TV silence please

The Chargers were on Monday Night Football this week. That was fine. No problem there. In fact, I relished the opportunity to watch the Bolts, live in big-screen TV glory while perched on the edge of my couch (east facing southern end, of course).

For the masochistic aspect, it was great. I don't get to watch the Bolts much on the tube out here, so when that chance pops up I'm like a mousy accountant in a Dominatrix's lair - so excited I almost burst at the first sight of LT.

What troubled me about this broadcast, though, were the announcers.

Let me set the record straight: Announcers are like those sweat gnats that buzz around your face after a hard day of work in the sun. They hang around your eyes, rest on the ear hair, and in the end annoy enough to prompt ceaseless flail as you hope to catch one and squash their heads until white puss leaks out.

Wife tells me I should mute the tube and add my own soundtrack. But, as stated in paragraph two, I'm a masochist. Slap my ass, whip my gonads with seven-tailed, and I'll squeal with agonized pleasure.

But the Monday night crew took it a step further. They talked incessantly about the Chargers. Talk is hardly accurate, in fact, they praised the Chargers (except when Phillip Rivers - the Chargers big mouth QB - talked shit to the Bronco QB, but that's not the point) for their turnaround this season and hypothesized that they could give the Indy Colts and the New Cheatland Patriots a run in the playoffs.

"Shut up!" I yelled at the TV, "No one needs to know they're playing better." Wife poked her head out of the office (where she was exiled because the Bolts were winning), but quickly figured I was just talking to the voices in my head again. She's used to my inner-monologue rants.

But the Monday night announcers are just the tip of the iceberg. I'm seeing news about San Diego on every corner of the Internet now. From the front page of Google News to the Canadian Press to the Los Angeles Times. Hell, I bet if I went to Redbook or Christianity Today, they'd have eight-page spreads about the Bolts peaking at the right time. Igor Olshansky is probably the centerfold Playgirl, for all I know (and I don't ... really ... how would I know?).

What happened to the days when I'd be out in my Charger gear and folks would ask me if San Diego still had a team? I miss those days. Anonymity is a very underrated trait. Now the nation's eyes are hovering over Jack Murphy Stadium, and the gaze is as unnerving as a creepy old guy at a playground park.

Can't the football-watching world just leave the Bolts be? Watch the Cheatriots go undefeated. Laugh at Raiders ineptness. Ask Michael Vick about dog handling. There's nothing to see in San Diego, just let the Chargers play under a curtain of media indifference. Like a traffic accident on the 805 freeway, there is nothing to see here. Move along please. They don't need the added pressure. I don't need the added pressure. My ulcerated gut doesn't need the pressure.

But it would be cool if they shocked the talking head pundits on NFL Network and ESPN (the Worlwide Leader in ruining Sports) and came out to Glendale, AZ, for a certain game on Feb. 3.

Me, and four other Charger fans would be exceptionally cool with that.

Tradition ... TRADITION!

Christmas and tradition go together like a turkey dinner - you eat until gravy and green beans seep out your ears and your nose is clogged with yams and marshmallows. There are so many Christmas traditions that it's easy to feed into the gluttony.

As a kid, my clan wasn't much different than anyone else around the world. Lil' Sis and I woke up with the roosters, burst through the parental units' bedroom door, pealed their eyes open, farted on their heads and decreed it was time to get up so we could score our sweet loot. When the teen age years hit, the roles shifted: Ma and Pop would storm into our rooms at the crack of 10 a.m., yank the sheets off our bed, farted on our heads and decreed us to be up, dressed and prepared to open presents in T-minus 10 minutes. No matter the age, we had to start with stockings, so we could unwrap our new tooth brushes and deoderants because Ma was always under the impression we only brushed our teeth once a year - on Christmas, hence the new teeth scrubber - and smelled like apes.

Once the Chia Pets, scratch-and-sniff ties and videos on the mating habits of the Northern Egrets were unwrapped the next clan tradition began - the wrapping paper fight. To hell with the new gear and electronic doo-dads, it was better to shove brightly colored (likely toxic if ingested) paper in each other's face until someone passed out from suffocation. Call it our own survival exercise, you never know when you'll be attacked by a Christmas wrapping paper wielding mugger in a dark alley on Christmas night.

Wife's family has their own traditions, and apparently paper fights in the living room were never part of their clan lore. This I learned during my first Christmas when I chucked a tigthly balled hunk of wrapping paper at Sister-in-Law-to-be that smacked her between the eyes (a declaration of war in my tribe that would be bring instant, jihad vengeance on my nation). She looked at me like I was evil incarnate, and I could see she was internally debating whether to take back the two seasons of Seinfeld DVDs, or worse yet, slice open my jugular with disc one of season one.

They are also a open-presents-on-Christmas Eve family. I come from a open-presents-on-Christmas morning clan. That takes a little to get used to. But after throwing back a few more brandy-and-coffees than the body can handle on Christmas Eve, that's a welcomed tradition. The last thing a hangover needs on Christmas morning is the constant sound of rips and shreds, or the sights of electric red and green plaid paper which can be a trigger for fluid expulsion in the In-Laws waste disposal center. Never an enduring trait on Christmas morning, especially when the afternoon at their house consists of Italian potluck whereupon we pile an assortment of red-sauce pasta delights on our plates and open our pie holes to the Christmas flavors of marinara and mozarella cheese. Throw in some meatballs, spicy sausages and eggplant and chicken parmigiana and this Christmas tradition is something I count the days off the calendar for beginning Dec. 26.

With it being Christmas Eve last night, we opened up gifts at the In-Laws' compound. As we sat there tearing through Christmas greed, I couldn't help but think this would be the last Christmas on our own - not that there's anything wrong with that - and that traditions will change next year as the Freeloader will garner the attention as we watch it's eyes grow with wonderment at the lights and colors and sounds of Christmas. There's nothing better than watching a kid's face soak in Christmas.

That fact was cemented last night when I opened one box from the In-Laws. It contained four books that appeared to be charity book sale rescues, when in fact they came from the In-Laws private collection. Two were for Wife and two were for me. One was my Dad-in-Law's book when Wife was born, given to him from his In-Laws, and the other was Wife's grandfather's book for when Mom-in-Law was born. It was maybe one of those most touching Christmas gifts I had ever received, and something as her note said could be given to my Freeloader when they present me and Wife with our Grand-Freeloaders.

With us past the halfway mark of unleashing a new hellion upon the world, this Christmas has taken on a new, special meaning that will be surpassed by next year's Christmas as we watch our Freeloader roll in wrapping paper and chew on ribbon until Wife yells at me and pulls the kid away from it's new toy and plops it in front of the real gifts.

And new traditions will begin.

I expect the fart-head wake up calls to begin in year two. I would be disappointed if they didn't.

Merry Christmas from us to you.

Why are you hiding?

“Come here, honey, I think you can feel the Freeloader.”

That’s how it starts every night. There I am, bundled like an Eskimo on a fishing boat in the Artic Circle because my nuts have been freezing to my inner thigh during the latest cold spell here in the Valley of the Sun, knowing if I leave my blanketed cocoon of warmth I could lose some extremities to frostbite. But I trudge over to her side of the couch anyway, lay my hand on her tummy and wait for the kid to paw back.

“No, you have to push harder.”

Push harder? I ask myself. “If I push harder, the kid it’ll get shoved out the other exit,” I tell her, believing it sound logic. If you push too hard on my gut I guarantee you’ll get a present, too. That’s just physics.

“OK, well it stopped moving around.”

“Uh-huh,” I try not to sound skeptical, but you can only piss on my leg for so long before I realize it’s not raining.

Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait to feel the freeloader squirming around like a sea cucumber in my hands. However, as things stand today I can’t help but feel like a visitor at the zoo – every time I come by an exhibit a creature is sleeping of just sitting placidly looking at us curious homo sapiens, and when I’m not around the creatures are doing everything you’d expect them, from fighting with each other to humping like sex-starved humans. That’s how this kid is, it just waits until I’m gone before turning back into John Travolta or Uma Thurman and dancing the twist inside Wife’s belly.

It’s to the point now where I think it might be a conspiracy between Mom and Freeloader. “When he gets over here, you go back to sleep,” Wife likely tells her tummy. Freeloader flutters and kicks in agreement. I come over, and the Disco Inferno shuts down as if I was a cop called to stop a high school party.

“No, no, come back, it’s moving again,” she says, keeping her little joke going between her and fetus.

