and it reminded me I hadn't written anything in two weeks. Why I wait until I've got 2,000 words when 200 is more than enough, I just don't know.

I got a check from State Farm last week. It's funny, but there's a law that says when your car is damaged by someone, their insurance has to cover not only the repair, but also compensate you for loss of value.

The great part is, the damage to my wife's car was no big deal, but the check for $491 covered all but $9 of the deductible on my car's repair.

Like the old Seinfeld episode, I guess sometimes I'm break even guy too...

The new season of the VH1 show "The Surreal Life" aired Sunday night, and I missed most of it because of "Desperate Housewives." I'm not thrilled to admit that I watch that show by the way, so I'll brush off your criticisms by saying that any show that features Terri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman (don't ask), Eva Longoria, and to some degree Nicolette Sheridan is okay with me. Plus, the guys are dreamy...

If you're not familiar with the show, it's a reality show based on the fact that they get six or so relative or certain has-beens or pseudo-celebrities and make them live in Glen Campbell's old Hollywood Hills home for two weeks with no TV, internet, or newspapers. Former cast members include Motley Crue's Vince Neil (best cast member ever), Corey Feldmann (without question the world's biggest pussy), Flava Flav and Brigitte Nielsen, Vanilla Ice, Ron Jeremy, Erik Estrada, Survivor bitch Jerri Manthy, Real World Vegas whore Trashelle and many others and well, you get the point.

Anyway, I wasn't sure about the cast at all. I thought there were too many unknows. The cast includes Americas's Top Model winner Adrianne Curry, Rap "star" Da Brat, former pro-wrestler and maybe former man Joanie Laurer aka "Chyna," international male model Marcus "the clock is ticking" Schenkenberg, Jane Wiedlen of the Go-Go's, Christopher Knight (Peter Brady) and world famous little person Verne Troyer.

Now, that ain't exactly who's who in Hollywood, but since it's season four, I figured the folks that make the show have to have done something right, so I was committed to watching. Luckily, VH1 re-airs this thing 147 times a week. I missed the airing Sunday, missed six re-airs, and STILL caught it ON THURSDAY.

Anywho, I won't detail the whole thing, other than it basically starts with a drunk Chyna in a bikini and fur hat (psychopath alert) running amok, da brat insisting she won't stay in a house with "has beens," normal guy Chris Knight and others getting acquainted.

Their first dinner together is sushi prepared and eaten off of the body of Adrianne "loves being naked" Curry. This is bad quick when Mini-perve decided to diddle her nipples while getting food repeatedly. Very uncomfortable stuff. But everyone is drinking and having a good time.

The highlight of the episode comes when Verne goes to bed (passes out drunk) while Peter Brady and model boy drink wine and watch model girl and the Go-Go skinny dip. Good stuff.

Peter then wakes Verne to tell him the chicks are naked, and here comes Verne on his rascal scooter on to the pool deck, and before you know it, he's playing "tit for tat" on ass peaks with the model. Nice work, mini-me.

But then, the trainwreck begins. Verne is mumbling and fondling and poking Knight's arm, and then, like a lightswitch going off, Verne's drunk and down. Literally. He falls over backward, nearly off the bench, and he's out.

Knight helps him up, Verne repeats the drunk's mantra "I'm okay...I'm okay," but Knight's holding Verne up, and when he looks under the hat into Troyer's eyes, you literally see him pass out. Hilarious.

So good old Peter Brady picks up mini-Verne and carries him to bed.

I guess I am going to relive the entire episode. Oh well...

At this point, everyone's ready for bed, but they can't go because comatose Verne is now moaning loudly and very naughtily in his sleep. They all play "drunk's best friend" by giving Verne a bottle of water and a trash can, and when Chris goes to check on Verne one more time, Troyer repays his kindness by fondling and caressing Chris' face repeatedly. Very wierd.

But then, the emmy moment occurs. Da Brat can't sleep because of Chyna-man's snoring, so she gets up to head for the couch. Once in the hall, she sees a naked Troyer on his little rascal scooter rolling down the hall, bouncing off stuff, eventually stopping in the home's workout room which is right outside Knight and Schenkenberg's room.

Verne then calmly shifts to his right, and pisses on the floor.

Catch the re-airing before Sunday night at 9. I beg you. This is high comedy.

Greatest. Reality show moment. Ever. Ever. Ever.

I am not one of those "when I was a kid, we had to walk to school with bread bags on our feet to keep them dry and warm potatoes in our pockets to keep our hands from freezing" type of guys. I either rode the bus or my dad drove me, I had indoor plumbing, and we had air-conditioning by the time I was in 8th grade. We were not wealthy, but we weren't poor either. We were just a family in the 70's.

