Lax security

Security screening in one major airport was completely closed today for the better part of an hour after experiencing another cupcake related incident.  A senior administrator at the TSA explained. “While we feel that we have made every effort to explain our actions related to the ‘cupcake in a jar’ incident, we would also like to ask the general public not to bring a dozen cupcake jars through security– especially when their primary ingredient appeared to be chocolate flavored laxatives.”

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Suspicious Cups

A high level administrator at the Transportation Security Administration responded to criticism when an agent recently confiscated a cupcake from an airline passenger in December because the food product in question exceeded the maximum quantities for liquid, gels, and aerosols.  A detailed explanation of the situation was posted on the official TSA blog, ending with:

“And really, nobody is going to care about this whole cupcake fiasco in a few months once we instruct all of our agents to feel up women if the agent suspects her bra is constructed with more than three ounces of gel enhancing material.”

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Get Ducked

An older man is sitting in an over-sized chair. ”My name is Steve, and I am the product manager here at the Select Comfort’s Sleep Number bed product line.  While our product line has been an amazing success over the years, we are always looking for new ways to improve our customer’s sleep experience. I recently received a letter in the mail that pointed out a way in which we can improve our award-winning beds.”

My husband and I both love our sleep number bed.  I keep my side at 25 and he sets his side at 85.  We both sleep well all the time.  The only problem is that sometimes at night we like to play some “adult” games, and having both sides set to the same number for a short time would really help.  Can you help us out here?

“I understand your problem. Suppose you are playing a game of ‘duck, duck, goose.’”

Switches to a shot of a man and a woman on their bed in their pajamas.  The husband is sitting in the middle of the bed and the wife is behind him touching him on the head saying “duck” each time.  Suddenly she yells “goose” and starts running in a small circle on the bed.  The husband gets up to chase her, but once he steps on the soft side of the bed he losses his balance and flies off the bed at a 45 degree angle.

“Now who wants that to happen to them when they are getting goosed?”  The man in the chair asked.

“To solve this problem we have added additional buttons to the sleep number controllers which we have called the ‘duck’ buttons.  Once configured, the ‘duck on’ button will bring both sides of the bed to the same preset pressure.”

The woman and man are in bed.  The man is asleep.  The woman reaches over and touches him gently on the shoulder.  He wakes up and looks at her.  She smiles and ever so slightly raises her eyebrow.  He smiles back at her.  She reaches for something under the covers and pulls out a game of Jenga.  They both jump out from under the covers and start setting up the game in the middle of the bed.  They are about to start playing, and then she remembers to hit the ‘duck on’ button.

A different woman is sleeping in her bed.  A man comes into the room.  He is unshaven, has a significant pot belly, and has just finished a can of beer.  The throws the empty can in the corner of the room and gets into bed.   He looks over at his wife and grabs his controller to hit the ‘duck on’ button.  The wife wakes up and realizes what is going on in the bed.  She reaches over to her controller and hits the ‘duck off’ button.  The bed returns to the original settings. 

“Hitting the ‘duck off’ button can be used to express an unwillingness to play games in bed, in addition to resetting the bed at the end of the game.” the man in the chair explained.  “So from everyone here at Sleep Number, have a good night sleep after you get ducked.”

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2011 Wrap Up

So, it is New Year’s Eve and the clock says 9 PM (mountain standard time, for those who need to know) and I’m sure that everyone expects me to be heading out the door with the wife, kids, and dog out to experience the legendary Loveland clubbing scene.  But no, I’ve got other plans.  For example, just to get the evening ball rolling, I have upgraded WordPress on my newfunny.com website from version 3.2 to version 3.3.  Next on the agenda, view the annual stats WordPress was nice enough to send me.

So, according to WordPress, my website was viewed roughly 8,200 times in 2011.  Now don’t get me started about how to measure how many people visit your website in a given time period.  OK, you talked me into it– you see, I could log onto my goDaddy account and download every single http request and tell you that number is how many people looked at my site, but that would count a whole bunch of stuff (like automated processes that are looking to index information on my site) that has nothing do with actual people looking at my site.  As far as I can tell, WordPress seems to give a more accurate gauge of actual people.  And really, there are more methods of calculating web traffic than there are ways to deep fry a Snickers bar, so take anything anyone says about it with a grain of salt.  And then, of course, then you can try sprinkling it on your deep fried Snickers bar, which I hear is surprisingly tasty.

