Once upon a time I was told that more people died on Mondays than any other day of the week. I also have heard that more people die during the Christmas season than any other time of the year. Since Christmas falls on a Monday this year, does that mean that there will be an exceptional number of fatalities this December 25? (2006: The Christmas of Death!)

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Sometimes posting to a blog is like being in a food fight: throw enough pie and someone's GOT to get hit in the face. (This column is going Larry King style, baby!)

• Bravo Channel is showing both The Princess Bride and Back to the Future today. Could those be two of the best movies ever made? I say yes!
• Huge underdog University of Georgia today beat (nay, CRUSHED!) the mighty Auburn Tigers, destroying any hopes Auburn had of running for the national title. Go Dawgs!
• Television advertising execs just don't understand: the current Bellsouth ads use the song "Stuck In The Middle With You" to promote that product. The song was written about sitting between recording executives. Can telecom execs be that different?
• Of all the cars I've ever owned/driven, the one I miss most is a 1985 Ford Crown Victoria LTD Country Squire Station Wagon.
• Recent studies say that happy people are sick less often than people who are optimistic or active. That means that a cynical asshole like me will likely outlive the rest of you bastards so long as I'm happy being a cynical asshole. Hooray for science!
• Julia Roberts' single sexiest film role was as Tinkerbell in Hook. Does that say worse things about her or me?
• The National Football League has a patent on confusion; it is simply impossible to tell who is any good from week to week. Some may call this parity or equality but I call it exciting. Chicago: undefeated. Dolphins: incompetent. Final score: Dolphins 31, Chicago 13. I say this, I sure look forward to December 31, when the Dolphins play the currently undefeated Colts.

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Mark Richt, head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs, recalls Halloweens past when he dressed as Batman. So does NBA great and UGA alum Dominique Wilkins. So does current NBA superstar LeBron James. I guess I'm in pretty good company.

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I recently read that Pope Benedict XVI's chief exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth believes that Hitler was possessed by the Devil. First of all, I would like to point out that this, taken literally, would make a GREAT movie. Secondly, why does the Pope have a chief exorcist?

To quote Father Amorth from a Vatican Radio broadcast:

One of the key requirements for an exorcism is to be present in front of the possessed person and that person also has to be consenting and willing. Therefore trying to carry out an exorcism on someone who is not present, or consenting and willing would prove very difficult.

If the possessee has to be present, consenting and willing, isn't an exorcism more like an intervention? The language used in the above quote seems very... less than supernatural. Couldn't any behavior that is clearly contrary to the tenants of the Roman Catholic Church be considered satanic in nature? Therefore do Catholics see exorcists instead of psychologists? Exorcisms don't seem nearly as exciting as Dr. Strange would have had me believe.

Note, please, that Father Amorth is also the founder of the International Association of Exorcists, an elite band of professional, church appointed exorcists. (Priests can now take exorcism classes at the Vatican's Pontifical Academy. I hear that the exorcism classes fill up fast, behind only "Why You Can't Put Holes In Holy Water And Other Confusing Catechisms Explained," and "Holy Eucharist, Altar-Boy!".) He has said that "behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil." And who would know better than Vatican City's official exorcist?

By the way, Father Amorth considers The Exorcist his favorite movie. Go figure.

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Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis first performed as a comedy duo on this date in 1946. On the same day the year previous, in 1945, President Truman gave the order to use the atom bomb against Japan. I'm not saying that they are related, I just think that they make an interesting juxtaposition.

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Beer only tastes good after you've had a few beers. That's why they sell them in 6-packs.

Ostriches have the largest eyes of all land animals. So as to better see under a pile of sand?

Riding in a boat causes me to feel like I'm still in the water after I go to bed. Why?

E is the most common English letter, but is not the most common letter in this sentence.

Deer whistles have never been proven to work as no one has ever devised an accurate test.

Octopodes and squids have 3 hearts. (And giant squids have the largest eyes of all animals!)

Most Americans have had their first divorce before they reach my age (30.5).

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This past weekend I was on I-20 eastbound, returning from a trip to visit my grandfather in Huntsville, AL, when my brother and I got stuck in traffic. As we passed the on-ramp from Oxford, AL, several cars decided to exit the stop-and-stop traffic by travelling the wrong way up the on-ramp. The ramp was unused and vacant; it was clear from the overpass that the traffic jam extended for the foreseeable distance, so no one was even trying to get onto the highway here anymore. Although I have no problem with exiting the highway along an empty on-ramp in theory, these idiots decided that instead of pulling a U-turn and driving up the ramp to freedom, they would pull into the merge lane and then back-up the ramp with the car in reverse. I worry about Americans when they think that driving a car against the flow of traffic on a high-speed one-way street is best accomplished with the car in reverse. (Forty thousand automobile deaths per year can't be wrong!)

