FAN: Olan Mills

So I put a suit on tonight at 7:50 PM to go to our church to have a picture taken for the directory. You get a complimentary 8x10 just for taking part. Ha. Ha! HA! Fools, all of us. About 20 photos were taken and we were then lead into a room with a sales girl with super software that showed the pictures every which way to.....SUNDAY. I do not get snookered, so please don't think I got snookered. We haven't had a family portrait taken since Still A Stroke was 3 1/2 years old. She's going to be 10 this summer. It was time. But getting a photo for a church directory should not feel like buying a car! What's it going to take to put you into this 16x20 canvas - touched up professionally - with our overpriced frame and live forever magic epoxy?! I didn't even take my wallet. I had no idea. One minute I'm watching Harry Potter with Stroke as we're gearing up for the next movie installment July 15th, the next minute I'm discussing if I can bring the package down from $280 if I don't get the fancy smokey corners! What's wrong with the picture from 2003 that's only 11x14 above our mantle? My hair was still somewhat brown! My face was thinner! Look how cute Stroke's little bare feet are at 3! Why? Do we really need a 16x20 canvas as part of our package? Sigh. Yes. Also as a side note if you currently work at Olan Mills......when people are going to drop large amounts of cheddar with your company, you shouldn't ask them to "please don't do that, sir" when you whip out your BlackBerry to take a 2 megapixel blurry photo of your daughter while posed all cutesy. "Hey Honey, F Olan Mills....I got us the winner right here on my cell phone!".

DOG: The Color Of Jazz

Joe Farrell - Canned Funk, 1975

Back at Christmas Mrs. Dog got me a coffee table book called "The Color of Jazz." It features album art from jazz albums released from the late 1950s through the early 1970s. All of these covers are photographs of a guy named Pete Turner.

Turner did most of his album artwork during this period for a now defunct jazz record label, CTI, run by Creed Taylor. And not only is it classic artwork but in many cases it's classic jazz music as well.

I had a number of the albums featured in the book but there was a whole lot of which I was completely unfamiliar. So I went on a mission to discover the music behind the photographs. And yesterday I found one of the remaining ones I have not located, Wes Montgomery's Road Song. Upon finding it I decided since we regularly discuss music and the lack thereof (American Dildo) on here, it might be nice to open the discussion (or the lack thereof) to album art too.

So starting today I will post from time to time album art starting with the contents of The Color of Jazz with as much information as I can find about the picture and album. And since outstanding artwork is by no means limited to jazz we can branch out into all kinds of music with no regard for how good the music is but focus on the uniqueness of the artwork instead.

The cover photo is Joe Farrell's Canned Funk, the last of 5 albums he did for CTI. Below is Milt Jackson's Olinga album from 1974 also his last album on the CTI label.

FAN: The Hottest Band In The World, KISS

So, while Still A Dog was enjoying the Blues Fest - the Fan family caught the ending to American Idol's recent season. Haven't talked much about it as I haven't had a lot of time to post. Much like I singled out David Cook to win last year after hearing his audition, I thought the same this year for Danny Gokey. I told Still A Dad to write it down before all the gold tickets were even given away. Compared to who ended up winning, he should have. Kris Allen sucks. He sucks bad. It took a pretty big man to admit on stage after 100,000,000 votes came in that Adam Lambert deserved to win. Jesus, he blew him away singing with Brian May screaming on guitar in the background. Kris Allen shouldn't be allowed to plug in Adam Lambert's microphone. I've had a nickname for him for months....Cheeky Monkey. He looks like a baby chimp. I want to find the 5 people who would pay hard earned money to go see this clown in concert. 5. Find me 5. Adam, glam as he is, came out and rocked Beth...then joined Kiss for two half versions of Detroit Rock City and Rock and Roll all Nite. Funny, Paul Stanley was just in my building last Friday doing a radio interview for his art work. I took in his solo LP and a sharpie and went out in the lobby every 3 minutes for 30 minutes straight, but didn't catch him. So far since I've been there Bobby Flay, Little Steven and a host of other "celebrities" have been in. I've met one half of the DJ team that is easily Philly's finest and if I got to see Paul Stanley last week it would have been cool, but alas, security snuck him in a side door because of all the creepy 40 year old guys with shit to sign standing around. Actually, maybe 12 people were actually waiting for him. Anyway, back to Idol......some thoughts for the entire thing:

Bikini Girl getting Punk'd was awesome. No way she knew that was coming. You can't act that mad. Kara tore her up.

