Thursday Morning Monologue - January 5, 2011

Good morning, friends! Doing anything inappropriate today? Sure hope so. You can start by laughing inappropriately loudly at these jokes and sending them to an inappropriate number of your friends. Commence enjoyment!

In Florida, a boy was hit by bullets shot into the air in celebration on New Year's Eve. He survived, and is recuperating in a local hospital, and doctors said yesterday that his condition is improving. Now, this is good news, Florida, but please resist the urge to celebrate it by firing wildly into the air.

Chinese television stations were ordered by the government to cut their entertainment programming by two thirds. They plan to fill the empty time with episodes of Whitney.

Marine biologists discovered a new species of sea crab, which has been dubbed "The Hoff" because of its hairy chest and its inexplicable popularity among Germans.

In Utah, a woman arrested for shoplifting claimed to be one of the "Cosby kids" from The Cosby Show. Authorities doubted her story, however, when they realized she was white.

Starbucks is raising its prices by 1% in certain parts of the country. I can't help feeling that this is somehow tied in with Occupy Wall Street. If it is, screw those hippies for making my soy chai latte marginally more expensive!

In political news, Rick Santorum lost the Iowa caucus by 8 votes, or .42 Duggars.

And Michele Bachmann, who finished in sixth place, is dropping out of the race. She explained, "If I can't win over assholes like Iowa Republicans, then I've got no business running."

And finally, Google is in trouble for reportedly paying bloggers to create pro-Chrome blog posts to raise the web browser's profile, which is ridiculous. Google Chrome is so intuitive, user-friendly, stable and feature-packed that it doesn't need any help getting publicity. It's just that good! Seriously.

Sorry, but I really need the money for chai.

And that's all for me this week! Spencer takes over tomorrow, and I'll be back on Monday. Till then, have a series of great days!

Tuesday Morning Monologue - January 3, 2012

Not a lot of news so far this year. Maybe Iowa will be interesting. Until then, enjoy these scraps!

In San Diego, a prisoner stole a firetruck as part of an escape plan on Sunday. Fortunately he didn't get away, because the city couldn't afford to keep any gas in the truck.

In television news, the Duggar family, stars of 19 and Counting, announced their support for Rick Santorum for president, doubling his supporters.

Speaking of families, a 100 year-old woman was reunited this weekend with her daughter after 77 years. She'd been trying to contact her daughter for years, but she unfortunately is on the AT&T network.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said he is ready for new era in relations between North and South Korea. He's also ready for dinosaurs to come back and humans to learn how to fly.

Russel Brand is divorcing Katy Perry. Apparently he finally got around to listening to her music.

Speaking of music, "Can't Get You Out of My Head" was named the "most-played" song of the aughts. Or at least it felt like it.

Rupert Murdoch started using Twitter this week, although no one has the heart to tell him he doesn't own it yet.

And finally, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has come under attack from conservatives for endorsing Mitt Romney. Said one Tea Party operative, "when we supported her election campaign, it was under the assumption that she would not be using her own mind in any capacity. Like Rick Perry."

And that's all. More tomorrow, promise!

Monday Morning Monologue - November 28, 2011

Vacation's over. Back to work. Happy Monday, or whatever. Did anyone else have to buy new pants this weekend? Anyway, here's some jokes to get your stuffing-filled bellies jiggling.

The Arab League voted to level sanctions against Syria yesterday, making them ineligible for this year's Arab Bowl.

In America, cities are spending millions of dollars to fund police department operations to clear out Occupy Wall Street protest camps while cutting funding to homeless shelters. Wait a minute, I think I just figured out the budget crisis.

New Hampshire's leading conservative newspaper, The Union Leader, called Mitt Romney the "perfect President for the 19th century." A confused Romney thanked The Union Leader for their endorsement.

Speaking of endorsements, The Union Leader actually did endorse Newt Gingrich. Which had nothing to do with the full page ad purchased by Tiffany and Co. on page C-2.

A high school student in Kansas was punished recently for tweeting that she thought Gov. Sam Brownback "sucked." The controversial tweet was seen by the girl's 60 followers, or in Kansas terms: an entire Congressional District. In a related story, the Governor's office contacted the school about the tweet because, as it turns out, the Governor is a big crybaby.

In Florida, three employees of a septic tank company are facing jail time for tricking customers into purchasing a special kind of toilet paper. Add that to the list of Worst Reasons to Go to Jail. I bet they feel pretty... badly about that. Thought I was going to say "shitty," right? Well, not this time.

NBC apologized last week for playing "Lyin' Ass Bitch" during Michele Bachmann's visit to Late Night with Jiummy Fallon, but have remained strangely silent on the issue of Whitney. Come on, NBC. America is waiting.

