last night as i was tossing a couple of three quarter inch thick porter house steaks on the grill it occurred to me that there may come a time in the not so distant future when we talk of such things in the context of “i remember when…”

given all the recent financial news i wasn’t in the mood last night to watch the state of the union address. i wanted something funny and entertaining.

so we watched the season premier of the political satire real time with bill maher that we had recorded this past weekend.

bill did a short segment on signs of how bad the economy is. well, i’ve got one, when the satire on “real time” is so gloomy its no longer funny and the guests are as depressing as listening to “real news”…

“no serious person believes”

a common expression i hear on the bbc as they acknowledge the omni-present opposing position on nearly every issue but properly put in perspective.

now if we could only have more serious people at the table making decisions…

in the relatively short history of home sex tapes its amazing how many of them have gone awry in one way or another.

i have never been part of a home sex tape but i did take a nude picture of my wife once, and so far only once. consistent with the laws that govern home sex tapes we were having a dinner party and sharing vacation prints when one of my wife’s male co-workers flipped to the nude picture. i had forgotten to remove it from the set. that night i learned of my wife’s formal ninja training as she snatched the picture from her coworker’s hand in miyagi fly and chopstick style.

since we were at the dinner at the time, natalie buried the picture in a pile of mail on the console behind the table. as fate would have it, that pile of mail was the neighbor’s that i had been collecting while they were out of town.

a few days later, the picture once again forgotten, i headed over to the neighbor’s to turn over the pile of mail. the near disaster was averted when the picture, nestled slightly off center in the pile, fell to the ground just as i was walking up to their door. anyone familiar with my somewhat bouncy gait, knows it saved us on this occasion.

there are times now i wish i had left the picture in the pile, not because i was looking to swing with my neighbors, but i’m certain there would have been some huge comedy the next time we saw them out in the yard had that picture remained in the pile…

i’m bald, i love new zealand, but you’re not putting an ad on the back of my head.

as if qualcomm stadium, the tostito’s fiesta bowl and the ads plastered on every flat surface and web site sidebar wasn’t enough.

all i’ve got to add is these better be tattoos or i’m not buying that they are living the brand…

rita thomas and rob powers were among 30 people who agreed to advertise air new zealand on their bald heads last november. they were paid in cash or free tickets to new zealand.

i spent almost three hours on the phone last night and guess i used up all my good material there…

or i guess its possible the people on the phone got as bad a deal as you’re getting now…

whoopi goldberg was on the factor with bill o’reilly last night so i watched a large part of o’reilly’s show.

turns out bill and i share an interest in discovering opposing viewpoints. at the end of the program o’reilly said he has glenn beck on his program every friday night “to get a different perspective”.

there were lots of other similar jewels but this one was the least sinister and made me smile…

i’m not offering a critique of hugo chavez’s presidency in venezuela but i do hope the folks in venezuela are better students of history than kids in the u.s.

his referendum to extend term limits should be met with much skepticism. its a despotic act and i can’t recall any example in history where something similar has left the citizenry in better shape than before term limits were extended.

here in the united states we’ve lived through eight miserable years as the result of routine elections, but that is nothing compared to decades or even generations of misery the world’s worst dictator’s left in their wake.

one of the few truisms of life is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and with so many examples of it stinking up the halls of government’s and financial institutions it would be nice to have one less instance.

“if you’ll excuse me, i have a peanut butter, spinach, tomato and chinese toy sandwich to finish”

jon stewart
the daily show with jon stewart

sounds like the perfect lunch time snack for friday the thirteenth. i think i’ll have mine under a ladder with the mirror i broke…

a friend of ours in new zealand wrote:

i saw ethan and logan’s names on the boogie buddies list yesterday. they were crossed out with “moved to america” next to them. it made me sad.

it makes me sad too…

there are pokemon cards in my house, even more surprising to me is that i paid money for them.

according to the cousins who are a bit older than my kids, i should get used to it because there will be lots more pokemon cards in my house in the near future and we will be attending pokemon trading/gaming parties soon too.

is there catnip on these cards?

i was going to comment on presidents obama’s first prime time address, but i’m so elated the president spoke above the fourth grade level that i may not be totally objective right now.

and for the clueless reporter who asked the a-rod steroid question, you might want to consider some performance enhancing drugs for yourself to prevent face planting a second time should the president happen to call on you again…