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.

If you live outside the Philadelphia region, this shouldn’t be a big deal — but it is. And that scares the crap out of me.

Former Kentucky Derby champ Barbaro was put to sleep yesterday after a protracted battle to overcome a broken leg (usually a career-ending injury for race horses). I respect the fact that they chose not to euthanize him immediately, and I applaud the effort made to get him back to racing shape. But then he went downhill. Sadly, this is where his story picked up steam.

See, Barbaro was bred and trained outside Philly. Because the city is grasping for anything they can call a champion (I hear even Rocky gets his butt kicked this time around), they latched onto Barbaro like Rosie O’Donnell on a box of Ho-Hos or a bad hairpiece on Donald Trump (gotta be fair here). The collective emotion of this town ebbed and flowed with the fortunes — good and bad — of a horse.

After he won the Derby, the region rocked like Woodstock. It was as if, in their minds, Donovan McNabb hadn’t thrown up on the field in the Super Bowl two years ago…or Joe Carter didn’t hit a Game 7 homerun in 1993…or the Cowboys didn’t exist in the early 1990s. It was like the lengthy history of sporting failure in this town was erased just becaue a horse ran fast for two minutes. Okay, I can grudgingly accept that.

But then Ol’ B went to horsey heaven, and suddenly the whole nation is crazy about this critter. Yesterday, his death was front-page news for CNN.com and MSNBC.com. newspapers stopped the presses, bloggers posted headline after headline (at which point the B-bloggers followed suit just to keep up) and the local area came to a screeching halt. The death of Ronald Reagan didn’t even garner the kind of coverage this thing got. The evening news ran a music montage along with photos and race footage. I wanted to cry, but surely not for the horse. I wanted to cry for society, because things like soldiers dying and children being kidnapped were pushed “below the fold” — or off the initial screen, for the Web equivalent — just so a huge photo and an obituary for a horse could be shown.

I am all in favor of focusing on the lighter side of the news. Had the upcoming Super Bowl or the NHL All-Star game been the top headline, I would have been thrilled. It’s rare that news outlets focus on things that are actually enjoyable. But if you’re going to feature a tragedy, at least focus on one that’s actually remotely tragic. When my friend’s 21-year-old cat died, it didn’t get mentioned in the city paper, much less USA Today. And believe me, winning the Kentucky Derby — even as a longshot — makes for a much less interesting story than a cat being hit by a semi and then living another 17 years.

Apparently, I can control the weather.  I’ll give you some time to let the value of ability sink in.

…

Okay, now let me explain how I came about finding that I have this talent.  I stood up from my desk to give my eyeballs a rest — staring at a computer screen from eight to 16 hours a day can make you wish someone would gouge them out with a soup spoon to make the blur go away.  As I wandered over to the window, I looked at the gray sky and muttered to myself, “I sure wish it would snow already.”  It’s not forecast to start until around 3:00 p.m. but I would enjoy a snowstorm in the middle of July.  I like snow that much.

Then, something strange happened: a snowflake wafted slowly down in front of me.

Then another.

Over the next 30 seconds, the snow picked up.  Now, it’s coming down in what would be the rainy equivalent of a steady shower and appears to be reaching toward a white downpour.

Realizing that I apparently have some control over the elements, I started thinking how useful this talent could be.  Then, as I always do, I started thinking of the profitability, because that’s where my mind wanders to for just about every thought I have.  Which means I spend most of my day wondering how I can make a buck.  I’m greedy like that.  And I’m cheap, according to a frighteningly large number of my immediate family.  But anyway…

Say my lawn is looking a little parched in the middle of a particularly droughty August.  I’ll just make it rain.  The weekend sporting event is being threatened with a rainout?  Not with me on hand.  I want a new car but I couldn’t possibly afford another down payment.  So what?  I just need to hold the sun for ransom!

Then I crashed back to reality: it was just coincidence.  I have no control over that stuff.  No deity in his left mind (because I assume God is right-handed and very, very creative) would bestow such a power on mischievous ol’ me.

Besides, the shower already stopped.

The big news around Delaware (yes, I live here, stop laughing) this week has been the impending visit of the President. This morning, it happened, and I had pretty much a front-row seat for the passing of the motorcade.

