“Thoughts and prayers are with you Leo…” was a puzzling email to receive Friday night, so I responded sarcastically with, “Why? Is my blog exhibiting some crisis vibe?” A few minutes later the fun ended when I read, “Haven’t you written about your Dad and that he lives in the Villages in Fla????” A quick scan of the news was frightening… A powerful tornado had ripped the early morning tranquility of the adult playground, destroying property and inflicting the ultimate early retirement on some 20 young and old victims. “All circuits are busy. Please try your call again later,” heightened my anxiety, but on the 4th or 5th try, Caroline, my step-mother answered and assured me they were OK. “It went right over us.” Dad was working when I called, but he called me the next day to fill me in. Dad saying, “It sounded like a train,” recalled the DBT’s “Tornadoes,” and I recoiled at what their experience must have been like, but only for a second as he added, “I slept through it.”

NP- “World of Hurt” – Smokin live version by the Drive By Truckers

“Do you take an aspirin every day,” my mother asked. “You have to take one every day.” She had just told the sad story of a 43 year old neighbor who died last week of a massive heart attack. I assured Mom I do take a 81mg “enteric” aspirin and a multivitamin daily. Overall my health is good (insert mental health joke here…), but I’ve got to crank up the exercise regime soon.

Speaking of cranking, you know that noise a washing machine makes when you’re setting it to “Regular,” “Heavy” or “Permanent Press?” Well, actually it’s the older top-loading versions that make that distinct noise, so when mine went silent last Saturday I had to act fast to avoid a Laundromat encounter. “Joe” arrived punctually at 8:00am this past Friday morning and perfectly leveled my sweet new “Energy Star” GE front loading washing machine. I couldn’t have been more excited to do laundry. It doesn’t rock, but man, it rolls! My preliminary testing shows it:

• operates nearly silently
• uses very little water per wash
• spins out almost all water at 950RPM
• is just really cool to stare into

A full load of sheets and pillowcases was so dry post-spin, they took only 15 minutes in the dryer! I’m very happy with all the energy savings this bad boy provides. Sadly however, my excitement has officially sud-sided and the activity is relegated back to being “just laundry.”

Imagine if you will, this playing live continuously in your dwelling. Yes, the “distant chromatic rumblings of a double bass, gradually coalescing into the droning march for the shark, offset by dissonant seventh chords.”1. Exactly. Well, the lovely and talented Jessica taught her brother Kyle to play those deep strings on his new Yamaha keyboard. It’s a very cool unit and has been added to the home repertoire to allow the young maestro to create…

Any regular visitor to this corner of the Internet knows Kyle loves music and singing. Gladly, I captured his holiday performance, but the JVC Everio HDD recorder I purchased for the occasion fell far short on video quality and is now probably on eBay after a return to Best Buy for a $75 “restocking fee.” Hey, twenty five bucks a minute for that moment in time was well worth it…

Ok, just one more product plug… I recently received my W2 and other tax-related documents. For the past several years, I’ve used TurboTax to prepare my taxes. How do you do your taxes?

1. Copyright 2000 by Andrew Drannon

This just makes me want to buy a 55” HDTV and charge everyone I know a penny in a symbolic defiance against the en-ef-el and their insatiable and petty financial gluttony. I’m no fan of churches, but hey, if they’re showing the Super Bowl® on a 108” HD plasma, I believe, baby!

Whatever. Here’s why “Da Bears” will win:

The Chicago Defense – Much attention toward the end of the year focused on the adventures of Bears quarterback Rex Grossman. Nobody should forget the Chicago “D” had 40 sacks, forced 27 fumbles and snatched 24 interceptions this season.

Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson – They will run on the Colts and keep Peyton Manning off the field.

Destiny – This can’t be good for the indoor team.

Update Sunday 11:51am…I almost forgot…
The Letdown – The Colts knocked a Giant Elvis of an albatross off their neck exactly two weeks ago… There will be an emotional letdown today.

Why the Colts could win:

The Bears aren’t that good – They had a weak-ass schedule including six games in their pathetic division.

Still, neither are the Colts…

Bears 25 – Indy 24

What’s next, the Doritos’ diet?

I don’t own a Jackson Pollock, but neither does this guy. A forensic analysis by Harvard University has determined paintings discovered in 2003 and thought to be Pollock’s aren’t. They discovered some of the pigments used in the paints were not available until well after the artist died in 1956.

Wanna have some fun? Roll your own Pollock…

Here’s to the crazy ones…

Are you loyal to any particular brands? Brandweek’s 2006 Customer Loyalty Awards provide some insight to the leading brands in our 50 states and some of the results surprised me. For example, in Athletic Footwear, New Balance rated higher in loyalty than Adidas and Nike. More startling to me was in the Quick Serve Food category where Subway came out on top. Ugh. I ate there once. Two words: Microwaved steak. Also surprising is the dismal “show” of Coca-Cola in the “10 Teaspoons of Sugar in Carbonated Water” category behind Pepsi and nuclear-glow Mountain Dew.

If you are loyal to a brand, what, if anything would break that loyalty? Based on my experience, price is not a big factor, but the customer experience is. I’ll cite 2 examples in technology and one in automotive service.

Wireless Phone Service: Up until last weekend, I was paying around $160.00/month to Verizon Wireless for my Treo with internet/email capability and Megan’s phone, all on a 2,100 minute/month plan. Verizon is expensive, but my experience with their service has been outstanding. Last weekend I picked up a phone for Jessica and the service in their retail store was just over the top great. A retail associate helped us pick the phone (Pink Razr) and noted because of my company discount, it would cost us exactly $0.00. Everyone in the store appeared to be well trained and very customer focused. I’ll continue to pay high rates to Verizon because of the value of their service.

Digital Cameras: As I’ve written before, I got a bad PowerShot 70. I found out they were offering a “free” repair, so I sent it in. When it was finally returned several weeks later, I discovered the repair parts were used, scratched and not the same color as the camera! I wrote to them on October 22, 2006 to express my dissatisfaction. I’m still waiting for a response. In the meantime, I’ve purchased an HP digital camera and a Sony HD Camcorder for some $700.00. I’m done with Canon. No service, no quid.

Auto Service: Over the years, the Volvo service I’ve received from Bob DiNapoli at European Auto Werks almost makes me want to buy another one. Almost. Since Ford bought Volvo, I think Volvo quality has taken a hit, and Ford’s recent performance does not inspire confidence. Hmmm… but maybe Bob services BMW’s…

What brands are you loyal or disloyal to and why?

Reading about Filene’s Basement’s impending closure for up to two years while its building is renovated reminded me of my late paternal grandmother, Lillian (Coleman) Daley. My recollection had dimmed some, but there are some memories that remain. The first is from the perspective of a boy who’s eyes only rose to the tops of the clothes bins in the dusty basement during the mid 60’s. That perspective gave me a unique view of half crazed women rifling through piles of what I’d later understand to be flying brassieres’ Yes, it was scary down there.

The second story is actually a story that occurred on a second story. Um, okay, it was a third story, but I’m not changing that line… Anyway, the two bedrooms for my brothers and me growing up at 10 Pine Street were renovated attic space with ceilings sloped with the roof line. One night after some sort of a battle with probably my brother Kevin, “Nana” told me a story of how one brother carried the other when the brother couldn’t walk. I don’t remember the details, but I’ll never forget the punchline. She ended the story by telling how the young man doing the carrying said, “He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother.” Every time I’ve heard the Hollies song over the years since, I’ve thought of that moment.

Since the statute of limitations has long since passed, I can now tell this story… One night when I was in high school… I was 15 or 16… Evidently I consumed some bad hops or barley, because for some reason as I dragged my ill carcass up the front stairs, I was yelling for some guy named “Ralph” and vomiting. It very well could have been food poisoning… Well, no. Now that I’m thinking about it, I remember being in a prone position barfing out of an open car door in the parking lot of our hometown McDonalds. My friends of course were extremely worried about my welfare as they ate. I remember Bobby “Roggie” Rowe even asking, “Hey Leo, want a cheeseburger?” “Nana” was the first to reach me on the front stairs and she did all she could with her barely five foot frame to help me. Suddenly, a less sympathetic figure in the form of my mother appeared ranting like a lunatic in my general direction. “Oh, Carol, he’s just got some kind of a bug,” pleaded my savior Lillian in a high pitch as she threw herself in front of me like a Secret Service agent prepared to take a bullet. “A BEER AND CIGARETTE BUG?” bellowed my mother, certainly intent of curing me permanently of my “bug.”

I never saw her before she died. It seemed she went from good health to no health in just a couple weeks 18 years ago. Megan was due imminently and I chose to stay home instead of making the trip to Florida. The next time I saw her, she really didn’t look like my grandmother. The little woman from Nova Scotia who had survived an abusive alcoholic husband and many trips to unimaginable places in search of her heroin addicted son was still clutching her Rosary beads, but she was gone. She got to know and love Jessica, but never met Megan who was born a couple weeks later. Oh, how she would have loved Kyle and he her. My boy would have had lots of fun with “Nana Lily.”