When we were kids, our parents practically kicked us out of the house to go play outside with our friends. In the summertime, we'd be out after a heaping bowl of Cap'n Crunch, in for a quick lunch and out again, only to be ordered home after dark around 12 hours after we left that morning. And we liked it.

We also made fun of the fat kid in the neighborhood. You know why? Because seeing a fat kid was so rare at that time that that's what you did. Now, the fat kids would gang up and beat the rare skinny kid's ass, but I digress.

Anyway, what made me think of this is a clip I saw on the internet today. Check this out:

The downfall of humanity

I have one question:

What the fuck was that?

Wanna know why our kids today are fat and functionally retarded and getting worse every day? Here's why. A kid with a broken arm playing Playstation two with her nose.

I am literally about to be sick.

You are looking at what, in 15 years, will be an adult that weighs 285, can't figure out why she's fat, and will probably want her insurance to pay for gastric bypass surgery or whatever trendy cure for fat is available at that time.

I hope this kid gets rich off of this tape, because I don't see our future 1/10th of one percent on the screen...do you?

Yesterday (the first Wednesday of the month) is birthday cake day in the office. The company buys a good cake (not some grocery sheet cake) and we all get together at 3pm and celebrate everyone in the office's birthday for that month.

(While it was a good idea with 80 employees, now that we've split, I'm certain there'll be a month or two with no birthdays and just some cake, which is fine with me).

Anywho, we were having a lovely time and the carrot cake with cream cheese icing was great, and it came time to leave. I'm not really sure what happened next, but I went to stand up, had my foot somehow under my chair, I turned left, went to step with my right foot, and fell straight to the fucking ground.

Now, I don't mean that I stumbled a bit or that I took a little tumble. It was more like I had been shot. I went straight down, face first and straight legged, and landed flat except for having my arms under me. I was carrying a book and my plate, which apparently saved me from hitting my face on the floor.

Three people ran in to see what had happened, two others asked if I was okay, and one girl (Cathie) was busy laughing too hard to ask.

I was and am fine. Alright, I'm not fine. My knee hurts like shit and I cut my hand on something, but I'm okay. I did make the requisite workman's comp joke though. That's always fun because legal and HR never EVER think that's funny.

(sidebar: We had an employee who filed two separate workman's comp claims after identical falls in the bathroom that were witnessed by no one. She left after that, and is on her second job in less than two years, and she's had unwitnessed falls at both. Can anyone else say insurance fraud)?

So now I'm sitting here wondering, is that what it's like to be 80 and in the shower? One minute you're standing up and the next you're lying on the floor, half wrapped in a shower curtain with a broken hip and wishing you'd have bought that "I've fallen and I can't get up" thingy?

Happy Thursday everyone...

So I was on my way to work today at the usual time of 6:05am, and at about the halfway point, traffic slowed to an absolute crawl. Since I live in metro Atlanta, traffic at any time of day does not surprise me. When I heard on the radio there was a car fire near my exit I said to myself "well, that explains it."

Except it doesn't.

I had never seen a car fire before today. And quite frankly, I'm a bit disappointed. I was expecting a whole lot more.

When I finally got to "the scene," what I found was a late model Ford Taurus on the right side of the road, a cop car behind it and a fire truck parked in front of it. When I got closer, I saw one fireman pointing the hose under the semi-closed hood and under the wheel well.

Wow.

Why does this require every person on a six-lane interstate to stop and stare? I have no fucking idea. It took me ten extra minutes to get to work today because the firefly-like drivers of Atlanta couldn't go by some whisps of smoke at more than 3 feet a minute.

I shudder to think what would happen if there were an eclipse or something.

People bitch about California's traffic, but I assure you that what we have here is as bad or worse, especially when you factor in the collective negligence and ignorance of the folks on the road with me.

I know that's not much, but it's what I got today.

Oh, if you are one of the five people left in the continental US that don't yet have a g-mail account and you'd like an invite, email me at my profile address or respond to this blog, and I'll send you one. I have nine left. Hooray!

Unbelievable.

She went down for a nap at 1:00pm and got up at 3:30. We got her changed, had some juice and went outside.

Then it was 6pm, and we went inside for dinner of rainbow colored trix yogurt, hotdogs and cheetos (ahhhh, those were the days). Then, it was back outside and across the street to the in-laws until 8:15, and finally p.j.'s and bed.

I am astounded at Lauren's ability to socialize and at her cousin Jack's ability to captivate her. Hours go by in minutes when they are playing together.

I am thankful every day that I live so close to them.

