We‘ve got next to nothing to eat in this house right now. It doesn’t matter none too much to me, because, as we should all know by now, I like simplicity. I’m easily amused, and very predicable whereas my eating habits are concerned.

As I was set to leave the shop on Thursday, I called Wifey to see what she had in mind for supper. Whatever it may have been, I would have to snag it on my way home. As is usually the case, she wasn’t sure what she wanted. So, being the easily amused and highly predictable sort that I am, I suggested that I should stop at Pizza Bella on Hazle Street and grab some of that delicious Old Forge-styled pizza of theirs.

Some say, you are what you eat. And if that’s truly the case, left to my own design, I would be the equivalent of a walking, talking, cycling pizza. For me, after pizza, all other foodstuffs pale in comparison. It’s not even close. It’s pizza in a rout. Anyway, Wifey quickly nixed the pizza idea. Drat!

As I was making my way home, a WBPD police cruiser passed me on Hazle Street while seemingly trying to break the land-speed record. And with that, my right hand reached for the on/off knob of the police scanner. Police officers don’t stand on the accelerator unless something big is afoot. And as I arrived at a green light at the boulevard, still another police car with it’s lights and sirens firing away did it’s level best to turn onto Hazle at a fairly high rate of speed.

Being that things were still developing, the scanner provided little, if any details. All I heard was the 911 lady saying something about the “Hanover incident.” But when I arrived here at the modest adobe, what had transpired but minutes before became much clearer. Turns out, some guy marched into that same Pizza Bella location with a handgun in tow demanding the cash drawer be handed over to him. Basically, right when I would have been standing in that store waiting on my pizza if only Wifey had given the green light to my usual choice of suppers.

So, before you head off to whatever it is that you do everyday, give the significant other a kiss on the cheek, and give the rug rats a pat on the head. Because in this oft-lawless and violent world of ours, you never know when even stopping for pizza on the way home from work can become a life-altering or a life-ending event.

And if you partake of or trade in illicit, illegal substances, you are directing contributing to these sorts of crimes, these sorts of happenings that should probably not be happening at all. The dealers get all of the blame and nearly all of the scorn. But the users are equal partners, enablers, whereas societal decay is concerned.

Snort it up!

O.J. Simpson is finally facing some serious jail time. And all for a couple of souvenirs?

I swear, this dude is either pathological, or the cushy, pampered life he’s had as an all-star athlete has led him to mistakenly believe that nothing unfortunate could ever happen to him. And after being acquitted of two gruesome murders he obviously committed, you’d think the guy would have been just about the happiest man alive and be content with laying low, or being a good little boy altogether.

If you’ve got his rookie card, do what I did. Get rid of it.

Justice has been served.

I made my way through Blogalong Alley, only to learn that the blogosphere as a whole is purporting to being surprised that Sarah Palin didn’t get spanked by Joe Biden in Thursday night’s vice presidential debate. As if sharing the same talking points, as if on cue, they are all saying she “exceeded expectations.”

Despite not really wanting to, I watched the debate. And quite honestly, it was just about what I expected in that, Biden was polished, and Palin proved she’s not nearly as shallow or dumb as the pajama pundits were predicting she would be. Or more accurately, desperately hoping she would be.

In other words, their attempts at political prognosticating were all wet in the first place.

So what’s next? How best to help prop up the inexperienced charlatan promising the bottomless trillion dollar bag of freebies? How best to secure for yourselves that which you could not provide yourselves with?

And “too folksy?”

Are you people freaking serious?

A floundering Wall Street? Credit that has all but dried up and blown away? You’re asking me? Me?

Here’s a sample of the email I’ve been receiving this past week. This one came right after the House shot down the original bailout plan.

Enron? The writing was on the wall well before Enron ever reared it’s ugly, over-inflated head. Like I said, revisit the internet bubble during the Clinton years. How does producing nothing but a long trail of red ink translate into getting rich quick? Be it accounting tricks or what have you, something didn’t smell right way back then.

