After work on Wednesday, I headed down to Panera to grab dinner for the family.  While standing in line waiting to order, I noticed a fairly attractive young woman standing about six feet behind me.  When I turned around again, I saw she had edged a little closer and was looking right at me.  Then, while still making eye contact, she took another step forward.

“Uhhhh… hi,” I said.

She smiled and said hi, and leaned forward a little.  This seemed a little strange, as this is not the normal effect I have on women that have a full set of teeth.  Generally, they manufacture some reason to pretend they didn’t see me – like sawing off their foot.

Just then, the counter cleared, and I was ready to order.  I ordered the food, then headed over to the other end of the restaurant to pick it up.  I saw the girl order, then walk very slowly to a table, scoping out the restaurant.  After a couple of minutes, a guy with brown hair walked over to her table.  She got up, and they shook hands, as if they were just meeting.  Then it hit me:

She thought I was her blind date.

Fortunately for her, I was not.  I imagine she was relieved, as well.  A small part of me wished that, had I known what was going on, I would have played along for a little bit.  But after my ruse was exposed, I imagine it would have gotten uncomfortable.

I started to think about how different blind dating is these days, with the internet and all.  I mean, does anyone go on a date anymore where they haven’t at least seen a picture of the person first?  It so happens that this guy looked a lot like me (or I, him), so I can see where she might have confused us.  (Although on my blind dates, I always wore bright orange arm floaties and a Seattle Seahawks football helmet, to make sure the girl could spot me immediately.  There generally weren’t many second dates.)

But it seems that some of the best stories people carry throughout their lives are tales of blind dates gone horribly wrong.  The ones where a friend of yours says she knows this really nice, funny girl that looks like Uma Thurman, and she actually looks more like Bob Uecker.  (For some reason, at least in the mid ’90s, any time a girl wanted to set you up with a strange looking friend, they always said she looked like Uma Thurman, merely because she manages to be both hot and weird looking.)*

Now, with the internet, potential suitors can be fully vetted and examined prior to meeting in person – although, admittedly, any time someone posts a picture of themselves online, you should probably mentally slap on about 15 pounds to estimate what they really look like.  

But sadly, the tales of crazy blind dates may be going the way of fondue and wife swapping.  This is more disturbing than the disappearance of the newspaper industry.  Everyone needs to experience a truly apocalyptic first date to tell all their friends about.  Without these, people would be forced to sit around and tell stories about how they got their scars.  (I have a theory that if more than 3 people are locked in a room for more than 2 hours, the conversation inevitably turns to drinking stories and scar stories – and sometimes, they’re the same story.  I have yet to be proven wrong.)

Oh, and since I know you’ve been wondering:  The sandwich was delicious. 

*Side note – After college, I moved to Chicago and stayed with my friend The Gooch.  We went to a bar one night, and I actually did meet a girl who looked like Uma Thurman – and in a good way.  She was a law student at some school there.  She called me a few days later, and asked me if I wanted to go have coffee.  My answer?  ”Well, I don’t drink coffee.”

Genius.

So ends the week where all the television networks lecture us on how to live more “green” lifestyles.  The irony of a multimillion dollar corporation like General Electric (owner of NBC) shaming people into using less toilet paper is just too rich for words.

This last week gave me the opportunity to do a little soul-searching as to how I can save the environment.  This introspection wasn’t really necessary, as my dedication to receipt reform to save our valuable trees has been second to none.  I figure my carbon bank is full.

But here’s a bonus recommendation:  wouldn’t it make more sense if public bathrooms got rid of the automatic laser flushers for urinals?  Think about it – for whatever reason, probably only half the public restroom users actually flush when they’re done going “#1.”  Maybe they’re germophobes that don’t like touching the handle, maybe they’re in a hurry, maybe they think the urinal cake will take care of the smell, or whatever.

But by having the automatic flushers, you guarantee that everyone there is flushing every time.  Most people probably agree that we could get away with only flushing every other time – so while the automatic flushers may be a nice convenience, they’re killing our sensitive ecosystems.  Each time you flush in an airport bathroom, a tear rolls down the cheek of a baby seal.

As my own earth-saving protest, every time I go into a bathroom with automatic flushers, I’m going to sit on the floor and try to make it into the urinal from there, just so I can avoid the oppressive watchful eye of the little red laser.  Or I’ll hang from the ceiling, Mission Impossible-style, with a complex system of mirrors to divert the lasers.  Big brother doesn’t need to know when I have to pee.

And for the Sierra Club, I am available to receive an award for this idea at any time.  Just call my people.

