Oh That Keith Hernandez

Keith Keith keith. Whether or not you thought it was funny, you still suggested that women should be in the kitchen and not in the dugout. What year is this? Were you really suggesting separate but equal? We tried that and failed. It was called the Jim Crow laws.

People are defending him and saying that baseball is a man's sport. Well, that's true of professional baseball, but not necessarily true of baseball in general. One of the biggest problems I have with the statement is that if this was a woman's professional team, and a guy was in the locker room or dugout, it wouldn't be a problem.

Besides, if the San Diego Padres don't have a problem with a woman in the dugout, why should Keith care?

Damn, you Keith Hernandez. Next thing I know, you'll be asking me to help you move.

Silent in the Land of Smurfs

Is it me or does Tom Cruise look like a smurf in this picture? I know he's short, but it looks like Katie could eat him. Or that she's standing next to a cardboard cut out of Tom Cruise.

Tonight is a night that I've been dreading all week. It's event night for work. Meaning that while every one else gets to go home at the break of 5 p.m. and start their weekend, I will be at an event until about 11 p.m.

Yes, I'm whining. Mostly because this event was usually held on a Thursday night and therefore didn't cut into my weekend. But this year the thought was to hold it on a Friday night in hopes of getting a bigger crowd. That might've worked if the local hockey team wasn't in the Stanley Cup play-offs and the first home game wasn't tonight. As it looks, it might be a long and empty evening.

This is usually a pretty cool event with artists and musicians and a good time. It started out trying to get younger crowds that might've not been interested in a more expensive, high class event. Of course, that was before we hired a band that appealed to baby boomers and upped the ticket price to $75. No offense, but for $75 I'd better be seeing a professional athlete or a great musical act. Not so much eating cheese and crackers and watching some middle age dudes think they bridge the generation gap by playing "Bette Davis Eyes." Good tune and all, but totally not the point.

Okay, I'm done bitching now.

Chased by a Homeless Man

(Please note that the term "homesess" in this issue could actually mean crazy, vagrant or loitering extensively. Because I don't follow these people around, I have no actual idea if they have a home).

Isn't it funny that I'm always compassionate about homeless people when I don't have one standing next to me? I see a huddled up figure on the ground in a TV PSA and I feel like I need to help, but I come face to face with a homeless person, my compassion is no where to be found.

I had an incident on Friday that did little to endear me to my local homeless sect. My friend and I were walking down a little hill to get to parking lot in the middle of the day. A scruffy guy behind us told us to watch our step. That seemed nice enough, but then he started saying things about stupid fucking women wearing those damn shoes and started following us to our car. It was about the time that he muttered something about not being able to run very well in "those damn shoes" that my friend and I started scurrying quickly to the car. I got it unlocked,I got in and dropped my newspaper while closing the door. He picked up the newspaper just as I locked the doors. He was that close behind me. He started yelling that I left my newspaper and cursing and we were just freaked out.

What pissed me off most was that there was a group of five guys sitting 10 feet away watching the whole thing. However, I got the last laugh on them because the scruffy guy started chasing them next. Chef asked the obvious question: Why didn't you call the police? Well, my heart was beating too damn fast to think of anything but getting the hell out of there.

However, as I was getting away, I thought of how many times I'd had a run-in with a homeless person. Granted, it'd been a while, but I wonder if I'm some sort of easy target.

• In college, a crazy man took to telling me about how all the cool people died when they were 2-7. It was a long story that involved, Mae West, Jim Morrison, some Nazis and a Valentine's tryst with his boyfriend that went wrong. He told me this while I was working and came back two days later to run around the store chanting "I'm the whore of Babylon."
• One traveling man, who we called "crazy old homeless guy" was well known around Bloomington for his Members Only jacket and nomadic nature. He came into a store that I was working at alone, looked at some decorative oil lanterns we sold and asked how long it would take to burn the place down.
• One morning I was exceptionally hungry on my way to work and stopped by Burger King for a nice Croissanwich. With a car in front of me, a car behind me and my window rolled down from ordering, a homeless man came up and demanded money from me.

