9.30.2003 • 8:07 PM

Mullet Watch

UPN's The Mullets was the week's least watched show (111th place, 1.2 million). Duh! Who wants to watch 2 guys in mullet wigs when you can go to your local bingo hall, truck stop, race track or Canada and see the real thing?

Don't forget to keep your cameras handy and send me any photos of mulls in your neighborhood! The photo below was taken while I was at BWI airport. I had to be extra tricky so I pretended to be fooling with my digital camera and OOPS -- it went off and I captured this fabulous "TPB Mullet" -- named after the Trailer Park Blue eyeshadow she was wearing.

9.24.2003 • 10:37 PM

Cause it's ears ears ears, that make me want to cheer!



I've loved Bassett Hounds ever since I saw Flash on Dukes of Hazzard.

The dog with the largest ears in the world as recognised by the new 2004 Guiness Book of World Records, Mr Jeffries the Bassett Hound, is seen in this handout photo made available Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2003. Jeffries, whose ears measure 29.2 cm (11.5 in) lives with his owner, Phil Jeffries, in West Sussex, England. Mr Jeffries' full name is Knightsfollie Ladiesman and he is the grandson of Biggles, the face of Hush Puppies shoes. His ears are insured for 30,000 pounds ($47,800). (AP Photo/Guinness World Records)

One time when I was at 4H camp...

The other counselors and I used to introduce the campers to new songs besides kumbaya. One of my favorites was the Beer song.

For it's beer beer beer
That makes me want to cheer
In the halls, in the halls...
It's beer beer beer
That makes me want to cheer
In the halls of 4H camp.
My eyes are dim,
I cannot see,
I must have left my specs at home.
(Repeat)

The campers loved us. Especially the boys who climbed the rafters to peek at us in the showers. Dan earned the nickname "Jeepers Creepers" for that move. The name stuck all the way through high school. One of the best lessons I've ever seen. The entire camp started singing "jeepers creepers where'd ya get those eyes" every time he walked by.

4H Camp was full of good punishments. Other favorites included:

1. Having a camper hug a tree.

2. KP (Kitchen Patrol) duty for a week. Some kids actually liked scraping all the food into a big bowl and mixing it with a rubber spoon. What always scared me was that the rubber spoons actually started MELTING from too much use. What was in the camp food that caused rubber to dissolve, and what was it doing to my body?

3. Moving the woodpile (it's a HUGE woodpile). If you were really really bad, then you had to move it back.

4. Sending the kid down to the kitchen to ask Thelma the cook for something. Thelma was a holy terror, and rumor had it she stole food to feed half of Garratt county. The kid came back crying within minutes. Then just the threat of going to see Thelma was enough. There was a song about her too. We sang a lot.

Thelma's in the kitchen
By golly she's a bitchin'
She's cooking up some extra food to take it home.
Her eyes are full of anger
And you really want to spank her
But all you want is for Thelma to go home.
Go home, go home...
All you really want is Thelma to go home.

9.22.2003 • 2:02 AM

The Joe Schmo Show
If you are a fan of reality TV, or find it funny like I do... then check out "The Joe Schmo Show" on SpikeTV. It's all fake, and the actors clue you in on things as it goes along. The best part is the voting ceremony. All the characters have these tacky Franklin Mint-style plates with their faces on it. When they get voted off the host says "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, you are dead to us", then throws the plate into the fire. Brilliant.

9.20.2003 • 11:45 PM

Miss Maryland

Maryland was robbed of the crown. Tonight's Miss America Pagent was a tragic moment for the Old Line State. Maryland sang her heart out. She looked fabulous in her leopard swimsuit. I personally thought her flower-denim outfit was ugly, but she WON that competition. And yet she came in 4th. Florida won. The audience boo'd. The hosts had picked Maryland to win it. We all know Florida screws up voting, so I demand a recount.

