Welcome Back Carlos

It's looks like someone's gotten their Internet privileges back, and television privileges also, if one can call Oprah television. I like to think of it as talk radio, with couches and weeping.

Well, in any case, it's certainly good to hear from Juan Carlos Vega, even if he is still doing hard time for his Warwick Davis/Danny Devito collection escapades. (Last I heard, Devito still loses his bladder control at the words "carne de vaca en salsa marron con queso verde" though, admittedly, it's not a common phrase.) We've missed him, wretched grammar, obsessions, and all.

To help his remaining sentence pass by quickly, I'd like to offer him some tips for making life in the slammer go by quickly. Fortunately though, I've never done hard time. So, I called up Martha Stewart, explained to her Juan Carlos' peculiar situation and personality, and she was nice enough to offer some suggestions. And she didn't charge much either...she now owns the blog. (However, because the value of the blog is so low, I can by it back for practically nothing. There, I just did.)

Good Things for Doing Time in the Joint
by Martha Stewart as told to Earl Fando

• Make friends with tough people, but first convince them that you are highly unattractive or it leads to complications during those intimate quiet periods of lockdown. Always sleep curled up, with your back to the wall.
• Get your friends and family to send you lots of smokes. Smokes are the currency of prison. Marlboros are twenties, Salems are tens, Lucky Strikes are fives, Virginia Slims are ones, and Benson & Hedges are like Canadian money.
• Always go on a hunger strike when the sex offenders have kitchen duty. Unpleasant but true. Tell them you'll come off the strike for Marie Callender's, Spago's, or in your case Maria's Columbian Cafe, Minneapolis.
• Make friends with the best guards or the ones on the take, depending on your particular correctional instituion.
• Ask if you can keep the leg irons in the cell. They make excellent beverage coolers.
• Exercise time is the best time to forage for wild greens. Just don't forage too close to the weightlifting benches, as all that sweat can make the greens too tart.
• Solitary confinement is a great place to get your head straight, and work on doilies for the warden.
• Shower as little as possible. You avoid all the most uncomfortable situations and the smell makes you far less attractive to potential "boyfriends."
• Stop writing me.

Sorry, that last one was for me.

Best of luck, Juan Carlos. Only 27 more months to go!! Say hello for me to that bloke Morgan Freeman played, will you?

The Infamous Memoir of Lies -- Oprah Edition

Oprah Winfrey is not the, how you going to say, happy camper this week, ladies and gentlemens. No, she went on the rampage recently, with certain amounts of tears gushing from her gorgeous nut-colored eyes, and she got very very angry on her television talk show, saying even at one point, "I think it is a terrible disgrace to lie to people, to generate the how you going to say sympathy, to slander the innocent type persons in a book style form, just in order to sell more copies of your book of lies." Yes, these were her very words, spoken with tears from the lovely walnut eyes, her lip trembling, as she clutched in her strong, womanly hands the offending memoir.

Yes, the truth had finally come out. Danny Devito's recent Autobiography, My Egg Life in Stretchy Pants, turns out to be one paragraph after the other of exaggerated lies and wild fairy tale stories. How did the truth all come out, you perhaps are the asking person to inquire? Well, an intrepid type journalist from the Tammany Hall Journal named Reginallo Feoblanco is the one who break this shocking, appalling and sickening news. He begin to be curious after reading the New York Times bestselling non-fiction autobiography when certain passages appear to be the lies or the crazy wild uncorroborated anecdote. For example, the following passage stuck out in his mind as a possible mild exaggeration:

"When I was the Queen of Belgium, I used to stand upon the silver balcony of the Imperial Palace in the Alps, beholding the writhing celebrants in the cities below, and I would pour buckets of brass coins down unto them. It was because of this weekly coin-dumping that Martin Scorcese thought I would be perfect for the role of Anglemeyer the Corn-Scented Murderer in his then-upcoming blockbuster Someone Stabbed the Horse."

Mr. Feoblanco read this passage with the critical eyeballs of the crack journalist, wondering could it be possible that the Danny Devito had made up certain details of his memoirs. It would not be the first time. Many other memoirists have also been disgusting liars. Examples come to mind: William Shatner, Bill Clinton, David Blaine, King Gus of Jutland, James Frey, Periwinkle Stinkson, Howard Stern and Peepile Foldthingeinger being just a few examples. So this journalist begin to investigate, first sneaking across the border into war-torn Belgium, then breaking into the Belgian Office of Secret Files and then reading secret files one upon the other.

