FOR THE LOVE OF CARNIVAL. NO MORE.

Don't get me wrong. I love king cake season. Anticipate it more than my birthday or opening day in baseball. But I couldn't be happier that it's over. The mere site of king cake at this point makes me a little nauseous.

When did I get my first king cake of the season? Opening day, of course. My last king cake? A couple days ago. I thought about going for one more before the season ended, but I just can't eat anymore. I'm out. Let's take a look at my breakdown.

Plain: 5.
Apple: 2.
Strawberry: 1.

All eight king cakes were medium, small goes to quick and large is too much for one person. Tina didn't eat a single piece of king cake. Once when Paul was over, he ate one piece. On one of the apples, it kind of went bad at the end, and I threw out the final two pieces. Other than that, I ate all eight king cakes (and even more than that when you count what I ate at work) by myself. Yawzer.

Speaking of opening day of baseball, I lined up my eight babies (shocking that I got them all) in the form of a baseball team, with two outfielders. The ninth one that I couldn't stomach would have provided a Fukudome in right. It's not like the Japanese are celebrating this week anyway. I pretended for this exercise that DeRosa was at second base. World Series, here we come.

My house wasn't the only place where king cake mania was running rampant. No. My house was small potatoes. The big dog was the T-P sports department, which went totally king cake crazy this season. Call it our stimulus package. (Damn it. That was lame. Stimulus references stopped being funny like before the first one was made. They should have added that into the package. Please don't use the word stimulus as an attempt at humor or to sound current with a promotion. It's just pathetic.)

D brought in this king cake Saturday from Antoine's. It's caramel topping with apple filling. If it was the beginning of king cake season, I might have had like three pieces. Instead, I took a tiny sliver. When D brought in this cake the first time, it was one of the most popular ones brought in for the season. Others included Mary's homemade strawberry and something Brick brought to kick off the madness one Saturday in January.

All told, the T-P sports department registered 15 king cakes this season. That's a lot of sugar. It might not sound like that much until you consider only 20 people ever work here at night. And several of those aren't here too often. Also add in that in the past three years, we maybe went through two king cakes total.

Overall, I was proud of both my effort in eating eight king cakes (no more sweets for a while) and the department's effort. We really honored the shit out of this particular tradition, except those folks who didn't claim the baby those three or four times.

Next thing you know we'll have a Super Bowl pool in 2010.

THE TINA CURSING CORNER

My mom is trying to recall when she bought the last king cake. She got it when she went to the dentist. "Tuesday. Wednesday. I can't remember. I go to the dentist every fucking day." Mom then explains what happened on that visit. "I went there last week, and he did some bullshit. Now, it hurts again, and it's not fucking right. I got to go back Monday."

Mom likes my CP3 sweatshirt. She didn't like my previous sweater. "I bought it to replace that old worn out fucking thing."

Mom is making grits. "I was watching some of My Cousin Vinny the other day. They say it takes 20 minutes to make grits. That's bullshit. More like 30." Mom also is making biscuits. "Oh, no. Did I burn them? Yup. Motherfuck."

Mom had a scary moment Friday when she almost lost her most expensive earring. "I'd like to fucking die. It could be anywhere. I just finished cleaning the whole house. The tears are starting to come. I sit on the couch, and I see it on the floor. How lucky is that? I don't know how the fuck it came off. It's not suppose to come off."

Mom wants to clean out my closet. "We need to get rid of some of this shit. You wear the same shirts over and over. The rest of the shit needs to go. I'm getting rid of mine, too. Come May, it's either keep, give away or throw away the shit."

I don't know what she was referring to because I was in the other room. "No, I didn't. Did I just fucking do that?"

Randomly: "Do you give a shit about anyone but yourself?"

TV.
1) Lost. Final episode of Season 1. "I wouldn't get on the boat. Ain't nothing but fucking water."
2)The new disc of Six Feet Under from Netflix doesn't work. "I can't miss this disc. It's the second-to-last disc ever. All kind of shit is happening."

PARTING SHOT
D and Marcus are chatting it up.

Marcus: I think I might run. You think I have a shot?
D: At jogging?
Marcus: No. Run for office.
D: Oh. You might have a shot at that.

THE DAILY TOP LIST
Hello. And welcome to Movie Phone.

90) Se7en. 1995.
Just because the fucker's got a library card doesn't make him Yoda.

89) Jumanji. 1995.
Never play a board game that doesn't come from the store.

88) Miss Congeniality. 2000.
I like April 25th, too.

87) Life. 1999.
You gon' eat yo' cornbread?

86) Die Hard: With a Vengeance. 1995.
Love the riddle with the water jugs.