Due to a family emergency, I'm giving myself a couple of days off. I am NOT giving up on this blog! I'm just going to extend the deadline a little. Believe me, there's got to be plenty of humor - even if it's a little dark - in all of this.

No one in her right mind ever signed up to be a mother. You spend your days taking care of someone who yells at you, criticizes your cooking, and spends your money like it grew on trees, and your nights worrying that they’ll never come home again.

Being a housewife may not be a glamorous job, but it does have its perks: no dress code, no time clock, and you get to sleep with the boss.

The word is that General McChrystal has gone to meet the President with his resignation in hand. Well, you know what they say: The truth will set you free.

Considering how hard it's been for us to train the regular Afghan army, it kinda makes you wonder if the recruits we're getting weren't good enough to get into the Taliban.
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According to the New York Times, "culinary bachelor parties" are all the rage among the soon-to-be-married. Culinary bachelor parties?? Sounds like some guy's lame excuse gone wrong:
"I never even looked at the waitresses, Honey. We went to Hooters for the excellent cuisine."
"Bros-icing-bros, a drinking game? Nooo. I was checking out the frosting for our wedding cake."
"I didn't go out drinking. It was a wine tasting party."

But of course, Pat Robertson had to weigh in on the whole culinary bachelor party thing. He said that this is what happens when you allow gays to marry.

What if the same thing happens with gays now serving openly in the military? God only knows what they'll do to the MREs. (Wait a minute...)
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Finally, good news from the gulf! Turns out that crude oil makes a great sunscreen. And water screen, and air screen...
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A professor at the New School for Management and Urban Policy has started a farm in the South Bronx to encourage children there to eat more healthily. I think that's great. I mean, why should only rich kids be able to turn their noses up at vegetables?
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Speaking of food, I subscribe to an on-line food newsletter that has some really great ideas in it. Today's was a parfait made of alternating layers of apricot puree and yogurt. Honestly, I've never seen baby food look so good.

I made an appointment for a colonoscopy next week. The receptionist asked me which of the two doctors I'd prefer. I said I wanted the one with the quietest laugh. Failing that, I'd take the one without Internet access.

Speaking of doctors... When I saw my ENT last year, he had to get some wax out of my ear to see the eardrum. "All those years of medical school," I laughed, "and this is what you end up doing?" "Oh, it gets better," he said. "Sometimes I get to pick boogers out of people's noses." I think he must have chosen his future profession at the age of 8.
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I guess Reggie Bush, running back for the New Orleans Saints, has been letting himself go since he left USC. He can't even outrun the IRS any more.
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Due to the tough economy, Loyola's law school has decided to raise the grades of all its students this year, regardless of performance. Loyola said it would make their graduates more attractive to potential employers, since learning to stretch the truth would no longer be part of new hires' on-the-job training.

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After several controversial drug busts, the medical marijuana business has finally taken off in California. Call it, The Hempire Strikes Back.

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A day care center in Louisville has been banned from taking children on field trips after one of its 2-year-old students was left at the local zoo. The day care owners said the child's ID bracelet had come off, making it impossible to know that one of the kids in their care was missing. Apparently, counting the children was too much to ask...

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I see that, once again, Rolling Stone magazine has gotten someone in trouble - in this case Gen. McChrystal - by persuading him to tell the truth on record. What are their reporters using in their interviews, truth serum?

How can you be the biggest loser if you win?
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Only June and already folks are talking about the Oscars. Early favorite for best actor is Abdul Kader Kieta, forward for the Ivory Coast's soccer team.