Meanwhile the potential liar, Mr. Devito his egg-shaped self, went on the Oprah Winfrey show to promote his memoir. Oprah picked his book to be the Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection, and as she talk to Danny on her show that day, she cradle the book in her lap, occasionally kissing it gently along the spine, sometimes weeping diamond-colored tears upon its pages and swooning.

"Is it true, Danny, is it true?" she wailed. "Every single word of it, is it true? Is the part where the rampaging sea horse murdered your mother's dog true? I wept all day long and into the night as you battled the acid-vomiting sea horse with your staff of oaken wood and howled at the suffering dog, 'Oh, Elbow Hound, please don't be the dead one, please don't be it, no,'" Then Oprah dissolved into the, how you going to say, pile of melty weep goo.

"Every word is true, Orpy," Danny reply. "What am I, some sort of liar? Get outta here, you dumb broad. I ain't afeared to slap on you. I didn't make up a word of it. All true. All true. Every egg-shaped word of it." Then Danny Devito commence to weep and fell off the couch and hit his head on the floor and knock out himself and go to hospital, and we cut to Larry King rerun to fill the rest of the hour.

Anyway, Mr. Feoblanco find out Danny Devito never was the Queen of Belgium. Other story details not true, he find out:

1) Devito did not have a metal plate in his heart from Civil War injuries
2) Devito did not spend seventy six years in Alcatraz, making raincoats out of birds
3) Devito did not create the moon
4) Devito is not human, strictly speaking
5) Devito does not exist in the past and present at the same time.

When the truth break out, Danny Devito go into hiding. To this day, he still not appear in the public eye. And poor almond-scented hottie Oprah can only cry on her show, "I believed that egg-shaped demi-human! I thought that whole book be nothing but truths not the how you going to say lies." Larry King also cried. Bill Clinton cried and threw up a little in his own mouth. It is an American scandal of historic proportions!

The moral of the story: Don't read books.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Prisoner 2505525
Juan Carlos Vega
Shawshank Federal Penitentiary

Oprah frys Frey over fictitious flight of fancy.

Oprah has taken dishonest biographer James Frey to task this week over his book "A Million Little Pieces" saying that he "duped" her, her viewers, and the buyers of his untruthful tome. While I have to agree with Oprah that it was an underhanded thing to do I have to wonder where her crack staff was when they should have been vetting it. Certainly they could have done a little work to see if the guys story checked out. For instance if they had taken the time to research the book they would have learned that:

• Frey was not elected President of the United States in 1972.
• Frey was not a member of The Eagles and did not write "Smugglers Blues".
• Frey has never married to Morgan Fairchild.
• Frey was the team captain of his high school "Pathological Liars" Club. He continues as the club sponsor to this day.
• Frey once bit the head off of a bat in concert at the Hollywood Bowl.
• Frey turned states evidence on Juan Carlos Vega in 2005, landing our good friend in the pen for 5 to 10 years, with time off for good behavior.
• Frey is made entirely of tungsten and has kneecaps made of lead.
• Frey did not invent the internet. (That was Al Gore.)
• Frey has never made a bad joke about Tom Cruise jumping on couches. He leaves that to us.
• Frey does not exist in our time space continuum.

If Ms. Winfrey is reading the blog this week I would like to put in a plug for my next memoir "Stew Miller: Man of a Thousand Veils". Riveting, just riveting.

"Look what they did to Uday's house!!"

Saddam Hussein, the grim reaper of Baghdad; murderer, liar, thief, bad bridge player, and general all around scoundrel is feeling in a litigious mood again. Last year I brought to your attention (time and time again) the fact that Saddam was looking to sue The Sun newspaper in Great Britain for showing pictures of him in his whitey tighties. Well, now we learn that he has plans to present a lawsuit against the United States and Great Britain for allegedly "destroying" Iraq.

I must admire the tenacity of this lunatic to keep searching for avenues to muddle the situation and try and derail his own proceedings but... who does he think he's kidding. I'll admit at this point that the country did take a few hits from our military but the situation there for all of the people is better than it was under the dictator. That said we must imagine that Saddam is probably upset at the loss of his favorite humidor and the gold AK-47 he got from the Kirkuk PTA in 1996.

