Targeted marketing

Seen on a car parked along a residential street in Studio City, California, last night: under a windshield wiper, a parking ticket; taped to the driver's side window, a note reading, "Interested in selling your car before it gets towed? Call..."

This homeland is your homeland

March 1, 2003: The U.S. Customs Service and the Secret Service are scheduled to become part of the Department of Homeland Security.

March 4, 2003: MGM is scheduled to release "1984" on DVD.

Two items that amused me

1. Right now, the top AP Entertainment headline is "Jackson Dangles Child Off Balcony."

2. On the Tivo Community Forum, in order to prove that he had received a new model of TiVo, someone posted a picture of it sitting on top of a copy of today's paper. The new TiVo was sitting on top of the part of the paper where the date is actually located, but there was a big picture of St. Louis Rams quarterback Mark Bulger in the middle of the front page, along with last night's "Monday Night Football" score (Rams 21, Bears 16).

Ho ho ho

November 18th is too early for the mall to be playing Christmas music. Not only is it not Thanksgiving yet, it's impossible for Thanksgiving to be this early in any given year.

Fortunately for my sanity, they didn't seem to be playing Christmas music inside the stores yet.

Parallel thinking

Today's punch line in the comic strip "Sherman's Lagoon": "I have seen the enemy and he is pelican."

Today's punch line in the comic strip "Funky Winkerbean," to the extent that "Funky Winkerbean" has punch lines: "We have met the enemy and they are poor."

In jeopardy on "Jeopardy!"?

Tonight on "Jeopardy!"...actually, it was Monday night's show, but since it aired on Tuesday here in L.A., I get to say "tonight on 'Jeopardy!'"...I recognized one of the contestants because he had also passed the test at the same tryout as me, on April 4th. He's the only one I would have remembered, in fact, because I remember thinking he had the best chance to actually get on the show of the six of us who had passed the test. (He had flown to L.A. from South Carolina more or less solely to take the contestant test, and he was a history teacher, and they love to have teachers as contestants.)

He didn't win because he got Final Jeopardy! wrong. Sitting at home, I got it right. Yes, I know there's a big difference between being on the show and being at home.

More great moments in consumer products

Shortly after I moved to the Pittsburgh area, while in the supermarket, I was attracted to a certain type of mustard: Woeber's Sandwich Pal Hot & Spicy Mustard. First of all, it was called "Sandwich Pal." Second of all, it had a cartoon chef on the label. Third, I like mustard that's hot & spicy.

I bought it, and I really liked it.

Then I moved to L.A., and the supermarkets didn't carry it. I understood, since it was a fairly local brand (made in Ohio), and resigned myself to a life of Grey Poupon.

But then, about six months ago, the Ralphs where I shop started carrying exactly two Woeber's products: horseradish, and Sandwich Pal Sweet & Spicy Mustard. So close, yet so far, although I bought the Sweet & Spicy Mustard and liked it, so that's what's been on my sandwiches for a while now.

However, today, at Ralphs, all of a sudden, there was more shelf space in the condiment aisle for Woeber's products, and filling some of that extra space was Sandwich Pal Hot & Spicy Mustard! I was so happy, I bought two bottles.

In political news, I got a call from Senator Diane Feinstein today, who isn't even up for re-election tomorrow, so who cares? Where's my call from Ed Begley Jr., urging me to vote for candidates who are in favor of electric cars? Where's my call from Aaron Sorkin, urging me to vote for candidates who are in favor of drug decriminalization?

Cam-pain

Well, today, I got a call from Governor Gray Davis. Big deal. If the Democratic Party is going to keep calling me, I want more Hollywood celebrities. Where's my call from the Thomasons? Where's my call from the Rob Reiner? Where's my call from Barbra?

Quoted without comment

The following is the unedited text of an e-mail sent to me via the form on my web site. I may have this engraved on my tombstone.

Subject: Your assinine website

I'm spending hours looking for some sort of television schedule to find a collage football game, and I come to this site and....??????

What is this site and what is it's purpose? Who gives a fuck about the television stations in 1978?!!?

Dumb ass site and an impossibly huge waste of time.

DUH

Hail to the chief

How nice of Martin Sheen to take time out of his busy schedule of pretending to be the President of the United States and call me, personally, to suggest that I vote for all the Democratic Party candidates on Tuesday. Well, he didn't really talk to me personally, just left a message on my answering machine, but that was because I made the mistake of being at work early Friday afternoon. But, hey, maybe if enough Democrats are in office, I won't have to work anymore.

Now, why hasn't Arnold Schwarzenegger called me to talk about after-school activities for kids? I've seen more of his movies than Martin Sheen's.