Everybody has a story

Hundreds of people come in and out of your life each day. There are the constants that you're tight with, and those who pass by casually, never making an impression. And then there are the ones you see all the time but never really connect with. They are as mysterious as they are familiar; you don't know their story, but you wonder sometimes what goes on in their world.

For instance, if you're the guy who delivers the mail at my office, you perform a Beatles lip sync revue at nights under the stage name of Harry Casper.

What else goes on when I'm not around?

Comedy circa 1994

I made this using Paintbrush on Windows 3.1 sometime in the mid-90's:


The laughs have yet to cease.

Kings of their castles

Making your way in the world today, it has been said, takes everything you've got. And working for the man will take whatever's left over. But working for yourself isn't any easier, and so I salute these acquaintances for doing it day in and day out, sometimes on the side but mainly full time:

• Prosper Media Group: Kentucky's multimedia production solution
  
• LionArt Creations: arts and/or crafts
  
• Nuts.com: nuts and snacks by the pound, possibly ton
  
• Greg Tito: a stand up guy doing stand up in the place where you live. Now face north.
  
• Dr. Zlotnick: The optometrist that Central Jersey calls their own. No relation. Yet.

May these links boost your Google site rankings and keep the wheels of commerce headed out on your highways.

Ladies of Song from A to Z

I know a man who once tried to record an album solely of songs about specific women. He got far, but a few letters/ladies eluded him. Below I offer his playlist and ask you, the blogosphere, to fill in the blanks or offer alternate tracks.

Ground rule: the name must be in the title, they needn't be love songs, but wherever possible, the singer should be male.

	NAME	ARTIST	ALTERNATE SONGS
A	Allison	Elvis Costello	Angie
B	Barbara Ann	The Beach Boys	Billie Jean
C	Sweet Caroline	Neil Diamond	Cecila
D	Donna	The Misfits
E	Come on Eileen	Dexy's Midnight Runners	Eleanor Rigby
F	Fran
G	Gloria	The Doors
H
I	Goodnight Irene	Leadbelly
J	Sweet Jane	Lou Reed	Hey Jude
K	Kate	Ben Folds
L	Layla	Derek & the Dominos	Lady Madonna
M	Maybelline	Chuck Berry	Michelle, Maggie May
N			Nikita, Nancy Whiskey
O	Ophelia	The Band
P	Polly	Nirvana
Q	Queen Jane Approximately	Bob Dylan
R	Roxanne	The Police	Help Me Rhonda
S	Sussudio	Phil Collins
T	(Tina's Got A) Big 'Ole Butt	LL Cool J
U
V	Victoria		Veronica
W	Windy	The Association
X
Y	Oh Yoko	John Lennon
Z	Legend of Zelda theme	Nintendo

Cast your ballots in the comments below.



Update: two commenters have more than filled in the gaps.

Banter

I've written short plays for school before, but I could never write dialogue this insightful, telling and true:

MALE: Whatcha gonna do with all that junk; all that junk inside your trunk?

FEMALE: I'm a get get get get you drunk, Get you love drunk off my humps.

To paraphrase James Lipton, if you have not bought the Black Eyed Peas' CD, buy it, turn off the lights, listen to it, it will change your life!

Strike out

If nothing else, the transit strike will let me someday scold my whippersnapper grandkids about how easy they have it. "When I was your age, I had to walk thirty blocks and five avenues in 20 degree weather just to get to my job."

Welcoming words

Thanks to Google Analytics, I now know exactly how many people visit this site (a bandwidth-busting 77 visits in the last month) and, more interestingly, what search terms brought them here. Some relate to specific posts, yet you wonder why people are searching on "kelly ripa eggnog" in the first place. Or "pictures+buckets." And to the 4 people who came here looking for "hotstockings," I hope you found what you were looking for.

Keyword	Visits
hotstockings	4
blackfriday	2
kelly ripa eggnog	2
pictures+buckets	1
nobody listens to andrew + book	1
*blackfriday	1
geico commercials caveman	1
frog procter& gamble	1
picture from geico caveman	1
nobody listens to us	1
cheapskate christmas	1
now alums from the 80's with george michael + careless whispers	1
my chemical romance action figures price in us dollars	1
nobody listens to andrew	1
us weekly kelly ripa eggnog	1
pharrell rolling stone interview	1
this is not awesome geico	1

More adventures in thrift

Expanding on Why pay more?:

• Cheapskate Christmas: The day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, is a mecca of crazy deals. Two years ago, I scored a $35 karaoke machine, $15 DVD player, and $5 Simpsons Season 1 DVD at Best Buy. Now many stores offer below-cost prices to tempt early holiday shoppers. BFads.net tells where to go first.


• Pitting one against the other: My credit card, for a $50 annual fee, gives flier miles for each dollar spent. Some competing cards are fee-less, so I called my card company up, said I was thinking of switching, and--hollaback--they refunded the annual fee and agreed to lower my interest rate. Even if you don't pay an annual fee, call and asking for a lower rate. I've read that you'll usually get some break.


• Anatomy of a deal: Aquafresh Extreme Clean Toothpaste on sale for $2.00, down from $3.29. Sunday circular coupon: save $2.25 on two. And the store had a "try it free" rebate that refunds the original purchase price. Net: I made $1.54 off the transaction.

For those of you keeping score:
Andrew: 162
The System: 0

Just like Us

Just in: Kelly Ripa "likes eggnog a lot!"

Also: Us Weekly makes my head ache in throbbing dumbness.

Testify

From Rolling Stone's interview with hip hop uber-producer/star Pharrell:

Whose record have you listened to the most this year?

"I like My Chemical Romance and Green Day, in terms of rock. I'm looking forward to the new Puddle of Mudd and the new Strokes albums. And people need to show more love to Ben Folds. Hell, yeah!"