There comes a point in all of our lives when we are teetering on the edge of wacko. And I don’t mean that day your boss tells you you’ve been demoted, or your kids are screaming so loud you want to scream louder just to drown out the noise.

I mean that moment when you hear the voices for the first time, and you’re tempted to ask them to tell you more, because you’re genuinely interested in what they have to say. I’m talking about the point when you realize you can have a lengthy debate about cheese with your cat. The moment when, in the heat of whatever the current moment may be, you randomly begin to think of how great a president Ross Perot would have been.

Yeah, that close to wacko.

Apparently, one of the rules for living in the Hollywood area is that your moment not only comes much earlier in life than it does for everyone else, but it must happen when no fewer than 37 video cameras are in your face, asking stupid questions like, “are you feeling angry right now?” And when your entire public life is crazier than the wildest dreams of the local schizoid, you can expect the exact moment when you finally flip to be one hell of a doozy.

Britney, that be your cue.

It seems Ms. Spears — never one to let a moment pass without making a total ass of herself on camera — flipped herself bald-headed. Yup, she shaved her public parts clean down to the skin. Rumors abound as to why, and the most likely is that she feared her former hubby would have her hair tested for “illegal substances” in order to force a child custody ruling in his favor. This holds even more water when compounded with the fact that she’s now in rehab for the third time in eight days. But I like to stick with the idea that she simply flipped her lid. It makes for a much more sarcastic blog post.

More crap you couldn’t care less about but you’re going to read anyway:

• Anna Nicole will finally be laid to rest, and the courts have ruled that her final destination on earth is the Bahamas, next to her deceased son. It’s hard to believe, but her life was even more dramatic after it ended. May she rest in peace — and may her daughter be taken care of properly, so she can live the rich, fulfilling life her mother never quite seemed to have.
• Mark Martin won the Daytona 500, but don’t tell NASCAR that. It seems they changed their own rules (is there a NASCAR fan on the planet who is actually shocked by that?) and didn’t throw the yellow flag on the final lap, even when a crash began near the front of the field and ended with Clint Bowyer’s Jack Daniels car sliding on its roof and catching fire. They let the top two runners cross the line, and then threw the yellow, allowing Kevin Harvick to sneak past for the victory, but giving three-time champ Jeff Gordon five additional positions that he would have lost had the rest of the field been forced to race to the flag. Congrats to Harvick, but grrrrr to NASCAR for once again proving that they don’t know how to be consistent.
• From the it-makes-more-sense-if-you’re-stoned department, I was recently looking at the nutrition information and cooking instructions on a bag of frozen chicken fingers. The serving size? Four pieces. Cooking instructions, however, told you how to cook only six or 10 at a time.
• K.G. completes her first trip around the sun on Wednesday, officially sending her from babyhood to toddlership (g’head, look those up in Webster). Unfortunately, that means I need to come up with a new name for her. If you’ve got a recommendation, leave a comment. No prize for this one, as I still have to finalize the design for the winners of the previous contest. But still, leave me a note if you’ve got something good.
• Any readers from the Raleight/Durham area? Leave me a note, I’d like to talk to you.

By now you’ve seen the video of the skydiver who hit the ground at about 80 mph after both of his parachutes failed.  If you haven’t, just go to digg.com and look for it.  As of right now it’s on the second page of links.

It got me thinking…what would go through my head if that happened to me?

(4,000 feet) “Wooooooooo-hoooooooo!  This is cool, man!  They had to pry that plane from my fingers to get me out of the door, but I’m sure glad they did!  Time to pull the ripcord…

(3,000 feet) #@!&%$!!!  Aww crap, first the chute screwed up, and now I’m spinning like a spider in a flushing toilet!  I think I’m gonna — *BWLAARRRRRRPHHHHHH* Yo!  Man!  Sorry about the vomit patch up there, you might wanna steer to your left!

(2,500 ft) SON OF A B!^@#!!  Now the main is caught in my reserve!  I’m spinning even faster!!  I think I’m gonna dry heave!!  WHOA!  Was that my life or a vulture that just went flying past my face?!

(2,250 feet) Our Father, who art in Heaven…

(2,000 feet) I sure hope I hit something hard, because if I’m still alive when they find me, these underwear are gonna embarrass the hell out of me.

