Sleeping in a new home

I recently purchased my first home (thank you, thank you). Here's how my first night's sleep went.

12am - I go to bed with the lovely Mrs. Coggblogger, exhausted from hauling boxes all day. Mmm, bed. Gonna sleep like a baby...

1:02am - What the hell was that noise? I go to make sure I locked all the doors and windows downstairs, and I discover several doors and windows I didn't even know existed.

2am -  I notice that the clock radio is plugged into an outlet with no faceplate. I become convinced that the old wiring in the house will short out and the place will go up while we sleep. I decide to watch "24" on my ipod to distract myself.

2:44am - Jack Bauer saves the day. There's that creaking again. I wander through the house, but there's nothing wrong. I track down my official replica Highlander katana sword, just in case.

3:19am - How the f*ck am I going to pay for this house? What was I thinking? We're in a recession! I am totally screwed. 

4:14am - Counting sheep isn't working, so I count the number of "Change of Address" forms I need to fill out. Cell phone, home phone, internet, gas, DWP, Franchise Tax Board, credit card, bank.... shit, it's not working. I put on the ipod for another episode of "24". 

5:00am - Jack Bauer saves the day again, but Chloe's in a bind. I'm NOT watching another, I have to get some sleep. 

5:01am - Was that a flashlight beam outside? Who's out there? I rush to the window, there's no one there. Shit, the pool pump is running. What the hell's that costing me per hour?

5:38am - I finally get to sleep. 

5:39am - Cat jumps off high shelf onto my face. I think I'm being murdered and go completely apeshit. That's it for sleep. I watch another episode of "24". Things work out for Chloe, but some other dude at CTU isn't so lucky. 

7:00am - Mrs. Coggblogger wakes up and smiles at me, asking how my first night went. I make a weird gutteral noise and drool on her.

A gem among gems

It doesn't matter how many times I see "The Naked Gun", it's never anything less than brilliant. I caught a few minutes today and totally lost it on a line I don't recall ever noticing before.

FRANK DREBIN
Ah, how I loved her, but she had her music.
(pause)
At least, I think she had her music. She hung out with the
Chicago Male Chorus and Symphony. I don't recall
her playing an instrument or being able to carry a tune.
Yet she was on the road 300 days of the year. In fact I
bought her a harp for Christmas. She asked me what it was.

Full Disclosure

Driving along the 405 yesterday, a Radiohead song came on the old XM. I turned it up, not because I like Radiohead, but because I'm supposed to like Radiohead and felt obligated to do so. As I listened to Thom Yorke's whiny drivel, I had a cathartic moment - I realized that Radiohead sucks, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Wow, that felt good. So in the spirit of honesty, here are some other confessions.

Roger Moore is my favorite James Bond. I voted for Bush in 2000. I enjoyed "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith". I'm officially too old to quit biting my nails and picking my nose. I prefer Vons-brand generic powder creamer to any other coffee accessory on earth. German beer is nasty. So are Heineken and Rolling Rock, for that matter. I don't enjoy lapdances. They totally freak me out.

I'm sure I'll think of more as the day progresses. Feel free to chime in with your own secret shames.

Count Rockula

Through Mrs. Coggblogger, I recently befriended a unique fellow named Dave, who is more widely known as C-Diddy, the first American winner of the world Air Guitar Championship held annually in Finland. C-Diddy is the subject of the 2007 documentary "Air Guitar Nation", which tracks his rise through the air guitar ranks (I kid you not, there's a whole subculture) in his trademark orange robe and Hello Kitty chestplate. Not sure if air guitar is your bag? Here's a litmus test - C-Diddy rocking a parody of the famous YouTube performance of Pachelbel's Canon in D. And if it IS your bag, here's another excellent performance, which won him the Los Angeles regional, launching his first campaign toward Finland. I see things like this and thank God that there are people in the world as ridiculous and wonderful as Dave.

UPDATE: I also met C-Diddy's chief rival, Bjorn Turoque. Frankly, he seemed like kind of a hack. Diddy plays air guitar with dignity and larger-than-life star quality, while Bjorn seems driven by a bizarre sense of righteous indignation - the bitter, perennial also-ran. He also harshed on both names I tried to adopt when getting up on stage to strut my own airness. Personally, I thought "Red Rocktober" and "Dr. Rocktopus" were quite brilliant.

Back to you, you talentless hack

I'm a sucker for news bloopers. For lack of anything substantive to say this morning, here are three of my favorites.

