1 Happy St

Have you heard about this guy? He's a judge in Washington D.C. named Roy Pearson and he's suing the immigrant owners of a dry-cleaning business for $65 million because they lost a pair of his pants. That's right, you heard me correctly. He's taking advantage of a loophole in the judicial system that allows him to sue a small business for a ridulous amount. Why? I guess it's because he's an enormous jag-bag. I will now proceed to pepper his name, Roy Pearson, throughout the rest of this blog entry in hopes that somebody important will read this and demand that he, Roy Pearson, be removed from his duties as judge. I also hope that someone will find another loophole in the system that allows small-business owners like the owners of this dry-cleaner to countersue jag-bags like Roy Pearson for putting them through hell just because they felt like it. Jag-bags like Roy Pearson need to be stopped.

[Editors note: I use the term 'jag-bag' in the highest of esteem, just in case the jag-bag Roy Pearson ever reads this and decides to sue me for defamation]

If you haven't heard by now, the state of Illinois is one approval vote from the governor away from imposing a smoking ban in all restaurants and bars effective January 1st of 2008. Personally, I'm a little surprised that Mike Ditka's testimony on the subject in front of the judge didn't help. If you don't remember it from a couple years ago when the topic was first discussed, it went something like this:

Mike Ditka: "I mean c'mon, a smoking ban? C'mon now."

Lawyer: "Your honor, this ban is necessary due to the effects of second-hand smoke.

Mike Ditka: "That's ridiculous, I mean c'mon. A smoking ban? Really? C'mon."

Lawyer: "Your honor, second-hand smoke kills thousands of people in Illinois alone each year."

Mike Ditka: "Yeah, but a smoking ban? C'mon"

I don't know about you, but he had me sold.

Tom Poston, who most will remember as the dim-witted handyman in the series "Newhart", died yesterday at the age of 85. Poston is survived by his wife, Suzanne Pleshette, whom he worked with on the "Bob Newhart Show".

Poston appeared in dozens of television shows and movies over a career that spanned over 50 years. One of Poston's lesser known roles was in the raucous adolescent comedy, Up the Academy. It that film, Poston played the flamboyant orderly, Sisson. Sisson appears in the climactic soccer scene as the prancing referee wearing short shorts and a tied off t-shirt that showed off Poston's midriff.

As a bit of trivia, Up the Academy featured Ralph Macchio in his first film, and a young Harry Teinowitz, a popular sports radio personality in Chicago.

- I can’t wait for something to actually happen during this season of "Entourage". I know it’s coming, but the anticipation is killing me.

- Was it popular in the 1940’s to wear black socks with shorts? Because if it wasn’t, is this just something I have to look forward to when I get older?

- ESPN was at commercial for nearly the entire time while I was at SportClips yesterday. What a waste.

- I have more clothes in my closet that I don’t wear than clothes in my closet that I do wear, and yet I can’t bring myself to get rid of any of it.

- Have you noticed that some weather forecasters have started giving 7-day forecasts now? That’s a lot of nerve since they’re usually wrong by Day 2.

- When you were a kid, there was always a rumor of another kid who swung himself all the way over the bar. But I bet that never happened.

- By the way, why did that extra-wide slide made of rollers even exist? It wasn’t any faster, it hurt your butt, and there was no way you were coming out of there without an injury.

- It’s difficult to shop for sunglasses because you can never tell how you look in them. So wouldn’t it make sense for the folks at Sunglass Hut to have a digital camera on hand so you can see yourself?

- Do you realize that there are people in college right now who don’t remember the last time the Cicada’s showed up? Now how old do you feel?

- I hate it when I’m stuck driving alongside a guy on a bike. Every time my light turns green, I have to do that exaggerated swerve to get past him, only so he can pass me back up at the next light and we can do it all over again. For 20 minutes I have to worry about hitting him, or him taking out my side-view mirror. I hate that guy.

This story doesn't live up to the headline. (h/t The Corner)

You think Mark Buehrle is re-thinking about pitching for St. Louis?

What, too soon?

Did you all read about this guy? Apparently he showed up piss drunk to his own wedding, so the bride-to-be's family chased him from the ceremony. But rather than canceling the day, the wedding proceeded with a different groom as Drunk Guy's lil' brother stepped up to the plate.

There's too many punchlines to use following this story, so I'll leave it up to you. Your choices are:

A. That's all he did? Isn't every groom drunk at his wedding?

B. Gives new meaning to the term 'Best Man'.

C. I'm not surprised, you don't wanna lose the deposit on the band.

Please feel free to come up with one of your own as the possibilities seem endless.

