Why do bald people love cowboy hats?

The headlines are all over the place ... Herman Cain has something GINORMOUS to announce today! Although he’s not giving out any advance hints, most media sources — including the Howdygram news desk — can pretty much guess what’s going on. Herman will either tell us there’s a two-for-one sale at Godfather Pizza or he’s pulling out of the GOP race because all of his former female friends, co-workers and money-grubbing pals in skirts just can’t stop making up stories about him. In my personal opinion the dude is pretty damn stupid to run for national office with so much crap piled up in his past. And his poor wife is probably so disgusted she’s ready to shove that hat up his nose.

An Arresting Development. And now for something completely different. On Friday in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a 13-year-old middle school student was arrested for burping in gym class. His teacher called the school resource officer, who asked law enforcement authorities to arrest him for “interfering with public education.” The Albuquerque Police were fine with that and think it’s a good idea to arrest a child for being a kid — when did belching become illegal? — and haul him downtown to the central detention facility without contacting his parents, who are suing.

Last year the boy’s attorney said she won a class action suit against the Albuquerque Police Department for routinely arresting children for nonviolent crimes. That suit was started by the parents of a girl in grammar school who was arrested for not wanting to sit next to a boy with B.O. Albuquerque is frightening. I’ll bet they have a firing squad if you pass notes in study hall.

The Latest Jobs Report. I’ve been reading and enjoying the new 600-page biography about Steve Jobs (the one released two weeks after he died) and thought I’d mention something that really interested me. Steve was adopted as a baby. Although he eventually developed a close relationship with a biological sister, he never knew or wanted to meet his biological father, who’s pictured below. I think this is sort of an eerie look into the future if Steve had lived to be 80 years old. Amazing, isn’t it? They even wear the same glasses!

I’m not tired enough to sleep yet so I think I’ll refill my glass of Coke Zero and read for a while. Thanks for stopping by.

Halloween and other pointless pursuits.

Just in case you haven’t read enough stories this year about sickening excess, you might be interested to know that America’s Queen of Greed — reality TV star KIM KARDASHIAN — filed for divorce today after only two months of marriage. (My skin started to itch just thinking about this.)

At the end of August Kardashian’s $10 million over-the-top “fairytale” wedding to Kris Humphries was taped for broadcast on E! Entertainment Television with an estimated $15 million payout to the bride. She also sold exclusive rights to her wedding photos to “People” magazine for $2.5 million, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she refuses to return her 20-carat engagement ring and wedding gifts because I don’t think this third-rate bimbo has ever demonstrated a shred of decency in her entire life. (I sincerely hope that E! and “People” consider suing her for fraud.)

Kardashian is mostly famous for gigantic fake breasts, a face that looks like wax, her former friendship with Paris Hilton and a widely-circulated sex tape with an ex-boyfriend … all of which she parlayed successfully into THREE concurrent Kardashian-based reality series. And if that’s not obnoxious enough for you, she’s got two sisters and a mother all cut from the same creepy, overpriced cloth.

One final thought. According to TMZ Kardashian filed divorce papers after the couple had an argument — obviously the last straw! — about where to spend Halloween, and as mature, serious adults we all know that a meaningful holiday like Halloween would be a deal-breaker for ANY marriage.

And while I’m on the subject of Halloween …

Anybody who plans to come trick-or-treating here tonight please skip my house because I’m not opening the door, and I didn’t open the door LAST year, either. If your kids really can’t live without stale bubble gum and teeny boxes of Raisinets, please go to Wal-Mart and buy your own.

Tonight I plan to curl up in the family room with lemonade, a couple of Schwan’s tamales and my brand new 630-page Steve Jobs biography — with LOTS OF PICTURES! — that came a few days ago. I can’t wait to get started, so thank you for not annoying me.

Adventures in Howdygramland.

