Hmm, I wonder what the boss put in these brownies. . .

Of course, there were other songs on the radio in 1978. Surprisingly, Sting music didn’t suck back then. For example, there was that song about that girl with the red dress. You know, whatshername. That was very enjoyable.

Well, I have to run upstairs for more brownies now. As the emoticon people say, TTYL!

1. The FedEx Orange Bowl will now be called the Lunesta SleeperBowl.

Warning: watching the Lunesta SleeperBowl may cause drowsiness, amnesia, and disturbing thoughts about college cheerleaders. Do not drive or engage in other dangerous activities while watching the Lunesta SleeperBowl. Dangerous activities include, but are not limited to, bull riding, subatomic particle acceleration, in-flight dirigible repair, civil war reenactment, nude Twister, and international espionage.

3. Tostitos Fiesta Bowl and the Konica-Minolta Gator Bowl will be merged and rebranded as The Viagra Feisty Geezer Bowl.

Men watching the Viagra Feisty Geezer Bowl may experience Restless Pants Syndrome (RPS), third-eye blindness, and/or exposure to embarrassing television commercials. Women watching the the Viagra Feisty Geezer Bowl may experience unwanted exposure to feisty male geezers. Wear loose clothing while watching this event. Call your doctor immediately if your “game” lasts longer than four hours.

Day 2 — More rain today, which means more mosquitoes. Soon there will be enough of them to work both of my arms at once. And then I’ll be just one more helpless mosquito puppet.

Day 3 — The mosquitoes have grown to the size of crows. It looks like they’ve eaten all of my squirrels. Little gray bodies are scattered across the lawn like empty beer cans. Not safe to go outside. I think I’ll work from home today.

Day 18 — The mosquitoes have the house surrounded. They are as big as geese now. Soon they will be strong enough to bore through cedar siding, and when that happens, the basement will be my only refuge. For now, mosquito and man play a game of cat and mouse.

Day 31 — Apparently, the mosquitoes anticipated my move to the basement. Last night they plugged the sump pump discharge pipe, and now the basement is filled with rain water. Thank god I’ve read the complete works of Thor Heyerdahl! Today I will build a raft from balsa logs, hemp rope and other materials indigenous to a 21st century American basement.

Standard Squirrel: Approximately 20 inches in total length (including ten inches of tail). Weighs 1-1.5 pounds without field equipment. The skull is thick and round . . . and thick. The teeth are sharp, pointy and coffee-stained. The Standard Squirrel has a delightful springy gait, which often takes it into the path of oncoming vehicles.

Miniature Squirrel: Smaller than a Standard Squirrel. About the size of a Standard Chipmunk or a Toy Woodchuck.

Toy Squirrel: About the size of a Standard Field Mouse or a Miniature Chipmunk. (Toy Squirrel batteries not included.)

Tiny Toy: Even smaller. Too small to carry an acorn without assistance. Can live for six months on one black oil sunflower seed.

Teacup Squirrel: The size of the Queen’s extended pinky finger. Too small to carry a pre-husked sunflower seed. (Note to European readers: the American Teacup Squirrel converts roughly to a 110-gram Metric Teacup Squirrel.)

Nano Squirrel: microscopic self-replicating killer nanorobots bent on world domination. Can carry eight to ten Standard Squirrels or two large bags of White Hut cheeseburgers (including onions).

In Scene One, product spokesmen Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Keith Hernandez attempt to rescue their prematurely gray pal Emmitt Smith from the Running Back Rest Home. They fear that Emmitt’s gray beard is preventing him from getting laid on a daily basis. The boys are greeted at the home’s front desk by a buxom young woman dressed in cheerleader/nurse fetish wear. The camera pans across the geezer ward, and we see several other freaky fetish nurses tending to an assortment of doddering graybeards. Between scenes, beard technicians restore Emmitt’s beard to its “natural-looking” color, and by the end of Scene Two he is once again surrounded by sexy fetish models (this time waving pom-poms). And so we come full circle.

The Running Back Rest Home ad amuses me. I don’t fall off the sofa laughing or anything, but I do occasionally give it a reclining ovation. Not everyone likes it as much as I do, though. I know this. Some prefer the trippy psychedelia of Just for Men’s Summer of Life ad or the vaudevillian pratfalls of No Play for Mr. Gray. And let us not forget the stubborn few who insist that the entire Just for Men advertising oeuvre is built on a “flawed premise.” I have personally argued with every one of the Stubborn Few, so I am familiar with all two of their talking points. Perpend:

S.F.T.P. #1 — If the gray-bearded consumer is to believe that dye-beards have more sex, then why are the convalescing graybeards surrounded by sexy fetish models while the dye-bearded product spokesmen are only surrounded by other spokesmen? This is ironic, is it not?

S.F.T.P. #2 — Before Emmitt uses the product, he is surrounded by sexy fetish models, but after he uses the product, he is . . . em, still surrounded by sexy fetish models? So what is the product benefit? Is new Emmitt more surrounded than old Emmitt was?

I’ve got to hand it to the Stubborn Few. Their talking points are few, but they are persuasive. Even so, I can’t help wondering if a full-pepper beard would give me an advantage with freaky sexy fetish models. I’m scratching my salty chin and I’m wondering . . . wondering, wondering. And that, my friends, is the power of advertising.