And now, it's cold beers and Egged steaks and the usual friday of bullshitting.


Ahhhhh...good times.

Peace out, everybody.

The morning was relatively uneventful, with the exception of me running up and down the stairs logging into servers at work finding out why backups failed and configuring Treo handhelds. Some vacation.

The upside is that the frequent trips on the stairs helped my sinuses...a little. Christ, how I hate sinus infections.

Anywho, a little after ten, we'd been laying around doing a whole lot of nothing, so I decided that Lauren and Mr. Mom were going to the Mall. Hooray for us.

We got there, played around the coin fountain near Galyans, and headed for the food court, where we promptly got in the elevator and rode round trip floor to ceiling for about half an hour.

Then, when my "shit it's hot in this elevator" had about hit its zenith, we got out and saw aunt Heather and her friend Miss Mandy. From then on, it was a whirlwind of activity.

We went to stride rite and bought the under four version of the little black dress: white leather tennis shoes. You can't go wrong and you can't go without them. She's now wearing a 7.5, by the way.

A quick change in the family bathrooms and Lauren was a ton lighter and ready to go again.

Then, it was off to the Disney store where Mandy wanted to buy Lauren anything and everything. I said no more to Mandy than I did my daughter. We then headed to Galyans where I promptly stole my baby a balloon and we shopped for shoes and clothes. Actually, Heather and Mandy shopped. Lauren hid in the clothing racks.

Finally, it was the food court for Chik-fil-a nuggets, fries and a sprite, followed by "any cookie Lauren wants." (Thanks Mandy). Lauren picked the double stuffed, icing filled double chocolate thingy, and proceeded to pull it in half and eat the icing.

Mandy looked at us quizically, but that's just Lauren.

In the car, home at 12:30 and a nap at 1:oopm. Hopefully I've done my job and she's worn out and ready for a nap. I know I'm ready for some X-Box casino games and a little NASCAR column writing.

More to follow after naptime.

By the way, you can check out my columns at the following link:

http://www.anomieacres.com/markbackerindex.htm

Let me know what you think...

So, the day started quietly enough. Lauren got up about 8am (which is late for her) and we were all ready to go. We had the usual discussion about which bee-bee (pacifier...don't ask) was coming downstairs.

We had gotten her weaned down to a couple, but now she's got about 14, and if you try to screw with her by taking one and thinking she won't notice, you'd be wrong. She quickly takes inventory and says "where my new blue bee-bee go?"

See? You can't win. So I figure, she isn't going to kindergarten with them, so what do I care?

By the way, why do we still use that big German word for "the year before first grade?" I mean, haven't we gotten to the point where we can say "grade zero" or something? It's bugged me for a while, but not as bad as montessori. I hate that word. I know it's foreign secret code for "smart kid grade zero," but it still irritates me.

Anywho, we came down for juice and a vitamin (Scooby Doo one-a-days, if you must know), and made a breakfast of toasted bagels. My bagel had peanut butter, and hers was slathered with cream cheese. But not before her daily pat of butter consumption. Don't ask again.

We sat down to the breakfast table with her watching "Higglytown Heroes" and me reading "Retreat, Hell!" by WEB Griffin. She then asked me to read to her, which I did. She seemed to really enjoy two chapters about the Korean Conflict.

Currently, she is on the sofa, covered with her blanket, stuffed piggy by her side, watching "Oswald," the show about an octopus who has the voice of Fred Savage from the Wonder Years. I'm sure it pays and all, but still...it's a long way from Austin Powers and "moley-moley-moley-moley" to this.

I'm hoping to pawn her off on Molly's sister for an hour so I can get a haircut this morning. We'll see how it goes.

More to follow...

The wife has an off-site meeting all day tomorrow, so I have to babysit all day. I actually say "babysit" just to make people mad, since whenever I do say it, they scream "It's not babysitting!! It's called parenting!!"

Whatever. In the end of the day, it's an adult taking care of a 2-year old all day, so it's babysitting. When I say "Lauren, don't run around with the new Cutco chef knife," then THAT'S parenting. But changing pullups and cleaning up fingerpaint and flipping around to the various kid's shows on tv, that's just babysitting.

I don't want you to think I don't appreciate how hard it is to be a stay at home mom that also works out of the home. My wife is a saint in more ways than you know, and being home for ten days thru the holidays reminded me of how tough it can be. It can also be rewarding, especially if you aren't looking for it.

Anywho, I get to do this once in a while, so I thought I would run down the list of things I will probably get to (or have to) do during my day home with Lauren.

1) Remind her that "we" don't throw things over our heads in the house. While doing it with a balloon is okay, doing it with a miniature stroller is not.