If I was more perceptive I would pick up Wife’s sly smile or maybe a wink she passes down to the freeloader. But I’m a dude, which means if you want my attention you better smack me in the melon with a ball-peen hammer.

I’m not asking for much. I don’t need the freeloader to grab my hand and yank me through the uteran wall. Maybe just a nudge, a series of taps to say “hey, I’m in here working on my curve ball and studying pitch recognition charts.”

Is that too much to ask?

Just as long as I don’t see this molded against the skin of Wife’s baby-holder:

'roid wage

Kenesaw Mountain Landis - Aug. 3, 1921:

"Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player that throws a ball game, no player that entertains proposals or promises to throw a game, no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are discussed, and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever again play professional baseball."

Bud Selig - Dec. 13, 2007:

“So long as there may be potential cheaters, we will always have to monitor our programs and constantly update them to catch those who think they can get away with breaking Baseball's rules. In the name of integrity, that's exactly what I intend to do."

Two quotes about cheating in baseball.

Two very different circumstances.

Which is worse? Players losing games purposely with the promise of a hefty paycheck at the end of the day or players taking drugs that are designed to build muscle faster, aid in injury rehabilitation, which in the end helps their team win ballgames?

I’m a baseball traditionalist as much as any stogey-chomping 80-year-old at Yankee games – I still despise Interleague play (mostly because the Dodgers have lost 13 of their last 20 to the Angels), but the wild card is growing on me – so I get that the hallowed numbers of baseball are sullied by this steroid era. But were the pitching numbers tainted when the mound was a few inches higher in the late 1960s? There are a handful of spitball pitchers in the hall of fame, should they have asterisks next to their names? Gaylord Perry (yeah, that’s his real name – go ahead, giggle, I do the same thing when his name is mentioned) has admitted to cheating and he’s in the hall. He used to put everything on the ball to make his pitches dance - vaseline, spit, and scuff it. If he didn’t think he’d get chucked from a game, I’m sure he’d doctor the ball with his own poo to get a batter to swing and miss.

So, if 80-or-so players in the late 90s and early 2000s felt they needed an edge and spiked up before game time to help them play better, who am I to say that’s wrong? Hell, the owners knew what they were doing, the fans knew what they were doing. And you could damn well bet the sportswriters knew what the players were doing. But at least they weren’t messing with my trust that every game is being played on the up and up.

Man, baseball used to be so much easier when we were kids, wasn’t it?

Today's post is brought to you by the letter A

If I had a nickel for every time I heard "Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one," I could quit the prison work camp and live out my dream of being a bum who sits on the couch drinking Newcastles brought to me by my dwarf waiter and living from "Law and Order" rerun to "Law and Order" rerun on TV.

Some folks pass the day digging ditches, shoveling cow poo on a midwestern dairy farm, or crab fishing in Dutch Harbor, Alaska; I pass the day reading and editing letters to the editor in a senior-based community (that would be me – the editor. Can you believe I have a position of such authority? Yeah, me neither!). After reading a dozen or so each day it’s a wonder these folks don’t self-combust from their balled-up hate. Hell, maybe their little hate engines, fueled by early-bird dinner buffets, keep them going like blue-haired Energizer bunnies.

Some days I laugh at that their crazy conspiracies and half-brained (the other half is being sliced and diced by dementia, I’m sure) logic while wading through hip-deep grammatical errors that makes their points even murkier (and they say our English is bad. Some of these folks may as well be speaking in tongue clicks after reading reading their mangling of the English language). Other days there isn’t enough beer in Arizona to chase away the thoughts that these whackos who write in may be in the lane next to me as I drive home, likely packing heat. The happy balance are those days when I receive letters for publication that thanks Hal and Edna Jones for finding Harriett’s wallet, which she left in the Safeway shopping cart and didn’t realize it until she arrived home. God bless them for finding it, the writer says (God is big to the blue hairs, they have Him blessing everything from the green grass in neighborhood’s medians to the local grocery store stocking the shelf with their favorite diuretic).

But if you want to see me go editorial – much like going postal except we hurl computer equipment at passing golf carts – whine about me and the two prison guards I answer to cutting your precious words as if they came etched from some golden tablet.

We have guest columnists, which is really an unfortunate title because it gives these amateur Erma Bombecks (they have double the sass and twice as little talent) a head the size of a Lincoln Town Car. They fall into two categories: far left (religion should only be used in the bed room during kinky sex acts – they are liberals who lived in the ‘60s - as in “Oh God, yes!”) and far right (George W. Bush is the Messiah and all Muslims should be roasted on a spit in his name). There is no gray area, no demilitarized zone, and no soft underbelly for one side to scratch so both are happy. And within those two groups I have two styles of writers: 1) Their words are gifts to our little prison fish wrap and they should not be touched under any circumstances, the penalty being outed by said columnist to his/her neo-political blue-hair coalition; 2) The topics they plan to discuss in future columns are interesting, so much so that they like to keep me on the phone for 45 minutes while a mean dump screams to be released from my ass because they always call when I have a fire in the hole.

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from Category 1/Style 1. I grant OpEd space – fancy prison fish wrap lingo for opinions/editorials – to a handful of these red asses who believe it’s their birth right to fill our one page of opinions with long-winded, nonsensical rantings about how the other side of the political spectrum is trampling on their cookies and pissing in their Cheerios. Never mind that our audience is seniors who have to power up magnifying glasses to read our fish wrap; glasses, by the way, big enough to burn their initials into Uranus if they hit the sun at just the right angle. Anyway, this e-mail was addressed to the columnist (we’ll call him Mr. Fathead Gasbag), obviously he didn’t want me to see who he rolls with, and huffed and whined and cried that after I asked him to cut the prison guard I answser to had the nerve to cut more.

I checked the warden’s name to make sure Fathead Gasbag didn’t buy the paper over night. He didn’t, which means WE CAN DO WHATEVER THE HELL WE WANT, bucko! At the bottom of his message, he included my note that stated if he had questions, he should talk to my bossman. I guess that was tantamount to shitting on his car hood because he felt his cache of opinion submissions meant nothing to our prison fish wrap (“Winner, winner, chicken dinner buddy, your opinion means about as much to me as air freshener in the men’s room!” Is what I typed … in a mental e-mail). Hell, the douche even produced stats: 60-whatever total, XX of which were ginormous, pointless, so boring myself – and readers too, I’m sure – would rather shove spoons through my ear hole. At the end of his written-word whine, he said he might rethink writing to our fish wrap. Whereupon I shouted “Hallelujah!” stripped down to my skivvies and danced a tarantella on my desk.

Since that note came I’ve pondered how to handle Fathead Gasbag. Tying him up, drizzling honey over his raisin-contoured nut sack and unleashing flesh-munching ants on the his fogey smorgasbord didn’t have any appeal. Golf cartjacking him on his way to the knee doctor or hip doctor or dick doctor or whatever the hell doctor 70-year-olds visit on a Thursday morning and driving him out to the middle of the desert where there are a lot of empty holes – if you know what I mean.

Instead, I decided to write my own Letter to the Editor, except this is a Letter to the Reader with a target audience of one.

Dear Letters to the Reader:

You can go to hell (that’s right, I might not let you right hell in the fish wrap, but I can damn well write it my letter to you, schmucko). No passing go. No collecting $200. If you don’t like our editorial decisions at our fish wrap here’s a suggestion, convert your 1-bedroom, old geezer-smelling condo into a pressroom complete with a typewriter because I’ve seen how you’ve finger-banged computers and trust me, you’re better off with a Royal than a PC. Then untie the purse strings and buy your own press. They run about $100K, so you might have to lift the mattress up to get at your secret savings – a word of warning, don’t mess up the hip when you lift that urine-soaked mattress of yours. And presto, you have your own damn newspaper. If you want to write a 1,600-word opus on why President Bush is really an alien from the planet Conservo sent here on a recon mission to score some hot, drunk coeds, go right ahead. I won’t stop you. It’s your fish wrap. If you want to jerk off onto page A4 and leave your cottage cheese for the readers in your nursing home, go right ahead. Who am I to stop you? I’m just a prison work camp employee charged with reading your senile ramblings.

And for the record, that’s 1,256 words, Fathead Gasbag.

Dream a little dream

When it comes to dreams, I'm a senile old coot who can't remember where he left his hemorrhoid cream let alone a dream that started airing at 3:30ish a.m. So when I remember what story my brain felt like airing I'm compelled to jot the mental film down or at least tell Wife while get ready for a day at the prison work camp and she's working hard for that last hour of sleep before she has to get ready for her prison work camp.