It’s funny watching the elected class smiling and patting themselves on the backs for supposedly fixing that which they alone allowed to get all broken in the first place. And wasn’t it the elected class that forced this sub-prime mess on the various lending institutions from the very get-go? And isn’t it the elected class that on one hand blames this financial pogrom on too much regulation, while the other hand demands much more and much more stringent regulation? If you ask me (which you did), I think the great majority of them know not of which they pontificate. We don’t need an overreaction to the left, or a knee-jerk bolt to the right. What we need lies in the middle there somewhere, a place that neither side of the political aisle seems capable of visiting.

And rather than demonizing the bankers and the like, which, sadly, the Democrats are already doing, why not round up the lot of them and do some sincere, investigative fact-finding. Why not offer people immunity for some clear insight from the people at the eye of the financial sh*t storm?

Who knows better how to set things back in the right direction? Nancy Pelosi? Arlen Specter? George Bush? Barack Obama? Or, how about some of the most veteran and most powerful CEOs from within the credit and banking industries and their whistleblower underlings?

And consider the following without considering a flying leap from atop a tall building. The elected dimwits are not talking about when this bailout plan works. Rather, they’re going on about if it works. If!?! That’s what the purchasing of $750 trillion worth of bad debts is promising us? If. If it works.

In my mind, this is all a slap in the face to the people like us who just try to do the right thing, but constantly end up sucking on insufferable nonsense such as this. After the government demanded they do it, lending institutions started providing mortgages to the people who could least afford them. And then, after the entire program blows up in their faces, the best that the elected morons can do is point a finger of blame at the other side. They did it. That’s all they’ve got. They did it, so make sure to reelect me. Career politicians working to maintain the status quo, the unchecked oligarchy.

The real fix to all of this, the only bailout plan necessary is term limits for the elected upper class. And anyone who says any differently is selling you yet another empty bill of goods. Term limits now!

These utterly clueless people have been toiling away in Washington D.C. forever, and what did they get us? In a word, they got us broke. What so once seemed so high and mighty, now seems so fragile and weak. Sorry, pajama pundits. The now bastardized and greedy bankers didn’t cause this all by their lonesome. The clueless, do-gooder career politicians did. They tinkered and tinkered and tinkered until the entire house of cards came crashing down.

And most astonishingly, they are even dumb enough to suggest that the purchasing of trillions of dollars in bad debts with eventually result in a financial windfall for the bedraggled taxpayers. Yep, we’re going to take piles and piles and piles of red ink and then show a profit before to, too long. That’s what they’re currently telling us. That this is all going to turn out real good for us.

Now, I’m no financial analyst by any stretch of even the most limitless of imaginations, but I’m thinking this would be a real good time to spread some organic lubricants over our sphincters so as to be safe from scaring, tearing and/or bleeding. While I may not be smart, I ain’t dumb neither.

And despite what these jokers are telling us of late, I don’t trust any of them. And just like our grandparents and great-grandparents were forced to do long before we were even thunk of, I’m of the opinion that the best, most safest place to put your future investments into is an aged Charles’ Chips can. You see, what they don’t know about they can’t steal from us.

And being that this buying of bad debts will not nearly turn out as wonderful and profitable as they are saying, who’s to say when you retire that you won’t have to cough up more than 20% of the proceeds of your 401K? Follow me , here. Since the ruling elected class always spends more than they have, and then always scheme about how to generate more revenue streams, how long will it be before some socialist Democrat proposes that we be forced--by law--to relinquish a higher percentage of the money they told us we needed to invest in our retirements? How long before they demand 30%, or even 40%?

Dude, those in Washington D.C. get richer and richer, and we get little more than excuses and blame games. They have the overstuffed campaign war chests, and we have the escalating energy costs. They have the limos, and we have the rising food prices. They have the nubile interns, and we have a sickened pop culture. They have the solutions (gasp), while we have a growing multitude of sticky fingers feeling around in our wallets, and without reprieve, regress or remonstrance.

If only two things come about as a result of this financial crisis, let’s hope for the precipitously expensive bailout to be wildly successful and for term limits to be imposed upon the elected folks who caused the entire mess by way of social engineering.