And finally, Rick Santorum went on the record at Tuesday's debate in support of religious profiling of Muslims by law enforcement. It's part of Santorum's efforts to sew up the bigot vote. Go get 'em, Rick!

And that's the end. More tomorrow, I promise. Until then, have a great day!

Tuesday Morning Monologue - June 7, 2011

No banter today. Because I feel that it slows down the pace of the blog, and doesn't really add anything to the piece. It's just sort of there, like something you have to get through to get to the stuff you really wanted to see. The jokes, right? There's some of them here. And we'll get to them, but first I just wanted to reiterate how I felt about the banter, and how it is sometimes useless. I feel that banter is unnecessary in this day and age. Okay, let's have humor.

Plaxico Burress got out of prison yesterday. His right thigh has already applied for a restraining order.

Former Senator Rick Santorum announced he will be running for the GOP presidential nomination, which is awesome news for people who hate bigots and love the Google search engine. Santorum said he was "in it to win it," but I'd say his chances are pretty crappy. Seriously, Google this freak.

In political news, one of President Obama's nominees for the Federal Reserve, Nobel Laureate Peter Diamond, bowed out after facing stiff opposition from the GOP. Apparently there's a policy against hiring anyone who actually understands what the place is supposed to do. My gym is the same way.

Hey, have you heard about Lady Gaga? Her new album Born This Way was just banned from going on sale in Lebanon. Don't worry, you can still steal it on Limewire.

In France, television personalities will now cease mentioning Twitter or Facebook by name on the air, as it is considered to be an unfair advantage to those companies over smaller, startup social networking sites. Yep, that should even it up.

Speaking of staying even, Sarah Palin claims that she didn't mess up the history of Paul Revere in a recent interview. Of course, she's also claiming that she didn't mess up John McCain's 2008 campaign. So, there's that.

An auction this week brought in $200 for an old pair of Bernie Maddoff's underwear. The buyer was interested to see what kind of underpants you wear when you screw millions of people. Also, what he used to keep in that underwear just sold in prison for significantly less than $200.

And lastly, elder stateswoman of Hollywood Reese Witherspoon, went off on the new generation of starlets in Hollywood who use sex tapes and reality shows to get famous. She made this speech at the MTV Movie Awards, so good luck with that. In a follow up statement, she also demanded that all those kids get off her lawn. SHE'S OLD NOW!

Okay, that's it. See you on Wednesday! Remember your sunblock, friends, and have a great day!

Thursday Morning Monologue - May 19, 2011

Uh, it's Thursday. I don't know what to say. Maybe something about boxer shorts and late 90s girl rock... we'll go with Dar Williams this time. I don't know. Kinda running out of words. Okay, let's just get to the jokes.

So, the ever classy Queen of England is visiting Ireland, for some reason, and stopped by the scene of the "Bloody Sunday" uprising to lay a wreath in memory of the people who were killed while trying to free themselves from her family. Class act, Mum. In addition to the Bloody Sunday trip, the Queen is planning to visit Joshua Tree and some place where the streets have no name. She refused, however, to see Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark.

Speaking of dead horses I can't stop beating, former Senator Rick Santorum said this week that Senator John McCain, who was tortured for five years by Viet Cong interrogators, doesn't understand interrogation. That's just ridiculous. That would be like John McCain saying that Santorum doesn't understand shit.

Let's class it back up a bit, and talk about the Royal Wedding again. Because why not? So, there's an auction online to raise money for charity by selling off things the royals touched or wore at the wedding, because they are as gods among us, and we shall pray upon their relics. Bidding has been brisk, and in fact the hat that Princess Beatrice wore, the one that looks like a weirdly comfortable toilet seat, is up to $30,000. So, you can pay thirty grand for the original, or you can buy a cheap knock off this summer... in the bathroom fixtures section of Home Depot.

In other auction news, an auction started this week to sell off all the Unabomber's old stuff to raise money for his victims and their families. And just to piss him off even further, the auction is only online.

Do you like art? Do you love it? Do you love it? Hmm? Well, a new study shows that looking at art gives people the same pleasure as being in love. Incidentally, this study was conducted by the Spinster Institute: "leading the charge on love-replacement technology." So now, you can safely say that if someone doesn't get modern art, they're probably no good in bed. Is that right? I'm not a doctor.

Speaking of doctors, the CDC offered tips this week on how to survive a zombie apocalypse. Good to know they've got that whole heart-disease-diabetes-AIDS-cancer-tuberculosis-other-cancer-herpes thing taken care of, so now they can protect us from make-believe diseases. Hey, maybe next week they'll issue tips on how to survive boogie fever. I think it's going around.