"It’s going to be quite a battle. I don’t want to compare what we’re doing to what’s going on over in Iraq, but…it should be quite the battle." – New Jersey Nets coach Lawrence Frank, talking about an upcoming playoff game between his team and the Toronto Raptors.

This is sad. He’s being interviewed and says the game is going to be a battle. Then an alarm goes off in his head that tells him that people may be upset with his comparison (which isn’t really a comparison at all) to war, so he prefaces his next statement to make sure that he’s covered. The saddest part about this is I don’t blame him. Remember a few years ago when Kevin Garnett did the same thing and he was blasted by all the sportswriters and television pundits for it? Granted Kevin went a little further and mentioned weaponry and tactics (which by the way was hilarious if you have a sense of humor and don't take things too seriously), but I think it’s sad that Larry Frank found it necessary to preface his statement like that.

We know that a basketball game isn’t the same thing as driving around in a Humvee while getting shot at. We know that a basketball game isn’t the same thing as walking around in the hot desert surrounded by people who want to kill you. And yet, I’m sure that if Larry hadn’t covered himself the way that he did, people would be demanding an apology from him today. Quite sad.

Unrelated lighter note: the guy I work with who has all the Cosby sweaters switched things up today. He’s wearing a collared shirt, but it has a Cosby-sweater pattern. It’s terrific. I have to find out where he shops for these things.

- If you really think about it, the person who created the unicorn wasn’t very creative. It’s a friggin horse with a horn. If I would have done the same thing to a cow, they would have put me in the slow class.

- I think deep-dish pizza sucks. Is this kind of like a guy from Detroit hating Chevy?

- Whenever I get nervous that the Bulls are about to give up their lead against the Heat, Pat Riley puts Antoine Walker back in the game and I feel better again.

- Do you think the guy who originally came up with the 'why don’t they make the entire plane out of that stuff' joke is pissed that people keep using it or do you think he’s flattered?

- A necktie serves no purpose whatsoever.

- Do real bombs have digital timers on them like in the movies that count down until it explodes? It seems to me that this is a feature that kind of hurts the cause.

- Then again, what if it had a timer but it was off by a couple minutes. Imagine the bomb-squad’s surprise if they still thought they had some time. "Hurry up Dave, we only have two more"……[ka-boom!]

- Wouldn’t a commercial of the Geico caveman starting a campfire and roasting the Aflac duck be a no-brainer? Or is that too graphic?

- Why do they put 'fun size' on the wrapper of a mini-Snickers bar? The truly fun size is the giant one the size of my hand, not the little one the size of my pinky.

- It was impossible to write that last one without it sounding dirty. Believe me I tried.

- When I got home yesterday, Jill was watching a show on MTV called "Engaged and Underage". After two minutes of watching with her, I asked if we really had to continue watching this crap. After ten minutes, I yelled at her when she tried turning the channel. This show is such a trainwreck, but in a fabulous way. Check it out if you haven’t yet.

This makes me long for the good old days.... you know... when Presidents had polio and stuff.

*20 bonus points to the first commenter to tell me what the title of this post is in reference to. Brian is disqualified, of course.

My warranty just ran out on my Magnum and it started making weird engine noises, as if to tell me to prepare to start missing a lot of work and shelling out thousands of dollars on her. So last week I told her "you better quit playing, I'll just get rid of you." She calmed down for a couple days, but then she started chirping again with this engine knock, so over the weekend we got into a big argument. I said "hey, I thought I told you to shut the hell up" and she was all "you don't care about me so why should I care about you" and I was all "that's not true, maybe I haven't shown it lately because the weather's been bad, but I care about you" and she was all "maybe we should take a break". That angered me something fierce, so I said "screw that, how bout we just break up". So on Monday, we broke up officially.

I guess I was a little bit sad about it yesterday, but then I saw the weather forecast for the weekend and realized my rebound 4-door Jeep Wrangler is gonna look great with her top off.

Now that we are three episodes into the final season of The Soprano’s, I thought I’d share a few of my thoughts on what I think is happening. Of course I have no insider information, no access to the inner-workings of this particular show, but I do like making outlandish predictions. That way if they turn out right, I can brag afterwards that I saw it coming. And if I get them wrong, you can bet there’s no way I’ll mention this ever again. So here goes:

1. I think the FBI has gotten to Paulie. If you noticed, he was going out of his way to reminisce about their past. Tony made it seem like reminiscing is something that Paulie does all the time, like a character flaw almost. I had never noticed it before, but Paulie got Tony to talk out loud about some of the crimes they’ve committed in the past, so my feeling here is that Paulie was wired the whole time. Hmmmm. I hope not. I like Paulie.

