SIDE SALAD - Everything crunchy is good.

SHIRT OF THE WEEK

Witnessed at last weekend's Bucs game:

Yes. Yes you were, my friend.

AND BACK HOME HIS FAMILY
ASKS: "WHY DON'T HE WRITE?"

I admit it, I've fallen into not only the Pit of Intermittent Blogging, but the Snake River Canyon of Disaffection With My Own Prose and the Olduvai Gorge of Ever-Widening Indifference.

Enough metaphors for you? I should hope to hell so.

Anyway, I've done my best to keep this blog alive with the faintest of pulse during the past few weeks. A new banner here. A small photo blog posting there.

Much of my absence can be explained by the fact I was working like a fiend, but also because of external factors here at La Maison du Salade. Suffice to say that life has not been anything akin to a box of chocolates. More like a box of cat turds, really, broken only by the intermittent big honkin' pickup truck, the warmth of family holiday gatherings, the occasional illicit cigar and the infrequent but always welcome belly full of Sambuca.

I was, however comforted by the correspondence from those near to me, who insisted on sending me everything from the vile to the silly.

*Katherine sent along this link to a site that interprets your mouse movements as waves. "Fun with programming,'' she writes. More like a simulated ecstacy high, if you ask me. Or so I've heard.

*My goddaughter Domonique, a struggling actress loose in the wilds of New York City, wrote on Christmas Day that:

Today I'm with my best friend and her family, including two little kids, one of which is having a tantrum because she wanted to cut her
mother's hair with safety scissors and the mother wouldn't let her.

Last night we piled into a small Toyota with a decorated Christmas tree in the back seat and a dying cat on my lap and drove to their cousin's fancy apartment in Manhattan to see how the other half lives on Christmas Day.

Lucky her.

*And Willie Drye, author of Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, who no doubt was inspired by an abbreviated Calendar of Disturbing Santas, sent along this story:

Hey Jeff: The last line is a crackup.

Santa cited for marijuana possession

HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. - A man who visited a middle school dressed as Santa Claus on Thursday left with a citation for misdemeanor marijuana possession.

The 40-year-old Detroit man faces up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine after a small plastic bag of marijuana was found in the pocket of his street coat, which he left in a school restroom, Wayne County Sheriff's Department officials said.
A deputy who works at the school found the marijuana while searching the coat for identification after a teacher found it in the bathroom. The man dressed as Santa approached the deputy a short time later and identified the coat.

The man denied the pot was his. His wife, who was at the school to take pictures of Santa with the students, apparently did not know the marijuana was in her husband's coat, officials said.

"She was not happy," Lt. Paul Jones said. "It's going to be a long ride back to the North Pole."

AND TO ALL, A GOOD NIGHT

The packages are wrapped. The house is decorated.

Cookies are baked. Pies are done.

The shopping is over. It's time to sleep.

Best wishes to everyone from the Salad Bowl for a happy and blessed Christmas.

AND NOW... YOUR LAST MOMENT OF BRITNEY FOR 2004. (MAYBE)

Wonder who will be on the Christmas card next year?
My bet: It'll be Federline-free.

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS OF
YOUR MOMENT OF BRITNEY
Something old, something new.

Britney takes a groom. Again.

Britney defends her latest love.

Britney marries a childhood friend. For 50 hours.

Britney swaps spit with the Rosetta Stone of Skank.

Britney poses for photos that make her look even more plastic and lifeless than she already is.

Britney, as she would look if she hit the all-you-can-eat Seafood Lovers Special at Red Lobster every night for six months.

Britney runs a restaurant into the ground.

Britney has an evil twin available for parties.

Britney and George cut a rug.

Britney proves the axiom: Beer affects the way males respond to females.

SHOUT AT THE DEVIL

I'd like to echo a question posed over at Awful Plastic Surgery:
Is there a point to giving Vince Neil a plastic surgery makeover?

TURN THE PAIGE

Paige Davis apparently is just like Enterprise; she'll pick you up.

Is there an actress in Hollywood who hasn't taped themselves in flagrante seducta?

You know, other than Bea Arthur?