Since the time machine I used to visit Niall the rabbit breeder is still in working order; except for the bloodstains received when I mistakenly hit D.B. Cooper on reenty yesterday, I decided to travel into the near future to see what the newpapers say about Saddam and his meritless lawsuit.

Nov. 17, 2006



Nov. 18, 2006



Nov. 22, 2006



Nov. 24, 2006



Dec. 21, 2006

The Olympics are coming... Run for it!

The Twentieth Games of the Winter Olympiad are fast approaching. I believe that even now, the peaceful citizens of Torino, Italy are feverishly preparing...preparing to pack up and go on holiday by February 10th, when the games start.

"You can't be serious, Earl!" you shout.

"Fiddlesticks!" I shout back.

"It's the Olympics!" you shout.

"Quisinart!" I shout back.

"You're just answering nonsensically to avoid a row, aren't you?" you whisper knowingly.

"How right you are," I blush back, smirking in an irresistably charming way.

Now, I love a good Olympiad as much as the next bloke. The pagentry, spectacle, athleticism, endurance, and other sports cliches all make for a whale of a good show. The advertising is best, but I understand Stew is currently working on a 12 volume encyclical on Olympic adverts, so I'll save that saucy topic for him. (So detailed is the work, that I understand Volume 7, will be solely dedicated to Mary Lou Retton, Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, and Bruce Jenner. It will be entitled "The Good, The Bad, and The Plastic".)

So, the Olympics themselves are exciting, there's no doubting that. Of course, here in America, the televising of the Olympics is horrifically boring. Watching plaster dry would be orgasmic by comparsion to the sad affair of poor Bob Costas trying to pump some excitement into 560 hours of "Up Close and Personal" segments, athlete interviews ("How did it feel to win the gold medal for your country?" "Bob... it felt good."), travelogue segments on how the Portabella mushrooms in Torino differ incrementally from the ones in Milano...spiced only by brief montages of the sport highlights during Visa/MasterCard commercials. (At least there'll be the U2 music!) Then, they come back to the studio to a bunch of sports presenters sitting with Bob and talking about how exciting the action was that day. People have been marched in front of firing squads for less than this.

As I was saying though, the Olympics themselves are quite exciting, even the Winter Games. Now, some people may take offense at that, but I am a much bigger fan of the Summer Games. Football (Soccer), basketball, athletics (track and field), football, swimming, cycling, hockey (field hockey), equestrian, boxing, volleyball, football, beach volleyball, gymnastics, judo, football, taekwondo, wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, professional wrestling, mud wrestling, tennis, table tennis, badminton, Pong, weightlifting, rounders, lawn bowls, cricket, rugby, jai alai (rounders), croquet, lawn darts, snooker (rounders), chess, checkers, foosball (rounders), tiddlywinks (rounders), Yahtzee (Milton Bradley), football, archery, darts, shooting, fox hunting, Risk, Monopoly, football, poker, spades, football, and football all make the Summer Games a thrill a minute.

[Stew Instant Messaged me to let me know I'd left out water polo and football. Silly me.]

The Winter Games on the other hand has only skiing, sledding, ice hockey, ice-skating, ice fishing, and freezing your arse off in the ice. Oh, and curling, which is my favourite, because it's so much like lawn bowls. It's simply no comparison. Now, take biathlon, which I also left out (because let's face it... it's just skiing with guns), and combine that with curling, and now you've got something. I for one would be very interested in seeing just how easy all that sweeping would be with live, high-powered rifle fire coming in just over your head. Lower the biathlon targets in later rounds and things get really lively.

Of course now I'm completely off the subject. Where was I (checks day-planner)... Winter Olympics...holiday...self-conscious chit-chat...Bruce Jenner plastic surgery joke... boring old farts at NBC...Summer Games I'd like to see...shooting at curling participants...day-planner... Ah, here we are.

Yes, the Olympics are thrilling to watch, but not in your own back yard. Hundreds of athletes from all parts of the world pulling rank and waving Olympic medals around to get the best bench table at the local Wagamamas? (How I wish there were one near where I live!) Even thousands more tourists swamping the public transport, going through flashbulbs like Las Vegas lit by strobe lights, and chucking their official Olympic McDonald's Bic Mac game pieces in the front garden? Olympic officials strutting around like Donald Trump on a "Be Mussolini for A Day Tour"? No, thank you.

