this blog is starting to sound like the song '99 bottles of beer on the wall...if one of the bottles should happen to fall, 98 bottles of beer on the wall, and so on, and so on...'

my broadband cable went out and was out all afternoon, so no internet, no "Cold Case Files", no "Law and Order". thank the goddess that the cable was on from 11-12, so i could watch Jerry Springer.

11. my secret, nasty vices are:

a) Jerry Springer;

b) The Surreal Life, second season, and its spinoff show with Brigitte Nielsen and Flavor Flav;

c) cold Chinese food for breakfast;

d) cold pizza for breakfast;

e) my collection of politically incorrect dolls, including Dennis Rodman dressed as a bride and White Trash Barbie-clone, complete with black roots, a cigarette stuck in her mouth, and a pet pig;

f) a CD my friend's husband made me for my birthday several years ago, in which he searched the Internet far and wide to download the song, "Drop-kick me Jesus Over the Goalpost of Life' for me. (Peter, my friend's husband, says that since he is Jewish and a carpenter he feels he has a lot in common with Jesus)

12. my secret sins that i need to atone for include:

a) giving tourist types directions to bad neighborhoods when they asked for directions to Madison Square Garden;

b) when i was a medical intern, on a board in the hospital where i interned which held everybody's name and service,crossing out another intern's name, writing in 007 (apologies to Marty), adding the word 'sub-human' before the word intern, and then lying to the chief resident when asked if i changed the board. true, this particular intern was SOOOO bad that his medical licence Was a licence to kill, but what i did was against the rules...;

c) cheating on the French citywide and French regents;

d) giving out all of the answers on all of the math regents that i ever sat for. i used to figure out all seven of the answers in the 'essay' section, use four (we only had to do 4/7), and give the other three out to the rest of the class;

e) stealing a brain the night before the neuroanatomy final in medical school, dissecting it with a friend, and coming in to the final the next day and passing it, thereby bypassing going to neuroanatomy lab all semester;

f) eating takeout or going out to eat every night for approx two years before i stroked;

g) paying 17% interest on several credit cards (i have one of my old bills hung up on my desk to remind me of said sin);

h) driving on a sidewalk the wrong way on Fort Hamilton Parkway. i won't tell you what else i was doing that day

13. i drink 6-10 cups of homebrewed coffee a day. i am the proud owner of a Cuisinart Grind-and-Brew with a thermal carafe. these days, it's my drug of choice. i have bottles of alcohol in my house for years, i used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a year, i have tried and tried and have not had the desire to become addicted to other substances, but if there's coffee in the pot and i'm home i have to drink it all until it's GONE