Random Thoughts

Is there anywhere in the world where a Hooters restaurant is more redundant than Vegas? It's almost quaint in that town.

Lars Ullrich, drummer for Metallica, just sold a piece of art from his collection for $13.5 million. It's a 1982 work by Jean-Michel Basquiat entitled "Untitled." That's almost as much as the record for a Basquiat piece, $14.6 million, for another work named "Untitled." How is it possible that a person can create paintings of such value but not come up with names for them? He could have asked a kindergartner for random words and done better than "Untitled." Jeesh, at least Beethoven numbered his symphonies.

Every weekday, CNBC and other networks show the close of the trading day on Wall Street, with a group of people from some company who have been given the honor of ringing the bell to end the day. They're always clapping and smiling, even when the market has yet again tanked by several hundred points. Why? Is it possible none of them has invested their own money in the market?

Nice to see that some retailers are refusing to carry products sold in those plastic containers that are impossible to open. Amazon, for one, is leading the way in ridding the marketplace of the consumer annoyance.

A man in Louisville has been hiccuping on and off for a year. It's time he tried My Guaranteed Hiccup Remedy.

With gas prices back down below $2/gallon, let's hope Americans don't revert to our old habits of buying gas-guzzlers we don't need. We've been through this before -- am I the only one who remembers odd/even gas rationing in the Carter years? -- and we seem incapable of learning our lesson. Whatever prices may be now, they're sure to shoot up again by next summer, and the whining will begin anew.