Good morning, Howdygramsters. It’s the crack of the middle of the night (dawn is more than an hour away), Sam is in bed, and I’m pleased to announce that I just pre-ordered Steve Jobs’ long-awaited biography from Amazon.com. The book is due to ship on October 24 and Amazon is selling the hardcover for only $17.88. That’s HALF PRICE. I’d include a photo of the book jacket but it looks exactly like the image of Steve from my post on Wednesday.

For all you foodies out there, it’s almost time to program your DVRs for “Top Chef Texas,” which premiers November 2 on Bravo. I love “Top Chef” but hate their “Top Chef Just Desserts” spinoff. Pastry chefs are way too boring for reality TV, I don’t particularly like the judges except for Gail Simmons and the challenges have been exceptionally stupid. The big hoo-hah on Wednesday night’s episode was for everybody to create a new kind of doughnut. I had a hard time staying awake for THAT one. Seriously.

I had a mighty successful Costco junket yesterday morning and came home with a big container of pasta salad for Sam, a package of fresh chicken taquitos, our favorite salsa, two pounds of lox, chipotle chicken meatballs, sushi, a tub of cashews and 48 AA alkaline batteries. Later today we’ll make a quick run to Tom Thumb to pick up a few essentials for David’s visit and a private bag of Cheetos just for ME.

Here’s a brief-yet-shocking Root Canal Report from Sam’s visit to the endodontist yesterday — he’s going to need a THIRD TREATMENT for that infected molar! The dentist says he’s never seen anything like this before because Sam apparently has “freakishly long” roots on his lower teeth. Poor Sam isn’t having any fun whatsoever and the right side of his face looks like a chipmunk.

I’m going back to bed now. Thank you for reading this.

Posting from the Twilight Zone.

I really never believed in psychic connections until now.

Last night when Sam called to tell me Steve Jobs had died I was already working on a Howdygram post and decided to add one last paragraph with a photo of Steve at the end. So I did a Google search and looked at thousands of Steve Jobs images before I picked the one I liked best.

Here comes the Twilight Zone part.

Immediately afterwards I visited Apple.com to see how they were treating Steve’s obituary, and — holy crap — they had posted the SAME PHOTO (in black and white) on their home page that I used in the Howdygram. The odds of that are maybe a billion to one!

Apple will probably switch back to their regular home page after a couple of days, but in the meantime you can check it out here.

In other news, Sam’s Aunt Adie emailed a lovely food portrait (see below) last night after she made a pot of authentic Texas chili from a mix that she won in a Howdygram contest.

This looks sensational, Adie, and I’m convinced your next career should be cookbook photography. In the future, however, please consider emailing some actual CHILI instead of a PHOTO.

I just ran out of lemonade so I guess it’s time to go back to bed for a little while. Sam has his second root canal treatment at 9 this morning, and while he’s gone I think I’ll do a junket over to Costco for an industrial-size package of lox, a tub of Sam’s favorite cashews and a few other essentials that David might like. Only two more days to go!

Thank you for reading this.

My career epiphany.

In case you don’t think you’ll know for sure when the time is right for retirement, here are my top five fundamental clues.

1. You haven’t handed anybody a business card in more than a year.
2. Your clients are a bunch of pests and you’d rather lose the revenue than answer their emails.
3. You’re more excited about the latest episode of “Real Housewives of New Jersey” than quoting a new design project.
4. You seriously can’t remember what your next invoice number is supposed to be.
5. There’s no good reason to continue paying for an 800 number because you haven’t felt motivated to answer the phone since 2009.

I’m not joking about any of this and I’m ready to wrap it all up. I qualify for senior discounts everywhere on the planet, I’ve already collected my pension payout from a former employer, I’m two years away from Social Security and all I really want to do for the next three decades is fold Sam’s socks and defrost things for dinner.

