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Angels Punching the Time Clock

A woman passed me really dangerously on the road the other day. As she careened past me, I saw a bumper sticker on her car that said, "Angels at Work." I immediately said out loud to myself, "Don't make your angels work so hard, lady."

Somewhere in the Suburbs

Somewhere in the suburbs, a family meeting is being held at which a father is making an important announcement:

"Children! Change of plans. We're getting your names legally changed. Now Marcia, you're going to be Jessica; and Jessica, you're going to be Marcia. No complaints. I've realized you're much more of a Marcia, Jessica; and you're much more of a Jessica, Marcia. Let me correct myself: I've realize you're much more of a Marcia, Marcia; and you're much more of a Jessica, Jessica. There. I'm fixing things. And as for you, Joseph, I can't legally remove your name, but as far as this family is concerned, from now on you have no name. When I say just, 'Hey,' and then pause, that means I'm referring to you. You are represented by the pause. Congratulations on your new names, girls, and on your lack of name, child without name. This family meeting is adjourned."

The Logical Conclusion of Meaninglessness

Because of the transition from spiritual to more secular thinking in Western society, more and more people think life is "meaningless." And then apparently what logically follows from that is, "Well, if life is meaningless, I might as well be a douche."

We Must Immediately Disrobe and Burn Our Bras

Somewhere in middle America, a large, hairy transvestite addresses a high school cheerleading practice via bullhorn from behind a chain-link fence:

"Let's all burn our bras. The Man will have finally won if we don't all take off our shirts and our bras, and then burn our bras. Or not burn them even, but at least take off our shirts and our bras, and just stand here looking angry-- I think that will get the point across. No, not angry. That's too obvious. I think more sultry, and pouty, and a little coy. The system hates pouty and coy women. And then let's burn our underwear -- or at least take them off and throw them up in a tree.

"I don't know, it does seem important that we set something on fire. We need to stand around here naked making a ruckus until we get puppies and rainbows the rights to vote.  God did not give us dominion over the puppies and rainbows so that they could not have equal rights. God is pro-rainbow suffrage. In puppy voting as in life, communication is key.  When you point at a name on the ballot, and the puppy wags its tail, you've got your answer.

 "On second thought, the puppies don't demand full voting rights, and we really shouldn't give them that -- that would be irresponsible. What we can allow them to do is fully determine the outcome of some of the smaller offices, school board posts and things like that. The rainbow should each get two votes, because since they are pure physical reality, they can see everything without bias.  They aren't caught up in the webs of profiteering prophets such as L. Ron Hubbard or Macho Man Randy Savage (no rainbow votes for him if he ever runs for geologic hazard abatement district director).

 "At the risk of sounding momentarily dispassionate and unfervent, one important note of caution: Though I am organizing this bra burning event, and I want nothing more than for us to get naked and start shouting as soon as possible, we must keep a tight leash on these rainbows as we usher them into full citizenship, or our entire civilization will spiral out of control.  As Albert Einstein once famously said (a quote later butchered by John F. Kennedy), 'Ask not what if a rainbow could talk, but if a rainbow could talk, how we would get it to shut up.'"

A Statistical Assessment of Statistical Correlation

According to a careful study of all scientific data ever collected, 94% of statistics have a high correlation to other statistics. Surprisingly, only 36% of statistics have been found to have a high correlation to themselves. Additionally, 63% of the time, correlation has been found not to correlate with itself.  Furthermore, the aforementioned statistics about statistics and correlation have an exactly average correlation to each other (a fact which esteemed statistician Rush Limbaugh describes as "haunting, like a black man speaking from an elevated position that is not a gallows").

Hummer Owner Myth-Busting

Myth 1: Aggressive driving by Hummer owners is, like the purchase of a Hummer, spiritually delusional and sociopathic.

Findings: The aggressiveness is just in line with the operating instructions, ie it exhibits mindfulness in the Zen Buddhist tradition. In the Hummer driver's manual, it says to use the vehicle to run over illegal immigrants, and that anyone who gets in one's way in an effort to find more illegal immigrants to run over should be treated as an enemy combatant. This attitude is not only patriotic but is also exemplary of the Hindu expression, "Namaste." 

Myth 2: All Hummer owners frequent S&M parlors.

Findings: The figure is actually 86%. This is the problem with stereotyping. Only 14% of Hummer owners don't know how to have a good time, and that shouldn't make all the others look like prudes.

Announcing My New Fitness Club and Cereal

The great thing about capitalism is seeing all of the exciting products and services out there, and then creating cheap imitations so you can have some of the market share, because you work hard and you deserve it. I have come up with a couple of cheap imitations lately. One is of a fitness place called Anytime Fitness, which of course is open 24 hours. My fitness place is called Anytime Except Now Fitness. As the name suggests, we are open at all times except right now. The other one is a cereal. I saw a cereal in the supermarket called Oats and More, so I created Oats and Less. It's a box that contains a combination of oats and nothing, with a focus on the nothing. The box contains a handful of oats and a large helping of 100% organic nothing, a substance so pure that scientists have not even been able to prove its existence, because it has no defining characteristics -- no taste, no smell, no texture, no physical structure, no sound -- and in other words is priceless. So we are clearly idiots to eat this stuff, but let's go ahead and do it anyway.

Furniture and My Love Life

With some men, women think, "Man, that guy is so confident. I bet he's great in bed." And with me, women think, "Man, that guy is so nervous. I bet he's great in a chair."

The Free Market Value of Deaf Children

We have more in common than we think with the poor countries that manufacture the stuff we buy at Wal-Mart. Here the sign says, "Deaf Children at Play." There, it says, "Deaf Children at Work." Either way, we have to be cautious so that we don't kill them -- here, because they have intrinsic value as human beings playing in the street; and there, because they have intrinsic value as industrial machines working in the child slavery sweatshop. Like Santa's elves, toiling hour after hour beatifically, deaf child slaves making mass-produced non-biodegradable goods for us remind us that smiling and laughter are understood universally. Though they could never hear me, I stroll through the aisles of Wal-Mart, humming "Jesus Loves the Little Children" in their honor, looking for a waffle iron.

Drunk Texting: Drag Race for a Cure

Sadly, drunk texting destroys more lives than drunk driving and driving while texting combined.  Join me -- blogger, sitter, eater, carrier, and socialite Kent Roberts -- and Mary Tyler Moore as we illegally drag race from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean so that our sponsor Sunoco (the official fuel of figuring things out via drag racing) can pour money into our research coffers.  We're pretty sure that the root cause of drunk texting is a combination of excessive alcohol intake and access to cell phone technology, but we will leave no stone unturned, and we will possibly kill various animals, people, and/or plants prior to meeting grisly ends ourselves.  Mary and I don't care.  We're too chock full of passion.  This has been an advertisement for Sunoco, the Official Fuel of Drag Racing for a Cure for Drunk Texting.