Happy Truck Day! I'll just go ahead and link to my 2010 post about Truck Days through history....

A while ago I saw a local TV ad for a place that cleans your fire/water-damaged dwellings. I saw the word "kleenup" flash across the screen. Then I saw that the company name had the word "clean" right in the title. I figured I must have missed something, they surely were using, as Wayne Campbell called it, "cutesy short-form."

But then I saw it again. And they weren't. This company, called CleanCare, incredibly thinks "clean up" is a single word starting with a k and having two e's. There's nothing else in the ad or on their web site that suggests they purposely spell it "kleenup" knowing that's nowhere near correct. My theory is that whoever made this ad has been seeing the word "Kleenex" all his life...as his parents "kleened" up the blood every time they dropped him on his head as a child.

Fortunately, the ad is online for you to watch. Bottom left of their home page. You'll see the square. Click it and then click the small icon within the square for fullscreen, and let the "kleenup" begin.

From the Cambridge Reveille, June 1, 1850:

Our grand champion has deferred his choice to the end. Dewey & Co., you're up. Pick your prize.... all are available. List.

Curt Schilling has cancer. He hasn't said which kind yet but he talks about his fight ahead, hopefully it's something he's able to overcome.

Pedro, Nomar, and Joe Castiglione will go into the Red Sox Hall of Fame this summer. That's a pretty awesome group right there. Unfortunately, the class will have to suffer the stink of Roger Clemens going in with them. I'm pissed about this either way, but the more I think about it, the more I'm happy that as long as that phony has to be in, at least he'll hardly get a piece of the spotlight at all with three classic Red Sox going in at the same time. Still, I hate that our ownership has decided to kowtow to this turncoat cheater lately. Why? Because it's been determined he officially believes his own lies? If the REAL Hall of Fame can keep the guy out, why can't ours?

Was watching Pulp Fiction for the 74,539th time tonight, and I thought I found a new rhyme. Knowing I'd done a post about the film's rhymes before I searched for it, using my "[topic] [jere]" Google search method (it's great to have a super-rare first name sometimes), and found it. I was surprised to see that I had found the same rhyme before. In 2006, 2007, and 2012! Each time going to that post to tell...myself about it! So weird that I continue to not only forget that I've already "found" this rhyme, but that I've gone to that old post and commented as much. Again and again. I gotta figure THIS is the last time I'll think I was actually discovering the "sweet dreams, jellybean" line for the first time. But I'll find out next time I see that scene.

Choose and perish! Okay, it's time for you winners to pick your prizes. Deane will pick first. Once he picks, Dewey & Co. will pick from the remaining prizes, then Gumby who is actually Jim, then Dewey again. Here are the NINE potential prizes:


Autographed cards (choose ONE, tough guy) of:

1. Rick Burleson
2. Carl Erskine
3. Diego Segui
4. Bob Stanley
5. Rich Gedman
6. Bobby Doerr


7. Two (2) packs of 1990 Score Series 2 Football. (I hear the Montana card is worth nearly a dollar.) (Note: Trip to Super Bowl 25 no longer valid, if won.)


8. 1980 San Diego Padres Yearbook
9. 1973 Boston Red Sox 2nd Edition Scorebook & Magazine (scorecard inside was used, but oddly for some type of "legends vs. today's stars" fantasy game. They tied, 18-18.

Deane-o, you're on the clock.

And I'd just like to say that yesterday's snowfall was as beautiful as it was slushy:

The writer of this article really "gets" Nirvana. I should point people to this when they ask me why I was such a big fan. (Assuming I decide to point them to words on a page instead of actual music which I'd likely do first.)

Golly gee do I love safeties. When that ref raises his hands to heaven and prays to the football gods, my bank account always says hallelujah. My dad and I scored last year (and in every other year the Super Bow1 has had a safety), and we went for it again in XLVIII. But we took it one step further. The odds on a safety happening are 6 to 1. But I found a bet where you could predict what the first or last score of the game would be. The safety was chiming in at 40 to 1. So we put all our chicken embryos in that basket, meaning a safety would be great as first of last score, but any other safety would give us a goose embryo. Twelve seconds into the game, I was dancing around the living room! S-A-F-E-T-Y Dance!

In a coincidence that only I would notice, Weird Al once parodied Safety Dance with a song about The Brady Bunch, which I was watching before the game instead of all that pre-game hype. And it was the one where Alice says she has to fly to Seattle, home of the team who scored 2 points on the safety, and is your SB48 champion. [Note: I whited out the bet # and time of bet, but even if you had that info, what could you do? Call the place and say "I won bet # xxxx and I'd like to give the money back"?]

And now onto the SB Squares contest:

DEWWWWW-EY! A longtime reader named Kim and her family go by Dewey & Co., and won quarter # 1 with an 8-0 score. At half it was 22-0, and Dewey also had the 2-0 combo, meaning she/they scored again! So that locked up 2nd and 4th prize.

The third quarter gave several people a chance in the closing seconds. With the Seahawks dominating, 36-0, Denver scored on a TD pass with no time left. That killed Fez (wacky friend/mascot/non-sports-fan to my family who probably didn't know I put him in this contest) and put my dad in great shape...until the Broncos decided to go for two. Then it was between my wife and my friend Gumby. They converted like Rod Carew, and Gumby gets the 36-8 victory. But there's more! I had put a bunch of my old-school friends in the contest and told them about it. But then I realized I left Jimmy V. out! Since Gumby doesn't care about football and wasn't even on the e-mail I'd sent to everybody, I told Jim to consider himself "Gumby" for this contest. So Jim wins the 3rd quarter, aka third prize.

Another high-school-through-now friend, "Deane," who introduced me to The Jerky Boys in our senior-year Interpersonal Communications class, got into position for the Final Score win when Seattle made it 43-8 with almost 12 minutes left in the game. That would hold up for Dean-o, aka the man with the VHS tape of the coveted hour-long Warner Wolf Plays of the Decade (the 80s). I only have the half-hour version. But that's beside the point....

So Deane will have first pick, followed by Dewey & Co., followed by Jim (unless Gumby finds out he was in the contest), followed by Dewey again. So far the prizes are the Padres yearbook and the Red Sox scorebook--I will announce the others soon and people can start choosing. (And I'll send out Ryan's prize from last year--I figured I'd wait to see if he won this year, then I could put it all in one package. Is that a good enough excuse ya think?)

Congrats to the winners. Sorry to the non-Ws, and Kara, think of yourself as a martyr for people with bad numbers--this proves anyone can win these contests.

So they say. OD'd. I think Punch Drunk Love was my favorite role of his. But there have been a lot of his movies I didn't see.

Just went over to the snowman shop and picked up a couple of prizes for the contest. I think I'll make it so there are several prizes and the four winners get to pick in order of quarter: Final, half, 3rd, 1st. But for now, here are a 1973 Red Sox program and, in continuing with the random Padres theme of this contest, a 1980 Padres yearbook.

Since the Super Bowl is on Groundhog Day, will the score be the same as last year?