When I said N*Sync was "gay," I didn't mean it that way!

Shocking, I know.

300 possible punchlines and I can't come up with a one.

No drive-thru jokes, please. (Or, "I sure wish I could house *my* branch office there!")

I’m sure it’s changed by now, but for a time today, the Linton (IN) Daily World had this picture and paragraph on its front page. Here's a screenshot for posterity's sake:


Rather comical, but I would definitely switch banks if I could do all my banking at her. Think of how pretty it'll be once construction is done!

(In reference to one of the wire stories also shown in the above screenshot: Perhaps Lebanon wouldn't be battling so much rage if all of its banks were as pretty as this one!)

I could cry.

We are in the homestretch of preparations for a yard sale that we are having with my sister-in-law this weekend. Over the weekend just passed, we went to my in-laws’ house to pull a bunch of my wife’s old stuff out of storage there. “Storage,” in this case, was an old trailer that had the windows busted out, the door torn off, the floor somewhat torn up and part of the roof partially caved in. Climate-controlled storage, it wasn't.

“Hey, old vinyl records!” Wife exclaimed as she moved a box out of the way. Her mom said, “You can have them,” and went to get an empty storage container to help us transport them to our house.

I started going through some of the old 45 records last night and trying to get an idea of what they might be worth. I found that a copy of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It, Black” recently went for $14 or $15 on eBay. Of course, the copy that I dug up doesn’t have a sleeve, and has been essentially in the weather for a number of years, and has decade-old dust on it, and may or may not be playable. Sigh.

Going through those records last night, I found a virtual fool’s goldmine. An old Patsy Cline 45! … with the remnants of a mud dauber’s nest on it. An old Buck Owens single! … with a big chip taken out of the edge. Bill Haley and His Comets! … which looks like it’s been scrubbed with Comet and steel wool.

I could cry.

(Hey, did you know that in the South, mud daubers are commonly called dirt daubers? I love regional dialect. “It’s a Coke!” “No, it’s a soda pop!” “No, it’s a soda!”)

I did learn one thing that may or may not be of interest to anyone: The B-side to Glen Campbell’s “Galveston” single is an apparent paean to poison ivy called “How Come Every Time I Itch I Wind Up Scratching You?” Hee.

Anyway, when two packrats marry, you end up with what, in the long run, appears to be a lot of crap that neither can bear to part with. For instance, when I lived in Bloomington with the Captain and G.I. Matt, the wall above my bed was covered from corner to corner and ceiling to mattress with old concert flyers from the various shows in town around the time, and I kept old setlists from the shows we attended in those days. Really, there is probably nothing more than barely-negligible sentimental value in an old Uvula concert flyer or a Real Lulu setlist from the winter of 1998, and there is no valid reason to hang on to them. None! Still, as soon as they came out of the box they were stored in, they went right back in and right back upstairs; there wasn’t even a thought of disposing of them.

(“Well, at least you’ll still be able to associate those items with your memories of those shows,” one might say. Memories? Hell, I was usually three-quarters lit by the time the opening band hit the stage; my memories of Second Story’s bathroom are a lot more vivid than those of most of the Smart Milk shows I went to. And I really liked Smart Milk in those days. I even told them so. Probably a little too exuberantly, though.)

The big 1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0.

Yesterday, as foreshadowed here, I turned one billion seconds old. Whoopee. I don’t know what I was doing at the exact moment – possibly going through old vinyl records (see above post), maybe playing with my son, probably smoking.

I had thought that such a milestone (a milestone in the same way that “consecutive games played” or “consecutive days waking up” is a milestone – that is to say, an achievement that connotes nothing beyond being) would give me an excuse for celebration, or at the very least, grim self-reflection, but really, it’s didn’t. I tried to be grim and self-reflective, but am more resigned to the inexorable march of time than I used to be. Here’s to my next billion seconds; see you in 31 ½ years or so.

Southern Indiana sights on a Monday afternoon.

Not to keep harping on Barrow, AK, but I'd bet that their bank clocks didn't have the following temperature reading today:

I'll grant that most bank clocks I've seen tend to skew a few degrees warmer than the actual ambient temperature. Regardless, we are in the middle of our season of simple endurance. Ugh.