2) Eat butter, or at least give her butter to eat. I remember liking butter and margarine as a kid, but not like this. If she even hears the lid come off the butter dish, she's at my hip like a police dog, index finger extended, saying "butter please daddy." So I cut her off a pat of butter, put it on her finger, pat her on the head, and send her on her way.

3) Taking a leisurely walk thru our neighborhood Super WalMart. This is good for killing an hour or so, and she especially enjoys the lobster tank and the WalMart pet department, which consists of about 30 tanks of common fish, frogs and snails that are all demonstrating about a 65% mortality rate. By the way, we are quiet there, so as not to wake all of the "sleeping" fishes.

4) Play-do. I do not recall liking it so much as a kid or hating it so much as an adult, but that stuff is terrible. It's tough to clean up, impossible to get out of carpet, and the parts are all impossible to clean. but it'll kill 45 minutes, so why not?

5) At some point, I will be asked to vacate whatever sofa we are both sitting on at the time. Lauren is famous for her moments of me time, and I'm sure tomorrow will have several of them.

6) This will be the bane of my existence all day: "Me watch new Dora." I've watched that new damned Dora the Explorer movie approximately 648 times since Christmas Day, and I hate it very very much. However, she loves it, so we watch it. The upside of Dora is that Lauren is accidentally learning Spanish. When she is jumping over something, she looks at us and says "Salto." It impresses strangers, and I guess that makes it worth it.

7) We will most assuredly brush and fingerpaint. This is far easier to clean up than the play-do, although you wouldn't think that it is. If the weather's nice (which except for cloudiness, it's supposed to be), we will probably spend several hours on the deck and in the driveway doing this.

8) Napping. God willing, she will take a nap tomorrow. She has taken one for five days in a row, which is a record as of late. She is to the point now where she is only napping about 3 or 4 out of 7 days, so you never know. But even if she doesn't, she'll sit and play in her crib for an hour and a half or so, and that's good for both of us at the midpoint of the day.

9) We will most assuredly play the guitar. She got a fabulous blue guitar with flowers on it for christmas, and she loves (LOVES) to play it and sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for us. It's very funny and very sweet.

10) At some point, I hope we have 10 minutes like we did last night where I can lay on the sofa and she will just climb up and lay on me and watch tv. Maybe right before naptime or something, but those are the ten minutes that I cherish more than any other. They're rare, which makes them greater, but that is easily my favorite part of being a parent.

So there's my Friday. I'll let you know if something different happens, but I doubt it will.

(Actually, i think tomorrow may be either a running blog or an hourly update about what we're doing).

Thanks for reading...

Much like the "I told you so's" everyone is throwing at the UGA basketball program after their hiring and subsequent firing of The Harricks, folks around the Buckeye state have to be having similar thoughts.

It seems that AD and frequent "No we didn't" Ohio State front man Andy Geiger is "retiring" after 11 years at the helm.

Maybe it's me, but I'm guessing Andy's tired of putting on TV makeup and going on the news lying about what he or Tressel knew about their athletes in general and their football program in particular. It seems that Maurice Clarrett-gate just isn't going away.

Two years ago, everyone was saying "shame on you, Maurice. You should have known better." Now, it seems like most folks are saying "Shame on you both Andy and Jim. YOU both should have know better."

Allegations have come to light that several OSU players received illegal benefits including cash, access to cars, etc. Now, I don't expect the AD and coach to know everything, but when a player is driving a brand new car every couple of weeks or months, well, somebody ought to jot a memo and get to the bottom of that.

It shouldn't surprise Buckeye fans either, since Tressel had similar problems at Youngstown State, and left a wake of controversy behind himself there as well, including (surprise) illegal benefits including cash, cars, grade fixing, etc.

Geiger is also tired from saying "we didn't do anything wrong" about his basketball program. Of course, it was discovered that his men's basketball coach had directly given six grand to a Yugoslavian recruit, but that was just his stipend for travel and coach Jim O'Brien was just having a problem with the currency exchange rates...right Andy?

I only hope that the NCAA will do something they rarely do: make a good sound decision and take away Ohio State's national title from January 2003. It seems they had a very important and very ineligible player that season, and maybe many. I'd hate to give another title to Thugtown Miami, but I'd give it to Alabama before I'd think it was okay for Ohio State to keep.

The college football season is finally over. On one hand, I am a bit sad because years like this only happen for Auburn every 15 or 20 years, so it's a little disappointing.

