The darnedest thing thing happened to me on Friday night. Everybody upped and went to bed and left me in charge of the remote control. So, I snatched that bugger up and headed straight to the sports channels. Hmmm, let's see here. What'd we got? A re-televised NFL football game from back in the era when the placekickers were all midgets from Finland. Next up? Poker. Poker is a sport? Really? If so, explain to me how one of the players might find their way to the disabled list? Do they have practice squads? Can we claim a poker player off of waivers? Is the staff and management of ESPN fuggin' serious? What's next? Electric football? How 'bout Uno? It's the end of the world I tell ya! It's the end of the world! Repent, redeem and rumble thee forth to the...

Next? Some folks barely able to speak English, i.e. Americans, complaining about the recently mandated NBA dress code. Next? More poker. And after that? Well, there was Comcast. But why in tarnation would I want to listen to hammerheads who know less about sports than my grandchildren happen to? And what happened to those friggin' sports tickers at the bottom of the screen? Remember when they displayed the results of every contest of note in a minute or two? These days, they compile every mundane and barely useful stat imaginable before getting onto the next final score about seven and a half minutes later. Used to be cool. Now they are annoying at best.

Enough with the sports. Or lack thereof. I'll try those high-priced premium channels.

Where to start? Should I scan the 37 HBO channels, or should I make my way through the 27 Cinemax conduits to nothingness? Nope, seen it. Nope, seen enough of it to know it sucks. Denzel Washington? Not! The guy is a walking, talking sleeping pill. Dolph Lundgren? You know that life is unfair when he stars in movies and you don't. Sylvester Stallone? I'd rather open a 100% pork hoddog factory in Baghdad than put myself through any of his barely audible mutterings. Wait, wait! We may have ourselves a winner. This is the flick where Meg Ryan casts off her perky, cutesy girl-next-door schtick and goes bad girl on us. Nifty.

Now, what I was expecting was some scheming, conniving and finally, a brutal murder or two. Or something or other. But what I got was not the bad girl I was expecting. In the first scene, her orifices are being explored while she talks dirty. In the next scene, her orifices are being explored again, while she talks filthy. In the next scene, well, you get the idea. Was this a smart career move? Gee, everybody adores my abject perkiness, so I'm gonna make me a seedy slut film? Whatever, man. That flick sucked. Literally.

I'll admit that it was interesting to see her naked for a whole, say, two minutes. The thing is, if you've seen one skinny chick butt-naked, haven't you pretty much seen them all? I guess she's pleasing to the eye and all. But seeing naked chicks in flicks is kind of like visiting Disneyland. Looks like a really nice place to visit, but I know I'm never going to get there. So what's the point of all this rampant nudity in movies anyway?

So Meg Ryan got naked and it stirred a reaction from deep within me. All of a sudden, turning that video advertising box off and going to bed sounded like the correct course of action. Nah, no more Sleepless in Seattle for this bad girl. More like Sleeping in Wilkes-Barre. Thanks, Meg. I needed that.

Right before I got around to locking the front door the tone sounded on the desktop scanner.

"Courthouse Square Towers. Reported structure fire...second floor. 2:56"

Rutro! I took the steps two at a time and glanced out of the bathroom window only to find a smoke plume that would get the craziest of the nuclear bomb scientists sporting a serious woody. Back down the steps I went and on came the portable scanner. At 3:00, (that's less than 4 minutes later for those of you in the Heights praying for a slow response time already) F-6 arrived on the fire ground and reported a multi-story fire and requested a 3rd alarm, 10 off-duty firefighters and for Kingston's ladder truck to be put on standby. Fully realizing what time it was, I quickly set off in search of a pair of socks and my well-worn cycling sneaks. Sorry, but I'm not going to miss the local version of Towering Inferno no matter who gets naked and sets off on an orificial adventure. Here we go! Socks, sneaks, camera, spare batteries, scuba knife, 16" baton...I'm rollin'.

And through the gears I sped. Up Butler, up Courtright and down Darling. I was kind of surprised by the traffic volume at 3 AM, which is a bit disconcerting when you ponder the ratio of sober to non-sober drivers out at such an ungodly hour. Whatever. Too late now. Anyway, I arrived at the Towering Inferno at 3:22 only to be greeted by nary a freaking flame. Needless to say, the Hose Dudes kicked ass once again. And I'm kinda pissed.

