I'm wondering when my mansion will be ready. Because in 4th grade, I played a killer game of MASH, and I'm still waiting for any of the results.

MASH, if you were born before 1975, is a TV show about the Korean War. But to anyone younger than 30, MASH is a game that determined our future - where we'd live and in what kinds of houses, what occupations we'd have, what cars we'd drive, and most importantly, what cootie-ridden members of the opposite sex our friends teased us about for the next year.

MASH typically stood for "Mansion - Apartment - Shack - House," though I've heard slight variations. The idea was to have four choices in each category--one wonderful, one tolerable, one awful, and one preferable. Let's say you had five letters in your name, or your birthday was the fifth, or you cheated by placing every bad option in every fifth place. You'd cross off every fifth choice until you were left with one option in each category, which you were then contractually obligated to pursue. Each one of us, at some point, was expecting to be a doctor living in a mansion in Paris with a Lamborghini in the garage. All cootie-ridden members of the opposite sex were equally wonderful and frightening.

Since we were so young, our choices were often limited to the only stuff we'd heard of. The professions were usually things like doctor, lawyer, teacher and garbage man, with teacher being the awful choice (Come on, we were eight!). Cities typically included wherever you were from, followed by a combination of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, and Paris (even though many of us did not know what country housed London, Paris, or Los Angeles). And of course, our cars: ranging from Lamborghinis to station wagons, with little in between. Not many 8-year-olds know much about Camrys or Sentras.

When we graduate college, we should play MASH again, with the choices changed to be a bit more realistic. The game for anyone in their early twenties should be called RASH, where the choices are Railroad Apartment, At Home With Our Parents, Studio, and Homeless Shelter.

Beating out MASH for the most popular future game was the Fortune Teller, an origami-esque contraption that put each of us at the whim of whoever wrote it. After a few number-based options, we were left with one of 8 or 16 fortunes, that typically weren't fortunes at all. A desirable "fortune" would say something like, "You're a rock star" whereas a less desirable one might suggest the chooser had some sort of odor problem.

Often, we'd find entire Fortune Tellers with similarly negative fortunes, or compliments so cheesy they should be on massed produced Valentines. ("You're A-OK, sport!") I preferred the Magic 8-ball, which made you return another time and ask again more often than it gave you a definitive answer. Which is much like the first realtor you deal with while deciding between a studio and a homeless shelter.

I am in possession of a sarcastic 8-ball, which gives you answers like, "Yeah, sure" and "If you say so, buddy." I love it - maybe because it reminds me of the Fortune Tellers I used to write. (I once created a Fortune Teller with all the same answers. It took seven tries for a friend to catch on.)

My game of choice, however, came slightly later in life, once our cooties cleared up and our parents allowed us to drink more soda. My game of choice was Poptop.

The rules were simple: take the tab on a can of soda and bend it back and forth, which each bend representing a letter of the alphabet. Which ever letter you say when the tab comes off was the first letter of the person you'd end up with. 5 bends? Find someone named Emily or Evan. 10? Josh or Julia. I, however, spent a great deal of 7th grade admiring someone named Sari. And so I did what we all did - I cheated.

19 bends almost every time, the first 16 of which were very light. Then, with increasing force came Q, R, and S. I had to be careful though - I didn't want to accidentally pop at R or miss it and land at T and get teased for the rest of the year. If I was going to be teased, at least let it be for Sari, since everyone knew I liked her anyway.

Our willingness to cheat at these games was incredible. Those that liked a girl with an A name would even rip the top off in one shot. Which looked a bit obvious, but we used that to our advantage. "Due to my incredible strength, the top just popped off! Did you see that, Allison? (FLEX)" Of course, there's also the route of going through the alphabet a full time to land on the second A. But that's like not being able to get the wheel around on the Price is Right. If you're so weak that 26 tries can't pop the top off, that "A" is going to stand less for "Allison" and more for "Alone."

It'd be nice to be able to answer our current questions like this. Find out where we're going to live, who we're going to end up with, or whether or not those of us that are called "sport" are indeed, A-OK. I asked a few friends if they wanted to play any of these with me. One of them, who has a particularly busy summer, said it best:

"Reply hazy, try again."

Steve Hofstetter is the author of Student Body Shots, which is available at www.SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@observationalhumor.com.

There were no warnings. I saw no horsemen. I saw no signs of earlier plagues. Could someone please explain to me how we let Ryan Seacrest happen?

