Conspiracy theorists are paranoid schizophrenic poop-heads.

In this post: Disruptions, Einstein Award, upcoming events.

Our remodeling contractor (Clayton) will be here tomorrow at 11 a.m. to take apart the shower in our master bathroom and repair the damage from a water leak behind the marble bench. I’ll try to be as brave as possible about this, but I usually have a nervous breakdown if something disturbs my privacy and afternoon nap. Clayton and his helper will be here Thursday, too. I might have to blow my brains out.

Oscar Pistorius is a douchebag and other important things for Tuesday.

In this post: New red, important things.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but as of 3:45 Monday afternoon — and for no apparent reason whatsoever — I started using A DIFFERENT SHADE OF RED for the Howdygram’s accent color! Although I’m pretty sure nobody except me gives a crap about this, in case you can’t tell the difference (or don’t know what I’m talking about) the following example will absolutely knock your socks off:

God willing and weather permitting I might clean out the freezer tonight.

In this post: Screaming, organizing, dining.

Know why I love the Howdygram? I CAN TYPE IN ALL CAPS* WHENEVER I WANT AND NOBODY’S ALLOWED TO GIVE ME ANY CRAP ABOUT IT. Caps are liberating. Try it sometime. It feels like you’re SCREAMING AT THE WORLD, and lately there’s plenty to scream about. For instance:

1. Sam had to go to work today. On Sunday!
2. Russia steals Crimea; NATO says Moldova is next (see below). Romney blames Obama.
3. Missing airplanes.
4. Killer mudslides.
5. Exploding helicopters.
6. An oil spill in Galveston Bay.
7. The ebola virus is rampant in Guinea.
8. Tiger Woods misses the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Goodwill doesn’t want your used typefaces.

In this post: Purging, bragging, putting.

I’ve decided to simplify my life. A couple of hours ago I deleted 363 fonts I’ve never used because they’re hideous, and if I give the situation some additional thought I could probably dig up 363 more. This is a pleasant activity and I highly recommend it. It’s a lot like cleaning out a closet except Goodwill doesn’t want your used typefaces.

My Sunday afternoon activities will be limited to sushi, lemonade and televised golf.

I woke up feeling not too bad this morning until I took my temperature and discovered it was 95.6°. Holy crap. To make sure somebody wasn’t delusional (i.e., me) Sam retrieved the other digital thermometer from the master bathroom, and yup, we got the same result. How can a person who’s not a cadaver have a body temperature that low? Medical science baffles me. Everything you read says I should be completely hypothermic if my temperature 95°, yet here I am, horsing around with the Howdygram and obviously still alive.

I’m also waiting for Sam to get home from Costco, where he’s loading up on tasty whatnots for the coming week, such as a big tub of fresh pineapple, “loaded” baked potato salad and sushi (for yours truly). If the price is right I’ll also ask him to bring home a gigantic package of ground chuck so I can make a nice meatloaf for dinner. He’s supposed to call when he gets to the meat department. I’m thinking that should be almost any minute.

This afternoon I’m hoping to watch Tiger Woods win the Bridgestone Invitational. He’s had quite an impressive weekend of golf — tying his lowest-ever round of 61 on Friday — and his score is currently 15 under par. GO TIGER!

Looks like it’s finally summer in north Texas. We had very reasonable and unexpectedly pleasant weather in May, June and July with occasional rain, no temperatures higher than the mid-90s and many weeks only in the 80s. August, of course, is kicking off with a bang, as evidenced by this forecast (see below) from Weather.com. Yes, people, it’s dry as the Sahara and DAMN HOT around here now, and that’s why my Sunday afternoon activities will be limited to sushi, a couple quarts of lemonade and televised golf. Is this a great life, or what?

Many thanks for stopping by today. Next time you should think about bringing a coffee cake or a few pieces of fruit.

If I could figure out how to sleep and eat at the same time life would be perfect.

I decided not to write a Howdygram post yesterday to wish you a happy Mother’s Day because I’m not your mother. I’m not anybody’s mother. Basically, I spent the entire day involved in one of the following fulfilling activities: 1) sleeping; 2) eating things; and 3) watching Tiger Woods win the Players Championship on TV. Tiger appears below, holding a wad of crystal that’s either an ugly trophy or a pretty good vase. You pick.

After Tiger’s big payday — $1.7 million for four rounds of golf — Sam and I watched Tormented (1960), a shlocky one-star movie starring Richard Carlson and a supporting cast of nobodies. The plot involves an island with a few decent beach houses and a ghost named Vi who was once a sleazy nightclub singer with big pointy boobs. Vi comes back to haunt her “ex,” a jazz pianist played by Richard Carlson (inset, below), by leaving a trail of seaweed, her wristwatch and wet footprints everywhere she goes. (I’m serious.) None of this falls into the “horror” category by any stretch of the imagination and is frightening in no way whatsoever. Tormented should have been named Holy Crap, This Is Unbelievably Stupid.