Blind dude should NOT dance. You copy? Blind guy....no dancing!

I am so tired of Megan's little shoulder shimmy. But she's still got something like a young Jenny McCarthy thing going on.

Bikini Girl will be in Playboy....or porn....write it down. This I know.

It was cool to explain to Still A Stroke that Queen's singer died and they couldn't "carry on, carry on" because nobody could sing his songs. I saw George Michael do a pretty good job at the Wembley concert for AIDS and they gave him the hard ones....but Freddy could blow. Adam Lambert is the next closest thing to Freddy Mercury. If it was 1985 he'd be all spandexed up singing with Crue or something. Did I just say Freddy could blow?

I don't like Lil Rounds. She stupid. She look like TO when she talk.

Who the fuck is dressing Queen Latifah? Really? Sorry for the rude language people but Jesus....she was a mess. She's a couple Super Sized #3's away from Aretha Franklin.

I really thought Whitney Coke Whouston was going to come out while Tatiana was doing her lame acting. It didn't even fool my 9 year old. Lame. Booooooo.

Randy should bring out Journey with Steve Perry, not freaky looking Steve Perry clone, and do Don't Stop Believin' smoe year for the final.

Rod Stewart is the farthest thing from sexy I can imagine. Please stop thinking you're sexy.

Oh well......that's what I listened to tonight. Every group song sucked. The duets with stars were OK. What the hell song did Lionel Ritchie sing first? The Black Eyed Peas were OK I guess...if you're in a club...which I'm never going to be again...so I have no reason to listen to them.

I give the entire show tonight an 8 because I got to see KISS and Queen.....and Steve Martin playing banjo....and Cyndi Lauper playing and singing....always liked her.

Peace. Gotta get a goodnight's sleep for the drive. Kris freaking Allen....are you kidding me????

DOG: Chesapeake Blues Festival - Day 2

Day 2 of the Chesapeake Blues Festival started off with a ROAR. Albert Cummings came out 15 minutes early with his Stratocaster blazing and took the audience by storm at 10:45am!

Albert asked the crowd what they wanted and then gave it to them. After standing in the rain for over an hour to get in, when he took the stage the rain ceased. And the rockin' blues began... in a big way. I had not been very familiar with the music of Albert Cummings prior to the festival so I was very anxious to hear the man play. His set started off slowly but by the third song he was loosening up and it just got better and better with each one he played. He ended his set with a medley that closed out with Led Zeppelin's "Rock N Roll" and he ended that with the tag riff from "Stairway To Heaven." By then everybody was on their feet.

I have been attending this festival since 1999 and have been there all but 2 years. And I can say that Albert Cummings was by far the best opening act the festival has ever booked. If his intention was to gain more fans by playing here, then mission accomplished. He set the bar very high for those who would follow.

Fortunately, the next act was Zac Harmon. And we learned The Blues According to Zachariah.

Harmon brought that authentic Mississippi sound all the way up from Jackson, MS. And this guy is indeed the real deal. I was familiar with some of his tunes prior to seeing him so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect and I was not disappointed. I grabbed my lunch while Zac Harmon laid down the blues as background music.

So there I was with potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans, smoked chicken, peppered sausage, and pulled pork (with the HOT Hoochie Coochie sauce) and a refreshing Starr Hill India Pale Ale and Zac Harmon blaring out the blues. I can imagine Heaven being very much like that. Anyway, Day 2 caterers for the VIP section (of course I'm a VIP when it comes to the blues) , Red, Hot & Blue did an outstanding job. Much much better than whoever catered day 1.