Tiger Woods thought he'd be a shoo-in as leading man. Now, it looks like he'll have to settle for a (child) supporting role.
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During WWII, General Anthony "Latin" Mott was given his nickname after a visit to the European theater. Hearing that the allies' cache of bullets was dangerously low, he'd left the following orders for the supply sergeant. Ammo: amass. - A. Mott

And then there was Vincent Spinelli, an Italian soldier on leave at a whorehouse in Paris when the city was liberated. The GI's who found him gave him the name, "Caesar," after Vinnie's Vichy V.D.
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An article in our paper says that orthopedic surgeons are often too eager to give artificial joints to people with leg pain. Call it a knee-jerk reaction.
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Speaking of jerks... Did you see the pictures of BP chief Tony Hayward watching his yacht race off English waters? It's hard to describe the look on his face, but slippery, oily, and slimy come to mind.

And the Chairman of BP is no prize either, describing the folks whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the oil leak as, "the small people." Well, maybe they do look small when you only view them from 30,000 feet up.

At first, I was even trying to defend the guy. I thought it was a language problem, that maybe he'd meant to say something besides small. So I looked up some synonyms he might have used: "petty, trivial, insignificant..." I take it back. He's a jerk.
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My brother-in-law and his wife give their kids stickers for good behavior. Last week, my nephew earned a "sharing" sticker and had just picked out the one he wanted when his sister piped up that she, too, wanted the same sticker. Which precipitated a fight over the sharing sticker. My brother-in-law says it's too bad the kids have no sense of irony.

The town of Milton, Washington has been ordered to replace its only public restroom with one that's handicapped-accessible. When asked how soon the public might expect the new toilet, the mayor said he wasn't privy to that information.

Police in Boise have arrested a woman for pouring mayonnaise into library drop boxes. Asked why, she said that if the library was going to allow patrons to view Internet porn, the least she could do was to "provide them with free condiments."

Speaking of libraries... I was at ours the other day and they have a ton of audio books! I asked the librarian how they keep them all organized. She said they use the dewey decibel system.

And I found a book for those days when I just don't feel very sharp: Mensa for Dummies.

A man I know builds model boats - every kind of boat you can think of - and each one is named Edith, after his mom. He says he always wanted to make his mother prowed.

My husband got a new video game controller for Father's Day. Right now, he and our daughter are playing virtual baseball. You hit the ball and go Wii Wii Wii, all the way home.

Man, it is still rainy and cold around here. And there's no end in sight! June is now officially my least favorite month of winter.

I see that China is having labor problems. Half their factory workers are out on strike. The other half didn't bring permission slips from their parents.

There's been an uproar in Japan over the airing of "The Cove," an Oscar-winning documentary about Japanese dolphin hunting. The film's producers finally reached a compromise with the Japanese government. They'll be allowed to show the film in Japan, but only on The Food Channel.

Congress is demanding that NASA produce detailed records to back up its proposed new space budget. The congressional committee members said that they can't just give away money without knowing what it's for. Strange. That's never stopped them before.

New toy ideas for this Christmas:

Bob, the Unemployed Builder,

Tar Wars action figures - now with flexible ethics,

Transformers Helmet - turns deadbeats into senate candidates - only $10,440!
and

Tickle Me, Congressman.

(Hmm. Now I have a moral dilemma. Should I allow myself to count that last one as four? I think it's going to depend on how many more I can think of today.)

CNN.com has an article today about luxury travel with kids. An oxymoron, if ever I heard one.

Another travel headline: Best Resorts in the US. With the economy like it is, though, a lot of people are staying home this summer. Let's call it: The Last Resort.

Two days after stonewalling US lawmakers, BP's CEO, Tony Hayward, was back in England watching his yacht compete in the JP Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race. A spokeswoman for BP said Hayward had been looking forward to spending some time with this son, Uday.

Alabama Senator Richard Shelby called it "The Height of Arrogance." Turns out he was wrong. That was the name of AIG's yacht.

Shelby suggested that Hayward should use his yacht to help clean up the oil spill, instead of "hiding in a cocoon." Well, isn't that where worms usually hide?

Have you see the evasive maneuvers from the English soccer team? I think there may be a future for them at BP.

