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By Tgreen, September 27, 2009 4:39 pm

Hello and welcome to Happy Friday, the weekly blog post that’s wondering, when you’re not sick enough to have Swine Flu, is there such a thing as Swine Head Cold?

Police in Philadelphia say a white officer who came to work with cornrows was ordered by a black superior to get a haircut because the braids violated department standards. And also, because the last white person who could pull off cornrows was Bo Derek 30 years ago.

Senior regulators say they are seriously considering a plan to have the nation’s healthy banks lend billions of dollars to rescue the insurance fund that protects bank depositors. I don’t know, but that sounds to me like if Allstate came by one night and hit you up for a loan because it had to help out the guy across the street who got rear-ended.

But on the bright side, unemployment’s so high these days that it’s not like anyone has any money in the bank anymore anyway, so who’s gonna get hurt when the next one fails?

The Uganda Wildlife Authority launched a program on Saturday to let people use social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter to follow one of the gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Hopefully this will go better than that time you hooked up with the lingerie model online, only to find out she was actually some 43-year-old guy who lived in his mom’s basement.

It was reported this week that national Democratic Party leaders have asked New York State Governor David Paterson to consider withdrawing from the 2010 governor’s race. When asked to comment, Paterson said he couldn’t see any reason he should drop out now.

A postal worker at a mail processing and distribution center in Springfield, Massachusetts who stole more than 3,000 DVDs mailed by Netflix to its customers pleaded guilty yesterday to federal theft charges. In his defense, however, is the fact that more than half of those movies were copies of Mike Myers’ The Love Guru, so you could say he was protecting people from themselves.

This week it was announced that three different space probes have found the chemical signature of water all over the moon’s surface, surprising the scientists who at first doubted the unexpected measurement. So yeah, that’s cool and all, but call me when they find traces of hops and barley up there.

In sports news, the Detroit Lions failed to sell all their tickets for Sunday’s game against the Washington Redskins, meaning there was a TV blackout in some local markets. Which makes you wonder why the rest of us had to watch this game if Detroit got off the hook like that.

Actor Randy Quaid and his wife were arrested in west Texas for skipping out on a $10,000 hotel bill in California. I thought for sure if they ever got Randy Quaid, it would be for that direct-to-DVD Vacation sequel he did a few years back.

And really, does it even count as a celebrity arrest if there’s no slow speed car chase?

A large spider appeared on the Pope’s white robes as he addressed politicians and diplomats in Prague on Saturday afternoon, and it reportedly lingered long enough to bite him. Which might explain why the Pope never seems to be around when Spider-Man is fighting Doc Ock.

In a video posted recently to YouTube, former child star Kirk Cameron lays out a plan to subvert the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species by delivering 50,000 copies of an altered version of Darwin’s book to students at dozens of U.S. universities. The altered version is significantly shorter and basically contains the sentence, “Jesus did it,” and an autographed head shot of Kirk Cameron.

Me, I’m waiting for Alan Thicke to weigh in on string theory.

This week was a big one for President Obama. First he appeared on the Sunday talk shows for most of the networks, then he gave a speech before the UN General Assembly, and then he turned up on The Late Show With David Letterman. A pretty busy week, huh? You don’t know the half of it, but you will once you check out…

Tgreen’s Top Ten Lesser-Known Obama Appearances This Week:
10. Guest ref for Foxy Boxing down at a strip club in Newark
9. Backstage at Oprah to give Mackenzie Phillips a pep talk
8. After-hours party in Khadaffi’s tent
7. Special appearance as new tenant on Melrose Place remake
6. Heckling Kanye at a charity concert
5. Throwing eggs at Glenn Beck’s front door
4. Eating Whoppers with Tony Stewart in new NASCAR Burger King commercial
3. Winning third place at Beatles Rock Band contest in Hillside Mall
2. Just hanging at a kegger in Pittsburgh
1. Headlining Top Ten list with actual jokes on Letterman’s show

And that’s all we have time for this week. Come on back next time to find out if that kid from Who’s The Boss? has an opinion on evolution.

