No Screw In the Seat? Think Again.

This morning's Journal-Gazette has the most recent spin on the outdated, outmoded dinosaur known as the Memorial Coliseum featured on its Metro page. Remember the much-ballyhooed expansion? Remember how we replaced all the seats in the place? Remember how it cost $35 million dollars to expand the Coliseum, instead of building a new one downtown, where it belongs? Remember how we were so proud that our arena now had seating for 10,000 people?

Scratch that. Now there's seating for about 300.

EVERY PERMANENT SEAT in the Coliseum now needs to be replaced. Apparently the bottoms of some seats weren't properly screwed on, and the unsecured seat bottoms would fall off, leaving the seat unusable.

And guess what? It's only gonna cost us about five dollars a seat for those 9,867 seats to be replaced! The compant that installed them is gonna pay the rest, since they had a three year warranty!

Randy Brown (whom I like, by the way) said that their hope was 'that the seats would last 25 years'...and that 'they've had a number of failures.'

He also said, and I quote from the article, "It's nice to have a company stand behind their product."

Let's regroup here and calculate some facts. The old seats lasted fifty years. The new seats, a little less than three.

Do we need to throw 50 grand at the company that provided the original piss poor product?

Sure, why not. It's cheaper than starting from scratch....and what's another 50,ooo dollars after we've wasted 34 and a half million? Hell, that 50 grand wouldn't even pay half of Randy's salary this year.

Looks like we're gonna get our seat bottoms screwed at the Coliseum....and it's only gonna cost us fifty grand. What a deal!

Proving there's more than one way to get a screwing in your seat. Welcome to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Maybe we ARE as dumb as the magazines claim.

A Thought For The Day. (Or, Aging, Disgracefully.)

The differences between then and now, as i prepare to celebrate my 20th anniversary of turning 23 on Labor Day....

1975: Long hair 2005: Longing for hair

1975: KEG 2005: EKG

1975: Acid rock 2005: Acid reflux

1975: Moving to California because it's cool 2005: Moving to California because it's warm

1975: Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor 2005: Trying NOT to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor

1975: Seeds and stems 2005: Roughage

1975: Hoping for a BMW 2005: Hoping for a BM

1975: The Grateful Dead 2005: Dr. Kevorkian

1975: Going to a new, hip joint 2005: Receiving a new hip joint

1975: Rolling Stones 2005: Kidney Stones

1975: Being called into the principal's office 2005: Calling the principal's office

1975: Screw the system 2005: Upgrade the system

1975: Disco 2005: Costco

1975: Parents begging you to get your hair cut 2005: Children begging you to get their heads shaved

1975: Passing the drivers' test 2005: Passing the vision test

1975: Whatever 2005: Depends

Just in case you weren't feeling too old today, this will certainly change things.
The people who will start college this fall across the nation were born in 1987.
They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up. Their lifetime has always included AIDS.
Bottle caps have always been screw off and plastic.
The CD was introduced the year they were born.
They have always had an answering machine.
They have always had cable.
They cannot fathom not having a remote control.
Jay Leno has always been on the Tonight Show.
Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave.
They never took a swim and thought about Jaws.
They can't imagine what hard contact lenses are.
They don't know who Mork was or where he was from.
They never heard: "Where's the Beef?", "I'd walk a mile for a Camel", or "de plane, Boss, de plane".
They do not care who shot J. R. and don't even have any idea who J. R. is.
McDonald's never came in Styrofoam containers.
They don't have a clue how to use a typewriter.

Do you feel old yet?

Those Were The Days. (Or, Why The 70's Sucked.)

With the exception of Demi Moore, there are few people that actually REMEMBER the 70's that want anything to do with that era. (Just for the record....if she ever kicks Ashton to the curb, I'd hit it. Even with those old nude photos circulating. I'm not gonna scare you by linking to them...if you want to see, you can do a Google search. Trust me--they're kinda scary...cept for JQP...he likes that look.)

Mike Zuber (missed at the rugby bar, BTW) used to kid me about the banana yellow leisure suit I owned (and confessed to on-air) in that dark, dismal time known as the 70's. In fact, the only positive thing I can think of from the 70's were Gas Wars....ok, and maybe going to the Palace in Hicksville for drink-and-drown Sundays....mmmm, 3.2 beer. Okay, and if you danced, The Whisper in Van Wert was a pretty cool place. The drawbacks? Jeez...don't you remember?