She's a dream savant. Wife will recall dreams from 10 years ago and retell them with spooky accuracy, right down to what color toes the three-toed whachamajig nails were as it chased her through Disneyland's "It's a Small World" while all the little children pelt her with Gummy Bears and sing "It's the End of the World (as we know it)."

That's the kind of things Wife dreams about. It makes me wonder what her pre-natal vitamins are laced with.

As for myself, I dream about football players wrapping their underwear around my pointy head.

I'm in a coffee shop with my buddy, the Crazy Asian, and we're talking Charger football and this weekend's game. In line to order are three or four behemoth human beings in Tennessee Titan uniforms - the Chargers opponents this Sunday. Because my mouth gets me in trouble in both real life and my dreams, I say within earshot of the Titans that "they suck, the Chargers have nothing to worry about."

"Dude, you shouldn't have said that," Crazy Asian says and points behind me at large masses of muscle and flesh that are the football players.

"Oh, I'm sure they didn't hear me," I turn, and they stare me down. I guess they heard. So I do what any red-blooded, courageous American male would do in this situation. I ran like the roadrunner.

From behind me I heard, "get 'em!" and figured it was on like Donkey Kong. I was going to be a Michael melt once these land masses caught up with me.

I ducked into a bathroom and hoped for an empty stall to hide in, but my typical luck follows me into sleep and they're all locked. Meanwhile standing in front of me are three Tennessee Titans, one of which is holding underwear - tighty whitees - likes it a leather strap, pulling it taut so it makes a popping sound each time. This wasn't going to end well. They admonished me for saying such things. And since I often stand by my word, I told the guys they obviously misunderstood what I meant when I said, "The Titans suck." They didn't buy it and quickly levied my punishment, despite my pleas and kicking and squirming like a pinned baby seal receiving medicine.

Let's just say the underwear didn't smell exactly like roses. It was more like the fertilizer used on the soil around the roses, except it smelled more like poo than dirt.

After the incident they let me up and we started talking football. I agreed they were much better than I was giving them credit for, and they said the Chargers would be a tough matchup.

Then Wife woke me up.

Maybe I should stay away from those 9 p.m. Jamba Juice runs just before bedtime, or mix the drink with some Vodka to really spice up the dreams.

Art of noise

Our DVD player worked about as well as a chili-fed baby.

The unit was nearly six years old, and I only know that because it - along with the speakers - were a wedding present from my aunt and uncle (the latter of which was my drinking buddy in Vegas, but that's a another trip down repression road that will be saved for another day).

Last year, the Vomitter (our DVD player) prepped us for parenthood in its own plastic and silicon way. Just like a freeloader fed mashed apricots and turnips, the machine would spit back the DVD we desired to view. We'd put a movie in, and five seconds later after much whirring, clicking and grinding (in my vast electronic experience, grinding is always - ALWAYS - bad) before the unit decided it didn't want to play that movie. Apparently, the Vomitter and Wife had something in common - neither of 'em liked my movies. Pulling again from the vast electronic gizmos FAQ stored in my bean, I determined there was a complicated fix - pull out the DVD, blow into the gizmo, reset the DVD and close the tray slightly harder for it to "take." At first, the Vomitter would play the DVD on the second try, thanks to my Mr. Fix-it expertise. However, second tries turned into third tries, to fourths, fifths, ninths, 14ths until Friday night when it took us longer to get the movie going than actual viewing time.

That's when Wife charged me with an important quest. One that would reshape the Melissa family history and bring happiness to our kingdom once again. Research new movie-playing gizmos to replace the Vomitter. Doling out cash on any electronic gadget is Mardi Gras and Fourth of July all rolled into on in our household since Wife keeps our cash and credit cards in a secret underground bunker where she only knows the location and combination to enter. I have to fill out fund request reports (similar to TPS reports) to get a little green for the weekend. Questions like "How do you plan to spend $_______?" "Where do you plan to spend $_______?" And "Will strippers be handling any portion of the $_____?" Then those requests are sent to the governing board, which I assume is comprised of her and the pooches.

So, when she came home with my credit card in hand I snatched it from her fingers like a trained Dolphin and headed off to the store. Afraid I'd litter our TV room with more gadgets than just the DVD player, Wife leashed me up and accompanied me to the store. That wasn't a bad idea on her part, though, because I would have came back with more than just a DVD player. Instead of me refilling her fifth Tequila Sunrise of the morning ("because the baby is thirsty") I'd have our new robotic housekeeper/nanny, Hilda, do the dirty work - a little gift to my Snookums for pooping out our first born because I'm nothing if not all heart. Hell, if there was a electronic gizmo to adjust my nuts I'd buy that, too.

We wander into the local computer geek store and find the shaggiest 15-year-old store employee to help us find the unit we need. The home theater are is littered with other suckers like Wife and I, but we trudge on and find ourselves a kid with the constellation Orion in whiteheads pockmarking his forehead to help us. We ask him a few easy questions and he answers in a language that I'm sure only computers and various electronic gadgets can understand. I just want to part his mop-top hairdo so I can see his Red Bull drunk eyes and yell, "Quit speaking Klingon or you'll end up a dateless Halo junky who'll end up marrying your game avatar. Now speak to me like I'm 4." Geek speak pricks my ear drums and makes my sphincter pucker, and when I told the voice-cracking punk that, he dumbed down his sales spiel so I and my unborn freeloader could understand.

As it turns out, and just like the little geek said, we can't just buy the DVD player to go with our speakers. We have to buy a new system. I'm not sure why, I didn't understand what the geek was telling me, all I knew is that the unit currently on top of our TV was nothing more than an extremely large paper weight (or a weapon against home invaders that I can lift and throw it before the HI hides behind a couch).

Once again, hosed by the Japanese man. It was much easier to hate 'em when they were just bombing our boats. Now they screw us over, but we don't mind as much because we can still watch our Full House DVDs while getting jobbed.

I tried researching the best home theater systems for our us, but after reading all that electronic mumbo-jumbo my eyes went crossed and gray matter oozed out my left nostril. So with the little information I retained, I tried to glean what I could from the salesdork and the stickers on the shelves and we came away with a discounted higher end model. Discounted because the sucker came back without a box. Discount and high-end model spoke to Wife, so she snapped open her key card, checked the verification code and then handed me the credit card to buy our new DVD unit.

It took just six-and-a-half hours to install, and finally at 2 a.m. I opened the DVD tray, and played our first movie on our new system - "Raiders of the Lost Ark" - at the top volume level so folks in Prescott - 70-some-odd miles away - would wake up and think a giant boulder was barreling down the mountain aimed for their little hamlet. That's how loud this system is. I get wood just thinking about it. I got wood listening to it last night, but I think that was due to the sound vibrations causing light friction between my junk and my skivvies.

And with that, I'm heading off to test the new gizmo again with a movie that will utilize every sound and color that little processor can handle - "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

Doggies read it for the articles, too

We get an insane number of catalogs. You can't wander seven feet in the Compound without one catching your eye. They're everywhere, like mosquitoes hoping to latch onto your wallet and bleed the few (and I mean few) dollars you earned at whatever prison work camp you're stationed at.

You name it, we get. JC Penney, Ikea, NFL Shop, MLB Shop, Sharper Image, something called Oriental Trading Company which I thought was an adoption rag produced by Angelina Jolie; all of which hock shit I wouldn't pelt fourth-graders walking on my front yard with. Then, because Wife is a truly wonderful woman who puts my pubescent thoughts ahead of her own maturity or good sense, in comes the Victoria Secret and Fredricks of Hollywood catalogs. Amen! Christmas comes early to the Compound. Of course, I diligently ask Wife whether she wants it before I look toss the smut rag decorated as a catalog in the recyclable bucket.

But those all pale in comparison when what did my wondering eyes see Wednesday but the holy grail of smut 'logs - Bunny Shop. My man Hugh Hefner, who made the Reagan '80s a little more palatable with a wonderfully thought-provoking magazine called Playboy - thoughts like, "chicks actually was their cars in the buff? Holy crap! - gathered his bunnies to slap together a catalog showing off their assortment of clothing (really, every article of attire - I can't call it clothing with a good conscience - was an exercise in creatively using shoelaces and mosquito netting).

Just like Vick's Secrets and Freddie's shoppers, I dutifully looked tossed the catalog in the recycle bucket. Fearing forks in eyes after being chloroformed by an angry pregnant woman also played into my decision to pitch the clothing catalog.

What I didn't expect were my dogs' desire to shop for a matching pair of push-up bra and panties adorned with the bunny logo.