Next up was Maryland's own Nighthawks featuring Mark Wenner on the blues harp. These guys have been playing everything from wine festivals, roadside barrooms, clubs, field parties, and bar mitzvahs, to large arenas and concert halls (and probably a few weddings and funerals) across America and Europe ever since I started working in Maryland nearly 30 years ago! But they're based in Silver Spring just outside of DC. They also are the bar band in the HBO series 'The Wire' and play the theme song, "Down In The Hole," for the final season. I've seen them play dozens of times over the years and I can honestly say you never know what you're going to get cause they can play damn near anything. But for the festival they had a special surprise for us. Guesting on guitar they had Hubert Sumlin!

For those who don't know, Hubert Sumlin was the guitar player for Howlin' Wolf. Muddy Waters so envied the Wolf's guitar man that he offered him more money to play in Muddy's band and Sumlin accepted. This caused a great rift between Muddy and Wolf that was never ever repaired. Eventually, Sumlin quit Muddy's band and returned to play with Howlin' Wolf until his death. Anyway, Sumlin was treated for cancer back in 2003 and I've seen him play a few times since then but he's never really had much energy. This was not the case on Sunday. Hubert announced to the crowd that he was feeling good and he really was. He danced and played and took more lead solos than I've ever seen. It was good to see one of the few remaining legends of the blues out still having fun. Don't know if it was playing with the Nighthawks, who always seem to have fun, or what. But Hubert Sumlin was on his game.

After that came Lydia Pense & Cold Blood. And here's where I got off the blues train. Nothing special about the music. Nothing special about the band. Lydia looked like a spasmatic with St. Vitas and ants in her pants while trying to sing and move about the stage. To me, this act was just God-Awful. How they got booked, let alone this high on the bill, is amazing to me. Not bad musicians mind you, just not entertaining at all. (But still, I'd listen to 100 hours of Lydia Pense before I'd listen to 5 minutes of American Idol).

The highlight of Day 2 was, as expected, Shemekia Copeland. By now they call her "The Queen of the Chesapeake Blues Festival." She is the only artist to have appeared 6 times at the festival and I have seen every one of those shows. As she was singing I recalled back to the first time I saw her perform, and it was on that same stage. She was only 20 years old back then. She captivated me and Mrs. Dog (who was just "Mrs. Dog wanna be" then) with an a capella version of "Ghetto Child." A song which she always dedicates to her father, Johnny "Clyde" Copeland, a damn good bluesman in his own right before he passed away. Of all the artists I saw over the weekend, Shemekia is the one that you absolutely must see. She has the most powerful voice I've ever heard, and yes, that includes Aretha Franklin.

After Shemekia everything else was non-descript. Blood Sweat & Tears came on and I guess the REALLY old folks enjoyed them. They were fine. No big deal.

Jonny Lang finished the festival. And for my sake I wish he'd have stayed home. He still doesn't know what he wants to be. A singer? A guitar-slinger? A rock-n-roller? A Christian artist? He screams instead of singing. He plays distortion instead of blues riffs. He exudes false pain on his face with every note. I can understand those facial expressions though, it was painful for me too.

Anyway, that's what I've been listening to. How about you?

FAN: Najeh's Car Dumped

I cannot believe for the life of me that the author of this story didn't say the car was "dumped". Still Avail, who will celebrate his wedding this weekend in the Crescent City sent me an email as soon as he saw it saying he couldn't wait to see what we'd come up with for this crazy story.

I got nothin'. I thought I might, but I don't. It's kind of sad actually. Dude had a decent career going, nothing special, but now he's chasing his stolen vehicle down the street watching it slam into 4 parked cars. The fact that the car is so old leads me to believe it's an old muscle car on hydrolics or something. I thought maybe after he caught him he would hold him down and shit in his face.

