SIDE SALAD - Everything crunchy is good.: AND NOW, FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY OUTDATED

March 07, 2006

AND NOW, FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY OUTDATED

So, I've been a bad blogger. I know this. And I've known it for a while. It's amazing what a ding in the fender that something like professional writing responsibilities can inflict upon a blogging career. I've made my apologies before, although none have been requested. I still love to blog - it's the most fun you can have by yourself outside a chat room while typing with both hands.

It hasn't been like I've lacked eventful moments in my life. Or humorous ones. I still see and photograph wack shit on the public roadways. I still see and document weird stuff I find online. Friends still send me missives. I just haven't had the time to pass them along.

So instead of apologies this time, I will say this: I'll try and do better. I don't want to stop blogging. I don't even want to pledge to blog-but-do-it-less-often. I'll just try and blog when I can and leave it at that. Cool?

That said, I have some stuff backed up that I need to unload. And since Side Salad does for the psyche what Colon Blow does for the instestinal tract, I'll do my best to clear the decks, as it were.

Like the batch of photos in this post, for example.

I took these way back in January as part of festivities surrounding a little celebrity dead pool that I belong to.

Each January, a bunch of us selects celebrities that we think will shuffle off this mortal coil during the upcoming calendar year. It's morbid, but then, so is life. Just ask Dana Reeve, Don Knotts, Darren McGavin and Kirby Puckett.

We celebrate the end of the previous year - and the fact that we're all around to see the end of it - by buying a Carvel Cookie Puss Cake and doctoring it up with black icing and whatnot. It's not a celebration of death. That would be wrong. It's an acknowledgment that life is short and each day - and each Puss cake devoured among friends - is to be savored.

We don't take the competition seriously - last year, Rommie picked all his favorite women from the TV sitcoms of his youth. Some people research their lists. This year, I chose a bunch of TV relics:

1. Bob Barker - Nailing all those ""Price is Right'' product models takes its toll.
2. Dick Cavett - Whitest man in America about to go all-white.

3. Mike Douglas - Say goodnight, Mike.

4. Merv Griffin - Gonna die soon. Oooooooooh.

5. Phil Donahue - Can we talk about death, people?

6. Larry King - Those suspenders can only hold him up so long with that kind of heart condition.

7. Tom Snyder - Ah- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

8. Regis Philbin - He'd do anything to get away from Ripa. Even die.

9. Mike Wallace - Tick, tick, tick, tick. Your 60 minutes are up.

10. Barbara Walters - How can we miss her if she won't go away?

While we are not entirely serious about our death selections, we are deadly serious about our dedication to the Puss (cake).

How dedicated?

Enough to create a countdown clock to tell us when the next Puss cake will be eaten.

And while I am the Death Commissioner, Karla has, in recent years, become the Puss (cake) transporter.

She's thoughtful enough to pack it in a cooler with ice. She's even gone so far to refuse repayment from the group. Such is her dedication to the celebration.

Quoth the Rommie, circa mid-2002: "Death is cool."

I tell ya that I'm crazy for this Puss cake, cousin!

No communal gathering is truly a celebration without music.

Here, Rommie cues up "Don't Fear The Reaper'' by Blue Oyster Cult on his iPod, connects some speakers and hits "Repeat."

It was a perfect call.

Seasons don't fear the reaper. Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain.

I gotta have more cowbell.

Black icing really does make the cake.

Too much black icing and the cake slides dangerously close to looking like Liza. Or Ozzie. Or some other nearly deceased celebrity with a Z in their name.