It’s 10:45 Monday morning and Sam is on his way to Costco to buy a cartload of our biweekly favorites. These include a gigantic tub of pistachios, fresh raspberries, sushi, havarti cheese, peeled hard-boiled eggs and a dozen breakfast burritos. Our Howdygram food-fest is scheduled to commence as soon as Sam gets home although I’m almost too tired to eat right now and might have to choose sleep before food. If I could figure out how to sleep and eat at the same time life would be perfect.

As long as I’m discussing food, please allow me to utter two words that can change your life: CHIA SEEDS. Chia seeds are a high-fiber (and almost zero-carb) “superfood” loaded with Omega-3 fatty acids that lower your blood glucose and blood pressure, optimize your digestive system and stimulate the growth of kinky green hair. (I’m probably kidding about that last part.)

You can sprinkle chia seeds on cereal, yogurt, muffins and oatmeal, but the number one best way to eat them is to make your own CHIA SEED PUDDING because they expand in liquid and poof up like huge, gluey tapioca pearls. The best recipe I’ve found involves two cups of chocolate Soy Slender soy milk, ¾-cup of chia seeds and a few squirts of liquid Splenda all mooshed up in a jar and left in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning you get a pile of fluffy chocolate mucilage, and I LOVE FLUFFY CHOCOLATE MUCILAGE! 

Thank you for reading this.

Soup and Melvyn Douglas movies start at 7 p.m. sharp.

Sam and I wanted to have a really nice relaxing weekend with Chinese food and old movies except he just left for work. And he’ll be there until 4 a.m. tomorrow! This sucks for a number of reasons, but mostly because I miss him when he’s not here.

I’m too old for this. I need companionship and somebody who can reach things on the top shelf of the pantry for me.

In case you thought I’d given up on new fonts because I hadn’t posted any since the beginning March, you’d definitely be wrong. And here they are!

You may recognize Manicuore as the Howdygram’s new logo font. To be honest, this was one of the thousands of fonts installed on my Mac before Marcy’s Font Disaster last December (see post) but I’d forgotten all about it I saw it on somebody else’s website a few days ago. The same is true for Big Ticy, Pupcat, Alexandra Script and Scrapgirl Dots. I’m so excited I might need Five-Minute Stupid Soup for dinner tonight!

Incidentally, tonight’s Stupid Soup will include a new ingredient I received yesterday in a shipment from Netrition.com. It’s called — don’t laugh — Chicken Not because it’s freeze-dried chunks of chicken-flavored textured soy protein that technically look like a sack of croutons. I also bought Beef Not, which is pretty much the same thing except it’s brown and looks like Alpo. For reasons that defy logic I actually can’t wait to try both of these products as soon as possible.

I should mention that Beef Not and Chicken Not are both really cheap. For instance, a one-pound sack of Chicken Not costs $4.79 and it’s equivalent to 3½ pounds of cooked chicken after it’s rehydrated. That’s a pretty good deal assuming this crapola actually is edible. A product review will be forthcoming.

Breaking news from the Howdygram Sports Desk! I love watching PGA golf on TV, and if you’re a fan like me you’ll be pleased to know that the 2013 Masters gets underway on April 11. The first two rounds (Thursday and Friday) will air at 3 p.m. Eastern on ESPN; CBS will broadcast the final two rounds on Saturday (from 3 p.m. Eastern) and Sunday (from 2 p.m. Eastern) with plenty of close-ups of Tiger Woods and assorted other less-important dudes with golf bags.

I think I’ll treat myself to a nice hot shower. My body temperature is seriously out of whack today and I’ve been practically hypothermic (95.4°) since I woke up from a nap around 2:45 this afternoon. After I warm up I’ll start throwing ingredients into a pot for Stupid Soup and watch a few of the Melvyn Douglas movies I recorded yesterday. These will include Prestige (1932) with Adolphe Menjou, Dangerous Corner (1935) with Virginia Bruce and Conrad Nagel, and Fast Company (1938) with Florence Rice.

If you want to come over for soup and movies please send an email as soon as possible so I can rinse out an extra bowl. Thank you.

Mazel tov to Wayne LaPierre, the Howdygram’s latest Putz of the Week.

Forgive me. I skipped two days posting for the Howdygram and I am without excuse. I have, however, been distracted by a number of pressing issues, which include: 1) a design conundrum related to a new client’s website; 2) an ongoing lack of sleep; 3) a few too many swell Tyrone Power movies on TCM; and 4) I can’t think of anything else. I’ve also been eating a lot of Beanit Butter cookies.

