Only One Shopping Wednesday Till Christmas

Back in LA for a while, thank goodness.

---If you are in a shopping mall at 12 noon on Christmas Eve, you are no friend of mine.

---If you are in a shopping mall at 6AM for a doorbusters sale on December 26, you don't even rank as a decent enemy.

---A radio station out here in LaLa is going to be playing a yulelog on Christmas Eve.

---Huh?

---That's like an old radio company I used to work for. They used to sell golf broadcasts on the radio, too.

---"Hey, look. The one branch is almost all burned. Pass the egg nog."

---My week as a human pinball around the country took its toll, as I inherited the finest of germs that American Airlines' coach passengers can offer. I landed last Friday and I am still waiting for my ears to pop.

---The idiots were already starting to clog the airline terminals last week. Does Grandma really want all these people showing up for Christmas?

---On one of my flights last week, I had this Asian chick next to me who seemed to confuse my left shoulder with a Barcalounger.

---"I nap on you long time."

---Because I got stuck depending on their "food for purchase" on one trip, I tried American's holiday snack, a mega gingerbread cookie. It should be banned by the American Dental Association. Thanks to this treat, I now have to completely limit my sugar intake until July 14, 2008.

---If I have to buy food on board, at least give me a variety that doesn't look like the pastry rack at 7/11.

---By the final leg of my journey, I was emitting shades of greens that I didn't even know existed.

---Last Sunday, I was so sick that I was going to resort to one of those walk-in "doc-in-a-box" clinics. Beverly Hills Urgent Care.

---Which I discovered is closed on Sundays. A suggestion on renaming the facility: Beverly Hills Not Really Urgent Care.

---I can now say that I spent a night in Frisco, Texas. Woo hoo. Where the Stonebriar Resort and Business Center could be the setting for Poltergeist 5.

---In my room, the thermostat was off. The AC was off. The heater was off. Yet, I felt like I was sleeping in an Easy Bake Oven. I was forced to spend the night with the patio door open, and it was 28 degrees outside.

---After that evening of widely deviating hot and cold temperatures, my sinuses have now joined the writers on strike.

---Upon checkout, I was asked if I had a pleasant stay.

---"No." The clerk looked at me as if I just told him his mother was an ugly whore.

---That's what I get for even stopping anywhere between Los Angeles and New York.

---But, what else can you say about a place like Dallas, whose biggest claim to fame is a Presidential assassination?

---You know what would help me get over this super-nasty sinus infection? A big bottle of steroids. Who's got Paul LoDuca on speed dial?

---Okay, now we know officially. You just don't grow three shoe sizes in a year without a little chemical help.

---And, since Andy Pettitte is also on the list, we now know that the stuff also works on noses.

---Overall, the Mitchell Report contained a lot of older guys past their prime who were trying anything to maintain a Strat-o-Matic card the following season.

---But, my early Christmas present was Roger Clemens' spot on that list.

---Of course, the peckerwood denies it all. That's like Japan saying they weren't near Hawaii on December 7.

---Of course, I was being personally duped everytime I gave Eric Gagne a standing ovation during his Cy Young season.

---Breaking news from a non-HGH world in 2000: The Mets beat the Yankees in Game 7 of the World Series.

---Now, it is looking more and more like it will be Huckabee vs. Obama next year.

---Forget the steroids. Let's start passing the hemlock.

---In a country full of lousy choices, that pairing would indeed be the worst. With one guy, you'd wind up with a country run by those lunatic Fundamentalists who think that Jesus loves them more than anybody else, all the while maintaining a list of all the people they hate.

---With the other choice, we wind up with a nation run by crabby DMV and postal workers who will be empowered enough to demand that we celebrate Oprah's birthday with a national holiday.

Check, please!

Dinner last night: Orange chicken at the Cheesecake Factory.