WHAT IN THE UNCLE BOB WAS THAT?

What a day. You know...yesterday and all.

First ... I have deleted the last two entries...the two I made yesterday and will heretofore be known as "The Lost Uncle Bob Entries".

They concerned a nude photo of Tobey Maguire that I received from a friend that she swore was authentic. The photo was so casual that I thought it was authentic and we both thought I had a scoop on our hands.

So I posted the photo.

People started saying the photo wasn't real.

Then someone sent me the actual photo before it was doctored and the proof was in the pudding...or the photo...or whatever. Anyway...I was duped.

I'm not mad at my buddy. She was clearly duped as well and thought she was doing a cool thing...giving me a scoop.

...It's clear that she and I need to start frequent nude celebrity porn sites more often to keep up-to-date on these matters.

Or to get our jollies. One or the other.

Anyway...I took down the pics because the nude one was fake, I took down the entries because they were concerned with the fake photo and nothing else and plus...as soon as I posted the stuff, I felt really, really sleazy.

Speaking of sleazy, I've also deleted the Lisa Lopes Autopsy Photo.

Which means I just lost thousands of hits.

Which is okay.

Because I feel a whole lot better about myself now. Even though I was sleazy for 48 hours, at least I did everything I could do to feel better about being such a sleaze.

So there ya go.

So yesterday, Susie and I had to go to the Design Center to pick out everything for our new home.

And I do mean EVERYTHING.

Some people may have gotten a thrill out of this excursion.

Me?

I get a thrill out of posting fake nude male celebrity photos. What kinda sick bastard am I anyway?

Actually, this was kind of fun at first. But after two and a half hours of it, I had a headache and was ready for it to end.

You start by picking the door knobs. Do you want the standard door knob...or the fancy $100 door knob?

There has to be some sort of psychology behind this. A $100 door knob to start things out with. $100 is a lot of money, especially to spend on a door knob. But you're in the spirit of things and damn if you'd just want to have a fancy door knob on your new fancy house.

So we got the fancy $100 door knob. You only live once, but you walk in and out of a door thousands of times. Let's make it a fancy walk.

Then you're ushered in to the two kitchens in the Center. Do you want the standard stove...or the cool stove with flat burners that you can't see?

Ooooooo...flat burners that I can't see! I've always wanted a stove like that!

But then you have to think...you have an extremely curious son. If I can't see the flat burners, neither can he. So his little hand will eventually be burned to a crisp on these flat burners. It was inevitable.

We just said no to the flat burners.

This goes on and on and on. Stoves, microwaves, bathtubs, tiles, vinyl flooring, paint, wallpaper, bricks, carpet, carpet padding, crown molding, ceiling fans, lights, doors, cabinets, shower stalls, counter tops, security systems, intercom systems, wiring...it just kept going and going and going.

Surprisingly, we stayed with standard stuff for the most part, which doesn't cost extra. We upgraded the vinyl flooring to a thick, padded vinyl. We upgraded the carpet padding to a thicker, more comfortable pad.

And the shower.

Oh man. I fell in LOVE with this huge marble shower as compared to the normal fiberglass shower.

Maybe it was the clear glass doors with the gold trim. Maybe it was just the hugeness of it all.

But I have to have this shower.

In order to make sure I get this shower, I caved on everything else.

"Honey, do you think pink cabinets in the kitchen would be okay?"

"Yes dear. Whatever you say dear. I just want that shower."

"Honey, what about ceiling fans? Should we get the standard ceiling fan, or this one with razor blades dangling from it on long strings?"

"Go for the razor blade one, dear. I just want that shower."

"Honey, what about jet black carpet on the walls, to produce a cave-like effect?"

"You're the HGTV master, dear. Now ... how about that shower?"

I figure, if she can decorate the rest of the house, I want this big gold plated, marble shower.

Big enough for two.

...Or three, if she'd just start inviting her lesbian friends over more often...

We'll find out in a few days just how much money we "spent" in there and then go back and decide what gets cut and what stays, if anything.

I know now...I don't need a $100 door knob.

While in the design center, we met the kid that's in charge of building our home.

He seemed really nice and really young. Granted, he's a professional and I'm sure he'll do a fine job. His daddy owns the company.

