While my entries are in this reminiscence theme, allow me to spin you another tale of childhood. I guess most of us had that summer or two of childhood where we were old enough to run wild, but not quite old enough to drive or be tied down by a summer job of any consequence. When I was of that age, we lived in a subdivision in Little Rock with tons of other kids of my age. We spent every minute between waking up and curfew roaming the neighborhood in packs.

The other night, I got to trying to think of what were the earliest things that I could remember. I came up with a good number of short scenes that were all before I moved from Baton Rouge during Kindergarten. I remember the house we lived in on Woodbine, and I remember washing the car with my old man. (Specifically, I remember him showing my how to get the whitewalls on the tires good and clean.)

All of the talking heads and advertisements were really getting on my nerves. Especially the past couple of weeks. Yesterday I said that if there was a runoff in our Senate election, and if that meant I have to see the advertisement with David Vitter's premature babies one more time, I would yank out my own tongue and strangle myself with it. Vitter won, sparing me the horrible decision of having to watch that commercial any more or to take my own life in a most horrifying and painful manner.

Does anyone besides me like that song, The Day Ted Nugent Killed All the Animals? The IPOD picked that song for me while I walked the dog last night. It got me thinking that someone could go out and put out a whole page explaining the cultural references in that tune. I'll go ahead and do it myself.

It might be coincidence, but it seems like this week has brought us more than the usual amount of incompetence in broadcasting. My standards really aren't high. I just don't think these broadcasters are trying to entertain me as hard they used to.

I went to Voodoo Fest this past Saturday. There was beautiful weather, and it was good to be outside hearing live music. Let's jump right in with a review of the headliners' performance:

We all know how the late fees work at every video rental place in the world. You rent a few movies, keep them too long, they charge the late fees to your account, and then you pay those the next time you rent movies. This is the unwritten agreement between all movie renters and rental places that was established right from the infancy of the video rental industry.

I have no interest in letting this become the site for celebrity obituaries. However, the passing of Christopher Reeve moved a reader enough to request that I comment, so I'll share a quick Superman story, and then move on.

I was a little saddened to hear that Rodney Dangerfield died this week. I remember watching Rodney doing stand up on HBO and being or delivering the punch line in the Lite Beer From Miller Gang commercials back when I was a kid. I've decided to memorialize Rodney with a brief review of all of his movies. Okay, not all of them, but all of them that I could come up with off the top of my head.

I guess the magic in my dirty blue hat is gone. There's no doubt that the magic existed, but there's also no doubt that it isn't there any more. Let's review the history of the magic hat. I bought the hat as a souvenir in Maine last August. It was a nice hat. Nothing special, but I liked it. I had also bought a hat at the track in Saratoga on that same trip. Again, it was nothing special.

For the last couple of days, I have been watching coverage of the Scott Peterson trial on television. And I haven't just been watching the same panelists on Larry King. No, I'm in Northern California, and I get trial coverage right on the local news. The only real difference that I see in the trial coverage is the abudance of those courtroom drawings of the trial in action.

I had a most unimpressive conversation with a campaign worker for David Vitter last night. Vitter is running for a soon to be vacated U.S. Senate seat for Louisiana. She started by asking if I was "Mister McClood." (She was working on an old telemarketing list. Mrs. theskinnyonbenny's maiden name is McLeod, but it was even mispronounced. Not to mention that there never was a "Mr. McLeod" at our phone number.)