Heading west on Old Hwy 50 in Washington, one passes a car wash on the left side of the road:

A little cutesy, sure. But I dare not check out the other side of the board (the eastbound view), for fear that my brain would physically eat itself. Perhaps it says "Turn right to wash wrong." Or maybe it says "Turn right to wash left." The world, or at least readers of this blog, will never know.

In the drive-thru at a local chicken joint to score some dead chicken, I noticed that their drive-thru speaker was busted beyond recognition:

I wonder if they knew about it?

Oh. Apparently so.

Lastly, a one-word piece of advice crudely marked on a barn on U.S. 50 between Montgomery and Loogootee:

Damn straight, "run." It doesn't matter where. Just run.

Horseshoes, Bramble Tamble-style.

You can find the remarkably florid prose below verbatim on several horseshoe-enthusiast websites, such as this one and this one. I have reproduced it in full here; visit either site if you want to be treated to a picture of a midget pitching a horseshoe.

Assuming that you are a spectator on the sidelines of a public court, you will see an expert player perform this way. (right handed pitcher)

The player takes a position on the pitcher's platform, to one side opposite the stake. Placing the feet carefully, so he/she is well balanced, standing erect. Gripping the shoe, extending it to full-arm length in front. He/she holds the shoe -caulks down- at about a 45' angle to the ground. Swinging it up on a level with the eyes, sighting it at the opposite stake. Bending slightly at the knees and leaning forward at the waist, he/she swings the shoe backward in an easy manner. A split second before the back-swing is completed, he/she steps forward. This delivery-step is executed with the foot that is opposite the delivery-arm. The shoe does not pause at the end of the back-swing. The arm swings forward, straight from the shoulder, like the pendulum of a clock. As' the shoe passes the standing leg, in the front-swing, he/she brings -it to a level position with a free, natural roll of the arm. At this exact moment, the delivery-step is completed and the body-weight is smoothly shifted to the left foot. The eight knee straightens up to its natural position and the body rises with the swing. He/She releases the shoe as it swings up in line with the eyes and the opposite stake.

Released in a level position, the shoe leaves the hand cleanly. The release is effected with a deft and delicate wrist-motion. There is no jerk or snap of the arm and wrist. After releasing the shoe, the player's hand swings up, above the head, in a graceful follow-through. At no time is there any lost-motion in the delivery. All movements are smooth and well-coordinated. The shoe floats lazily through the air in an arc that is about 8 feet high at its highest point. (The height of the trajectory varies with different players.) Wobbling as it travels, the shoe begins to "break open" just before it crosses the foul line of the pitcher's box. The shoe drops open-end-first onto the stake. There is a sharp clink as the shoe encircles the stake. A ringer! A few moments later, the second shoe is sent on its way to land on top of the first one. A double ringer!

I'll let you in on a secret: I am trying to become better at pitching horseshoes. While you’ll note that the narration above is a picture of how an expert pitcher performs, you’ll also note that most of us – and I am at the top of the list – are not experts. What would the narrator say if he/she were describing me, the horseshoe novice?

The player takes a position on the pitcher's platform, to one side opposite the stake. Placing the feet carefully, so he/she is well balanced, the player does not notice the children’s toys on the ground around him. He stumbles, trips and falls on his hands, but manages not to kick his beer over, which is sitting on the sidewalk out of range of errant horseshoes, or so he thinks.

He holds the shoe parallel to the ground – sometimes caulks down, sometimes caulks up, sighting it at the opposite stake with one eye shut as if he were sighting a rifle. He swings the shoe backward in a herky-jerky manner. A split second before the back-swing is completed, his son enters the picture, says, “Daddy! Mine!” and reaches for the horseshoe. The player stops suddenly so as not to konk his son in the head with the shoe. His son grabs the shoe, then grabs the other shoe that is in the player’s other hand. The player throws his hands up in the air and says, “Fuck it,” finishes his beer, goes to the cooler to grab another one, and flops down in a chair on the patio. With a motion somewhat similar to that of a discus thrower, his Son flings the horseshoe in his left hand about 3 feet. Then, with gusto, he flings the horseshoe in his right hand about 2 feet. He looks to his Daddy for approval and claps. Daddy claps with him and says, “Yay!”

