"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the gullibility of Facebook users." -- H.L. Mencken

If I won the Powerball I would demand payment in a dump sum, as in: Back up that truck in my front yard and just dump sum right there.

I didn’t win Powerball, but, next best thing, I did break out the giant checkbook at the grocery store today. Cashiers dig that.

Good Lord, if I had a nickel for every time I acted on faulty intelligence, I’d be able to start my own Super PAC.

Through this present communique, I hereby declare my absolute civil rights against any person or persons who would enjoin me against crying or pouting, or from telling me why said admonishment is necessary, or from demanding I be good for goodness’ sake; also against anyone seeing me when I’m sleeping, knowing when I’m awake; from determining whether I’m naughty or nice, bad or good, and thus including me on a completely arbitrary and capricious list, even if said list is checked twice and even if said person is coming to town.

(Facebook recommends copying and pasting the aforementioned notice to your wall to protect yourself against this clearly illegal intrusion into your privacy. Failure to post this notice means you are tacitly allowing yourself to be accused and convicted of naughtiness without constitutional due process including an opportunity to confront and cross-examine your accusers as outlined in the Kringle Convention and North Pole Statute. Henceforth, habeas corpus carpe diem e pluribus Unum pa rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum without the express written consent of Major League Baseball.)

I never buy Powerball tickets because I worry I’d be one of those people fundamentally changed by winning – and I don’t want to become a caring, decent, giving person.

Daniel Day Lewis so convincingly portrays Lincoln that one can't help but think Abe would have made a helluva Christy Brown or Daniel Plainview.

Jimi Hendrix, who would have turned 70 this week, looks down at the Rolling Stones' 50th anniversary tour and says “WTF, God? Keith Richards?!”

X23 Vreare/j[opare$#% remak;lareoppasp xarasjp[re[[&*.

Henceforth, I hereby declare, I shall be encrypting my posts to ensure copyright and privacy protection. I will provide the code to Facebook friends upon their signing a contract agreeing not to steal my material or to clutter it with irrelevant comments that ruin the gist of my original post or, worse, that are more intelligent or funny than my original. I regret having to take this action, but I must protect my intellectual property, which in the case of the encryption at the beginning of this post is, admittedly, a fart joke, but a damn good one. (Hey, don’t judge: You have your intellectual property, and I have mine.)

Sure wish I'd known to post that Facebook copyright notice years ago -- you know, back before I was the first to use "LOL."

"To All the Girls I've Loved Before (You Should Maybe Get Down to the Free Health Clinic and Get Yourself Checked 'Cause I Got This Funny Rash and a Burning Sensation)" -- Julio Iglesias

Follow the advice of the fifth doctor and fifth dentist for one wild ride, my friends.

A lotta college-football coaches fired today. Presumably the Journal Star sports department is on high alert, with reporters dispatched to the Lincoln airport to see if any of those universities has a plane standing by on the tarmac.

If your mother says she loves you, snopes it.

Please, gym-goers, grab an extra towel this morning to wipe that gravy sweat off the equipment.

By the way, the last nail has been driven into the coffin of that Mayan apocalypse talk: No way God's lettin' that shit go down next month with Notre Dame so close to the BCS title.

Who's watching "Liz and Dick"? Man, Lindsay Lohan hasn't been this unresponsive since the last time she was found in a hotel bed by EMTs.

Nice 'stache and turnovers, Aaron Rodgers. Celebrating Blowvember?

I ain't sayin' the 49ers are drilling Brees, but the Saints' medical team just had to tape the birthmark back on his face.

Awoke hungry at 1 a.m. the last three days. And so it begins: Every holiday season I revert to infancy eating patterns, demanding food every three hours. If denied, a tantrum will ensue. Also, I would appreciate being burped regularly.

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form):

Crap. Sure wish it had
occurred to me to tell 'em
to win out sooner.

NFL will pilot-test an exciting innovation in game improvement when the Chiefs have the ball today against the Broncos. Instead of just reviewing previous plays, officials will preview the play about to happen and call them on their idiocy ahead of time. If it works well, they'll expand this system to the Chargers and Browns next week.

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form):

Jesus, you people
get pissed at me? How'd you like
Ferentz as your coach?

There'd be some marketing genius in retailers' bringing a little touch of Black Friday to every day: Seal a few random items around the store in plastic wrap with sign saying, for example, "Cheerios on sale from 3-4 p.m. Limit 2 boxes." The American shopping ethos being what it is, they'd have hundreds lined up whether they liked Cheerios or not.

In Walmart no one can hear you scream. No, seriously, I've tried.

I am, of course, morally and philosophically opposed to the unbridled greed and crass commercialism of Black Friday, but thrilled to be married to a woman who is not. Thanks for the $10 jeans and dress pants, hon!