I suspect there'll be thousands of Torino-ites on the beaches of Monte Carlo, Cannes, Nice, Malibu, Miami, Honolulu, Brighton, and Torquay this February, taking in the brisk winter air and loving every second of it.

It's one thing to be told that you've gotten an invitation to the world's biggest party. It's another to realize they're going to be holding it right smack in your backyard. Keep the skis out of the rosebush, would you?

The Auld Wee Scottie's Eve

Tis' Robert Burns Night in old Caledonia (or Scotland) this evening, or it was given that at the time I'm writing this, it's about 5:30 in the morning there. Always late for the party, that's me.

Robert Burns Night is the celebration of the beloved Scots poet's birthday, and an excuse to indulge in all things Scots. All over the world, Scots and those who appreciate Scotland will be happily feeding on haggis, oatcakes, shortbread, bridies, Scotch eggs, sausage rolls, mince, and downing Tennant's lager, Glenfiddich, and Irn Bru by the caskful. They shall sit by a roaring fire, hiking up their kilts to warm the loins, fondly embracing their bonnie lassies, and reading favourite lines from Burns' poetry, which are rich and mellifluous, if indecipherable to anyone living south of Gretna.

For those of us in the humour business though, this is just another welcome excuse for lame jokes about Scotland, and I don't mean standard fare such as the "real" meaning of the term "the caber toss".

No, I believe in educating the masses. Given that this is The Dictionary of Unfortunate Ideas, I thought it would be appropriate to offer some useful, and somewhat less bawdy definitions of terms you likely heard, and were baffled by, on this day. For humourous purposes, this list will of course be highly inaccurate.

**********

A Primer of Scots Terminology
by Earl of the Clan MacFando

aye - The lil' round things you see out of. Most blokes have two. Some pirates have one.
bairn - The thing the sheep go in on a rainy day, because nothing smells so bad as wet wool.
bonny - A rabbit. (ex. There goes the Easter Bonny!)
bridie - The lassie the groom gets hitched up wi'.
caber - Erm... we said we'd skip this one. Suffice to say that Scottish ones are enormous.
cannae - The thing Scotty says on Star Trek: "I cannae get the power!" No one knows what this means.
dinnae - The meal after lunch and before whiskey.
haggis - Sheep sweetbreads stuffed in the stomach and roasted in the oven with oats and oatcake. Sometimes, truth is funnier than fiction. Modern opinions of this dish range from "absolutely delicious" to "could not respond to survey due to repeated wretching".
ken - Barbie's friend. He doesn't capitalise his name because he's a pretentious git.
kilt - Past tense of "kill".
laddie - The thing you can climb to change lightbulbs or paint your flat. A small one is a step-laddie. Do not attempt to fight Jackie Chan if he is wielding one of these, as he will knock you flat on your caber.
lassie - Many people insist that this is the term used to refer to a lovely Scots woman. A certain collie would disagree. Also known as the "most obvious Scottish joke known to mankind."
loch - What you put a key into. Also, the second most obvious Scottish joke known to mankind.
Nessie - A really big lizard that hides in doorknobs. Also "untidy".
tartan - A spice. Short for Cream of Tartan.
wee - A quick leak.
wee-wee - A longer leak.
wee-wee-wee - Something the little pig said all the way home, or a leak taken after Robert Burns Night. Pass the Tennant's, please.

So are the days of my life...

Before I get into my post today I thought I would pass my thanks along to our loyal readers, especially Cayln and Elizabeth. We'll try our best to "keep rockin' it" with the most "intelligent and witty" things we can muster from our pea-sized brains. That or we'll go blue, whatever it takes. Anyhow, I will have to make another startling confession this week. I do love the soap operas. Since I'm busy during the day fighting with ISO 9001 procedures and the occasional three martini lunch I don't get a chance to see them live, but through the use of digital technology I am able to see them at night.

Lately when I've fired up the old TIVO to watch my favorite soap The Wet and the Immoral, I've been noticing a rash of accidents resulting in subdural hematomas. I kept track in the last episode and there were no less than 14 subdural hematomas experienced by the unwitting lot. Now, I don't even play a doctor on TV but I have to guess that the incidence of subdural hematomas in soap operas is quite a bit higher than in your normal populace. Keen to examine this phenomenon I set my TIVO to capture all soap operas in a given day and cross reference by the times that subdural hematoma is mentioned versus mentions in cooking shows.