Listen to me tell it. We are never going to get any more cool fire pics posted at Firehouse.com if you guys stick with this silly and heroic notion of racing to the fire ground in various stages of undress and hard-charging it to the point of the fire, okay? That's where we're at, dudes. Pics of guys busting windows, and pics of guys changing air tanks ain't gonna cut it. I need some flames every once in while.

F-6 to interior: We're shutting down that five-inch line until Mark gets here. I've got an ETA of five minutes. Pull back to the lobby and have a smoke.

Interior to Command: 10-4, Chief. Got a light?

In all seriousness...atta-boys to all involved.

Then again, it seems that you saved the paper records of the outfit that is currently re-assessing this entire county. To some, atta-boys might not be in order in this case. For them, a few ah-sh*ts might have come to mind.

Quite by accident, I found this particular collection of inane postings of mine listed at a web site where struggling bloggers go to try to generate visits to their still undiscovered blogs. The much bally-hooed promise is, you join, they link to your site...and then thousands upon thousands of web surfers will find your insightful site and then stand in line to partake of your absolute genious. If only.

I fail to understand how this collection of madness ended up being listed there, but the truth of the matter is, once you hook-up with this sort of site, the only visits you're going to receive is from the spammers lining up to fill your e-mail inbox with stuff you need not. It does happen. I have no idea how my site came to be included in this mix, but I really don't care. Besides, maybe somebody from the Falkland Islands will find my site, link to it and turn me into the islands' biggest celebrity since Lady Thatcher whooped those Argentines into bloody submission. Ya never know.

Or maybe the owners of the New York Times will find my site, fire Maureen Dowd and hire me to bash Bush from here on out. Can you even imagine getting paid for something as easy and mindless as bashing the president non-stop? Screw Powerball! Sign me up. This war is illegal, immoral and fattening. That is, unless, of course, a Democrat is prosecuting it.

I could set those MoveOn.org spewing moonbats all afire when my Earth-shattering expose about how a "BIG BASEBALL" man in the White House sent ticket prices spiraling and conspired to fix the last two World Series'. It turns out, "Scooter" Libby told Robert Novak that Dick Cheney has been rooting for the curses of the Sox (red, white and black) to end for as long as he can remember. This scandal goes right to the top. This is what can happen when we put a BIG BASEBALL crony in the White House. Call Howard Dean and get the telephone number for Grand Juries R Us. Yep. Get Ted Kennedy on the scandal hotline and tell him that the Congressional Bureau of Investigation has a budding scandal on it's hands.

Maybe the high-falootin' power brokers in Washington D.C. will run across my site, and quietly go about setting U.S. policy based solely upon my groundbreaking opining. What says Mark in Wilkes-Barre? Do we nuke Tierra Del Fuego, or not? Whoa! We've got a thumbs up. Release the launch codes and get those bombers airborne. Defcon 12!!!

What to do about France? Hold on, I'm looking at Mark's site as we speak. Woo Daddy!!! He says we should send in ten divisions of Boy Scouts, occupy the entire place, and then beat up the stinky un-shaved chicks and rape the stinky shaved apes that somehow pass as being guys. Tell Norfolk we are code red! Somebody get CENTCOM on the line.

And China? Mark sez we should air-drop copious amounts of illegal narcotics over the major population centers, and then put pressure on the Chinese consulate to allow a 365-day whirlwind tour of that massive country by Metallica. And he also sez if that doesn't work, orchestrate a swift coup d'etat and install Lawrence Taylor as their new leader for life. As a last resort, we could bombard that country with Barbara Streisand tunes from ships just off the coast until the mass suicides break out. I think this guy is on to something, sir. Should we re-direct the carriers? Should I appraise PACCOM of the latest intel, sir?

Russia? This is brilliant, sir. Mark sez we should just stand pat and allow that aging population of theirs to drink themselves to death. The Vodka plan. And if that doesn't kill 'em all off, those "peaceful" Chechens will kill the rest. Who is this guy?

Okay, okay! I'll stop already. This sort of tomfoolery was to be expected being that I'm completely sober. Sorry. Won't happen again.

