2006: The Best of Times, The Weirdest of Times
We got to see the Democrats actually takeover Congress, reality actually trump truthiness and Britney Spears' actual va-jay-jay. I rang in 2006 in Texas, and by fall, I lived here once again. So here's to Texas, and 2006 - to Kinky Friedman, to the friends who became family, and to jumping at opportunities when they come (no matter what the exorbitant cost).

New Experiences: Riding the mechanical bull, living in a liberal zip code, leaving a bag of poop hanging on my neighbor's door
Noteworthy Discoveries: The Vanilla Frosty at Wendy's, The Washington Post politics podcast, Subway's new personal pizzas
Favorite structure: The Gaffney Ass Peach
Favorite Interview: R!ppin' Richie, the slightly overweight, slightly balding, self-described "right-wing nut" who makes instructional break dancing videos and and Johann@ Goldsmith, made famous by the "Harold, Call Me" ad that tanked Harold Ford Jr.
The Biggest Tool of 2006: SC Lite Gov. Andre Bauer
The "That's So 1996" Award: I still get a phone book delivered to me?

Related: The 2005 Year in Review, The 2004 Year in Review

Sniff, Sniff
Roger got me a bottle of Celine by Celine Dion for Christmas.

Let Your Heart Be Light
Happy Holidays, y'all! Headed to H-town, then St. Louis for Christmas with the family.

Not a whole lot going on here. Randy the homeless guy continues to call -- and now he leaves his original raps on my voicemail! Will post one as soon as I can transfer it.

Cause You Can't Have Enough Star Fragrances
If you have a slightly better memory than my cat Fitz, you'll remember that a few posts ago, I listed some of the stars with signature scents. (If you don't remember, you can always scroll down.) I decided there just AREN'T ENOUGH celebrity scents out there, so here's some suggestions for more:

The cast of Full House - "Unforgettable"
Senator Robert Byrd - "Fresh"
Tony Romo - "Romosexual"
Star Jones - "Butter"
My homeless man Randy - "Eau de Austin Alleyway"
Justin Guarini - "True Star"
Mark Foley - "Pubescent"
Britney Spears - "Pube-escent"

Feel free to add to the list.

The Men of the Week
Tyler S!eswerda (knows how to throw a party)
SC Senator Verne Smith
My brother Roger (this is an attempt to get good Christmas gifts)

The Snippet from Stiles
"I always like to get different ones, like Black History Month or something. One time I had these stamps with Thurgood Marshall on them and people were like WTF?" -on purchasing stamps

Go Go Downtown Ranger!
Um, I locked my keys in my car, after parking it in front of the capitol. I ran up to the trooper that spends 12 hours a day sitting in front of the state house to ask for a Slim Jim, but he didn't have one. What he DID have, was a number to the "Austin Downtown Rangers". I had never heard of this secret group, but they help people who are locked out of their cars, for FREE!!!

When two rangers showed up a mere ninety seconds after I called, I peppered them with questions. "Is unlocking people's cars your primary function?" "How many coat hangers did you bring?" "Is this for real?"

Turns out, they're part of the Austin PD, but kind of like junior varsity police. The Rangers only work downtown, and their primary function is to enforce ordinances the real police are too busy to be bothered with (i.e. open container laws, littering).

But, they help a lot of people who lock their keys in their cars. More than 100 idiots a week, in fact.

Really Diggin' The NBC Political Correspondents
Now, for as much as I love David Gregory, I think if I could BE someone it would be Norah O'Donnell. She's a sassy one, and I like it.

Norah O'Donnell in an interview with First Lady Laura Bush yesterday...

O'DONNELL: I had heard you say you do a lot of Christmas shopping online. Do you send to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave?

BUSH: No, I use a pseudonym and I send it to another address. ... an undisclosed location.

O'DONNELL: And then Cheney brings them over, right?

Four Seconds of Pure Joy

Who says television news is irrelevant? The people in television news do! At least I left the Hearst TV family. Now I can make fun of this without making fun of my own company.