I came home from work yesterday to a few presents around the house. Not stinky, mushy presents (I expect those come April from a much louder, less furrier package) you'd expect after leaving pooches inside for six hours. No, instead these presents were ripped paper towels, crunched egg shells and coffee grounds. From the amount of grounds left on the floor, the dogs aren't Folgers fans.

The other present left near the pool table - I still believe they shoot some stick when we're out slaving at the prison work camps, but that's a story for another day when I'm heavily under the influence - was the discarded Bunny Shop.

If they would have barked at the trash can like Lassie directing police officers to the serial sheep rapists in her little town I would have given my pups the mag. How the hell would I know that they like to look at fake tits?

I'll admit, I told the dogs I was none the pleased with them as I let them out to do their "business" (after looking at the catalog, I imagine that has many connotations) but when I found what they pulled out of the trash and deposited into another room - yes, they had to carry the catalog out kitchen and walk away with it - my anger receded like my hair line. I laughed, and when I let them back in there was only one thing I could say: "I didn't know I raised lesbo doggies, girls."

And that's just fine by me. I know how those boy dogs can be. I've seen 'em in action. Hell, I'm one myself, so I know how they are. They're - well - dogs. So, to learn that my female dogs preferred the sight of tits over dick, well, that filled me with pride. I raised 'em right.

Boys are bad. Just keep saying it over and over again, girls.

And I hope, no, pray that if Freeloader happens to come out with indoor plumbing that she learns the same mantra.

"Boys are bad," oh, and "Let's go, Dodgers!" And while she's at it, Female Freeloader should learn the lyrics to the San Diego SuperCharger song.

Do you hear what I hear?

I learned today that there's a whole lot more I need to learn about Wife's anatomy and this "pregnancy thing."

"Hey, my dearest hubby, did you know you can hear our endearing reminder of if you put your ear to my tummy?"

"No, sweetums, I didn't know that. What a wonderful thing to try."

"Yes sirree bob, put your ear to the lower ab region and you'll hear it singing arias..."

"Or reciting past Dodger game broadcasts, mimicking Vin Scully's voice," I say, wistful tears slowly cascading down my pudgy cheeks. "But I think you're confused, sugar bosom."

"How so?"

"Wouldn't I have to put my ear to your whoo-whoo to hear the freeloader?"

"Uh ... no. That's not how girls' bodies work."

"Oh ... I guess I thought it was just like a sea shell."

Some things are just fowl

I knew when Wife and I got wrapped up in this "pregnancy thing" she'd start craving some wild eats. I thought our refrigerator would look like Fear Factor just barfed inside it. 1,000 year old eggs, goat balls, chocolate-covered earth worms, I was afraid Wife's fondness for everything plain would make a cataclysmic 180 and she'd demand food concoctions that would make carrion vultures gag.

Honestly, I was all set for pickles in peanut butter, or ketchup-drenched Biscotti. I didn't think I could stock enough mint chocolate chip ice cream or potato chips and french onion dip to satisfy the waking prego-craving monster inside Wife, I just hoped she didn't acquire a craving for human flesh dipped in ranch dressing because I knew we were well stocked in that regard.

What I wasn't prepared for was the anti-cravings.

Broccoli, spinach, grilled steak and fried feral cat drizzled with hollandaise sauce turned Wife's belly more than the teacups at Disneyland. One look at burnt cow meat off the grill (I'm the Emeril of the Valley, folks, come on by and I'll show off my culinary skills - no can char a hunk of meat like me kids) and Wife would turn greener that Kermit the Frog.

But what really has sent her on the high road to nausea is chicken. In every form imagineable - cooked whole, grilled, boiled, broiled, steamed, solar ovened, raw, raw with feathers - Wife gets that look a drunk does after that 13th beer that says, "you better clear a path to the puke bucket because I'm bee-lining it, baby."

The chicken anti-craving is why Wife and I spent the holiday apart last week. I wandered off to California for some family fun, while Wife womaned the compound and chowed down on a Thanksgiving omelet at her grandparents' facility. No word if they tossed in some cranberry sauce. (And yes, I see the irony. She can't eat chicken, but she can partake in the animal's offspring. But she's pregnant and I'm not going to point out the illogicalness of her dietary habits. That's a good way to get your bottom lip pulled up over your head.)

Meanwhile, I played dorky daddy at my uncle's house, showing off ultrasound pictures of our little fish to anyone who walked by - "Oh, have I showed you our little freeloader? See, there's the hand and the head and if you look at it in just the right light it resembles W.C. Fields" - to the point where relatives avoided me by the end of the night for fear I'd stop them to show off our little freeloader pics again (they'd be right).

What I learned, though, was that my aunts had similar olfactory queasiness. Perfume was the offending odor and to this day they can't smell that particular brand for fear of dry heaving their sushi after a single whiff. And Wife's not alone in her nasal chicken assault. One friend said she still can't eat chicken after her pregnancy. That was seven years ago.

In the end, Wife was afraid that her aversion to stinky cluckers may also leach over to other fine-feathered friends who gobble, so she chose not to accompany me to California. She didn't want to be the party pooper of the family and be forced to eat mashed potatoes, yams and stuffing in the car, two blocks away from the wafting aroma of Thanksgiving turkey.

So, I made sure I ate for three on turkey day, and now my anti-cravings are kicking in because the last thing I want to see is another drumstick for, oh, about three weeks. Christmas turkey is almost as good as Thanksgiving bird.

The Valley's alive with the sound of Vinny

Longtime Dodger announcer Vin Scully signs a bat while I stand patiently, lovingly, behind the "Voice of the Dodgers," wondering if the cop behind him (and to my right) would arrest me if I cut a lock of Mr. Scully's golden mane and gave him a hickey on the waddles under his chin.

When I seven years old, my aunt and uncle bought me a digital clock radio for Christmas. It was a Panasonic with a plastic brown frame that resembled wood, had a dial radio and green, pencil-thin numbers. In 1979, I thought I was the shit. A radio with a clock! I figured the only dudes cooler were Luke Skywalker and Hans Solo.

And you could dim the clock's numbers. Hot damn! I'd go a few weeks with bright numbers, and then dim the suckers just for shits and giggles. All because I could. I adorned my little friend with smurf stickers - the scratch-and-sniff and puffy kinds because it was only the best for Panny (that's what I called it) - and dusted it religiously. I didn't know what the "sleep" button did, or the "snooze" for that matter, all I knew was that it played music and told me how much longer until G-Force came on the tube.

I heard Gary Newman's "Cars" for the first time on Panny, as well as Blondie's "Call Me" and Frank Zappa's "Valley Girl" (thank you Mighty 690 - now I got the damn song in my head).

But what hits me most when thinking about that old clock radio is that that's where I remember first hearing Vin Scully call a Dodger game.

Cartoons on the tube transfixed Lil' Sis and I. "Sesame Street" and "The Electric Company" were heroin to our 7- and 4-year-old minds, but if the parents turned on a show that had the appeal of brussel sprouts to us so help them we'd let our displeasure show through hyperactivity. Their shows didn't keep our butts in the seats. Hell, every Sunday night they sat down to watch "60 Minutes" before "Chips" and I swear to Al Pacino that show easily lasted "360 Minutes" back then. That Mike Wallace was a lying bastard.

The one adult voice (who wasn't talking to a muppet or a grown-up in a giant yellow bird costume) that kept my ass in the seat was Vinny's. I don't know what it was back then. Maybe it was lyrical voice. Maybe it was easy play calling that made it seem like he was in the room with me. Maybe it was his even delivery that never got too up or too down. Whatever it was, I was hooked to my little clock radio every night so I could hear Vin teach me more about baseball and the Dodgers. It's a cliche, but Vin could have recited the phone book and I would have listened.

But that's Vinny. He teaches without being the angry English teacher who tortures kids with sentence structure and tireless discussions of Robert Frost poems. He's a math, English and history teacher all rolled into one with a three-hour class nearly every day or night from the beginning of April to the end of September. He tells it to you straight in a tone that's nurturing, like a kind-hearted grandpa.

So, when I heard he was coming to the Valley of the Sun for the ceremonial groundbreaking at the Dodgers new spring training facility (oh yeah, the Chicago White Sox new facility, too) I told myself this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and had to attend. The "Voice of the Dodgers" would emcee the ceremony, and I didn't think I'd have another opportunity in his lifetime, let alone mine, to see him in person.

