Some things that didn\’t really fit into a post:

I finally buckled and bought a plasma HDTV, just in time to watch the Packers\’ disaster yesterday. In fact, I actually think it did the trick – the high clarity and resolution made Favre\’s fumble seem 30% more like sticking my head in a deep-fryer. With big screen TVs, I actually found that each inch of additional screen space translates to 15 minutes less per day that you spend with your family.

Has there ever been a moment where an entire state drank rat poison at once? That may have been close to occurring after yesterday\’s game. One of these days, the whole state is just going to end it all after a Packer game, then what used to be Wisconsin will be up for grabs for whatever existing state wants to take it over. We\’ll be known as \”North Joliet.\”

The Packers losing that game would be like Mark Green surging ahead in the polls in the last couple of days in the campaign, then denying that the holocaust existed the day before the election. Or saying Julia Roberts deserved her Best Actress Oscar for Erin Brockovich. One of the two.

I had the chance to go see \”The Departed\” on Friday night. Just an outstanding movie – a masterpiece of violence. Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon may have just assumed the roles of Deniro and Pacino for the new milennium (I\’m actually just trying to get on a TV ad). Alec Baldwin and Marky Mark Wahlberg are even good. I really suck at reviews, but I\’m just telling you – go see it.

Senator George Allen of Virginia is back in the news, for reportedly failing to report his stock options. You may recall his previous episode, where he called one of his opponent\’s campaign workers \”macaca,\” which apparently is a slur. Here\’s my advice to George Allen – if you\’re going to call someone an ethnic slur, at least make it one everyone already knows. If you pull out a really obscure one, people are going to think you stay up all night thinking of new and exciting ways of offending people of color. You know your campaign is in bad shape when your chances of being President would actually improve if you got caught molesting 16 year old boys.

I was walking down State Street last week, and I saw two birds on the sidewalk standing right in front of a whole bag of popcorn that someone had dumped over. Those may have been the two happiest birds alive. If you were to extrapolate that to the human world, what would be the human equivalent of a pile of popcorn that big? Is there anything that would even translate on the human happiness scale? A 100 inch plasma TV? Charlize Theron ordered to feed you Krispy Kremes every morning by the Supreme Court? A bloody Ben Affleck zamboni machine accident?

A friend of mine watched \”The Presidents\” on DVD the other night (some History Channel thing), and came away from it wondering how in the world Republicans lost the black vote in America. Historically, the Democratic Party was horribly racist – most notably Andrew Johnson and his southern Democrat pals. The GOP were instrumental in getting blacks the right to vote during Reconstruction, so why don\’t Republicans have 80 percent of the African American vote today? Personally, I think blacks turned away from the GOP when Dwight Eisenhower famously banned the playing of \”Whoomp, There it Is!\” at major sporting events.

I don\’t get HBO, so if there\’s any TV show I want to watch, I have to rent the DVDs. So my wife and I have plowed through two and a half seasons of \”The Wire,\” and I think it may be the best TV series I\’ve ever seen. Seriously.