Tonight, as David dashed out to the store for some children's headache meds for LD, I asked him to also grab me some adult headache meds, in the form of some white zinfandel wine.

David is more of a red wine connouseur so I will forgive him for this, but he actually brought home some Wild Vines Strawberry White Zinfandel Fine Wine Product with Natural Flavors.

With a snazzy, easy-open screw top.

We all know about anything followed by the word product. The word product indicates that it isn't whatever you expect the word in front of it to be.

Meat product. Cheese product. Wine product.

If it were meat, cheese or wine, it would say just that.

But I'm drinking it anyway!

Today, David and I went for our occasional daily walk.

While walking on the road that bisects the golf course, we admired the large groups of men driving around in carts. I saw one guy taking a whiz through the fence when he thought no one was looking.

David said to me, "If golf is a sport, then those guys are athletes".

That was funny. 'Cause think about it: In what other sport do the players drive around in low powered cars, use a porta potty and drink beer?

Have you all seen the commercials for the Hungry Man XXL frozen dinners?

This is the most blatant double standard I have ever seen in my life!

Two men are comparing their last meal. One has had something "girly" like a "watercress tea sandwich" or "quiche", while the other has had a Hungry Man XXL frozen dinner.

Oh! Did I mention that both of the men are FAT?

I don't mean pleasingly plump. I mean lard bucket big jeans break the sofa springs fat.

These are fat guy dairy cows. The slogan is, believe it or not,  "It's good to be full".

Is it good to be lonely? Is it good to die at 30?

The people at Hungry Man claim that these frozen dinners are 1-1/2 pounds of food like you would find at a sports bar - so, deep fried greasy junk that you would select if you were drunk.

Can you imagine making a commercial like that featuring women who are overweight? "Hey big women! Pig out!" Yeah right. It is major news when Oprah gains or loses five pounds. And, I know this even though I have never in my life watched Oprah.

Watch out men, we don't like fat dudes anymore than you like fat chicks. Unless we are drunk. And you aren't eating this in a bar, you're eating this on your couch, in your living room.

Lay off the Hungry Man XXL. Your car is leaning to the left.

When God has a job on the side, you know things are tough.

Beyond loving and forgiving us all, and beyond creation, God is now dabbling in the lucrative Dallas real estate market.

I like doing business with a fellow Christian, but I never knew until today that God is a broker, and perhaps even has a business card.

Tommy has a heck of a business partner!

A few weeks ago I was out for a walk through our neighborhood, full of small suburban yards and predictable facades. One nice thing we do have is some remnant wildlife.

When man moves into an area, the upper rungs of the food ladder, the carnivores, disappear. I just made up that fact, right now.

Next go the omnivores, except for rats and mice, who never go away.

What remains, for a while anyway, are the lowest of the food chain, the herbivores. And, of course, possums, because cars full of teens and rednecks have to aim for something at night.

So I was amused by a little vignette where during my walk, I spotted a rabbit, and he spied me. He froze, motionless, for a while, then bolted in between two houses.

At that exact moment, a squirrel was walking down the fence in between the houses, face first, in that weird way in which they defy gravity.

The two met.

The rabbit did an about face so fast that it was imperceptible to the naked human eye, and doubled back from between the houses at the speed of light.

The squirrel did an equally imperceptible change of direction, back up the fence, and launched itself over the fence head over heels into the air. Picture taking a soaking wet washcloth by the corner and flinging it high into the air, with that 1970s Bionic Woman sound effect in the background. That is what I saw and heard!

Maybe you had to be there.

I don't know what "meaningless weight" is, do you?

Have you ever seen Dr. Greg Cynaumon hawking his Cortaslim on TV?

He advises to "stop weighing yourself everyday - you'll make yourself crazy." Then he says that those other diets just make you lose "meaningless weight".

At first we thought he was saying "nameless weight". It just made zero sense. All weight has a name: blubber, water, beer gut, and so on! But then we figured out what the heck he was saying.

I don't have anything on my body that I would call "meaningless weight". All my weight means something to me. It may mean that I ate too much ice cream or too much creme brulee. Maybe I was into the cheese, butter and salami again. Although I would be glad to lose an extra leg, arm or butt cheek (or if I had an extra head) or something to fit in a size 7 again, I wouldn't call any current body parts "meaningless".