Regarding item 3, these were The Eddy Duchin Story, The Mark of Zorro and Witness for the Prosecution. Too bad TCM didn’t show The Luck of the Irish for St. Patrick’s Day; it’s one of Tyrone’s best. (If TCM asks me to help with their programming schedule next year I’ll have to mention this.)

And now for our latest Putz of the Week award! This time we’re honoring Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association and death merchant extraordinaire.

LaPierre’s current claim to fame is a new Republican policy solution for rape, announced at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference: arm all women with guns. LaPierre said, “The one thing a violent rapist deserves is to face a good woman with a gun!”

The right-wing’s view of violence against women is already clear. They’re the party of old white men spouting crap about “legitimate rape” but can barely acknowledge that rape even exists. They pass laws to force non-consensual wanding of pregnant women’s vaginas, rail against abortion and force victims to bear their rapists’ babies. And now the ultimate in absurd extremism ... extending their repulsive gun culture to pretend they’re my friend and the enemy of sexual violence.

This is just what America’s gun-obsessed society needs, isn’t it? MORE WEAPONS. This will prevent rape how? You’d have to assume that the potential victim: 1) is not physically injured or drugged; 2) is not acquainted with or emotionally tied to her attacker; 3) had the foresight and money to buy and license a gun in advance of her attack; 4) has a window of opportunity in a split second of terror to reach for her gun, pull the trigger and shoot accurately; and 5) is lucky enough to not have the gun yanked out of her hand and used to kill her. Worse yet, have you seen what happens to a woman in court for defending herself with a deadly weapon? Most of the time she’s portrayed as deranged tramp who over-reacted. It’s just SEX, lady, what’s the big deal? You were wearing shorts and a tank top, what did you expect? Did you really have to KILL him?

Wow, what a tirade. I need a nice plate of pickles and biscuits for dinner.

On another subject altogether, I’ve got a service technician coming on Monday to calibrate my GE stove because all of a sudden the oven’s a little too hot. For example, there’s no good reason why frozen mozzarella sticks should start melting in nine minutes when they’re supposed to bake in 12, and yesterday our wonderful little Schwan’s Krunchie Potato Wedges turned out like plywood. Holy crap.

From our Awkward Athletes in Love department comes breaking news that Tiger Woods and Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn are dating. The announcement was punctuated last week by professional portraits “leaked” to the world via Tiger’s Facebook page, in which he and Vonn are clearly smiling but never actually touching each other. To me they look more like brother and sister or strangers at a bar mitzvah. WTF?

In case you’re interested, Cindi’s New York Deli is Dallas’ most popular Jewish delicatessen even though it’s actually an overpriced and watered-down effort by a Vietnamese entrepreneur named Anh Vo — who obviously learned to make matzo balls from her bubbe in Hanoi — and whose head chef is a black dude named Jerry, both pictured below. Yesterday on CBS’ local Dallas website Jerry was generous enough to post his “two favorite Passover recipes” … Potato Kugel and Charoset, those beloved African-American standards. I laughed so hard I almost wet my pants. Oy, only in Texas, people.

I have to eat something now. Thank you for reading this!

Tiger, tax returns and waiting for gefilte fish.

Despite a seriously crappy start to the weekend (see previous post) it all ended on a positive note and included a number of enjoyable activities. They were, in no particular order whatsoever: 1) e-filing our Federal tax return; 2) eating mozzarella sticks; 3) viewing a weak yet mildly entertaining Saturday night thundershower; 4) Sunday lunch at Cafe Greek because a girl can never get too much baked fish with crunchy sesame seeds; and 5) watching Tiger Woods win the Cadillac Championship and toasting his victory with soy milk and American cheese singles.

I don’t know what’s on your agenda, but for me the week ahead is filled with anticipation and promise. Sam is getting his hair cut tomorrow, on Wednesday morning Macy’s is replacing our saggy sectional sofa, my maid will be here to clean toilets around noon and I’m expecting a number of exciting UPS deliveries sometime before dinner ... an insanely huge order of low-carb crap from Netrition.com, Ziploc freezer bags from Amazon and a bunch of insulated socks from Wal-Mart because Sam’s toes are too damn cold. On Thursday I watch “Project Runway.”

Tuesday, by the way, was supposed to be opening day of the Howdygram’s spring Gefilte Fish Festival, but it’s been postponed due to a delayed shipment from the KC Kosher Co-Op and no gefilte fish. We’re hoping there won’t be any problems with crowd control. Stay tuned for further developments and thank you for reading this.

Elvis, Opryland and the world’s largest roach motel.

It’s definitely been a busy Sunday here at Howdygram headquarters. After a nice afternoon drive to Plano we came home to watch Tiger Woods win the AT&T Invitational, which turned out to be a genuine sweat festival at the Congressional Country Club in 100° heat.