(SIDE NOTE:  When I was a little kid, it seemed like the possibilities for lasers were endless – they ranged from slicing Darth Vader in half with a lightsaber to shooting down Russian spy planes.  But it appears that the only good lasers have actually done in my lifetime is to determine when someone has just finished dropping a deuce in a public bathroom.  Get these scientists some damn stimulus funds – I want a lightsaber, dammit!)

Every year I, along with 18,000 other Madisonians, run in the 5 mile Crazylegs run.  It doesn’t matter if I train for it or not (generally not), I always end up with the same time.  I was determined to make this year different.

So about a month ago, I thought I’d really start busting my ass to see if I could get in shape.  I wanted to see how fast I could actually run the race if I applied myself.  I started running five miles a day, and did so for about three and a half weeks.  I ran through soreness, blisters, and fatigue, determined to get a little faster.  I paid the entrance fee and got ready to test myself on Saturday.

This week, everyone in my family was sick.  My kids got a bug that had them throwing up, combined with uncontrollable diarrhea.  Determined to dodge this plague, I sequestered myself for most of the week.  And I managed to stay reasonably healthy.

You can probably guess what happened next.  Early evening on Friday, my stomach started to feel a little uncomfortable.  I was looking forward to my team’s first softball game at 10:00 on Friday night, so I didn’t think much of it.  Then, about 8:00, it hit me – I had to make a mad dash to the bathroom to avoid a rectal apocalypse.  Runs to the bathroom every ten minutes followed, along with a 20 minute vomiting session.  (I have not yet ruled out the Mexican swine flu as the culprit.)

My wife was appalled that I remained determined to play in the softball game.  It was clear my whole weekend, and all the work I had put in to get in shape, was about to be flushed down the toilet, along with everything I had eaten for the past three days.  So I wanted to salvage little bit of fun – and I was afraid that if I didn’t show for the game, my team would have to forfeit.

When I got to the softball fields, I scoped out the bathroom situation, in case I had to make a mad dash.  Of course, the toilet was in typical public restroom shape – it was clogged up, with water running over the top, and other people’s handiwork floating inside.  Sitting on it was an impossibility.

The game got started, and every time I took the field, I stuck a towel in the front of my shorts, just in case.  I managed to get a couple hits, and each time I got to the base, I felt like I was going to hurl.  Running anywhere was a risky proposition, as each step could trigger untold embarrassment.  Fortunately, the game passed without incident, and we won, 12-2.  One of the guys on the team mentioned what a big win it was – “You have no idea,” I said, hunched over.

I got home and crawled into bed, shivering uncontrollably.  I barely slept, feeling like my temperature was 110 degrees.  Of course, I missed the race the next morning, as I was hugging the porcelain throne.  So much work, all gone to waste.

On the upside, there were worse weekends to be laid up – with the NFL draft, NBA playoffs, and Brewer games all going on.  (Generally, I’m against dopes that watch too much of the NFL draft, but I ended up watching virtually every minute of it – on both ESPN and the NFL Network.)  As I was drifting in and out of consciousness on Sunday afternoon, I actually saw my Mom and Dad on national TV, standing right off the 18^th fairway at the golf tournament Jerry Kelly won.  I thought I was hallucinating, and checked – in fact, the tournament was in New Orleans, where they live.  So completely random and bizarre.

Hopefully, I’ll be back in fighting shape on Monday (which also happens to be my birthday.)  I’m looking forward to eating again.

Congrats to “Percy Harvey,” whose “gusty” play will make him a positive force in the Vikings locker room.

Wisconsin basketball fans may be interested in Alando Tucker’s acting debut, in the Steve Nash-directed “SuperBADge.”  It appears the Phoenix Suns haven’t taken missing the playoffs too hard.

With the state GOP convention in a little more than a week, people are figuring out who’s going to run against Russ Feingold for U.S. Senate in 2010.  At each convention, Wispolitics.com puts together a straw poll for the party loyalists to vote for who they think should run – and I honestly can’t think of a single name that comes to mind that would actually be interested in running.  (Although I heard some businessman is thinking about running, so good for him.)

I actually had a couple friends (jokingly, I think) tell me I should get my name on the list.  I laughed at their suggestion, but then I thought – there may be some upside to this.  After all, I have already aired all my dirty laundry in advance for the Feingold people to use against me.  I’ve exposed Feingold’s excessive flatulence.  I’ve even come up with a slogan – “VOTE SCHNEIDER: FOR A STRONGER STATUS QUO!”