No such luck.

Well, Najeh, all I can say is I wish you would have taken your role as a Steeler a little more honorably. The city was ready to love you. You didn't want it bad enough. Had you shown the same ferocity for the goal line that you showed your Impala.....maybe you'd still be playing.

Good luck this weekend Still Avail. I will be in stinking Patriot's country this weekend so I have to hope my "PITT 6SB" license plate doesn't get my car spit on.

FAN: Word Verification of the Day

Still Moor Cowbell sent this to me today and I busted a gut at work. Had I busted something else, there would be....oh, nevermind....that's low brow humor. Anyway, check out the word verification!!!!

DOG: MNF Hits Below The Belt

The good news is that ESPN is getting that blathering idiot with the assoholic personality off the air for Monday Night Football. Yes, you've probably heard by now that Tony Kornheiser (aka KornHoler) has been fired from MNF by ESPN. This is living proof that there is a God, he does hear your prayers, and sometimes he answers them!

On the other hand he is being replaced by John Gruden (aka Chucky). Gruden has the possibility of making this work since he obviously knows volumes more football than KornHoler. And the argumentative nature of his prick personality will definitely cause some heated discussion between him and Jaws. But he is indeed a PRICK (all caps intentional) and if you don't believe me just ask anybody who ever played for him. He is such a mean prick he makes even Bill Parcells a teeny weenie in comparison.

So there you have it folks, replacing an asshole with a prick is all waaaay below the belt and another low blow to the viewing public.

Who would I have chosen? Brian Billick with no hesitation. Billick has the knowledge and personality to become much better behind a mike than he ever was on the sideline. But he's under contract to Fox Sports so it wasn't in the cards this time.

At least the KornHoler is gone and I know God hears my prayers. That's good enough for now.

DOG: Chesapeake Blues Festival - Day 1

Sandy Point State Park, Annapolis, Maryland. Site of the 2009 Chesapeake Blues Festival. The greatest Blues venue in the world.

Raises money for Johns Hopkins Cranio Facial, Special Olympics, Make-A-Wish Foundation and more.

And has turned The Dog on to more great music in a weekend, every year or so, than a million replies to "What Are You Listening To Now?" could ever hope to.

So this year the Festival kicked off with the Chesapeake Ladies of the Blues. A group of local blues women who are fairly well known in the greater Baltimore-Washington area. The most noteworthy of which is pianist/saxophonist, Deanna Bogart.

The others being vocalists Patty Reese, Nadine Rae, and guitarist, Melanie Mason. They were all right as an opening act and they did fine for not playing together much. It's nice to get local people some exposure on a stage this big.

They were followed by blues harpist Sugar Blue who is most famous for playing the blues riff on the Rolling Stones song "Miss You." That song was covered in a different time signature and was the highlight of Sugar Blue's set.

Next was the surprise act of Day 1, Back Door Slam! Led by young guitarist Davy Knowles, BDS really impressed everyone. They rocked the house, jammed out, mellowed down, and generally gave the audience more than any of us expected! Their original material was just as strong as the two covers they did, CSN&Y's "Almost Cut My Hair" and Cream's "Outside Woman Blues." Davy Knowles had the place abuzz for sure.

Be sure to see him in August at Oregon Ridge in Hunt Valley, MD where he will open for Joe Bonamassa and Derek Trucks at the Hot August Blues Festival.


The great Lonnie Brooks was next with his unique blend of Louisiana and Chicago blues. He was joined on stage by one of his three blues-playing sons, Wayne Baker Brooks. Lonnie was the consummate professional bluesman. Everything was precise. He had the white Gibson SG blazing. And while Lonnie did not bring the house down. His set was a solid performance of classic blues material.


Sorry I don't have any pictures of the next act, Ana Popovic. She's a favorite for the guys and she's quite a good guitarist. Not a great singer and struggles with English, still. But she's getting better. During her set we went to buy Mrs. Dog a sweatshirt for the cold weather we heard was on it's way for Sunday's part of the festival. So we heard rather than saw Ana.