South Carolina's Democrats rejected calls to dump the winner of last Tuesday's primaries - an unemployed, dishonorably discharged vet facing felony charges for showing on-line porn to a college girl. Instead, they'll be running him as an outsider with military experience who's interested in improving our young people's internet literacy.

The Rev. Floyd Flake, an influential pastor in New York City, received millions of dollars when an apartment building, built with public money and run by his church, was sold to a for-profit partnership of which he just happened to be part owner. I guess it's true what they say: the Lord helps those who help themselves.

Campbell's just recalled 15 million pounds of Spaghettios because they were 'under-processed'. Uh-oh.

(If you don't get that joke, you haven't memorized enough advertising jingles.)

I keep wondering what 'under-processed' means. Maybe you actually need teeth to eat it.

Now that I'm an adult, I love to ride on rollercoasters. When I was a kid, though, just getting to the store and back was excitement enough. Our neighbor would pile us all in the back of her El Camino and hop onto the freeway while we held on for dear life. Compared to that, rollercoasters seem pretty tame.

Even inside the car, there wasn't much protection. We didn't own a car with seat belts until I was in the 7th grade. In case of an accident, though, I always knew there was something I could use to cushion the impact: my little sister.

No matter how cool a place you take your kids on vacation, the only part they really want to see is the gift shop.

I can't really get into World Cup Soccer. In every match, they've got two teams who are constantly trying to outmaneuver each other, pushing and shoving, and most of the time, neither one of them can even advance the ball. It's just way too much like American politics.

Last night on the news, they had a story about this soccer goalie with Tourette's Syndrome. They said it interferes with his job. Seems to me, a soccer goalie who screams obscenities at his opponents is about as handicapped as an ice hockey wing man with a short temper.

It looks like the city of New York will no longer be adding their own sell-by date to milk sold in their grocery stores. I'm not even sure why anyone needs one sell-by date, much less two. When I was a kid, there was only one way to tell if your milk was fit to drink: have Mom smell it.

And by the way, I don't care how equal the sexes are. No kid in his right mind is ever going to ask Dad to sniff the milk for him.

How about this for a labeling system: Fresh, Not-so-fresh, and Yogurt.

Norwegian scientist Dr. James B. Ranck believes that humans, like rats, have an innate sense of direction. And to prove it, he did a survey of people on the streets of New York. I think the language barrier may have tainted his results, though. I'm not sure that "Up Yours" is a direction.

Not that I'm denying some people have psychic gifts. My husband, for instance, can tell a person's name just by looking at him. You'd be amazed how many guys on the roads around here are named Dick.

Remember Bobby Fischer? Chess champion, very strange guy, had an explosive temper. Turns out, Iceland's supreme court has just granted a request to allow his body to be exhumed. I guess they're still looking for the cause of that volcanic eruption.

Kroger has recalled cartons of its "Deluxe Chocolate Paradise" ice cream after it was found to contain tree nuts. For those who are allergic to nuts, I suppose it gives a whole new meaning to the word "paradise."

I read that actress Megan Fox is engaged. Unfortunately, she says she has lost the diamond ring her fiance gave her. I think "lost" is another way of saying, "Not big enough."

There's an article in the New York Times today about "Catios". These are outdoor areas where your cat can run around without getting hurt. They look a lot like big bird cages. In fact, a woman in the article admitted that hers had been a bird cage. Until the cat got into it.

I felt so smug this morning. I'd been on such a roll last night that I wrote three extra jokes and squirreled them away, thinking I'd be ahead of the game today. But can I find them now? Noooo.

You have to understand, I'm a bit of a cheapskate. Which means that I don't use a fresh piece of paper to write joke ideas on; I use whatever comes to hand: grocery receipts, business cards, and already-scribbled-on sticky notes. Which also means, unfortunately, that my 'notes' end up looking like, well, trash (or in this house, recyclables). Which is where I suspect the ones from last night ended up.