I love the smell of commerce in the morning.

75% of deep fat turkey fryer fires occur not while cooking the bird but rather right afterward when some guy says "let's see if THIS'LL fry up in there!"

As is my custom, upon the family's gathering at my mother-in-law's today, I will brief everyone on the acceptable and unacceptable topics of conversation over the holiday. Unacceptable: Election rehash, the fiscal cliff, both Elmo (Sesame Street) AND Grover (Norquist), speculation on future Big 10 membership. Acceptable: "How 'bout this weather?," "How 'bout this pie?", "How 'bout puppies?" and random Terp and Scarlet Knight bashing. Transgressions will be discreetly signaled by my coughing as if I have a turkey bone lodged in my throat and, on second offense, punished by withholding of a moist-maker turkey sandwich leftover.

I, for one, welcome more crappy football teams to play.

"Eew, I just saw Chris Christie and Snooki feeding each other Runzas in the South Stadium." -- overheard at a future Husker game.

Grammy always likes to say that love is the secret ingredient in her stuffing. So, who among us at the table has the nerve to point out that love seems to taste a lot like spoiled oysters this year?

Just throwin’ this out there, Lincoln friends -- you know, two birds with one stone and all that: How about moving Pershing Center to that nasty Warlick intersection, turn it into office space/retail/frozen-yogurt emporium/whatever and have all those roads just meet up there and end in a giant parking lot?

This is exciting: Jim Delany announced today that future Big 10 title games will be played atop a huge pile of money.

Two roads converged in a yellow wood. So much for the one less traveled that I was on. Now I’m stuck plodding along on the same road shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of schmucks.

How many nuns could a nunchuck chuck if a nunchuck could chuck nuns?

"Meh-y Christmas" -- suggested holiday greeting for those who feel deeply ambivalent or apathetic about the season.

The Kansas City Chiefs have quietly approached Jim Delany about being a part of the Big 10's next expansion.

"Every day I'm Rufflin'." -- worker, crinkle-cut line, Lay's Potato Chip factory.

Does this mean we'll finally be able to get some decent fresh seafood in the Big 10?

Just shaved off my third mustache this Movember already. Mailing it to charity, like the others, where they make ‘em into wigs for prostates, I guess?

Don't take a knife to a pillow fight either. Lord, what a mess.

Shouldn't we wait for the whole secession thing to shake out before we welcome more conference realignment? Damned if I want the Huskers playin' a buncha damn furreigners.

Life has given me lemonade today. Good one, life. Challenge accepted: Stand by for lemons.

NFL announces it will move the Broncos to another division and dismantle the rest of the AFC West for spare parts -- knees, shoulders, hips, etc. -- for the rest of the league, and players' brains will be donated to science post-mortem -- and, in a few select cases, immediately -- to study for clues to the causes of crappy football. Important research, that.

I stormed out of "Lincoln" this afternoon. Typical Spielberg/Hollywood liberal BS. How typical they would foist this piece of anti-secession propaganda on America right now.

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form):

Gimme extra week,
we'd be in driver's seat for
national title. :(

Now that their demise is nigh, we finally can ask: Sno Balls? Ding Dongs? Ho Hos? Really, Hostess? Why not Puffy Scrotes, Jelly Johnsons, Skankcakes?

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form):

In the driver's seat.
Damn kids in back quit asking
"are we there yet, coach?"

Huskers' tunnel walk has gotten tired. How 'bout working a roundabout into that thing?

This is sweet: For old times' sake, Tom's gonna strap on the headset and call a coupla series in the third quarter so fans can bitch about his play calling one last time. GBR!

A Husker fans' goodbye haiku to Tom Osborne:

Farewell, Coach, but just
in case, leave us your number.
We'll call you maybe.

Hostess products are flying off store shelves now. Damn, just think: If they'd gone out of business years ago, they might have survived.

I saw the future of rock 'n' roll last night, and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And I'm taking the yet-to-be-born children of the children I saw him with last night to see him perform. And I'm being pushed in a wheelchair by those grandchildren, and that SOB is still jumping off the piano, crowd-surfing and performing for three freaking hours.

Republicans really are much better at the whole circular firing squad routine than Democrats. It's probably those assault rifles.

Gov. Chris Christie is offering to divert some FEMA funds from Sandy relief to a Hostess bailout.

Other than that, how'd you like the movie, Mrs. Lincoln?

Clearly, it's time for a national debate: Should we allow straights in the military?

David Petraeus forgot one of the first rules of spookdom: If the CIA wants you to have a mistress, it will issue you one.

If we're gonna secede and create a "NEW government," let's at least get it right this time -- rule established with a class system based on musical taste. So, welcome us, your new Ramones' fans overlords.