Big Bad Voodoo Daddy followed and they are very good. A tight horn section is emblematic of the whole band. A top notch musical outfit from top to bottom. They play mostly jump blues and swing music. They covered a ton of Cab Calloway songs including "Minnie The Moocher". And a favorite of mine, "Reefer Man" which I first heard done by the Widespread Depression Orchestra. Fan will like BBVD because he likes Cherry Poppin' Daddies and these guys are in that vein. A West Coast swing band with lots of soul. I was digging them very much. Not sure how some of the others felt, but lots of people could not keep their feet still during their set.

The night was capped off by Los Lonely Boys. And they played a thoroughly inspired set. Very good stuff from this power trio. They turned their hit song "Heaven" into about a 15 minute jam. This closed out the first day. Their was a surprise appearance by the two guys pictured below who I am not sure of their identity. Some have identified them as Los Horny Boyz, others called them Warriors For The Blues. They just look like a couple beer-drinking, hell-raising blues fans to me... Day 2, tomorrow.

FAN: Verizon Has A Stupid Policy

I've been trying to get a live body at Verizon to give me an answer on a certain policy they have, but all they want to do is acknowledge the new policy, not explain it. Oh well. What's a logical being to do. What set me off? This. Mrs. Fan has a company issued BlackBerry. Nice. Full web access. I have a Curve with the data package but it's mine, not the company's. For her personal phone, she has a pink Razor, an old pink Razor. We loved them. I just got rid of mine a year ago (silver, not pink you dolt) after having it close to 4 years. Her's is about 3 years old but it started acting up. Don't ask me to define "acting up". So anyway, she's past due to get the "new every two" deal. We don't do it like clockwork (not that sicko), we wait until it makes sense for us if we like our current phones. Anyway, we've also decided it's time to get Still A Stroke her own phone. We are away from her a lot in the summer due to long swim practices every morning and camp the rest of the day until after 4. She also spends more and more time on weekends with her friends and while certainly not necessary, I don't mind it at this time. I want to start not staying for some of her activities and this will make me feel safer in doing that. We left her alone for the first time last week while we ran a 20 minute errand. It was FABULOUS. I chose for her a Blitz which has the Chaperone Child feature which allows us to put an area on her phone and if the phone leaves that area, we can be alerted. Cool. I like it. Sign me up. Not sure if I can pull up the phone's location realtime because I haven't looked into it yet, but I'm betting I can. The Blitz was $119 but this week they had an online special of $100 off making the phone $19. I don't think any qwerty phones were free so this was a pretty good deal. Another cool thing about the Blitz was that with it, you could get up to 3 free BlackBerry Pearls.

Since Mrs. Fan's credit was only $50, the free Pearl looked like a much better deal. I was also hoping to beat up the phone rep to apply her $50 credit to the $19 for the Blitz. It was a longshot but I was going to try. I was going to try that after I made the purchase online as it's quicker and much less painful. So as I'm checking out, I'm asked to pick an email option for the Pearl. Well, I don't want one. She has work email on her work BlackBerry and just wants the personal phone to make personal calls and texts. Then why get a BlackBerry for the personal phone, you ask? It was strategic, in case she switches jobs in the next 2 years and the next job doesn't come with a Blackberry. Then, she could just turn on the data package for this one. Well, as it turns out, Verizon's new policy is - if you buy a smartphone - you HAVE to choose an email option with the cheapest one being $29.99. What? Why can't I just use the damn thing for a phone and mp3 player? They have an option to not have voice...that's right....just email and text.....but I can't have a smartphone without getting some form of email. WTF? So now, Mrs. Fan just wants the cheapest qwerty with Chaperone Parent available, and it's.....The Blitz, which only comes in one color. So now, for those of you keeping score, I have two females in my house who already share socks......who now have the same cell phone. Wow, I guess they'll NEVER pick up each other's by mistake. I guess my days of texting naughty things in the middle of the day are over.