FAVORITE HOLIDAY PARTY POTTY MESSAGE

Saw this over at Rev. Joe Kendall's house during LatkeFest 2004:

Upon closer inspection:


Understood and heeded, my friend.

ON SANTA'S LAP, NO ONE
CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM

I stumbled across the Screaming Santa Gallery, something that looks awfully close to the Calendar of Disturbing Santas.
There are some great shots in this slideshow.

NOW THIS IS CHRISTMAS MUSIC

Holiday tunes and sombreros?
I'm in heaven.
Check out these tunes:
We Wish You A Merry Christmas
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
What Child Is This
Deck The Halls
Jingle Bells
Tijuana Christmas
Jolly Old St. Nicholas
Christmas Bells
The First Noel
Silent Night

SCENES FROM A DEATH MARCH:
TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS
VS.
THE NEW ORLEANS SAINTS

It's beyond safe to say now that the Bucs' 2004 campaign is a lost cause. You don't lose to New Orleans when you're ahead 10 points in the last minutes of the game and expect to play in the postseason.
At this point, going to a Bucs game isn't about the football. It's more about the people and the depression-triggered drinking.
And what better weekend to do that than the one right before Christmas.

You might remember we went to last year's game and enjoyed ourselves mightily, despite the onset of a premature season climax.

This year was no different:

I originally was going to take my son to the game, but he got a head cold, so I decided to let him tailgate in our living room with his best friend. I set up the chairs and let him have the fried chicken, the chips and the other goodies. Sitting in front of the plasma, he probably had a better view than we did at the stadium.
In Brian's place, my buddy Drew went. Our tailgate? For once, it was an actual tailgate. The Big Red Machine was a much sweeter ride to the game than the E'splorer.
And what partially Italian boy's tailgate is complete without a little Sambuca?

It proved to be our undoing. Chasing it with Bud Ice didn't help.

Stop! Save yourselves! There's still time to salvage your tattered dignity!
Too late.
A strategic mistake like Sambuca with beer can only be compounded with Cuban Cohibas.
Alas, we were not the only semi-to-moderate jolly participants that day.

Note to self: get hat, flags for Big Red Machine.

Arriving on cue as if some harbinger of liver abuse, this bloodhound stalked its way through the parking lot. All we were missing was a still and Daisy Mae.
How bad are the Bucs? Even Santa wanted to scalp his tickets.
My guess is that this sign's maker was loaded to the gills with Sambuca.
What do you compound Sambuca and cigars and beer with?
A flaming, greasy, un-Health-Department-regulated meat torpedo, of course.
Arriving on cue as if some harbinger of gastrointestinal distress, this nattily attired gentleman brought us glad tidings of great joy. Or at least as much joy as a Bucs fan can feel on game day this time of year.
Santa was having little luck unloading two pieces of coal on the 50-yard-line.
I'm going to take a wild leap here, but I'm guessing that when this woman decided to promote her business with a bench adorned with her tastefully photographed Glamour shot, she had no idea her advertising message would be blocked by the sweaty bottom of this distinguished gentleman.
The clothing equivalent of the meat torpedoes: these knockoff, unlicensed Bucs jerseys. How much, you might ask, does a shirt adorned with the name of once-successful athletes bring these days?
Fiddy? I don't think so. Especially if you can't get Joe J's name spelled right. Then again, the jersey guy might be the same one who made the parking sign.
Even better: Drew found a jersey around the corner for 20 bucks. Albeit a jersey of a player who no longer is on the roster, but a jersey nonetheless.
It's nice to see the city manager of Port St. Lucie getting out and about.
We were walking along the east side of Raymond James when Drew saw these guys wearing feathers on their heads.
"Wonder what's up with that?" Drew asked.

Enterprising reporter that I am, I walked up and asked, "What's up with the feathers?"

Came to find out they were purchased as masks in New Orleans.

They invited us to share shots of Jagermeister.

We were all soon fast friends.

Ahhhh, a table full of snorkels filled with Jager and Orange Slice.

That's the great thing about Slice: it tastes just as bad going down as it does when you're puking it up. (Which, for the record, I did not do.)