Sure wish Schoolhouse Rock were still around for some perspective on today’s government scene: “If your candidate did concede and so off you are teed, then by all means you may proceed to secede.” And: “Take care not to be flirtatious even if your email recipient is quite bodacious.”

Given recent developments, it's clear we really aren't an actual sovereign nation anymore, right? Pretty sure we must be some other planetary civilization’s idiotic "Truman"-like reality show, highly entertaining a species of higher intelligence with our assorted clownishness. That’s really the only explanation that makes sense at this point.

Although I don't endorse secession, I definitely could get behind immediately revoking the citizenship of anyone who misspells the word on a protest sign. That's what you call a win-win.

America's most beloved general humiliated, nation hurtles toward fiscal cliff, secession talk grows. So, I guess the terrorists won?

Well, this is one of those teachable moments in the workplace, I suppose. I assume I'm not the only one going back through my old office emails to make sure I've never been "flirtatious." I think I'm in the clear, though there were some exchanges about our department's strategic planning process that skated close to the edge of propriety. For example, instances when my use of the words "impactful," "paradigm" and "incentivize" may have come across as sexually suggestive. I do apologize to anyone who may have been offended.

Leach, Gillispie, Tuberville. What is it about coaching in Lubbock that drives men mad? How 'bout a country song, Mac Davis?

Uh-oh. Twitter is over capacity intermittently and the Internet is generally sluggish today. It appears the Pentagon is about to declare a military emergency and shut it down so generals can more quickly scrub their email files.

With an Abe Lincoln mood in the air this week, one imagines his enemies Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee are eyeing all the current secession talk with great glee from the beyond, but we’ll see how they feel when Allen West is elected president of the New Confederacy

Next on "Sesame Street," a special warning primer for kids on inappropriate touching: "Do NOT Tickle Me, Elmo!"

If the New York Post doesn't use the phrase "felt up" in its Elmo headline tomorrow, then print really IS dead.

Dang it, missed it by THAT much: I had the secretary of HUD and Snuffleupagus getting into sex trouble this month in the office scandal pool.

I went to a fight and a NASCAR race broke out.

"said no one ever" -- say no one ever again, please.

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form):

You all saw the game.
What do you think? No, really.
'cause I got no clue.

Good news for Republicans: FEMA just determined the party is eligible for Hurricane Sandy disaster relief – temporary formaldehyde trailer housing for displaced campaign staff; reconstruction funds; and vouchers for meals, media buys, even Spanish lessons, PTSD counseling and antidepressant meds.

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form):

Phew! But recurring
weird nightmare: struck unable
to say "execute"

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form):

Penn State. Blue state, right?
Nice win, pinkos, but here comes
(Big) Red state revenge

Thus does a new euphemism emerge from Washington. To wit: "My life might suck, but at least the FBI isn't investigating my secret mistress."

A special edition of Kiffinku (USC coach's reflections, in haiku form):

Deflating balls is
illegal? No clue. Can I
INflate QB's hands?

Sweet Lord, what if CVS pharmacy starts opening frozen-yogurt shops too?

I can't get no satisfaction -- especially on my grammar quizzes.

I’ll bet a very carefully worded constitutional amendment giving same-sex couples the right to marry and smoke weed as long as they are hunters or fisherpeople might just pass in Nebraska.

No matter who wins or loses an election, I never take pleasure in others’ disappointment. Decent, well-informed, caring people who love their country and want the best for it are not to be mocked for their genuine dismay, sorrow and, yes, sometimes, even fear. Besides, Lord knows we all get our turns at being on the losing side in this democracy, what goes around comes around, et cetera. However,

exceptions sometimes must be made, and the agonized humiliation Karl Rove must be feeling right now is truly exquisite. He raised nearly $400 million for his super PAC and saw the presidential candidate and nine of the 10 Senate candidates he funded lose. Even better, his devolution WAS televised, live, on Fox News Tuesday night. Not surprisingly, the people who donated to his Super PAC are none too pleased at the meager return on their investment. If Rove’s abject failure removes that loathsome, seeping pustule from the body politic forever, it will be an achievement we all can celebrate, regardless of party. U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A!

Nice to see recipes and kitten and puppy pictures making their way back onto my Facebook feed as political posts fade. Still, I believe I'll wait a day or two before I post some kitten recipes.

Design plans for Lincoln's dangerous Warlick intersection are “top secret” until a Nov. 15 meeting. Damn right they are: They include seven roundabouts, people!

Bottom line: America just wasn't ready to elect a white man president.

I won some and I lost some, but I did my part and so I am content.

Mourdock loses in Indiana. God's will, I guess.

