If you are doing a Dr. Phil impression, you should be required to use the phrase “that dog just won’t hunt.”

It captures just enough of folksiness with a mix of cliche and lends itself to a southern accent. If you’re dispensing life advice, that’s exactly the tone you should be setting.

While I have been in conversations–usually with northerners–that feature a moment where the other party declares, “there’s the Virginia accent,” I definitely need to add a little extra to do a solid Dr. Phil. Though when it comes to the content of his message, apparently I have enough credibility already.

In a completely inexplicable trend that is conspiring to cost me great amounts of sleep, I have apparently become some sort of life-help guru, especially when it comes to relationships. In the past few months no fewer than four of my friends have come to me to talk about their significant others–either current, future or desired.

Maybe they just know I don’t sleep well and am probably likely one of the only people they know who will answer the phone at 2 a.m. Or maybe they have reviewed my sterling relationship history (ha!) and figure I clearly understand whatever issue is bothering them.

Hard to say.

I think the early hour of most of the calls has a lot to do with it; I’m not fully awake and thus they can just sort of talk themselves out while I keep conscious with an occasional question. It’s also possible that cliches exist for a reason. If you have heard something a hundred times maybe it has some truth to it. And if you have seen any of Dr. Phil’s work, you know that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, actions speak louder than words and two wrongs don’t make a right.

Now if only I could be asleep at midnight instead of posting a blog. I guess you could say my sleep tonight will be too little too late. I wonder if Dr. Phil can help with that.

The human body is an amazing thing.

It’s incredible how much we can learn about ourselves and how our body will react to certain situations. You can tell someone you’re a morning person because you know you jump right out of bed and aren’t often staying up until the wee hours of the morning. You know whether you’re a coffee drinker, or if you need to eat breakfast before work.

This past weekend I worked my first overnight shift in almost a year. Actually it was exactly 11 months to the day since I produced the 7 a.m. hour of The Morning Show, my last shift at WJXT. I had spent about 8 months on a schedule where I worked W/Th 4 a.m.-noon and 10 p.m.-10 a.m. on the weekends.

In that time I learned a lot about how my body deals with sleep–and the lack thereof. The Wednesday/Thursday shifts really weren’t that hard to adjust to. But the weekends were brutal.

I spent a lot of time trying to devise the perfect sleep strategy. I left work at noon on Thursday and had to be back at 10 p.m. Friday. That’s a tough flip of the schedule. I tried going to bed late Thursday so I could sleep in Friday. I tried going to bed early so I would be up extra early–and thus more able to nap.

Neither one of those seemed to make any difference. I tried running and not running–again no real difference. After a month or so it became clear that I wasn’t going to get much sleep on Fridays, so I pretty much stopped trying. It became a day devoted to doing as little as possible.

Because I was asleep during prime-time during the week, I had a DVR full of stuff I could watch. In the late afternoon I would try to get about an hour-long nap, or at least sit in my nicely darkened room. Even with the windows largely blocked, it’s still very unnatural to sleep when the sun is blaring outside.

Fortunately, I had an entire collection of VHS tapes I hadn’t seen in a long time (and a TV that doesn’t have connections for a DVD player). Relaxing to Apollo 13 or Renaissance Man became my Friday “sleep” routine.

During the shift itself, I discovered there are two distinct times that I can bet on feeling like I’m about to pass out–no matter what I’m doing. Between 11 p.m. and midnight, and again around 4-5 a.m., the eyelids get very, very heavy. But once I get through those points, it’s as if it’s 2 in the afternoon and I’m perfectly rested.

Of course there are other oddities that come with working those hours. I assure you I was the only one in my age bracket doing grocery shopping at 7 a.m. In fact, on more than one occasion, the checkout clerk basically asked me, “what are you doing here?”

The major perk to working back-to-back overnights and then having Mondays and Tuesdays off was the Sunday sleep schedule. I’d get home from the station sometime around 9:30 a.m. The routine was always the same–down a bowl of cereal and get in bed as soon as possible. Once the show went off the air, it was as if I could feel a ticking sleep bomb in my head and I better be near a bed when it went off.

But the key to the Sunday cycle is to only nap for about 4 hours. I wanted to be able to do something with the day and that was enough to get me through to the early evening. Then it’s back to bed for the most absolutely glorious night of sleep a person could ever in a million billion kajillion years enjoy.

It’s just past 4 a.m. on a Saturday.

Most people awake at this time are either really pissed off that they’re awake, or not exactly in a state where the time is all that important.

Me? I’m good. I got more than eight hours of sleep, slept several hours past when I normally get up and there was no alarm involved in my waking progress. Anyone can agree those three things make for a good morning.

After I got up I went into the kitchen to get a drink of water. I looked up at the microwave clock and noticed it read 3:42 a.m. I’ve lived here for two weeks now and looked at that clock dozens of times. But today was the first time I noticed it had the a.m./p.m. designation.

I think if you are awake enough to get yourself to the kitchen, there should be no question as to whether it’s a.m. or p.m. A few times in getting adjusted to my new schedule I’ve woken up in a semi-dark room and seen 6:04 staring back at me and panicked. I was hours late for work! Oh wait, I’ve only been asleep for an hour. Phew.

But if you make it all the way to the kitchen, your brain should be at a high enough state of alert to figure out which half of the day you’re stumbling through.

Maybe it should feature the day of the week, since it’s a lot easier to forget where you’re at on that piece of information.

Yesterday at work I really lucked out on where I was sitting. Well lucky in that if I had actually viewed a hilarious scene instead of just hearing it from behind me, I would have died from laughter.

There is a printer that was maybe 10 feet back over my left shoulder. I’m trying to write super serious news stories, and often there’s not much that can distract me from that task.

Until I heard: “Paper jam? Why does it say paper jam when there is no paper jam?!”

Office Space was not on TV. I don’t think the person who said those words has even seen Office Space. And yet, they nailed the quote so perfectly.

I glanced up at the half-dozen people who were in range to hear the magic words. Not one of them even blinked. I was so disappointed. But hey, as they say, “Them’s the rubs, kid.” Ok maybe they don’t say it, just guys named Lou The Wrench after I plead my case about owing his boss money and though he is on my side he still has to break my leg. I hate that guy.

October is Filipino-American Heritage Month. So if you haven’t celebrated the world of Filipino-Americans or told your favorite Filipino-American they are awesome, time is running out.

The fluorescent lightbulb was invented by a Filipino guy. So was the Yo-Yo. Say you’re bored at work, you could be sitting in the dark with nothing to do. But now, you can have your space filled with fluorescent light and amuse yourself with a Yo-Yo. Better recognize.