As if it isn’t bad enough that Don Barden has been reduced to checking under his sofa cushions for some extra scratch to get contractors back to work on the North Side casino, he has now announced that he is going to “delay” plans for certain amenities in his original proposal. Little things, like an outdoor amphitheater, boat dock, brick paving and native grasses. I know you're all saying, “What? Not the native grasses! Anything but the native grasses!” I'm with you on that one, Jack.

At this rate, I visualize the final casino as a series of empty refrigerator boxes with a slot machine in each, and a sandwich truck standing by to provide cold prepackaged turkey sandwiches and stale coffee to patrons. How marvelously and typically “Pittsburgh” and “Pennsylvania” for something as simple as getting a single building constructed to turn into a big pile of shit.

Let’s briefly review how we got here. A huge commission was formed, they studied three proposals at great length, held public hearings, studied drawings and architectural designs, supposedly performed due diligence, background and credit checks, and after months of deliberations, they picked the guy who can’t get a glorified video arcade built. Could these decision makers really be that inept, or are they just huge Smokey Robinson fans? Tears of a Clown can be a rapscallion of an earworm, you know. But if Barden had the best proposal, what were the financing plans of the other two parties–Master Card and the commission rejected them because they failed to provide the three-digit security code on the back of the card?

And isn’t this also typical of our governor, that fat bag o’wind, Antwan Ed Rendell, to be totally silent about all of this right now? Where has his fat worthless ass been during all of this (other than consuming mass quantities of pizza, sandwiches, hoagies and yes, more sandwiches)? From 2002 when he first ran for governor to the present, the single proposal that he has pushed the hardest and spoken about the loudest has been gaming. Casinos have been Rendell’s baby. We have been told by Antwan Ed Rendell countless times that the casinos are going to cure Pennsylvania’s ills; casinos this, casinos that. Casinos are supposed to benefit old people, offer property tax relief, increase tourism, create jobs, get rid of unwanted facial hair, remove embarrassing stains from bed sheets, fade age spots and teach you how to make money on Ebay. But six years have passed already, and it doesn’t appear that we’re any closer to getting the Pittsburgh casino built than we were six years ago when the bag o’wind was elected.

Part of me hopes the casino will never be completed and whatever assemblage of steel and concrete that stands at the casino site today will remain as a monument to Ed Rendell into perpetuity. That way, drunken Steeler fans and the North Side’s vast hobo population can fittingly pay tribute to the governor regularly by pissing on it.

The AP reports:

ALLEGAN, Mich. - Is fifth-grader Kenton Stufflebeam smarter than the Smithsonian?

On a winter break trip with his family to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, the 11-year-old southwestern Michigan boy noticed that a notation, in bold lettering, mistakenly identified the Precambrian as an era.

Since it opened in 1981, millions of people have paraded past the museum's Tower of Time, a display involving prehistoric time. Kenton was the first to point out the error.

A few thoughts:

1. Any child named Kenton Stufflebeam is doomed to a life as a dork.
2. Being 11 years old and knowing that the Precambrian is "a dimensionless unit of time" and not an era makes said 11 year old a dork.
3. The name Kenton Stufflebeam combined with knowing that the Precambrian is "a dimensionless unit of time" and not an era makes an 11 year old an über dork.
4. If my parents had taken me on a trip over my winter break to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History when I was 11 years old, I think I'd still be bitter about it. 
5. Walking your 11 year old over to the information desk at the Smithsonian museum to report his concern about misinforming the general public about the Precambrian makes you an annoying parent.
6. Stufflebeam sounds like a character in a Harry Potter book.
7. I have never read a Harry Potter book.
8. I have never seen a Harry Potter movie.
9. I find the Colonel Sherman T. Potter character of the critically acclaimed M*A*S*H television series far more interesting than the prospect of a wizard boy.
10. I am finding that working 60 hours a week causes my thoughts to wander.

Perhaps out of sheer guilt due to his inactivity here at T&A, or maybe jarred by the prospect of being exiled from this prestigious award-winning blog, Tunesmith sends us another photo of the unicyclist from a few days ago.

Look kids! Look at the zany unicyclist on the really big unicycle! That unicycle is so long that it's wacky!

I like how the Bea Arthur lookalike in the lower right is totally disinterested and unimpressed by this circus freak's large unit.

So the question becomes, does this bigger unicycle make him a bigger idiot?

Hmmm, let me think…

Why, yes! Yes! It does make him a bigger idiot!  

It's been far too long since I've written about unicyclists, hasn't it? Well, Tunesmith captured this photo of a Floridian unicyclist today and sent it to me. I think he sort of looks like Howard K. Stern.

Yes, he's on a unicycle and he's pushing along another unicycle. I suppose unicyclists in Florida have it so good that they can afford to have a spare unicycle. Seriously, what's the deal with a spare unicycle? Apparently this jackass has never heard of a bicycle. Regardless, this photo captured by Tunesmith's cell serves as yet more proof–as if we need more–that all unicyclists are idiots. 

It's hard to believe, but the 3rd annual National Toupee Forgiveness Day is quickly approaching, being celebrated this year on November 26. For those of you unfamiliar, National Toupee Forgiveness Day was started by T&A in 2005 to give longtime toupee wearers the opportunity to get out from under their hairpieces with dignity. You can read the entire background on this special day here, but what follows is all you really need to know.

The Tenets of National Toupee Forgiveness Day:

1. Long suffering toupee wearers who have yearned to cease wearing a toupee but have not for fear of embarrassment shall stop wearing their toupees on National Toupee Forgiveness Day.
2. A habitual toupee wearing person’s failure to wear his toupee on National Toupee Forgiveness Day shall and will be interpreted as his tacit acceptance to participate in and enjoy all benefits of National Toupee Forgiveness Day.
3. The non-toupee wearing general public shall promise not to acknowledge in any manner or form that a former toupee wearing person has suddenly stopped wearing his toupee on National Toupee Forgiveness Day. No references to a participant’s appearance, past or present, shall be made either in the form of compliment or ridicule.
4. All parties involved agree to never mention or acknowledge a participant’s former toupee wearing habits into perpetuity.
5. Going forward, National Toupee Forgiveness Day shall be observed annually on the Monday following Thanksgiving.

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I have a feeling 2007 is going to be the year that this bitch catches on. I'm calling on all members of the print, television and news media to help promote this worthwhile cause this year.

If you, dear member of the vast T&A readership, would like to help your fellow man by spreading the word about National Toupee Forgiveness Day, print the flyer that can be downloaded here (PDF, 228kb) and post it at your workplace lunch room or above the urinals at your favorite watering hole.

Together, we can change this world for the better, one toupee at a time.