“Omar, what are the top viewed posts on your website in 2011?” you were probably just thinking to yourself.  Well, here is the top 5:

I’m pretty happy with these results, but I do want to give a shout out to a few of my long time favorites that don’t get as much traffic as I think they deserve.

That is the most interesting information from the WordPress report. A little known fact about the “Dukes of Hazzard” and “Iron Chef Amsterdam” is that I was approached by an editor of an out-of-state Marijuana magazine about republishing these stories due to their pro-pot themes.  I gave them permission, but then they went out of business.  As far as I know they weren’t ever published in any magazines, but since I wasn’t going to get any money for it either way I didn’t really look too hard.

That about wraps things up.  One more thing now that I remember we are back to “standard time”: although I have decided that part of my 2024 Congressional campaign is going to include a push for moving to daylight savings time all year round.  Mostly because I hate delivering packages at UPS in the dark in December when I see the sunrise an hour before I go to work.  I think there is a better chance of getting Congress to change the system of time than to get UPS to change the times it flies all their planes around the country.  Although now I think about it, maybe it seems like a 50/50 proposition.  But in the end, the only people who benefit from the current system are peppy morning people, and nobody likes those types– especially when sunlight is in short supply.  So full time daylight savings time it is!

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2011 Christmas Letter

Wow, it is that time of year again.  It seems like just yesterday I started my first attempt to write my 2011 Christmas letter.  Maybe it was, or maybe that was three months ago.  You see I have two kiddos now, so I’ve kind of lost track of time for anything less pressing than someone screaming right next to my ears at the top of their lungs for reasons sometimes totally unapparent to me.  And now that includes several people besides myself.

So the first place to start is the birth of my second daughter, Samantha Rose Lutfey.  Born May 24, 2011, Samantha came into this world with 25% more hair than I had that day.  The surgical team had to rush her off to the neonatal barbershop before they would let Katherine hold her newborn child.  As was the case with Isabel’s birth, I looked stunning in the white sterile body suit I wore during the birthing procedure.  To be honest, I think my perfect figure was a bit of a distraction to some of the nurses.  Either that or they were worried I was going to pass out and topple over some vital and expensive piece of medical equipment.  Who can know for sure?  And for the record I came close to passing out zero times that day, which is one less than my first time around.

The next thing I can remember is competing in the annual Kinetics race.  Held at Longmont’s Union reservoir, my team was named “The Prime Contenders.”  The craft was a slight modification from previous attempts with Styrofoam wheels connected to a bicycle frame.  This year marked a personal milestone in that I actually finished the race.  And I had the support of pretty much nobody in the crowd.  About 79% of the crowd didn’t think my craft would even float in the water.  The remaining crowd watched me in the water and thought my right front wheel (which, to be honest, was hanging on to the rest of the craft in a rather precarious manner) was going to fall off any second now.  And, really, the highlight of the event is witnessing a hastily assembled craft half sink in the middle of the water section.  So to all of those people who keep telling me that PVC pipe is not a good structural material for a kinetics craft, I can now proudly yell out “PVC pipe can be a MARGINALLY ACCEPTABLE structural material, PROVIDED that I don’t hit any unexpected rocks, AND that I don’t make any sudden movements out of the exact center of gravity of the vehicle, AND, WELL OF COURSE IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING that the Kinetics Wizard doesn’t cast any spells of random destruction on any part of my team.”  Or, in short, “Bite me– I made it!”

So I either had a very strange dream and/or was visited by aliens a few weeks back.  To the best of my recollection, here is what went down.

So I’m standing around in a field for no particular reason, and a traditionally shaped alien saucer ship lands nearby.  Two green creatures get out and move towards me.

“Greetings Omar,” one of the aliens proclaims. “We have some information which could be immensely useful to your spices regarding the nature of what you understand to be the cosmos.”

“Hold on,” I replied, “Should I be writing this down or recording this all on video?”

“No need for that, our message will be brief.” the other visitor explained.  “First of all, your scientific community still can’t decide on the nature of light.  Is it a particle or is it a wave?  Nobody has come up with a good explanation that is consistent with real world observations.  So here is the answer:  Light is a particle that travels in a corkscrew pattern.  Technically it is spinning around four dimensions– electical, magnetic, one space dimension, and another dimension you haven’t quite discovered yet.”

“OK, I’ll get the word out.”  I answered. “Anything else?”