Most importantly, I’d want to be on the straw poll just to see if I could beat a couple of the names that I suspect are going to be on there.  Just so I could hang that over their heads for eternity.  Now, for clarification – I couldn’t actually beat anyone in a real election, but for the straw poll, all bets are off.

That is why, despite being illegal during actual elections, I would be more than happy to engage in rampant and overt vote fraud during the convention.  I’d hire ACORN to descend on LaCrosse, pulling people out of their homes and making up phony names for voters to vote for me.  I’d be buying beers by the truckload for the conventioneers.  I’d head down to Kinkos and crank out hundreds of phony ballots for people to cast, with my name pre-marked.

So if you’re going to be in LaCrosse next weekend, vote early, and vote often.  Remember these inspiring words, spoken by me, this morning: 

“If a douchebag like Al Franken can get elected to the U.S. Senate, why not me?”

No matter where one falls on the political spectrum, nobody can deny that President Barack Obama’s first 100 days have been a whirlwind of activity.  The One is already making incredible progress on his ambitious foreign policy agenda, a copy of which I have obtained from a well-placed White House source.  The President’s handwritten notes appear italicized in parentheses.

President Barack Obama: 2009 Foreign Policy Agenda - Classified

1.  Bow down to Saudi king.  (Done)

2.  Share some laughs and a homie handshake with Venezuelan dictator and book club buddy Hugo Chavez.  (Done)

3.  “Friend” Ahmadinejad on Facebook.  (Pending)

4.  Go to Europe and crap all over America in speech.  (Done. The Blame America Firsters, the French and Chris Matthews loved it!)

5.  Formally apologize to the Russians for the Miracle on Ice.  (Pending)

6.  Eskimo kisses with Kim Jong-il.  (Pending)

7.  Smoke check some Somali pirates who captured an American.  And don’t play “Mother May I?” with Liechtenstein to see if its cool with them first.  Just do it.  (Done.  Why did I tell George W. Bush about this list and then agree to let him add an item?)

8.  Send Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a two-week fact-finding mission to Siberia when Girls Gone Wild is taping during Daytona Beach spring break.  (Pending.  Why did I tell Bill Clinton about this list and then agree to let him add an item?)

9.  Stogies with Castro in Rose Garden.  (Pending)

10.  Stop using the term “War on Terror” as a signal that this is now somehow less of a priority for me.  (Done)

Halfway done, and its only been 100 days.

Oh, hello there, dear reader. I forgot you guys were out there.

FYI, I was on “Sunday Insight With Charlie Sykes” this Sunday. We talked about the tea parties, jobs leaving Wisconsin, and whether you should be allowed to spank your children. (There’s also a twinkie joke in there that only one guy on the panel got.)

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

It was “pick a song from the year you were born” last night on American Idol.  My TiVo cut off, so I didn’t see the last performance – but it seemed to be a pretty uninspired night.

Generally, I spend a good 40% of my day just sitting around and complaining about what an old man I am.  But when looking up songs from the year of my birth yesterday, I suddenly felt proud to have been born in 1973.  For the #11 song of that year was the classic linked to below.  Any one of you young whipper snappers that thinks they can top a 6 foot 7 long haired albino that alternates between the key-tar, the saxophone, the drums, and space sound effects – go ahead and try.  Pure mustache-fueled joy.

Sadly, I missed this song by two years – but the upside is, if I was born in 1971, I wouldn’t be able to go to the bathroom by myself.

UPDATE:  I neglected to mention that the #4 song in the year of my birth was “Let’s Get it On,” by Marvin Gaye.  At first, I thought that this song may have been responsible for my mom becoming pregnant with me – but clearly, it had to happen in late 1972, as I was born in April of ’73.  (I actually once asked my dad where the insemination took place, and he said he didn’t know.  I asked, “are you sure you were there?”)

Sadly, the list of 1972 songs is underwhelming.  In scanning the list, a song called “Popcorn” by Hot Butter (#28) caught my eye, so I looked it up on YouTube.  If this honestly was one of the top songs in 1972, then it’s proof that the entire world was on the drugs.  It’s proof positive that we need to double down on the war on drugs – to save our children from songs like this:

If my parents created me to this song, then I disown them forever.

The poetry of the Ultimate Warrior:

So by now, you’ve most likely seen the video of European Parliament member Daniel Hannan excoriating British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the issue of deficit spending. It hit the internet a week ago, but in today’s news cycle, it seems like it’s a year old already.

It appears that Hannan has become a favorite of conservative TV talk shows – showing up on Hannity, Glenn Beck, Neil Cavuto and others. Here’s a clip of him on “Morning Joe:”

Clearly, the appeal of Hannan’s speech was that he consisely articulated what many people have been saying about the economy all along. But why do we all of a sudden revere a guy who really didn’t say anything that hasn’t already been said?