Our newfound friends offered a remedy to cut the flavor: room temperature cooked shrimp.

Who were we to refuse?

By the way, anytime someone offers you seafood to cut the taste of something, take my advice and politely refuse.

Ziggy Sockie, Ziggy Sockie, Hoy, Hoy, Hoy.
Patterns of people streaming through the gates look really fascinating after Sambuca, beer, cigars and Jager.

Good thing we had 4 hours to burn this stuff off.

The beer garden in the north end zone is a great place to hang, up until the pirate ship cannons go off and you start to bleed from the eardrums.
Prolly just smoked a Cohiba.
The Bucs really do put on a great pre-game ceremony.

It's the actual game part they have a problem with.

(For a larger version of this shot you can use as a wallpaper, click here.

Desperate for anything that would cut the shrimp and the Jager and the Slice and the Buca and the cigars, we begged these two vendors to serve us something that would give us relief. We pleaded. We cajoled. We challenged them to race each other to see who was fastest. We even insulted their genders. Nothing sped up their delivery, I am sad to report.

Interestingly enough, this approach also did not accelerate usage of the urinals in the men's rest rooms. Strangers do not like it, apparently, when you urge them to "PEE ALL THAT YOU CAN PEE" in loud voice as others stand in long lines behind them with less than full control of their bladders. A corrolary: The line "IF YOU CAN'T PEE WITH THE ONE YOU LOVE, PEE WITH THE ONE YOU'RE WITH'' is also highly ineffective.

Who'd have thunk?

I know what you're thinking, but for the record, I did not capture those tender moments in digital form.

Looks like a festive crowd, no?

Upon closer inspection...

...it would appear that some of us had more issues than others among us.
Diagnosis: bipolar. He can't decide if he likes the losers from a previous era or the losers from the current team.
The Athletic Rooting Squad Formerly Known As The Swash-Buc-Lers were decked out for the season.

I was going to wear this.

Oh yeah. I almost forgot. There was a heartbreaking game of staggering magnitude.
Here's the equation: Rare + Form -------- Rare Form.
To insulate their vendors from harassment, the stadium assigns each of them a number ID.

Just like an inmate.

Santa's got a brand new bag. Of cotton candy.
Aaron Stecker ran back the opening kickoff for a touchdown, only to be injured later in the game.

I'm so glad the Bucs, who have never run back a kickoff for a touchdown, got rid of that bum.

BAD DRUDGE HEADLINE OF THE DAY

Small Plane Strikes KFI Radio Tower; LA's Top AM Talker Knocked Off Air for Hour; 2 Dead...

Man, talk about burying the lead. I had always assumed that a radio station's operation was more important than two deaths. Now it's confirmed.

CALENDAR OF DISTURBING SANTAS

We're a little behind again. Time to catch up:

Santa's favorite helper was Cokie, the oral-fixation elf.


Coming this Christmas to theaters near you: Blair Witch Santa.


Santa tests out his new reindeer: Harley.



PREVIOUS ENTRIES
Lego my Eggo.
No photos, no dignity, no pants.
David Cop-A-Feel.
Santa at the pro shop.
Harvey and SWAT
Santa down for the count.

THAT TOOK A LOT OF BALLS

Holiday office parties tend to either be deadly dull or Dionysian bonfires. Our office party this year was... nice. Which is to say dull. But still very nice.

But that didn't stop someone from trying to lighten the mood a little.

That someone would be Rommie.

He decided to see how many meatballs he could cram down his gullet.


He eyed the three crock pots full of balls, served himself a tasteful amount of them and then commenced to ingesting.

Again and again and again.

When all was done, he had slyly downed 35 of them in one sitting. We were unaware he was going after some sort of Chistmas party record until after the deed was done. He just slipped it into conversation that he had done so. Gotta admire that kind of discretion.

We feared for him, of course. That kind of gastronomic swan dive could either incur the disgust of one's significant female life partner or explosive diarrhea.

I'm happy to report it did neither.

In fact, he said in the middle of the feast that he was shocked more of us weren't going after the meaty little skittles.

"You act like we have meatballs here all the time,'' he said, aghast.