“One more thing,” the first alien spoke. “Most people in your scientific community believe in the Big Bang theory based on red shift patterns observed from extra-terrastial light sources.  Did you ever think that the particles are getting slowed down by all the dark matter in the universe instead of everything expanding in every direction?”

“So why are you telling me all this?” I asked, “There are plenty of other humans who would be better equipped to pass on this information.  I’m just a UPS driver.”

“We know– won’t it be funny that you know the truth about the nature of the universe but nobody will believe you due to your chosen vocation?” the first alien explained.  They both started laughing uncontrollably as they moved back into their spaceship and flew away.

Maybe this is what I get for watching the Simpsons’ “Tree House of Horror” and “How the Universe Was Made” right before going to bed.

So now that I think about it, I did get quite a bit done this year.  So here is a list of things I didn’t finish:

Steet performance:  Rounded to the nearest integer, I can safely say I achieved 0% of my goal to create a trumpet, baritone, and tuba comedy street performing group.  Besides a lot of random ideas floating around in my head I still need to acquire all the musical instruments and at least two musically inclined individuals for my team.  And, of course someone who can arrange music would be helpful.  Maybe I’ll make more progress on this in the future.

My 2024 run for congress is another area in which I did not make much progress.  The first step I’m going to take is to shoot Botox into one side of my forehead so that I can do that cool eyebrow raising thing just like Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report.”  The next item on the list is to decide my stance on critical issues such as deceptive bacon packaging, Tupperware lid standardization, and, of course, synchronizing with the rest of the world by switching over to the metric system and possibly Esperanto.

So that is about it for 2011.  I’ll leave you with the age old saying from my favorite novelty Christmas song:  What Can You Get a Wookiee for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb)?

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Random Post: Divide and Conquer

I was planning on writing about the town of Divide, Colorado on my recent trip to eat dinner with Kristin and her mother, but that was before I discovered the size of the town. Located a bit west of Colorado Springs, Divide basically consists of a gas station, a stop light, and a two story mini-mall. Curious about why a town of this magnitude needs a stop light, I researched the matter at the Teller county library. It turns out the traffic control device was installed in the spring of 1921 as a way of getting people to stop and wander through the inevitably small selection at the local video store.

Most of the residents of Divide drive to the neighboring town of Woodland Park for their consumer needs. A few miles down the road from Divide, this town has its own unique character. The first thing I noticed driving through Woodland Park is the abundance of Conoco / Loaf ‘n Jug convenience stores. I counted a total of four on my way through town. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed except for the fact I drove by two of them that were separated by a small unrelated building. In addition to the many, many occupations I’ve claimed to have no knowledge of in the past, I now must add to the list by saying that I’m not a top level executive at Conoco (or Loaf ‘n Jug for that matter). I just can’t see the logic of placing two of the exact same stores twenty-four feet apart in a small mountain town. I can only theorize this strategy was implemented to cater to the following situation:

A man driving a late model minivan approaches the first Conoco. His wife and two kids are quietly taking in the mountain scenery.

Husband: Well, we have plenty of gas. Honey, do you want to stop for anything at this safe and hygienic Conoco / Loaf ‘n Jug establishment?

Wife: No thanks dear, I think we should just continue on our journey.

Husband: Bobby, Sally, are you two doing okay back there?

Kids: (In unison) Yes dad.

Husband: Great– I’m glad we can spend this quality time together.

And then, 0.0003 seconds later:

Bobby: Dad! Sally threw up on me.

Sally: Dad! I threw up on Bobby. And I have to pee. And I want some candy and soda.

Wife: Your kids need tending to, Jack. And why did you have to drive through that plague of locust? The windshield is a mess! And I need a cigarette. Make that a few.

Husband: Will everyone just SHUT UP for a second? I’m trying to think what to do here. We could turn around and go back to that last Conoco / Loaf ‘n Jug. (Looks at the dashboard) OH CRAP! We are dangerously low on fuel—- we don’t have enough gasoline for a U-turn. We are all going to die!

Wife: (Looks up the road) It is a miracle Jack! There is ANOTHER Conoco / Loaf ‘n Jug just past this building. We are saved!

Husband: Phew! When we get back home I’m going to find the Conoco executive who arranged these convenience stores and give him a big hug.