Come on, like you really thought I did that? Well, I might if she'd answer them. I have a better shot at hitting Powerball on Wednesday.

FAN: Corngasm

So, you read the comments from the previous post and you said "WTF is a corngasm?" That, my friends, is what happens when you slightly wet a paper towel, wrap it around a freshly shucked and picked ear of corn, then wrap that in aluminum foil (shiny side in) and place it on the upper deck of the grill for about 10-12 minutes. It's good enough just like that, but I really like a hint of butter, a hint of salt, and enough pepper to burn your lips. Good Lord. I can't wait for July. I added "corngasm" to the lexicon the last time Stilladog was at my house and grilled. To tell you the truth - I don't think we've boiled corn on the cob since you were at my old house when Still A Stroke was about 3 or 4.

DOG: Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mothers day to all you crazy muthas who read my posts.

A popular thing to do on Mothers Day is take Mom out for brunch or lunch after church, or for dinner in the evening. But at my house, Mrs. Dog wanted smoked ribs. So we did some serious smokin'.

Picked up 3 full racks of pork back ribs on Saturday. Then got up early this morning to mix up a batch of my original "non-Award Winning" AAuthentic Rib Rub. No I cannot give you the recipe to my rub. I still have hopes of it winning an award someday. I can tell you that the primary ingredients are brown sugar and paprika and yes, there's some cayenne pepper in there too.

First you rip the membrane off the bottom half of your ribs. Then you rub them generously with your rib rub. And let them sit. At least an hour. Mine sat absorbing all the rub flavor for about 3 hours while I did some yard work. Then I fired up the smoker and put them on the grates. Temp was about 165 when I put them on but soon reached a too hot 240. I scaled it back by controlling the intake vent and the exhaust smokestack until I could keep the temp between 200-225. After about an hour or so I started mopping them down with a rib mop using my leftover AAuthentic Rib Rub with a generous dose of apple juice added for moisture. At first I mopped them every half hour. Then after a few hours, every 20 minutes. Mopping keeps the meat tender and moist even when it has been exposed to heat above 200 degrees for more than four hours.

In the meantime I brought a Sonos zone out onto the patio and jammed out to some serious blues (you got to have blues when you BBQ) and some Troegs Beer-Sunshine Pils and Hopback Ale. I was joined by my faithful companion, Mattie-dog, and we smoked our Mothers Day away.

Hope everybody else had a nice relaxing day like us. But I'm pretty sure none of you ate as well!

FAN: Baltimore Shitbirds - Caw

Funny. I was looking at recent searches that landed on the Slant and one was for "Baltimore Shitbirds". Superb. So, I went to Google and searched on "Baltimore Shitbirds" and Steel City Slant is the 3rd entry. If you put it in quotes, we're NUMBER ONE! Caw! Caw!

DOG: The Return of the Baltimore Colts

I look forward to seeing a lot of my critter friends on my commute to work in the morning. I can't handle that big city hustle and bustle, traffic jams, fender benders, train rides, and all the bullshit that goes with it. I commute 25 miles over the river and through the woods (literally) past houses, farms, and fields. And there's lots of animals to see.

Some of them have names, some of them don't. The red-tail hawk is just "Hawk." The ring-neck pheasant is "Ringo." But the llamas, alpacas and bison don't have names. It's not uncommon to see deer, turkey buzzards, ground hogs and foxes too. Anyway, back in the spring 2003 when I worked on the same campus for another company I sort of adopted two thoroughbred colts. And I used to call them the Baltimore Colts because, well, they live outside of Baltimore. But in the fall of that year my company moved to another location, my commute changed, and I didn't get to see my Baltimore Colts grow up in to big horses.