T”3rd & goal” green

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By Tgreen, September 20, 2009 11:16 am

It’s Happy Friday time
Beginning with a rhyme
Like when it first went live
Way back in ’95

I know I’m 2 days late
And that’s not really great
But neither are the jokes
I’m dumping on you folks

And welcome back to another edition of Happy Friday, the weekly blog that once interrupted young Kanye West as he was about to give his first speech in public, something that he apparently still hasn’t gotten over.

This week The Jay Leno Show debuted to solid ratings on NBC. However, the ratings dropped sharply on the show’s second night, once NBC viewers realized they were not, in fact, watching the strangest episode of Law & Order ever.

This week Blockbuster Inc. announced it may close as many as 960 stores by the end of next year, which is totally shocking. The last time I passed a Blockbuster, I was on the bus, watching a movie on my iPod, heading to a mailbox to drop off my latest Netflix movie, and it looked like they had plenty of customers in there. How could this happen?

According to research modeling real social networks, it seems that the tendency to be happy is passed along in a way that suggests it could be ‘contagious.’ Fortunately, most of us gain a natural immunity to this contagion from a source known as our ‘job.’

This week, World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon announced that she’s planning to run against embattled Sen. Chris Dodd in the 2010 midterm elections. This may sound like a good idea now, but what happens when Dodd demands equal time on Monday Night Raw and turns up in a steel cage match wearing nothing but a skimpy pair of wrestling briefs, huh? Who wins when that happens? The answer is nobody, my friends. Nobody.

This week Microsoft debuted the Zune HD, its competitor to the iPod Touch. The Zune HD comes with a music player, games, apps and HD radio. The HD radio’s included because Microsoft wanted to offer one completely useless bit of technology in the Zune and there was no room to jam an 8-track player in there.

I shouldn’t make fun of HD radio. What other technology allows you to drop $500 or so for the opportunity to listen to commercial-free music, several failed station formats and a couple of AM stations on the FM band? Assuming you live close enough to a transmitter to even get any reception. Microsoft, once again showing it’s got its finger on the pulse of consumer demand.

Only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States, according to a survey released this week. And even worse, of the students who couldn’t name him, half of them asked “the United what?”

A Catholic charity in Britain says it believes couples should pray together before engaging in sex and to help them along, it has composed a special prayer for the occasion. I’m sure that whatever they wrote is way more eloquent than the prayer I used to say before sex — “Jesus, I hope I get laid tonight!”

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is the favored 2012 presidential nominee among social conservatives, according to a straw poll released this week. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was locked in a virtual tie for a distant second with several other candidates. Coming in third was the ghost of Ronald Reagan, which barely beat out Newt Gingrich, “not sure”, Rick Santorum, “whoever Rush says to vote for”, Sarah Palin without makeup, a zombie Richard Nixon, Mickey Mouse, that crazy conspiracy guy on the F train platform, Count Chocula and, in last place, Rudy Giuliani’s old combover.

Astronomers have found the coldest spot in our solar system — it’s on our moon and not, as you suspected, in your ex-girlfriend’s heart.

The Newlywed Game will feature its first gay couple this season on a celebrity edition. George Takei, who played Mr. Sulu on Star Trek, will appear with his partner, Brad Altman. And in a related story, the guy who played Chekov is still hoping to get called down on The Price Is Right.

As I mentioned above, this week NBC began its experiment of running Jay Leno’s new show 5 nights a week at 10PM. The move is a risky one, but since Leno’s show is so cheap to make, NBC stands to save a lot of money if it works. But what if it doesn’t? If NBC ends up needing to save even more money, what could it possibly put on that would be even cheaper? Perhaps something from…

Tgreen’s Top Ten Cheaper Alternatives To Jay Leno’s Show:
10. The Ernie Anastos Poultry Report
9. Selections from Andy Richter’s DVD Library
8. The Taylor Swift HouThe Kanye West Hour
7. Kevin Eubanks Reads The Classics
6. The Fourth Hour Of This Morning’s Today Show That Nobody Bothered To Watch The First Time Around
5. Some Random Dude’s Facebook Page
4. The Best Of Whatever’s On The USA Network Right Now
3. Nanny Cam Hidden In Tracy Morgan’s Living Room
2. So You Think You Can Host An Hour Of Network Television Five Nights A Week
1. BJ & The Bear repeats (sorry, that’s one of Tgreen’s Top Ten Coolest Things Any Network Could Ever Do In The History Of Time)

And that’s all we have time for this week. Come back next time to see if there will be another opening rhyme, a new joke, or possibly even some genuine comedy. (My guess would be maybe, nope and seriously, have you ever read one of these before?!?)

