They call me Snichael

Every four years, we elect a President; and every four years, we turn into a nation of Sore Losers & Sore Winners for weeks or months after the election.

Since it’s almost that time, how about if we all take the pledge…c’mon, raise your right hand and repeat after me…

If my candidate LOSES:

• I PLEDGE not to spend all my waking hours for the next several weeks threatening to move to Canada, or a militia compound in Montana…however, in the event that I can’t resist such moaning & groaning, I PLEDGE to do all my irritated friends & co-workers a big favor and actually MOVE!
• I PLEDGE not to rant and rail against entire states as if they were living, sentient beings whose “RED-ness” or “BLUE-ness” makes it reasonable for me to hate them.
• I PLEDGE to only start screaming “Vote Fraud!” and “Stolen Election!” if there IS something to support such claims besides my candidate losing.
• I PLEDGE to look on the bright side: at least my candidate will be able to sit on the sidelines saying “I told you so!” as the other candidate “crashes and burns” while in office!

If my candidate WINS…

• I PLEDGE to celebrate in moderation — as if I am aware of the fact that it’s likely to be months or years before it can definitively be said whether I, or anyone I know, actually “won” anything or not!
• I PLEDGE not to be that surprised, shocked, and depressed when, in spite of all the soaring campaign rhetoric I bought into, my candidate turns out to be…just a politician!
• I PLEDGE to humbly remember that, in 4 years time, I will be defending all the mistakes and stupid statements my candidate will have inevitably made as the incumbent!
• I PLEDGE to keep in mind that, with the extremely dire economic situation my candidate will now be expected to actually FIX…it’s a toss-up whether history will remember him as “the second F.D.R.” or “the second Herbert Hoover!”

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• “The Outsourcers”
• “Pig Lipstick”
  
• “Hank Paulson & The Bailouts”
  
• “Panic at the DNC over Palin”
  
• “The New O.J. Jury”
  
• “The Deciders”
  
• “Lindsay Lohan’s Lesbian Lover”
  
• “In the Tank for Obama”
  
• “McCain’s Apparent Memory Lapse”
  
• “Bill O’Reilly’s YouTube Tantrum”
  
• “Hijinx at the VMAs”
  
• “Tainted Chinese Milk”
  
• “Karl Rove & The Swift-Boaters”
  
• “The Unvetted”
  
• “Gaffes of Biden”
  
• “Larry King is Losing It”
  
• “Undercover in the Restroom with George Michael”
  
• “Nancy Pelosi’s Latest Excuse”
  
• “Death Train for L.A. Commuter”
  
• “The Global Warming-deniers”
  
• “New Roommate on ‘The Hills’”
  
• “My 19th iPOD”
  
• “John Edwards’ Baby-Mama”
  
• “Meltdown on ‘The View’”
  
• “Low Youth-Voter Turnout”
  
• “Two Girls; One Cup”
  
• “The Community Organizers”
  
• “Sheryl Crow’s One Sheet of Toilet Paper”

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Regardless of who you’re voting for, or against - or even if you’re truly undecided — you have to admit that this year’s Presidential Campaign is shaping up to be the most exciting and interesting in decades! Between the two tickets, virtually every single demographic, wedge issue,  and “hot button” in American politics is represented in some way — leading to an explosion of all-new “splinter” political organizations and crossover voting groups…including these ones you may not have heard of yet:

• Moose Hunting Hockey Moms for McCain/Palin
• Multiracial Harvard Grads of Hawaii for Obama
• Hillary Supporters Begrudgingly for Obama
• Members of “Hillary Supporters Bedgrudgingly for Obama” Secretly Voting for Palin
• Members of “Old White Boy Network” Against BOTH Tickets
• Pregnant Teens for Bristol Palin’s Mom & the Old Guy
• “Hair Club for Men”-members for Biden
• Gangsta Rappers for Obama and the Honky
• Pro-Choice Libertarian Gun-Owning Working Mothers Confused as Hell about How to Vote
• Reporters in the Tank for Obama
• Octogenarians for That Young Whippersnapper McCain
• Republican Women with “Jungle Fever”
• Democratic Men who Wouldn’t Kick Sarah Palin Out of Bed for Eating Crackers
• “Community Organizers” for a Little Respect for Them, huh
• Hairdressers against Palin’s Hair
• Racists who REALLY Like Obama’s Energy Plan
• Entrenched Politicians Against “Change”

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First, it was the untimely demise of actor Heath Ledger. Then, Christian Bale arrested for…uh, nobody’s really sure what. And now…Morgan Freeman in a car accident.