So in 2007 when I got a job back on the same campus again I looked for my Baltimore Colts but they were a couple of big mares by then. Then this spring my old Baltimore Colts had babies themselves and somewhere along the way another mare had one too. So now there are 3 new Baltimore Colts running in the pasture at Mint Meadow Farms when I pass by. I always laugh at them because the one colt is always trying to get the other horses to chase him. And he circles the three mama horses like his mane is on fire.

Mint Meadow raises and races thoroughbred steeplechase horses. But I understand it's for sale. I'd buy it but I don't have a million and a half dollars lying around. And if it sells, I'm going to miss seeing those guys every morning. They'll grow up soon too and it'll be fun watching them grow into real race horses. But I sure will miss them when that time comes. Regardless, seeing them every morning is one of my blessings and it beats sitting in Beltway traffic by a country mile.

FAN: Slanted Lexicon: "ICFT" is NSFW

The last two companies I've been at use IM. It cuts down on email but probably productivity as well. I know my boss sits right behind me and we keep an IM window up the entire day. That way when annoying Sally comes anywhere near us and starts asking stupid questions, we can say neat things like "Can you believe how f*ucking stupid she is?" without anyone overhearing us....except the Chief Security Officer. Today I banged out a couple really bad sentences in a row to different people and followed them up with "icft". Every time I did it I got the obligatory "lol" back meaning they figured out what I meant. Who couldn't. Anyone who uses IM or texting knows a lot of the acceptable slang "idk, omg, stfu, nsfw" - and they also catch on quick when you make one up on the fly "icft". It actually made me curious so I headed out to Google to see if "icft" is widely used. I can't find a single instance of it. In fact, if you search Google for "I can't f*cking type" you will only find 242 hits which is crazy! I guess most people put that in email or texting or Im.....not in anything that Google can crawl. If you add +icft to the query, you get zero.....0. So, there it is, I'm claiming it for my lexicon. "ICFT" is mine. Whenever you type "frined" instead of "friend", "perfrom" instead of "perform" or "ecsort" instead of......well, forget that one.....follow it up with a quick "icft", think of me, smile and move on. Maybe the next time I'm typing at work and pump out "qulaity" instead of "quality" I'll just scream "ick fit!" which is the spoken variation of "icft". While we're on the subject of IM'ing, I also want to name this practice - quickly correcting a typo to prove you aren't a moron when clearly the other person doesn't think you're that stupid. Case in point: you're in an IM exchange and you're blistering the keyboard and type "he just once to act like it was his idea". You know you meant "wants" not "once" and your fingers were going faster than your brain...but you still hit enter and then as fast as humanly possible you type "wants" by itself on a single row. Good for you. Because the guy you're IM'ing who went to St. Joe's really thought you didn't know the difference. Thank God you cleared that up for him. The thing is, isn't it funny what we choose to correct in the single word line and what we donut. That's a joke. Sea? Do not.....Donut? Whatever. You know I'm write. If you mistakenly type "I'll be working this wkeend" you say "f*ck it, he knows what I meant". You don't go back to correct that. But if you say "their supposed to call me as soon as they get it" well heck....you attach Olympic importance to typing out "they're" and hitting enter before they get a chance to respond lest they think you have the IQ of a chimp. After 3 minutes of consideration, I've decided to call this an "imrection". For starters, it sounds like "erection" which is cool. Plus, it's like a correction, but in an IM....imrection. Mine. I claim it. How about that? One day....two additions to my lexicon.

FAN: Gore Morphs Into Griffith

Can someone tell me when Al Gore turned into Andy Griffith?

FAN: Foote Wants New Shoe

Looks like Larry Foote's days are numbered in Pittsburgh as another solid linebacker gives way to youth and talent. I'm not sure I agree with his reasons, but the only linebacker I've ever missed after leaving was Hardy Nickerson. Harrison, Farrior, Timmons and Woodley will make offenses cringe but what about depth? What about the chance to repeat? What if we ship him to a 4-12 team? Would he rather have more playing time there or be a valuable role player on a perrenial contender? I guess we already know the answer to that since he asked to be traded or released. Weird. But, whatever.