First, let me say this: there are few things that give you the heebie-jeebies more than seeing Interstate 95 completely empty in both directions. After all, the stretch from Washington, D.C. to New York City is the most heavily traveled stretch of road in the world. During rush hour, there are portions of the road five lanes wide in either direction that are at a complete stand-still. It’s a masochistically impressive thing to sit for 45 minutes in the same spot on a road that should easily be able to accomodate half a million vehicles per hour, the whole time wondering if time itself has actually slowed to a halt.

Peering out from the eighth floor, I could see that all alleys and side streets had been blocked by police cruisers. Interstate off-ramps were now heavily congested by drivers who were undoubtedly becoming more and more impatient as each second ticked away. I waited a few minutes by the window, and sure enough, the President’s motorcade sped up the exit ramp and on to Delaware Avenue. A small handful of protestors waited along the road — nothing new, it was the same small group that gathers every Friday and collectively get a chubby in their BVDs every four or five minutes when someone obliges their “Honk 4 Peace” and “Impeach Bush” signs. Personally, I feel the urge to swerve into the standing puddles of water on rainy Friday afternoons, but I usually stop myself. One day I plan to stand next to them with a sign that says, “I’m not with these lazy bums who would rather spend their time holding the same signs week after week rather than doing something effective to change the world.” But I digress.

The moment was fleeting, really. I didn’t expect anything earth-shattering, and I didn’t get it. All I got were a few long-distance photos on my camera phone. The motorcade was impressive, led by about a dozen motorcycle troopers and a few State Police cars. What seemed to be roughly every SUV in the state followed next, then a Cadillac — presumably the President’s ride — more SUVs, and then countless vans carrying reporters that numbered just slightly less than the population of Liberia.

I, for one, thought it was cool.

Other Ramblings

• I read an update about the President’s visit this morning that pointed out that, at 11:26a.m., “Police began shooing pedestrians …” I seriously did a double-take, thinking police began shooting pedestrians, and wondering why such a huge event hadn’t yet made Fox News.
• It snowed here again a few days go (Sunday, if I recall correctly). it stuck and we still have some small drifts and piles laying around. Ever since Winter showed up last week, it’s been coming on strong. in fact, we in the Northeast better break out the parkas on Friday, with a forecast high of 27. Farenheit.
• I skipped the State of the Union address last night. I needed a break from politics, so I opted for Dirty Jobs on Discovery instead. I’m an awful Republican.

We, the intense studiers of NASCAR — those of us who analyze the weekly results, who calculate points, who actually sit an question the questionable calls even weeks later — shuddered Monday afternoon. It was at the precise moment NASCAR CEO Brian France announced changes to the “Chase For The Nextel Cup” format that we all muttered a collective, “…and then?”

We expected something earth-shattering. Heck, we expected that the first time around and never got it. But this time we had faith, and our faith was then shattered. Up went the bonus to the race winners from 5 to 10 points. Out went the 400-point barrier for anyone outside 10th place to achieve in order to earn a berth in the playoffs — in three years, no one really even came close to it. And up went the number of eligible drivers from 10 to 12. This was due to the elimination of the 400-point barrier, according to NASCAR. No it wasn’t, it was because Tony Stewart was 11th last year after 26 races, and NASCAR can’t have one of its top 5 most marketable drivers outside the playoffs. It’s akin to Major League Baseball adding a rule that all but guarantees the Yankees a playoff spot every year (actually, by not instituting a salary cap, they’ve already done this — but I digress).

That’s not what we want. We want an overhaul to the system. We want something that gives more of a bonus for winning and less of a penalty for being the victim of someone else’s inability to control their car. We want a points cutoff somewhere around 25th spot — for one, it limits how badly the aforementioned stupidity of another driver can hurt someone who is otherwise doing well, and it also keeps wrecked cars from returning to the race just to run enough laps to move up one or two positions.

We want something that rewards both the hear-and-now as well as the long-term championship. Give drivers enough incentive to race hard for the win, but make long-term consistency a goal as well. Make the guys in 26th and 27th spot race as hard as the guy in second by keeping a consistent gap between positions, rather than the degrading gap we now have.

And the best change of all that can be made to the chase would be this: stop letting Brian France make the decisions. Give the job to committee of former competitors like Richard Petty, ned Jarrett and Terry Labonte — the people who have a vested interest in it beyond lining their own pockets with gold. Don’t leave those choices to some marketeer.