The thing I found to be unique about this site's having been listed at PleaseVisitMyLameSite.com was the following warning attached to the link to all of my borderline insanity:

I was fargin' stunned when I saw that. Partial fuggin' profanity? What in the muck is that? What'd those sockcuckers do, create a brand new category all because of my f>cking muckity-muck being passed off as coherent thoughts? What a pile of funking dog sh*t, man! There's no profanity on my fother-mucking site!

I'm gettin' a bad f>ckin' rap, man. I feel...well, I feel f>ckin' violated. I should f>ckin' sue somebody.

I'm shocked. I'm stunned. I'm hurt.

F>ckers!!!

Yesterday was, like, the perfect day. No, I'm not going to go on and on about bicycling again. No, yesterday was perfect in a football kind of way. I snagged the following blurbs from Giants.com:

Upon Further Review

Will the Giants capitalize on their strong start and continue to improve as the season progresses, or will they stumble as they did last year? On a conference call today, coach Tom Coughlin expressed confidence that this team will have a more productive November and December – provided the players continue to display the same work ethic they’ve exhibited thus far.

Final:Giants 36, Redskins 0

Wellington Mara had to be smiling. After enduring a wrenching and emotional week in which Mara, the Giants’ patriarch, passed away, and two days after attending his funeral, the Giants put one on of their most dominant performances in recent memory. They crushed the Washington Redskins, 36-0, in Giants Stadium. After the game, John Mara, the team’s Chief Operating Officer and the oldest of Wellington Mara’s 11 children, was given the game ball.

First of all, if you're an NFL fan, you have to feel a sense of loss whereas Wellington Mara's passing is concerned. The guy was there when the NFL was first formed. And he's been there ever since. We're talking eight decades here. In all of American sports, his was a unique journey. Plus, the old dude bled NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS BLUE!

So, what's not to like? But back to that perfect day bit.

Ah, that most perfect of days. First, the Giants crushed those rival Redscums. Hey, Gibbs, stick to NASCAR, why dontcha!?! Lavar, who? Get that #56 off of his jersey. He's not worthy!

Then, we throw in the fact that those big bad Eagles went and had their heads handed to them, and I'm ready to do just a bit too much weekend, if you know what I mean. Pull the meat thermometer out and stick a fork in them. They are done.

Bartender! A round of Chunky Soup on me!!!

Kayak Dude made me aware of a new flick all about the Susquehanna that WVIA has produced. I wasn't invited to the big premiere in Lewisburg, but I'll be watching for it's television broadcast. Believe it or not, spending a Summer day paddling away on the river with Kayak Dude is an education unto itself. I'm thinkin' Paul Kanjorski should give it a try once.

As KD always sez: "Dams degrade rivers."

And I sez: "Damn stupid policies, damn stupid legislation and damn stupid projects degrade our quality of life."

We're going to dam sewage outflows???

I need a freakin' beer.

My turn.

Yeah, sure, I love you, too. Right, right. I love what you did with your hair. Yeah, supper was great and the sex has never been better. But...they're about set to start the second half and I can't watch the game with you in the way. Go sew something, or something. Je...suz!!!

Chicks, man.

It may just be me, but I have a problem with handing out peanut butter cups to trick-or-treaters in excess of six-feet tall. I thought this Halloween gig was for the rodents. The scrubs. You know, the kids too small to get on the Super Duper Looper. In my denuded mind, these "kiddies" are supposed to be sporting fake moustaches, not real moustaches.

Like I said, it may be me. But I gotta tell ya, you'd never catch me going door-to-door for a few Gummi Bears when I was a lurking menace of, say, 16-years-old. Sure, I was prone to begging for goodies on occasion. But they were always of the carnal variety. C'mon baby...you're the one. (Wink, wink.)

It got to point here tonight I told wifey to start dropping cans of beer into their little candy bags. Screw it already. They look to be of legal age to me. Besides, it'd make for a safer Halloween anyway. The last time I checked, nobody had ever inserted a pin, a needle or a razor blade into a frickin' can of Budweiser. Then again, if the parents get to raiding the goodie bags again before signing off on them, they'll likely grab the Buds and leave the Smarties, Razzles and crunch bars for the kids. I'm thinking this is a win/win situation for the kids no matter how it plays out.

What'd you think? Next year I'll swing that door open, say a few niceties and let it fly: Bud? Or Bud Lite?

I'm gonna go watch the Steelers' quarterback attempt another dozen passes or so.

Later