Perfume is definitely a lot more fun than diabetes test strips or yeast.

So here we are, another blistering hot August afternoon in Texas. It’s 105° outside with a heat/humidity index of 110°, which means I’m not leaving the house for any reason whatsoever and spent most of the day buying a wonderful assortment of crapola online. Today’s purchases included: 1) a really large bottle of Estée Lauder’s Beautiful perfume at an amazing price with no tax and free shipping; 2) 150 Freestyle Lite diabetes test strips; 3) two squeezy bottles of Dawn dishwashing liquid in their exciting New Zealand Springs fragrance, whatever the hell that is; 4) Fleischmann’s bread machine yeast; and 5) a gigantic jar of Lipton unsweetened instant tea.

If you care, I ordered items 1 and 2 on eBay; 3 through 5 are from Wal-Mart. While I’m excited about all of these, perfume is definitely a lot more fun than diabetes test strips or yeast. I’m just saying.

And now for something completely different, the Howdygram would like to recommend the following films for the rest of the week on TCM’s Summer Under the Stars. Thank you.

• FRED MacMURRAY, 8/7. I’ve always loved Fred MacMurray. If you’re not familiar with his movies please check out: Too Many Husbands (1940) with Jean Arthur and Melvyn Douglas; The Lady is Willing (1942) a peculiar comedy/drama with Marlene Dietrich that’s worth watching at least one time; Callaway Went Thataway with Howard Keel and Dorothy McGuire; and Dive Bomber (1941) with Errol Flynn. These are all really swell. 
• RAMON NOVARRO, 8/8. If you’re into silent movies I hope you won’t miss: The Prisoner of Zenda (1922) with Lewis Stone; Across to Singapore (1928) with Joan Crawford; and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) with Francis X. Bushman. There are also a couple of talkies worth seeing: Mata Hari (1931) with Greta Garbo and The Night Is Young (1935) with Una Murkel.
• STEVE McQUEEN, 8/9. I’m not a Steve McQueen fan. I can’t help it, I just never thought he had any talent or appeal. In my view the only Steve McQueen movie worth seeing on August 9 is The Blob (1958) because his co-star is Aneta Corsaut, the future Helen Crump on “The Andy Griffith Show.” 
• LANA TURNER, 8/10. I guess I’m not much of a Lana Turner fan, either, when you get right down to it, although she’s unforgettable in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) with John Garfield. I also recommend Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), Ziegfeld Girl (1941), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Peyton Place (1957), but primarily for the performances of her talented co-stars. 
• HENRY FONDA, 8/11. My picks include: The Male Animal (1942) with Jack Carson and Olivia de Havilland; Advise & Consent (1962) with Charles Laughton and Don Murray; Fail-Safe (1964) with Walter Matthau; and Mister Roberts (1955) with James Cagney and Jack Lemmon. Buy yourself a cheesecake and sit in front of the TV with a spoon and a quart of milk. 

Incidentally, on August 11 TCM is also showing Henry Fonda’s most iconic performance in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), if you can stomach the most wretchedly depressing movie ever made. It’s the story of the Joad family, flat broke and starving, who get kicked off their land in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years and scratch their way to great jobs in California earning 25¢ a day picking fruit. It’s a real knee-slapper. (I refuse to watch it.)

At the risk of being considered a racist, which I’m not, I’d like to share the following photo of the ten finalists for 2013 Miss South Korea. You’re not imagining things, people ... THEY ALL LOOK ALIKE because South Korea is a country obsessed with plastic surgery. One in five women go under the knife, all requesting the same shape eyes, the same shape nose and the same pointed chin. Is this frightening, or what? A blogger on Reddit commented: “Korea’s plastic surgery mayhem has finally converged on the same face.” It’s true. These are ten different women, and you can’t tell them apart!

I got a scam email today. This was supposed to look official with the MoneyGram logo on top, but it didn’t take long to figure out it was fiction written by a foreign dimwit with no understanding of English or sentence construction. Take a look:

Dear customer!

You are receiving my notification because of you have been received the payment. It may take a some time for this transaction to appear in the Recent Activity list on your account page.

Pay-ment details:

Transaction sum: 8520 USD
Transaction date: 2013/08/03

The details of this transaction attached to the letter. Please follow our link to confirm the necessary by your account.

Thank you for using MoneyGram!

Frankly, you’d think by now these clods from the Ukraine would find a less obvious way to weasle money from Americans. Holy crap.

And now I have to eat dinner because my stomach is making so much noise it’s drowning out the neighbor’s lawn mower. I wouldn’t joke about this. Tonight’s feast will be grilled cheese on low-carb bread with a side order of green olives. Don’t be jealous, okay?