Breaking Brad: Tuesday, Jan. 17

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Brad Dickson's humor column, "Breaking Brad" appears daily on Omaha.com and in The World-Herald. To read more from Brad, check out his past columns at omaha.com/dickson and follow him on Twitter.

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* NASA confirmed that several heavy Mars rocks fell to the ground in Africa at speeds of thousands of miles per hour. Or, as we call that in Omaha, "hail."

* The group Bright Eyes just performed a secret concert in Omaha. Why is the Bright Eyes concert top secret in Omaha? You want to keep something a secret, don't tell anyone next time Selena Gomez performs.

* A New Jersey woman gave birth on the train to New York City this morning. Chances are her morning commute still went smoother than mine.

* Political watchers say there were some "mild distortions" during the GOP presidential debate in South Carolina. Just to clear the record: Mitt Romney was not piloting the Hindenburg when it crashed.

* Occupy Omaha just kicked off its 2012 slate of events. It was going to kick off things last week, but since the group is known for just taking up space, it may have been confused with the beginning of a new Nebraska Legislature session.

* Bob Kerrey will decide whether to run for U.S. Senate again after he thinks about the issues most important to Nebraskans. Unfortunately, he hung around the Nebraska Legislature, and now he thinks the issues most important to Nebraskans are eating horse meat and taxing Fresca.

* Jon Huntsman has dropped out of the presidential race. After hearing that, Iowa voters said in unison, "Who?"

* On Monday, Huntsman implied he was running low on endurance and resources and was quitting the race in the resort community of Myrtle Beach, S.C. Ironically, in the background during the press conference, President Obama and Joe Biden passed by in a golf cart.

* Rick Santorum called for increasing the U.S. birth rate. Then he introduced his running mate: Octomom.

* Santorum said, "Children are our greatest resource," proving he's never had one kicking his seat through an entire international red-eye flight.

* Some say that Mitt Romney is coming off like a wealthy elitist. Adding fuel to the fire, today he introduced his campaign slogan: "Champagne wishes and caviar dreams."

* President Obama just welcomed the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks to the White House. There was an ugly incident when Rick Perry showed up demanding to see Dirk Nowitzki's green card.

* It was a historic meeting between the most powerful man in the free world, Barack Obama, and the guy who thinks he's the most powerful man in the free world, Mark Cuban.

* Talk about irony. In the middle of the visit, former NBA star Latrell Sprewell just happened to show up with the new economic plan Obama asked Latrell to write for him.

* Nancy Pelosi called on President Obama to run for reelection on an "anti-Congress" platform. I think Roseanne Barr could be elected commander in chief running on an anti-Congress platform.

* We still don't know who won the Iowa caucuses. This is why Iowa votes first in the 2012 election: so we know the name of the winner by the 2016 election.

* The Nebraska Legislature is debating a bill that would require a photo ID to vote. Most surrounding states have a similar requirement to, except in Illinois, where you have to present a death certificate.

* Charges have been dropped against the owner of an Omaha Halloween haunted house who was accused of not obtaining a permit. The haunted house was shut down, which was a major inconvenience for Omahans because then they had only 9,874 other haunted houses to choose from.

* The justice department is probing a $3.6 billion Verizon deal. The probe was supposed to be launched six weeks ago, but because investigators have Verizon, the calls launching the investigation kept getting dropped.

* The New York Times mistakenly sent an email to 8.6 million subscribers urging them to sign up for home delivery. Executives said they just want to put this behind them and get back to their life's work of referring to heinous criminals as "Mister."

* At the Houston airport, a New York woman was caught trying to smuggle 3 pounds of cocaine in her checked luggage on a Continental flight. Actually, because she checked the cocaine on Continental, instead of New York, it ended up in Helena, Mont.

* A Florida community catering to retirees is trying to lure more nudists. There are two words I never like to see in the same sentence: "retirees" and "nudists."

* In Madison, Wis., a man arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia is named Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop. According to his Facebook profile, he's single, probably because it's tough finding someone willing to be Mrs. Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop.

* An anonymous benefactor has been going around paying off the layaway fees for Kmart customers. After he paid off one $150 layaway fee, the Kmart clerk told him, "For an extra 300 bucks you can have the entire store."

* Flight attendants on a Chinese airline delivered a baby that arrived ahead of schedule during the flight. Too bad this didn't happen on a U.S. airline. It'd be the first time anyone was ahead of schedule all year.

* Lady Gaga was photographed with her new boyfriend at his home in California. Gaga's new boyfriend is identified as an actor from "The Vampire Diaries." That's appropriate because Gaga is literally sucking the lifeblood out of Omaha.

* Rumor has Ryan Seacrest being named co-host of "The Today Show." That's only if Seacrest can squeeze it in between calling the Super Bowl, singing the national anthem at both national conventions and being new secretary general of the U.N.

* Creighton's Doug McDermott scored his 1,000th career point against Southern Illinois. If it was up to the people of Omaha, the game would've been stopped and he would have been presented with the deed to the Woodmen building.

* Iowa basketball coach Fran McCaffery angrily slammed a folding chair to the ground during a game. I'm proud to live in a state where the football coach screams at referees instead of engaging in a bare-knuckle brawl with a chair.

* A list is out of the 10 worst places in the world to visit. I really think the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl deserves better.

* Kelly Clarkson has been named to sing the national anthem before the Super Bowl. To try and top Christina Aguilera's performance from last year, Clarkson is vowing to learn almost half the words.

* CBS is trying to get Tim Tebow to be an in-studio analyst for the rest of the NFL playoffs. The network is pulling out all stops to lure Tebow. I just saw the CBS Eye and it was wearing eye black.

* The Disney family is attempting to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers. Just the chance this could mean seeing Tommy Lasorda in mouse ears is reason enough for the commissioner to quash the deal.

* Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander said he eats Taco Bell before all his starts. It doesn't help him pitch better, but it makes it less likely the manager will approach the mound for conferences.

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