BASEBALL ODDS… WHAT?  THE YANKEES AT #2????  Yes…  THE VOICE needs a quick shot of sports happiness… it’s that strange time between the Super Bowl (can I use those words now?)… and the start of the baseball season… sure, there’s hockey… and Jeremy Lin in the NBA… and March Madness is creeping in… but THE VOICE likes the outside efforts… with turf and dirt… so read his updates on the upcoming baseball season, and the latest look at the odds for the World Series… Met’s fans… well, keep looking down the list… go to SPORTS PICKS… or just click (here)…

See.. that was quick…  Brian will be the news anchor tomorrow (SATURDAY) on FM NEWS NEW YORK – 101.9FM starting at 1pm… (or online at FMNewsNewYork.com) and thanks for listening….

I hate open questions like that.  I should just get my brain off it’s lazy ganglia and call Jackie, my travel agent and find out the answer.  I still have a travel agent.  I haven’t gone anywhere lately, but I have a travel agent.

So, I just called Jackie.  I told her I need to find out if bookings were down because of our freakishly warm winter.  She was on another call, so I kept talking so she couldn’t put me on hold or hang up.  I hate it when people keep talking so you can’t tell them to hold on, but I just did it to her.  I wanted to know.

Jackie said just what I DIDN’T expect.  Things at the travel agency ARE BUSIER.  She is booking a lot of honeymoons, and a lot of trips to Europe.

Good for her, but dammit… I hate being wrong.  So I kept asking questions even though her original caller was on hold.  I always keep asking until I get some kind of an answer that agrees with my original hypothesis. What about trips to the warm weather climates?  Yes, she said… she’s been booking a lot of trips to the Caribbean.  I asked her if trips to Florida were down, and she said, yes, Florida trips were down.  AH-HA… I was right!  I said thanks and told her I had another call and had to run and hung up the phone.

So, there you have it… trips to Florida are down because of the warm weather.  Or the economy.  Or something.  That’s why I like having a travel agent.  You can’t just call up the internet and ask questions like that.  If you call up Priceline from a parking lot in Orlando at 3:45 in the morning, you get robot voice mail, not a travel agent who will make arrangements to have a cab show up with some clothing and directions to your hotel and bail money if you need it.

Oh, and if you want to book a trip, even to Florida (maybe there are some bargains because trips are down), Jackie owns Travel Center in Milford… 203-877-3206.

THE VOICE will have his predictions here soon… apparently there was a problem this morning with his new automatic doors at the Prognosticator Grill and Cafe… I’m not sure what the problem was, but Carl the Bartender will now be called “Lefty” and not because he is a southpaw pitcher…

ONE MORE THING… I’ll be doing my first real shift as a news anchor tomorrow afternoon at FM News New York 101.9fm from 1 til 8pm… if you can’t get it on your radio, their website is www.FMNewsNewYork.com… and thanks for listening… -Brian

It was my college years.  I was sleeping… somewhere…  I was flopped down in an empty bed and drifting between layers of consciousness… down the hallway, I heard a group of friends laughing and telling jokes through increasingly loud, drunken voices.

Things got quiet when they realized I had gone off to pass out… but that sudden stillness in the keg room woke me to a more elevated state of alert… I heard them walk down the hall.  I heard them giggle as they prepared to wake me in who-knows-what fashion… all I knew is they were ready to pull me out of bed…  and maybe play-punch… kick.. pour beers on me… but I was ready.  I was sleeping on my side with my back to them… but… oh, man, I was ready…. as soon as I heard them get closer to their move… I was ready… to flip over and jump up and give a yell that would send them into fits of horrific surprise and we would all laugh and have more beer…

And… when they were just about to yank off my blankets and scream with their no-sleeping-til-the-beer-is-done shouts… I QUICKLY TURNED…. FLUNG OFF MY BLANKETS AND LET GO WITH A BIG “YAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!”

ONLY… this just happened this morning.  Well past my college years.  And, oh yeah, it was a dream.  There was no beer, no hallway, no college friends IN the hallway.  The only thing real… was the scream.  My scream.  The “YAAAAAARRRRR!” was real at 4:43 this morning.  I woke up as I was yelling, and heard it echo through my dark apartment.

When I did it in my dream, I was laughing… and yelling… because I couldn’t wait to see the surprise I had wrought as it rippled through my drunk prankster friends… instead… I was in my bed… years later… this morning… the blankets landed on the floor… and I looked at the ceiling and thought… “The neighbors are going to call 9-1-1…”

I waited.  I have apartments above me, to the sides, and below.  Good construction, but you can still hear a loud television or a running shower.  I even heard someone snoring from another floor once.  But THIS… this morning… was a loud “YAAAAARRRRR” (with a weird, squeaky, gurgling “accckkk” sound after it, I couldn’t figure out)…

I’m sure someone heard it.  Thankfully, no one called in the police, ambulance and firetrucks.  Thankfully, however, I wasn’t actually yelling for help because I was having a heart attack, or falling off a chair, or getting my head bashed in by an intruder with a lamp.  Not that I have any lamps that would be able to kill.  I don’t.  Just for that reason.

But I did yell, loud, “YAAAARRRRRR-accckkk” at 4:43 this morning, and I’m sure my condo rules have a rule against that.  I’m just going to pay the fine with my monthly fee charge and not say another word.

HOPEFULLY… once I get the new look I want… things will be bigger, brighter, and better than before….!

We’re still getting things together here… so thank you for checking in, and soon… soon… soon, we’ll be up and going again…

In the meantime, please enjoy the weekend predictions of THE VOICE… and if, for some reason, you can’t view the scores on his predictions, just highlight the place where the scores should be, and they will magically appear… yes, FREE MAGIC… you see, because, the scores are there, but written in white, so they are tough to see… unless you highlight them… (we’re working on it…)… check out what THE VOICE predicts… click (here)…