Shameless Plugs

Dear Indirectly Shameless Plugs through the Condemnation of Shameless Plugs,

You know what I hate? I hate it when someone indirectly plugs something by saying they hate plugs. For example, if I said: I hate it when people plug their material... so I'm not going to tell you about my new book The Pusher coming out.

We all know what you are doing, you're just indirectly plugging your stuff by saying you hate plugs! I hate it when people do that, which is why I would never indirectly plug The Pusher by saying, "I hate plugs so I'm not going to plug my new and hilarious book The Pusher." I would never say that.

I'm not going to lower myself to that, neither directly nor indirectly.

And I would never post this video:

Never! Lastly, I would never hyperlink the place you can get it. That's tacky, and it's even worse when you do it by saying you won't do it.

Sincerely,

An Observer of an Overdone Joke

The War on Terror

Dear War on Terror,

You have cost over $1 trillion dollars.

What I would have done with the money instead:

- Build one indoor, heated Olympic-sized swimming pool in each county in Wyoming (23), hire world-class trainers and turn all cowboys into swimmers, ensuring our future success in the sport. Cost = $204 million. Money left = $999.8 billion.

- Move the state of Nebraska three feet to the right. Why? Just because. Cost = $930 million. Money left = $998.9 billion

- One year, in the month of July, institute a Free Taco Tuesday and Free Chalupa Wednesday at every Taco Bell (6,446 nationwide). Cost = $30.3 billion, assuming people eat a lot. Money left = $968.6 billion

- To improve education, buy the top 10% of Chinese students (about 6.5 million) and transfer them to the US and ship our worst 30% of students to Greenland. Cost = $250 billion in transfer, relocation and human trafficking fees. Money left = $718.6 billion

- One free movie ticket for every American to see Thor. Cost = $3.5 billion. Money left = $715 billion

- Buyout and shut down every Little Caeser's pizzeria because their pizza is disgusting. Cost = $80 billion. Money left = $638.6 billion

- Give every college student who graduated in Philosophy $25,000 to go back to school and get a degree that will enable them get a job. Cost = $12.5 billion. Money left = $626 billion

- Unlimited free puppies. Cost = $50 billion. Money left = $576 billion

- Launch an irrational war on the moon. Cost = $304 billion. Money left = $272 billion

- Eradication of acne from the West Coast. Cost = $67 billion. Money left = $205 billion

- Release all 1+ million US prisoners, buying each a plane ticket to Pakistan, with the reward that whoever killed Osama Bin Ladin would be given $1 billion and a plane ticket back to the US. Cost = negligible with all the money saved from not having prisoners anymore. Money left = $205 billion

- Offer each US citizen a "buy one Eiffel Tower, get the second one free" promotion. Cost = $43 billion. Money left = $162 billion

- Move Nebraska back to its original location to appease the rioters. Cost = $930 million. Money left = $161 billion

- Give the Make a Wish Foundation organization one wish. Cost = $1 million to $161 billion, depending on their level of greed. Money left = not sure, but whatever is there, I'm stealing at this point.

On second thought, that stuff isn't that good, I would have rather had some wars that killed tens of thousands of people.

Sincerely,

Common Sense

Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers

Dear Catfish and Rollie,

Each of you achieved a level of mustache excellence often imitated but never duplicated. Well done, pitching legends. Your facial hair has sprinkled baseball history with style and class.

One went up. One went down. Both stayed on top.

It's like I always say: you can take the mustache out of the man, but you can't take the man out of the mustache. Of course, what I always say makes absolutely no sense, but I still say it and I will continue saying it.

You played for the Oakland A's, the Athletics, but nothing proved your athleticism more than your use of the real estate between your lip and nose.

When your name is Catfish or Rollie, people expect great things from your face...

