From the RV park on the Burnettiquette World Tour

What's goin' on, folks? Kidding, I'm not really at an RV park. Not that there's anything wrong with 'em.

Sorry, I don't have any pearls of wisdom to share tonight. I'm still recovering from car lag, suffered during my temporary escape from Miami a couple of days ago.

I'm just chillaxin' right now in beautiful central North Carolina, along with Burnettiquette Wife and Burnettiquette Dog and Burnettiquette Mom.

Here's an inexplicably fuzzy image of Burnettiquette Dog and me during a stroll this afternoon.




A few quick hits:

• Deep-fried Couey, comin' right up - Justice will apparently be served in the Jessica Lunsford murder case.
• I smell a conspiracy - Why can't Sanjaya Malakar, the kid with the flowing locks and trickling voice, be voted off of American Idol? If it was a contest to star in a Paul Mitchell commercial, he'd win hands down. But a singing contest? Tsk, tsk.
• I saw the funniest thing driving up here the other day - a sign, when I pulled over for fuel, pointing to Astronaut High School, in Titusville, Fla. I don't know why it cracked me up, but I immediately thought of a training ground for diaper wearers and that terrible Disney flick Sky High. How do I know it's terrible? 'Cause I watched it on cable during a night of intense boredom a few months ago.
• Haven't seen any wannabe Slim Shadies here in NC so far. I know they're around. But thank you Jebus, I haven't bumped into 'em.
• A preview - coming up next week, an interview w/ actor-comedian-director Nick Cannon in my regular Monday Q&A column, and a profile in Tuesday's paper of a very unique cardiologist. I'll provide links.
• Officer Friendly is a real person - Remember in elementary school, the local police department would send a patrol officer by your classroom once a year to talk about his job? I remember - back before guns in school were used by angry children to shoot cool kids, bullies, and teachers - that Ofcr. Friendly would fire a blank round from his service weapon at the ceiling. Seriously. Did they do that in anyone else's school? Anyway, one of my constant gripes is that people don't complain about in-your-face bad behavior in their neighborhoods for two reasons: they're too timid or intimidated by the perpetrators, or they don't believe calling the police will do any good. So before I left town for NC I heard and observed a disturbance (bordering on fist fight) in the street, so I called 911. In theory, the operator asked me all the right questions, but I felt like she was rude and dismissive. Ultimately, no police officer ever showed up to try to calm the situation. My instinct told me to suck it up and deal with it 'cause my call to 911 probably wasn't that important anyway. Fortunately, however, righteous indignation got the better of me. And I fired off an email to a command-level officer at my local PD, 'cause something didn't feel right about the fact that no cop ever showed up. To my pleasant surprise he took my complaint seriously, and actually forwarded it to the commander of the PD's communications division, who opened an investigation. He found the tape of my 911 call, and what do you know? Not only was my complaint legit - not that I ever had any doubts - but it turns out the 911 operator never actually sent my complaint to dispatchers. She basically listened to me...or not, hung up the phone and moved on, without actually filing a report on the incident I observed. So no officer was ever given word to check on the fight. Tsk tsk. That operator's lucky no one was hurt...that we know of. The domino effect has been the operator is being investigated, the people involved in the fight are being scrutinized by police. So if they fart too loudly it's gonna draw attention. And their landlord is being put in check for harboring rowdy tenants. So while I hate whiners who whine for the sake of hearing themselves, I strongly encourage you to speak up if you see stupidity or criminal behavior or some combination of both. And if the people who should care don't appear to, put them in check too. Again, as long as we let people slide for bad behavior or shirk their good-behavior responsibilities, the numbnuts win.

OK, I'm done. I'm gonna suck some fresh mountainish air and get some sleep. I'll post again tomorrow and, I swear, start catching up on my visits to your blogs.

Peace and hair grease till tomorrow.