(1,000 feet, three more evacuations later) Water or trees?  What’s gonna hurt the least?  Come on, stupid, is it really going to matter a half-second afterward?

(500 feet) I WANT MY MOMMY!!!!

(250 feet) Tell my family I love them!

(50 feet) Awww, man, blackberry bushes!  They have sharp thorns!  Not that it mat–*THUD*

(0 feet) Yup, those were blackberry bushes.

Other Ramblings…

• A fifth person has now claimed that he may be the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s daughter.  The part that freaks me out isn’t that she had sex with that many people — we all know she was promiscuous — but the fact that she had sex with that many people in a three-week period.  I’m beginning to think all the little spermies got together just outside the egg and said, “alright, if we’re gonna do this, we’re goin’ in together!”  That would make this fiasco entertaining — if a paternity test said that, in fact, they were all the father.
• We finally got a decent snow here.  We got about 2-3 inches so far, which is pretty good considering it was pushing 70 the week of Christmas.  It’s still lame, though, considering that central Pennsylvania — two hours from here — is supposed to have 8-12 inches by tomorrow morning.

That is all.

The week started off cold — I mean brutally cold, even by my standards. When I set out Monday morning, the current temperature was eight. Not 80, or even 18. Eight. The wind chill was almost as low as the constant temperature surrounding Simon Cowell: -14. Farenheit — farenheit. Even in a wind breaker, I was cold. Kinda made me wish I could find my winter coat.

It slowly warmed up — we’re expected to peak just above freezing for the first time all week at 34 today. I think I broke a sweat this morning.

And my, what an early morning it was. I was up at 5:30. And 4:30. And 3:40. And some time after 2:00. and I think once just before 1:00. Just another night for me, except that I spent this one in a medical facility with about 12 miles of wire protruding from various parts of my body. In some sick joke of nature, I’ve been getting about 17 minutes of quality sleep per night for the last year or two. Her Hotness gets slightly more, at least on the nights she sleeps on the couch.

See, among other sleep issues, I snore. Loud. As in F-15-during-a-carrier-takeoff loud. You know it’s bad when the sleep study technician repeatedly comments on the overnight volume, mixing in several barely audible chuckles for effect. What a sweet lady.

The paperwork I received from the clinic last week stated that they would serve me breakfast. Sweet! I’ll have bacon and eggs, two slices of whole wheat toast, and just bring me the entire pot of coffee and a really long straw.

Ha!

“When you’re ready to go, just make a right down the hall. You’ll find some coffee, juice and assorted breakfast foods.”

Eh, it’s not room service but it still sounds good. I rounded the corner and I saw…muffins. Four of them. I poured a cup of coffee, laughed at the four-ounce cans of juice and decided unwrapping and eating a muffin wasn’t worth the effort.

Good morning.

In other news (in my world and in yours)…

• Anna Nicole Smith died yesterday. I don’t mean to sound callous, because it really has been a tragic story from start to finish, but are we making too much of it? Scott Evans of Philly radio station WXTU (92.5 FM) commented that we really only followed her life so intently because it was “such a train wreck.” I have to agree with that sentiment, unfortunately. I feel for her beautiful baby daughter, who will have to grow up never really knowing her mom and potentially never finding out who her father is. But aside from that, can we please let Anna Nicole rest in peace?
• I hate sale papers. They come to my mailbox whether I ask for them (which I’ve never done once in my life) or not (which I happily and hopefully do every day). The reason I hate them is because of the shopping difference between men and women: men see a sale as a way to get the same quantity for a lower price. Women see it as a chance to get more for the same price. The difference is subtle but astounding. And those damn sale papers…it occurred to me a few weeks ago that a sale paper is just a woman’s permission slip to go on a field trip to the mall.
• Peyton Manning finally winning the Super Bowl was an awesome way to end a sucky game. Really, eight turnovers? It sounds like a great deal in a bakery, but in a game between supposedly the two best teams in the league, it shows the depth of parity (or should I say parody?) in the NFL (i.e., anyone can make it to the playoffs with the right amount of luck — except the Browns, but that’s a different story altogether). Not that parity is bad, but I would just hope for a better game. It officially knocked last year’s Super Bowl off the Sloppiest Championship Game Ever podium.

That’s all, folks.