1.  What do you suppose the job duties of an Equipment Operator at a place called BJ Services might be?
2. Can anyone tell me where their office is located and if they take walk-ins? (Oh, I kid.)

Charles Nelson Reilly, a game show fixture in the 1970s and 1980s, has died at the age of 76. Mr. Reilly died of complications from _________.

Bless me Philip Morris for I have sinned; it has been 4 days since my last cigarette.

That’s right, kids, I have quit smoking. Surprisingly, I haven’t killed or seriously beaten anyone yet. I know it’s only been a few days. I have quit before for as long as three months and started up again, so I know I have a long way to go yet. I’m not out of the woods by any means but having survived the first 72 hours which are always the hardest, I’m feeling pretty good about the whole thing at this point.

I’m taking a new-ish smoking cessation drug called Chantix. Much to my surprise, the shit works. Seriously. If you know anyone trying to quit, tell them Anthony recommends Chantix. It’s not like Zyban, and it isn’t another form of nicotine replacement. The nicotine patch and gum do not work. You do not give nicotine to someone addicted to nicotine while said addict is trying to stop using nicotine. They don’t give alcoholics a Rob Roy every day in rehab to take the edge off, now do they?

Anyway, I’m not going to babble on about quitting because it’s quite boring, I don’t deserve a cookie for trying to quit, and I refuse to be one of those ex-smokers who bitches and preaches about smoking and “big” tobacco ad nauseam. They’re worse than Jehovah’s Witnesses. Every smoker knows it’s bad for his or her health. To quote Large Helmet, smoke if you got ‘em.

The only part of smoking that I will miss is when I’m at a bar. It’s not so much the often cited dynamic duo of a drink and a smoke, but cigarettes can come in handy at a crowded bar. When that pain in the ass obnoxious drunk guy would squeeze in next to me at the bar or stand behind me and repeatedly bump into me or my chair and scream in my ear in his drunken exaltation, I would light a cigarette and discretely blow the smoke in his face. It usually worked clearing the area.

Now that I have a few smokeless days under my belt and my sense of smell is already improving, let me just say that downtown Pittsburgh smells far worse than I remembered.

I hit the YouTube jackpot. I found a WTAE news broadcast from December 25, 1983 in two parts.

Part one is chock full of Sally Wiggin. Check out the Empress and her Fay Furillo hair. 

Now look at the above photo again, but this time sing Engelbert Humperdinck's “After the Lovin'.” Magical, I know. [UPDATE: Best "Icy Grip" comment wins…my respect and adoration.]

Dig the spectacles on Greg McCampbell. I believe they were made by Ryan's Auto Glass.

Part two of the broadcast begins with sports. Yes, there was a time when sports was before weather.  Part two begins with Stan Savran (before he started looking like Fozzie Bear of the Muppets) making a joke about his pipes (in reference to the cold weather). Watch this video if only to see The Empress' overreaction to Stan's “pipes joke.” It's classic and incidentally, it's the same sound The Empress makes in reaction to everything I say to her in my daydreams.

Sigh. That made my day.