Minimum Wage Reality Check

[High Praise! to Hope n’ Change Cartoons]

The president made a point of saying that support for a higher minimum wage (as well as an extension of “emergency” unemployment benefits) “benefit all of us, because we don’t know when we might have a run of bad luck.”

Only it’s not a run of bad luck that is forcing people into poorly-paying part time jobs. It’s a run of bad governance.

If The Swedish Chef Had a Reality Cooking Show

I hate reality cooking shows. They try to make it seem like heating ingredients & swearing a lot make meal preparation into some kind of skiing-down-a-mountainside extreme sport, but… it’s still just bringing food to serving temperature.

And really, what’s the point of watching someone cook if you can’t smell or taste what they’re cooking?

Nevertheless, I do find Gordon Ramsay mildly entertaining, and it’s fun to watch him go head to head with the Swedish Chef.


[YouTube direct link] (Viewer #152,899)

What I *really* want to see, though, is that concept show they tease at the end.

California Priorities

Despite the state’s financial woes, the California legislature gave itself a 5% pay raise.

Yup, they’ll have the fanciest deck chairs on the Titanic.

I Never Thought of It Like This

[High Praise! to Very Demotivational]

Ok, which is worse – Jar Jar or sparkling vampires?

Show your work

Link of the Day: Satire – ObamaCare Website Glitch Causes VP Biden to Vanish

[High Praise! to The People’s Cube]

ObamaCare Website Glitch Causes VP Biden to Vanish

[Think you have a link that’s IMAO-worthy? Send it to harvolson@gmail.com. If I use your link, you will receive High Praise! (assuming you remember to put your name in the email)]

Wisdom of the Day: Santa Doubles Type Selfie Twitter Shaking Marriages

Be Sure to Click Like!

Concerned for customer privacy, a Seattle restaurant asked a customer to leave because he was wearing Google Glass.

And – true story – they posted about it on Facebook.

You’ve Been Judged!

Anonymiss of Nuking Politics picked her favorite punchlines to “A New Study Shows That People Who Ignore Texts Are Happier. Other Keys to Happiness…

Click here to see if you made the cut.

If you did, you should probably email Keln about becoming a guest blogger there.

If you didn’t, Anonymiss has got another straight line for you to practice on.

Keep trying. No one likes a quitter.

Obama Warned Us – Education

Every single one of you has something that you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

BARACK OBAMA, National Address to America’s Schoolchildren, Sep. 8, 2009

“Although mostly it’s about paychecks & benefits for incompetent, unfirable teachers.”

Frank Writing Update

So, just wanted to give you all an update on what I’ve been doing as I feel like I’ve been blogging quite a bit less and haven’t been doing columns as often as I used to. Anyway, I just finished the manuscript for my next humor book for HarperCollins. It should come out next year — though I don’t know when yet — and will be available in print in addition to ebook. So it will be my first print book by an actual publisher… I’ll be like a real author. So look forward to that.

My big focus for a while, though, has been to finally break into fiction. Actually, you may have noticed a lot of my political commentary is just making stuff up, as that’s my favorite thing to do. Anyway, as I mentioned some time ago I wrote a full novel version of Superego and submitted that, and I still have good hopes of it getting a traditional publisher… it’s just moving slower than I thought. Being someone who is used to writing something in the morning and getting feedback by the afternoon, the publishing world moves quite a bit slower than I was prepared for. But hopefully I will get word on that soon. Also, I have a humorous short story which in the next month or two should get published.

And, I just finished a third draft on a new novel and am looking to get more opinions on it. Anyone interested in giving it a look? I’ve included the first chapter here to give a feel for it; it’s more lighthearted than Superego, though still not quite what I’d call a comedy. If you want to be a beta reader, just say so in the comments and make sure to fill in the email part of the comment form with an actual email, and I will get back to you. I’m looking for upstanding, trustworthy people, so no regular commenters (just kidding).

Anyway, here is the first chapter of my novel tentatively titled “The Clearing” as I haven’t thought of anything better yet:

Continue reading ‘Frank Writing Update’ »

A Washington DC Christmas Carol – Part 1

[Barack is leaving the White House Christmas party early]

Barack: Merry Chriskwanzakah, dudes.  I got to go sleep this one off.

 Joe: You totally can’t say that, dude.  It’s offensive.  You totally left out the Muslims.

 Barack: It’s not my fault we don’t celebrate Ramalamadingdong in December this year.  Stupid lunar calendar.  I’m going to bed.  Later, dude.

[Stumbles into his bedroom to find the ghost of Nelson Mandela waiting impatiently for him]

Nelson (in a moaning voice): Barack Obama……

Barack: Cha!  Dude, you aren’t real, dude.  You’re like, a spot of undigested beef or that crapload of blue meth I just like totally did.

Nelson: I am most certainly not a bad trip, mon.

Barack: You are so totally a bad trip, MON.  Nelson Mandela would only speak Jamaican in one of my hallucinations.  Kind of like Obamacare would only work in one of my hallucinations, mon.  That is usually how I can tell reality from hallucinations.  If I can log on to healthcare.gov, then I know I’m, like, totally tripping, dude.