Soap operas
Subdural Hematoma mentioned: 2,455

Cooking shows
Subdural Hematoma mentioned: 1
(I think we can count that one out since it was on Iron Chef.)

I know it's a shocking ratio when you see it put in numbers so the next day I set it to record all instances of the words "subdural hematoma" in soap operas. It found numerous mentions of the words but I will only run down a few here to save time.

The Wet and The Immoral

Dr. Ravensclaw: Palamino, you say your stepson fell down the stairs and suffered this subdural hematoma while eating a Twinkie?

Palamino Dubois: (thick southern accent) Ah guess it was a suga' rush that got him?

Dr. Ravensclaw: Then why do you have spongecake under your fingernails! (Swell of soap opera music)

Palamino: (quick zoom up to her face) I don't know what you're talkin' about. (hiding hands) Oh Dashielle, don't you see it's because I love you.

Dr. Ravensclaw: Kiss me you fool. (reaches out and grabs her roughly)

Palamino: Be gentle Dashielle, I'm still recovering from a subdural hematoma.

******************

Another Day

Russ Heartly: Mom, can I ride my motorcycle down to see Mary Ellen?

Page Heartly: Sure honey, how is the subdural hematoma?

Russ: They say she'll recover from this one also. Thanks mom. (Russ leaves in a hurry)

(Snap zoom to Russ's helmet sitting on the breakfast table)(ominous music)

Page: Oh no, here we go again.

(Sounds of fifteen car pile-up on the street outside)

********************

The 8:15 to Lustingham (British)

Col. Graves: Elle, where is my morning paper?

Elle: Here you go Colonel, the cat was using it as a toy again.

Col. Graves: Heaven's sake. Well let's see what the news is today. Great Shakespeare's ghost, there's been a horrific train wreck in London. Lizzy!!!

Elle: Surely it wasn't her train sir.

Col. Graves: (reading) "The wreck involved the 8:55 Pullman Express and the 8:15 Subdural Hematoma Special out of Lustingham." (grabbing chest) It can't be.

Elle: But remember she was getting off at Swindon to see Lady Finchley and of course that newpaper would contain events that happened yesterday and not this morning.

Col. Graves: Are you being saucy with an old widower? I just lost my wife and I'm in a fragile state.

Elle: What? Colonel, now stop!!!!

Col. Graves: (chasing her around the table) Stop running, you know I have a bad heart.

*******************

Los Matadors y la Presa (Spain)
(The Killers and the Prey)

Rojilio: Pedro, Dónde está su juego?

Pedro: No me siento como luchar los toros hoy.

Rojilio: ¿Por qué?

Pedro: Caí en amor con uno.

Rojilio: Ése es el hablar del hematoma del subdural.

Pedro: No, es mi corazón.

******************

So, you can see that the subdural hematoma is a hot commodity right now in the soap opera universe. I just hope they're not taking too much advantage of it.

The Anniversary Challenge Is Ov-ah!!!

The winner? Iron Chef Japanese Masaharu Morimoto!!!

No, sorry! Wrong broadcast.

Actually, I'm writing to announce the winners of our DOUI First Anniversary Challenge. (Cue sparklers and fire extinguisher smoke)

I say winners because, so moved were we by the efforts of the two fans whose e-mails we chose, we couldn't decide between them! Regular readers will have already guessed that what we were most moved by was the fact that they wrote at all, as they were the only two submissions.

Nonetheless, they were both effusive and generous in their praise, and we want to reward them for their kind comments.

**********

"I have to say that "Ruining the Tourist Trade for Everyone" is my most recent favorite, although anything that makes fun of Tom Cruise is always good. Thanks, guys. I love reading y'all's blog. I've been reading it for about 6 months and it always cracks me up. My friends all have blogs, and I read theirs, but it's nice to read something intelligent and witty every once in a while. Keep up the good work!

Calyn Reber"

**********

"Happy Anniversary to DOUI! You guys are still rockin' it! Keep up the great work!

Your fan,
Elizabeth K."

