On Monday night, Mrs. theskinnyonbenny spotted Chuck Woolery in the Dancing With the Stars audience. Confirmation that it was indeed Chuck came on the results show as they interviewed random audience members about who they thought would stay and who they thought would go. I don't think they ever acknowledged on the broadcast that it was Chuck. It was just a wink to us *Love Connection* fans.

You know how you'll sometimes run into a foreign student and tourist, and they have something about them -- either in appearance or action -- which is incredibly foreign, nerdy, and funny? The best example I can think of is the wearing of socks with sandals.

The long absence of new content lately is almost entirely related to preparations for and then actual travel to Russia. I've been asked if the purpose of the trip was business or pleasure, and it was certainly pleasure, but not quite a vacation. And at this point, I don't think there's anyone that I know well who hasn't heard, overheard, or just figured out what's going on. So here it is, officially and in writing: we're trying to add a human to the group of creatures that we already feed, bathe, and act as poop handlers.

One day recently at work, Tyler went to the restroom and found that someone had printed out articles from the Sports Illustrated web site, read them on the can, and left them in there. That has nothing to do with the long and eventful week that I'm about to share, but this is a rather long post. So those of you at work might want to go ahead and print this one out. Save it for "private concentration time." And if you do that, please shoot me a quick email to let me know. I would be so proud. And one more thing -- be sure to leave it for the next guy.

I'm a big fan of a good convenience store. Some will think that there's not much difference between convenience stores, but those people would be wrong. Sure, they all keep the tobacco and dirty magazines behind the counter, but aside from that, there are big differences.

On Sunday night, we went to an Oscars party. As any decent event-based party should have, there was gambling. It was a normal ballot with all of the categories and points broken down as 5 for the big categories that people care about (actor, director, etc.), 3 for the mid-majors (cartoon, song), and 1 for the junk that you just have to sit through (sound editing, best gaffer, and guy who's best at setting up celebrities' trailers on film sets). The awards were broken down for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place as 50%/30%/25%.

It's kind of embarrassing to post a story from the week of Christmas this far after the holiday, but there are two reasons that I'm okay with it. First, it's an observation that needs to be shared with the world at large who's never tried to drink in a bar in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Second, nothing ever changes in this bar, so everything short of the candy cane covered sweater will be just as true this coming Saturday, next Saturday, and the first Saturday of July 2009.

If you've been reading along with me the whole way, you will have come to realize that the end of my posts about football inevitably lead to posts about parades. Prior to this weekend, I had talked about going to a couple of parades, but hadn't actually been to any. There were a few decent ones on Saturday, but I skipped those as well. But I was excited to return to the Krewe of Mutts -- the parade for dogs in downtown Baton Rouge.

A description of my post.

The day before yesterday, I got home from work, and I was feeling a little bit funk, so I decided to hop in the shower. I went to the spare bathroom downstairs because the combination of the shower head and the water pressure is the best I know. It reminds you of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer got a shower head that they use to hose down elephants at the circus. I could hose down an elephant in my downstairs bathroom, and to shower under that kind of stream is nice.

Many years ago, I was fairly certain that Scott Adams had a secret camera in our offices, and used it to grab the easy pickings for Dilbert strips. Now, I've gotten to be fairly certain that he loaned the tapes to the group of people who write episodes of The Office for NBC.

I'm posting this from a short work trip to North Carolina. I flew into Raleigh with Tyler (of sporadic haiku acclaim) and Ann, a sixty year old career woman whose energy and patience is double what we younger guys have. While we were walking out of the Raleigh airport, she's moving along at a good clip, toting what appears to be seventy-five pounds of luggage. We got to an intersection, and she asked, "You guys want to take a short cut out of here?"