I want to kick the crap out of somebody, and Rick Perry is the obvious choice.

In case you think the Howdygram isn’t a big international hoo-hah, during the past 24 hours we’ve had visitors check in from the following exotic locations: Hanoi, Beirut, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Lithuania, Singapore, Capetown, Ontario, Miami and Lisbon. Someday I’d love to know what the average Vietnamese finds so interesting about my thoughts on gefilte fish, afternoon naps and food freak Paula Deen — the Food Network’s diabetic, southern-fried phony — who promotes Krispy Kreme hamburgers with fried eggs and bacon and deep-fried baked potatoes stuffed with unrecognizable high-fat garbage while serving as official spokesperson for a national diabetes drug manufacturer.

Oh swell. I just read a news story that as of July 1 Amazon.com will start collecting SALES TAX from customers in Texas! Amazon finally caved in to pressure from the Lone Star State because they have a distribution center — i.e., a “brick and mortar” presence — in Irving and therefore should have been collecting Texas sales tax for YEARS, to the tune of $269 million. To make make up for Amazon’s obvious “oversight” they’ve agreed to build an additional distribution center here and create 2,500 jobs ... probably all at minimum wage. This is so depressing I want to kick the crap out of somebody, and Rick Perry is the obvious choice.

Listen up, everybody. The Howdygram is please to announce that another truckload of “rare” Marilyn Monroe memorabilia will be up for auction on May 8 in New York City. These treasures will include: 1) Marilyn posing with a Mountie; 2) Marilyn’s chest x-ray from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in 1954; and 3) the couch from Marilyn’s therapist’s office. Seriously.

In an exclusive report, the Einsteins at MSNBC.com have uncovered that — please sit down for this — telemarketers are ignoring the national “do not call” list. While this might be newsworthy to MSNBC, Sam and I have been on the national “do not call” list for YEARS and still receive at least one annoying call from a telemarketer every single day, typically from companies plugging security systems, free roof inspections, membership in a senior citizen prescription plan or gutters. For the record, I’m also mighty sick of the daily collection calls for a deadbeat named Rachel who apparently once had our home telephone number and owes money to a pack of pit bull creditors in five states. Every time the phone rings here there’s a 75% chance that somebody’s asking for Rachel instead of Sam or me. I really, really hate her.