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Twenty-years ago in 1986, the Post-Walt Disney Co. used its regular Sunday night "The Wonderful World of Disney" on ABC to showcase a number of failed pilots of dubious creative distinction. Several of them stand out in my memory, including "Mr. Boogedy" and one called "Northstar" about an astronaut (played by Greg Evigan of "B.J. and The Bear" and "My Two Dads" fame) who gained super powers from sunlight through a freak cosmic accident. Of most importance to me, however, is the move called "I-Man," starring Scott Bakula in the title role. To the best of my knowledge, "I-Man" aired only once before disappearing into the black-hole of un-produced pilots.

"I-Man" was about a regular guy who was granted super-human powers of self-healing through a freak accident not-too far removed from the origin story of Daredevil or those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The only hitch in his alien-induced Wolverine healing trick is that perfect darkness is now fatal for him. Figuring that complete darkness is so rare that he has little to worry about for the rest of his unnatural life span, I-Man, short for Indestructible Man, naturally, decides to turn his powers to the unselfish causes of truth, justice, and American television.

Soon, I-Man has been discovered spying for the U.S. government, as was his wont to do, and is captured by the stereotypical dastardly rich villain. He finds himself (in true super-spy tradition) invited to breakfast with the villain and his co-conspirator, the treacherous she-spy turned traitor who was responsible for the revelation to the enemy of I-Man's amazing powers (by stabbing him in the arm with a knife!). When asked how he likes his eggs prepared, I-Man responds with a snarl towards his former comrade, "Benedict, as in Benedict Arnold!"

At this point in the dialogue, I, a 10 year-old boy, laughed and said something to the effect of, "he's angry that she stabbed him in the arm." My father wasted little time in correcting me with the observation that I-Man was not disappointed in being stabbed but rather upset that the enemy was now aware of his super-secret healing factor. Of course, my father was right, which I realized as the words were leaving his mouth.

Eventually, I-Man escapes the enemy's pitch-black death-trap, discovers that the she-spy turned traitor is only pretending to be a traitor and has been revealing information to the enemy so that she can pretend to be a double agent and learn the enemy's secrets (I'm sure that this tactic makes a lot of sense to women), and discovers that his son has the same healing powers that he does just in time for a happy ending.

But none of that last bit is really important, and I couldn't tell you what happened during the final portion of that film if my life depended on it.

Man, do I HATE to be wrong.

(On a related side-note, eggs Benedict were not named for Benedict Arnold, as this show would have impressionable young viewers believe. Instead, they appear to be named for nineteenth-century New York City native Lemuel C. Benedict.)

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Earlier tonight, I was flipping channels on TV as I was eating sardines and saltines. I had stopped surfing to watch two guys on the Howard Stern Show engage in a trivia contest with a porn star. (Some television is just great. Really, really fantastic.) I was playing along at home. The only question that I missed was Jimmy Carter's middle name. (I'm from Georgia, and I didn't know Jimmy Carter's middle name. I should be both tarred and feathered, I suppose.) During a commercial break, Pat Boone came on my TV and tried to sell me gold. To quote Pat from the Swiss America Trading Corporation website promoted by the tv spot:

Stocks, bonds, real estate, cash, or gold? Which do you think offers the most potential to investors in the next few years? Well, according to Swiss America, the answer is... ALL OF THE ABOVE!..IF you have a truly diversified portfolio that includes U.S. gold coins.

Re-read that to make sure that you got it. That's Pat Boone's advice: stocks, bonds, and property are worth just as much as gold, but only if you own gold. (That's not even English, Pat.) If you can figure out how to follow that golden nugget of wisdom, I'm sure that you'll be just as successful as Pat Boone.

Now, I wasn't around in the 1950's, to be sure, but I think the fact that Pat Boone is never mentioned anymore by anyone in any context should give you some kind of hint about his importance to American music and popular culture. His white bucks and dulcet tones may have managed to repackage black r&b music for white America, but I have sever doubts about his ability to pitch anyone on gold futures 20 years after he stopped being a household name. Please note that the commercial does not run during Hee Haw or some other old folk's fare where Pat's name may spark a faded memory, but in the middle of a Howard Stern episode where the younger blue-collars lurk. Strikes me that it is a TV commercial for fool's gold, and you know what they say about fools and gold.

By the way, the porn star lost the trivia contest. And Jimmy Carter's middle name is Earl.

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