So some of us joined him. And we saw that he was right.

Here's to you, Rommie, for taking a ball for the team. Thirty five of them.

METAL HEALTH WILL DRIVE YOU MAD

Received another missive from Kevin Dubrow, lead singer of the 1980s heavy metal band Quiet Riot. And now of Quiet Riot 2005.
Seems that they have some news to declare:

QUIET RIOT ANNOUNCES UK TOUR DATES AND POSTS MP3 SAMPLES OF QUIET RIOT "LIVE & RARE" TRACKS

Hmmm. Sounds promising.

QUIET RIOT will commence their 2005 world tour in England, where the group has not performed in twenty years, with the following dates:
2/11/05 BRADFORD, UK - RIO 2/12/05 LONDON, UK - THE UNDERWORLD 2/13/05 NOTTINGHAM, UK - ROCK CITY 2/14/05 DUDLEY, UK - JB'S

Hmmm. This is like that stipulation that a meeting need only qualify as such if two people come together in some sort of professional manner. Now, apparently, four shows consists as a "world tour."

Additional tour dates for Europe will be announced shortly.

I'm sure they will.
Wait. There's more.

Three MP3 music files have been made available from the "QUIET RIOT Live & Rare - Vol. 1" CD which will be released on Cleopatra/Deadline Records. MP3 downloads are now available at this location.
They include "Metal Health (Bang Your Head)" and "Condition Critical" both recorded live in 1984, as well as the studio demo of "Thunderbird" which was recorded by Kevin DuBrow and Frankie Banali along with Chuck Wright (Bass) and Bob Steffan (Guitar) in 1981.
"QUIET RIOT LIVE AND RARE VOLUME 1" RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 4, 2005

I can hardly wait.

PROUD PARENTING MOMENT NO. 412

So the Ice Cream Man rolls through the neighborhood the other day.

All the kids in the neighborhood buy ice creams and popsicles.

What does my kid get?

Candy cigarettes.

FLOATS LIKE A BUTTERFLY
HANGS ON A TREE

Bill over at Off-Topic has some great pics of his Christmas tree.

I especially liked the ornament at the bottom.

SOMEWHERE IN HEAVEN
ELVIS JUST FELL OFF
THE CRAPPER IN THE SKY

Who'd have thunk that someone who married Michael Jackson for, like, 30 seconds - much less kissed him publicly on the mouth - would have such poor judgment?

MASCOT, MASCOT
WHATCHA GONNA DO?
WHATCHA GONNA DO
WHEN THEY COME FOR YOU?

Uh oh. Looks like my friend Willie was again out cruising the Web for tales of na'er-do-wells. Ridiculous news is to Willie like heroin was to Kurt Cobain.

Anyway, Willlie knows my fondness for mascot mischief. So he passed along this juicy news bite:

University mascot avoids jail on drug charges

WILMINGTON, N.C. -- A former University of North Carolina at Wilmington student who acted as the school's mascot won't serve time in jail for marijuana and Valium possession, court officials said.

Okay, let's stop here.

Isn't being a mascot enough of a psychotropic experience? You're inside a big furry suit. You're not allowed to talk. You're high-fiving strangers while kids punch at your groin. What good are downers and weed going to do?

But I digress.

Thomas C. Moorefield pleaded guilty Thursday to five misdemeanor offenses and was given a 225-day suspended jail sentence by District Court Judge John Carroll III, who also ordered 24 to 36 months of probation.

Moorefield, 21, was one of two students this school year who donned the feathered Seahawk head and wings at sporting events and other goodwill activities. After sentencing Thursday, he left the area with his father and returned to his Georgia home, Assistant District Attorney Holt Trotman said.

Let me say that, as a father, I know Mr. Moorefield had to be proud of his little Seahawk.

Can you imagine the deafening silence of the ride home?

University spokeswoman Mimi Cunningham said Friday that Moorefield no longer was a student at UNC-Wilmington.

Well, that's comforting to know.