The first time I heard of Ryan Seacrest was when I accidentally watched twenty minutes of the first season of American Idol. It was a proud moment, as I picked Kelly Clarkson to win the whole thing just from just that episode (I haven't watched the show since). But that's just because she was the hot one.

Seacrest hosted the show with some other guy whose name it took me an hour to find on the internet. The other host turned out to be Brian Dunkleman, who has done little to nothing on TV since. There was that one cameo in "Miss Match." Slightly less impressive than being the new golden boy of pop culture.

I respect how hard Seacrest works. But I don't understand why he was able to get this famous. He doesn't ask interesting questions. He's not particularly witty. He's twice as old as his fan base. But he does have really spiky hair, so maybe that's it.

Seacrest started in radio, but broke into TV as a correspondent for "Extra" in 1994 when he was just 20 years old. His TV career didn't see much action after that, until he guest hosted "Talk Soup" five years later. A guest spot on "Hey Arnold!" and another on "Beverly Hills 90210" were the only other things he landed before American Idol. And then it happened: Ryan Seacrest was thrust upon America.

I don't have a particular problem with Seacrest. Sure, he's kind of annoying, and "Seacrest Out" is the most forced catch phrase I've ever heard. But he could be a nice guy - just a regular dude with hundreds of millions of dollars, who puts his leather pants on one leg at a time. My problem, however, is twofold. One, he's famous because someone wanted him to be and two, if he does have any talent, no one cares.

American Idol is an incredibly manufactured show. Ryan Seacrest and Brian Dunkleman were hired to be good cop bad cop, or maybe good host bad host, and Dunkleman was cast to the side pretty quickly. Rumor has it Dunkleman wasn't asked back because he wasn't mean enough - because he didn't play Simon Cowell's game.

Seacrest, in the meantime, was given a contract for almost a million dollars for the second season. Maybe audiences genuinely vibed with him. Maybe it was the spikey hair. Or maybe you just can't become famous if your last name is Dunkleman. My condolences to Tim Dunkleman, who coaches high school basketball in Christiansburg, Virginia and will probably not make it to the big leagues. Thank you, internet.

We know where Brian Dunkleman's talent lies- he's now breaking in as a standup comic. I can't tell what Seacrest is talented at, however. That's because I've only seen him pander to celebrities and read terrible copy off a teleprompter. Maybe his talent is being able to read that garbage with a straight face.

Seacrest has one of the biggest stages in the world - his own TV show. But all his show really does is promote hair products. David Letterman and Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno and Jon Stewart all have talk shows because their personalities are a large part of the product. And I can't figure out Seacrest's personality because his talk show has nothing to do with him. If Fox wanted to pluck another spiky headed metrosexual out of their talent pool and pump him as just much, Seacrest could be replaced. (And probably will be as he gets older).

I know that he's got a lot of fans. And I know that I'm going to get a ton of letters telling me I don't know what I'm talking about and Ryan Seacrest is a very talented individual and he's soooooo hOT!!!!!!1111. And I welcome those letters as long as they explain one thing - what is Seacrest's talent? Don't just tell me he's a good host or he does his job well or he's soooooo hOT!!!!!!1111 Tell me why Ryan Seacrest is indispensable.

And make sure you tell the Dunkleman's, too.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of Student Body Shots, which is available at www.SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@observationalhumor.com.

I don't understand why "easy listening" music is named so horribly wrong. It's easy to hear it, since it's played in supermarkets and airports and elevators everywhere. But it's not easy to listen to, since five minutes of it makes my ears bleed.

I'm sure that there are people who willingly buy easy listening music, aside from employees of supermarkets and airports and elevator companies. But as far as I know, I have not met any. None of my friends have ever said, "I got this great new CD! All the songs are 12 minutes long, and they're played on piano and piccolo! There's this one where the refrain repeats seven times in a row. I can't wait to listen to it at the supermarket!"

There's also the great deal of easy listening played while I'm on hold for customer service. I'm guessing that's so by the time the phone is picked up, I've lost my will to live, let alone to argue.

If people weren't buying easy listening music, musicians wouldn't keep creating it, so perhaps it is our fault. But I will argue that a large portion of the CD sales are to people who mistakenly think that their customers will enjoy it.

Maybe I'm being short sighted. Perhaps I'm failing to see that someone from a generation older than mine enjoys a good piccolo. Maybe I'm some brash whippersnapper who needs to be told what for, because children should be seen and not heard. Or maybe, just maybe, we should consider the numbers on this. The average age in America is late 30s. And I argue that very few people under the age of 40 actually enjoy listening to anything with a piccolo.