Son goes off to play with his trike, and Daddy gets out of the chair and walks back to the horseshoe pit. He holds the shoe parallel to the ground – sometimes caulks down, sometimes caulks up, never the same way twice in spite of his efforts to be consistent. He sights it at the opposite stake with one eye shut as if he were sighting a rifle. He swings the shoe backward in a herky-jerky manner. A split second before the back-swing is completed, he steps forward with either foot. The arm swings forward, and his shoulder pops. Still, he lurches forward with his pitch.

Released in a level position, the shoe jerks out of the player’s hand. After releasing the shoe, the player's hand swings up, above the head, in a graceful follow-through (I’m good at that part). The shoe takes on the guise of a wounded gymnast, wobbling as it travels. Just before it crosses the foul line of the pitcher's box, it seems to be stuck in a perpendicular position. The shoe lands on its heel and rolls toward the road. Shit. A few moments later, the second shoe is sent on its way to the opposite stake. Shit again – it rolls down the hill and comes to rest in the neighbor’s flower bed.

The player has two thoughts at this point: “I really should get a backstop built,” and “I hope I can snag that shoe before the neighbors see it.” Before he can start toward the opposite end, he feels something crushing his foot. His son has ran over it with his trike.

The life of a working two-year-old.

Toddlers in our house have a pretty hard life, so consider this a warning to any future children planning to be conceived by Wife and I. This is what you have to look forward to by the time you turn 2:

After you finish mowing ...

... you have to rake the grass ...

... and don't forget to push-mow along the sidewalk ...

... then you have to put in some time on the tractor - come on, we're burning daylight! ...

... and you will do it with a smile!

It was, of course, the Oak Ridge Boys' William Lee Golden who sang some years ago, "Thank God for kids." He didn't know the half of it. If one of the verses of that song didn't include the phrase "free manual labor," then it was off the mark.

You can't get this kind of comedy on satellite (Letters to the Editor edition):

Until blogging came along, letters to the editor were America’s last outpost of righteous indignation via the written word. Often barely literate and semi-coherent, especially in smaller towns, LttEs continue to offer some comedic insight into the lives of people with too much time on their hands.

Through the magic of printed movable type, a newspaper’s readership can be treated to such fascinating wisdom as:

I was raised to believe in my country, its morals and values.

Where to start? For one, it is impossible for a country itself to have morals, but I’m quibbling! I’ll grant that there might be a set of “good old American values” that are possibly chiseled in the walls of Fort Knox, but I draw the line at “morals.” That's not a knock on America, it's just that there is no such thing. Abstracts such as morals, values and rights can not be granted by a government or by a collective group of people.

Now I find out that Wal-Mart's new chief executive officer is anti gun and has cleared the shelves of Wal-Mart stores of them.

What cave has this guy been living in? It would be one thing if this was breaking news, but Wal-Mart announced this move almost three months ago. In roughly September, he’ll find out that we got Zarqawi. Perhaps in December, he’ll find out about the moon landing. In March of next year, he’ll be writing, “Poor Joan of Arc!” And so forth.

Anyway, there is also a factual inaccuracy the size of Star Jones in this paragraph: Wal-Mart is not removing guns from all of its stores – only about a third of them. Is it a slippery slope that they’re heading down? Sure. You can cite weak demand for them, or you can point to the fact that the CEO is anti-gun, but regardless of economics or politics, that still leaves about 2000 stores that guns continue to be sold in. Including, likely, the Bedford outlet, which is where this letter-scribbler resides.

No, really, it gets better!

Boy, he says he's proud of the opportunity that his freedom has helped him achieve here in the good old U.S.A. Why shouldn't he? All he has to do is fudge a little on those morals and rights and the like - pay minimum wage to immigrants and take away my ability to defend myself from the likes of him and the government that he and others like him have bought and paid for.

Ugh.