My beloved Steelers are without a coach no longer.

They announced today that former Vikings Defensive Coordinator Mike Tomlin will take the reigns of a team that has gone through two coaches in the last 38 years (the number of coaches that have come and gone with other teams in that time has got to be staggering) and is just one year removed from the Super Bowl. Bill Cowher amassed 166 victories in 15 season — more than 10 per year — in his stint as the Steelers’ skipper. That’s a tough act to follow, and I commend the Rooneys for taking their time.

I would never have called it this way. I predicted Ken Wisenhunt, and then Russ Grimm after Ken took the head coach job in Arizona. And because neither of them were ultimately promoted, the Steeler Nation is now up in arms, fearful of what may befall our mighty franchise under the guidance of such a young coach. I’ve got my worries too, but as I look deeper into this, I am beginning to feel more at ease with the decision.

First of all, he follows a trend: he is the fourth consecutive defensive coordinator to become the Steelers’ head coach. He’s the fourth straight guy not promoted from within the current ranks of the coaching staff. And his preferred defense, the 4-3 with elements of the Cover 2, was not the brainchild of Tony Dungy, who tends to get the credit — it came from Chuck Noll, the Steelers’ head coach for 23 years. And all he did was win four Super Bowls, more than any other head coach in history.

Many fans will yell about the fact that Tomlin’s pass defense was last in the league last year, and they’ll say the only reason they were first against the run was because it was so easy to throw against them. But consider that the team was under the guidance of first-year coach Brad Childress, and it was inherited from former Vikings coach Mike Tice, who allowed the team to turn into a monument of disrespect and a mockery of the NFL. He didn’t have all that much to work with. Oh, and he was the Defensive Backs coach for Tampa Bay, who won the Super Bowl under John Gruden.

So while we’ll all approach this as skeptics, we need to look back only to the beginnings with our previous coach, Bill Cowher: an unproven assistant who was young and hard-nosed, just like his successor. And Cowher came from the ranks of Marty Schottenheimer, who has spent his career being known as a choke artist who passes that trait to his subordinates. But we watched Cowher make the team a perennial playoff team and eventual Super Bowl victors.

So I offer this advice to those in the Steeler Nation: we are the fans, and our emotions rise and fall with the success of our team. We are the die-hards, the ones who have a passion for the game that rivals that of its best players. But the Rooneys are the true football guys. They’ve put together a staff that has been continually successful and has become just the third team to win five Super Bowls. They have a track record over the last 38 years of patiently finding a gem of a coach, so unless Mr. Tomlin proves us wrong, I say let’s give him not just the benefit of the doubt, but our full support. If we believe we cheer for a team of winners, then winners they shall be.

It’s snowing.

It’s snowing in Delaware.  The snow is sticking to the ground, the flakes are ginormous, and traffic has slowed to a crawl.  Better late than never: winter is here.

Until now, this “winter” has been nothing but a joke, mocking fall with jeers of, “I’m warmer than yooouuuu were!”  It’s really been that bad.  Temperatures sat in the upper 60s for days at a time, occassionally poking past 70 and — rarely — rubbing elbows with 80.  If I had to pick one word to describe winter up until this week, it would “seriously pathetic.”  See how bad it is?  I can’t even do it in a single word.

I wish there was a way I could ground winter for a month or so to make sure it sticks around.  Rest assured, on Groundhog Day (only in America would we have a day to celebrate an animal that does nothing constructive and doesn’t even make for good eating) I will be in Punxatawnee with a spotlight.  Dadgumit, that critter will see a shadow.

In other news, the Steelers are down to three candidates for their new head coach after offensive coordinator Ken Wisenhunt decided to impatiently jump ship for the Arizona Cardinals.  We Steeler faithful grudgingly wish him the best there — because he’ll need all he can get just to take that bastion of mediocrity to an 8-8 season.  Seriously, few teams have that many true studs, but the areas where they are lacking (for instance, the offensive line) are veritable black holes for football talent.  Arizona is where NFL careers go to die.  Just ask Emmitt Smith and Dennis Green.

Because I never mentioned it, you don’t already know that last month was a freakishly good month for InvertedMind, with over 7,500 unique visitors.  Of course, the vast majority of you are failing to comment.  Please, dear God, comment!