Thanks for not letting us down,

Aspiring Mustache-ateur

My Unborn Children

Dear Unborn Children,

I hope you don't get as many of my genes as I did. I ended up with 100% of my own genes. If you are fortunate, you'll get less than 50% of mine and the rest will be from a woman who --although I don't know her-- will likely be a better genetic bet than me. I have some issues. Physically, I have this weird skin discoloration on my right arm, and you don't want any part of that. Athletically, I'm just good enough to delude myself into visions of grandeur, but nothing more. Mentally, my attention span isn't as good as advertised. And emotionally, I'm regularly accused of not feeling things I do... so you'll want to avoid that, too.

I guess I'm saying that I'm not a perfect genetic specimen, okay? But that doesn't mean you can't lead a normal life. I've led a normal life, at least on paper. The truth is I'm going to be handicapping you as much as the next guy. You're going to have problems. But if I've been able to overcome my own handicaps (which I haven't but that's besides the point) then you can do it, too.

So I guess I'm apologizing in advance.

Sincerely,

A Future Parent

So I went to the hospital and the sonogram revealed that not only am I not pregnant but that my insides look like the planet Mercury. I think this is because I've been eating a lot of contaminated seafood.

the US Postal Service

Dear United States Postal Service,

Not only did you lose $8 and half billion dollars last year, you lost some of my mail. I'm not even upset, though. You are all about delivering letters and this blog is all about writing letters -- we're a great match.

That said, some of the letters you don't lose confuse me. If I send a letter to an incorrect address in upstate Maine, you will take that letter all the way to Maine and then, realizing it's incorrect, send it all the way back across the country to my return address. A piece of paper just traveled an extra 3,000 miles at no cost -- you should have thrown that thing away in Maine. If I don't know where I'm sending my mail, I don't deserve to get it back. These are the types of financial decisions you are messing up. Look -- I could drop a letter in a post office box without a stamp, and you will send it to my return address to tell me I forgot the stamp. Did you ever consider that I could put the address where I want something delivered as the return address and trick you into delivering a letter for me at absolutely no cost? I could.

You have a monopoly on people's mail boxes, literally. Yet, you are losing money. What kind of monopoly loses money? You don't seem to understand how monopolies work. If you were playing the board game, you'd think Mediterranean and Baltic Avenue were the keys to success.

Sincerely,

A Mailer

Tomato Bank

Dear Tomato Bank,

Oh, how my heart fluttered when I saw that you are a real bank.

Is your name lost in translation? One can only hope. But then again, there are a lot of good commodities to invest in in the world -- gold... silver... oil... frozen concentrated orange juice.... so, why not tomatoes, too? I like ketchup. Now, that I opened up an account with Tomato Bank, I'm one checking account at Sugar Bank away from ensuring the future of both my finances and hot dog condimentation.

Admiring your APY,

Another Tomato Investor

April

Dear April,

At last count, there are twelve months. But there are only two months you can name someone after: April and June.

You can name someone May, but the spelling is debatable and the results are precarious. And you can almost name someone August, but I think that's supposed to be Augusto. If you were to name someone after any of the other months, it's hard to say what would happen. January is a girl's name, but before you name any girl January you need to realize a disproportionate number of Januaries are strippers. Same could be said about December. October strikes me as very masculine, but I worry that anyone named October will be an alcoholic. July and November are disconcertingly androgynous, creepy names. And anyone named February might not be human at all. I'd name a robot February. March? That's a verb, not a noun. September? That's not even a good month, let alone name.

Anyway, the reason I write you this is you are in a unique position, April. There are only two real month names, and you are one of them. Also, you have an edge on June, as that name's popularity has really plummeted and for good reason, it's old-fashioned. April, you have an edge on the season names, too. Summer? Too flowery. I have a friend named Fall, who was named after her Grandmother Autumn, but I don't know about that name either -- you shouldn't name a child after a time when the plants start to die.

So this month, lots of girls will be named after you, April. And I guess that what I want to say is this: I hope all the people who want to name a kid after a month or a season have their kid in the next thirty days. We don't need any more Decembers or Februaries or Octobers or Summers running around. But we can always use more Aprils.

Sincerely,

An Observer of Names

READERS: If you have heard of any other day/month/season names I missed, please share.