"Home again, home again, jiggidy-jig! Gooood evening, J.F!"

In days of old, survival instinct was riding a horse you didn't think would last, over land you didn't think was friendly, drinking water you didn't know wouldn't kill you, just because you had to, elements be damned.

Compare with yesterday, when I drove a rental Kia through burning California hills, eating a double bacon cheeseburger I didn't know wouldn't cause incontinence, just because I had to get out of Las Vegas, cancelled flight be damned.

I'm a cowboy / On a steel-and-molded-fiberglass horse I ride...

Today's FOCR: "Burnin' Sky," Bad Company, Burnin' Sky

Making iTunes for Windows is like putting Sinista Chrome mags on a Ford Windstar.

Sure, it can be done...

Today's FOCR: "What Do You Do For Money Honey," AC/DC, Back in Black

Baby Steps Into the Non-Baseball World

Had to share a joke I heard this week:

An engineer sees his colleague riding toward him on a brand new bicycle.

"Hey, pal," says the first engineer. "Nice bike! Where'd you get it?"

"The most incredible thing just happened to me," the second engineer beams. "I was walking through the park, and this beautiful woman rode by me on her bike. She turns around and stops right in front of me. She gets off her bike, walks up to me, and tears off all her clothes."

"Yeah?" prompts the first. "Then what?"

"Then she says, 'Take what you like.'"

A version involving Dick Cheney, a woman in a burka, and a barrel of crude was not completed by press time.

Today's FOCR: "Bicycle Race," Queen, Jazz

Chicago Expat Report

From my voicemail last night:

"Message received today at 7:22 PM from phone number 310-xxx-xxxx:

[Sounds of a bar] 'Shoot. Me. Now. Shoot me now.'

End of messages."

Foul and Unbalanced

Fox Sports wanted blood last night. There's no other explanation.

It wasn't enough to identify The Fan onscreen. It wasn't enough to keep cutting back to him, saying (essentially):

That's him. That's the one. Boy, I hope something doesn't happen to that guy. Who's sitting right there, looking kinda weak and alone. It'd be terrible if something happened tonight at 741-1/2 W. Dickens, apartment 24 with the crappy deadbolt.

They had to go and draw a circle around his head.

Why not go ahead and fill in the rest of the bulls-eye, fascists?

Sure, the newspapers have the pictures, too. However, the kind of local morons who will torture this guy tend not to read, or even spell "URL" correctly. Fox had the power to make him a national target.

Throughout the playoffs, they've been mocking people in the stands. Shirtless painted freaks, that's one thing. They want it. But Fox sportscasters go after people just sitting there, repeatedly cutting back between pitches to continue their "fun" commentary.

I thought I hated Fox Sports before, with their blitzkrieg of whooshes and epileptic graphics reducing actual sports content by a good 15 minutes per hour. Now, Fox's mean streak has been extended to some of the most innocent spectators in sports.

Fox, you're like school in the summertime*.

* Joke void in the LAUSD.

Today's FOCR: "Fox on the Run," Sweet, Desolation Boulevard

From Our California Election Bureau

Today's FOCR: "You Get What You Deserve," Big Star, Radio City

Floss

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that I never learn. Over and over again, I "discover" the same common-sense, good-for-you things as though for the first time. And promptly forget them. It's Memen-D'oh:

"Last night I went to bed early, and then it was easy getting up this morning. Huh. Maybe I'll do that more! [WHISTLING] What? 'Goin' Ape!' is on HBO Comedy at 2:35am? I'm THERE."

"Good-fitting shoes sure feel good. [WHISTLING] Outlet shoe store? Outta my WAY."

"Tequila fun. Why me ever shwear off it? [WHISTLING] Uh-oh. [VOMITING]"

And today's eureka:
"Man, there's something about a haircut. [WHISTLING]"

I'll ignore these lessons every day until I'm old enough to pay attention to myself. Then I'll do the correct thing, I'll whistle, and then... I'll do it again! I learned the hard way! I gotta tell somebody young enough to benefit! But -- o, cruel life -- by the time you're that old, you're the only one listening to you. And everybody hates a whistler.

Say, I'm kinda thinking about growing my hair out. All snarly and long. Not that fake-ass Melrose Ave bedhead. Real, genuine, fifth-grade bedhead. Guess it's only a matter of five months to find out... [WHISTLING]

Today's FOCR: "Here I Go Again," Whitesnake, Whitesnake

PS: Despite it all... Governor Jingle-All-The-Way... Cubs and Red Sox in the playoffs... things haven't gotten weird or anything.

Uh-Oh, All-Skate... Must Be Time To Save the World

It's getting grim.

My two Midwestern boyhood teams face elimination by the two teams I most hate hate hate in baseball. Some California moron majority is ready to hand the henhouse keys to a diastematic Teuton enigmacrat. And now, even the Dewey Decimal System is apparently litigable intellectual property.

Somewhere in the 1980s, in a rink called Skate Country, a chubby boy hears the call coming through the speakers. He straps on his chapped leather rentals. He heads out on the floor. For once oblivious to how he appears to the girls, in his mind he rolls to the rescue on nubby wheels of fury as they play...

Today's FOCR: "Eye of the Tiger," Survivor, Eye of the Tiger