Gnome Domes.

While innocently perusing the internet in search of an appropriate, gardening-related Father's Day gift, I happened upon this gem: the venerable Mooning Gnome.

You must read the reviews, for they contain high levels of hilarity:

I got the mooning gnome as a christmas gift and it is my least favorite. It is smaller than the standard gnome and made of plastic. I live in Vegas and after two summers my gnome lost all color and turned a grayish black color. You get what you pay for and as a gag this is kind of fun but to a gnome collector it cheapens your yard.

Yes, the poor quality of the pantsless gnome is what is cheapening the yard, not the fact that there is, in fact, a dwarf with his ass hanging out stationed there.

Mooning Gnome too gauche? Try the item "Frequently Bought Together" with it: the Squatting Gnome. Nothing conveys an air of sophistication and elegance quite like a tableau of a miniature man defecating on one's lawn. Majestic!

The Baby Bunch.

What is with this fascination with people who have hundreds of kids? "Jon and Kate Plus Eight," "18 and Counting," "Table for 12," the Octo-Mom... where does it end?!

Is this just another example of our general fascination with excess? Like, the human extension of shows like "Cribs," "My Super Sweet 16," etc., where more is more and there is no such thing as too much? Or is it some sort of weird celebration of traditional conservative values (not so much with the Octo-Mom, there): home, family, kids, kids and more kids? It's like a modern-day "Waltons." But with shoes and without John-Boy. And real.

Is it a matter of schadenfreude, as we watch these parents try and wrangle their gaggles of kids, secretly thinking they're a bunch of freaks and laughing as their kids destroy their homes? Or watching how having so many damn toddlers is destroying their marriage (Jon and Kate)?

How can they afford to have this many freakin' kids, anyway?! I'm guessing it might be at least largely dependent upon the dough they're pulling in for pimping the kids out by having a TV crew follow their every move. So basically, they're getting rewarded for overpopulating an already overpopulated planet and we're helping them along by watching. Or maybe they can afford them just fine and just want to showcase their lives. Would it be so heartwarming if there was a show about a poor family who kept popping out kids like there's no tomorrow? That's who could use the TV show cash. Let's give that a whirl and see how it goes over.

Sick as a Dog.

I am not a "dog person." And after viewing this repulsive Stanley Steemer commercial, I'm even less of one:
Is this like, common practice among dogs? Like they're not stinky enough already, randomly pooping on the sidewalk and breathing their dog breath all up in your zone, now they'll go ahead and drag their stank butts across your carpet?!

I don't know what this lady did to that dog, but that dog clearly HATES HER GUTS. And it has succeeded in making me totally nauseated.

Who taught this dog how to drag his ass around like that, anyway? I'm going to assume it's that kid, and that this was the result of months of concentrated training efforts. Again, I don't know what this lady did to that kid, but THAT KID HATES HER GUTS.

It's probably safe to assume that the other woman there who was innocently enjoying a cup of tea before being confronted by this horrifying spectacle is thinking, "I can't believe these two hate Mindy even more than I do."

Wearing Out Things that Nobody Wears.

I'm going to go ahead and say that unless you're Keith Richards or a transvestite, if you're a dude over the age of 30, you should not be wearing eyeliner - or to use the egregious parlance of our times, "guyliner." It's untoward and it makes you look sad, as though clinging to a time when tight leather pants and bad brat-punk pop songs both actually fit you.

The same goes for flat-ironed hair on men. STOP IT (KEITH URBAN). Also, please unhand the frosting wand (if that is, in fact, how streaky, bold highlights are applied to the follicles). This means you, Steven Tyler.

Actually, each of these items applies to poor Steve, who is looking more and more each day like a cross between the old (female) receptionist at my office and a capuchin monkey (of indeterminate sex).

Crimes of Fashion.

As the immortal George Michael (the singer, not the "Arrested Development" character) once sang, "Sometimes the clothes do not make the man." But you know, sometimes they can make a big difference. Shouldn't dudes know the basics by now?

The following should be avoided:

1. Flip-flops: unless you're entering a Jeff Spicoli lookalike contest, there's no call for unleashing your hooves on the masses. Very few guys have tootsies appropriate for display outside of a sci-fi convention.

2. Jean shorts: why in the name of all that's holy do these still exist? Too short and you look like a low-rent version of the construction worker from the Village People. Too long, and you look like your legs are four inches long. Either way, an epic fail.

3. Trench coats with built-in capes: Is there a louder way to scream "nerd!" to the world than to wear such a thing? Yes, if you hook it up with a white turtleneck.

Drug Store Safari.

Sometimes those "8 Million Places to go Before you Croak" lists are just plain depressing. Like: oh, great. Here are 900 MORE places I'll never go to, and 400 more activities I never even knew existed that I now feel like I'm missing out on. Goat herding in the Himalyas? Teaching Guyanian orphans sign language and pottery making skills? Sounds great, but I'm barely paying my gas bill.

This is why, in the current economic climate, I prefer to make weekly trips to like, Walgreen's. There's something therapeutic about trolling the aisles, keeping an eye out for those yellow "Clearance" stickers. Pediatric cough medicine that expires in a month? Yes, I need that. Thank you for asking. Dr. Pepper-scented bubble bath at 75% off? Sold. Because buying personal care items and cosmetics is fun, but nabbing them at a steep discount elevates the experience to a whole new level of personal satisfaction. It also explains why I am the owner of about 13 bottles of foundation, none of which come close to matching my skin tone.