2. This one is kind of obvious, but I think Bobby Bacala is about to be arrested for killing that guy at the laundromat.

3. Not so obvious is the fallout from that arrest. You think Janice will take it lightly that her husband is in prison and no longer earning? Who do you think she will take it out on? My guess is either Carmela, with whom she fought with by the lake in the season premier, or Tony, with whom she has had a dysfunctional relationship with since they were kids. Could Janice actually kill her brother? I think so.

Things I’m still working on figuring out: Christopher and his movie. Tony seems genuinely disinterested with it, so I’m not sure how this will play out. I never really liked Christopher anyway, so if he leaves NJ for Hollywood, I’d have no problem with that. My guess is it’s about to blow up in his face though. Christopher’s always been kind of an idiot. Also, I’m not sure what’s going to happen with Uncle Junior. He just got his arse kicked by that crazy guy we just met, so I guess there’s two possible scenarios. Either he retaliates and starts having people killed, or he cowers in his room for a couple episodes and dies. If I had to wager a guess, I’d go with the first option. Stay tuned.

Even when people say 'no pun intended', I still get the feeling that they intended it.

Was Menudo the Puerto Rican New Kids, or were the New Kids the American Menudo?

Next time I buy a new car and the dealer offers me $3000 cash back, I’m going to take out a loan for the full amount and then demand they give me a stack of $20’s just to see what they say.

Can we go back to the days when fund raising was limited to chocolate bars or cookies, or is that gone forever?

I’m not really sure the meaning behind this, but I like its spirit.

You can try telling me that J.K. Rowling didn’t laugh when she named him Harry Potter, but I still won’t believe it.

I never realized how many calories flavor had. Stupid flavor.

Do you think the guy who invented Scantron was related to the #2 pencil guy? If so, I bet they’re both having a good laugh over this.

Come to think of it, why did they even sell #1’s?

How do we know that plastic bags take a thousand years to decompose? Are we monitoring a bunch of Leif Ericson’s old groceries?

Okay that was lame. I should have left it alone after the pencils.

Why is this blog called 1 Happy St?
What's the difference between a random and a bloglet?
Who is Vincent Antonelli and why is he the Patron Saint of 1 Happy St?

Answers to these questions and more are coming soon to our Frequently Asked Questions page. If you have a burning question about anything pertaining to 1 Happy St, send us an email or drop us a blog comment. We love hearing from our readers.

This is an actual phrase overheard from one of my co-workers while he was talking to someone on the phone:

"I don't wanna let this fall by the waist-line."

Well no, we can't have that. Especially after that McDonald's Big Breakfast from earlier this morning.

It's a good thing they invented the push button phone key pad before they invented cell phones. Texting on rotary would be a bitch!

Do you ever wonder how people first discovered that cow milk was safe for human consumption? One guy had to look at a cow's udders and think, "Let's pull on 'em and see what comes out!" And then his buddy said, "Yeah, and then let's drink it!"

It's impossible to look tough while putting on chapstick.

Sight seen at yesterday's White Sox vs. Tigers game: Man in a skin tight leopard print shirt and capri pants with a flourescent yellow belt trying to start the wave. Congratulations, Slugger. You're the Mike's Hard Lemonade Gay of the Game!

I love the multi-person conference call on speaker phone at full volume in an open cubicle so everyone in at 40 foot radius has to hear the whole thing. Classic move, cube neighbor. Well played.

The weather over the weekend was outstanding, which meant all my neighbors were outside doing work around their houses, including Old Guy, who on Saturday managed to start his happy hour at 8:30 in the morning. God Bless him. He called me over to join him for a quick alcoholic celebration of this glorious weather before we started our day. What kind of person would Michael be (and yes, he managed to call me Michael a couple times) to turn down a cup of coffee, er, a can of beer with an old man on a Saturday morning? So of course I accepted his invite.

As we sat there in his front yard, we discussed everything from Mark Buehrle's no-hitter earlier in the week to what the neighborhood looked like when he first moved into his house back in 1957. It was a terrific conversation. But then this happened:

"So how's Gail?" he asked.

"Who?" I replied, already cracking a smile in anticipation of where this conversation was headed.

"Gail," he said again. "How's she doing?"

"Oh, you mean Jill." I said, barely able to contain myself.

"Her name is Jill?" he asked. "I'm sorry, I thought it was Gail. I hope I've never called her that."

"I'm sure you're fine," I said. "She's never mentioned it to me."

Isn't he the best? I'd like the record to show that I have corrected him, so if he gets it wrong next time, it's on him.