Moorefield was arrested Nov. 5 and charged with felony sale of marijuana and Valium. He was relieved of his mascot duties after the arrest. Moorefield was convicted of simple possession of marijuana and Valium and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Relieved of his duties? Is he on the Joint Chiefs of Staff? He's a walking puppet, for crissakes.

CALENDAR OF DISTURBING SANTAS

If there's such a thing as Lego porn, this has to be a precursor.

PREVIOUS ENTRIES
No photos, no dignity, no pants.
David Cop-A-Feel.
Santa at the pro shop.
Harvey and SWAT
Santa down for the count.

SAILING THROUGH THE HOLIDAYS

Christmas, Florida style.

ADVENTURES IN TRAFFIC

Looks like a normal enough utility truck...
Ah. Hubcap replacement.
I could have done without the slogan.

PREVIOUS ADVENTURES IN TRAFFIC
Nuttin' honey.

My honor student can kick your ass.

Garfield mudflaps.

Horse and buddy.

CALENDAR OF DISTURBING SANTAS

We're a little behind on our calendar. Time to make up some lost ground:

Just because he's Santa doesn't mean he's immune to the stalkerazzi.


It's nice to see Saddam is getting into the holiday spirit this year.


I see London, I see France, this gay Santa's got no pants.

PREVIOUS ENTRIES
David Cop-A-Feel.
Santa at the pro shop.
Harvey and SWAT
Santa down for the count.

READING THE MINDS OF DOGS

"Go ahead, asshole. Cut us off again. I dare you."

SIT ON IT, MALPH

The new shirts are in at T-shirt Hell.

BABY DID A BAD, BAD THING

There's a new redhead in the Salad household:
The 2004 Nissan Titan.
Very nice.

TOM + SOMBRERO = TOMBRERO

Remember when the pranksters at Fark had a litle fun with Dan Rather's retirement at his expense?
Well, in the interest of fairness, they've now done the same with Tom Brokaw.

CALENDAR OF DISTURBING SANTAS

Ah, look, it's Santa, played by David Copafeel.

PREVIOUS ENTRIES
Santa at the pro shop.
Harvey and SWAT
Santa down for the count.

IT'S BEEN A FULL WEEK

As if my little traffic escapade and a fruitless marathon bartering session with a car dealer weren't enough fun for one week, my son threw some fun variables into the mix.

First, he decided to take a stab at cutting his own hair.

He decided the other night to take his school scissors and cut himself a little shelf at the top of his forehead. Then to enhance it, he cut a part along the side toward the back of his head.
Which of course necessitated me having to get out the clippers and buzz his follicles back to a more uniform peach-fuzz length.
He looks pleased, does he not?
"Two things people should never do for themselves,'' I told him. "Dentistry and haircuts."
Then the next day, he came home from school with his first black eye.
He said he bumped into a kid in the hallway. (I'd hate to see what happened to the kid.) Left a nice inky smudge running from the corner of his eye to his cheek.
Unfortunately, you can't clear up a shiner with hair clippers.
The next day, he was scheduled for his first tae kwan do class.
First question asked by Master Earl Harris: "Where'd you get that black eye?"
Seems he thought we enrolled him because he got his ass kicked.
He immediately got to work learning how to throw blocks and punches and kicks.
Although timid at first, eventually he let out some battle cries that sounded like they came from Bruce Lee.
Master Harris is a very serious instructor. He immediately remind me of Sgt. Emil Foley.
I half expect Brian at some point to reenact this scene.
I can almost hear it now...
"I GOT NOWHERE ELSE TA GOOOOOOOOO!"

COMING SOON AT OLIVERSTONE.COM

There's a new game on the market, "JFK Reloaded."
For $9.99 you can download a game that lets you to pretend to be Lee Harvey Oswald with a rifle in the Texas School Book Depository. As Kennedy's motorcade drives by, players can fire three shots like Oswald. Points are awarded and subtracted based on how close the player comes to matching the official version of events as documented by the Warren Commission. Players can even make the game even bloodier by pressing a "blood effects" option.
I can't say I'm surprised by this, considering there already are games that let you mimic what it was like to storm the beaches at Normandy or shoot bad guys in Iraq. My only surprise is that no one has created one that lets you take a bead on Dubya.

