'm not a Yankees fan, but I'd totally wear this.

Steve: "Boy the Cubs looked really good this weekend!"
Donald: "Yeah, that #93 guy can really play."
Steve: "Who's that?"
Donald: "I have no idea, you're talking about spring training."

Perfect.

- I can't believe that girl whose father died 2 days before her audition got voted off. What a shame. And believe it or not, I liked that Daniel kid with the attitude, so I was sorry to see him go too. His text-speech made me LOL. Oh well. BLNT.

- Yeah I watched Idol too. My DVR was working overtime last night.

- I should probably keep some things to myself.

- Wow, so another stellar episode of Lost. I was pleased with Juliet's backstory with Goodwin; I thought that was long overdue. It's funny because my favorite characters on the show I think are people who weren't even part of Season 1 (at least not prominently). Juliet is good, Desmond is great, and Ben is always terrific. If not for Sayid and the occasional Sawyer scene (where has he been this season?), the Season 1 crew would be getting dominated.

- Claire got another 20 seconds of screen time. Does anybody else feel like they glossed over the whole Charlie dying thing? If Claire was truly in love with him, wouldn't she still be grieving at least a little bit? Instead she's going about her business like it never happened. Poor Charlie. I think it's pretty clear at this point that Claire is going down soon. They've been hinting at it for a couple weeks now. I guess I'll miss her, but I definitely won't miss her saying "give me back my bay-bay" any more. Hey silver lining.

- That Ben is diabolical. This paragraph will be lame (I guess they all have been), but I wanted an excuse to type the word 'diabolical'. It's such a great word. So is he telling the truth to Locke about Penny's dad? I say yes even though Ben is looking more and more like a creepy myspace guy. His line to Juliet when he brought her to Goodwin's rotting corpse - "take all the time you need" - was brilliant. And diabolical. Still loving that word.

- Questions still to ponder - who is Ben's spy on the ship? Who does Juliet look like that would make her attractive to Ben? Who opened the door on the ship that allowed Sayid, Desmond, and the Indian dude from "Short Circuit" to escape? Are Daniel/Charlotte good guys or bad guys? Or for that matter, is Penny's dad a good guy? 'Til next time......

Click here for a quick case of the heebie jeebies.

The Perfect Plan - courtesy of Daniel Kuch

Daniel: "Man I don't want to go to work tomorrow."

Daniel's friend: "Why not?"

Daniel: "I don't know. It just sucks, ya know? Boss has been ridin' me. Plus I got that drug test comin' up and there's no way I'm passin' that son'bitch."

Daniel's friend: "I hear that. You could call in sick. That's what I do......Uh, you wanna pass that already?"

Daniel: "Nah, I can't call in sick again. Boss already said I do that one more time I'm outta there.......WAIT! I got it! You can shoot me in the shoulder."

Daniel's friend: "Okay now you're trippin'."

Daniel: "Trippin'? Who says trippin'? No for real, this'll work. You shoot me in the shoulder, I'll have to go to the hospital, boom! I don't have to go in."

Daniel's friend: "I ain't doin' that."

Daniel: "If you want this joint back you will."

Daniel's friend: "A'aight where's the gun?"

I've been whistling "The Final Countdown" all morning and I'm not sure why. Let's see if it sticks with you.

It's the final countdown.
Do do do do, do do do do do, do do do, do do do do do do do, do do do, do do do do do do do DO do00000000.
The final countdown.

Or something like that.

If it turned out that the guy whose job it was to arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic survived, we'd all feel pretty stupid right now.

I'm trying to cease and desist using redundant phrases.

I have no use for people that use acronyms. Try it with me and you're SOL.

Someone said to me, "the long and the short of it is..." Well, which is it? I don't get it.

Ever since Elmo came around, we haven't seen a whole lot of Grover. I'm picturing Grover in a gutter somewhere mumbling about Mr. Noodle and Dorothy.

I would have to say that coming out of the birth canal was my crowning achievement.

Is there anything worse than watching someone type and click that does not use keyboard shortcuts?

her: "I just have to select this 2000 line spreadsheet..." [tries to select it all with her mouse]
me: "Control A."
her: [still trying to select it all with her mouse]
me: "Control A to select all."
her: [still trying to select it all with her mouse]
me: [head hits table]
her: "Are you ok?"
me: "Oh, you didn't let go of the mouse button, did you?"
her: "I heard a thud"
me: "Control A."

Lady: "Can you confirm your account number please?"

Brian: "7-0-0-2-2-5-3-7-8-7"

Lady: "I'll repeat. Was that 7-0-0-2-2-5-3-7-8-7?"

Brian: "That's correct."

Lady: "Okay Mr. Brian. Please hang on a sec while I pull that up."

[delayed silence]

Lady: "Okay um Mr. Brian thanks for holding. The account number you gave me is wrong. It should be ten digits."

[I look back at my account number and count the digits. Wait, that IS ten digits]

Brian: "Wait, that IS ten digits."

Lady: "Um. Please hold."

[Approximately five minutes of hold time]

Lady: "I'm sorry Mr. Brian for the hold. Can you confirm your account number please?"

Brian: "Are you serious?"

Lady: "Um. Please hold."

[At this point, I gave up and called back. Thankfully the next representative I got was able to find my account number with no problems whatsoever.]

Oil prices continue to surge as U.S. dollar weakens

In other words, status quo. You can continue doing what you're doing. I'll be sure to update you if housing prices go down or the stock market crashes or Barack Obama avoids a question about his health plan or Britney gets taken away in an ambulance.

This is what happens when everyone shops at the same store.

That's co-worker Alex on the left.