From what I've read on internet searches, Dr. Cynaumon used to be a police officer and bought a diploma from a nonexistent school, but what do I know? It is just what I've read.

Isn't Cynaumon a weird name, by the way?

Someone asked me if I actually try any of these products I gripe about. Well of course not! It just boggles my mind what the American public will believe!

Once upon a time, there was a large company that employed small cacti to represent its customers in a customer service rally.

"Take care of the customer," was the intended message.

Hundreds of little cactus plants were distributed to the employees in tiny 2" x 2" pots labeled with an important customer's name.

It the picture above, we have Merck on the left and Ford Motor Company on the right. After growing spiny things and deciding to wither and grow down instead of up, Merck was chucked out of the house last week.

Based upon these potted cacti, where would you place your investment bucks?

I have to admit that I never really thought much about ceramics, vegetables and baby pigs until now.

I often think about vegetables, especially in the grocery store, and when I am planning my weekly rounds of the supermarkets. Less often, I think about pigs, although I do think about bacon, pork chops and ribs while in the grocery store.

While at Sam's Club tonight, I saw this Fitz and Floyd cookie jar, locked away in a glass case. It wasn't very expensive, less than $40, but I imagine it was locked away so that people couldn't grab it in order to ridicule it mercilessly. Or, perhaps some people might try on the ceramic onion, pea and lettuce lid as a "hat" of sorts while perusing the jewelery and ceramics. There was a whole set of this junk.

Has this pig been rolling in garbage? Why is there an intact red onion quarter on its back? And a lettuce saddle and diaper of sorts? The beet in its mouth should be a warning signal for him to run like the wind. If you are a food animal, it is wise to never pose with food.

Would you eat cookies out of this? How about some crispy bacon?

This week's pasttime was painting our bedroom. I wish I could call it something a little more complicated, but it was just a whole bunch of putting paint on a wall.

If you've ever done a whole bunch of work on a house, you know that Home Depot is for nuts and bolts, and Lowe's is for color nuances and other fru-frus.

We talked for ages about painting the bedroom. David wanted a romantic retreat. "What color should it be?" Red is energetic. Blue is peaceful. Yellow is sunny or something. Green is calming. Neutral is good when you sell.

So I got a boatload of paint samples at Lowe's.

Did you know that paint samples have really stupid names? There are too many colors out there to have a really decent name for each of them. Here are some examples, none of which should tell you a damned thing about the color:

Filoli Yew , Twilight Jungle, Winter Delta, Lyndhurst Mushroom, Caraway Shield, Magic Lamp, Hot-Crossed Bun, Rolling Prairie, Sweet Annie, Muddy River...

Don't get me into the home improvement crap marketed to kids.  Nickolodeon shades, such as Spongebob anycolor really aren't an option for grown ups. All those Dora the Explorer and other "character-inspired" paint samples are just primary colors with a hefty price tag. Think Roy G. Biv, your buddy from high school science, and multiply the price by three.

Just so you know, we settled upon Caraway Shield. While you won't find out what the heck it means via Google, we can tell you that it is olive-ish green. We can also tell you that it looks a lot different in a large room than on a 1" x 2" piece of cardboard.

Lowe's and Home Depot used to guarantee that you'd like the paint you bought from them. Doesn't that seem kind of stupid? It isn't like you can scrape your custom-mixed paint back off the wall without cutting the tag off, and return it so that they can sell it to someone else. Instead, a bunch of deadbeats likely ruined it for everyone else by getting their money back on a room they loved.

David has a good point though. If you aren't going to guarantee the paint, at least hand out a two foot by three foot paint sample so we can see what the heck we are really buying!

Remember Hill Street Blues, that cop show from the 1980s?

Veronica Hamill's character, named Joyce Something-or-Other was having an affair with one married police chief, Frank Furillo.

While fornicating here and there, she would call him "Pizza Man".

I saw this picture in our local Carnival Food Store ad, and wondered (aloud), "Why 'Pizza Man'? Why not 'Salami Man?"

After all, he is cute and all with those olive eyes. And he has a lot less grease than Pizza Man. But he does have onion breath.

Maybe the nickname "Salami Man" was already taken by Mrs. Furillo so they had to come up with something else.

At least it wasn't Fetuccini Man! That is hard to spell!

Feel free to crop Salami Man and use as your AIM buddy icon.