Welcome to Friday and welcome to another edition of Caught My Eye! For those who are visiting for the first time, Caught My Eye is my weekly column where I take a look at some of the stories I did not have time to write about during the week – often with a little sarcasm.

Before we get started congratulations are in order because January is almost over! Let me put my feelings about January into terms that everyone can understand: It sucks. Cold. Snow. Ice. There are streets that still haven’t been plowed. There are potholes. And the most depressing thing is that football is ending.

February will be better!

OK, now that I have gotten that out of the way I want you to sit back with your favorite drink and enjoy this week’s column (it’s Friday so nothing much gets done anyway, right?).

Double Whoops:

Almost as often as the sun rises the Montana Democratic Party goes after Republican Congressman Denny Rehberg for something. It’s their job and since he’s the only elected state-wide Republican he gets their full attention. They write something negative and hit send. They probably giggle and then they write something else negative and hit send. It goes on and on and on.

This week they made an error when they sent an e-mail with the subject, “In Case You Missed It: Helena IR Calls our Rep. Dennis Rehberg.”

When I first read it I thought, “That’s nice that the Helena IR would call Rep. Rehberg.”

Maybe the “our” in the subject should have been “out” but then they sent another e-mail with the same subject, but this time it was about something else wrong they feel Rehberg did.

Then they sent a correction saying “We apologize for the mistake and any confusion it may have caused..”

The Montana Democratic Party has at least one staffer who worked for the Helena Independent Record. I am guessing that person was not an editor…

Getting Testy In Helena:

If you are following the Montana Legislative session in Helena you have probably noticed that after a couple of weeks, legislators are getting a little testy. It appears it’s not only the legislators that are getting a little testy, but reporters too.

Great Falls Tribune reporter John S. Adams wrote a 350+ word “manifesto” on his Tribune–sponsored blog about his pet peeve: the improper pronunciation of names by legislators of people who testify during committee hearings.

Wow. And to think my biggest pet peeve is reporters who have blogs…

Old-fashioned Fun:

To cut the tension in the Montana Legislature maybe they should just go and toilet paper one of their colleagues’ houses? They did this in Ohio. It got a laugh. It’s good to laugh…are you hearing me Montana Legislature?

Political Inbox:

Most of the political e-mails received this week were about the State of the Union address, so I won’t bore you with the details.

Favorite Line in a Newspaper:

The Great Falls Tribune published a story called “City ends incentives for golf employees” (it is not on-line). At the end of the story I found this line amusing, “Greens are locations on golf courses where grass is shorter and kept close-cropped, where a flag and hole are placed as targets for golfers to shoot at.”

I’ve played a little golf in my life and there were times when I wanted to shoot the flag, not to mention my putter. I routinely had thoughts of throwing my golf bag in the water hazard, too.

Word of the day: iDollator

This Canadian man takes dolls on vacation with him. Not little dolls, but life-sized dolls – 14 of them. He’s called an iDollator.

At least the cost of meals on vacation would be minimal…

Where Not to Stay:

“The bed was a nightmare. It smelled like urine and had strange spots.” This was just one of the comments about the top 10 dirtiest hotels. Read the whole story HERE.

Now I am starting to itch…

The Onion:

I love to catch up on the fake news on The Onion. The story, “Biden Invites Nation’s Women To Tax Code Discussion At Private Mountain Chalet” was pretty funny. Watch it HERE. The story about “Shirtless Biden Washes Trans Am In White House Driveway” is funny, too.

Twitter:

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Most Importantly:

Don’t forget to stretch…