For My Skoal Brothers

Given my fealty for public health, I really shouldn't be posting a smokeless tobacco commercial. But for this awesome spot starring legendary UT/Houston Oilers running back Earl Campbell, I'm going to have to make an exception.



Maybe the Oilers never managed to beat the Steelers in the AFC Championship, but Earl's endorsement of Skoal has it all over Terry Bradshaw's commercial for Red Man.

Drank Up, Kids

Here's an interestingly sad piece of trash I found several days ago down the street from the middling middle school across from our house.


There's a new canned drink in town called "Lean," which is branded to emulate the purple-hued mixture of Sprite along with codeine and promethazine-laden prescription cough syrup that first came to prominence as a lifestyle acoutrement in the chopped and screwed wing of Houston's hip hop scene. The mixture was implicated in the deaths of both DJ Screw and Pimp C.


The text on the side of the can makes it clear that Lean is being marketed to "sippers of all ages." I don't have an problem with adults using recreational drugs so long as they don't drive, steal or pee on my lawn, but selling this faux-syrup to kids is the worst kind of cynical bottom-feeding.

Moreover, one of the "pharmaceutical grade herbs" contained in Lean is valerian root, which I take in small quantities to go to sleep at night. Melatonin and rose hips are also included. If that's the kind of buzz kids are looking for these days, they'd be better off in the vitamins and supplements aisle.

Homecoming, unwired

Although it was bittersweet to say goodbye to Kate's family, we were lucky to get out of New England this morning before the weather got nasty.

In the future, we will have to remember to allow three hours door-to-door when leaving Worcester to catch a flight out of Boston. Our slightly late start alone wouldn't have killed us, but searching for a gas station near the airport to fill up the rental car at the last minute, getting left behind by the rental car bus (thanks for nothing, Budget!) and a post-Thanksgiving bottleneck at security came within minutes of making us miss our flight.

The plane was all set to board when we finally got to the gate, so there was no time to grab coffee. They serve Dunkin' Donuts coffee on JetBlue, but I figured I'd just wait until we got to Austin to get my fix since coffee from an airplane almost always tastes terrible regardless of who makes it. That was a mistake. My head was throbbing by the time we landed.

Fortunately, Cisco's Bakery is just a short drive from the airport. Once we settled down to cups of coffee and plates of migas, my cranium slowly began to loosen and I regained the ability to speak in semi-complete sentences without mumbling. All I need now is one more day off.

"That was my skull! I'm so wasted!"

Three Houston area teens are in hot water for allegedly digging up a grave, removing a skull from a coffin and using it as a bong.

According to court records, one of the teens actually volunteered this story to police while being interviewed about a stolen debit card. He is being charged with abuse of a corpse, which is not the kind of thing you want on your permanent record.

Guess we need to do a better job of educating our young stoners on what a “head shop” is.

The Bong Tolls for Tootie

I didn't know what a bong was until I watched the "pot episode" of The Facts of Life.

Believe it or not, you really could buy bongs at some record stores in 1980. It was a "heady" time. That said, I can't imagine where a couple of 12-year-old girls would've pulled together enough bread to buy three of them. All that just to hold jellybeans!