Fast Eddie gives a refund to those watching Dana Perino's audience with the Pope.

61 degrees, partly cloudy
listening:  Boston's 80s Channel (via iPhone) -- Spandau Ballet - "True"

First off, of course The Tony Randall Experiment (w/special guest Miss Prien) rocked T-Joe's trivia again last night.  Miss Prien has claimed elsewhere that it was due to her saying that Martha Washington was the first widow to become First Lady (although my fancy wife actually said it first).  However I not surprisingly disagree and claim it was due to my knowledge of what state is home to the easternmost teams in both the AFC West and the NFC West (Missouri - Kansas City and St. Louis, respectively), of who the Texas governor was who was seriously wounded during the JFK assassination (John Connolly), that the bonus round of Family Feud is called "Fast Money", and that Paul Newman's character's nickname in The Hustler and The Color of Money was "Fast Eddie" Felson.

The bad news is that our trivia guy informed us that T-Joe's is no longer going to host Tuesday night trivia and that he's going to be moving to a different gig somewhere up the road, possibly BW3.  Also good, but not a 10-minute walk away like T-Joe's.

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This story is a couple days old but I've been meaning to mention it here:

Wigan players offer supporters a refund as an apology for 9-1 thrashing at Spurs

"Each of the 400 supporters who bought a ticket for the game – the largest win in the Premier League since 1995 and Wigan’s heaviest top-flight defeat – will be entitled to a refund after the club’s players voted to dip into their own pockets as an apology.


“We feel that as a group of players we badly let down our supporters and this is a gesture we have to make to pay them back for their tremendous loyalty,” said Mario Melchiot, the club captain."

---  That is what I call a class act, sports fans.  Why do I never hear of NBA players doing this after they get blown out by 40 points by somebody??  OK, it was a pretty distant away match (for England) so there were only 400 travelling supporters so we're not talking about the players dipping into their kids' college funds, but still...

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I can't even comprehend this:

Daily Kos:  To be fair and balanced, Perino must have gotten drunk

The salient quote -- 

Dana Perino (former Bush administration press secretary):  "But, you know, we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term."

Um ... huh?  Is she admitting that 9/11 was an inside job or what??

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So there's this neighborhood kid, let's call him Ricky, and last week sometime he showed up with wrapped presents for the stepchildren.  He told me initially that he bought them, but later it seemed more likely that they were just things he had in his room that he didn't want anymore.  A lot of Ricky's stories start out one way and then turn into something else later.  Anyway, the present for the maniacal 7 year-old was a book entitled How to Be a Gentleman by John Bridges that seems to have maybe been made for Brooks Brothers.  That in itself is funny enough, but I just got around to opening and looking at it (not that I need to, no matter what the fancy wife may say) and I'm pretty amused by the idea of the 7 year-old learning such topics as "How to Set Up a Bar", "The Etiquette of the Office Break Room", "An Audience with the Pope" (which I can't help but think sounds like either a really good euphemism or a slightly less good band name), and "A Gentleman and His Cologne".  Sadly, that last bit of wisdom could have come in handy for the 9 year-old when for some reason he attended church with the aforementioned Ricky last weekend but that's another story altogether.

I'm never taking a cab in Marietta.

52 degrees, cloudy
watching:  Maui Invitational

Have to give props to the fancy wife for sending this story along to me.  I don't think it needs any further comment.  That and I feel awful and can't be bothered to come up with anything clever.

I'm washing my hands like yeah!!

57 degrees, sunny
watching:  FlashForward

So yesterday afternoon a neighborhood kid, let's call him Ricky, rings the doorbell and says he needs my help getting a pet weasel out of the little drainage tunnels that run under the sidewalks.  There's another little kid, let's call him Little Kid, I guess about 6 years old (Ricky's about 10 or 11, I think) looking through the grate at the weasel when I get across the street.  That grate doesn't seem to open so we went to the other side of the street and I lifted the manhole cover in the sidewalk there at which point the weasel relocates to that area.  Seeing as I had no desire to touch a weasel I sent Ricky down the little ladder (not far, maybe 8 feet down) to retrieve said weasel.  Once he reached the top of the ladder, it occurred to me that he couldn't get himself out of the manhole and hold on to the weasel at the same time.  He had sent Little Kid to get his mom for some reason so I was the only person there, meaning, yes, he had to hand the weasel up to me.  So I had to reach down and grab this weasel and then hold it and keep it from escaping until Ricky got out of the manhole and could take it again.

So then Ricky is over visiting the stepkids last night and is retelling the story for my fancy wife, and in this telling, he just has a friend who has a pet weasel, but this isn't the weasel in question.  I ask where this particular weasel came from and he says they just found it.  Not the kind of retelling I wanted to hear.

So then this morning I'm informed by aforementioned fancy wife that one of the children is now saying that it is a ferret, not a weasel, but I still haven't received any reliable information on where this particular disgusting little creature came from.