Really, I appreciate the sentiment; you won’t find a bigger flag-waver than me, and I’m pro-gun and pro-jobs for Americans and all that. But I’ve yet to read the revision to the Second Amendment that says that guns can only be sold at big-box retailers that rhyme with “Awl Cart.” So I really fail to see where Wal-Mart’s removal of guns from its shelves in some stores is an infringement on his Second Amendment rights. If the letter-scribbler can’t find guns after Wal-Mart removes them from its shelves, then he really needs to show a little more initiative. But I’m probably – snort – “fudging a little on those morals and rights”.

My God, I’ve read more meaningful pap in yearbook inscriptions. Remember the good times, and forget the bad! BFF!

Keep her away from charcoal grills and campfires!

While pulling up the article I referenced in the below post, I accidentally clicked on the link next to the link to the story about Brokaw, and was treated to this Indy Star wire story about Brigitte Nielsen.

My God – did someone set her eyebrows on fire?

"Global warming denial": the new "Holocaust denial."

As frequent watchers of the Discovery Channel – “Dirty Jobs” and “Deadliest Catch” are programming par excellence – Wife and I have been bombarded with ads for Discovery’s upcoming Very Special Presentation on global warming. “No politics, just the facts!” say the ads.

“Hey, a fair and balanced accounting of this very controversial topic,” I would think to myself (in not so many words). “If there is absolutely nothing else on, I may have to flip over there to watch it. No politics, just the facts!”

Hokum.

The Indianapolis Star has a wire story on its website today about documentary host Tom Brokaw and his consternation about global warming. Two quotes from the article (neither from Brokaw) stand out:

One expert even envisions half of the planet's species disappearing by the end of this century.

Hold on to your hats, folks, because the anti-progress progressives will, by year’s end (and that’s being generous), turn that quote into, “Half the planet’s species will disappear by the end of this century!” This, in turn, will be widely reported as fact by a compliant media, will take hold on “Nick News” to help create a new generation of rabid environmentalists, and will further the global warming cause celebre.

Mass extinction fantasies aside for a second, here is the more egregious quote from the article:

Producers speak to no one, at least on film, who believes the current warmth is part of the Earth's natural cycle and who minimizes the importance of what is happening.

No politics, huh? Just the facts, eh?

The producers of the documentary, Discovery Channel and the BBC, have apparently decided to move forward with a plan to change the rules of debate about global warming. By marginalizing those folks who believe wholeheartedly – and with good reason! - that global warming is nothing more than a Sierra Club flight of fancy, a concoction used to justify higher taxes and the criminalization of industry, Discovery and the Beeb have effectively stated, “Your beliefs about global warming not existing are not valid, and you are no longer welcome in this discussion. Sit down and shut up, and we will preach to you about global warming.”

“No politics,” huh? Apparently not, when there is only one party line being pushed forward at the expense of all others. What a load of bunk. Global warming deniers are now being shoved off into that same crazy house that holds Holocaust deniers and 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

Even if my satellite gets hit by lightning this week and screws up my receiver to the point that the Discovery Channel will be the only thing on, I’ll still avoid this documentary like the plague. It’s insulting to think that Discovery can get by with presenting what they would claim to be a balanced documentary about global warming, yet not make the effort to show what a good percentage of the population believes is a very valid counterpoint.

They may give AJ Foyt IV and Larry Foyt a run for their money.

News item from Jayski from the 4th (edited here for clarity, spelling):

Cope's Nieces hired by McGlynn Racing? hearing that McGlynn Racing has hired the Cope twins, Amber and Angela, who are Derrike Cope's nieces. Derrike is driving for #74 McGlynn Racing in a limited number of Nextel Cup races this season. The twins will supposedly work their way up through the lower divisions up to ARCA and Busch Series later this year and 2007. More info on the Twins at twinmotorsportsracing.com.

There are about three hundred punchlines that could be act as an addendum to this nugget of news. Here's a less-obvious one:

I visited the twins' website, and while they are otherwise 5-star hot, they do carry one certain familial trait that somewhat diminishes their overall hotness (compare a recent photo of Uncle Derrike with their senior photo below it):

(Because as anyone who has ever watched one of the flashback episodes of "Friends" could tell you, mustaches are funny!)

Not to get all Dr. Laura on you or anything, but for crying out loud, think about the children.

The Captain reminded me of something else yesterday.