**********

As careful and attentive readers will note, our wonderful fans' e-mail has answered the other part of the Anniversary Challenge!! (cue general popping of balloons and cat noises)

With a grand total of 100% of the votes, the winner of the DOUI Post of the Year is:

(At this point you have to imagine a forty-year-old man making a drumroll sound using his stomach... Yes, I know - revolting... and painful.)

'Ruining the Tourist Trade for Everyone'

As the author of that particular post, I'm especially pleased to hear this news as it means I've won the wager between myself and Stew, and now Stew has to caddy for me for the next year on the golf course, buy all the drinks, and wear the Arsenal beanie 24 hours a day! Go Gooners!! It was well worth getting banned from France, Russia, Canada, Japan, West Virginia, and Trinidad and Tobago. (Funny that. I don't remember T&T being on the original list. I'll bet they did it in support of West Virginia!)

BTW, Stew doesn't actually know about the bet...yet!

Anyway, our deepest and humblest thanks to Calyn and Elizabeth for their valued support!!

On with the new year!!

"Comrade Wang, suddenly my Cameron Diaz searches are fruitless!"

Google has decided to assist the Chinese government by censoring searches on their new Chinese-based version of the world famous search-engine. The reason? Google says that it's to "make meaningful and positive contributions to the already impressive pace of development in China."

Allow me to translate that from the native Weasel: "make meaningful and positive amounts of money from the already impressive pace of development in China."

I'm sorry, I think I left out the words "cash" and "jackpot" from the translation.

In a related story, a linguist reveals that the word "Google" is ancient Chinese for "Hypocritical Toady Who Submits for Boatloads of Cash and The Odd Private Tour of The Forbidden City." Well, say what you want about them, but they certainly know how to name a site!

I suppose I should be careful, since Google owns Blogger the way Oprah owns Steadman or Tom owns Katie. Who knows, perhaps they're scanning for critical comments right now in an attempt to weed out all references to their gutless caving in to the People's Rep-- [ [ }}}}

[post ends]

Do You Google?

The Anniversary Party! What you missed...

I just thought I'd chime in again, as Stew seems to be buried in an avalanche of ISO-9001 paperwork, to let you know how the luxurious anniversary party went.

Of course, it was just Stew and I sitting around a table sipping 2% beer, eating stale Twiglets, and grumbling things like "Why don't more readers love us?" "I knew I should have included the Tom Cruise joke I left out of post 644!" and "I wonder when Juan Carlos is getting out of the big house?" So, you guessed it, I had to make stuff up for the press release.

**********

Press Release - Dictionary of Unfortunate Ideas
To: Every media outlet on the face of the Earth, except Nazi Monthly, The Commie Times, and Redbook
From: Earl Fando, Ombudsman and Head Waiter, The Dictionary of Unfortunate Ideas

(A undisclosed location)
(Correction: A different undisclosed location than the one where Vice President Dick Cheney is sequestered.)

Critically regarded comedy weblog The Dictionary of Unfortunate Ideas celebrated their first anniversary with a star-studded party on Friday the 20th of January. The party was held at the ornate pavilion of an undisclosed location that guests were whisked to by hovercraft, whilst wearing blindfolds, earmuffs, and fake arrow-through-the-head hats.

Several celebrities were on hand for the festivities. Tom Cruise gave a long lecture on the perils of psychotropic drugs including those for post partum depression. Later in the evening an disguised Brooke Shields slipped him some Ritalin in his Diet Pepsi, after which he really mellowed out and started chatting up Brad Pitt, who was accccompanied by his current partner, the striking Angelina Jolie. In fact, she struck DOUI co-editor Earl Fando at least four times during the evening for comments he made about the Laura Croft movies, including at least one challenge for Jolie to climb up the wall by using only her arms and then leap down by doing a backflip.

Brad and Angelina were accompanied to the party by Angelina's brother, who was tethered to Angelina by a leather strap with the word "Toy" embroidered on it. Billy Bob Thornton was reportedly caught outside looking in the windows and muttering, "What's Brad got that I don't?" which gave everyone a laugh, especially Cruise. Reportedly, he was seen leaving with Katie Holmes.

Former Heavyweight Champion of the World George Foreman appeared briefly to down a few hamburgers and chat up his fellow luminaries. At one point he accidentally sat on Wolfgang Puck, who catered the affair, having been led to believe it was a post-Golden Globes party. Apparently, this was why DOUI co-editor Stew Miller spoke in a French accent all evening. Puck was uninjured, but had to be removed from a couch with the "Jaws of Life."

