The grandkids are visiting and have been here for almost a week, so any attempts at writing even a semi-serious blog have been totally wasted efforts.  I would much rather be with my darlings anyway, but in order to keep my standing as a weekly blog columnist (something only I, apparently, care about) I pulled this out of the cyber-drawer where it's been sitting for a while.  If you weren't expecting much, this should do it for you.  I'm off now.  See you soon.

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When the whole SOPA/PIPA blackout was going on, most of us, like the sheeple we are, just grabbed something someone else did and closed up shop,  but The Oatmeal, like the creative peeple they are, got creative.  You can see it here.

Carlsberg Beer, like the creative peeple they are, (I didn't know that about Carlsberg, did you?) pulled a stunt involving tattooed bikers in a movie theater.  You can watch it here.
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Yes, it's FRIDAY FOLLIES!  I know, it's been a while, and I keep getting requests to bring it back so here it is.  (Two requests so far, one of them a relative, but still. . .)  I have no explanation for why I've neglected it for so long.  I could say I just wasn't feeling it but that's so unprofessional. [Read more]

I'm not one to laugh at the plight of others, especially at elderly ladies whose family makes a request for meals on wheels, and I'm certainly not going to do it now, but can I at least laugh at the picture in my mind of people delivering those charity meals to limousines that will then whisk them off to a millionaire's mansion?
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Bob Dalrymple and his girlfriend, Kathy Neal, are leaving Michigan and heading for Colorado, because, Bob says, the economy's suffering, the winters in Michigan are too cold and it's time for adventure.  He wants to go someplace warm.  That's what he says.  His two kids live in Colorado, but apparently they've neglected to tell him there's a reason crowds of retired Snowbirds aren't descending on the Centennial State.  It's snowy and blustery and cold there in the winter!
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WARNING:  Hot graven images ahead.  Turn back if you believe Jesus' image on toast should remain a miracle and not be used as a promotion by clever, sacrilegious Vermonters for a Made in China toaster.  (It's International Blasphemy Rights Day today but I swear I didn't know that when I chose this segment.  Not that I'm not okay with it.  I am.)
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I can't believe it's not butter!  In Wisconsin there is a law on the books that forbids restaurants, schools, hospitals and prisons from serving margarine instead of butter.  This weaker version of a 1897 law has been on the dairy state's books for 44 years but most restaurants can get around it, since the interpretation of the law these days is that if a customer asks for margarine it's okay to give it to them.  No mention of how the margarine is delivered to table -- in plain sight or disguised as something else.  (The bovine version of "Don't ask, don't tell".) [Read more]

This is the start of the Labor Day weekend.  We've been celebrating Labor Day since 1882,  an amazing feat considering all those bastards throughout these long years who would like to strike from our memories the fact that it was labor unions who started the whole thing. 

Lately it has become not much more than the last weekend of the summer to go out and get recreational, and on the face of it, that's a good thing.  All work and no play and all that.  But can we just take a moment this weekend to celebrate the movement that is Labor in our country?  [Read more]

How jealous are we of that lavish, over-the-top Royal Wedding the Brits got to celebrate this year?  So pathetically jealous we had to pretend we're capable of having one of our own by latching onto the lavish, over-the-top Kim Kardashian-Kris Humphries wedding. [Read more]

A few weeks ago, when I wrote about the Bulwer-Lytton contest for the worst first sentence of a novel, I had no idea there was actually a worst novel in the world, too.  The consensus, from what little research I've done on the subject, is that Amanda McKittrick Ros is the author who wins, hands down.  (A literary group that included Tolkien and C.S. [Read more]

Michele Bachmann was on Newsweek's cover this week and editor Tina Brown swears to all who will listen that Bachmann's bizarre cross-eyed skyward gaze was meant only to "capture her intensity".  About the crossed-eyes, Tina says she doesn't see it.  She honestly doesn't know what all the fuss is about.  (Cough, choke, gasp, gag.) [Read more]

 All alone, I'm so all alone...  When the Sarah Palin docudromedy "The Undefeated" debuted last week, Conor Friedersdorf happened to be visiting his parents in All Red All the Time Orange County.  He went to see the Sarah movie hoping to interview Sarah fans to find out what the hell they're thinking.  Except he didn't find any.  In fact, he didn't find anyone at all--hardly.  He wrote about it in the Atlantic and -- I don't know -- I just wanted to cry.  I mean, an entire movie about Sarah Palin and even the O [Read more]

I guess you've heard that the Orlando police have been busy arresting people from Orlando Food, not Bombs who have been busy feeding the hungry and the homeless in the city's public parks.  That was a big story in itself, but the even bigger story was that, among the protesters, there was one lone supporter of the police.  He prefers to remain anonymous, but he's pretty clear about why he's supporting them (watch the video from Raws [Read more]

 Happy Canada Day (formerly Dominion Day), July 1, and Happy Fourth of July (formerly Independence Day), July 4.  Both days celebrate independence from Great Britain, the only difference being we dropped the Brits in 1776 and the Provinces to the North went on bitching about them until 1982.
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Rachel Maddow, dear-heart, I'm begging you--never, ever do beat poetry at the bongo drum AGAIN!  Gawd!  That was painful! I'm telling you, it was excruciating!  I love you truly but that was just gawdawful.  Really.
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I've always dreamed of someday meeting the Dalai Lama (hasn't everybody?); sitting down with him, picking his brain, asking him the questions of the day:  What do you think about war and famine and global warming?  If I knew I was actually going to have the chance, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be working up a joke to tell him.  But then I'm not Australian anchor Karl Stefanovic, who had been saving his best joke (I'm guessing) for his best interview ever only to find it painfully lost, in translation and everywhere else.  Watch this.

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Sarah Palin knows her history.  It's our history that throws her.  Go ahead and laugh if you want to. Sarah still says Paul Revere was warning the British, and if you can't figure out why, it's your problem not hers.  People who like her (or maybe it was people whose bread she butters) even tried to change the Revere story on Wikipedia to more closely reflect Palin's version.  It didn't happen, but it doesn't matter.  She's just so darned cute, idn't she? Golly.

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We were all a-twitter last week by the big news that a close-up photo of a suggestive section of a pair of gray jockey shorts was sent to a young follower from Rep. Anthony Weiner's Twitter page.  Weiner denies sending the Tweet but seems reluctant to answer the question:  Boxers or briefs?  Yours or Andrew Breitbart's?  Weiner jokes abound.  Weiner snarls.  The Right Wing breaks out the champagne, pours it over Breitbart's head.  Yee Haw!  Done and DONE!
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 After months of building up to this, on Wednesday Oprah Winfrey said goodbye to her still-huge audience and ended her daytime show. I watched a re-run of her final show last night.  I got through the whole thing and I have to say, it was as dreadful as I hoped it wouldn't be.  Oprah is big, I get that, but a whole hour of watching Oprah congratulating Oprah on her huge success -- well, it made it so much easier to say ho-hum.  (It's not like Oprah is leaving for good to take up knitting or to finally marry Stedman.  She has her OWN network, for God's sake.  She's Oprah.  You really think she's going to stay behind the scenes? [Read more]