T “Quality Assured” green

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By Tgreen, September 13, 2009 9:00 am

Hello and welcome to another edition of Happy Friday, the weekly blog post that is ready for some football, thank you very much.

This week it was revealed that most casinos are reporting a downturn in revenue this year, which is definitely a sign of trouble ahead because you have to realize, Trump’s hair looks the way it does now with full casino revenue rolling in. Do we really want to see what it’ll look like if he has to start scrimping on hair care products? So get yourself to the nearest craps table before it’s too late.

NASA and the Canadian Space Agency this week signed a framework agreement Wednesday for cooperative activities in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes. Can’t wait to see what Canada’s bringing to the table here. The first back bacon sandwich in orbit? Or the first zero-G hockey game? Though that would kind of go against the whole “peaceful purposes” thing by halfway through the first period.

This week eBay featured an online auction to win a private dinner with Sarah Palin. The winner, along with four friends, will be able to have dinner with the former Alaska Governor, her husband, and whatever imaginary enemies of democracy she happens to be carrying around in her head that day.

A South African mom recently opened a baby hotel for frazzled and/or in-need parents. The Baby Hotel – open 24/7 in an upscale Johannesburg suburb – lets parents check their children into their own room for about $70 a night, though the minibar stocked with formula, baby food and fresh binkies can drive the price up very quickly.

An Indiana court ruled this week that a pizza shop must pay for a 340-pound employee’s weight-loss surgery to ensure the success of another operation for a back injury he suffered at work. The judge was particularly emphatic that the pizza shop’s proposed solution – one free pizza a day for life – was not in the employee’s best interests no matter how quickly he tried to reach a settlement once it was offered.

Ten Maryland nuns – almost their entire religious community – converted from the Episcopal Church to Catholicism on Thursday, saying their former denomination had become too liberal in its acceptance of homosexuality. “Our Church was inching way too close to a 20th Century point of view,” one of the nuns said, “and we’re really more comfortable with a 16th Century point of view, so we had to make a change.”

This week Apple CEO Steve Jobs returned to the public spotlight for the first time since taking a medical leave earlier this year. He unveiled upgrades to the iTunes store, several different iPod models, and the brand new iCatheter, a music device that must be inserted directly into the penis before any songs can be played. Jobs said there was no real need for such a product, but he knew that if Apple made a music player that needed to be inserted into the penis, rabid Apple fanboys all over the world would buy it by the truckload. And I have to admit, the sound is pretty awesome.

Thirty years ago this week, ESPN launched with the debut of its flagship show, SportsCenter. Thirty years ago next week, ESPN anchor Chris Berman debuted his famous “backbackbackbackback” home run call. And thirty years ago two weeks from now, I debuted the pulsing vein on my forehead that appears any time I hear Chris Berman on TV.

A new green checkmark label that is starting to show up on store shelves is part of a new plan to help shoppers find healthy foods at the supermarket. The label will eventually appear on hundreds of packages, though some nutritionists are wondering why the label appears on sugar-laden cereals like Cocoa Krispies and Froot Loops. If that bugs them, they’re really gonna go nuts when it shows up next year on boxes of my new instant breakfast product BaconBaconBaconBaconBaconBacon Wrapped in BaconBaconBaconBaconBaconBacon.