Speaking of going around, Saif al-Adel was the last to say "not it" and is now the interim leader of Al Qaeda. Might want to start your exit strategy now, Saif. The notorious organization of international bastards is having trouble finding a new leader, for some reason, and they're not getting any good hits off their Monster.com job posting. Perhaps they should remove the "70 virgins" bit from the compensation package. It makes them sound desperate...

Lastly, producers of the new The Great Gatsby film found a replacement for Ben Affleck. This is good news, of course, but they did have a backup plan: film the rest of his scenes with a sack of potatoes, and see if anyone notices. Oh, is that not fair? You watch The Town and tell me if half of those scenes wouldn't have been better off with 30 pounds of Idaho Russets instead.

Hmm. Potatoes sound good. Have you had a potato today? You go have one, unless you're allergic or avoiding carbs, and come see us again tomorrow. Spencer and Earnest will be joking it up, and I'll be back on Monday. Just you wait. You'll see!

Until then, have a great day!

Wednesday Morning Monologue - May 11, 2011

It's already Wednesday, and I'm still excited about my new boxer shorts. And just so you know, I'm open to the possibility of a celebrity endorsement deal, despite my lack of celebrity. I guess what I'm saying is, I want to be an underwear model. That's normal, right? Okay, enough of my banter.

There was big news in the Internet yesterday. Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion, making it by far the most expensive cell phone plan in history. Already, Steve Ballmer is planning to work his Zune magic on the popular service, saying in a conference call "this thing doesn't crash nearly often enough! And where are the viruses?!" See, he makes odd choices with new products sometimes. Maybe he'll spend seven years trying to make Skype compatible with the Kin.

Speaking of kin, former royal person Sarah Ferguson said she felt snubbed when she didn't get an invitation to the royal wedding last week. "Seriously," she said, "who do you have to bone to get an invitation to that thing? Oh, right. Anybody else available?" Serious inquiries only, fellas... and ladies.

Speaking of competition, The Voice is bringing former television network NBC some great ratings this season. The main reason for its success? Jeff Zucker hasn't heard about it yet. Boom! He's the Steve Ballmer of television. Okay.

In sadder news, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver are splitting up after 25 years of marriage. My heart goes out to them both, and this is a terribly sad occasion. And although she's too classy to admit it, I bet this is because of that stupid cameo he did in The Expendables. I mean, come on, bad things deserve to happen to a guy who does something like that. Oh, and lending his likeness to Terminator: Salvation! He did that, right? I don't know, I didn't see it. Regardless, the point is, the man is a monster.

Speaking of monsters, party officials in North Korea are ramping up agricultural production... of heroin. That's right. Heroin. It makes a certain kind of sense, considering the entire country is so starving that they all look like heroin addicts. Actually, it's probably part of their secret plan: "Operation Batshit Crazy." Next up, we'll probably hear that Kim Jong Il was crushed underneath a horse wearing Victoria's Secret lingerie. I can't wait to hear the McLaughlin Group discuss that one.

In other international news, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was digitally removed from a photograph of the White House staff when the photo ran in a Hasidic newspaper this week. Hey, good job fighting the "they control the media" stereotype, guys. (ha ha, just kidding, you mensches)

In other bigotry news, former (thankfully) Senator Rick Santorum won a GOP presidential poll in South Carolina this weekend. One local pundit explained the win by saying "he's about the caliber of politician we're used to in South Carolina. Heck, he's awful enough to be our governor."

And lastly, a recent national poll revealed that more than half of Republican voters are unsure that President Obama was born in America, despite the fact that he was clearly born in America. Over fifty percent of Republican voters... Fortunately, they're still American voters, so they probably don't vote. Patrick Henry must feel like a total tool right about now.

Okay, that's it for the blog, but we've got a great day planned for you, and we'll be making fun of it tomorrow. Did you tell your friends? You should, they've got too much time on their hands. Anyway, we'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day until then!

Wednesday Morning Monologue - May 4, 2011

Welcome to Wednesday, the day that's spelled like it doesn't sound. What a dumb day. Let's pretend it's Whensday. That sounds better, right? Oh, who cares. We've got jokes!

In political news, Rick Santorum formed a Presidential exploratory committee for 2012. Already they've determined his biggest obstacle will be overcoming the fact that he's a total tool.

In other shitty idea news, Jerry Spring announced he's going to take on Donald Trump and run for President. Someone needs to explain to both of these guys the pay cut they're in for. Oh, and also that they're both horribly unqualified for the job.