HE GAVE HIS LIFE FOR TOURISM

The 1970s have truly returned.
Not only do we have ugly assed hip-huggers and tube tops to endure for a second go-round, now King Tut is going to take a second lap around the world, just like he did in 1978.
A new tour of of the boy king's treasures will be showcased at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art from December 2005 to April 2006.
This, of course, harkens back for me to the only thing that came out of the '70s that was worth a damn: the song, "King Tut" by Steve Martin.
Martin penned a short article for the New York Times in today's paper about the song. The article ironic and sardonic and everything I remember about him from when I used to listen to his comedy albums over and over in my bedroom as a kid.
One thing I didn't know about the song until I read the article: He wrote the song in his car while driving in less than 15 minutes. (You can see the original clip of the Saturday Night Live skit that inspired the song, by clicking here.)
Then there's this paragraph:

When I got a call from a high-level Egyptian museum official saying that his country was upset that my song "King Tut" was not being played worldwide as much as it should be, and asking me if I would endorse an American tour of the artifacts in order to increase awareness of my song, I humbly agreed. The gentleman said, "If we thought that our exhibit would, in some way, introduce your song to even one more person, then the whole enterprise would be worth it." I am proud to be of service.

OVERTURE, HIT THE LIGHTS

Now presenting...

...the official 2004 Side Salad Christmas tree. Matched only by...
...the 2004 Casa del Salad Festival of Lights.
We have a new attraction this year:
Santasaurus Rex.
This was not a planned display. We were watching the neighbors' kids today for a little while. They were bored and were poking around my son's playroom. They found a dinosaur jigsaw puzzle under one of the beds.
The damn thing mystified me one morning about a year ago when Brian and I tried to put it together. This ought to occupy them for a while, I thought.
Fifteen minutes later, the damn thing was built. And without a yelling match between the four of them.
For an extra degree of difficulty, I told them that if they partially disassembled it and then put it together again on the front porch, we'd put lights on it and a Santa hat. I even encouraged them to make it look like it was chowing on our Christmas cactus. They loved that.
And so a new tradition has begun.

CALENDAR OF DISTURBING SANTAS

In the off-season, Santa works on golf carts behind the pro shop.

PREVIOUS ENTRIES
Harvey and SWAT
Santa down for the count.

IF YOU AIN'T THE LEAD DOG...

Shirt of the day, over at Threadless.

WHAT I DID NOT DO

No matter what you may have heard, I...

...did not get up at 4 a.m. Wednesday to drive to a seminar in Fort Lauderdale.

...did not drive 87 in a 70 mph zone on Florida's Turnpike.

...was not pulled over for speeding by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper just north of the Fort Pierce exit.

...did not find out from that trooper as he peeked his face into my passenger-side window that my license had been suspended.

...did not have a freak-out by the side of the road in the pre-dawn hours as trucks and cars were whipping by at far more than 87 mph.

...did not find out that the license was suspended because my insurance company, Metropolitan Casualty, didn't tell the state I had a policy with them.

...did not have to pay a $130 fine because of this.

...was not told that my car would have to be towed because I was now not able to drive without a license.

...did not have a second full-on freakout by the side of the road.

...was not told by the trooper to "step back to the side of your vehicle."

...did not tell the trooper I'd have someone pick me up so the tow truck could come get me.

...did not wait almost two hours by the side of the road waiting for my sister-in-law to get me from 20 miles away.

...did not tell her the wrong road on which she could find me.

...did not drive anyway to find the closest driver license office so I could reinstate my license.

...did not find only one office in a 60 mile stretch that was open because the others were wrecked by hurricane damage four months ago.

...did not leave that one open office in disgust because the wait was 5 hours long.

...did not decide to then drive 140 miles back to Tampa to get another license in Tampa.

...did not have to pass six state troopers and two sheriff's deputy cars to get to that office. And definitely didn't have to pass the guy who pulled me over in the first place.

...did not risk getting thrown in jail for driving on a suspended license.

Anyway, none of this happened on Wednesday. None of it at all. Nope. Nada. Nothing.

Posted by Jeff at 07:13 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack