"Every day is a winding road, I get a little bit closer" --Sheryl Crow

Since I've been on the road for the last week, I thought I might share some of my deep thoughts from the trip.

1. Restaurants advertise Chicken Tenders. I don't know about the Tenders but I predict huge sales if someone comes out with Chicken Chewies. Doesn't that sound fantastic?

2. There are two kinds of people in the world: those that go to someone's house and use the bar of soap that's in the shower and already in use by the host (sequentially, not simultaneously), and those that bring and use their own. I am of the latter category. I've no interest in pulling hairs from other people off the soap I'm considering applying to myself. Ew.

I've been informed that everyone falls into the former category and I'm just plain wrong. So, are you people completely disgusting or am I right?

3. If your house is less than 3,000 square feet:

a) It probably doesn't need statuary or fountains. I'm not talking about the small frog or Buddha in the garden. I'm talking about the 20' tall plaster statue of Woman with Lute that's takes up half of the front lawn. Scale people. It's a principle we can all embrace.

b) It doesn't need a name. It may be Twin Oaks to you but it's just another house on Elm to the rest of us.

4. When driving past a field with at least one bale of hay, it is always funny and never annoying to point and shout out "Hay!"

Open Letter to CNN

Dear CNN,

I don't know what sadistic game you're playing but you have to stop scaring my mother.

Every time you show anything bad happening in or near Washington, DC (and, really, how often do you show anything good happening?), my mother assumes that it is happening to me. Tornado touches down in Fairfax? Me. Multiple murders in Southeast? Me.

This morning, you reported on your national news that there was a huge water main break on River Road in Bethesda and there were helicopter rescues from the trapped cars in the rushing, way cold water. Guess where my mother thought I was?

Doesn't matter that I live nowhere near Bethesda. Doesn't matter that I work nowhere near Bethesda. Doesn't matter that this morning I'd have as much chance of being in Gdansk as Bethesda.

She called, very upset.

She's an old lady.

That's just mean.

-L A Cochran


PS to Anderson: For the inauguration, it's your turn to bring the vodka. And none of that cheap stuff, like last time. Although you looked cute passed out in the kitty litter.

Magical Holiday Moments

Jostling at Macy's

Is this final reduction?

This register closed


Office full of food

Betty made her famous cake

One more bite I'll puke


Garish lights display

People stop and gawk in road

Honking and swerving


Hideous sweater

Mom says: Now, Dear, say "thank you"

I WANTED PUPPY!


Spot last Wii on shelf

Hear Wii seekers rounding bend

Hide Wii behind Bratz

"Each and every day true player way" --Blackstreet

Okay, someone didn't get the memo around here that it's late December. I'm still having to attend meetings and deliver presentations and do analysis and update charts and did I mention IT'S LATE DECEMBER?! What happened to "down time", people?

So, sorry if I've been missing out on all the reindeer games lately. Why are the reindeer such game players anyway? Do they follow Roosh's advice or Roissy's or Alec Greven's? So hard to keep up.

I've never been a game player. I'd rather be on the up and up and folks can take it or leave it. So far, it's worked really well. But clearly there are alternate views out there.

Once, I had a roommate who sent flowers to herself with the name of a fictitious boyfriend on the card in hopes of making another guy jealous. It seemed pretty lame to me. Apparently, it did to him, too. He didn't care before the flowers and he didn't care after the flowers. This woman didn't need the book "He's Just Not That Into You", she needed "He Wouldn't Stop to Pee On You If You Were on Fire".

So here's the hotly contested question(s) du jour: Does gaming work? And why don't more games feature the magnificent pop-o-matic?

"As the hours turn, you can hear them" --Hothouse Flowers

[I can't explain it either.]


Here's a seasonal peeve. I know it's not much longer but, jeez louise...

How come you have to pay to have the Salvation Army person stop ringing that bell? And how much do you have to pay to get them to stop forever?! Can we get a collection going?

I can't be the only person who has fantasies about ripping that bell out of the Salvation Army drone's hand and flinging it farther than Dane Cook ever could. How is this noise pollution allowed?! There's got to be an ordinance that could apply here!

And wouldn't you think they'd try to ring a little softer as you get closer? But, no! They get more aggressive with the damn thing!

It would be different if they had the whole band there or if the person was playing a little tune on a set of bells.

Or if it was cowbell. Because the world needs more cowbell!

But, no.

For the love of all things holy, MAKE IT STOP!