Nelson (points ominously at the laptop screen showing the crashed healthcare.gov website)

Barack: Duuuuuuuude…….Ok, so maybe you are real, but what is with all that ugly, cheap ass bling, dude?  Chains are supposed to be gold and shiny and junk, not all that ugly cast iron junk you are all dragging around and stuff.

Nelson: Well, here’s da ting, mon.  De afterlife isn’t dat much different than da mortal life.  Let me give you a little tip.  Just like in the real life, if you want to avoid going to jail and ending up in dese here chains, try really hard not to be black or Hispanic. Boy, day sure have a lot of chains waiting dere for you, mon.

Barack: If you say so.  You sure you ain’t been toking a bit too much of the ganja yourself, dude.  But, dude.  While I got you here, I totally have a question for you, dude.  Answer me this.  Answer me this.  Answer me this.  I have a bet with Joe about this one.  You, are, like a ghost, right, so you should know this one, right.  Ok, like those ghost hunter dudes are always saying that ghosts always appear doing stuff they were, like, really passionate about in life, you know. Like, stuff they were totally into.  If that is true, why don’t we ever see ghosts making love? Answer me that one, dude.

 Nelson: Seriously, mon?  Tink about it for a minute.  Why do you tink dem ghosts is always moaning, mon.  And why do day get so mad and start trowing junk around when you come along and interrupt dem in da throes?  Seriously, mon?  And don’t you make me tell you what ectoplasm really be. I and I.  But you have totally gotten me off the tracks.  I be here to save your soul, mon.  Before morning, you are gonna be visited by tree ghosts.  No, wait, apparently your past is sealed up tighter dan a steel drum, so the Ghost of Christmas Past is a no show.  So you gonna be visited by two ghosts, mon.  Listen to dem, mon.  It be very good if you be hearing what they be saying to you, mon.  Da first one comes when de clock strikes one (fades away).

(To be continued, maybe, if I feel like it)

Straight Line of the Day: Canada Plans to Claim the North Pole for Itself. They Will Also Claim…

Works like this: I feed you Moon Nukers a straight line, and you hit me with a punch line in the comments.

Canada plans to claim the North Pole for itself. They will also claim…

Handling a Commie Encounter

So Obama shook hands with Commie dictator Raul Castro, and some people are angry about that. The problem is that Obama probably didn’t know what he was supposed to do with a Commie other than shake his hand because he hadn’t thought about how to handle Commies beforehand. I, on the other hand, am always thinking of what I’ll do when I encounter a Commie, and here are the option I always keep in mind:

OPTIONS FOR HOW TO HANDLE A COMMIE

* Punch
* Piledrive
* Strangle
* Burn
* Dropkick
* Shoot
* Headbutt
* Karate chop
* Shove into cannon
* Fire out of cannon
* Noogie

So Obama might want to add these option on how to handle a Commie to his current repertoire of “shake hands with” and “learn from.”

How do you handle a Commie?

Cell phones on planes

20131211-092538.jpgSomehow, I either missed that the FCC was looking to allow cell phones on planes, or I blocked it out of my mind.

The biggest problem I see is that I won’t be able to grab it from Chatty Charlie and toss it out the window. It’s the window part that’s the problem. They don’t usually let you roll the window down on planes.

So, if I end up on a plane, and some jackass breaks out his Galaxy S 4 and starts holding a conference call, what are my options? Break out my phone and start with the Candy Crush?

Maybe I’ll start up a conversation with him.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. That a phone? What kinda phone is that? Hey. Hey hey hey hey. Lemme see your phone. You get the Facebook on that? Hey. Hey hey. Galaxy S 4, huh? iPhone make those? Hey.

That might work, but I’m not sure what’s the best approach. So, I decided to consult the experts on pissing off obnoxious people. That’s you. The experts, I mean.

If they start allowing cell phone calls on flights, how would be the best way to handle some clown on a loud call?

Random Thoughts: Commies, Handshakes, and Selfies

The proper handshake you give a Commie is with both hands making a very firm grip around his neck.

I never really got how a “selfie” is different than taking a picture of yourself which I thought people have been doing forever.

Two digit temperatures are the best. Whenever the temperature is one digit or three digits, it’s never pleasant.

Wasn’t concerned with the handshake, but the way Obama winked at Raul Castro after giving him his hotel key was kind of weird.

It was a little disrespectful when Obama shouted out “Boring!” during the eulogy, but we’ve all done that.

A lot of what Obama is doing is just because he’s filming a reality show for MTV and the producers keep asking for more conflict.

Would be nice if all future deep space probes we send out there are able to do selfies.

What should have Obama done to Castro? Pile drive him into nearest table? Of course, but Obama was too much of a sissy.

Obama’s eulogy for Mandela used “I” and “me” 57,603 times and he didn’t mention Mandela once.

What if Hitler were at the funeral and offered his hand? Remember: You can’t kill him, because that always makes the future worse somehow.

“The Grinch Who Said Happy Holidays”

Season 4 of Breaking Bad started slow, but it’s picking up. “I am the one who knocks!”