But no matter, for a brief few moments (and only a few bucks) while buying each, I take a mental vacation to a place where my complexion is radiant, my smile dazzling, my sinuses clear and my life even more exciting than swimming with dolphins in the Straits of Hormuz. As Liz Lemon would say, “I want to go to there.”

Taxi Driver.

You'd think, right, that spending one's entire day behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle would make one, at the very least, a competent driver. That this experience would make one aware that city streets are by and large in fact TWO lanes. That inching up through the crosswalk at a red light when you see pedestrians approaching might not be the most courteous maneuver. That having a nine-hour phone call with a fellow cab driver that necessitates wild gesticulations while you're driving may not espouse the notion of putting safety first. Thanks for bucking these assumptions, legions of Philadelphia cab drivers!

I'm sure it's a dangerous job: when you're not dodging your fellow yellow menaces on the road, you've got to worry if the trick you picked up is going to break your ass and steal your wallet. But it begs the question: are bad drivers drawn to being cab drivers or does being a cab driver make one a bad driver? Or a sociopath, for that matter?

Capri-diculous.

Well, it's that time again: capri season is upon us. A time when those not bold enough to wear shorts and too sweaty to don regular pants decide to half-ass it by slapping on a pair of these aberrations.

WHAT ARE THESE THINGS? Also known as a clam digger, pedal pusher or cankle pants, capris merely serve to visually sever the leg at its most unattractive point: mid calf. Proportionately, the math is all wrong: hiding 2/3 of the leg and showing 1/3? It doesn't work. 98% of the time, the result is a stumpy looking leg with an awkward swath of flesh beneath. They either look like pants that are way too short or shorts that are way too long.

Why do they even make these things? What are they even achieving from a practical, non-fashion standpoint? Letting your ankles breathe? How hot are they getting? And now dudes are wearing them, causing the annoying "manpri" to be incorporated into our vocabulary. Thank goodness the related and horrifying gaucho pant uprising of 2005 was quelled fairly rapidly. When will this capri madness end?

Someone defend these things to me. Am I the only one not getting it?

Celebri-Twins

Fatman-in-a-hat mainstay Dom Deluise passed away yesterday. He was 75.

He was also one of those guys who looks exactly like another celebrity. In his case, he was a dead ringer (no pun intended) for Chef Paul Prudhomme, the Cajun guy who used to wheel around on a Jazzy shouting, "I guaaaaraaaantee!" Or maybe that was Justin Wilson's line. Anyway, now Paul won't be so easy to confuse with Dom Deluise, since a) Dom has left the building and b) evidently Paul has slimmed down quite a bit.

What was the deal with Dom, anyway? He was famous, but really the only things I know about him are that he was friends with Burt Reynolds and his kid was the least-sexy cast member of "21 Jump Street".

Dom and Paul are but one celebrity pair I tend to confuse with one another. Other examples include: John Fogarty and Harrison Ford, Samuel L. Jackson and Larry Fishburne and Nick Nolte and Gary Busey.

RIP, Dom.

M. Needsahit Shyamalan

M. Night Shyamalan-a-ding-dong is shooting his new movie in some big-ass soundstage/airplane hangar down at the Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia.

It's called The Last Airbender. What? I don't know what that means, but at at least (unlike most of his other films), the title doesn't immediately call to mind an annoying song from yesteryear. Examples:

1. Unbreakable ("Un-break me, my sweet un-breakable you" - come on, use your imagination - or worse yet, the egregious Toni Braxton's "Un-break My Heart". Did you know that she's got a kid named Denim and one named Diezel? Amazing!)
2. Signs (by the stupidly named Canadian outfit Five Man Electrical Band and later covered by the formidable and staunchly not-Canadian band Tesla)
3. The Happening (so quintessentially '60s that just listening to it makes you feel like an honorary Supreme, complete with incredible asymmetrical bouffant)
4. The Lady in the Water (which calls to mind that PJ Harvey "Not Without My Daughter" Sally Field tribute song)

None of these were as big of a hit as The Sixth Sense, which does not immediately call to mind a song, so here's hoping this Airbender nonsense follows suit.

Moving at Midnight.

Did it become socially acceptable at some point to MOVE (either in or out of an apartment) at midnight? Just wondering, because this is what the bowling neighbors upstairs, who had been pogo-ing nightly on my head, did the other night. Don't get it twisted: not having to listen to anything other than the occasional random drunk or abusive parent screeching out in the street has been nothing less than a precious gift, more beautiful than a unicorn's tears. But come on - midnight? On a Thursday? And it's not like they were skipping out on the rent: Landlord confirmed they were indeed gone since their lease was up May 1.

At my last apartment, my jackass neighbors moved IN at midnight. Pulled the U-Haul right up and began unloading, yelling to one another, rolling hand trucks around, the whole nine. (Practically) in the middle of the night. In the middle of the week. In the middle of the city, where there are like, you know, other people around.

Is moving at midnight the new black?