I heard that Michael Phelps has something like 40 or 50 million dollars worth of endorsements lined up for him when he returns home. That's an example of marketing dollars badly spent, and I'll tell you why.

Those of you who have been a regular in the Perkins overpass area over the past 15-20 years might recognize Ronny, a mentally challenged guy who has earned his keep and charmed customers at area businesses forever.

If I really think about it honestly, it surprises me that I don't blog about my poop more often. It's probably one of the most interesting things in my life. Will it be funny colored? Will it have chunks? Of what? Will it come out, then elastically curl back into the shape of my intestines (or colon, or bowel, or wherever it came from)?

I've seen a zillion pooly-worded stories in Baton Rouge's paper, *The Advocate*, but this senence from here is probably the worst I've read.

It would be easy for me to write a blog that would be enjoyed by a particular demographic of loser: say, a divorcee, whose kids are teenagers that don't like her very much, and whose ideal (and typical) Friday night includes taking a long bath, polishing off a pint of ice cream while watching Beaches, and crying herself gently to sleep.

I never thought of Sesame Street as having seasons or needing to run promotions, but I guess it makes sense that both are indeed the case. I stumbled onto this video promoting the season that starts this August, and it's clear that this particular video is targeted at the parents more than at the kids.

When you take your dogs to dog training, you spend a lot of time working with them on sit, stay, etc., and then you let the dogs rest and get a lecture about things you can do to keep your dog from being a bad dog.

I saw in the paper today that Tivo is coming out with a thing where you can hit a button and buy a product that you're seeing on TV. Say John Stewart is interviewing a guest about a book he wrote. You hit a button on the remote, and a box from Amazon shows up with your book a few days later.

The middle of summer is a time that most real sports fans dread. Your choices are between golf (good for a nap, if nothing else), NASCAR (as boring as golf, but much noisier), and baseball (whose games make the national spelling bee look like a meaningful competition).

I almost never post an entry about the music I'm listening to, even though I love music and listen to it just about all day long every single day. The problem I have with people's blogs that go to music is that they end up coming across like, "Look how cool I am to be into this music that you've never heard of yet." Who would want to read that?

From the "People who are having more fun than me" department comes two links about regular average people who found a way to live the good life, for at least some window of time.

A pretty good limerick, illustrated, and then some amusing emails.