But those aren’t even the half of all the untoward things that have happened to people associated with the movie:

• 3rd Asst. Best Boy Grip was once audited by the IRS!
• the very day of the film’s premiere, a standby Foley Artist (West Coast) got a hangnail!
• supporting actress Maggie Gyllenhaal stricken with an odd extra vowel in her last name!
• on 4 separate days, cast & crew members who had eaten from the craft services table became sick afterward!
• Gary Oldman was talked into appearing in the cheesy 1998 film-version of “Lost in Space“!
• during filming, Michael Caine fell victim to an unforeseen hangover!
• despite the film’s immense success, to this day - no one outside the Warner Bros. studio lot knows who the hell writer/director Christopher Nolan is!
• the CGI/Special Effects Supervisor who oversaw the helicopter-crash sequence hasn’t worked in Hollywood since (of course, he doesn’t deserve to! Did you see that awful sequence? It ruins the film!)
• the composer has been unable to get the Theme from “The Flintstones” out of his mind since scoring the film!
• MAD Magazine unable to get any advance access to “Dark Knight” film, screenplay, or photos for the purpose of doing their satire of it — despite the fact that DC Comics owns both Batman and MAD; and their offices are in the same building! (Oop, waitaminute: that happens with EVERY film based on DC characters; file this under “Being run by DC Comics-CURSE” instead of “Dark Knight-CURSE”. Sorry for any inconvenience.)

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YESTERDAY:

Photo from Iran State-controlled media showing obvious Photoshopping of an extra 4th missile and accompanying smoke-billow. (distributed by Agence France-Presse and published in newspapers all over the U.S., including New York Times, Los Angeles Times & Chicago Tribune.)

TODAY:

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Congratulate me. I will go down in history as the person who finally located THE most indisputably pointless and trivial Thing on the Internet: it’s a lengthy Wikipedia article keeping meticulous track of every single woman who has ever stood next to one of those numbered-cases on the TV game show “DEAL or NO DEAL.” (I’m not making this up, as the saying goes when you’re not making something up; here’s the link, check it out yourself.)

Can you imagine a more useless “body of knowledge”? Even the people involved — the “Deal or No Deal”-models themselves, their agents, their families — couldn’t possibly care which of the numbered cases they’ve stood by, on what date, or whether they were the “regular case stander-byer” that week or a “substitute” (?!). Yet, here are people with access to modern computers who do care — in fact, according to the Revision History of this article, at least 10 people who have cared enough to actually edit or update previous versions of it. (Because, God forbid the world should have inaccurate information about who Marisa Petroro was substituting for when she stood next to Case #5 on the Oct. 10, 2007 episode! [If you're curious about the answer to that, it's in there!])

What sort of people care that much about…nothing? Well, thanks to President Bush’s expanded FISA legislation, I was able to intercept one of their emails, with just a simple call to the NSA, claiming that they’re an Al Qaeda sleeper cell:

TO: Stacey Gardner@Case#2.deal-or-no-deal.nbc.com
FROM: deal-nut1990@yahoo.com

Dear Stacey   -
It’s me again! Things going smoothly here at the “Wikipedia ‘Deal or No Deal’ Models”-page Updater Collective. Don’t worry: last night’s episode is now fully cataloged. (Although I must say, the substitution of Laura for Jenelle at Case #19 threw us all for quite a loop! They do look so much alike, don’t they? Luckily, our recording secretary, Geoff, figured it out, or we’d be pulling another all-nighter re-playing the video over and over to make sure we get things right! Whew.)