Flash back to 1993 or so. My musical tastes were becoming more and more extreme, as I was beginning to plumb the depths of bands like Obituary, Napalm Death, Dark/Death/Morbid Angel, and so forth. I had picked up one of those Concrete Corner sampler tapes that came out every month at one of the local record stores, on which then-up-and-coming bands like LSD, Ugly Kid Joe and the like would be featured. This particular one also had a death-metal band from Buffalo called Cannibal Corpse, who in hindsight had absolutely no redeeming qualities.

The drawback to hindsight, though, is that we often see things clearer when they are behind us, as opposed to when they are right in front of us. And I thought at the time that Cannibal Corpse, a band designed solely to shock, surely were the second coming of ... something. With song titles like “Hammer Smashed Face,” “Entrails Ripped From A Virgin’s ****” and so forth, and with guttural, incomprehensible lyrics belched out over grinding, jackhammering riffs, and without any sense of melody or hooks, they were, for about 27 seconds, my favorite band.

I had one of my epic cassette-buying runs, on which the Captain and possibly some combination of Doug from Maine, Grand Theft Jesse and Brian-ooo accompanied, when we went to Risley’s in Jasper, which was selling “Tomb of the Mutilated,” the then-new Cannibal Corpse album (in conjunction with their appearance on that month’s Concrete Corner sampler).

Here’s the catch: The store kept the album behind the counter; the cover art was so blatantly offensive that even those who didn’t shock easily had to consider converting to Christianity on the spot. We had to ask the clerk to see it. I won’t show it here, and I won’t even link to it, because really, it’s bad.

In the present day, though, our sensibilities have become numbed down, to coin a phrase. In a store in the mall in Bloomington, you can find that same Cannibal Corpse album cover - the same one that had to be kept from prying eyes, behind the counter in a record store in Jasper, IN - pictured on a T-shirt for sale, hanging in full view of everyone. I can’t imagine how it would be any less offensive now than it was in 1993, but the boundaries of good taste were obliterated long ago. I missed the memo, but I suppose that it’s now perfectly acceptable for 8-year-olds (and under) to stand and gawk at a T-shirt that depicts a drawing of a dead/decomposing man and woman engaged in some sort of postmortem foreplay. God … have we really sunk that far?

I don't know why I found this funny, but ...

... the title of our state Water Environmental Association's monthly or quarterly newsletter is called "The Digester."

It just struck me in an off-kilter way.

Diapers, razors, music: all disposable.

Received a depressing-yet-inevitable e-mail from the Captain over the weekend. He titled it "A Grim Task," and at first I thought he had to bury his dog or he was selling off his Bobby Labonte memorabilia, since he's now pretty much on the Carl Edwards boat. Instead, he told me that he was ripping all of his CDs to his computer in preparation for a mass sale of them to one of the record stores up in Bloomington.

I suppose I'm not as shocked as I would have been had this development taken place eight or nine years ago. Captain had intimated to me that in the event of a fire in those days, the CDs would have been the first thing he would have tried to save. Silly notion? Not to me, not when you're as in love with and in search of good music as I know that the Captain has been.

Today, though, with the proliferation of digital music, iPods and the Internet as a source of music, there's not a whole lot of point to having CDs (or cassettes, or vinyl records, or whatever your preferred media) around the house collecting dust anymore. Speaking personally, the bulk of my CDs are in a couple of boxes upstairs; I can't recall the last time I've sat and listened to a CD, as my MP3 player and my computer both hold my music library.

Captain also said, and I will quote directly because I can't really say it any better myself (thanks, Cap'n):

"Pre-internet, pre-iPod, the CDs themselves just meant so much
more, I guess because they were relatively inaccessible and if you wanted
something like Rollins or whatever you actually had to go to Bloomington and
look for it. And if you lost it somehow, you might not be able to find another
one. That's unthinkable now. I can't help thinking that the music itself gets
devalued somewhere in this process."

Indeed. Listening to music today is definitely not the same experience as it once was. It was so neat to be able to hold a cassette or a CD in your hands, and read the liner notes, and admire or make fun of the cover art, and try to find cool lines on the lyric sheet, and so on and so forth. It was tangible, and it seemed to be worth something.