Making matters worse — MUCH worse — is the sad news tonight that Steve Jobs has died, most certainly from the pancreatic cancer he’s been battling for the last few years. Sam called to tell me a few minutes ago and the story is spreading like wildfire on every major news website. Personally, I feel like I’ve lost an old friend. I think I’ll sit shiva here at my Mac for a couple of hours and watch a bunch of Steve’s old MacWorld Expo keynote speeches on YouTube.

Thanks for stopping by.

The man who changed my life before Sam.

A couple of hours ago Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple, Inc., and I’m so choked up I almost can’t write this post. Although Steve didn’t mention his health in the press release, you’d have to be pretty dense not to figure it out for yourself: “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.”

Steve Jobs was the man who changed my life before Sam. It happened 27 years ago when he launched my career in the creative arts with the introduction of the first Macintosh computer — an adorable little sweetie with 128K RAM, a nine-inch black and white display and no hard drive (see right). The first Mac may look idiotic to you twentysomethings out there, but trust me, in 1984 it was PURE GENIUS. Over the years my Macintosh computers have allowed me to publish a cookbook, create at least a dozen different newsletters, run two national businesses, develop websites, write three blogs and design thousands of idiotic greeting cards.

The bottom line is, Steve’s resignation makes me feel slightly nauseated. During the last four years he’s battled pancreatic cancer and survived a liver transplant; now he’s skinny as a skeleton and resigning from Apple without really saying WHY. I’m sure his inner circle knows the truth, and it can’t be good.

Steve Jobs is only 56 years old. Visionaries should have a much longer life expectancy than that. A minimum of 125 years should be mandatory.

And now I want to check the progress of our new cedar arbor, which has been under construction in the back yard since 10 this morning. The work crew is still here. After an afternoon high of 104° we had a “cold front” slide through the area, knocking the air temperature down to a frosty 84°. So they’re probably taking advantage of it. I wouldn’t mind if they all spent the night out there, but only if they turn off their stupid radio.

Thank you for reading this.

Don croaks in south Texas.

I’m referring, of course, to the useless tropical storm that landed yesterday in Brownsville. Apparently Don kicked the proverbial bucket before producing any drought relief whatsoever, and Texans everywhere are pretty irritated about this. Here in the Dallas area we were holding onto a shred of hope for maybe one cloud and a teeny chance of rain today and tomorrow, but when I checked the 10-day forecast a couple of minutes ago on Weather.com here’s what I saw:

Look at the daily high temperatures which, incidentally, do NOT reflect the “heat index” with humidity factored in. On Monday and Wednesday next week we could easily wind up with a heat index above 115°. Oy.

I just read a very interesting article. Apparently Apple Inc. has more available cash on hand than the treasury of the United States.

What makes this even more amazing than it sounds is, Apple did it all under the leadership of one singular visionary — Steve Jobs — by inventing, manufacturing and marketing exciting products that everybody lines up to buy. Sure, there are other large corporations with lots of money (think big oil or pharmaceutical companies) but they make their dough by gouging the public for an essential service, manipulating supply and demand and hoarding windfall profits from tax breaks they don’t deserve. When you compare corporate goals, cultures and public perception, Steve Jobs rises to the top as the most amazing CEO in history. And he got there in jeans and a black turtleneck. I’m just saying.

I got up way too early today. I’m thinking I should go stretch out on the couch for an hour or two or maybe even go back to bed for a while. Thanks for stopping by. I like you.

Summer heat and the latest Jobs report.

There’s not much to do around here this week except roll a mountain of coins and watch the thermometer climb. It was 99° today in the Dallas area -— hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk if you don’t mind the bugs and grime. Me, I just stay inside when the weather’s like this.

On this date in 1692 a massive earthquake and tsunami destroyed the depraved, pirate-infested town of Port Royal, Jamaica. For an exposé on pre-earthquake living conditions in Port Royal you should take a look at Errol Flynn’s masterpiece, Captain Blood. Also ... on this date in 1962 Credit Suisse opened the first drive-through bank in Zurich, Switzerland, and in 1937 actress Jean Harlow died of kidney failure at the age of 26.