Miss Florida, nothing personal, but you should have come in second. Maybe you knew that too when you asked Mr. Hollywood Squares to repeat the winner. What should have been your "crowning moment" instead was a bit of comedy almost as funny as the end of Miss Congeniality, and that involved an exploding tiara. But there you were, Miss America, diamonoid earring falling off your lobe...Miss A '03 trying to get you to stop moving up and down so she could pin the crown to your head. And speaking of the crown, WHAT were Pageant Officials THINKING when they thought making a big ol' X out of white tape on the inside of the crown would make it easier to secure the tiara to someone's head? 3M does make CLEAR tape. I saw the disaster of bobby pins sticking out on the side and poking your scalp. That must have hurt. Perhaps some training is needed before doing this next year. And what happened to your armful of roses?!

Oh, and Clay Aiken, if you read this... you kick ass. You are Mini-Manilow. Keep on belting out those tunes and making me weak in the knees. If my husband, the Divine Mr. M ever kicks it, you are next in line to win my heart.

9.19.2003 • 4:48 PM

Hurricanes, Locusts and Groundhogs!!

I'm BACK!! I realize I started this blog a year ago and have barely written. I promise all my fans to be better.

Hurricane Isabel just passed through. I'm kinda mad that Isabel got all the headlines while Hurricane Linda, active in the Pacific at the same time, got squat. We didn't get hit too bad where I live, although a 3 story tree got knocked down behind me. The flooding around the state is TERRIBLE -- people are using boats to get around! The only cleanup I have is leaves on my balcony, and my rabbit Oscar seems to be eating all of them.



Spotted on the news... in the aftermath of the hurricane, 2 guys were leaving their row home because water was up to the kitchen counters in the downstairs. So they are driving around Fells Point, one of the historic districts that is now flooded. The VW Jetta had a hippy driver. On top was a man in kayak with fishing rod, cigar, martini and old school O's hat. Locals are pissed because they have no power and the Royal Farms store was out of donuts. Kids are wading in the streets (when they are dry they are full of rats, so I can only imagine what is floating through now). The mayor has warned people not to go and do this because you can't tell where the promenade ends and the harbor starts, and their are missing manhole covers -- if you fall in, they won't be able to get you out. People are wondering if they can go crabbing in the streets. Now that is Baltimore, hon.

It's a true tragedy in Annapolis. Bagels are floating and ice cream melting. But there is a bright spot... the Barnes and Noble in Baltimore has water in the doorway. HA. The Evil BN deserves it.

The weather the past few years has been CRAZY! We had a severe drought in 2002. We had record amounts of snow last winter, including the blizzard with almost 30 inches in one day! This year was the first year in history that my parents haven't had to use the sprinkler to water the lawn or plants even once. My 2 trips to SF were marked by heat waves.

My friend Gary checked on me and commented: "So what you're saying is that you just need some locusts and for all the fish to die. Pretty much all that's left for the apocalypse."

Now, funny he should say that. Next year we are due for the "17-year locust". Now, if you are lucky enough to live somewhere where in the North East, you know about this. If not, I can attest it is something of biblical proportions. I recently read about them online and found out they are really cicadas, with a 13-year and 17-year variety. They hibernate under the ground the rest of the time. Periodical cicadas achieve astounding population densities, as high as 1.5 million per acre. I was in high school the last time they infested. Imagine thousands of large insects making noise and flying around. As they grow they leave shells behind that crunch under your feet. As my Mom claims, they were worse when she was a kid, waist high. They like trees and ground that has not been disturbed during the last cycle. Where I live now has both of those conditions, so I'm scared. Even the normal cicadas this year were deafening.

ALERT ALERT... another sign has just appeared. 2/3 of the great Albino Groundhogs, a.k.a "Wiarton Willie" of Ontario, have been found dead. It is suspected that the surviving groundhog MURDERED them. Willie was not just any weather-predicting groundhog. He became a mascot of our RantNetwork development team. When I saw him, I really thought EVERY groundhog in Canada was white... like polar bears. Hey, it's cold and snowy up there in the "Great White North". After some research I found out this was not true, but the town did build a huge statue of Willie, which was remarkably close to my Photoshop'd picture of Gary & Willie. And I thought it was only beavers that Canucks liked.





So, if the bible is to believe, the end of the world is indeed coming. I'm not sure what color alert that is. But remember the emergency instructions: stock up on toilet paper, bread and milk; duck & cover; stop, drop and roll; tune into the Weather Channel.