BECAUSE HE HAS AN ENGLISH ACCENT.

It’s true. We here in America take anything British people much more seriously. And there’s nothing we like more than to have the English deliver us bad news.

Think about it – on a show called AMERICAN Idol, Simon Cowell, a Brit, dishes out brutal, demeaning reviews to contestants. And we eat it up. He’s by far the most popular judge. Remember that “Weakest Link” show, with the mean old British lady that yelled at people? And doesn’t “Dancing With the Stars” have a British judge? And “America’s Got Talent?” (Perhaps the most ironically titled show on TV, as it is hosted by David Hasselhoff.)

This hits a sore spot for me, as I have spent months of my life killing brain cells, sitting at my laptop, wailing about the sorry state of Wisconsin state government. Instead of cranking out report after report after report, I should have just done the easier thing – just start faking a British accent. (This entire paragraph has been typed with an English accent – but you could probably already tell that.) Suddenly, I could do a fraction of the work and be taken ten times as seriously.

Or, I could just import someone – this might be a good time to get my girlfriend Keira Knightley to come to Wisconsin to warn of the dangers of socialized medicine. Better yet – since Johnny Depp spent like $30 million of our tax money on haircuts while he was here filming “Public Enemies” last year, we could have him pay us back by dressing up like Cap’n Jack Sparrow, adopting the accent, and lecturing our State Legislature on the dangers of utilizing debt for ongoing appropriations. It’s FOOLPROOF.

I really, sincerely, hadn’t planned on writing a lot about the current Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. But the stench has just gotten too thick – I can’t help but comment. I’m like one of those idiot criminals who shows up at the police station because they offer a free honey ham, then gets arrested. I just can’t help but get suckered in.

The other day, I wrote that because liberal Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson was in the lead, you weren’t hearing all the calls for campaign finance reform that you normally would if a conservative were running strong. It appears I may have spoken a bit too soon, as I underestimated the ability of the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram to twist the story to their liking. This appeared on the same day as my post:

At a forum addressing judicial campaign financing in Eau Claire last week, Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Director Mike McCabe pointed out the similarities in education (the same law school), professional experience (circuit court judges) and legal temperament (self-described “judicial conservatives”) between Koschnick and Gableman. Yet Gableman was able to defeat an incumbent Supreme Court justice last year while Koschnick is considered a long shot this year.

McCabe says the likely difference in electoral outcome has to do with dollar signs, and it’s hard to disagree with him.

Yes – who could disagree with such air-tight logic?

Or, it could be the fact that Shirley Abrahamson has spent 30 years on the court, as opposed to Louis Butler’s 10 minutes. Perhaps they forgot that Butler had lost an election (to Diane Sykes), but was then installed on the court by Governor Doyle when a vacancy opened up – essentially overturning the results of the election. Sometimes voters bristle at being told they’re not smart enough to pick their judges. Regardless, I think the fact that Shirley Abrahamson has become an institution in Wisconsin government might have just a little to do with her electoral strength.

Furthermore, it was because of the Butler/Gableman race that Abrahamson switched tactics, portraying herself as “tough on crime,” and “protecting our families.” This was a lesson Butler was slow to learn – and it may have cost him his seat. Abrahamson immediately recognized that her left flank was exposed on the crime issue, and tried to fortify it up front. (A year ago, I suggested she release a video of her chasing down and clubbing a burglar in her campaign commercials – oddly, my advice went unheeded.)

In fact, the goo-goos have it exactly backward. They believe Koschnick is a longshot because he had trouble raising money. In reality, it’s the other way around – Koschnick had trouble raising money because he’s perceived by conservatives as a longshot. And this isn’t because he’s a bad guy or a terrible judge – the groups that normally help conservative judges didn’t think he had a legitimate shot at beating a Supreme Court justice that joined the bench before man had invented utensils.

But this displays the desperation of the campaign finance reform crowd – when there’s a race where the candidates spend too much, money is the problem. When there’s a campaign where candidates spend too little, money is the problem. They seem to think they’ve got it surrounded – when in fact, there are a hundred things that explain what’s happening more clearly than merely campaign finance.

Really nice cover article on CC Sabathia in Sports Illustrated this week.  Although, naturally, it’s a punch to the gut of Brewers fans, who will only have a half a season to look back on.

Oh, and SI  picks the Brew Crew to finish second in the NL Central – although the article refers to Rickie Weeks as a “young stud” – so you have to wonder if the author has actually ever witnessed a Brewer game.