Afterwards we enjoyed four consecutive hours of Olympic trials on NBC. Tonight’s activities included swimming, extremely fast women galloping around in bikinis, and men’s and women’s gymnastics. Sam and I love watching gymnastics, probably because we both always sucked at gymnastics big time in school. I also can’t gallop in a bikini. (I’ve never even OWNED one, for which all of you should be mighty grateful.) The London Olympics get underway on July 27. In addition to all the popular competitions — track and field, diving, archery, rowing, weightlifting and so on — we also get stuck with plenty of dumb crap like canoe sprinting, table tennis, trampoline, fencing, badminton, beach volleyball and water polo. Seriously.

And now for part two of our road trip retrospective! On June 21 we left Vicksburg heading north on the Natchez Trace Parkway, a 444-mile, two-lane scenic highway maintained by the National Park Service that features exceptional vistas, no billboards, no litter and 10,000 years of American history. There also are no stores or gas stations and most of the time you don’t even see another car. This is swell until you get a craving for Cheetos and can’t figure out where to buy them. At lunch time we stopped in Tupelo, Mississippi, for Mexican food at D’Casa and a peek at Elvis Presley’s birthplace, briefly careened into the northwest corner of Alabama because Sam promised it would be fun, and then headed back into Mississippi and on to Corinth for more Civil War history.

The roach motel pictured above is actually the Quality Inn on Route 72. We checked in and out in less than 15 minutes after discovering that our non-smoking room smelled like an ash tray and included a large number of cockroaches darting around in the bed and dresser drawers. After I stopped screaming we moved next door to a beautiful Hampton Inn behind the Exxon station.

The following day Sam and I visited a variety of inspirational sites such as the Corinth Contraband Camp, amazing exhibits and artwork at Corinth’s Civil War Interpretive Center and spent several hours at the Shiloh National Military Park across the state line in Tennessee.

The little town of Corinth was actually cuter than we expected, with a completely restored downtown area, gorgeous real estate and a number of interesting restaurants such as Bill’s with all-you-can-eat catfish and tasty cole slaw. Corinth is also home to a nice big Wal-Mart, where we had to beg the pharmacy for replacement insulin (see my earlier post) after we figured out that my new medicine cooler wasn’t working.

On June 23 we drove the last leg of the Natchez Trace Parkway northeast to Nashville, where we had reservations at the Hyatt Place in Hendersonville and tickets for the Grand Ole Opry ... which turned out to be a ROTTEN SCAM.

The Grand Ole Opry moved to a new venue about a year ago when it was bought out (and ruined) by the Gaylord entertainment conglomerate. The problem? THERE’S NOWHERE TO PARK! The Opry is on the same property as Opry Mills Mall, a massive shopping venue that also includes the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, the Gaylord Opryland Resort, the Opryland Event Center, a 20-screen cinema and two dozen restaurants. Seriously, how can these chiselers sell thousands of tickets to the Grand Ole Opry on a Saturday night and not provide anywhere to park? After driving around in circles for almost an hour Sam finally stopped in a fire lane, bolted into the box office and demanded our money back for two $45 tickets. Immediately thereafter we spent a large chunk of the aforementioned refund on a gourmet Chinese dinner at Fulin’s in Hendersonville. (For your possible interest, I found out later that the Opry isn’t actually a concert venue at all ... you just sit and watch a live two-hour radio program with commercials and the performers are a bunch of geezers who can’t get a gig anywhere else. Holy crap.)

The next day Sam and I visited Nashville’s Lane Motor Museum, where they’ve got dozens and dozens of amazing one-of-a-kind vehicles on display dating back to 1924. The 1928 Martin Aerodynamic pictured above looks like a Dr. Seuss invention.

Stay tuned for another road trip chapter tomorrow, okay? I need to go to bed now.

Tiger Woods, Sam’s errands and celebrity feet reviews.

At 3:30 this morning I had a nightmare that somebody was pounding on our bedroom window. This scared the hell out of me so I sat bolt upright in bed and shouted, presumably to Sam, “Did you hear that?” except he obviously didn’t because he never woke up. Eventually I found myself in the study noodling around on the Internet until the panic subsided. It wasn’t a total waste of time, however, as I discovered WikiFeet.com, where they post photos and reviews of celebrity feet. Check it out when you have a chance. Tell them Marcy sent you.

Sam, at the moment, is in the midst of some nice Friday morning errands. These include: 1) buying a bigger memory card for our digital camera at Best Buy; 2) picking up a couple of prescriptions and a bag of shredded cheese at Wal-Mart; and 3) not getting the car washed because it looks like rain again. (We had a few thundershowers creep through here around 6 a.m.)