Because of that, I've spent the last forty-five minutes desperately seeking the jokes I wrote last night (and can't for the life of me remember) by digging through every trash and recycle container in the house. I probably could have come up with three new ones by now! However, it hasn't been a total waste of time. I believe the experience has given me some insight into where comedians get their material...

I'm going to count that as ONE.

I'm really getting irritated with this weatherman of ours. If the weather is nice, he acts like it's something he did; but if it's lousy, he says it's not his fault. Who does he think he is, the President?

Boy, it's the first week of summer vacation and it's still raining outside. Which might really bother the kids around here if they weren't already inside playing video games.

I did hear one little boy complaining, though. He said it takes all the fun out of the games if he has to stay inside.

Have you heard of this company, LOL Cats? They're the ones who do the I Can Has Cheeseburger stuff, and they're making millions off of it - the website, books, t-shirts... The amazing thing is, they don't even take the pictures of the cats. People send in their work for free, LOL Cats keeps the money, and gives them back a small token of appreciation. Where did these people get their business model, the IRS?

To be fair, though, I guess LOL Cats had a really tough time getting funding, at first. Nobody believed you could build a business based on the work of cats.

I mean, cats don't work, do they? They just lounge around in the sun looking beautiful. They're like the trophy wives of the animal world.

Day Three here, and already I'm starting to question this blog's whole raison d'etre (that's "reason for etre," for those of you who don't speak French). In my head, I can hear Homer Simpson's voice yelling, "Be more funny!" But hey, I'm up, I've eaten, and it's still too soggy to go outside, so...

The Ohio Supreme Court just upheld a law that allows police to give speeding tickets based, not on radar, but on how fast they think the driver was going. To be fair, though, only policemen who've passed a special training course can make that call. The guy teaching the class? Jim Joyce.

Having a kid can be a real ego-busting experience. I remember one day, I was driving my daughter somewhere - she must have been about 3 years old - when she looked up at me from her little car seat and said, "Mommy, when I grow up, I want to be just like you." I was touched. "Really? In what way, sweetheart?" She smiled. "I want to have a car of my own."

Eventually, of course, your kids grow up. We sent ours to a small school in Indiana where the dean assured us they'd be acting In Loco Parentis. I told him she already had two crazy parents.

I made an appointment to see a cardiologist next week. I wasn't worried about it at all until I got this form in the mail that they want me to fill out. The very first question - and I'm not kidding - is: "Do you have a Living Will?"

Okay, it's not even 16:00 PST yet, and I've only got THREE more to go. Whoopee!

Did you know that 44 states in this country offer incentives for filmmakers to make movies that make their state look good? True! Here are my favorites:
From Utah - Seven Brides for One Brother,
Arizona - Goodbye, Gonzales,
Louisiana - Cloudy, With a Chance of Tarballs, and
Texas - The Oil Producers.

I saw this headline in today's New York Times: "Anger With Political Class Grows Among the Iraqi People." Ha! And they said we'd never establish an American-style democracy there.

Did you hear about this guy, Alvin Michael Greene, who won the nomination for the Democratic senate seat in South Carolina? He's broke, unemployed, and facing felony charges for showing internet porn sites to a college student. When people in South Carolina were asked why they voted for him, they said they were tired of being disappointed in their public officials.

My dad lives in one of these new senior living facilities. Everybody prides themselves on how young they are. The old ladies there wear bikini-cut Depends.

I talked to one old man, he was wearing diamond-studded dentures.

He had a friend, though, who was way cooler than he was. The guy was a sagger. His pants only came up to his waist.

These Tea Party people are getting scary. And they're not as disorganized as they used to be, either. Next week, they're going to announce their new presidential ticket: The Mad Hatter and The March Hare.

But even those guys would be better than Rand Paul. Did you hear about his proposal for cleaning up the oil spill in the gulf? You-Pick gasoline stands.