The place was a sea of Dodger Blue. Every Dodger fan east of Coachella were there, and the minute they spotted Vin there was a tidal wave of blue crashing around his feet. I went with the flow of people armed with a borrowed pen I begged off the reporter from the prison work camp who was doing something more constructive than myself - actually covering the event, i.e., working - I joined the throng of humanity around everyone's favorite Dodger hoping he'd sign the event program. Hoping is not the right word. Yearning, pining, longing that he'd grace the program with his name. I had a frame picked out in my head to display the signature, and I was all set to surprise Wife with our newest piece of artwork. The thought of her tears of joy when she saw Vin's signature on a piece of paper that had an image of a baseball behind the words to "Take me out to the Ballgame" filled my heart with happiness. It would be our wedding day and the birth of our child all rolled into one giant baseball of joyous emotion.

And I was fairly confident he'd turn my way sooner or later and sign my program. How could he not when I stood less than five feet away from his glowing body? I was so close I could have hugged him without taking a step. I was so close I could have given him a wet willy with my tongue without hardly leaning. I was so close I could have dry humped his leg in a single bound. As he stood there signing baseballs, bats, jerseys, books and taking pictures with anyone who asked, I stood by patiently, willing the venerable Dodger to turn my way next. I kept rehearsing in my mind what I'd say when he took my program, "Mr. Scully, you taught me everything I know about baseball." It might not be all together true - I must give a nod to Pop who had a hand in the fundamentals - but the compliment was sure to endear me him, I thought.

Alas, an autograph wasn't too be. As the tide of blue ebbed away from Vin I stood there with three or four other guys who were in the same boat until a Dodger honcho told Vin it was time to start things, and before I could utter my rehearsed compliment, or even a nervous "bluhhhhh" (a favorite pickup line when I was in college, by the by), Vin was gone.

All was not lost. I did land one Hall of Famer's autograph - Jamie Jarrin, who made sure to remind me that he's in the Hall by signing it with "HOF '98." He's been the Dodger's Spanish-language broadcaster for 40-some-odd years, and I would imagine is the Vin Scully to Hispanic baseball fans. I also saw Charley Steiner standing by his lonesome, so I had him jot his John Hancock on the free baseball they handed out at this shindig. While he did so, I told him how much I enjoyed his ESPN spots way back when, and when he uttered his famous line, "Follow me, follow me to freedom," I told him I was ready to follow.

Those two signatures are miles away from Vin Scully's. He's my white whale, and with the Dodgers playing spring ball out here in two years, I'll land this fish. I'm not an autograph guy, but Vin's would be one to have on display in the Compound. Maybe I'll find him in a quiet recess of the new Dodger facility (oh, and the White Sox facility, too). And maybe I'll hand him that old clock radio and Sharpie and tell him how this was where I first heard his harmonic voice. Maybe he'll smile, tell me what wonderful thing to hear, and comment how the munchkin holding my hand next to me might be the next Sandy Koufax. And maybe he'll let me get a picture of us together and shake my hand.

Then I'll dry hump his leg.

Not so quiet riot

The prison work camp has become a giant ball of hate, lately.

I'm not sure where it all stems from - anger is like the Clap, it just takes one VD host to infect the rest of its partners - but the stink-eyes range from the young (dumb, and full of cum) prisoners, us grizzled-vet prisoners, the Camera Geeks and the guards. You look someone in the eye and you'll get shived in the arm pit. And don't even think about engaging someone in conversation, that will land you face down in an ink drum while Bubba the Pressroom Whore's makes you his play thing.

Usually, the epicenter of hostility sits on a small patch of carpet that separates the young pups who have to deal with the public - old folks angry that last night's early bird dinner didn't come with the mashed peas they had a hankering for - and us steely-eyed, honery cusses who react to our phone ringing like someone was pissing in our eye sockets. They're fish hacks (newspapers are used to wrap fish at the market - hence fish hacks). We're editing monkeys, because in their eyes, any chimp can do our job (they may have a point). Slap an objectionable headline on a story and there'll be a pit viper curled up in your top desk drawer the next morning. Type "first ever" in a story and we'll hog tie the offending writer and pour fire ants in their ears. War is ugly. You gotta do what you gotta do to save your nuts.

We're the Jets and the Sharks, the Hatfield and McCoys, Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny, of the prison work camp world.

However, that anger is now being spread to the Camera Geeks and, of course, the guards. The CGs are up in arms too, threatening to flash everyone in the prison work camp (not that kind of flash - with their cameras!), leaving us all blind and unable to look at the circa 1970 porn pics we get via e-mail from readers. And I'm afraid, since the two factions - the CGs and the fish hacks are out in the fields, together, they'll band together and we'll be in the riot mode at the camp. They can mobilize and strategize better, too. They all wield cell phones while us monkeys can't spell cellular phone let alone used one of those funky contraptions. Gell pens and 400mm camera lenses will be brandished. The only plus is that we nearly have the numbers, so it might be a fair fight. Unfortunately, the only weapon the monkeys have is sheets of 11x14 paper, which can leave a mean paper cut but the chances of maiming a rabid fish hack hopped up on Full Throttle energy drink and asthma pills (not because they are lungers, the pills are like speed it keeps them up and hyperactive).

I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow. I'm drafted into a war I have no interest in fighting. I just want to sit at my desk, eat my BBQ Cornuts and fret over why my fantasy football team (the one I shelled out the freeloader's college fund to join) can't get over the hump. Oh, and maybe read a letter to the editor or two from the nut jobs who live in my community and drive on the same streets I travel on. Maybe I'll head to Canada, or perhaps Cabo San Lucas to work on my tan. Canada or Cabo? Cabo or Canada?

Does it really matter, dude? Either place almost guarantees you won't get shivved in the left testicle (Lenny - my favorite) by a blue gel pen.

Bolts win! Bolts win! Bolts win! All because of me and my Charger friends

I sat on the edge of the couch, unreclined, on the west end facing south, my feet exactly 14 inches apart (former hall of fame Charger quarterback Dan Fouts' number).

The television's volume meter was set at - you guessed it - 14. The DVD player, which had the San Diego SuperCharger song cued in the unlikely case they scored a touchdown against the Indy Colts Sunday night, was set to play the song at - uh-huh - 14.

I only drank Newcastles until the win appeared in doubt, then I switched to another English Ale: Boddington's.

I turned on just one light, in the east corner of the Compound's family room, but only one click (that's right, we're rich MFers, we can afford 3-way bulbs).

Of course, I was clad in my LT Charger jersey, and for good measure, had my LT MVP tee underneath because that shirt is 3-1 this season as opposed the jersey which was 1-2 heading into Sunday night's battle.

Like baseball players who will not step directly on the foul lines of a baseball field during the game, when I walked on our tile I would not step on a grout line.

I let the dogs out early in the third quarter and the Bolts let the Ponies get within two. Wife asked if I had let the dogs back in, perhaps that was where the mojo went sour, so I ran - mindful of the grout lines - threw the sliding glass door open and frantically called for the pups to get back inside.

And finally, I wouldn't let Wife out of porn viewing room, er, the computer room except for a bathroom break, and even then she wasn't allowed to step foot in the "big" TV room. I told her I'd bring whatever she wanted. She took advantage and requested tiramisu the size of an Olympic swimming pool with enough chocolate to flood the English Channel and topped with fresh Vermont maple syrup (remember, pregnant = crazy food concoctions, at least it wasn't a sardine topper with a garnish of Rocky Mountain oysters).

And you know what? The Chargers won. They beat a 7-2 Ponies team who nearly beat the New England Patriots the week before. The defending Superbowl champions lost because I was wearing my golf course boxers and resisted the urge to call Funky C in Cali. to gloat over the Bolts 23-7 halftime lead.

After I pen this little diddy on how I single-handily brought down the Jack Asses Sunday, I plan to write the Chargers to see what kind of compensation they were willing to ship my way. I'll settle for season tickets in the View section, or a jacuzzi date with a cheerleader of my choosing (which I'll dutifully hand over to my buddies the Sports Geek or our photo friend SnapShot because I'm that kind of buddy - plus Wife would fillet me from nuts to neck if she heard that's what the Bolts organization gave me).

If it sounds like I'm taking credit for (sh)Eli Manning's older brother throwing 6 picks - three to the latest Charger to make General Manager AJ Smith look like a draft genius - I am. And while I'm at it, I opened up the holes that freed Darren Sproles to dash through the Ponies' special teams for a kick return TD and a punt return TD. It's all due to me and my foresight to set the volume for every talking appliance in the house at 14. The way the Bolts have been playing this season, it has to be something than their actual play on the field.