Breaking news from the wacky world of professional golf! Don’t forget to watch the 112th U.S. Open tournament this weekend starring Tiger Woods and friends, live from the Olympic Club in San Francisco. Tiger is in second place after round one, during which he wowed the crowd in chic gray separates, pictured below.

Just in case you give a crap I’ve got a quick update on Sam’s errands. He says Best Buy doesn’t carry memory cards for our digital camera any more because (apparently) we’ve got “old technology.” They referred him to the big Wal-Mart Super Center in Garland and he’s on his way as I write this paragraph. In the meantime I think I’ll make a few tacos and watch yesterday’s episode of “People’s Court.” Thank you for reading this.

Yesterday.

Sunday was awesome. It was so awesome, in fact, that I didn’t even have the time or inclination to write a post about it until now. Since I’m positive you won’t be able to continue with your day until I’ve shared the minutiae, grab yourself a lemonade and here goes.

My wonderful Sunday included ...

iPad App Acquisitions. I spent a little time horsing around on the iPad App Store and downloaded the following: 1) the Internet Movie Database; 2) TripAdvisor; 3) MyRadar weather maps and forecasts; and 4) an essential little doohickey called Where to Eat that — go on, take a guess — locates restaurants so I won’t have to be without Mongolian chicken anywhere in the United States. Ever. I’m also hoping to find a GPS locator app called Gefilte Fish Finder, so if you run across anything that fits this description please let me know as soon as possible. Thank you.

Memorable Television Programming. I enjoyed six hours of nonstop Diamond Jubilee horseshit on BBC America, including the entire Thames River pagaent and a special one-hour documentary about the life of Queen Elizabeth. Pictured below are the Queen and Prince Philip with the cast of “H.M.S. Pinafore” (just kidding) in a motorboat heading to the Spirit of Chartwell barge — check out that dude on the right with the skirt and red tights — and another shot of all the essential royals squished under a screwy gold canopy because it was pouring rain and God forbid any hats should get wet.

And I’ll also include a photo of the flotilla on the Thames (see below), led by a several hundred nitwits in costume rowing their own boats. The big one out in front is the Gloriana, powered by galley slaves like Ben Hur.

I also watched Tiger Woods win the Memorial yesterday at the Muirfield Village Golf Club in Ohio, tying Jack Nicklaus’ 73 lifetime PGA tournament wins. This was a very big hoo-hah  because Tiger’s game has been mostly crappy for the last couple of years. Jack was on hand to present the tournament’s trophy, which apparently was laser-engraved with a Hoover upright vacuum cleaner. (Is it just me, or is Jack shrinking?)

Last night also included: 1) the most amazing episode of AMC’s “Mad Men” I’ve ever seen, even better than the one two weeks ago when Joan agreed to sleep with a sleazy client to land the Jaguar account for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce; 2) the “Real Housewives of New Jersey” flying to Chicago for a gay wedding in Barrington (seriously); and 3) “Veep” on HBO starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The official trailer for “Veep” appears below for your possible interest. (If you like it you’d better watch next Sunday because it’s the last episode of the season.)



A Charming Late Afternoon Drive. After Tiger won his trophy Sam and I jumped into the car for a lovely Sunday drive that included (see visual aid below): A) downtown Dallas and dinner at Pei Wei; B) the entire length of Harry Hines Boulevard heading northwest to Bachman Lake; and 3) back to Howdygram headquarters in Mesquite via Northwest Highway. En route we sang several of Sam & Marcy’s greatest hits and played Who Would You Rather See Naked.

It’s lunch time at last. Thank you for reading this!

Saturday lunch options: baloney tacos, Big Franks in a can or leftover Mongolian chicken.

Good morning from Texas, y’all. Got anything exciting planned for today? If not, turn on your TV around 4 p.m. (Central time) because it’s the first Saturday in May and time once again for the Kentucky Derby, that annual southern extravaganza of stupid hats and teeny dudes riding expensive horses, as depicted below for your possible interest.

For the golf fans among you, it looks like Tiger Woods has screwed up again ... this time at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow when he didn’t make the cut yesterday after round two. This dude’s game is really in the toilet and I can’t figure out why he’s still entering so many tournaments, especially after last month’s disaster at the Masters. Hey! It rhymes! Seriously, doesn’t Tiger have anything else to fall back on? Like hosting at a restaurant or selling Amway? For his next birthday somebody — his mother, for instance — should buy him a gift certificate for career counseling.

Diabetes bargains abound! I just ordered FOUR BOXES of 50 FreeStyle Lite test strips — enough to last me a few months — from Amazon because the weather’s getting warmer and you don’t want to mail-order heat-sensitive products like glucose test strips in the middle of summer around here when it’s hot enough to fry a couple of eggs on the hood of your Hyundai. In case you’re wondering, no, this was NOT a fun way to spend $107, but test strips on Amazon cost about 70% less than buying them from a pharmacy so at least I know I got a decent deal.