Entertainment, included U2, who accidentally showed up at the party when their Lamborghini broke down outside the undisclosed location and they wandered in, attracted by the scent of cheeseburgers wafting outside from the armada of George Foreman grills Puck assembled to handle the food. At one point Donald Trump swiped Bono's cowboy hat, but was unable to put it on his head due to the complete inflexibility of his hair. Bono responded by making the "peace" sign and then suddenly jabbing Trump in the eyes, to the delight of Martha Stewart.

Biily Jack star Tom Laughlin showed up to sign autographed, life-sized photos of himself, dutifully carried around by Mrs. Tom Laughlin. He gave up after five minutes though when he realized that no one except Fando and Miller knew who the hell he was, and also because he didn't have an invitation.

In addition, Billy Idol arrived to do a brief rendition of his latest hit, What the **** Kind of Party Is This? He added as an encore a roaring premiere of his apparently upcoming hit, I'll Sue the ******* **** Out of You, You Lying ********! You Said This Was A Charity Benefit!! He did follow that with an acoustic version of White Wedding, but only because Keira Knightley asked him to.

Madonna appeared to do a number as well, entitled My Name Is Esther and I'm Here to Help You Embrace The Mystical Energies of The Spiritual World. This proved to be a tremendous letdown, as she sang the entire song in a low-pitched monotone whilst sitting in a cardboard box and being accompanied on the zither by Salman Rushdie. Even Cruise confessed to being "...bored out of my freakin skull! Pass me some more of that Diet Pepsi, man."

DOUI contributor Zimpter Fiforg stopped by briefly to read a letter of support for imprisoned DOUI colleague Juan Carlos Vega (no relation to the King of Spain...really!), who was unable to attend but was sent a small package of saltines via third-class mail. Fiforg then excused himself to return to work by telling everyone he had to "...head back to the salt mines!" after which he was whisked away by limousine and police escort in the company of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, who was driving.

Finally, the highlight of the evening was the sudden and inexplicable appearance of Cameron Diaz from inside a large birthday cake, where she had escaped from being bound and gagged for a number of hours. The DOUI staff claimed it was her attempt to redo a famous Houdini stunt, but she left angrily and was reported to have shouted something about "criminal charges" and also "I'll be back with the Angels to kick some ass!"

The party ended with a massive fireworks display, set off when Donald Trump's Blackberry exploded in his back pocket and set his trousers on fire.

Reporting: Lear O'Fand

**********

It would have been a great party. Blimey, it would have been a great press release, but F. Johnny Lee wouldn't let me send it due to the, erm...fictional aspects of it. Funny that. It reads true.

Putting things on cats? Cats???

As you may have guessed in advance, we didn't get so much as a whiff of a nomination at the 2006 Bloggies. There's no link because I'm bitter about the whole thing. (Oh, all right!) I suspect it's because we are completely unknown to all but our most loyal, devoted, and obessive fans. That would include Mrs. P. Westinghouse of Loyola, Maryland, who should please stop writing me e-mails about how she would love to introduce me to "her gerbil."

All right, I made that up. that's how desperate it's become. Even our regular fans haven't bothered to e-mail anything for the First Anniversary festival. So we're extending the deadline until Tuesday evening, to give you a greater chance of permanently damaging our self-esteem by ignoring us.

On top of all this, I was looking over the nominees for "most humorous weblog" and only two made me so much as titter. Now, humourists are a tough lot to begin with, and for the most part I could see how a few of the nominees were deserving of some sort of recognition. However, I refuse to accept that the website stuffonmycat.com is more deserving of comedic recognition than this or most of the other blogs in the known universe, including this one, this one, and even this one. (All right, maybe not that last one...but it's close, you must admit!)

I think I can say, with a fair amount of authority, that pictures of putting things on top of your cat are not particularly amusing unless you have a large, wet hairball for a brain. "But Earl," you protest, "That site got favourable mentions in GQ Magazine and ELLEgirl!" I rest my case.

On top of that, no pun intended, such a site must draw in a fair amount of loony animal abusers. "Enclosed, one photograph of my precious kitten, with my new Jeep Wrangler on top of it," or worse, they must dread the Peter Singer submissions. They should know better than to tempt such individuals.