My efforts were nearly thwarted by one Norv Turner, though. The Charger head coach nearly bungled and botched his way into a loss. He mismanaged the clock with less than three minutes to go, calling timeouts before the 2-minute warning. The only time I saw worse clock management was when I threw a baseball inside my grandma's house and smashed the cuckoo clock (that's when I knew I wouldn't be the next Sandy Koufax). He also pissed away both coach's challenges on plays Ray Charles could have called - and he's blind, plus dead.

So, as I see it, LT and Merriman and Jamaal and the Antonios needed my golf course undies and for the Wife to stay away from the TV.

And since it all worked yesterday, I don't plan to take any of the clothes off all week, skivvies and all.

So, who's up for a 4-day car ride across the country to Jacksonville for Sunday's game? Y'all can wear what you want, I'll still be in my unwashed game wear, and well-fermented body.

Go Bolts!

Sunday recess

Grade school recess was broken down into three separate factions that if mixed became a molitove cocktail of epithets that often ended with one kid calling another kid butt face, and the other piping back with poop ball. If the yard narcs weren't around to hear our prism of colorful vocabulary we'd get more daring: "Ass licker!" "Shit pants!"

And folks wonder why I all my jokes center around violent poop jokes. Remember - I'm a product of California's public school system, that's the best we could come up with.

This is how the boys broke down:

Elimination tag was the cool kids' realm, and they worked the system better than a certain president trying to skate out of serving in the Vietnam war. Inevitably the dorks would want to join Elimo tag, so the cool kids would rig the eeny-meeny-miny-moe process to make the daily ubergeek "it" - think a 10-year-old Booger from Revenge of the Nerds. The dorks were the second group, and if we, errr, I mean if they weren't trying to infiltrate the cool club, they were busy throwing dirt clods at the girls on the swings. Finally, there were the sports geeks. That's where I found myself. Name the season and that's what we played - Fall/winter was football, winter/spring was basketball and spring was baseball/kickball/whiffle ball.

You had to call the field. This was life-or-death important, moreso than pounding down your fruit roll up and food-stamp-bought milk pint. With ball in hand, you had to fight off the third graders who wanted the "field" for whatever odd game they were playing that day, like a pretend version of live Pac Man (don't ask, they also ate their own boogers if that explains anything), and beat the girls who wanted to double-dutch jump rope on the field (I watched some double-dutching last night, but jump ropes weren't used the same way).

Things haven't changed in 25 years.

I called a Sunday afternoon recess last week after be pestered by a handful work inmates, free world friends and even my ankle doc - Ian of Oakeson Physical Therapy in Glendale, Ariz. (he said he'd bust both ankles if I didn't give him some free publicity, so if things are hurting on your person head over to Oakeson and let their people feel you up).

These folks are hard core. With the Pats-Colts game on their TVs in the safe confines of their respective compounds, this motley bunch opted for a football game on a field that was more likely to yield more wrecked knees than touchdowns. With the number of craters, it was like playing football on the moon. Although, I don't remember Neil Armstrong saying "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Hey, why is there a syringe in my shoe?"

The threat of contracting a dabilitating disease that could leave us with crabs didn't stop any of us from diving for touchdown catches or becoming human shields to block an opponent from our ball carrier. We were Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. We were Dwight Freeney and Teddy Bruschi. We were Randy Moss and Marvin Harrisson. Every play was significant and each yard gained was a dagger strike at the opponent. It was a battle for the Superbowl, Fiesta Bowl and the Fremont Cannon all rolled in a grass-stained two hours.

It was a recess at school on a Sunday.

We played 5-on-4, which would have never happened in school. If someone wanted to play we told him, or her (Wife says I have to be more politcally correct, for instance, instead of watching midget porn I now watch "little people expressing their love"), to partner up. We could have asked Joe Meth Head, who was dealing a couple of dime bags to a pack of 12-year-olds near Ramada No. 2, but for some reason we didn't think football was his cup of tea or spoonful of black tar heroin. Whatever floats his boat, I guess.

And while I was on the side with numbers, guess who won the day? Yeah, the Fourbies. 9-7 (or 54-42 for those who don't speak playground-speak). Maybe we could have used Joe Meth Head of Ramada No. 2. With him, maybe we could have broken their Cover-Anyone defense.

In the end, though, it wasn't about the final score. Everyone walked away under their own power, with smiles on their faces and uttering the same question, "When are we playing next?"

On this day, when the two best teams in the NFL were on television in the Phoenix area, we were the Pats and Colts, and with better beer to boot.

Sunday recess art walk

Wife was our gameday photographer, so I'd be remiss if I didn't share more of her art work (besides, she threatened to carve "Baby on Board" across my chest if I didn't promise to post more pictures from the game). So, by demand, here is Wife's art from Sunday.

"It's mine! All mine! Muwahahaha!"

The range of emotions play out as Marc cradles the ball like it's the last bottle of Captain Morgan on Earth while Brittany considers tying his shoelaces around his scrotum. Meanwhile, the giant behind me celebrates as if the Cleveland Browns just beat Denver in 1987 AFC Championship game. Wait, they didn't win?

"Do you think he want's us to scratch his belly?"
See the fellow prison work camper on his back? Yeah, that's a natural position for all of us when we're out on the field. Don't believe me? Check out the next shot...

See! We figure we're not playing if we don't land on our knees, elbows, shoulders, head or ass. You're a pansy if you stay upright in our book.

Have you seen those NFL lineman play with turf crammed between the bars of their face masks? They keep the grass clods there like it's a Medal of Honor. Well, the dry grass and dirt that clings to our T-Shirts is our badge of honor (or Purple Heart, however you want to look at it.)

Maybe Wife will let me write her Pulitzer Prize winning speech when the board looks at this shot. See, folks, we do have moments of athleticism. I also promised to not mention that a certain Arizona Cardinal fan dropped this sure touchdown. See, Marc, I kept my end of the bargain.

"Hmmm ... let's see how much give there is in Mikey's T-Shirt."

While I was either yanked from behind or jabbed in the throat by a finger nail sharper than Excalibur...

...Others got into a dry-hump menagie-a-trois.

And despite all the heavy breathing, everyone had a good time in the Arizona sun playing a game for a free during our spare time. And none of us can wait until the next one. What d'ya say folks? Give our wounds three weeks to heal? That sounds about right.

Free ballin'

Things hurt that shouldn't hurt. And here's the reason why...

Some of us fashion ourselves as gridiron greats the NFL just missed out on, but when you see us like this after one play, you see why scouts from the League chose to pass on our talents...

I'd talk about it more, but like I said, every piece of my body, from my tootsies to my testicles hurt. And that includes the two index fingers I use to type. So more on our game tomorrow.

I scream, you scream, two screams for ice cream

" I could go for some ice cream, dear."

"The baby was thinking the same thing."

"Really ... and how did you come across this information, sweetie? Did it tap out 'Ice cream! Now! Host!' in Morse code against the utural wall?"

"As a matter of fact ... uh-oh."

"What!? What is it? Are you OK?"

"There's only enough for one."

"Only enough ice cream for one what? Scoop each? That's fine."

"No, Lum Lum, there's only enough ice cream for one person."

"Well, that is a dilemma, isn't it ... you know what, that's fine, go ahead and have it. Consider it my sacrifice to the pregnancy gods."

"You know, if you don't get any I shouldn't have any, either."

"Honey, that's so sweet, but really..."

"I guess we'll just give it to the baby. Funny how that works."

"Yeah, real funny."

"Oh no."

"Now what?"

"The baby wants the last bit of whipped cream, too."

Winter brings back an old friend

OK, I know, it's been a week since my last post. But no need to worry, I'm back. Thanks for your concern.

The last game of the World Series is one of the saddest days of the years for me. Even if the Boys of Bummer (the Dodgers) just so happened to be in the world's series - fat chance the way ownership is running the team (really is Koko the sign-language signing gorilla running the show in Chavez Ravine?) - and they just so happened to win (Louis Anderson-sized fat chance) all the marbles in Major League Baseball land (a dude can dream, can't he?) I think there'd be a little piece that'd be sad on that final day of the baseball season.

However, this year that pain was eased - without the aid of beer, a high ball and an I-10-long line of coke, mind you - for a couple reasons.