Anybody been following that story about Patricia Krentcil, the “tanning mom” from New Jersey? She’s that belligerent, partly-toothless, leather-faced Einstein who took her five-year-old daughter into a tanning booth with her and wound up getting arrested on April 24 when the kid showed up at school burned to a crisp. Krentcil has been released on bond but faces up to 10 years in prison if she’s convicted of child endangerment. When asked by a TMZ reporter if she considered the case to be a witch hunt, Krentcil replied: “Yes. They’re jealous, they’re fat and they’re ugly.”

I’m desperately in need of lunch. A couple of Big Franks with mustard or leftover Mongolian chicken immediately come to mind, but I could also do a low-carb bagel with American cheese or a tasty baloney taco (Oscar Mayer baloney in a low-carb flour tortilla). Just in case you haven’t paid attention to my earlier posts, Big Franks are soy hotdogs in a can. I love them.

If you want to join me for lunch please RSVP via email within the next 10 minutes. Thank you for reading this.

Everybody knows that frosted cake is the perfect food for all sporting events.

Great news, boys and girls! I’ve got a ton of fabulous crapola lined up for this Howdygram post and there’s no better time to get started than RIGHT NOW. Sam is at the office — yes, on Sunday — indefinitely, I just watched Tiger Woods win the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and for the moment I’m all through horsing around with that new website project while my client tweaks a few final edits. I’m all yours. Holy crap, right?

First, please allow me to extend heartfelt congratulations to Tiger Woods from everybody at the Howdygram Sports Desk for winning the aforementioned PGA tournament. By the time he got to the 18th hole — with 20,000 spectators chanting his name — he was so visibly excited he almost couldn’t putt. I know exactly how this feels! (I might be joking.) Note to Tiger: shave the stupid goatee.

I saw in the news that psychopathic former vice president Dick Cheney, 71, received a heart transplant yesterday at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Virginia. I find this absolutely SHOCKING as I didn’t know the conspiratorial fearmonger ever had a heart to begin with! During the George Dubya Bush administration Cheney’s first official assignments in February 2001 were to help organize wiretaps to spy on American citizens and conspire with oil companies to plan the invasion of Iraq. Around the same time he also was asked to head the Counter-Terrorism Task Force, although he held no meetings and ignored hundreds of written warnings about Osama bin Laden for nearly seven months. Cheney finally convened the CTTF on September 12, the day after the destruction of the World Trade Center. So you can imagine how happy I am that Satan gets a new heart. Isn’t medical science wonderful?

What some might consider the perfect segue, please join me in wishing a happy 60th birthday to Hasbro’s first big-seller, Mr. Potato Head.

I had a Mr. Potato Head when I was little. At the time it was just a box of push-pin body parts (eyes, lips, feet, etc.) that you jabbed into a real potato, which was big fun for about seven minutes. Unfortunately if you forgot to throw out the used spud afterwards you wound up with a moldy monster sprouting horns, which always sent me screaming all over the house at three years old. Thanks for the nightmares, Hasbro.

And now for a couple of Howdygram product announcements! First, just in case you’re a pious Christian who celebrates Easter with mountains of sugar you’ll surely want to buy a Giant Gummy Bunny for friends and loved ones. It’s 6½ inches tall, costs $14 and comes in your choice of three religious flavors. You can order yours here.

Second, are you ready for some crap from Pawley’s Island, South Carolina? Then I’d like to introduce you Bird Crap, a custom-blended seasoning that’s supposed to “taste great on just about anything.”

If, for some reason, this is making you hungry, you can order Bird Crap from the manufacturer’s website. One bottle is $5.99, a Bird Crap Double is $10 or you can get a Case o’ Crap for $55. Yee haw!

For your possible interest a brand new season of “Mad Men” premiers tonight on AMC after an excruciatingly long absence due to contract disputes. If you remember the 1960s you’ll love this series, which is populated with sleazy but handsome Madison Avenue advertising executives, hilarious 1960s-era product placement and women with lacquered hair and road-cone boobs who make meat loaf for dinner. This is definitely fine television and a Howdygram four-star recommendation.

Since Sam is still at work — he’s been gone since 11 this morning — and I have no idea what time he’s coming home, I guess I’d better rustle up some grub in the kitchen because I haven’t eaten anything all day except for a piece of frosted cake during the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Everybody knows that frosted cake is the perfect food for all sporting events. Thank you for reading this.

Drowning my sorrows in egg foo young.

Before I curl up for a Monday afternoon nap because it’s raining and there’s not much else to do I’d like to begin this post with a quick update from the PGA tour. During yesterday’s final round of the AT&T Pro-Am at Pebble Beach Tiger Woods lost ground with a bunch of crappy shots and bogeys while Phil Mickelson played like a superstar and won the tournament at 16 under par. Tiger didn’t totally suck, per se, he just couldn’t sink a putt and looked like Mister Crabby Face.

