Mailing It In: Pat opens your letters

The mailbag has been overflowing, but I had lost my letter opener. Thankfully, I found it, and now I bring you another installment of "Mailing It In." In this edition, I answer your questions about my co-workers isolating me, ANOTHER of my predecessors, and my local TV crush.

I have been watching the WGN morning show for several months now and it's great but when are you going to start covering MMA in the sports segment? If ESPN does so can you! Tell Robin I said "How Youse Doin?"
- Drew Guthrie, Yorkville

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By MMA, you of course mean the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Perhaps ESPN covers the MMA because of its geographical proximity (the Worldwide Leader is based in CT). I will give it some consideration.

Now, concerning Robin, "Youse" is not proper grammar. There are not 2 Robins. If there were, "How Youse Doin?" would be perfectly acceptable. It's how I greet my family in New Jersey all the time. But until Robin multiplies, stick with "YOU."

"WEEZE DOING GOOD"

Pat, your are so funny, where do you hang out at? Why aren't there any other guys out there like you that are intelligent, good looking, and not crazy!
- Mia, Chicago

Wow, Mia, why is there only one Mona Lisa? Why did Michelangelo scuplt only one statue of David? Why did Mr Holland conduct only one opus? I don't know.

Where do I hang out? Tae kwan do clubs, pawn shops, Elks lodges, the normal spots for intelligent, good looking and not-crazy men.

Val continues to be a studdering idiot who cant get through one segment.
- John Doe, Plainfield

Whoa!!!! Hold on there! Val is my friend and I will not have you talk about her like that. She does not stutter.

This morning before you were doing the sports you were looking at a picture of Marion Brooks. Do you have a crush on her?
- Linda, Evanston

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Yes I do. It all started a few months back, when I saw her NBC5 blog entry about the hazards of nursing her newborn- NIPPLE CHAFFING! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! She's a firecracker, no doubt, but I always fall for women who stimulate me creatively. We're always trying to find new ways to make our own WGN blog more appealing, and that bit of brilliance inspired me.

Unfortunately, thus far, it's been a one-sided love affair.

Has anyone ever told you that you look like Gilbert Gottfried? I'm not sure if it's the voice, facial expressions or what, but you have a Gottfriedesque quality about you.
- Tara, Chicago

Are you serious?

I'll assume that you've watched our show more than once over the last 3 years, and that you've seen and heard that exact comparison from hundreds of our viewers before, and that you're writing me simply with the hope that I'll direct you to the bit that Gilbert and I did together on our show?????

Good. Here it is.

Since Paul and Larry are BFF's and even made a video of their excursions around town, did you feel neglected and left out? Do you want to talk about it? How did that make you feel?
- Lynn, Tinley Park

Technically, I wasn't left out- I was driving those two clowns around and buying them ice cream. Would I have liked to be included? Sure. I look AWESOME in a blue blazer and khakis, and everyone knows an ice cream cone is best when shared by three.

If Kurt the cyber guy is go good a being a cyber guy, why are the links he talks about not put on the web site until days later? Shouldn't he be entering it before he talks about in on the air?
- Lenny, Chicago

I don't pretend to know the ways of the Cyber Guy. Perhaps if he spent less time watching blog promos of Paul and I, he'd get more done (though I fully understand the lure of Cyber Pat and Cyber Paul). Perhaps Kurt is the Milli Vanilli of tech reporting? Think about it- how many computer geeks do you know with movie star looks like that?

Who was the dude that did sports for the morning news prior to Bill Weir?? I can't believe he succumbed to Good Morning America.... not that he was any good at sportscasting..... at lease you make it interesting and you also make your viewers wonder what will come out of your mouth next.
- Shari, Wheaton

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Not sure I'm following your note completely. Is the "he" in your second line referring to Bill Weir? Or the guy BEFORE Bill Weir? I don't know either one of them, so I can't answer that question, but I assume what probably lured them to Good Morning America was MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

Glad you enjoy my sports reports. I often don't know what will come out of my mouth next, either. Last week it was my gum.

Hi Pat, As always, I was watching the a.m. news today, and wondered if you, Larry, Robin, Val, Paul and Ana have ever had meltdowns. If so, I would be fun to see them.
- Sharon Sandberg, Chicago

That's fun to you, seeing other people suffer? You know, when we run clips of people falling, over and over again (and often in slow-motion), it's not for our enjoyment. It's to educate and inform YOU, the viewer. It doesn't make us happy to see people fall off ladders, or take a wiffle ball bat to the groin, or slip on a wet floor. Same thing for when our colleagues make mistakes- it hurts us to watch Bill O'Reilly have a stroke on camera, or listen to Pat O'Brien leave drunken, perverted ramblings on an answering machine. But we share them with you because it's NEWS. We're givers.

Are you married? If so why don't you wear a wedding band?
- Northside Irregulars, Chicago

Not yet. I'm still waiting for my very own cracked-nippled dream girl.