Those who know me know that I’m a big fan of TV. They also know that I watch (probably too much) “Reality TV.” Well… I was watching American Idol the other night and, as I sat there gritting my teeth and suffering through the performance of the contestant who shops and styles himself exclusively at “Figure-Skaters ‘R US” (do I really need to tell you who that is?), I couldn’t help but think how different the outcomes might be if people could cast “Anti-Votes.”

How great would it be if I could call and remove votes from the more annoying idols?

Even better – imagine, if you will, if the same concepts were applied to Presidential Elections. For simplicity’s sake – let’s assume that we have only two candidates. For all intents and purposes that’s what we have. Then let’s give voters two options: a) they can vote FOR their candidate or b) they can vote AGAINST the other candidate. The two options are essentially the same thing. They both give us the same “winner.” The difference is that the winner doesn’t get to pretend that the country wants him.

I can just see the election results from this past year: “ABC is ready to call the election. With a national vote tally of 100,000 to 80,000, Bush is re-elected.” Why do I say that? Frankly neither party really liked their candidate. They just hated the other candidate more. Compare this to Kennedy’s win or Reagan’s win, and it would instantly report the sad state of affairs.

And this is coming from a guy who would have placed an “Anti-Kerry” vote…

I like to check my logs every so often and it seems that peanut.ucs.indiana.edu is often there. Most likely, it's because I remember the word peanut and that makes it *seem* like it's there more often than it is. In any case, if you're peanut, please say hi. =p

Here's this week's column.

Yesterday I was quite saddened to learn that I longer hold the number one spot for the Google search term “It burns when I pee.” I, in fact, no longer appear on the first page.

I am, however, currently number one for:

Begging for comments
Stephen Speicher (It finally happened!)
Mystic Fan Cheeto Dust

I’m sure that there are others.

Here's this week's article.

(and no this won't count to fulfill my posting obligation)

This post is for the Seattle dwellers in the audience. If you’re not from Seattle, it’s possible that this post might still apply. However, it doesn’t come with the same “no-money back guarantee.”*

It’s March. That means that summer is coming. That also means that it’s time for you to play a little choose-your-own-adventure game here.

It goes something like this:

Would you like to:

1) Have a hot sticky miserable two months this summer.
2) Live in relative comfort.

If you chose 1, do nothing.

If you chose 2, buy a Fan/Window AC/Central AC/Anything!

It’s March. I’m warning you. You’ll have NO excuses. This summer I don’t want to hear excuses like “It’s really only hot for 7-10 days during the summer.” I don’t want to hear “They were out of fans.” Don’t even come to me with something like “The real-estate agent told me I didn’t need AC.” Lies! Lies! Lies!

I’m here to tell you that “IT WILL GET HOT.” You will need SOMETHING!

Oh sure – this summer you’ll be tempted to post something on *your* blog. You’ll be tempted to be surprised by this “unusually hot summer we’re having.” I WILL call you out on it. I will hunt you down. I’ll be reading blogs like mad looking for people who spread these lies. They must be stopped.

The weekend is coming. If all you think you need is a fan, go buy three. When the time comes, scalp the others. However, if it’s in your means to do more, DO IT. On day 45 of the “7-10 days of hot” you’ll be glad that you did.

That concludes this public service announcement. And please, spread the word.

*I accept no financial responsibility. However, I will allow you to comment here and tell me that I was wrong.

The other day I was having a conversation with my wife and a movie-buff friend of mine. During the conversation it surfaced that he had never seen “Top Gun.” I found this odd. It then dawned on me that there were quite a few flicks that I hadn’t seen either (e.g. “Saving Private Ryan”, “Schindler’s List”, “Citizen Kane”, etc.). My wife has seen a grand total of zero Rocky movies. Nor has she seen “Good Morning Vietnam”, “Sixteen Candles”, “Days of Thunder”, and a bunch of others.

So let’s have it – what are the movies that people would be shocked to learn are missing from your “Seen it” list? And why haven’t you seen them?

For example:

I’ve yet to see many of mine because it never seems to be the right time. If I’m in a great mood, I don’t want to be utterly depressed for three hours. As such, I avoid Schindler’s List. The problem is that if I’m in an “eh” mood, I don’t want to risk suicide by watching Schindler’s List. There just never seems to be a good time to schedule three hours of gut-wrenching misery.

I’ve found something even more powerful than the almighty blog. As many of you know, I was recently quite frustrated with Amazon. Their “Super Saver Shipping” is, in my humble opinion, a bit deceitful.

It turns out that in the time that I spent bitching complaining about it. I was able to, uh, call the company and talk to someone about it. They understood my situation and they upgraded the order (on their dime) to 2nd day shipping. A couple hours later, my Zen Micro left the warehouse. It is now in my grubby little hands.

Next you’re going to tell me that blogging doesn’t solve world hunger either.

US Customer Service
Phone toll-free in the US and Canada: (800) 201-7575

Here it is.