Uncle Sourflour!

On April 13th, my sister gave birth to triplets and I became an uncle 3 times in one shot! Unfortunately, she's on the other side of the country so it may be a little while before I can go see them. To my surprise, I've really been enjoying the pictures. You see, baby pictures hold no interest for me in general. Any smiling I'm doing on the outside is really just a cosmic yawn on the inside. And no, it's not just your kids, it's all kids. Sure, they're cute enough when they're 1 or 2 and bobbing around like hamsters on acid, but till then they pretty much look like footballs with eyes to me.

But THESE kids... these kids are good looking! I'm sure you'll agree!

Video Killed the Radio Star

The great American television drama is a putrid sack of rotting fruit.

This year I've been trying to watch Desperate Housewives, Gray's Anatomy, and LOST. Last night, the second house on "Mysteria" lane was burned down by another neighborhood resident. Mike and the chick with the burning house got back together. And Bree had another blowout with her criminally insane son.

On Gray's Anatomy, we got to be shocked about the new chick in the Gray house. And then Gray and McDreamy broke up - again. But THIS time for good. And the hot centerfold talked the boyfriend she's never seen out of bed into holding onto his last gasps of life for just one more week. And, oh yeah, the requisite medical emergency (baby lived, mother died). They always like to drive home the medical drama - seeing as how the show is set in a hospital - so the fatal accident involved one of the ER doctors ("you mean if I hadn't left at just that moment, this woman would be alive?!?!").

The network television drama has become so trite and formulaic that the show must have a singular dramatic moment in between each commercial break. It's hard to have four new, fresh moments every week so thee old ones get reused. Over. And Over. And Over again.

Cable dramas - such as HBO's 'The Sopranos' - have more freedom and can stretch the dramatic moments to, say, one per episode. Or sometimes one in two episodes. I am also a fan of 'Deadwood' (a roughly historically accurate series about the gold rush boom town of the same name), 'Six Feet Under' (which is now six feet under, metaphorically speaking, in part because they finally ran out of new material), and 'Entourage'. These shows have a generally consistent back story; they aren't obligated by sponsors and ratings to make each show an island unto themselves.

If you don't have HBO, you don't need it. Get yourself a Netflix account where you can watch the movies (don't even get me started on The Great American Motion Picture!) you want along with all the previous season HBO shows.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Last night I went up to bed in the wee hours of the morning, and clicked the TV on. I'm accustomed to falling asleep to the most monotone program available. Anyway, the tele flickered and the very first thing I head was "My eight year old daughter had a bowel movement as long as my arm and almost as thick..."

GACK!?#@

I dove for the remote, but before I could change the channel the guy continued, "Not everybody knows this, but John Wayne, the 'Duke', had 44 pounds of undigested fecal matter in his colon when he died".

It was like an atomic poop bomb going off in my bedroom - "DUCK! ... and cov-ver!"

I finally found the pillow that was hiding my remote and pressed all 28 keys at once, changing channels before he could dump another arm-length image-turd on my sleepy time. I'm not sure what he was selling but presumably it had something to do very large amounts of ingested dietary fiber.

Is the juice worth the squeeze?

Have you noticed that there's a trend in women's fashion to wear sweat pants with various logos printed across the rear? You know, like maybe a pitch for their school or favorite sport. Or something cute and flirting, like "Princess". Whatever. Some of these may go to far, though. Today I saw a woman with the word "JUICY" right across her ass.

Personally, I'm not so turned on by the idea of a woman with a juicy ass. I almost went up to her and asked if she had those pants on backwards. Or maybe just to suggest that she change the caption to "Slippery When Wet". But her ass was not only juicy, it was very muscular and getting beaten up by a woman with a strong juicy ass wasn't on my calendar.

Possibly she was just giving appropriate warning for some kind of gastrointestinal issue. Maybe "Stay Back 100 Feet" would have been more helpful.

For all I know, she may be into guys with a taste for the juicy behind. In which case, how about something more subtle like "Get Your Kicks on Route 66" with an arrow pointing down?