On Broadway, the new musical from Matt Stone and Trey Parker, The Book of Mormon, leads this season's Tony Awards with 14 nominations for songs which can never be played on network television. Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, despite not officially opening, picked up special nominations for most dangerous play and stupidest name.

Archaeologists and astronomers reported this week that the Mayan calendar, and its "prediction" of an impending apocalypse, may be off by 50 years or more. Also, it may be completely made up.

In California, former comedian Andy Dick got arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct at a Marie Calendar restaurant in a clear sign his career isn't completely over. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

In Washington, a statue of President Gerald Ford was unveiled at the Capitol building. It promptly fell over. We miss you, Gerry.

In other political news, Prince Charles in in America on and official visit, for some reason. He's not getting married, so no one really cares.

And lastly, YouTube is preparing to offer premium movie rentals, which will face stiff competition from the pirated versions that have already been uploaded.

That's all. Hope you enjoyed it! Tell your friends, and come see us again tomorrow. Until then, have a great day!

Monday Morning Monologue - April 25, 2011

Okay, Monday. I don't like you, and you don't like me. So let's get this over with and go our separate ways. I wonder how many blind dates this week will at some point include that sentiment.

In Washington State, high school janitor Tyrone Curry donated $40,000 to the school to complete a new race track for the students. In his honor, the cafeteria will now serve Tyrone Curry Chicken every Tuesday.  In a related story, Mr. Curry will now be teaching Economics at the school, or as it will be known in the classes, "Tyron-omics."

In his Easter sermon this weekend, Pope Benedict turned the power of the Papacy to events in Africa, and urged for diplomacy in Libya to end the violence. This is great news, as things have always improved for Africans once Europeans decide to get involved their lives. Oh, and how's that whole AIDS vs. Condoms thing working out?

A new museum, called MoMath, is being planned for New York. The goal of the organization is to encourage math appreciation among visitors. A spokesman for the organization said "hey, you guys! Let me out of this locker! And gimme back my underpants! Come on!"

In Afghanistan, local authorities are stepping up efforts to curtail the illegal trade in stolen and fake police uniforms. At least, they said they were local authorities...

In politics, GOP Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said this weekend that he still regrets voting for the extension of Medicare Part D benefits, as that vote makes it harder for voters to take him seriously when talking about reducing the deficit. Also making it harder for voters to take him seriously: Google.

Elsewhere in politics, Sen. James Coburn (R-OK) said that he was in favor increasing government fundraising through the closing of existing tax loopholes. The Senator assured his supporters, however, that "despite supporting this clearly logical position, I am still as batshit crazy as ever."

In entertainment news, television personality and host of X Factor, Simon Cowell, responded this weekend to rumors that Paula Abdul would be a guest star on the program. He clarified by saying "Paula Abdul will not be a judge on X Factor. What I actually said was, all the X she's on will be a factor in Paula Abdul's judgment. She likes pills, people! Why are we not staging an intervention!"

And lastly, a small plane filled with cocaine crashed into a New Mexico lake this weekend. Local authorities became suspicious when they noticed that fish in the lake would not stop talking.

That's it. Take it for what it's worth. See you tomorrow, and hope you have a great day!

Thursday Morning Monologue - March 31, 2011

Let's see what happened in the last 24 hours that we can make fun of.

The animal rights group PETA recently announced a contest to give away a free vasectomy to a human. Unfortunately, you can't nominate other people for the prize. You win this round, Larry King.

This year has so far seen a boom in the number of documentaries coming from the Peoples Republic of China. At least we think they're documentaries. It's hard to tell with all the audio bleeped out and black bars over every shot.

Unlikely celebrity Paris Hilton recently said in an interview "I'm no diva." That's true. Divas can sing.

In Las Vegas, hotel and casino promoters are embracing the city's mob roots with special attractions and theme restaurants recalling the fashion and spirit of the city's sordid past. Are you listening, Berlin?

Former Senator and human rights advocate Rick Santorum said that his daughter's health will be a large factor in his decision to whether to run for president. Another big factor? Try to Google him.

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner said in an interview recently that he is unwilling to increase the amount of product placement in the popular cable series. Did he forget to mention it's about an advertising agency? One thing they're not selling: self-awareness.

In New Jersey, a woman is suing her plastic surgeon after her last surgery left her unable to close her eyes. What's even worse? She's still got crows' feet.

In Chicago a pool hall was cited for serving a beer to a 12 year old. Also, he ordered a draft and got a can. That's just wrong.

And that's just it for me this week! Spread the word, and come back for Friday's with Spencer and Earnest's Weekend Monologue on Sunday. Saturday you can sleep in.

Have a great day!