In addition to the convenience store curiosities, Woodland Park has it’s own unique history. For example, Kristin and I ate lunch at Quiznos. After we ordered our food and sat down to eat, she explained to me how this store front used to be occupied by the Christian Science Reading Room. Kristin just rolled her eyes at my suggestion to combine the two and name it “Sandwiches Good Enough For Jehovah.”

Despite being a quiet mountain town, Woodland Park has an impressive police presence. The ratio of law enforcement officers to civilians is similar to that of a Siberian prison colony. On our way back to Divide, we had the honor of receiving a police escort through town. Things got even more interesting when Kristin threw a cigarette butt out the window. We got pulled over and the officer started off the conversation by saying, “I’m pulling you over because you tossed a lit object from your car. Did you know that is illegal?” He then went on to explain the forest fire danger in the area. While I wanted to discuss the long term dangers of artificial fire suppression, I had a feeling this would not be the optimal time for such a debate.

Kristin, who has no love for the police, didn’t seem to enjoy the conversation very much. To help remember that night, Kristin was given an authentic document from the Teller county police department which gave her two options. She can either pay the thirty-eight dollar fine or be hunted down by attack dogs and officers wearing full riot gear in an ATF training exercise.

After all that, we managed to get back just in time for dinner– which I must say was quite lovely.

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Random Post: For Our Next Project

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University built a machine designed to demonstrate basic social skills. The robot, named Grace, is a 6-foot-tall drum shaped device which communicates through a digitally animated woman’s face. While the robot’s social abilities are minimal at best, the researcher’s modest goal is to have Grace appear at least as human as Martha Stewart.

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Random Post: In High Technology

Microsoft Corporation recently announced plans to enhance everyday objects such as watches and refrigerator magnets. These devices will provide users with up-to-date information regarding sports scores, traffic reports, and, somewhere down the road, home power outages and threats at your children’s school. When asked about this new technology, Microsoft founder Bill Gates commented, “While I’m not a psychologist, I think I wouldn’t be trying to take over the world right now if my parents received real-time text messages every time I got a wedgie in the eighth grade.”

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Random Post: Annoying Sleeping Habits

I’m just not the type of person who gets sick very often. While I can only provide anecdotal evidence on this matter, I firmly believe my good health is due to the fact I religiously adhere to the “doughnut pyramid” philosophy of nutrition. (NOTE TO SELF: eat two more chocolate eclairs before bed to fulfill the recommended daily allowance of vanilla goo). Despite my impeccable eating habits, some sort of evil invaders made their way into my body. And, no, I’m not talking about the Spanish Inquisition. My symptoms included coughing, sneezing, fever, chills, cold sweats, runny nose, headache, abnormally high levels of drool (while awake), irritability, disorientation, high cholesterol, itchy facial hair, consecutive bad hair days, and an unexplained tolerance of “Gilligan’s Island” reruns.

Being a single male, I have exactly two approaches to getting better. The first is to just ignore the situation. Which most of the time is really the best thing to do. After a few days of specifically doing nothing, it became quite obvious my situation was not improving. Which meant I had to switch to my alternate form of treatment– I called my mom.

I explained the situation to my mom and she drove up to Boulder one night to see what kind of medical attention the situation warranted. Even when I am perfectly healthy I don’t always know what day it is, but having a high fever did nothing to help the situation. But I do remember watching professional football, which meant it was a Sunday. Unless it was Monday. Or possibly Thursday or Saturday. I was honestly more concerned with the idea of my head exploding after doing something silly like trying to sit up.

My mom arrived and had me swallow various pills and liquids to improve my condition. Exhausted from this sudden flurry of activity, I could do little more than lay back on the couch and fall asleep. I can only imagine my mom’s concern as she watched me sleep restlessly as my fevered body tried to recover from this illness. And that was BEFORE I started rambling incoherently.

While I’m sure I had my reasons for babbling on in my sleep to my mom that we needed to go to the local grocery store to buy birthday cakes that other people ordered, I seem unable to recall them now. I think that was when my mom started entertaining the idea of taking me to a hospital. Fortunately, witnessing my wildly erratic sleeping habits is nothing new for my mom.

My bad sleeping habits can be traced back to my early teens. One of the most common dreams, besides being stuck sitting between Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh on a crowded bus heading to Istanbul, is to have an uncontrolled falling sensation. The normal reaction is to wake up, realize it was a dream, and then go back to sleep. My routine, on the other hand, contained the additional step of waking up in the morning to realize that I had pulled the curtains near my bed out of the wall.