What's this crap about a No. 2 pencil?! I'm sorry, I thought this was America, where, by God, we oughta be voting with No. 1 pencils!

Win or lose, Bob Kerrey sings "Waltzing Matilda" tonight, right? And Deb Fischer, I presume, "This Land is Your Land (This Land is My Land)."

As is my custom, I tried to get a singalong of “America, F--- Yeah” going in the voting line, but the little old lady pollworkers gave me the stinkeye again.

Win or lose, Bob Kerrey sings "Waltzing Matilda" tonight, right? And Deb Fischer, I presume, "This Land is Your Land (This Land is My Land)."

Can anyone verify the accuracy of those photos making the rounds that show sharks swimming around polling places in Dayton?

Hey, I just voted by email in New Jersey!

Mitch McConnell's chin is receding ever further as the night goes on.

This, I believe

I hope my guy wins today because I think he's better than the other guy, but I don't believe the country will go to hell if he loses. I don't believe one guy is turning the country socialist, or that the other guy will take the country back 50 years. I don’t believe one has declared war on women, or the other on religion. (I'm much more worried, whomever is elected, on that real war with Iran that's looming.)

I don't believe I'm voting for the lesser of two evils. I am voting for the candidate I believe to be the better of two lessers. I don’t like either of them as well as I did a year ago, and I didn’t much care for either of them then, but it is always thus. I trust they’re both more able, more decent, more honest than they appear to be by the end of a brutal campaign, if only because they have to be.

Both are good Americans, good husbands and good fathers, yet each likely has at least one, perhaps several, undiagnosed personality disorders, for what else explains their desire for this job, or belief they can do it? Had they not gone into politics, one shudders at the sociopathic mayhem they might have caused.

Both have said stupid, insensitive, unintentionally hilarious things over the last year and no doubt regret them, but then so have I. However, I am very sorry none of them was photographed wearing a ridiculous hat. Not even Biden.

The one we elected four years ago didn't do everything he said he would, and if we elect the other guy today, he won't do everything he says he will either. Some can take great comfort in that, and others great umbrage.

I know some people way smarter than me will choose to vote for the other guy, and some blithering idiots will vote for my guy, and vice versa, and we all count the same.

I have no use for people who threaten to move to Canada if their guy loses. I mean, go ahead, punks, but have you noticed its winters, football and bacon? No thank you.

Yes, this is a lousy way to choose a president and, yes, I'm sick of the robocalls, the super PACs, the ads, the whole damn thing, but I'm probably sickest of our whining about it all because, c'mon people, [insert obligatory phrase here about this still being the best country in the world with the best democracy, dammit, and throw in a "U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A" chant while you're at it.]

And, yes, I'm sick of the lying, although it's clearly unreasonable to expect the same moral sensibilities from our political candidates as we do from the average preschooler.

Finally, whichever guy wins, I'd prefer a landslide to a razor-thin nailbiter -- especially, God help us, a split between the popular vote and Electoral College vote -- because both parties have go-teams of lawyers, probably already amassed at airports as if they're Navy SEALs, ready to parachute into Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, even Dixville Notch, N.H., to litigate the hell out of this thing.

Finally, if my guy loses, it's only 1,462 days until Election Day 2016. 

The latest Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form) 


Don't tell Eichorst, but
we don't even make game plans
any more. What's point?

Obama, having failed on his promise to lower the planet's oceans, now vows in his second term to raise our continent about 25 feet instead. Laugh if you want, people, but that's like 40 million mudjacking jobs.

Be sure to set your clocks back tonight for an extra hour of campaigning.

Well, the Huskers may still be in the driver's seat, but I'm pretty sure the airbags just deployed. Also, there's one hell of a mess to clean off the steering wheel, the seats, floorboards, pretty much everywhere.

Thank God for that win. For awhile there, I had a bad feeling my mailbox was gonna be full next week of mailers from new anti-Bo super PAC, Nebraskans for Competent Football Prosperity.

"Deb Fischer shot an elderly neighbor in Valentine, just to watch him die." -- Kerrey's latest ad.

John Sununu says Hagel endorsed Kerrey because he's "someone of his own gender."

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional assessments, in haiku form):

A Big 10 title?
In the driver's seat, baby.
Jesus, take the wheel.

Chris Christie's sudden appearance at Obama's side in the final week of the campaign is the most stunning, unexpected late cameo by a big star since Kevin Spacey made his bloody entrance near the end of "Se7en."

Saints preserve us.

Tonight's game between the Chiefs and Chargers is the NFL's Throwback Game of the Week, as in: Please, dear God, throw it back.

Woke up with a nasty cough this morning. Is Candy Corn Lung a thing?

I, for one, welcome our new undecided suburban white women overlords.