Let me say that I think your performance last night standing next to Case #2 was truly inspired! Never before have I seen such a masterful look of “mock-surprise” when Howie and the contestant called on you! I actually believed, for a moment, that you really weren’t going to open the case! That, Stacey, is a testament to your supreme skills as an actress/model!

Say, how is Leyla doing? When we tuned in 2 weeks ago, only to find her missing…we were, quite naturally, concerned - since, as you know, the last time she had been been absent from an episode was 9/26/07! Tell her we say, “Get well soon! Case #13 won’t be the same without you, girl!”

BTW: We were all out in L.A. this past week, but owing to a bureacratic foul-up and a studio guard with an attitude, we were unable to make contact with you backstage at the taping, as we told you we would. (Once again, security never got our names for their list! For the third time.)

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George Carlin died yesterday. Pay tribute to him by remembering your favorite joke or routine of his, and laughing at it all over again. You know you have one; George was the Bob Hope of the last few generations of Americans, he was always there. My favorite bit of his was “Baseball and Football” - which, thanks to the miracle of YouTube, is yours for the clicking right here:

I saw George perform live 4 times over the years; he “killed” at all 4 of them.

I got to meet him, one-on-one, when I was a freshman in college. I had written a short comedy routine (which slavishly, even painfully, aped the style of the late comedian Lenny Bruce…but had some good jokes in it); and I decided that, since George would be performing at a local nightclub anyway, he would be the perfect person to: a) read my routine; b) swoon; and c) recommend me to all his big comedian buddies who didn’t already have material of their own (?!!). Anyway, George couldn’t have been nicer: after the show, he invited me in the dressing room, chatted with me at length about comedy, and read my entire routine — really reading it, not just politely scanning, because the first thing he said was, “Hmm. Kind of like Lenny Bruce’s stuff.“

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Instructions: Upon receipt of Nigerian scam email, click on “REPLY”; copy & paste the entire letter below into top of email field; then click “SEND.”

Dear Friend and Fellow Nigerian:

Allow me to introduce myself: I am attorney & special consultant for the late Internet-Scam billionaire, the Honorable Mr. J. Goedaddi Ngadget III. As you no doubt know, Mr. Ngadget became fabulously wealthy over the past two decades by originating, developing, and employing the very same so-called “419″-scams that you yourself may be using right now (whilst keeping an extremely low profile — his name being known, even today, by only the most knowledgeable insiders of the Internet-Scam sector, such as myself and, of course, you!)

Since Mr. Ngadget was childless, his fondest dying wish was only to “give back” to the industry that made him stupendously rich. As per the terms of his Last Will and Testament, I have been scouring the entire Internet - posing as a gullible American email user - looking for talented, unrecognized future Superstars of the Online Scam to reward and encourage. When I received your extremely clever “bait letter” below, I knew I had found my FIRST deserving beneficiary!

Therefore, I am pleased to inform you that at my behest, the Estate of Mr. Ngadget has prepared a cashier’s check in the amount of 750,000,000 Nigerian Naira (or US $6,408,777.46) — which will be sent to you by certified armed courier immediately upon our receipt of the shipping and handling fee in the amount of $5,000.00 — which Mr. Ngadget insisted we assess on every beneficiary, not only as the customary show of “good faith” but, more importantly, so we may ascertain and verify your true identity as the 419 Genius who sent the email below, and know what name to write on the check.

Please remit your $5,000.00 as soon as possible, pay to the order of the same Alias-Name I was using when your brilliant scam-email was received by me - and addressed to “General Delivery” at the same U.S. city and state as my Alias-Name. (I apologize for the secrecy, but Mr. Ngadget gave strict orders to keep things quiet, out of fear that general knowledge of his immense giveaway would wreak havoc upon the day-to-day operation of our vital industry. After all: how many people would continue the daily grind of trying to con foreigners out of their money over the Internet…if they thought there was a huge pile of cash out there, waiting just for them?

Lastly, should you decide to decline Mr. Ngadget’s generous bequeath, for whatever reason, rest assured that your share of his Estate will be equally distributed among the other handful of recipients. So, don’t even worry about that.

Let me personally welcome you to The Good Life!
Sincerely,

Joseph Q. Mwahtetubu, Esq.
Real Attorney

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