Irritating!

* What's irritating, is when you've constructed a blog entry in blogger, click submit, and then get an error message. You lose your blog text, and have to start over.

* American Idol? Well, blech. The only one who did well was Bo. And it still seems like he's singing the same song week after week. Vonzell started off shakey, but did okay as the song went on. Carrie? I don't know if it was a strategic play for votes or not, but she did another country song that was a little underwhelming. Anthony did his best, but I still would vote him off. Scott was as usual, very cruddy. Simon told Scott to pack his bags. PLEASE. Ever creepy Constantine tried the rock bit and failed bad enough to probably end up in the bottom tier of votes, despite being cheered on by Heather Locklear.

* Charles Barkley is the best part of the NBA playoffs. Sometimes, I flip over to watch the halftime and postgame shows. When Earnie announced that Wendy's was sponsoring the show, Charles said "That's finger licking good stuff."

* More sports? The 49ers hope that Alex Smith is the next Montana, not the next Druckenmiller.

* More sports? The Dolphins drafted running back Ronnie Brown, but how's he going to find holes in THAT offensive line? You need blockers to get the running game going.

* George Bush wants to open up former military bases to build oil refineries. Gee, that ought to be popular.

* Pension crisis? As you know, San Diego has a "$2 billion hole" in their pension plan. Check this out:

While San Diego has that $2 billion pension hole, Sacramento County had a hole of its own that amounted to roughly $1 billion over the last decade. The county failed to put away enough money for pension benefits and increased those benefits when there was no money around to pay for them. So the county borrowed - with the government equivalent of a balloon mortgage that postpones the pain.

Wait until next year. Those annual payments on that balloon mortgage rise from $22 million to $54 million. They reach $88 million a year by 2009. If that's not ugly enough, neighboring cities Folsom, Roseville and Citrus Heights have even richer pension benefits, pressuring the county to go into deeper debt to increase pension benefits even further. And then there's a retirement benefit that isn't even officially on the books - subsidized health care. Supervisors are paying for this extra benefit from funds that should be going to parks and libraries and patrols and other general services.

* The last part of that was the kicker. So, in order to fund retirement benefits and health care for current workers and retirees, they'll have to cut services. As if the only reason they exist is to provide benefits for workers and retirees.

* The stock market? Well, looks like an up day. HOOHAH! I think shorts are covering before month-end strength from 401(k) contributions. I haven't charted things out for this week yet, but the market was up for last week, and it'd be nice to see a repeat. GDP numbers come out tomorrow, and if we're in the mid-3s somewhere, you have to be impressed with the way the economy is chugging along. Especially considering where oil prices are.

* Anthony performed a Celine Dion song, saying how much he likes that song. Uh-oh. I wonder which side of the street Anthony walks on? Is it the same side that Ryan Seacrest walks on? And what would that side be? Just some idol chatter, here. Play along.

* Heather Locklear does have a thing for rockers, huh?

* Now, the NFL is going to investigate steroid use. Don't worry, folks; nobody on that Miami Dolphins offensive line is taking steroids.

* In health news, exercise is shown to slow Alzheimer's in mice. So, if you have mice or know somebody who does, make sure to pass the news along. If you drop lots of peanuts on the floor, make sure to space them out a bit, so your mice get some walking in.

* I'm about to click submit, so I'm saving this to notepad first...