Men of the Week: Jimmies
James Baker
James Kim
Jim from The Office, just because I love him.

El Snippet de Stiles
Remember the catchy song from Spanish class that featured the capitals of Latin American countries? You know, "Bogota, Colombia. Lima, Peru. La Paz, Bolivia..." Then a quick drum solo. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about! Stiles wants to bring it back:

"We should make it a goal at parties to get people to sing that song. You can even bait people into it, like, 'Hey, did you hear about Pinochet? What country was he from again?'"

Chile! Santiago, Chile...

Scent of a Celeb
Need a holiday gift idea? 'Tis the season to smell like an overexposed, often-talentless, morally ambiguous celebrity. I've tried to compile a list of stars with signature fragrances for your holiday shopping needs.

Elizabeth Taylor - "White Diamonds"
Britney Spears - "Curious"
Jennifer Lopez - "Glow"
Mary Kate & Ashley - "Mary Kate & Ashley"
Jessica Simpson - "Dessert"
Beyonce - "True Star"
Enrique Iglesias - "True Star Men's"
Donald Trump - "Donald Trump: The Fragrance"
Paris Hilton - "Paris Hilton"
Kylie Minogue - "Darling"
Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf - "Always"
Sarah Jessica Parker - "Lovely"
Shania Twain - "Shania"
Derek Jeter - "Driven"
Gwyneth Paltrow - "Pleasures Gwyneth Paltrow"
Maria Sharapova - "Maria Sharapova"
Hilary Duff - "With Love..."
The cast of OC - "The OC Fragrance"
The cast of Desperate Housewives - "Forbidden Fruit"

And, as if those weren't enough, there's "Danielle" by Danielle Steel. A bad novelist gets her own fragrance line?

Full disclosure: A few years ago I discovered "Celine" by Celine Dion. I actually liked it, so I had Beam and Stiles help me search the Vegas strip for a Sephora store so I could buy a bottle. Sephora only had a few bottles left, because they said sales of "Celine" were so poor that the entire line had been moved out of Sephora and into K-Mart.

The Missing Link Uses Just For Men?
There are few subjects I like to blog about more than South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer, the best film of all time Office Space, and The Missing Link, a.k.a NBC's David Gregory. Now, it looks like someone is paying more attention to David Gregory than I am!

From a Washington Post chat:

Marietta, Ga.: Did NBC's David Gregory dye his eyebrows? My Mom thinks so, and she will hardly talk about anything else.
Howard Kurtz: My condolences. I will put that at the absolute top of my list of investigative projects.

At Least it Wasn't Polonium
I awoke Tuesday morning with a rash all over my face, and my eyelids so swollen that my eye folds no longer existed. The doctor said it had to be something I inhaled or ingested the night before.

"Oh, well all I did the night before was go to the holiday party at the Governor's Mansion," I said.

Hrmmm.

Men of the Week: Clutch Edition
Martin "Automatica" Gramatica
The University of Florida football team
Freshman TX House Rep. Allen V@ught

Snippet from Stiles: Roach Edition
"In Florida, they fly." -on roaches

Raggedy Randy
So I've yet to mention Randy, a homeless guy who won't stop calling me.

On Thanksgiving, we were (surprise) at the Salvation Army doing live shots for the midday show. In the alley where we parked there were about three dozen homeless or otherwise downtrodden individuals who were waiting for a the free turkey dinner. One of them kept trying to get in the shot and climb in the live truck and ask for free copper. That's Randy. One time, when Randy actually got into the truck somehow, he asked for my phone number to "call me sometime". So I gave him my card to make him leave. It worked, but now I'm paying the price.

Randy has called about six times a day for the last week! But he doesn't have a phone, so it's always a different number. This makes screening his calls very difficult.

I told him I wouldn't go out with him. But he insists he is going to start a record company and when that happens, that I WILL want to go out with him. I think perhaps he should work on getting a phone, first.