Afterwards I ordered dinner from China City in an effort to drown my sorrows in egg foo young. (Glorioski! It worked!)

And now for an in-depth retrospective of the senior citizen segments from last night’s Grammy Awards: 1) the Beach Boys, celebrating their 50th anniversary, were incredible and sang “Good Vibrations”; 2) Tony Bennett at 86 years old got a rousing ovation from the audience mostly for his ability to stand without help and sing on key; 3) Paul McCartney was pruny yet adorable; 4) Bruce Springsteen was impressive and can still leap all over the stage at 63; and 5) I got emotional about Glen Campbell’s appearance because he found out last year he has Alzheimer’s and realizes his career is finished. Glen’s farewell tour will last until he can’t remember the lyrics any more. Incidentally, I watched the Grammies mostly alone because Sam was only interested in the aforementioned performances. The commercials were good, too.

In case you’ve been keeping track of my online shopping adventures I received my Bear Creek hot & sour soup mixes from Amazon.com on Friday. While this doesn’t exactly resemble real restaurant-quality hot & sour soup, it definitely tastes Asian, each bag makes a HALF-GALLON OF SOUP — enough for an army! — and it cooks in only 10 minutes. Plus I can throw in my own “extras” to jazz it up, like a bag of Miracle Rice, cubed tofu and a beaten egg. In the throes of hysteria I plunged ahead last night and ordered six bags of Bear Creek vegetable beef soup mix because the picture on the package looks so damn good. For Sam I ordered four cans of his favorite coffee.

I also visited VegeFoods.com a little while ago and decided to try a few canned faux meat products because — please don’t gag — I actually enjoy faux meat and Worthington gets five-star reviews all over the Internet. They’re primarily soy, low-fat, low-calorie, low-carb, high in fiber and pretend to be all the everyday foods I probably shouldn’t be eating.

If these turn out to be as good as people say I’ll eventually order from Amazon, where I can get them in cartons of 12 for less money and free two-day shipping. (I love free shipping.) Please stay tuned for an update.

Nap-time at last. Thank you for reading this.

Lou Malnati’s sausage pizza is the present of a lifetime.

It’s cold again in north Texas today. The high will only hit 46° but we’re expecting a ton of rain tonight and much warmer temperatures — 70° on Wednesday — for the rest of the week. We’ve dodged a bullet here with winter weather because it’s practically spring.

The Howdygram strongly recommends tuning in to CBS today for round four of the PGA Pro-Am Golf Tournament at Pebble Beach because Tiger Woods — go Tiger! — is charging towards a first place finish. I don’t know why I still get excited about this dude except that he’s amazing to watch when he’s playing well … and lately he’s been playing VERY well. I might make a matzo soufflé for lunch in case you want to drop in and watch golf with us. An advance email would be nice so I can make enough.

Another TV recommendation for Sunday would be tonight’s Grammy Awards, but ONLY because the Beach Boys, Bruce Springsteen, Tony Bennett and Paul McCartney are supposed to perform in a salute to senior citizens who can still walk unassisted and carry a tune. The rest of the program doesn’t interest me whatsoever because I don’t know any of the other musicians, I’ve never listened to their music and I and don’t care if they win, lose or show up drunk. I don’t even care about the last-minute tribute to Whitney Houston (she died yesterday) because the music industry loves to deify its deceased drug addicts FOREVER and I’m positive this is just the first of many pointless and sappy hoo-hahs yet to come. On the other hand, maybe they’ll finally shut up about Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse now.

Glorioski and holy crap, last night I discovered Taste of Chicago … a website that ships food from Chicago’s most iconic restaurants ANYWHERE IN THE UNITED STATES. This includes Lou Malnati’s deep dish pizza, Vienna Chicago-style hotdogs, Portillo’s Italian beef, Manny’s Delicatessen, Carson’s Ribs and Eli’s cheesecake! I’m practically hysterical right now and keep revisiting the website to stare at the pictures (see below).

If anybody ever wants to buy me the present of a lifetime — seriously — it would be Lou Malnati’s sausage pizza because I haven’t had one for at least 30 years. Thank you in advance for your overwhelming generosity. I have my own napkins.

Glorioski! We’re actually expecting rain!

Yo. It’s 5 a.m. and all’s well in north Texas although I have no idea why I’m awake at this hour because I didn’t actually go to bed until 1:45. But I figure if I’m up, you might be up, too, so I’ll sit here and write. Give me a little nudge if I start to nod off, okay?