I remember how, in my late teens, I would look so forward to going to a nearby town to blow the bulk of my paycheck at one of the record stores there. And even though, as often as not, I would come away with equal parts gold and crap, it was still an exciting experience. Even into my college years, when I became a musical completist and wanted to collect everything from my favorite artists, I remember the rush of finding a rarity in a record store. Now the concept of "rarities" is just another quaint notion of the past, of the days when everything wasn't as accessible as it is now.

I think something is lost these days in the experience, when it's all available for 99 cents a download or whatever the going rate is, when it's all 0s and 1s and you don't need to take as good care of it anymore because it's so disposable.

Douchebaggery, thy name is The Sports Guy.

(Apologies for those who love and/or quote the sacred cow I’m about to skewer. It would warm my heart mightily if one day soon, you could go to Google, type in “bill simmons douche,” click on “I’m Feeling Lucky” and be directed here.)

"I'm Bill Simmons. People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks. Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48 and am what some people call mentally retarded."

God, what a vastly overrated little douche. It's truly a phenomenon, how a turgid, vapid, completely uncompelling and uninteresting guy can get close to top billing on ESPN.com. His writing is formulaic and awful: add 3 cups of phraseology that ends with "this?" (as in, "Am I the only one who would pay to see this?", "Would anyone be against this?", etc.), 3 tablespoons of "90210" references, a passel of reality-TV references, possibly a dash of allusions to WWF/E, and let digest for about 8 seconds (which, not coincidentally, is the amount of thought that apparently goes into his writing).

Some years ago, when his writing still seemed fresh and new, I enjoyed reading him. He had a particularly funny piece some years ago about Magic Johnson’s Basketball Hall of Fame induction, at which Larry Bird was to give Magic’s induction speech. Simmons fantasized about Bird ripping off his shirt and jacket to reveal a Celtics jersey underneath and then bashing Magic with a steel chair, a la a pro-wrestling-style heel turn. I thought it was somewhat smart and funny. (And I’ll be damned if I can’t find it on ESPN’s site without signing up for their “Insider” service. I sure as hell won’t pay for it; it wasn’t *that* good.)

Over time, though, I started to see a certain sameness in his writing. Perhaps his contract with ESPN states that he has to make some reference to the TV shows “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Saved by the Bell” or “The O.C.” at least once every nine paragraphs. Or perhaps he’s really angling for a job writing for one of the reality television websites. Whatever the case, the themes in his writing tended to angle toward the inner fratboy that he apparently thinks exists in each of us. (This is, of course, a microcosm of the larger problem that is ESPN’s ubiquity and status of being the arbiter of all things sports, which is another issue for another time.)

But I can handle that. I can understand and sympathize with the need for going back to your schtick every once in a while, dumb though it may be (see also: Alarm, Bajeebus). The straw that broke the camel’s back for me, though, was his unadulterated fandom and arrogance regarding all things New England sports. I appreciate having rooting interests, but I don’t have an IQ of 9, and therefore, I don’t think that calling St. Louis slugger Albert Pujols “Poo Holes,” as Simmons started doing during that World Series he won’t shut up about from 2004, is particularly inventive or funny. And, yeah, I get that Peyton Manning has been hands-down the premier choke artist of the 21st century. I get it already, Bill. You arrogant prick.

Ha ha! “Poo Holes”! He’s witty and clever! Next on “The Sports Guy” – the twelve different levels of fart jokes!

Unfortunately, because he’s so popular, I fear that he will spawn a cadre of amateur imitators, which is just what the world needs at this crucial moment in history. When I was first angling for FoxSports.com’s “Next Great Sportswriter” gig, one of the guidelines that the judges wrote about was:

You can write about whatever you want that is somehow related to the world of sports. You can write about something very specific, such as a particular team. Or you can jump from topic to topic. You can even do some more of the lifestyle-type stuff that you might recognize from the writing of one of
our judges, Peter Schrager, or someone like ESPN.com's Bill Simmons.

Ugh. “Lifestyle-type stuff”? What sort of “lifestyle”, exactly, does Bill Simmons write about? Is it the one about the 5’4” former fraternity brother who had to endure the brunt of jokes about his height and his voice (have you ever heard him on one of the countless list shows that the 38 ESPN channels carry? Yikes!)? The one about sitting in his house in L.A. and listens to the first three Pearl Jam albums over and over? Whatever the case, it must work, because he’s probably the most popular writer that ESPN.com has, and undoubtedly he appeals to a certain shallow readership. (Which, again, shines a harsh light on what ESPN has become.)

