January 15. 2006

MOOR OR LESS

High heating bill nixes undie outfit

BILL MOOR
Tribune Columnist

Idle thoughts while waiting for the Bears-Carolina game and trying to duplicate the Super Bowl Shuffle moves of former Bear safety Gary Fencik:

· After Ohio State beat Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl, did any of you think the Buckeyes might just be the best team in the country? And then Texas and USC, playing for the national championship two days later, made us wonder what in the world we were thinking, right?

· What do you think about Chicago making a bid for the 2016 Olympics and letting a few of the events spill over to our area? With Mishawaka being the longtime home of the World Whiffleball Championship, do you think that game will finally get its due and become an Olympic sport?

· Come on, does anybody really need to carry scissors onto a plane? Won't Aunt Marge have a pair available when you get to her house?

· Did you know that there are only 78 more days until Opening Day?

· Biggest idiot of the past year: Michael Brown or Tom Cruise? Not even Terrell Owens can touch these guys, can he?

· Did your jaw almost hit your cold kitchen floor when you opened up your heating bill earlier this month? With the way my wife has turned down the thermostat since then, no sitting around and watching TV in my underwear the rest of the winter, right?

· How many two-cent stamps do you need?

· Does anybody else like to wait at least a couple of weeks before wearing clothes you got for Christmas gifts? Nobody likes to hear a mocking comment of "New Christmas sweater, Bill?" -- as if we don't have anything else to wear into the New Year, right?

· When you spill a liquid on the counter, is it your practice to wipe it up or just to lean down and slurp it up?

· OK, for whatever reason, Digger didn't want to play Purdue, but now the Notre Dame men's basketball team doesn't play IU, either? So how come the Irish women can play both of those Big Ten teams?

· Have all those upside down Christmas trees fallen off the ceilings by now?

· Can anybody really stop at three Thin Mints? q