In addition to my nocturnal redecorating efforts, I have also been known to walk and talk in my sleep. My parents didn’t really know what to do when I was wandering in the hallway at three in the morning explaining how random objects were flying out of my television set. One time I walked into my parents bedroom and sat on the corner of their bed in the middle of the night. I didn’t say or do anything—I just sat there. I don’t think this scenario is covered in any of those “how to raise your teenager” books.

I consider myself to have fairly average verbal debating skills when I am awake and coherent. When I am sleeping, however, I have yet to lose an argument. I suspect this is because A) I use facts that are only available to me, such as “there are dragons coming in the windows” or “time is moving backwards, and I have to fix it” and B) I refuse to accept the claims of other people that I am incoherent and speaking gibberish. Coincidentally, this is the same strategy employed by the Republican party.

Given my history with odd sleeping patterns, my recent experience on my couch was really no cause for alarm. I don’t really know why I sleepwalk, but I can remember everything I say and do when I wake up. Maybe my life would be easier if I actually stopped dreaming before I start moving around and talking, but I have been unable to locate my brain’s instruction manual. Until I find it, I’m stuck like this.

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Random Post: Dish it up!

Dear Dish Network,

As one of your faithful customers for the past five years, I thought I would take a few minutes and tell you how to run your business. I do watch a moderate amount of television, and therefore I feel qualified to give advice to a multi-billion dollar high-tech communications company.

First of all, you need to slowly move to an “a la carte” business model.  I would love to purchase the History International channel, but it is only available with a package that is two tiers above where I am at right now (which is an extra $30 a month).  It isn’t fair to me or the channels that I would really like to support financially.  And those 7 ESPN channels– well you can keep those.  I don’t have anything against sports programming, but I never watch them.  Same goes for all of the Spanish Channels.  No hablo Español.  Please credit my account.  I just want to be able to choose the channels I want and not be forced to pay for channels I never use.  Is that asking too much?  To start the conversion, you need to start rewarding quality programming by offering bonuses for the most recorded and viewed programming.  Eventually allow customers to customize exactly which channels they want.

As a side note on the “a la carte” issue, you should have a dedicated channel that gives previews of other channels for a week at a time.  Every now and then I hear about a “free Cinemax” weekend, but I forget to go into the channel selection, add Cinemax, and see if there is anything I want to watch.  If there was a channel that offered a week of FX, and then a week of HBO, and so on, I would keep it on my list of channels and be more likely to preview these channels.  A new channel to try out every week of the year!

I’ve got a kiddo on the way, and I would really like to see a better way to control what they watch.  How about letting customers set up “playlists” online that everyone can see and add to their DVRs?  Customers could then pick specific programs for their children, or supplement their choices for other people’s playlists that highlight age appropriate programming.  Netflix has a somewhat similar system for sharing information.  When the DVR is turned on a password would be required to see different playlists or live programming.  I know, it sounds complicated, but you guys can do it.  You got all those satellites into space– that couldn’t have been easy.  And remember– if you don’t do it someone else will on the Internet and bypass your network all together.

Let’s see– what else has been bugging my lately?  Oh yeah– I love my DVR and being able to record shows, but why not make it easier by taking note of what shows are being watched, and then just automatically start recording them in the future?  Kind of what Tivo has done with their recommendations, but this would be recording the shows that are otherwise getting watched on live tv.

Finally, can you make an option for listing channels sorted by popularity?  I watch about 5 channels 90% of the time– it would be nice to see all those on the top of the list followed by the less frequented channels.  You shouldn’t have too much trouble with that request.

That’s it– so if you end up using my ideas feel free to compensate me with a gift fruit basket, a singing telegram, or, if you can’t think of anything else– free cable is always an option!

Omar Lutfey

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Singing Career

I’ve been singing to my daughters for the past 18 months to help them get to sleep.  So today I finally got around to recording it on a CD so we can just press play at 3am when they wake up and need attention.  Not a bad recording, but I don’t think the Mamas and the Papas need to worry about losing their day job.

Dream A Little Dream

Take It To The Limit

Kodachrome

Jet Airliner

Posted in Kiddo News, My Song Lyrics, My Videos | Comments Off

Error Codes

Wow, I was just looking back at my latest posts, and I realized that I haven’t posted any real updates about my personal life in a very long time.  So here goes.

