But I Digress ...

I blame myself. I don't post that often (there's just no time!), and when I do, it's about some baseball announcer that the overwhelming majority of you have never heard of and don't care to know. Back when I was posting entries about German cannibals eating their own penises (complete with lots of sausage photos), this place was a-buzzin'. Nowadays, I can't seem to bring enough interested traffic to my li'l corner of the Web to fulfill my promises to my BlogExplosion "Rent My Blog" tenant. If you were here last week, you'll notice that DebbieCakes and her " Smile If You're Lying " blog is back for a second run. That's because I was not happy with the number of people who visited her site LAST week. The BlogExplosion blog-rental system asks bloggers to offer some of their traffic "credits" to have their thumbnail placed on another blog for a week. In selecting blogs for me to submit rental offers to, I don't...

Here's a blog entry that is guaranteed to interest absolutely, positively no one outside the city of Houston. But it's my blog, and darn it, this story needs to be told. For the first time in its 45-year history, a Houston major-league baseball team finally has a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame to call its very own. That's right, folks: of all the Hall of Famers who have worn the uniform of the Colt .45s or the Astros, none of them ever went into the Hall wearing the Houston cap. They all went in as honored members of other teams. The Astros finally have their first home-grown Hall of Famer, and he doesn't even get to wear a cap. Gene Elston was the first voice of the Houston Colts back in 1962. His last season with the Astros, 1986, drew to a close with his call of Mike Scott's division-clinching no-hitter. In between, Elston called a lot of history. Elston probably never screamed into a microphone in his life. He was one of those from the era of Jack Brickho...

I'm afraid of "mommy blogs". Wouldn't you be? I have no children, and I'd say it's extremely unlikely that I will ever have any. In fact, in my advancing age, I have come to view children as ugly but quiet for the first month of their lives, smelly for the next couple of years, hyperactive for two years after that, and then the inquisitiveness kicks in: "Why is the sky blue?" "Why does Mommy scream every time she gets on the bathroom scale?" "What are those magazines Daddy keeps hidden in the tool shed?" "Why don't I have a trust fund like Billy does?" Follow that with the onset of puberty and attitude (not necessarily in that order), and THEN, at long last, the children become tolerable to be around. Except that, at age 16, you only have a couple of good years to spend with them, and they have absolutely no interest in spending it with YOU. And after all this, you get the privilege of sending lots of checks to th...

Any blogger who calls herself "Poppy Buxom" demands closer scrutiny. When she describes herself as "I'm a bright red flower notorious for producing stuff that is enjoyable, extremely addictive, and ultimately toxic", she can be nothing less than intriguing. And when she writes blog entries that are every bit as warped as those you'll find on this very blog page ... well, this is a woman we've got to get to know better. And so, now is our chance. My BlogExplosion renter this week is, indeed, Ms. Buxom, and her blog, "The Opiate of the Masses" , reveals her to be an anarchist-socialist-democrat-Naderite who's one-quarter Communist and 100 percent Marxist ( Groucho Marx, that is). But her political leanings are quite beside the point, because more importantly for our purposes: She's FUNNY. And with so many blogs out there that merely think they're being funny (insert snide comment here) and try so hard to prove it to everyone,...

You can't make up things like this . Seriously. Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets. The hunting companion, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was in serious but stable condition at a Washington-area hospital, under a 24-hour armed police guard. Libby was the Vice President's former chief of staff, and faces criminal charges stemming from the leak investigation following the outing of former CIA operative Valerie Plame. Libby's testimony is anticipated by some to implicate Cheney in unethical and criminal activity. "I don't know what happened," Libby was quoted as telling a doctor. "Dick invited me to help him hunt for snipes in Texas. The next thing I know, I hear a gunshot, and I catch a glimpse of Dick laughing his ass off just before everything went black." (Okay, so I made up everything having to d...

Last Sunday was the Super Bowl. Did anybody with a TiVo really watch the game ... or did they fast-forward through the rather dull first half, and zip straight to the commercials? This year's "Super Bowel" commercials went for a record $2.5 million for a 30-second spot. Some were heartwarming (I'm still getting over sugar shock from that "Budweiser" spot where the baby Clydesdale tries to pull the beer wagon) and some just made absolutely no sense at all (did anybody like the "GoDaddy" ad they ran this year?) But one ad annoyed the living crap out of me. (Would you expect anything else from anything starring Kathy Griffin?) If you don't remember the commercial for "Sierra Mist", you can view it to the right. In a nutshell, Kathy is an annoying (of course) airport screener. She abuses her federal authority by making a beeping noise whenever she waves her screening wand over some poor sap's bottle of Sierra Mist, and informs him ...

I am one of those people who think South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is one of the most inspired movies ever made. My sense of humor skews toward the Airplane! and Blazing Saddles variety. I don't like tastelessness for its own sake, but if something is tasteless, tacky and funny ... then heck, I'm all over it. With that in mind, let me introduce you to Fidget, the renter of this week's real estate over in the sidebar. Fidget is a Florida female who is my kind of sick, demented individual. From a careful perusal of her blog, " Finding Yourself Despite Yourself ", I have determined the following: Fidget is not afraid to post photos of soiled toilets, especially her own. Fidget's daughters tend to run around topless. (They're extremely young daughters. You should be ashamed of yourself for letting your brain go there, perv ...) Fidget has enormous hooters. (She, alas, does not run around topless.) Fidget's husband has that perpetual look of ...