Sheppard Smith farts on the air.

A reporter and anchor get into it (I suggest clicking ahead to the :50 mark)

Three anchors can't keep their shit together when a model wipes out on the runway. This one kills me every time.

If you have any favorites of your own, send 'em to me. I eat this crap up.

Thoughts from a Saturday sofa...

In the end of "Back to the Future II", Marty McFly is approached on a 1955 roadside by a Western Union man, who delivers a letter that' s been in the company's possession since the year 1885. The sender (Doc Brown, stranded in the Old West) had given Western Union explicit instructions that the letter be delivered to a young man named Marty McFly on that particular roadside, on that particular date in the distant future. "We had a little bet going as to whether this Marty would actually be here" the man jokes, "Looks like I lost". I love it. The scene, like the movie, is brilliant.

But I'm curious to see what happens the very next day in 1955 when the news breaks about that letter being successfully delivered; when Western Union makes it their advertising cornerstone and a stunned public is baffled beyond comprehension how such a letter could exist (and where the mysterious recipient has inexplicably vanished to). I want to see the confused 1955 McFlys explain to the rabid press that they don't know a Marty McFly, but they DO know a "Calvin Klein" who occasionally goes by the name Marty and fits the description. Of course, this also means that an eventual young designer named Calvin Klein is gonna have to find a new handle, because by that point his name would sound pretty much like "Roswell Grassyknoll". Not helping matters would be local resident Biff Tannen's claim that he knew this "Marty" but hasn't seen him since he soared away in a flying car the very night the mysterious letter from the Old West arrived. Putting all this together, you can bet that from 1955 to this very day, nerds would gather every November 12th in Hill Valley to hold a massive convention.

Far be it from me to criticize such a fine film. It's in my top 20. But perhaps just a bit more surprise and confusion [might I suggest "Holy shit, you're here! You're actually fucking here!!!] from the Western Union man to hint at the tumult to come...

Boom ba-ba boom....

The LA Times reported today that the Dodgers' expensive new acquisition, centerfielder Andruw Jones, showed up for Spring Training looking a wee bit larger than his coaches would prefer. I'm no one to criticize. Being recently married, I'm in the process of letting myself go, as every man does. But I'm not a professional ballplayer, and I enjoyed his defense of his condition - "The added weight will help me". I suspect that next he'll be telling his wife that a threesome will strengthen their marriage.

AUTHOR'S NOTE - I'm not sure who the dude in the picture is, but are those grill-marks across his chest?

Crap(s)!

What's the best way to celebrate making an offer on one's first new house? Why, heading off to Las Vegas, of course! This weekend, Coggblogger heads off to Vegas with his soon-to-be-wed best friend (we'll call him "Ferrero Rocher" for now) a day after bidding on a new home. In the spirit of this bad idea, I present "Great Moments in Bad Ideas".

- Carlo Rizzi raising his hand in anger against his wife, Connie Corleone.

- "As long as we're in the area, we might as well take out Saddam..."

- "You should think about buying the rights to classic songs, Michael. I'm about to do the same with all my old ditties with the Beatles..."

- "No, no, the PLANE'S made of wood. The whole thing. That's what's brilliant about it. And it's HUGE".

- "Gore's dull. The other dude seems mellow" (Coggblogger in 2000)

- Gray's Sports Almanac

- Jan Michael Vincent's entire adult life.

- "Let's see how Pedro's feeling AFTER this batter..."

See you at the tables, y'all. Papa's got a down payment to double!

Why is Kanye West famous?

Seriously, I'm hoping someone will explain it to me.

I'm rap-literate enough to know he's not a good rapper. In my opinion, he's had one catchy song, and that was years ago (by the way, I'm still trying to figure out what a "broke-broke" is - though yes, I know what it's there in place of). Ever since then, whenever I see the name "Kanye West" pop up on my car's XM, I turn up the song to see what the fuss is all about, but within seconds I bore of his mediocrity and tune out. I do respect that he called out President Bush during a live Katrina telecast - inspiring Mike Myers to soil his pants from sheer awkwardness - but as a musician, I put Kanye right up there with Heidi Montag.