But damn if I didn't want to just reach out and pop a few of those zits myself.

So he's getting all the changes that we want to make in our house, which weren't much. We want a door going from our bedroom outside to the patio. No big problem, he says. But it will cost extra.

Heh. Sure pal. Maybe you shoulda told that scumbag realtor not to put "Door replaces window in bedroom AT NO EXTRA CHARGE" on the contract.

Naturally, we didn't TELL him that right then. Susie told me once we left that the realtor wrote that on the contract, which will be news to the builder. So that saved us some money.

And we wanted our patio extended about 10 feet into the yard. He said he would be doing it that way anyway at no extra charge.

Awesome.

So then Susie says "When are you going to start building it".

And he says "I already have."

And my heart fell.

So after we were done at the Design Center, we went and picked up Andrew and Susie had to go to a crackwhore convention, leaving me and Andrew to fend for ourselves last night.

Except she called it a "Stockholder's meeting". She has such cute nicknames for her crackwhore conventions.

So Andrew and I drove out to our lot and sure enough...there's all these boards set up to get ready to pour the foundation on.

I squealed with glee. The house is going to be closer to the street than I originally thought it would be. I'm not sure if I like that, but it means I'll have a huge backyard.

You know...if I ever sell this house.

When Susie told him that we hadn't sold our house yet, he said "I know...Kelly (the realtor) told him the same thing and she said it in a panicky voice."

Yep.

She knows now she has to get up off her ass and sell this house if she wants to make any money.

So hopefully she'll be motivated to do that now.

Because frankly, I'm sick of cleaning this thing every single morning.

So then...last night, Andrew and I are watching "Ed".

Let me explain this for the newbies ... there's a website called Television Without Pity that I'm lucky enough to write for. Each week, I recap this show "Ed". It's on NBC, Wednesday nights, right before the West Wing...nobody seems to be watching it, but it's a great show.

Anyway, for the last several episodes, I thought that the writers were sending me messages. These were what I called "thinly veiled shout-outs". The one that comes to mind was a scene where two characters were talking and one says something like "I've got an Uncle that fixes cars". And then ten minutes later, they'd say "Oh Bob works down at the grocery store" and I'd somehow in my warped and twisted mind think that was a thinly veiled shoutout to me.

The site is pretty well-known in Hollywood and several people from the other television shows there (most notably The West Wing and Trading Spaces) have acknowledged the site. The gal who recaps Trading Spaces recently got an email from the one and only Vern Yip who complimented her on the recaps and said he was going to send the other designers to the site to read all about their show.

My attempts at pointing out thinly veiled shoutouts was all in fun. I didn't really consider them shout-outs...it was just my "desperate pleas" to look like I was being acknowledged for my writing just like the other recappers were.

Ha-ha, right??

So last night on "Ed", you've got these two buddies standing there talking. One of the buddies just acted like a total idiot around this girl he likes and the other buddy says ....

"What in the Uncle Bob was that??"

Alright. That thin veil was ripped right off of the shout-out and shoved straight in my bloated face. All those messages that I thought the writers were sending my way were for real. For all I know, they could be reading these words that I'm writing this morning. Hell, David F'n Letterman himself ... the producer of the show...could be a fan of Uncle Bob.

...Okay...I won't push it. But dammit, I can have my fantasies.

If that wasn't enough, there was a scene with the school principal (who I've called Principal Jackass all throughout the season on my recaps. Granted, he was called a jackass in the first episode, but that was as a throwaway line. Someone on the message boards called him Principal Jackass and I went with it, giving him the nickname in every recap). In this scene, the Principal starts yelling to all the students that he's a jackass. Over and over again, like some sort of mental breakdown.

It's not as much of a shout-out as the Uncle Bob line. And granted, I know I don't have a copyrighted name or anything. But it WAS an acknowledgement on national television and that's pretty cool.

So I think we need to make the phrase like a national catchphrase. Whenever you're about to say "What in the hell was that?" change it to "What in the Uncle Bob was that?"

Gotta spread the word, kids. Spread the word.

Now...if Ed gets an Army next week, I'm going to fall out of my chair.

So yeah.

Wow.

Too cool.

That's really about it for me. Sorry about the fake nude photos. Sorry about the Lisa Lopes bruised head photos.

It won't happen again.