Since Howdygramsters are known far and wide as engaged and model citizens, here’s a reminder to watch President Obama’s State of the Union address tonight. It’s on at 8 p.m. (Central time) and should turn out to be quite a major hoo-hah when you consider all the crappy, contentious, disrespectful blowhards sitting in Congress right now.

In case you’re interested in professional golf you also might want to check out the HSBC Golf Championship in Abu Dhabi later this week. The Golf Channel will be airing it live, which means you’d have to get up in the middle of the night with a Marcy-tini and a baloney sandwich to help you stay awake. (Frosted cake works nicely, too.) Another network will probably televise the final two days of competition (on Saturday and Sunday) during normal hours for the U.S. audience so please keep an eye on the Howdygram for additional details. Incidentally, Tiger Woods is scheduled to play. Go, Tiger! Thank you.

This ends the Howdygram’s public service announcements for January 24.

Glorioski! Did somebody do a rain dance? I’m pleased to post the following map from Weather.com, clearly indicating A VERY SERIOUS RAIN EVENT for Texas today, tonight and tomorrow. Although they’re NOT predicting thunder or severe weather, you’ll note that Dallas is in the “yellow” zone, which means we’re expecting up to 5" of rainfall ... and that’s very good news for our lakes, reservoirs, lawns and trees. (Plus the cattle are sick of drinking Dr. Pepper.)

After I go back to bed for a while — something I absolutely plan to do within the next 15 minutes — I’ll spend the morning making homemade soup since my fridge is stuffed with all the beautiful crapola I bought yesterday at Tom Thumb. By the way, I always make enough to share so please send an email if you’re interested.

Thank you for reading this.

Sports news, trivia and general baloney.

I wanted to write a post hours and hours ago but haven’t had the motivation because it’s been cold, rainy, dark and crappy for the last couple of days, making it damn near impossible to drag myself off the couch for anything except looking for the remote or getting snacks. Sam and I have been drifting in and out of naps for 48 hours, and the only reason we’re awake right now is because we just finished watching Tiger Woods win the Chevron Open — MAZEL TOV TIGER! — his first tournament win in two years. I’m so happy I could eat a golf ball.

And as long as I’m covering sports news I should also mention that today was Dallas’ annual White Rock Marathon, where tens of thousands of runners in ski hats and thermal underwear braved 45° temperatures and steady rain. Santa was entered but didn’t win because he’s a pasty white dude from the North Pole. (The top three finishers were all from Kenya.)

Last night I ordered a box of insulin needles from Amazon.com. This is no big deal whatsoever but I thought I’d mention it in case you’re keeping track of such things. A photo appears below for your possible interest.

I watched a couple of excellent suspense movies yesterday on TCM. The first was Crossroads with Hedy Lamarr and William Powell, which was a stupendous drama with stupendous plot twists, stupendous clothes and stupendous supporting players like the stupendous Basil Rathbone. Is there anybody who doesn’t love Basil Rathbone?

Then I watched a gritty film noir thing called While the City Sleeps about a bunch of cut-throat reporters all trying to scoop each other on a serial murder case. It featured a cast of thousands such as George Sanders, Rhonda Fleming, Howard Duff, Ida Lupino, Vincent Price and Dana Andrews ... the crown prince of deadpan, alcoholic boredom who played the same damn character in every single movie. While the City Sleeps also provided a close-up look at American goyim in the 1950s, where everybody walks into the local bar for a ham sandwich and milk. A ham sandwich and milk? They may as well ask for pig’s feet and a boilermaker. Holy crap.

The Howdygram is pleased to announce the following monumental events for the week ahead. For instance ...

• December 5: Bigger French fries debut at Burger King
• December 6: Rod Blagojevich is sentenced in Federal court
• December 7: Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese (1941)
• December 8: John Lennon is shot in New York (1980)
• December 9: Charles and Diana announce their separation (1992)

We heard today that Sam’s amazing Aunt Adie drove herself to the hospital on Friday with appendicitis, performed her own surgery and checked out Saturday morning. Okay, I might be kidding about performing her own surgery (I’m pretty sure she had a regular doctor) but she did drive herself to the emergency room and she did go home the very next day. What a shame she didn’t have an opportunity to whine a lot and make relatives bring her jello, Hershey bars and Cheetos! (Next time, Adie, call me for a few tips on the way to the hospital.)

And finally, the U.S. Post Office has announced news so outrageous I actually laughed out loud. Due to budget constraints, beginning January 1 there will be no more next-day delivery for first-class mail. Somebody help me wrap my head around this … what zip code in fantasyland has ever received next-day ANYTHING from the post office? (Every time I mail a birthday card it takes a week and a half.)

And now I think I’ll try to con Sam into ordering Chinese for dinner because it’s getting late, I’m hungry, I don’t feel like cooking and I desperately need something with a lot of hot sauce. Thank you for reading this.