Them’s my thoughts. Be it as they may, that’s all I got.

Fantasy Football update.

So far so good. I’m still unbeaten at 4-0, and I’ve got some very favorable match-ups this week. Plus, I pulled the trigger on a heavy-hitter of a trade by relinquishing both Joseph Addai and Brandon Jacobs for a hobbled Brian Westbrook. I’m not counting on playing Westbrook this week, so his minor ankle injury means nothing to me. Sweet.

I’ve also amassed the highest score 3 weeks out of 4 so far. And with the highest score comes an additional 5 transaction credits for future player moves. Nice.

Of course, I’ve lost WR Anquain Boldin for a week or two with the sinus fracture. But, I‘m not worried because I‘ve been hanging on to an unknown second year receiver named Robert Meachem (New Orleans), who just happens to have 5 catches for a whopping 40.8 yards per catch. And with each passing week, he’s been getting more and more looks from a red-hot Drew Brees. What’s not to like with that? While Meachem may still be an unknown, he won’t be for too much longer. This kid has beyond blazing speed, cuts on a dime and has proven to be virtually unstoppable after the catch. Kudos to me for plucking this under-the-radar scouting gem.

And my one-week sleeper pick, something I usually shy away from doing? Well, with all-star WR Plaxico Burress serving a one-week suspension, I have to go with WR/PR Dominek Hixon. He’s awesome in the open field, has blinding speed and he and QB Eli Manning have been on the same page since the preseason got underway. In addition, Seattle’s secondary has been grossly under performing this season. I’m thinking that if Hixon doesn’t find the end zone at home today, he’ll come damn close once or twice. Nifty.

And that’s about it. At 4-0, I’m the man.

I did ask him about that. And I also worked the proper chain-of-command by touching base with this district’s councilman, Mike Merritt. I thought it was simply a matter of removing the burned-out hulk and then placing a lien on the property. But there’s more to this story than meets the eye.

Feeling stupid? Nope, not at all. The owner of that incinerated pile of rubble is very, very eccentric and very, very hard to deal with. And I’m told that this one is in the hands of the city solicitors, which doesn’t surprise me none too much.

I’ve had a few brushes with this women while visiting the kids and grandkids, and trust me, she is as loose a cannon as you could ever hope not to have to encounter. Honestly, I question her sanity.

I don’t know all of the legalese and such, but nobody; nobody that lives near it and nobody at City Hall is happy about that sizeable mess just sitting there and making the immediate area smell like smoke. Some have taken to using it as a landfill, and the pile is growing. My kid’s honey even has to shoo away little kids who can’t resist playing on or in Mt. Burnmore. One local wants to buy the property, but not until after the pile is removed. And another neighbor told me she was going to affix an “I Believe” poster to the mess right before calling WBRE TV and asking for some television coverage.

I don’t know what the scoop is, but I know they’re working on it. Or something like that.

And with that, I’d like to share with you something I am absolutely certain no one in Wilkes-Barre has ever heard before. Judging by the ill-tempered impatience I see, hear and read about on a weekly basis, I’m sure this pearl of wisdom taught to me by my beloved grandfather will provide an epiphany for many of the usual “activist” suspects in this town.

Patience is a virtue.

Thanks for the sh*t-eating comments, though. Stay in touch.

(???)

I know Democrats are all bed-wetting pussies. And I understand that Democrats know full well that Republicans are all bed-wetting pussies. Oh, and baby-killing paramilitaries.

But take a timeout from the rancorous politics, the rhetoric and the vitriol, and watch this funny as all hell Saturday Night Live parody of the Biden-Palin debate.

“A character imitating Joe Biden described Scranton as "a hell hole" and "the absolute worst place on earth" in a Saturday Night Live sketch parodying last week's vice-presidential debate.”

This is an 11-minute-plus classic:

We now return you to the regularly scheduled rancorous politics, the rhetoric and the vitriol. Enjoy, kiddies.

Later