1. Pick one team with a compass direction and the word “State” in its name. This year, it’s either East Tennessee State over Pittsburgh or North Dakota State over Kansas. I’ll go with N.D. State because their opponent is coached by a guy named Bill Self, and everyone knows there’s no “Self” in Team. (Incidentally, there is also no “I” in Self.)

2. Pick one team named after a historical figure, preferably one who is known as “the father” of the team’s home state. Brigham Young is the obvious player here, mostly because Mr. Young was the biggest “player” of all the fathers of all the states. You can’t go wrong with BYU. And that’s why I’m going with Stephen F. Austin, Father of Texas.

3. Always pick Syracuse University’s first round opponent. Always. No exceptions. If you just said “why?” then please accompany me on a short trip down Bad Memory Lane. Remember how disappointed you were after you picked Syracuse to beat the lowly Vermont Plaid Hats in the first round of the 2005 tournament? Surely Syracuse cannot lose to Vermont, you reasoned. Surely not. Learn from the pain, my friends. Do not beg for another smackdown. It is unseemly. Did I mention that Syracuse University’s first round opponent this year is Stephen F. Austin, Father of Texas (see Rule 2).

4. Pick one team just because you like their team’s nickname. I would call your attention to a very interesting first round match-up between the Akron Zipps and Gonzaga Zags. It’s a shame that one of those teams has to lose.

5. Whenever possible, pick a team named after a cocktail. My half-hearted research turned up only three such teams in all of college basketball. These are the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes (a dangerous mix of vodka, rum, cointreau, orange juice and milk), the Purdue Boilermakers (an explosive whiskey/beer combo), and the Southern Utah Thunderbirds (twist-cap bum wine). Only one of those teams (Purdue) is in the tournament this year. You know what to do.

So, what kind of “action” would you, John and Jane Q. Theatergoer, expect to see in a play called “Liam Gallagher Fighting in a Club”? My writers are stumped. They’ve got nothing for me, and nothing isn’t enough. I mean, who wants to see a play in which nothing happens? Oh, look . . . the Samuel Beckett fans are raising their hands. Hmm, what if we change the title to “Waiting for Godot to Fight Liam Gallagher in a Club”? Where would that takes us?

Act I
While waiting for Godot to fight Liam Gallager in a club, Estragon (played by Gene Simmons) struggles to remove his boot. His friend Vladimir (played by James Blunt’s severed head) muses on Estragon’s struggle and says, “I brought my face to this crowded place, and I don’t know what to do, ’cause Estragon can’t remove his shoe until we reach Act Two.” [curtain falls]

[Intermission — Jack Daniels and cigarettes in lobby.]

Act II
Liam Gallagher’s brother Noel arrives just as Estragon removes his left boot. Noel asks if Liam has arrived yet, and Vladimir says, “We’re waiting for him to fight Godot in this bar. They are late.” It just so happens that Noel hates people who are late. He hates them nearly as much as he hates Green Day, goths, and Manchester United fans. Noel says, “Fuck all. Let’s go.”

Vladimir says, “We can’t go.”

Noel says, “Why not?”

Vladimir says, “Because we’re waiting for Godot to fight Liam Gallagher in this bar, and because the Fictional Characters Guild only allows us to talk about taking action.”

Noel says, “That’s bloody fucking Rubbish!” And then he breaks Vladimir’s nose with Estragon’s boot. [curtain falls]

Eh, on second thought, let’s not write a play. Let’s just wait here and see what happens.

Ironically, it was at this year’s BlogCo Holiday Party, during a conversation with the Rock Doc, that I discovered a range of mountains which do not fit “Bedload Model.” These are the Coors Light mountains. The Coors Light Mountains are not “real” mountains, they are logo mountains, and logo mountains are not made of papier mâché and baking soda, they are made of temperature-sensitive ink. This miracle ink causes the mountains on the Coors Light label to turn blue when the beer in the bottle reaches “optimal drinking temperature.” That means cold.

This brings us around to the traditional BlogCo Holiday Beer Tip paragraph. Get out your pencils, kiddies. If the Coors thermo-science-label is too difficult to read when you’re drunk, or if you prefer to drink a more beer-like beer — one which does not travel with an onboard thermometer — then you need some alternative methods for measuring beer coldness. I typically use one of the following two PROVEN METHODS:

PROVEN METHOD #1. First I ask myself if I remembered to put the beer in the refrigerator. If the answer is yes, then I construct a simple syllogism like this one:

The beer is inside the refrigerator.
The inside of the refrigerator is cold.
Therefore, the beer is cold.

This is the Aristotelian method of beer temperature inquiry, and it is the method preferred by ancient and/or dead philosophical Greek beer drinkers.

While the Aristotelian method works at least as well as the Coors method, there are times when I just don’t feel like getting all logical about my beer-temperature problem. On these occasions, I go straight to PROVEN METHOD #2..

PROVEN METHOD #2. Sometimes, when I want to know if my beer is cold, I touch the bottle. If I feel coldness on my fingertips, then I conclude that the beer is cold. That, my friends, is old-school cold.