Controversy this week at Breckinridge County High School, where it was revealed that the football coach took about 20 players on a school bus late last month to his church, where nearly half of them were baptized without their parents’ knowledge or permission. The other half just spent a couple of hours in quiet contemplation with some priests. Their parents are now suing.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will invite leaders of cities and towns throughout the country to ask for pieces of World Trade Center steel for memorials. The Port Authority has filled about 25 requests in the last year, and has about a dozen more pending. While these memorials are a great idea, the steel is not being shipped out to make room for the new buildings they’re supposed to be constructing on the site. Because there’s still plenty of time to do that, apparently.

A new study into the origin of dogs, the largest study of its kind, suggests that wolves may have first been domesticated for their meat and not, as had first been believed, because prehistoric man needed someone around to eat his wife’s leftover meatloaf.

One in every 33 women who attend worship services regularly has been the target of sexual advances by a religious leader, a survey released Wednesday says. That’s still lower than the percentage of women who visit the Bill Clinton Presidential Library and report basically the same thing.

This week marks the start of another NFL season, which means it’s time to answer the age-old question, “Are you ready for some football?” Well, are you? Find out by checking with…

Tgreen’s Top Ten Signs That You’re Ready For Some Football:
10. You feel sudden and unquenchable craving for Turducken
9. You spent the past summer rooting for the Mets
8. You’ve finally purchased one item from every infomercial the networks have aired on Sunday afternoon since the last football season ended
7. Had two erotic dreams about Chris Collinsworth
6. Found yourself stiff-arming some guy trying to cut in line at the grocery store
5. You’ve been dying to use the word “Mangenius” in a sentence
4. Never could figure out how to spend the 50 bucks you’ve saved every week by not having the Lions to bet on
3. Got tired of being the only one on the block drinking a case of beer and eating 20 lbs of hot wings every Sunday
2. The restraining order keeping you out of the sports bar down the block is about to expire
1. Realized you’ve been spending too much time with your family

And that’s all we have time for this week. Come back next time to see if my job has finally killed my last working brain cell.

T “more a legend than a band” green

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By Tgreen, September 4, 2009 9:54 am

Hello and welcome to Happy Friday, your weekly chance to prove you know better by not dropping by here in the first place.

This week, without anybody even asking the question, Macauley Culkin’s representative said that the actor is not the biological father of Michael Jackson’s son Blanket. Not that they didn’t try, of course, but there are some things so twisted that even Michael Jackson couldn’t pull them off.

The top-selling bible in North America will undergo it’s first revision in 25 years, modernizing the language in some sections and promising to finally explain what God did on the 8th day, and whether or not it involved hanging out in the Jungle Room with Elvis, which has long been my theory.

According to a new interview with the Miss Universe choreographer, Donald Trump fixed part of the pageant to ensure that the prettiest girls make it through. So, Trump fixed his own beauty pageant? Really? Sure, and next you’ll be trying to tell me that’s not his real hair on his head. Sorry, I just can’t believe it.

In California, authorities say a clash between opponents and supporters of health care reform ended with one man biting off another man’s finger. Well, now, let’s see if that changes anyone’s mind on health care.

And apparently there’s no truth to the rumor that this only happened because Rush Limbaugh mistook some protestor’s finger for a Twinkie.

A new model for the origin of life says zinc may have played a vital role. Or, as it’s now being called in Texas science textbooks, Jesus Dust.

In sports news, this week it was learned that in the past 5 years the Washington Redskins have sued 125 fans for backing out of season ticket agreements. The Washington Redskins?!? You have to wonder if there’s grounds for a counter-suit in there somewhere from everyone who didn’t bail.

This just in, the Detroit Lions want to file suit against everyone who didn’t come to their games last season. Look for Detroit Lions v Planet Earth to hit the justice system any day now.

In other sports news, sports journalists are now being told that tweeting details of NFL games during the game is forbidden. However, if a journalist is at a game and wants to tweet about the turducken he had for dinner last night, that’s allowed thanks to the Madden Exemption.

During August, a Gallup poll said that an average of 45 percent of Americans identifed themselves as Democrats or leaning to the Democratic Party — a 7-point drop since January. The poll also found that 40 percent of those surveyed identified themselves as Republicans or leaning to the Republican Party. This leaves us with a potential 15% of Americans who can think for themselves, which all evidence suggests is still way too high, so somebody’s lying.