First, I watched the Chargers win their third straight. They appeared dominating on offense and defense. And I didn't hear nary a chant for Norv Turner's pocked-mark, wrinkling ass. This is a far different team, I think, from that squad I watched at Qualcomm on Sept. 30 (my birthday if you needed a reminder, and just 335 more shopping days remaining if you're curious). The defense is aggressive and forcing the opposition into bad decisions much like they did last year. Shawne Merriman is getting better in pass defense, turning him into an all around player, which should scare the bejeezus out of everyone else in The League. Matt Wilhelm has shown how much the team actually missed him on the field, which is crazy since this is his first year as a starter. And the secondary is more fly paper than rice paper, taking away the big plays and gluing themselves to receiver routes.

And LT has found room to run. The most beautiful runner (I'm secure enough in my dudeness to say so) in the NFL has been given that space to gallop once more and defenses are playing catch up, remembering "yeah, this guy is good." Nabbing Chris Chambers for a Charger cheerleader blow job from Miami also helped. These guys are fun to watch on the computer.

I say "on the computer" because that's how I had to watch the game this weekend, on the friggin' computer (I could have gone to a bar, but I'm cheap these days and my beer selection is just as good). And not a TV feed like Dodger games. Oh no, the NFL isn't that Net savvy. Really, should I expect anything less from an organization that strives to suck the game dry of fun. So, I watched the game through NFL.com's "game center." It's not much different than playing those video games back in the day that was text based with just enough graphics for you think it was the shit ("Look at what these computer programmers can do.") Nowadays, sport video games put you so much in the action you have to wear a helmet and pads lest you get clobbered diving in the brick fireplace to avoid a Merriman sack.

And why was I forced to an Internet site that updates plays once a beer (that's how I measure time during a football game) because I live in Phoenix and the Chargers are about as relevant hear as ice scrapers for windshields. Nevermind that the two cities are just 200-and-some-odd miles away and the city's team was on the by (saving the Cardinals from another embarassing loss - wow, and I though the Chargers lost in spectacular ways, the Birds are the Van Gogh's of losing) - I was still stuck with only the Aints and 69ers on the NFC channel. Not even a sniff of the AFC. Typically, if the Birds are playing, we get that game, and only that game. I think it's Phoenix's little brainwashing exercise - "conformity breeds peacefulness, so you'll like the Cardinals and not disrupt the city's mojo" - forcing us to either watch their football team or reruns of Dharma and Greg. The latter isn't such a bad choice when considering the former, but I digress.

The second reason the final day of the baseball season wasn't so sad this year is because I believe I turned Wife into a baseball fan. Her diatribe regarding a desire to wipe Boston off the face of the earth as retribution for them knocking out her team, the Cleveland Indians, is pure baseball fandom. I've been saying I'd like to do the same to San Francisco for oh about 30 years, but I'm a product of public schools, so I'm not smart enough to build such a city extinguisher. Wife, on the other hand, went to a pair of Catholic schools, so you know she has the brain power to mix Bisquik with asparagus spears, creating a super weaspon that would shower hell fire on Fenway Park (and if we asked nicely) Foxboro Stadium as well. We're lucky she's on our side, folks.

She has been telling our friends how much she's enjoyed watching the baseball playoffs with moi. I guess, with no real allegiance to any of the suck ass teams in the baseball playoffs this year I actually sit and explain the game to her. Apparently, and this is Wife's words, I'm too intense when the Dodgers are on. Apparently I don't explain why the Dodger hitter chose to strikeout instead of hitting a 3-run homer or why the Dodger pitcher decided to hit the batter with a 1-2 changeup. Apparently, when my team is playing golf in the Bahamas and I'm watching some other squad on my TV, I sit back and analyze the game for her. We rewound some plays, and I told her what would likely happen after the Colorado Rockies bunted a runner over to third with less than two outs against the Diamondbacks.

That was the coolest part. Well, that, and making fun of Asdrubal (Ass dribble) Caberra's first name.

In a few years, Freeloader Melissa will get the same tutorial, likely when I'm watching the playoffs and the Dodgers are playing golf in the Bahamas. (Man, I hope that's like 20 years from now - ha!)

Smoke on the water

It's 20-something years later so forgive me if my memory is hazier than Southern California's skies right now.

I must have been six or seven and I woke up after one of those kid nightmares that has you calling bloody murder for mommy and daddy. There were firefighters burning, and our house was engulfed in flames. I was following Dear Ma-Ma up the stairs, flames licking at the cuffs of my Superman PJ bottoms. My sister, all of three years old was there, wild-eyed fear twisting her face into a gruesome mask that was illuminated by the flames around us. Then I was screaming, and Ma and Pop were scrambling down the steps to make sure the cat wasn't strangling me (damn cat always had it in for me).

When Ma asked me what my dream was about I talked about the fire raging up the mountain from Palm Desert, east of Idyllwild. I worried about it reaching our house, and I was scared for the firefighters. All these thoughts about the fire were courtesy of TV news wonks and the orange, smoke-smelling hue the sky cast over our little town. At seven years old, when your girls have cooties and the number of Hot Wheels you owned correlated to your popularity in second grade, something so foreign as walking into your back yard to see ash dripping from the sky and the air smelling like God (or your higher power of choice - say Al Pacino) is BBQing a brontosaurus burger is scarier than the six-foot tall cockroach shadow (cast by the Chewbacca cardboard statue) you see when mom and pop turn off the lights for bed.

They didn't shelter me from the bad news that was overplayed by the media. Hell, I remember the Day Counter ABC News ran for the hostages in Iran (I know ... I'm old with a capital O). That's tough shit to digest when you're seven. I kept asking why don't they just sneak out a window when the guards aren't looking. See, I was even a problem solver back then.

I'm not saying Mom and Pop handled that rightly or wrongly - dinner time was news time, that's just how it was back then - it comes down to you can either hide the munchkins in a bomb shelter and let them emerge 18 years later (that works if Alicia Silverstone greets you at the door) or let them face the world's scariness and try to explain what's going on (that's how Wife handles me, so she's set for the Freeloader).

Every time fire season kicks up in SoCal I think back to that night when Mom explained that we were safe because the firefighters were the best in the world and they wouldn't let the fire get to our home. I guess that was good enough for me because I don't remember the rest of the conversation.

Today it was in the forefront of my bean more than other years because Wife, Freeloader and I had our second doc appointment - the heart beat visit. After the doc yanked away the microphone from my Mick Jagger grip as I karaoked "I can't get no satisfaction" she pressed it to Wife's belly and a few seconds later there was that rat-a-tat-tat of the Freeloader's heart beat ("Watch out Ringo, I think my Fish will kick your ass on the skins!"). Hearing that sound - that healthy sound - brought the reality of parenthood that little closer to home, too. It made me think, what would I tell my freeloader if it saw hell closing in on where grandma and grandpa and the aunts and uncles live? Would I mislead and lie, or straight shoot it as much as a four-year-old can take?

One of my favorite blog authors - Dad Gone Mad - gave me a hint on how to handle things, but I'm not sure if it's the right way. What do younguns (under 6) gain from not hearing the truth? Obviously not the whole "truth" handed to us by TV news, but I also believe they have a right to know that something dangerous is out there and we have to be careful. And with that said, the people working on controlling these bastard fires (oh, c'mon, the kid is going to hear bad words sooner or later ) are doing the best they can to keep everyone safe - yes, even Mr. Woofy the stuffed orange dog. Here's what Dad Gone Mad said, "It's hard to keep the kids from being scared, but the best way is to shield them from the televised images of crying people, burning homes and flummoxed public figures trying to be helpful. We rented Cheaper By The Dozen 2. The kids have watched it nine times."

TV news is to intense, and muddied by station managers' political ties, and like he says the images don't help calming the kids down. That job has to fall on the parent. Me and Wife ... well Wife, because I'll be running around the house screaming, "They're all going to burn. Why have you forsaken them Al Pacino?"

Hmmm, on second thought, that might not help. This Father shit is hard.

Stay safe friends and relatives, we're thinking of you guys and we're a phone call away if you need anything.

I'm gonna rock this town

The prison work camp gave me a week furlough and I've used it to do one thing ... work.

Nothing like getting away from work to work.

What happened to vacations? They used to be cool. I remember those days when the parental units would pose our yearly vacation to Lil' Sis and I. We'd hover over the dinner table like rabid hyenas as ma threw down three McDonald's burgers - to say they were little cheap is like saying Nathan Lane is just a little gay; and these were not the Big Macs mind you, just those asphalt-flavored cardboard-thin patties - and the four of us would battle, the last two losers having to share the third burger (and you wonder why my competitive spirit goes into overdrive when I'm playing Sorry!). Then Pop would drain his Old Milwaukee, clank the side of it with the plastic spork Ma stole from Mickey Ds and belch to get our attention (it's a pretty officious burp, if I may say so, and I aspire to teach my soon-to-be-here youngun to deliver with the same gusto).