I must say that to some extent I am relieved about the whole Bloggies thing. I was eagerly looking over the site the other day, sort of the way a columnist at the Weekly World News watches the wires in anticipation of the Pulitzer nominations, when I noticed that one of the donated prizes was a DVD of a film called The God Who Wasn't There, donated by the filmmaker. For those of you unfamiliar with this work, its primary conjecture is that Jesus Christ wasn't a real person in history. In other words, that somebody made Jesus up and that all those apostles and first century saints suffered and died awful deaths for something they invented in an apparent fit of creative heresy. I find that rather insulting to the intelligence, not to mention being contradicted by 2,000 years of history and scholarship. So, regardless of your own religious beliefs, this film is clearly the work of a dedicated nutter. I suppose though that the bloke had a few thousand spare DVD's lying around and thought it would be a nice, cheap way to get publicity. Give him credit for creative marketing, at least. A shame the Bloggies are so hard up for prizes.

My only regret is that, had we been nominated and won, that we couldn't include in our acceptance speech that we were going to "put the DVD in Stew's high-speed compactor", and ask the director to, "with all due respect, as Jack Nicholson said in As Good As It Gets, 'Go sell crazy somewhere else.'" We could have done our first video link of the DVD imploding.

However, I digress. The real point of this post is to acknowledge that our own marketing plan is in need of a massive boost. Awards like the Bloggies and The Weblog Awards are all decided upon by public voting, so quality and craft (and in our case sheer gall) have nothing to do with it. Since we don't have 30 copies of our own magnum opus Lame Duck Refusniks to peddle to the Bloggies, we need to find some quick, foolproof, and cheap way to promote this site, so that next year we can resume our plans for worldwide blog dominance.

Knowing that hardly anyone is currently reading this bleedin' thing, Ive decided to let you in on what I've come up with so far:

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Earl Fando's Secret 7-Point Marketing Plan for Promoting The Dictionary of Unfortunate Ideas
copyright 2006

1. Redesign the site. The new design will feature a user-friendly navigational scheme, a font that is easy on the eyes, and numerous pictures of Cameron Diaz. In other words, the same blog, with numerous pictures of Cameron Diaz.

2. Offer prizes. From now on, every lucky 1,000,000th visitor will win a free e-mail from Stew Miller declaring his undying gratitude for their support. At our present pace of readership, Stew's as yet unborn grandchildren should be able to award this sometime shy of the next century.

3. Suck up to the big blogs and online sites. This one is so easy I can get started right now. I hereby declare that we absolutely adore Dave Barry's blog, except for the somewhat raunchier humor. Dave, feel free to link to us anytime this week. There's no rush. Thanks, mate!

4. Go political. Yes, I know that we have declared this site off-limits to overly partizan politics, preferring to make fun of everyone and more importantly not to hack off anyone who might choose to become a daily reader. Nonetheless, the poltical blogs are where it's at, so I hereby declare that this blog will stand firm in the political beliefs of its authors. We will, I believe, be the first Neo-Anti-Anarchist-Antidisestablishmentarianism-Semi-Aquatic-Farmland-Cheetos-Bacon-Silly Party blog ever. The only problem with this move, is that we are the only members of this party, and that leaves out Juan Carlos, who is a Spanish Royalist.

5. Beg for attention. More, I mean. That has been the current strategy.

6. Go Avant-Garde. People love avant-garde. It makes them feel hip and intellectual, even if they haven't a ruddy idea what it is that's being discussed or displayed. Therefore, I hereby declare this blog an "avant-garde" blog, which should put us in front for next year's Best Avant-Garde Blog categories in the big awards, should they decide to include them.

7. A massive grassroots campaign. This would be the favourite of Stew's old buddy Lukas P. Short, inventor of grassoline. We will simply contact every single person on the face of the globe and inform them of our blog. The easiest way, a simple chain e-mail, is beneath us, though. So, we'll have to try a trickier method. We'll simply mail several key political blogs a message declaring them to be "lying scumbag fascist commies" and put every single e-mail address on the face of the earth in the "From" field. Thus, when they send their angry reply, we won't get blamed for all the spam.

I hope it works. If not, we'll be miserable around here this time next year...until the Oscars.

Update: E-mail suggestions of "Hire better writers!" will be flamed.