And now you’re all caught up on history.

In other news, acclaimed visionary — and my personal god — Steve Jobs took the stage yesterday at San Francisco’s Moscone Center to introduce the Mac’s new “Lion” operating system and Apple’s new iCloud service. Unfortunately, at the moment Jobs is looking skinner than the latest iPod and he’s scaring me half to death.

The Howdygram has launched an official program to send Steve an ongoing supply of Twinkies and In-N-Out Burger gift cards. Click here if you’d like to contribute.

Thank you for reading this and don’t forget to enter our contest.

Sometimes we get what we deserve.

U.S. snowboard cross hotshot Lindsey Jacobellis screwed up her chances for an Olympic win today when she veered off course during the semi-finals and failed to qualify for the medal round. Know what? I LOVE THIS NEWS. Lindsey Jacobellis is the same screwball who loused up her chance for a gold medal at the 2006 Olympics in Torino by showboating during the final seconds of the race, landing on her ass (see video clip below) and then spending the next four years refusing to admit what she did even though the whole world saw it on live TV. She’s STILL trying to make everybody believe it was just a “snowboard trick that didn’t work.” BALONEY. Even the sports commentators knew what she did. I, for one, can’t wait to see the video clip of today’s semi-final run. (To my readers: I apologize if you think I’m being a snot, but it really feels terrific to vent like this now and then.)

In other news that has absolutely nothing to do with the winter Olympics, MY NEW MACINTOSH COMPUTER WAS INSTALLED YESTERDAY. It’s truly a thing of beauty and I want to thank Steve Jobs and his Macintosh gods for their latest creation. Have a nice day and shalom to everybody!

The truth be told: I’m a nerd.

Last night I watched an amazing special on CNBC, a documentary about Macintosh fanatics called “MacHeads” that finally put into perspective something that Sam has known (and I’ve suspected) for years: I’m a nerd.

I was drawn into nerdland by my first husband Milt, a ham radio enthusiast and the undisputed King of All Nerds, who noodled around on a 5K Commodore VIC-20 computer as far back as 1980. We advanced to the Commodore 64 two years later, and in 1984 I saw my first Mac when it was still brand new on the market and prohibitively expensive. I sold my soul to buy one the following year and never owned anything else since.

Yes, it’s a cult. I’m a nerd and I admit it. This is what happens to tech pioneers.

In true nerdlike fashion I can recite every Mac I’ve ever owned, including the RAM, the ROM, the size of the hard drives, the year I bought them and the software I used. Actually, my first three Macs had no hard drives at all; the operating system, fonts (there were only three: Helvetica, Times and Courier) and software fit on a single 400K floppy disk with room to spare.

I had the first editions of Adobe Illustrator and PageMaker in 1988 and bought the very first inkjet printer that same year, a Hewlett Packard DeskWriter, for $1,200 even though it only printed in one color (black) and nobody had bothered to invent compatible inkjet paper to go with it. It took six months of trial-and-error to finally discover the only inkjet-friendly paper on the market — Neenah’s Classic Crest Solar White — and I even wrote an article about it for MacUser magazine. (I’m not joking about this.) Until that time I’d been plodding along with a 72dpi dot-matrix AppleWriter because nobody in my universe could afford a laser printer. (The average price in the late 1980s was still $6,500.) I finally bought my first 20-megabyte hard drive in 1991 for $795.

So why am I telling you all this? Because my iMac G5 is already five years old, and this spring I’m planning to buy a new iMac with a 27-inch display that blows high-definition out of the water. It’s truly a thing of beauty, equipped with 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 2560 x 1440 resolution, 4GB of memory, a 1TB hard drive, wireless keyboard and Super Mouse, 8x double-layer SuperDrive and ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics. And it actually sells for far less than my first Mac back in 1985, which cost almost $2,000. I LOVE PROGRESS. (And please don’t tell Sam, but I also love Steve Jobs.) Thank you for reading this.