On the other hand, this worked out about as well as it could. If you asked me at the beginning of the year if I'd rather be 8-3 and playing in the liberty bowl or 12-0 with a chance to win the Sugar Bowl, go 13-0 and finish second, I'd say hell yeah to the latter.

The fact that pundits put OU ahead of Auburn based on their out of conference schedule being tougher than ours is laughable now. In the end, playing Bowling Green over us playing The Citadel didn't make the Sooners much better. Man, I've seen softer takedowns on Cops. USC came on to the field, gave up a TD, then decided to make Choke-lahoma their collective bitches, and they did just that.

38-10 at the half meant that I didn't even have to hear that dying hyena Ashlee "no, I'm the one with dark hair and no boobs" Simpson butcher yet another song on tv. Hell, I read it on Fark this morning. Hooray for big first half beatings that get me an extra hour of sleep.

We might not have won, but we wouldn't have let Leinert go long on us all night either. Our db's would have had something to say about that. And, it turns out that when playing a decent team, OU can't do shit on offense. That was just plain terrible. Jason White looked like Jason Voorhees out there, stomping around getting caught from every direction any time he didn't hand of to Peterson for a three yard loss.

In five years, Oklahoma has played in four huge games, and lost three of them...badly. That must feel like being a Sox fan before this year, I'd imagine.

Anyway, I feel great. Think about this. A year ago, Tuberville was one reporter's abililty to find an out of place airplane in Ohio away from being fired BEFORE the Alabama game. Then, the AD and President get canned, a booster starts down the long road to shun-ville, and Tuberville keeps smiling and saying the right things.

He talks his two running backs and two stellar DB's into staying, then knocks out 15 straight wins and signs one of those super iron-clad contracts that will pay him 14 million over seven years, and if Auburn even thinks...THINKS about letting him go, they owe him every penny. I don't even think there's a morality clause. He could have sex with an endangered Bald Eagle, and they'd STILL have to pay him. And that's the way it should be.

Meanwhile, Auburn fans can spend the next six months saying "yeah, but we'd have done this" or "We were 13-0, won the sec, beat five top ten teams, three of them on the road, and became the only undefeated SEC team in the BCS's history to NOT play for the title." And coincidentally, Oklahoma's played in it this year, last year, and in 2000. You won in 2000, but you got punked the last two years, and last year you got to play for the title even though you didn't even win your conference. You got embarassed by Kansas State and LSU last year, and humiliated this year. But the little 12 is SOOO much better than the SEC. That's why you played a four-loss team for your conference title this year. And, considering the BCS is run by the head of the Big 12, it's no wonder you get the benefit of the doubt.

Don't think so? How about the fact that only two teams that didn't win their conference have ever played for the national title? You and Nebraska in 2001. Oh, the other thing you two Big 12 teams have in common is that you got your asses kicked on the sport's biggest stage.

So yes, we are disappointed. But all you can do is play the schedule in front of you. Auburn did that with class and dignity, they won every game, faced down every challenge, and made every Auburn fan in the country and the world proud.

War Eagle!!

Now, can someone get the Auburn cheerleaders some of those USC sweaters? Meow!

I was on vacation from December 23rd until today, January 3rd. It's tough to come back to work after being gone for ten days, but I think it's tougher to stay home and try to do what my wife does every day, which is work, raise our daughter, keep the house, cook, and everything else.

Thanks for everything babe.

Now, the thing I forgot to tell you was that when I walked out of the office to go home on the 23rd, there was a pink post it on my car. It said:

"Hi! I scraped your bumper. Sorry! : (

Call me Joyce _ _ _ _ _ _ _
770-239-X X X X

12/23/04

Really. Including the sad face.

I am happy she left the note and took responsibility for it, but what in the fuck is going on that every couple of months I'm taking cars to the shop for things that are not my fault? This is the third incident in 15 months, and two of the three involved other folks hitting my parked cars!! I knew my 20 year clean record would end sometime, but do the karma Gods have to beat me over the head with a shovel about it?

So today I had Enterprise pick me up at 7:15, which was great. I was worried about being late to work and, as it turned out, I was only 16 minutes late.

I was given a choice between a taurus and an impala. I took the impala. I made the wrong choice. It drives like shit. So much for my GM loyalty. They make great trucks and SUV's, but their sedans suck ass.

I will return this piece of shit on Friday, only to rent another vehicle Monday morning while we take the wife's car to the shop to get her 1400 bucks worth of damage repaired.

I actually don't know if it will be Monday yet, as I didn' twant to ruin Joyce's New Year by giving her the bad news. I plan to call her this morning and tell her the total, complete with my rental car for a week. I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy New Year. Peace on earth. Goodwill towards all men, and keep away from my fucking vehicles!!