After the wake, I was the last one in a small room as the funeral director closed the casket. I lost it. I’d been OK up till then, but I guess the thought of never seeing her again was overwhelming. As I write this, it’s clear to me it still is. I miss you Nana. I love you.

The hygienist was scraping away and I was trying to relax as the sharp cold steel crept closer to my vulnerable gums. The abrasion continued and I let my mind wander away from the smell of decay now wafting out of my mouth agape. With all the flossing and high-tech brushing and Listerine-ing, my pie hole still smelled like a sewer pipe exiting Newark on a hot August day. I cannot imagine spending every day in peoples mouths. My daughter Jessica once wanted to be a dental hygienist, but I described to her something like the aforementioned and she chose… Well, she didn’t do that. I wondered just how long I had been going to my current dentist, and doing a little simple subtraction, (2007 – 1987 = 20) I surmised it was close to twenty years. “Almost to the day,” replied Cathy through her mask, looking at my record. “Your first appointment was January 5, 1987.” Twenty years… That’s about 21,915 cups of coffee stains for those of you keeping score, and I’m vainly going to pursue a whiter shade of pale for the old incisors and cuspids. Yep, by early March I’ll have a new fake smile, but I’ll still really mean it.

The participle dangling from the tattered black background was the first sad clue. I couldn’t really describe it as a blog. Not a well kept one, anyway. It was in complete disarray with verbs strewn everywhere and overused adjectives soiling the digitally pixilated walls. There was the stench of a bin on the floor full of unchanged kitty alliteration. An avocado refrigerator had not been cleaned in…well, ever and was reeking… filled with little nuggets of words hardened and crusty; no longer worthy of consumption… Well, not by anyone of sane mind. I looked around and saw there was some effort of upkeep in the past. There were nearly two years of neatly stacked archives, but they were accumulating the inevitable dust of time and disregard. A picture of a vaguely familiar man hung in a back room. In one of those Déj? vu moments, I felt I’d been there before and I recognized the face, but I can’t recall the name. The smile of the man seemed genuine. Was he happy at that moment? What happened to him? My fear is he’s buried somewhere under the mountain of run-on sentences piled up in the IP address of a lonely dark place. I’ll keep looking…

Certainly I am not “the” Swami. That godlike mark belongs to Jeff ever since he predicted, dead on, the exact record of the Boston Red Sox in 1993. By the way, it was 80-82 and his stunning prescience transpired before a pitch was thrown that year. That makes me a Swami-wannabe, a Swami-poser… Yes, an imitator and a fraud. That, of course, doesn’t stop anyone these days from spouting off about, um, anything.

With that, here’s what will happen in the AFC and NFC Championship games later today:

• Chicago led the NFL by forcing 44 turnovers this year. For the Bears to win, that defensive trend has got to continue today. They’ll take two from Reggie Bush and one from Drew Brees.
• Rex Grossman will “stay within himself” and not turn the ball over.
• Many people favor the Saints as a trendy pick to help heal the still gaping wound of Hurricane Katrina. If not for poor clock management and a terrible decision to punt late in the game by Eagles coach Andy Reid last week, the Saints probably wouldn’t be playing today. The fairytale ends today in a flood of Bears defenders.
• Bears coach Lovie Smith is one of two African-American coaches with a shot to get to “the game sandwiched between very expensive commercials and Prince.” Mr. Smith has a dream. “The dream I have had all week is the Chicago Bears being presented with the George Halas Trophy at Soldier Field and for Virginia McCaskey (the late Mr. Halas’ daughter) to accept it.” Dreams can come true.

• Colts safety Bob Sanders will not finish the game. On one of his kamikaze dashes from the Colts secondary, a Patriot will lay him out. When he can’t answer where he is or what day it is, his work will be done for the day.

• Backup prediction – Tom Brady will hit Ben Watson with a touchdown pass straight up the field into the zone vacated by Mr. Sanders.

• Kevin Faulk will throw a touchdown pass. Earlier in the week, I thought it would be Lawrence Maroney, but I’m not sure he can throw. Kevin Faulk can.
• Peyton Manning will not “choke,” nor will he win.
• Much has been made of the kicking game with former Patriot and Hall of Famer Adam Vinatieri now kicking for Indy. Yes, kicking will be the difference in the game. Each kicker will get 3 shots in the game. The best clutch kicker in the history of the game will miss one. The rookie won’t.