My wife likes Ryan Reynolds

*For the first time in my life I'm watching the Oscars. People will probably think me less of a person for saying this, but I'm not really that into movies. It's true. I like movies, and I have my favorites that I quote, etc, but I don't really see a lot of movies, especially in the theater. And almost every year when the list of nominees for best picture come out you can be assured that I haven't seen any of them.

*It's staggering how often I forget to zip up my pants.

*I've been playing guitar a bit lately. I'm not good at it. I know only a few chords (G, D, E, Em, C, Am, A, F, B), but the ones that I do know serve me fairly well in that they tend to be part of a lot of songs. More accurately, they tend to be the basis of most country songs. Which suits me fine.

*Christopher Walken is on the Oscars right now... I dig Walken. I think I speak for everyone when I say "what is he doing with his hair?"

*My wife thinks that Jennifer Aniston needs to break up with John Mayer.

Leather Seats Optional

Today is Wednesday...

Haircut lady at Fantastic Sam's: Do you want your hair washed?

Elderly client: I just washed it on Monday.

Edible undies and other great inventions

*I'm already tired of hearing about Michael Phelps smoking pot. I'm not saying I condone it, I'm not saying that he should lose all of his endorsements. All I'm saying is that I'm already sick of hearing about it.

*As a whole, I would say that this year's Super Bowl ads were well below my expectations. I generally expect that there will be at least 5 commercials that will make me laugh so hard that food comes shooting out of my mouth. Considering the hype that comes with Super Bowl commercials, I don't think that this is an unrealistic expectations.

Here are some other thoughts on Super Bowl commercials:
- I am against movie ads during the Super Bowl.
- I am against any ad that has already been on TV prior to the game.
- I am in favor of any ad by E-Trade that has the talking baby... they always deliver.
- I am in favor of the 1 second Miller High Life ad... am I the only one who only saw one of them?

The Fear Inside You

This may be a slightly controversial post. Depending on who reads this, and how they take it, I might offend someone. But I'm willing to take that chance, because someone needs to say these things.

This list is called "Signs that your friend has changed." Most likely this is because of a girl, but he could be changing for other reasons too, who knows. I suppose it's possible that some of these reasons could pertain to gals too... but I only have experience with dudes in this case.

#1: Your friend stops calling and/or answering/returning your calls.

This is an obvious one, so I won't elaborate.

#2: When you ask your friend to do something and he declines, instead of just saying no, he immediately gives you three reasons why he can't make it in rapid-fire succession.

You might just ask you friend to grab a beer, but he can't make it. Instead of just saying he can't make it because he's busy, he quickly fires off three reasons he can't make it. "I have to get up early for work, I promised my gal I'd have dinner for her... plus I haven't been feeling well lately." One excuse is fine. Usually when someone gives you three rapid-fire excuses, the real reason is "I just don't feel like it."

#3: Instead of saying yes or no to an invitation, your friend starts to say things like "probably."

"I probably can't make it." "I don't think I can come." "I don't know if I'll be able to." As his friend, you immediately know what this means.

#4: When your friend DOES go out for beers with you , he doesn't get as "loose" as he used to.

Okay, so you're all getting older, so maybe you need to slow it down. But every once in awhile it's okay to let loose and relive old glories. Your friend needs to be okay with this.

#5: "I've got to get going."

Your friend used to be the guy who MADE you stay out all hours of the night. Maybe he was the "just one more" guy, or the "I'm buying" guy... now he's the "I know it's only 10:30, but I've got to get going." And when you ask him why, his response? See #2.

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Periodically I will write a blog post where I proclaim that I am now going to focus on blogging more often, talking more often about the daily happenings in my life. Invariably this resolve lasts about 3 weeks. Recently, during my last such proclamation, I believe it lasted nearly 5 weeks... this was quite a feat.

The problem, for me, is that while I am a creature of habit, life often does not oblige me... or anyone for that matter. Suddenly the holidays roll around, you travel for work, your wife has knee surgery, there is a peanut butter products recall, you have a romantic interlude where you fall in love with bluegrass, it's cold as all heck outside, you lament the fact that you haven't gone ice fishing yet, the Gophers play horribly in their bowl game, the headphones that you use to listen to music on your laptop when you are at work begins to short out, the heat function in your pickup doesn't work... and you forget about blogging. I'm sure you can relate.

I feel guilty about this. Generally the three loyal readers of this blog will say to me "you haven't written anything in awhile." Once I'm done fantasizing about screaming at them about how busy I am and then stomping off, I say something like "yeah, you're right... I've just been so busy."

Anyway, I'm going to try it again... try to write more often, about more random things. Something I'm going to STOP doing it trying to come up with pertinent titles for blog posts... it's a waste of time. Let's be honest, when it comes to this blog, you're either going to read it or you aren't, it doesn't matter what the title is. So I'm going to start utilizing completely random titles that probably have nothing to do with the content. I used to do this with emails that I'd send to my friends, and it always created some banter. They might be a song lyric, a song title, or just something random I saw on a bumper sticker.

So today's post title "Hello Darkness My Old Friend" is the opening line from "Hello My Old Friend" from Simon & Garfunkel.

Baby names

Check out this article in the Strib today... then let's chat.

"One force leading into 2009 seems to be a celebrity of a different kind: Michelle Obama. At least six female names beginning with "M" were among the top names of 2008, Zack says: Michelle, Madison, Madeline, MaKayla, Mia and MacKenzie."

Does this seem like a stretch to anyone else? That the popularity of Michelle Obama lead to a lot of people naming their children with "M" names? Seems like a bit of a jump to me. In a related story, apparently the sale of orange juice has really dropped off this year... probably because O.J. Simpson was finally convicted of a crime.

"Isabella is still a favorite, having been chosen recently by Matt Damon and Drew Lachey. "

This is crazy... I didn't even know they were dating.

"Britney Spears' troubles don't seem to have had a trickle-down effect on her younger son, Jadyn James. Jadyn was the No. 2 baby name of 2008."

I hope that we can all agree that if anyone you know is naming their kid Jadyn, expressly because it is the name that Britney Spears gave to her kid, that person should be immediately shot in the face... no questions asked.

Woman gives birth to 18th child

Michelle Dugger of Arkansas gave birth to her 18th child this week.

Giving birth to 18 children is incredible... but let's talk about pregnancy for a minute.

Here are some fun facts:

*Do you realize that, assuming Mrs. Dugger was pregnant for a full term with all of her children, that she has spent 13 1/2 years of her life pregnant?

*Michelle is 42 years old. That means she has spent 32% of her entire life on this earth pregnant.

*The Dugger's oldest child is 20 years old. Assuming that Michelle got pregnant when she was 22 years old, she has spent 13.5 years of her last 20 years, pregnant. Or 67.5%.

*Michelle said this of having a new child in the family: "This time goes by so quickly. I look at my older children and wonder where the time went." Based on the above stats it's safe to say that the time went mostly to pregnancy, nursing and Michelle and her husband... um... conceiving.

*All of the Dugger's children have names that start with the letter "J".

*The Dugger's next youngest child is just 17 months old. This means that Michelle got pregnant just 6 months after giving birth.

*The Dugger's would like to have more children.

*Michelle's husband is named Jim Bob. It's safe to say that Jim Bob has some strong swimmers.