These are just the run-ins that have scared the bejeezus out of me. There are certain criteria that I use in order to give a panhandler money. It's very strict and it serves me well. I know it sounds harsh, but despite my bitterness, I do have a heart. I mean, I'm sure with the onset of debit cards, it's got to be HARD to ask for money. On about 9 out of 10 days, I wouldn't have any cash on me.

Anyway, if you feel like you're a homeless person magnet too, let me know. I'd like to think that I wasn't the only one out there.

My Sperm Carries Bayonets They do!

There are some great things about being a writer. One of which is finding pieces you don't understand and exploiting a line of it. The above is the aforementioned stolen line. I know what bayonets are. I am vaguely familiar with sperm. The image of the sperm carrying bayonets is a little too much for me to handle. Mostly because it brings up fears of unplanned pregnancy, but I digress.

Today I went in to get my eyes checked out. I knew it had been a while since I had, but it wasn't until my opthamologist's assistant said, "Have you experienced any new pains or irritations in your eyes since 2002?" that I realized it been a LONG time. I don't konw if it was because I was all dilated and stuff, but on my way out, I almost got hosed.

I went to "check out" aka pay up for the contacts that I had ordered. (My prescription is close to a blind person's and so they always have to order it). Two boxes of dailies for $100. What?!?!? My contacts before had only cost about $60 for two boxes. I just looked at the lady and told her to get my prescription because I could order them online. I know they hate that shit, but I saved about $20 and didn't have to pay for shipping. I hate going to the doctor. Any doctor.

Congrats to Swampy and Swampette for their new house in Hickory. I can't wait to see it. I hear it's made of cheese. Hopefully not Gouda.

Prentices made my day

Apparently the word "prentices" is another form of "apprentices," which is not only a former hit TV show and now a product-laden mess, but also the word that landed me 118 points on Scrabble Blast today.

I usually hit the msn games section at least once a day on a busy day, more if I'm slow and none if I'm really too busy to do anything but work. I can tell what type of day or mood I'm in just by looking at the words I've spelled in the list next to the board. Today's words included: groaning, whores, typical, slaughter, pensive, theater and wrenched.

Notice the use of a lot of suffixes. They add to point totals, people. The only thing about Scrabble Blast that pisses me off is that a truly brilliant word like "pensive" can actually yield fewer points than "eats" depending on how the bonus tiles fall. I'm using this as a metaphor for life.

Who is this?

If you're a girl, you said Tara Reid. If you're a guy, you're probably still looking at her tits. What's up with this dress?

I guess she's trying to prove that they were money well spent.

Just Live in Sin for a While, People!

Why do celebrities have a problem with living together for a while before getting married? If I had a huge fortune, a huge house and an unfinished prenup, I'd sure as hell pop the question "Will you live with me?" before "Will you marry me and then let our divorce play out in the press in two months?".

Cases in point:

• Chad Michael Murray and any cast member of 'One Tree Hill.' Before you make fun of me, I don't actually watch the show. He used to be on 'Gilmore Girls,' so that's how I've heard of him. Anyway, he married his co-star and then five months later she divorces him. Now he's marrying an extra that was on the show. Maybe his first wife didn't throw out the wedding dress and would let the new sucker borrow it.
• Eminem and his wife/ex-wife/wife/soon-to-be ex-wife. It's bad enough to marry once, but to marry then write about drowning your ex in the trunk of your car, then marrying her again and then three months later splitting again. That's just crazy.

There are many other examples of people being swept away by love (remember Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere--ew!), but I just don't get it. Living in sin isn't as bad as divorce. Perhaps we should have a 24-month waiting period for a marriage license.

Which Came First: Religion or the Religious Zealot?

Scientists from Northwestern studied the effects of prayer on people recovering from heart surgery. Some people were prayed over the others weren't. The effect? Nothing. And now some people are taking two stances on the situation: being pissed off or overexplaining.

The pissed off people are indignant as to think that anyone would dare to study God. However, these very people also attended some sort of theological training, which is studying basically God. Besides, wouldn't a little scientific data to back up the faith help those who were in limbo?

The other thing opponents are doing is overexplaining the study. It was wrong because of this reason or that reason.

This study only backed up what every sports fan already knew: If you're having heart trouble and you're counting on prayer to make it through (or to help your team score a few more points), you're usually SOL.