Marie Osmond, Paula Deen and ugly world leaders.

I’d like to talk about nice weather for a minute as we’re definitely having plenty of it here in north Texas, with lots of sunshine and temperatures near 70° for the next several days. The only reason I consider this such a big hoo-hah is because I spent the first 36 years of my life in Chicago, and the end of December (and New Year’s Day) always delivered the crappiest, coldest, snowiest weather of the entire year. I remember always going out in sub-zero weather on New Year’s Eve wearing 15 layers of clothes, trying to parallel park on frozen snow, wondering if I’d ever find a way to escape from Siberia. (I did, eventually.)

Breaking news! Sam went to Wal-Mart this morning to pick up a few essentials and called to tell me they carry sugar-free Pillsbury cake mixes and frosting. This is very exciting because Wal-Mart’s prices are cheaper than any I’ve found online, plus it’s instant gratification when you can have your cake and eat it, too ... all on the same day! (Whatever the hell that means.)

Guess what. I think I’ve figured out how to ramp up the number of Howdygram visitors. As I mentioned in a post back in November, according to the Howdygram’s statistics on SiteMeter.com our three biggest attractions have been my posts about Paula Deen, Marie Osmond and the ugliest world leaders of all time. So I’m thinking maybe if I type “naked pictures of Paula Deen,” “Marie Osmond is a drag queen” and “ugly world leaders” somewhere in every post I’ll get a million hits a day. Stop laughing ... it’s possible! (I actually might try this.) My first post about Marie looking like a drag queen — way back in August 2010 — was quoted by at least four other blogs that sent 125+ new visitors to the Howdygram in one 24-hour period. That’s huge.

Talk about luck! In an effort to illustrate the previous paragraph I just discovered a new photo of Marie in her finest drag queen get-up — rhinestones, gargantuan earrings, ostrich feathers and those new, exaggerated “trout lips” from some lousy plastic surgery — plus a crazy shot of Paula Deen and the late Kim Jong Il together in the same picture. Damn, I love the Internet!

Sam phoned from work a couple of minutes ago to ask if I had any plans to leave the house today. I lied and said “maybe” even though it’s extremely unlikely. Yes, it’s a gorgeous day. Yes, it’s 68° and sunny, and yes, I’ve got a nice clean car waiting for me in the garage with a box of Altoids on the front seat. But there’s nowhere I really need to go and nothing I really need to buy, so frankly it’s hard to get motivated to put on shoes and a bra for no reason whatsoever. Don’t tell Sam but I think I’ll just stay home. However I might eat cake.

Thank you for reading this.

Ugly world leaders, part 2.

Hello, dear friends. I’ll bet you knew this was coming. After a suggestion this morning from Sam’s cousin Darrell I’ve decided to continue expanding my gallery of ugly world leaders. Darrell thought I should include Richard Nixon, Kim Jong-il and Henry Kissinger. I completely agreed with the latter two but countered that Nixon, although somewhat disgusting in many respects, was not what you’d actually consider butt-ugly. And then I decided to add two more of my own, both of whom were runners-up to yesterday’s top five but didn’t make the final cut. In case their names aren’t familiar I’ll include a few statistics along with a sincere wish that you’ll consider a night course in modern history.

Kim Jong-il has been Supreme Lunatic and Leader of North Korea since July 1994; Henry Kissinger was U.S. secretary of state from September 1973 through January 1977 under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford; Winston Churchill was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice ... from May 1940 through July 1945 and again from October 1951 through April 1955; and Eleanor Roosevelt was First Lady to President Franklin Roosevelt, who was in office from March 1933 through April 1945. After her husband’s death Mrs. Roosevelt was appointed U.S. delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, where she served from December 1946 through December 1952. Her looks did NOT improve with age.

Please allow me to make an important statement here: I AM NOT A MEAN-SPIRITED PEOPLE-HATER. With the exception of maniacal dictators like Hugo Chavez, Moammar al-Gaddafi and Kim Jong-il, I really admire the other world leaders pictured in today’s post and yesterday’s. I mean, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle were popular heroes from World War II, Henry Kissinger was a master of foreign policy and diplomacy, Golda Meir was a much-loved Israeli leader, and President Lyndon Johnson was responsible for the Great Society, an agenda of sweeping social reforms to eliminate poverty and racial injustice in the United States. They were all amazing, accomplished (and unfortunately ugly) people.

If you can come up with any others I’ll be glad to take suggestions. Thank you for reading this and please try to keep cool. It’s 102° in Dallas today and I’m not going ANYWHERE.

The top 5 ugliest world leaders of all time.

The subject of this post was sparked by an old Seinfeld episode that Sam and I watched the other night, where Jerry, Kramer, George and Elaine were sitting in a restaurant trying to name the ugliest world leaders they could think of. This one’s definitely a no-brainer. Right off the top of my head I named the five ugliest leaders EVER, with Sam in total agreement. (It’s possible that Genghis Khan might have been uglier but there are no photos on the Internet to prove that theory.)

The photos below are in no particular order because I think this crowd is pretty much on equal footing in the looks department. However, I do think it’s a little scary that Golda Meir and Lyndon Johnson could have been twins separated at birth.

For those of you who flunked modern history and/or don’t know who these people really are, the following information may help: Charles de Gaulle was President of France from January 1959 through April 1969; Golda Meir was Prime Minister of Israel from March 1969 through June 1974; Lyndon Johnson was Vice-President of the United States during the Kennedy administration and our 36th President from November 1963 through January 1969; Hugo Chavez has been the loudmouth President of Venezuela since February 1999; and Moammar al-Gaddafi has been Libya’s loony “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution” (translation: Dictator) since September 1969. These last two would be the perfect guests at a “Dinner for Schmucks.”

If you can name any ugly world leaders that I missed please feel free to send an email or post a comment. Thank you for reading this.