Go away, Sports Guy. God, even the name of your schtick is retarded.

[Wouldn't all of ESPN.com's male writers, theoretically, be Sports Guys? Does Spin.com have "The Music Guy"? Does TV Guide have "The TV Guy"? Wouldn't those be equally ridiculous? (The correct answer is "Almost!")]

Update: During the writing of this piece, I made a trip to the bathroom, and while I was in there, my colon came up with a sample of Bill Simmons’ writing. Here it is:

It was Sunday at The Sports Guy Mansion, and I was toggling between the Red Sox-Indians showdown and the “Survivor: All-Stars” marathon that OLN was broadcasting. Check it out. Was there any greater moment in “Survivor” than when CBS worked and worked till they finally found a way to give Rupert a million bucks? That one goes in the Parthenon of great reality-TV moments. I remember thinking when it originally aired, “Wow, that guy deserves a million bucks. Would anyone be against this?”

Sports Gal brought me a Zima, and I flipped back to the end of the Red Sox game, where Papelbon was striking out the side in the ninth. That was a crucial loss for the Indians: on my “Levels of Losing” scale, that rates as a level-3 “Waking up with RuPaul the next morning” loss. Is there anyone who would be for this?

That reminds me – I’ve come up with a new theory to rival my Ewing Theory about championship teams. Check it out. It’s called “The Papelbon Theory,” and it says that “Any team from Boston who won a World Series in 2004 who picks up an out-of-nowhere closer is destined to have a stellar year.” Maybe he will strike out Poo Holes in the All-Star Game. That one would also be a Parthenon moment. I’d put that on my TiVo “Do Not Delete Under Penalty of Death” list. Wouldn’t it be cool if my TiVo also had a TiVo? How much would I pay for this?

Check it out. I called my dad on the phone, and I said, “Dad, what do you think of this kid Papelbon?”

“God *dammit*, I love jerky!” he said.

I told him, “I’ve got a couple of buddies who read my forum post about him on the Sons of Sam Horn website, and ---“

Dad said, “Sam Horn? Website? What? God *dammit*, I can’t believe the Celtics let Dan Dickau go! They should have a go at this Maravich kid from Louisiana State!”

“Dad, I –“

“Who is this? How did you get my number?”

I hung up the phone and finished my Zima. Check it out. I felt like Brandon on “90210” after Kelli ran off with Screech.

Etc. etc. etc. (I had to flush eventually; while his blather would continue for another 8000 words, this blog post doesn’t)

I don't know, but I've been told, a big-legged woman ain't got no soul.

On Memorial Day, one of our two dogs DFO'd. (That's forensics lingo for "Done Fell Over," if CSI is to be believed.) That brings our pet death count for past 12 months to three, with the squishing of two cats taking place last summer and fall. I'm tired of burying dead animals.

The one surviving Pekingese, DJ, has been a wreck since his brother died. Won't eat, mopes around, etc. Probably sexually frustrated as well, seeing as how I made great sport of the fact that he would climb on his brother, or any of the cats (when they were all still alive) and start humping away.

We decided that it was time to find another companion for DJ, as well as for Son to have a puppy of his own. To that end, my brother-in-law showed up last night with a puppy in tow. She is a lab-beagle mix, and as noted by the foreshadowing in the title of this post, black. (Led Zeppelin IV - or "Zoso" - track 1, for those not versed in classic rock radio.)

The puppy's arrival, of course, has reinvigorated our legacy dog. So much, in fact, that he started immediately marking the entire pen, save for about an 18-inch spot near the pen's exit, where the puppy sat frozen. Quite comical, really, but I half-expected to come out this morning and find her torn in half. Instead, she started making the pen her own, which chagrined DJ to no end (for instance, she booted him from his doghouse, as I found him this morning sleeping near the food bowl, while she was sleeping inside).

As of right now, Son has determined that the puppy's name shall be Puppy. Or Choo-Choo.