- There’s three kinds of people in this world: those who are going to celebrate tonight because today is 4/20, those who know why 4/20 is worth celebrating but don’t care, and those who have no idea what I’m talking about. Which category do you fall in?

- By the way, if you’re in category 3, try to find someone in category 1 and buy them a bag of Cheetos. Trust me, they’ll love you for it.

- Will there ever be a time when I can hear the term ‘manhole cover’ and not smile like an 8th grader? And yes, the number 69 still has the same effect as well.

- Why does pizza taste better at the ballpark? If I was eating that same pizza at home, I’d probably hate it. But for some reason, at the ballpark it tastes great.

- How did that Chinese diplomat know the exact moment that Jack had successfully stopped the terrorists? Was that just a lucky guess? And has Jack pee'd yet today?

- Is it too much to ask that Apple’s next version of iPod has the ability to come in clearly on my car radio? I hate having to hold it up over my head as I drive.

- Convertible owners, I’ll settle this for you once and for all. If it’s colder than 64, the top stays up. If it’s warmer, the top can come down. If it’s exactly 64, the call is yours.

- Never quote the movie "Borat" while at work, not even if it’s a simple quote by accident like "it’s-a-nice". Apparently, this is an invitation for an annoying co-worker to visit you at your desk and share their favorite parts of the movie with you. You’re just gonna have to trust me on this.

- If you’re not sure which co-worker would visit you at your desk and start quoting "Borat", look around your office for the guy who still thinks Chuck Norris Facts are funny. Pretty good odds that he’s your guy.

- I think sports teams should stop shooting those free T-Shirts into the stands during breaks in play because somebody is going to get hurt. On Tuesday, I went to the White Sox game and I almost killed this little kid who was standing in my way. Honestly, we can’t have that.

It's been a while since I've shamelessly plugged our 1 Happy St. gear so I thought I'd show you how cool you could look wearing some.

This is Doug. Doug enjoys racket sports, deep sea diving and parallel parking. He's sporting an authentic 1 Happy St. black and white ringer tee. This fashionable top just screams "Hey look, it's laundry day!" Thanks, Doug.

The phrase "Organ grinder" makes me uncomfortable.

I like to go to the grocery store at around 7:00 in the morning and look for the mom wearing her bathrobe and shopping for poster boards and glue sticks for the project that their kid put off until the last minute. Your chances of seeing her increase at least 50% if it's the first day back to school after spring break.

I was born in February and I was always kind of pissed off that we got screwed out of at least 2 days. February is like January: The Sequel. Sequels suck. What did February ever do to piss off the rest of the months? Why can't we rotate which month gets shafted out of 2 days every year. Let's stick it to August for once! Frigging August!

I think people are making too big a deal out of the story of Alec Baldwin berating his 11 year old daughter. So he called her a "thoughtless little pig." Who are we to judge? Maybe that was his pet name for her, like "how's Daddy's thoughtless little pig?" or "Did my thoughtless little pig have a good day at school today?" or "Don't you realize that Running With Scissors' Total U.S. gross was $6.8 million, you thoughtless little pig?" Ok, maybe not.

Speaking of pigs, there was a new package of Hostess Donettes on my desk this morning. The package says there are 7 servings in the package. I don't know where they get that number because it only took me one serving to finish them.

As irony would have it, right after I typed that last one, I got an Outlook reminder to make a dentist appointment.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I wasn't sure how to post this because of the ...um... sensitive nature of the story. But one paragraph in particular caught my attention (emphasis mine).

Doctors in New York have removed a woman’s gallbladder with instruments passed through her vagina, a technique they hope will cause less pain and scarring than the usual operation, and allow a quicker recovery. The technique can eliminate the need to cut through abdominal muscles, a major source of pain after surgery.

The operation was experimental, part of a study that is being done to find out whether people will fare better if abdominal surgery is performed through natural openings in the body rather than cuts in the belly. The surgery still requires cutting, through the wall of the vagina, stomach or colon, but doctors say it should hurt less because those tissues are far less sensitive than the abdominal muscles.

Interest in this idea heightened after doctors from India made a video in 2004 showing an appendix being taken out through a patient’s mouth. The patient had abdominal scars that would have made conventional surgery difficult.

The New York patient, 66, had her gallbladder removed on March 21 and is recovering well, said her surgeon, Dr. Marc Bessler, the director of laparoscopic surgery at Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Bessler said he thought it was the first time the operation had been performed in the United States, and he plans to show a video of the operation at a gastroenterology meeting in Las Vegas on Sunday.

“Going through a natural orifice, the mouth or rectum or vagina, to get into the abdomen and do an operation, is being excitedly worked on by a whole lot of people,” Dr. Bessler said, adding that companies were beginning to make special surgical tools for the operations and that doctors had formed an organization called Noscar (www.Noscar.org), which stands for Natural Orifice Surgery Consortium for Assessment and Research. ...more.