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned in a prostitution scandal in March 2008, is teaching a political science course as an adjunct professor at a New York City college. He got the job thanks to his winning a Clinton Fellowship grant for the upcoming year.

When asked what he thought about it, current New York governor David Patterson said he didn’t see this coming.

New reports say that outsourcing workers in India are stressed, depressed, and sick from overwork. I would just like to say to all those poor workers in India, welcome to capitalism, my Hindu friends.

And not to worry, in another year or two you won’t have to deal with any more job stresses when all your jobs are outsourced to Vietnam. Everybody wins!

A new study shows that 60% of adults can’t digest milk. However, that number quickly rises to 95% when you add Kahlua and vodka and blend it with some ice.

More complaints were filed last year against debt collectors than any other industry, the National Association of Attorneys General announced Monday. But that’s only because they won’t let us classify the IRS as an industry.

The Walt Disney Co. said this week that it’s acquiring Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion in cash and stock, bringing characters like Iron Man and Spider-Man under the same roof with Mickey Mouse and WALL-E. And setting the stage for Marvel Team Up: Wolverine and Tinkerbell, available soon at a comic shop near you.

New research reveals that adolescent girls who practice Tetris over a three-month period showed greater brain efficiency. The girls also had a thicker cortex than those in a control group, but once that was discovered, the girls in the control group teased the Tetris players for weeks over their fat cortexes until the Tetris players reduced their cortex size in the fastest way known to science — watching a marathon of shows on The CW.

Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is reportedly considering a run for Ted Kennedy’s senate seat. In Schilling’s favor is the fact that he’s quite popular in the Boston area. Working against him, though, is the sad fact that as far as anyone knows, Schilling hasn’t killed even one secretary. So unless he can prove that blood on his sock wasn’t his, he might want to reconsider.

This weekend is Labor Day, the traditional end of summer here in the US. However, you didn’t need to know Labor Day was here to know the summer was about over, because the signs are obvious if you know where to look, starting with…

Tgreen’s Top Ten Signs That Summer’s Over:
10. Store shelves reach critical mass of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas items
9. Your school teacher friends stop acting so smug about all their vacation time and start refilling their Valium prescriptions
8. Baseball widows suddenly transform into football widows
7. More non-robots than robots on the movie theater screen
6. The A train becomes 12% less stinky
5. TV Guide stops using shows from TLC or Food Network in its What to Watch highlights and starts using broadcast networks again
4. You stop worrying about your kid surfing porn sites and start worrying about your kid surfing homework cheating sites
3. You find yourself wondering where you packed away the blankets
2. Girl-watching in city parks gradually begins to become less fun
1. Top Ten lists stop using the word “beach”, start using the word “rake”

And that’s all we have time for this week. Drop by again next week to see if the long weekend gives me time to come up with some fresh material (spoiler alert: it doesn’t). Until then, enjoy your last 3-day weekend for awhile, keep your Pepsi out of my Jack, get ready for some football, and, of course, have a Happy Friday!

T “fetch mommy a blanket, won’t you?” green

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By Tgreen, September 2, 2009 12:52 am

So I’ve got two new bits of writing news to share here.

First off, I’ve got a story, Black & Blue, coming out in the Fall 2009 issue of The First Line. The First Line is a literary journal that’s published a couple of my stories over the years, and I’m happy to have a new story in their current issue. The way The First Line works is they provide the first line of the story and the writer takes it from there for 3,000 or fewer words. If you’d like to purchase a copy, you can do so here. If you’d like to know what other publications available on that page have my work in them, drop me a line and I’ll clue you in.

Now, if you’re not interested in parting with $3.50 and would instead enjoy seeing an example of a story The First Line rejected, I’ve got you covered there too. Floating Home, a story I submitted for the Spring 2009 issue is now available on the website here. There’s a short explanation leading into the story to give you an idea of what might have been if I’d maybe worked a little harder at the end of 2008.

I’m hoping to avoid that pitfall at the end of 2009, and plan to have some more writing news coming up soon. Until then, happy reading!