Magazine is finished and after the a good part of the week off I'm back with some quick observations.

Everything I Learned About Merle Haggard I learned from John Beke: There's a quick story behind John Beke as he begat John Beke Jr., a.k.a. Johnny, my best friend and surrogate brother, Johnny begat John Beke III, a.k.a. J3 or Little Johnny, my very lovable godson. The Bekes are truly like family to me as I've known them since I moved to Florida. John Sr. is very sick, he needs a liver transplant and he has lung cancer, so whenever I travel back to Lakeland I try to make an effort to see him. So this past Friday I sat in this little dive bar in Lakeland with my best friend and listened to John play four hours of mostly classic country, many of the songs I've never heard before and will never listen to again. But it was a great time watching John still play a solid guitar and carry a few tunes and tell a few stories about the trouble Johnny and I got into when we were younger. Friday might've been the last time I see John or I may see him again in the future, I don't know, but every time I listen to him play it brings back great memories.

Who Can Stop Tiger Woods When He's Leading 36 Holes into a Major?: Nobody.

The Great Invention of Recent Times: Has to be the debit card. Has anything changed the face of grocery shopping more than the debit card? Think about it, you're about five items over the express line limit and you are doing the aisle check hoping to avoid the one with the lady who is buying enough food for a house of 7,000. Who is the lady shopping for? Anyway, say you get caught in a lesser aisle, what's more annoying than some douche pulling out a check and writing that shit out? It takes like 45 extra seconds. That person needs to die! Thankfully the debit card has turned every aisle into an express lane. Salute you, debit card creator person.

Indict Him Already: Or just quit chasing after Barry Bonds. This guy, for all his flaws, isn't a master criminal or anything, he can barely walk. This is as bad as the Al Capone chase. To Bonds' credit he has mastered the perfect defense for the shady character -- have friends with similar questionable backgrounds. The feds have a lot on Bonds, but their star witnesses have tracking records as well. In the end it's a lot of money to spend for what boils down to a group of people hoping the guy retires before he breaks the home run record. That's the end result, they want Bonds to retire. The one thing baseball doesn't want is for the whole steroid thing to come to a head, that's another reason for the "slow and steady" method. There is a good possibility of the wrong things getting into the newspapers and a whole new set of problems occuring.

The New Prince CD: Owns It!

A-Rod: Deserves a little better than what he's getting. Don't get me wrong, I love watching him endure a three error game one night and a four-strikeout game the next, but it's not his fault the team invested $60 million in Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright. Ok, maybe it is.

Washington D.C.: In three weeks!

Philadelphia 8K: In four months! You still going Mudge?