The Dave Barry Initiative

So... One of my roommates is getting a new game for his Nintendo Wii. I think it's Guitar Hero World Tour, but it might be Rock Band 2. Or something. I don't know.

My contribution is to think of a name for the band. Hooray! I always loved playing that game. But it's harder now that I am responsible for coming up with one that everyone in the apartment will love. (Plus Mark's fiancee Andrea wants to play and she said the name can't be sexist.)

So here are the best ones I could pull out of thin air:

* Fat Alec Baldwin
* The Sex Bulimics
* Crapspackle
* Bride of Kong
* The Walden Pond Scum
* Invisible Motorcycles
* Occam's Toothbrush
* The Reverse Vampires
* Mount Vesuvius and the Latin Explosions
* Bolivian Beach Bunnies
* The Mighty Moon Worm
* Ultimo Diaz
* Toby and the Flendersons
* The Infamous Nose of General Charles de Gaulle
* Plucking Chickens

Now, I realize that some of you will say that most of these are not great. And that's true. So if you have any suggestions, or want to voice an opinion about my crappy list of ideas, then please feel free to rock the comment box. Which, come to think of it, would be a pretty terrible band name.

--REDBEARD

Spree

I thought this financial crisis thing was, you know, a crisis. People in Washington have been talking like it's the end of the world. But their actions tell me that it's just another day in Washington, with piggies crowding the trough. The bailout bill is loaded up with the same stupid useless crap as always. And when I say useless crap, what I mean is a bunch of earmarks for things like wool research.

As Mark Steyn says:

I'm willing to be persuaded of the merits of a bill for "wool research", or the merits of a billion-trillion-gazillion-dollar bill to save the planet from economic meltdown. But the same piece of legislation cannot plausibly contain both.

I'll start worrying about the fate of the global economy when Congress quits acting like teenage kids on a shopping spree.

--JOHANNES CLERK