"This year, whelps, we're going to..." Ma would drum on her two empty Boons bottles to gather excitement. Sis and I would bounc like baby kangaroos after a half dozen Red Bulls, "Mono Lake, California. We're camping."

"Again? Do we have to catch our own food again while you and Ma head into town?"

Those were vacations - if you call setting up tents, fighting off the kamikaze bugs intent on sucking the last vile of blood from my left calf and starting fires to stay warm a vacation (all that was missing on these camping trips was Jeff Probst telling us "in this game fire represents life"). This, working like a Arizona Department of Transportation road construction hump, is not.

Take yesterday, for example. Because I'm a cheap bastard not willing to shell out a few bones for new ones, I moved some dirty pink rock from my back yard to fill gaps in my front yard rocks. It didn't dawn on me that maybe the rocks from the back were dirty and lost their vibrancy years ago compared to the bright hue of those stones up front. As I began to desegregate the rock colors, mixing in the old with the old, I noticed the color became a muddy shade of pink rather than a stream of muted rose-petal pink (damn right, I know my pinks and I'm OK with that, so back off homophobes). I thought the dirty rocks from the back were claiming pockets of land for themselves rather than playing nicely and melding in with the others. The plan worked about as well as a castrated dude in a sperm bank, I took three loads from the back to the front and was still left with gaping space of dirt among pink rocks. Either way you cut it, I'm going to be cutting a check for more rock. That hurts. If there's one thing I'm morally opposed to, besides the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series (baseball is better with them always losing, everything needs a whipping boy), it's buying something that is everywhere. Hell, if you live out here and have pink rock, I might just pack up the Green Machine and swipe your stones for my yard. Consider yourself warned.

I get that from Pop (cheapness, not stealing rocks), I think, along with this desire for yard work. As I was wheeling out that last load of stone I realized this project wasn't any different than when he wanted to level our basement floor. Most homes in Idyllwild were built up with foundations comprised of cement blocks and mortar leveling the home from there, not on cement pads as in the city. This often meant sloping dirt basements. That's what we had a half-level dirt basement, with other the half creating a crevice wide enough to hide a buffalo. His bright idea was to fill that slope with dirt so our basement would be level, and even create a room of which I could move into (his real feelings revealed if you ask me - just hide me away like Sloth from "The Goonies", and also a plan that never materialized).

It was a weekend project that took two weeks and a lot of swearing. I owe my colorful vocabulary to those two weeks. With Pop wielding the pick axe like he was John Henry the steel driving man and me throwing endless shovel fulls of dirt into the hole, we moved like hunting team consisting of a platypus and a mountain lion. He only caught me a dozen times playing tic-tac-toe in the dirt with the toe of my Traxx.

Dude even had a level so he could tell me how far we were from being done. And believe me, I tried to cheat that shit.

"Come here Pop, I think we're done. That bubble's ass is sitting dead-on balls center," I said, not telling him that I had shoved a stick under one side and covered the said implement with dirt to camouflage my sneakiness.

"Uh-huh," he said, downing another Old Milwaukee. "Let's see what happens when I shove this stick here up your nose?"

I did my share of complaining then, as I do now, but when I get out there and the sweats running down my ass and my hands are dirtier than proctologists I can't help but find myself enjoying the work. Back then, behind the veneer of kid anger for being forced to work on a weekend while my friends were running through town looting gift shops, I think I enjoyed that time with Pop. And now, as I gear up for some more landscaping detail tomorrow, I can see my own freeloader playing on grounds I groomed for it and hope to one day shove a pick in his or her hand and yell, "get to work, whelp! I got beer to drink."

Ah, such fond memories.

Charged up ... but I'm not watching

Maybe the pressure got them on Sept. 30.

With a sell out crowd and everyone from Bob Costas to the hooker on Van Buren Street in Phoenix who flashes her hoo-hoo at every passing driver while simultaneously pulling her found leaopard-print g-string out of her crack picking the Chargers to beat the K.C. Chefs in San Diego, the Bolts laid an egg the size of a hemorrhoid found on Rosie O'Donnell's ass.

31-16. SIXTEEN! At home, against an team that, through the first three weeks, scored a whopping 23 points. It was a pathetic display of football, and I've seen plenty of bad football - I've been a Charger fan since the 1981-82 season, it's doesn't take the dude from "A Beautiful Mind" to do the math here. Hell, I fully admit to joining the chorus of "Marty" chants near the end of the game before changing my tune and chanting "Ronny," the linebacker coach - Ron Rivera - who the Chargers landed after interviewing him for the head coaching spot that went to Nerv Turner.

I watched the first four games this season: the opener at home in full Charger gear (a win), the second at home in full Charger gear (an embarrasing loss to a cheat-free New England squad), the third at a "Charger bar" (a loss to Green friggin' Bay, which is not even close talent wise to the Chargers. Oh, and memo to other Phoenix Bolf fans, just because the bar franchise says its from San Diego doesn't make it a Charger bar since I was the only Bolt fan in the joint), and finished September with that razor-blade enema in San Diego.

After Week 3, I said I'd give Nerv the benefit of the doubt for six weeks. After Week 4, I vowed to not watch the Chargers the next week. No bar, no searching on the radio, no month-long Internet purchase. I might check on their progress, but I wasn't going to sit down and watch. That must have taken the pressure off.

The result: 41-3 Bolts, over the Donkeys, in Denver.

They never win in Denver. I wore my LT T-shirt and SD hat, but I didn't give the game half a glance. In fact, I took Wife to the movies during the first half. Why tempt myself, I figured, get out of the house and let the boys do the work stress free.

Rejuvenated, re-energized, re-invigorated with optimism I internally debated on whether to stop at a bar to catch the Bolts-Raiders yesterday. What could it hurt? The Raiders were not a "real" first place team and the Chargers were playing better based on last week's performance. Oh no, I told myself, we've seen this before. Just when they start playing well, the Bolts revert to form and find more ways to lose than the Arizona Cardinals.

So, I stayed away. Caught another movie ("3:10 to Yuma" is worth your $10, by-the-by) and wandered by the computer to check the Chargers progress around 3 p.m. By that point, the score was 21-7 and the Chargers were playing like the Chargers we've come to expect.

What I didn't know is that I wield so much power. Word gets back to LT and Phillip and Gatesyand Shawne and Shaun that I'm not looking and they start playing like Superbowl champs. I start watching and they clench up tighter 16-year-old virgin boy about to lose his flower (not speaking from experience, really, I'm not, really, really, really). So, where does that leave me? The Chargers are my outlet for the winter. If I can't watch them on Sundays, that will leave me with afternoons of Lifetime channel movies and honestly, I'd rather skewer my eyeballs, roast 'em over the grill and douse them with Tabasco than watch Meredith Baxter Birney and Tracy Gold weep their way through two hours of melodrama. Either that or I watch extreme kickball on ESPN 8 "the Ocho." That's doable, I suppose.

Then again, if that's what it takes for the Bolts to bring home a title, maybe I should suck it up and stay away. "If you love something set it free," that's what my Pop said as I left for college. Maybe I should let the Bolts go free. That would be fair for the rest of Charger fans, who the players obviously don't care about because they don't freeze up like Angela's cat (if you don't know that reference, start watching The Office NOW! No excuses! If you don't have a TV, I'll come to your house and act out all the parts because this show is that important to pop culture ... and then I'll steal your valuable and rape your cat inside your home). They played hard and smart yesterday, for 60-something-thousand fans and umpteen thousands on television, but one of which was not me. I was the difference. I am the reason for the win (cue the evil laugh).

There's precedence for such extreme measures. Last year (2006), I proclaimed the Dodgers dead in late July and didn't watch for a week. They started a stretch where they won 16 of their next 17 and went on to earn a wild card berth in the playoffs (they finished tied for first with the Padres). I take credit for that late season Charge. Of course, I tried that this year and where did it land me? Gnashing my teeth as I watch two fellow N.L. West squads squaring off in the National League Championship Series.

As fortune has it, they have a bye week Sunday, so this "what is best for the group?" question won't plague me. After that I could foresee the next few games being on television out this way (Houston, Minnesota and Indianapolis). I just hope there are reruns of "The Cosby Show" or "Sanford and Son" on somewhere so I'm not subjected to MBB parading around the screen in a nighty that would look better on a 20-something-year-old Jessica Alba instead of the 50-something-year-old ma from "Family Ties."

Then again, I thought she was hot back then...