Actually, that's not entirely true. Some great classical music contains said piccolo, but classical music is meant to be instrumental. Easy listening is often a former quality song that was instrumental-ized. Sure, John Tesh creates his own new music, but it's so terrible I don't need to address it any further. I'd rather listen to Mary Hart's voice than John Tesh's piano.

I recently heard an instrumental rendition of "Like a Rolling Stone." That's right - Bob Dylan without words. Even people younger than 40 know that Bob Dylan was best known as a poet, and to take out his words and just listen to his notes defeats the entire purpose. That's like listening to the dialogue on Baywatch without the picture. If you're going to play Dylan, play Dylan. Don't play John Tesh playing Dylan.

The main idea of easy listening in a public area seems to be giving customers a sound track that would bother the least amount of people. But I argue that easy listening music bothers many more people than would be bothered by something like classic rock. Maybe that's because I like classic rock. But so do many people ages 18-65. It can't be coincidence that John Fogerty gets that much more radio play than John Tesh.

And if you think classic rock is a poor suggestion, why not actual classical music? A lot of people love classical music. And even more are trying to force themselves to because it makes them feel cultured. I doubt that anyone is trying to like an instrumental cover of "Like a Rolling Stone." so they can fit into the upper crust of society.

I was first exposed to easy listening many years ago when my family and I would eat out at a particular fast food "restaurant" that was a big fan of the brass section of the orchestra. And nothing complimented fried chicken as well as the hum of a trumpet we couldn't quite make out. Actually, anything would be a better compliment. Especially curly fries.

The reason the music was difficult to hear is because one of the main tenants of easy listening music is that it's often very quiet. Most times, you can barely hear it at all. The idea is that easy listening music is usually meant to fade into the background, as if it's not there at all. Wouldn't that be nice? Perhaps a good replacement for easy listening, then, is silence. With silence, you can avoid hearing the music altogether.

I once sat in a coffee shop, very annoyed at the horns being forced upon me. I was trying to get some work done, and instead I was "treated" to music I'd have never chosen. Realizing I was the only customer in the store, I politely asked the clerk to turn the music down. She happily obliged.

"If it were up to me," she added, "I wouldn't play this awful music at all."

Employees of all supermarkets, airports, and elevator companies, please take note. Hopefully when you call the music store to pick up some new tracks, they won't put you on hold.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of Student Body Shots, which is available at www.SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@observationalhumor.com.

I know that Barry Bonds is on steroids. I have never seen him take them so I can not prove it. But I've never seen dinosaurs and I know they exist. (That is one thing that keeps me a step ahead of Carl Everett).

I hear constant debate as to whether or not Bonds is juiced. Which is just silly. We know he's juiced. He looks juiced. He acts juiced. He hits particularly well at Minute Paid Park and Tropicana Field. If this guy were any more juiced he'd be part of a healthy breakfast.

You might say it's possible to hit more than 61 home runs in a season sans juice. But the two guys behind Bonds --Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa--have both been proven to use performance enhancers at some point. McGwire's drug of choice was androstendione, which has since been added to the banned list. And Sosa, aside from the cork heard round the world, just sneezed himself to the DL. Studies show that the first thing to go when you remove all juice is your back. Guess what was injured when Sammy sneezed?

Now look at Bonds. Bonds, who was a skinny guy with some pop earlier in his career. Bonds, who used to steal 40 bases a season and hasn't stolen ten in a season in three years (despite his half a billion walks). Bonds, whose "workout regimen"� features a forehead that increased to the size of a cantaloupe. But maybe that can all be explained.

Perhaps he added 50 pounds of muscle in one off-season. Perhaps he's stealing fewer bases because he's getting old, and can now only muster the energy to hit hundreds of balls 500 feet at a time. Perhaps, while popping wheelies on Jeff Kent's motorcycle, Bonds injured his cranium and all that extra space on his forehead is fluid. Or perhaps he pops more pills than a heroine in a Danielle Steel novel. Yes, heroine with the e at the end. I'm writing about Barry Bonds, not Darryl Strawberry.

You might say I'm making assumptions. Of course I am - it's what we do as sports fans. But is it irresponsible of me to print these assumptions? No. How many times have you read that Kobe Bryant is going to New York? And the only thing Kobe Bryant is going to New York for is to hire more legal counsel. So I'm taking it upon myself to write a column on why thinking Barry Bonds is clean is as silly as thinking that Kobe will ever again willingly vacation in Colorado.