For those of you who don't know me personally, I'll let you in on a little something about myself that you probably could have gathered by now just by reading some of the nonsense I put up here; I am insane. Not in a 'I have an ax in my garage that could implicate me in crimes' kind of way, but more in an obsessive compulsive 'fear of inconsistencies or changes' kind of way. That is why today is a huge day for me.

I just threw away my check book's transaction register.

For the past 10 years, I have obsessively kept track of every transaction I have ever made by check or debit card. As soon as a purchase or credit is made from my account, I feverishly race to my transaction register to mark it down. In fact, if you asked me how much I paid for that pair of black shoes I used to have back in the late 90's, not only could I tell you within 5 minutes or so, but I could produce the receipt for the damn things in just as little time. Then I would ask you how it's possible that you remember my black shoes from the late 90's. That's just weird.

But anyway, I figure that it's no longer necessary to keep track of these things the way I used to being that I've fully taken advantage of on-line banking and all. Plus I hate having physical proof of how insane I am. So today it stops.

Hopefully I make it through the day. I can tell you that I've peeked in the garbage can twice already and the transaction register continues to beg me to take it out of there and put it back where it belongs. I will stand strong, I promise. Although I may have to move it to a garbage can that's nowhere near me.

Found this story at the Hopeless Cynic blog. Quite brilliant.

In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from college. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air.The elephant seemed distressed so Mbembe approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot, and found a large thorn deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the thorn out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man and, with a rather stern look on its face, stared at him. For several tense moments Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually, the elephant trumpeted loudly,
turned, and walked away. Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking through a zoo with his teenage son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe and lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did this several times, then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man. Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing, and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. Suddenly, the elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of the man's legs, and swung him wildly back and forth along the railing, killing him.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

Once, in [High School] English class, the teacher had the students read aloud, and when it was Cho [Seung-Hui's] turn, he just looked down in silence, [former classmate Chris] Davids recalled. Finally, after the teacher threatened him with an F for participation, Cho started to read in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth," Davids said. "As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, 'Go back to China,'" Davids said.

To be fair, I was once told to go back to Canada, but I just laughed it off because I didn't know what they were talking aboot.

Winning the Award for "Implied negative generalization of a foreign city in an effort to lessen their chances of hosting the Olympics over a storied American city like Chicago when said negative generalization of said foreign city really has nothing to do with the Olympics whatsoever" is this story from the Associated Press.

Nice job AP, real nice job. Keep up the good work and I'll see you local in 2016.

Meet Ricky Lackey. Recently convicted of defrauding U.S. Bank out of $3,975 by depositing empty envelopes into ATM machines, claiming they contained cash, and depositing bad checks before withdrawing cash on the falsely inflated balances, Lackey was asked at his sentencing how many children he had.

"None," Ricky replied. "But I have six on the way."

Confused by his answer, Judge Melba Marsh asked for clarification. "Are you marrying a woman with six children?" she asked.

And his reply is the best part. "I be concubining!" replied Lackey.

(pause for effect)

I be concubining. Breathe that in. Try saying it out loud. I be concubining.

Simply remarkable.

This has been the "We're all doomed!" for Wednesday, April 18th, 2007.

Rather than confusing me as to the difference between the median and the mean, why don’t we get rid of the mean and simply call it the average? Everyone knows what average means, but nobody ever remembers what mean means. Wait, we never remember what mean means? That’s kinda funny. Either way, mean is just confusing, so let's get rid of it. Come to think of it, I see no reason why we have the median either. What purpose does it serve? If I have an odd sequence of numbers, the median is the middle one. If I have an even sequence of numbers, the median is the mean, er I mean the average of the middle two. Seriously, what the hell for? I say we get rid of the mean AND the median, then get rid of X so we can all live happier. Or at least I can, and that’s really all that counts. Know what I mean?

Comic genius comes in all sizes.

Whenever I have any doubts about the quality of work we put out here at 1 Happy St., I need only remember that at least we are not Rosie O'Donnell. Brian and I are William Effing Shakespeare compared to the drivel being written over on Rosie.com. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it.

Take for instance, Rosie's most recent diatribe against... umm... Truth be told, I really have no idea what the hell she's talking about. There is no punctuation, no capitalization, and as far as I can tell, no coherent thoughts. It's the kind of thing I would write if I wanted to intentionally fail a poetry class.

Either Rosie has the writing ability of a kindergartener or her fat fingers are too big to work the keyboard on her Blackberry.