Day Two and I'm rarin' to go - even if my husband did throw some cold water on this little enterprise. He says 10 jokes a day is probably too much. "You'll be lucky if you can write ONE a day," he said. And he's probably right. So... New goal: write 10 a day, but only one funny one.

We've been getting a lot of rain in the Pacific Northwest this year. This morning, I saw a bird wearing water wings.

And when it rains this much, all of a sudden the TV weatherman is like the most important guy on the show. I don't want to say it's gone to his head, but last week when the rivers were rising, he referred to it as a 'hostile takeover of the banks.'

I told my relatives out in Indiana about all the rain we've had, they weren't impressed. And I guess I can't blame them. Out there, they have tornadoes that drop stuff like cows down with the rain. Our rain is plain, but mainly it's a pain.

Yikes! It's 19:43 PST and I've still got 3 jokes to go! I can feel my resolve to post only seriously funny stuff starting to weaken. After all, humor is in the mind of the beholder, right? Who am I to decide which ones make the cut?

I saw the President on the news. In spite of all the problems he's had to deal with, the man is still looking pretty good. He told reporters he had a new fitness routine. It's called lifting the economy...

Next week, though, he may try kick-ass boxing.

Public health officials in Rwanda say that 100 percent of their people now have health insurance, and it costs only $2 per person. Of course, the insurance companies in this country weren't very impressed. They said they could do that, too, if we'd just let them eliminate the high-risk population first.

Yeah - I did it! Ten somewhat-humorous posts in one day. Tune in tomorrow to see if I can chalk up another batch.

Okay, still Day One here, and I'm starting to think 10 jokes a day is overly ambitious. I mean, how many writers do Jay Leno or David Letterman have on staff? And I'm thinking I'm going to crank out 10 a day?!? Still, I've got to shoot for something, right? And after an hour at the gym, I think I'm ready to crank out some more:

President Obama is really getting worked up about this oil leak down in the gulf. Last week, he even said he was "looking for somebody's ass to kick." Considering that the symbol of the Democratic Party is a donkey, he probably figures HIS ass has been kicked enough.

Why does anyone think that self-esteem is the key to success? I serve lunch down at the homeless shelter, and let me tell you, there is NO lack of self-esteem in that place. The guys in line try to flirt with me, asking if I'm married. Oh, yeah. Like, if asked what things I was looking for in a husband, broke, smelly and toothless would be at the top of my list.

If you lose your temper when you don't roll a strike, do you have Irritable Bowl Syndrome?

My dad's 91 now, and he's always finding new ways to get my attention. Last week, he said that he hadn't heard from me in three days, so he thought maybe his phone wasn't working. Then this week, he asked me to call because he wasn't sure my phone was working. A friend of mine told me her mother did the same thing. Where did they get these ideas, The Old Folks' Guide to Passive-Aggression?

And Away We Go...

This blog is an experiment - one I'm hoping doesn't blow up in my face like the ones in my old Chemistry class. My goal is to write 10 jokes a day for a year, starting now (6/14/2010 14:08 PST).

Any type of joke is fair game, as is any political figure/party, or public person. I will, however, try to keep it clean. The point is just to see if I can produce 10 amusing pieces per day for 365 days. If you've got any feedback, feel free to post it.

Ready...Set...Go!

Did you hear about this quote attributed to Senator Christopher Dodd by Forbes.com? According to Forbes, Dodd said he would vote against a Republican bill because it would, "restrict home ownership to only those who can afford it." Well, it turns out that the quote was a fake. Forbes got it from a right-wing satirical blog called Semi-News and then published it as fact. So in other words, a made-up quote by a political hack was reported as fact by a legitimate news organization. Or as Fox News calls that, "Fair and Balanced."

According to FactCheck.com, Semi-News is a web version of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The only difference is its political slant. Well... that, and it's not funny.

Semi-News, huh? Sounds like a blog for guys who drive big rigs.