Let me refresh your memory.....Check out the pictures and tell me that things aren't better today....

Live? Or Memorex? (Or, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason.)

Which is better....the live show that you get to experience, but only once....

or the artist's recording(s), which you can enjoy over and over again?

And does the 'atmosphere' of the live show influence your decision?

I've been wrestling with this one for a while now.


Discuss amongst yourselves, while I, as the Bible said Mary did, 'ponder these things in (my) heart.' Feel free to leave opinions/comments/smart-ass remarks below.

This Is A Test. This Is Only A Test.

This is a test for us "old kids"!

The answers are printed below, but don't you cheat.
READY????? Here we go!

01. After the Lone Ranger saved the day and rode off into the sunset, the grateful citizens would ask, Who was that masked man? Invariably, someone would answer, I don't know, but he left this behind. What did he leave behind?____________

02. When the Beatles first came to the U.S. in early 1964, we all watched them on The __________________ Show.

03. "Get your kicks, ___________________."

04. "The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed___________________."

05. "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, ______________."

06. After the Twist, The Mashed Potato, and the Watusi, we "danced" under a stick that was lowered as low as we could go in a dance called the "_____________."

07. "N_E_S_T_L_E_S", Nestle's makes the very best_______________."

08. Satchmo was America's "Ambassador of Goodwill." Our parents shared this great jazz trumpet player with us. His name was_________________.

09. What takes a licking and keeps on ticking? _______________

10. Red Skelton's hobo character was named __________________ and Red always ended his television show by saying, "Good Night, and "_______________".

11. Some Americans who protested the Vietnam War did so by burning their____________.

12. The cute little car with the engine in the back and the trunk in the front was called the VW. What other names did it go by?____________&____________.

13. In 1971, singer Don MacLean sang a song about, "the day the music died." This was a tribute to ___________________.

14. We can remember the first satellite placed into orbit. The Russians did it. It was called _________________.

15. One of the big fads of the late 50's and 60's was a large plastic ring that we twirled around our waist. It was called the________________

ANSWERS: 01. The Lone Ranger left behind a silver bullet. 02. The Ed Sullivan Show 03. On Route 66 04. To protect the innocent. 05. The Lion sleeps tonight 06. The limbo 07. Chocolate 08. Louis Armstrong 09. The Timex watch 10. Freddy, The Freeloader, and "Good Night, and God Bless." 11. Draft cards (Bras! were also burned.) 12. Beetle or Bug 13. Buddy Holly ("Bye, Bye Miss American Pie" - that was the name of the airplane they went down on.) 14. Sputnik 15. Hula-hoop

If you knew all of them, you're ready for AARP (or the home--they play Elvis, Jerry Lee and Wilson Pickett in the home....)

If you knew 10 out of 15, it's time to get good rates on term life insurance, before it's too late....

If you knew 5 out of 15, you're a pop culture sponge.....

If you didn't know any, you're probably very young. Although if you're over 18, female, and would like to learn more, contact this correspondent for further one-on-one tutoring.

A Thought For The Day.

For the difficult people in your life:

Gives new meaning to the phrase 'pain in the ass.'

A Thought For The Day.

With the news that an alligator was caught dangerously close to my parents' and my aunt's homes just outside of Tampa (Valrico, for the Rand McNally set among you) I was reminded of this joke.

By the way, there are still at least (!) three more in the retention pond on the property....so keep your small pets within view, if you visit.

An elderly man in Florida had owned a large farm for several years.
He had a large pond in the back, fixed up nice picnic tables, horseshoe courts, and some apple and peach trees. The pond was properly shaped and fixed up for swimming when it was built. One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn't been there for a while, and look it over. He grabbed a five gallon bucket to bring back some fruit.

As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee. As he came closer he saw it was a bunch ofyoung women skinny-dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end.

One of the women shouted to him, "We're not coming out until you leave!"

The old man frowned, "I didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked."
Holding the bucket up he said, "I'm here to feed the alligator."

Moral: Old men can still think fast.