As for his beginnings, I know there was something about a car accident, but at least Gloria Estefan was famous before hers. Kanye, on the other hand, climbed from the wreckage and decreed "I'm now a famous musician!" - and it was so. Since then, he and his Debbie Gibson sunglasses have had a nice stretch of memorably NOT winning Grammys (a less talented Susan Lucci, if you will), though that streak was broken this year when he won a few, in the new category of "Best Artist Who Will Call You Racist If He Doesn't Win". Come to think of it, maybe I should go for that one next year with my new single - "I ain't saying she a bit wonky, but she ain't messin' with no wack - wack".

And with that, I officially decree that I'm a famous musician.

Aren't you dying to know what I think about NASCAR?

This Sunday will mark the 50th running of the Daytona 500, which kicks off NASCAR's season (if you don't count the insanely reckless $1,000,000 winner-take-all Budweiser Shootout). Aside from my wife, I am the only person I know who likes NASCAR - perhaps because I live in a major city and surround myself with effete snobs like myself. I take a lot of flak for it - my friend Metroville likes to point out that the winner of a NASCAR race is almost always the guy who turns left better than any of the others. It's only fitting that I'm probably going to miss this year's 500 because I'll be serving as a groomsman at Metroville's wedding to a great girl he never should have landed in the first place. (Zing!)

To the people who feel that auto racing is not a sport because the driver is simply operating a machine, I say "Feh". I would imagine that it's at least as physically challenging to maneuver a 220mph Chevy-shaped rocket at an unceasing "AGGHH FUCKKK! HOLY SHHHIT!!" level of intensity with 35 other lunatics smashing into you than it is to swing a golf club or a bat - both of which are skills I admire, mind you. The "they're just driving" argument never held water for me. A finely tuned race car is an extension of the driver's body and reflexes, just like any bat, racquet or ski.

My personal fave (as well as my wife's) is Tony Stewart, whom Yahoo Sports recently described as "the most insane professional athlete not currently under indictment". I became a fan of Tony, oddly, before I ever watched my first race. Back when I was simply an effete snob (as opposed to an effete snob and Nascar Fan), I met eight of the top drivers when they visited the set of "Pyramid", where I was a joke writer for Donny Osmond (yes, I'm really that good). Seven of them were well-behaved, clean-cut young gentlemen who proudly represented NASCAR's squeaky image. The eighth was a rude, overbearing dirtbag who looked like he'd just rolled out of bed after a two-week bender. I liked him immediately. Tony is his own guy in a sport where most of the athletes have personalities that reflect the walking billboards they are, forbidden to say or do anything that might besmirch the good names of Tide, DuPont, Levitra, Jack Daniels, Auto Zone, Lowes, Anheuser Busch or the Army National Guard. Tony races like a madman. He'd probably turn down a Gillette sponsorship because it would require shaving. He spins guys into the wall at the slightest provocation. He gets fined nearly every week for some PR debacle or other, usually associated with outrageous f-bomb-laden rants on live TV. When he wins, he climbs the 50-foot chain fence next to the finish line and snatches the checkered flag, a stunt that will certainly kill him someday, especially if he keeps chugging champagne right before doing it.

So, to all of those who bash NASCAR without ever watching it, I suggest you get drunk on Pabst and tune in on Sunday. After all, twenty million rednecks can't be wrong. Unless they're voting, of course.

The glamorous life of a screenwriter

DAVID COGGESHALL - Los Angeles
DAVID COGGESHALL

Okay, I need the kid to end up back at the lighthouse, but why would he go there again after what happened the last time? He knows it's dangerous. So why go?

Maybe if I fix a glass of water for myself, the answer will come to me.

All right, here we go. Kid, lighthouse, right. He goes back because.... something draws him there. So what's that "something?"

I haven't checked my email in a few minutes. Orbitz...boner pills... note from the wife. I'll write a quick response.

(clap enthusiastically, crack neck) Right on, kid and lighthouse, lighthouse and kid. There's absolutely no reason for him to go back. This movie's gonna suck. You're terrible at this.

Oh look, my wife responded to my response. My "Incoming Mail" sound is Captain Tupelov from Hunt for Red October saying "You arrogant ass! You've killed US". I love that movie, but every time I get an email, Tupelov's voice jolts the bejeezus out of me. I should probably change it. Maybe I should take care of that right now.

Kid and lighthouse. Fuck.

Is it five yet? A vodka tonic sounds super excellent, but it's only four thirty. Then again, if I play a game of computer chess, I can use indirect thought to solve the lighthouse problem, and by the time the game is finished, I can have a cocktail in good conscience.

Chess it is.