This evidence could all be circumstantial. Maybe Bonds is just a good guy caught up in a great deal of coincidence. I've seen fewer coincidences on an episode of Three's Company, but I could give him the benefit of the doubt. If I hadn't already seen too many character flaws to chalk this up to being in the wrong place at the wrong, giant-foreheaded time.

This is the same man who fights with opposing players and teammates with equal vigor. This is the same man who shows up late to Spring Training and insists he's early. This is the same man who insults Babe Ruth and snubs an award from the Negro League Museum and claims a baseball strike is for the fans (providing their kids grow up to be ballplayers). This is even the same man who married a Swedish immigrant who barely spoke English and forced her to sign a bogus pre-nup with less than a month's time in the United States (the contract was later ruled invalid by an appeals court). This is not a man of moral fortitude.

Bonds has relentlessly proven that he is out for Bonds, and it would not surprise me at all to get proof that he's on steroids. In fact, it would shock me if I saw proof that he isn't.

And of course, Bonds has been implicated in the BALCO scandal that has rocked the sporting world and shown what we have known since the days of Dianabol. That some athletes will do anything to win - just ask Jose Canseco. (He'll tell you all about it in his new book that's never coming out).

The debate should not be whether or not Bonds is on steroids - the debate should be how much his steroid use matters to you. And it doesn't matter at all to me. Because even if Bonds didn't juice, I would root against him simply because he's a jerk.

And that, I have proof of.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of Student Body Shots, which is available at www.SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@observationalhumor.com.

Last July 4th, I wrote a column about how America was an okay place to be. There's a lot of crap that has happened in the past year to make some people doubt that, but I still stand by my assertion.

Some people say they want to move - that Europe or Australia or anywhere but America would be better. But I like it here. So I will honor our country this July 4th by making fun of the crap that happened everywhere else this weekend.

Let's start with Finland, where 7,000 people watched two Estonian students win Finland's seventh annual wife-carrying world championship by carrying a woman 830 feet through a pool and over hurdles in just over a minute. The champions were pumped by the crowd who loudly cheered, "why the hell are we watching this?" Okay, so the crowd really enjoyed it. But a wife-carrying world championship? I guess there are rednecks everywhere.

There are also hookers everywhere, as evident in the new policy in which the Dutch government hands out "seals of quality" for better run brothels. I can just imagine the size of the line forming to inspect them. "I don't know, these hookers aren't as clean as the ones from the last brothel we had sex in."

And while strippers aren't always hookers, I felt this would be a good time for a lovely Canadian story that involved two "dancers" attacking a third at a strip club. According to the Associated Press, the two felt the dancer had a "snooty attitude." I haven't been in that many strip clubs, but isn't that kind of the point?

Speaking of strippers, a 55-year-old German sex therapist who has been repeatedly arrested for jogging nude was just fined $750. The man argued that being naked is his civil right. That's just weird - maybe he should see a sex therapist. Actually, this guy's strategy for drumming up business is brilliant. You know much erectile dysfunction he's causing just by jogging naked?

And here's a quaint erectile dysfunction story: South Korean police arrested a man and confiscated 3,000 phony Viagra pills. Which is too bad, because the guy would have been the toast of the cell block if those pills were real.

"Ah, geez - am I really getting paroled? We're busy!"

Authorities say that people should have been tipped off to the fake Viagra because of how cheap it was. I suggest that they also notice that someone is trying to sell them sex medicine out of the trunk of a Buick.

One thing that's not cheap is a scoop of mud from England's Glastonbury music festival. The mud sold for the equivalent of $890 US on eBay, birthing the new phrase, "dirt expensive." The mud was more expensive than the standard price for a scalped ticket, making the purchase a bit curious. And reinforcing the already birthed phrase, "dirt stupid." When asked what he'd do with all the money, the mud's auctioneer said he planned on inspecting some brothels.

I know, I know. There are plenty of dumb things that happen in America, too, but we've got 364 days a year to talk about that stuff. But for all my foreign readers, there is one American story from this weekend that bears mentioning.

As if the Florida election board wasn't made fun of enough already, a list of residents who couldn't vote due to their felony convictions was released this weekend. Almost 50,000 people on it never committed a crime, making authorities scramble to fix the error. However, many of the wrongly categorized citizens have not bothered to come forward and identify themselves, confessing, "we were just going to vote for Buchanan anyway." Which, if it happened, would probably make me move.

Happy July 4th, everybody. I'm going to go practice for next year's wife carrying championships.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of Student Body Shots, which is available at www.SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@observationalhumor.com.