The ferret thing reminded me though of this one time in college when I was delivering a pizza to this apartment and a slightly scary looking middle-aged woman answered the door holding some cringe-inducing little animal and asked me if I wanted to pet her ferret.  Go with that where you will.  I went with it in a quick jog back to the safety of my car.

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So the other story from yesterday is that Tripp got a fancy new iPhone in the mail, yeah he did!  Meaning of course that Tripp has done nothing but play with his fancy new iPhone since then.

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Have I mentioned lately how great FlashForward is?

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Oh, and in other news from the past couple days (Tuesday, to be specific), the newly-named The Tony Randall Experiment (consisting that night of Tripp, the fancy wife, and Miss Prien, Esq.) rocked some trivia night at T-Joe's and then did the 50-dollar gift certificate and 100 points dance (I don't remember if there was any actual dancing, but I'm sure it was considered).  Who would have ever thought that knowing that the USA hockey team beat Finland in the final game of the 1980 Olympics and that Alexander Hamilton is the only person on U.S. currency not born in the continental United States would come in handy someday??

Must be in the south.

69 degrees, sunny
eating:  french bread pizza

Isn't it mid-November?  It's really warm in here with the windows open and ceiling fans on.

Tony Randall looks comfortable enough:

And then there were three (kitties)...

Tony Randall

On November 13, Tony Randall was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. That request came from his new parents.

We welcome our newest addition, Tony Randall,

born approximately four months ago and found behind a Land Rover dealership.

5.6 pounds at adoption

Tripp and His Fancy Wife

Grocery conspiracy theory.

55 degrees, cloudy
watching:  Jeopardy!

Does anyone actually know why grocery stores periodically rearrange the entire store so that suddenly you can't find anything more?  My nose for conspiracy tells me they believe that if you can't find anything and have to walk all over the store to find it, then you will see practically everything in the store while you're there, leading impressionable people to buy more things.  Those grocery people, they're much more devious than you think.

Who could have thought this was a good idea???

62 degrees, cloudy
watching:  MSNBC

N.C. school fundraiser (briefly) sold 20 test points for $20

Thataway to teach the chillins the value of hard work.

My wife is funny ... or disturbed.

57 degrees, rain
listening:  XM Radio 1st Wave - Classic Alternative (The Human League - "Don't You Want Me?")

just got this fancy tweet from the fancy wife a few minutes ago:

"Watching a 1st grade rendition of Frere Jacques ... the hand motions to the bells ringing reminds me of a bunch of little axe murderers."

Best.  Tweet.  Ever.

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Trying to decide whether to walk around the corner in the rain to T-Joe's for trivia by myself.  I'm sure I won't melt.

Go Heels!!!

64 degrees, partly cloudy
reading:  A Walk in the Woods -- Bill Bryson

The defending national champion Tar Heels open up the '09-'10 season against Isiah Thomas-coached Florida International tonight at 7:00 in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic.

And here's today's shocker...

56 degrees, clear
watching:  Northwich Victoria vs. Charlton

Sir Alex Ferguson unhappy with ref after Chelsea defeat

Just once in my lifetime I would love it if Manchester United could lose a match and there not be an article a couple hours later with a headline starting "Sir Alex Ferguson unhappy with ref..."  I'm not holding my breath though.

On the bright side though, I got home from refereeing and saw that there was a replay of an FA Cup 1st Round match on Fox Soccer Channel.  I love early round FA Cup matches.

Chomped and Stomped

68 degrees, fair
watching:  Chelsea vs. Manchester United

So, the fancy wife and I attended Chomp and Stomp in Cabbagetown yesterday and by attended Chomp and Stomp in Cabbagetown, I mean hung out and ate all the crack nuggets and drank all the Sweetwater 420 in the world at the party held by Emma, the hostess with the mostest.  In our defense though, they meant to order 100 crack nuggets but instead somehow ordered crack nuggets for 100 people so we were just trying to do our part to alleviate the crack nugget surplus problem.  And we were nice enough to psychoanalyze Emma by looking at all the books on her bookshelves.  And to interview her about everything she remembers about cigarettes from her smoking days (I learned that there are 20 in a pack and that it takes 7 minutes to smoke one).  We're good people.

Chelsea 0, Manchester United 0 at the half.  And I have to leave to go referee in about 20 minutes.  Not impressed.

Toxins toxins everywhere!

59 degrees, sunny
watching:  MSNBC

Forbes rates Atlanta 'most toxic city' in U.S.

"'In Atlanta, Ga., you'll find southern gentility, a world-class music scene -- and 21,000 tons of environmental waste. In spite of its charms, the city's combination of air pollution, contaminated land and atmospheric chemicals makes it the most toxic city in the country,' the magazine says in an article published this week."

Yay us!  We're #1!!!