We recently added a +1 to our family:  Samatha Rose Lutfey.  So now we have a total of one husband, one wife, two kiddos, and one crazy dog.  Pretty typical family lineup.

Having never done this before, I am very much learning how to be a father as I go. Of course pretty much everyone has to start out from scratch, so I’m not really special in my situation. The easiest way to categorize activities in this area is “things I was reasonably expecting to happen” and “what?  did that really just happen?  You must be kidding me!”

So in the first category I put things like changing diapers, feeding, and playing with my children. To a large degree I’ve had experience with this by having taken care of my dog Maury for several years now. The key here, as much as I understand things, is to understand the desire of the dog/child and things will go smoothly. If someone is making an unpleasant sound, or error code as I like to say, then resolving the situation is just a matter of finding the cause of the error code and fixing the underlying problem. To start out, babies generally have a small set of error codes– my diaper’s full, my stomach is empty, and someone isn’t giving me their full attention. So debugging small children is a pretty simple process.

The only situations to look out for are false positives and false negatives. For example, my oldest child Isabel doesn’t seem to mind running around with a diaper full of poop. And to make things more fun she likes to run and hide when we try and change her diaper. Don’t forget that kids can just start crying for no known reason. This is the most frustrating of all the error codes since there is no corresponding resolution action. The key to this situation is to identify it as a “Kobayashi Maru.”  For anyone not intimately familiar with Star Trek terminology, this is a no win situation used to train Star Fleet officers.  So just think, “What would Captain Kirk do?” And the correct answer isn’t “make more cheesy Priceline commercials.”

So now we come to the next group of activities. These are things that you will in no way be able to see coming. My personal favorite example of this is having Isabel on my chest fall asleep. Since I can’t really do anything else without waking up, I soon fell asleep myself. Then, for really no reason I could understand, Isabel emptied the entire contents of her stomach onto my face and chest. Very unpleasant I must say. But my point here is that I couldn’t have seen it coming.

So this is all I’ve learned in my two years or so of being a father. That, and if you want to get anything done on the computer your kids better be asleep or at grandmas for the weekend.

Posted in Kiddo News, This whole "kid" thing | Comments Off

The Prime Contenders

Here is the transcript of our parade skit:
You may address me as number 2– the number one prime number.  Behind me is number 3, the number 2 prime, and also with me is numbers 5 and 7, the third and fourth primes.

We represent the prime numbers– positive integers evenly divisible by only ourselves and one.  We are tired of being treated as freaks and second hand citizens on the number line.

Welcome to prime time– when all numbers are treated equally.  To make this dream a reality, we will now present our organizations prime directive:

We the primes, an infinite subset of the positive integers, are demanding equal rights to composite numbers.  The time has come to elect one of our own to the position of prime minister.

Don’t forget that we prime numbers hold the keys to your most important encryption programs.  And who do you think controls the prime rate?  Remember this the next time your are in your house built on prime real estate while eating a wonderfully cooked piece of prime rib.

If our demands for equality are not met, we will not hesitate to call on one of our strongest military allies, optimus prime.

That is all.

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Down the rabbit hole

Officials at San Fransisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transport admitted to shutting down cell phone service to disrupt a planned protest in the vicinity.  While reaction to the news was mixed during the blackout, one man went on record saying, “I think this is a perfectly acceptable course of action given the need for public safety.  We don’t need a bunch of troublemakers down here….   aaaarrrrggghhh… I’m having a heart attack… call 911!   What do you mean you aren’t getting a signal?”

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Save Some Bills

Former President Bill Clinton said the United States could save more than $1 trillion a year by adopting any other advanced nation’s healthcare system. “That has to be one of the biggest lies that man has ever told to the American public” replied the group of people who get paid an extra trillion dollars a year.

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Common Sense

Several members of the Republican party, including Karl Rove and Sarah Palin, have openly criticized President Barack Obama for inviting the rap star Common to read a short poem at a recent White House Poetry event.  ”We don’t want this to come off as racists old school thinking,” the Republicans explained in a press release, “but letting a colored man into the White House to talk about things like hope and freedom just doesn’t sit well with our more established voting base.”

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Iron Chef: Amsterdam

Announcer: Welcome to the premiere of Traveling Iron Chef. While Chiarman Kaga Takeshi’s “Kitchen Stadium” vision remains a fixture of Japanese culture, he recently gave a direct order to his younger brother, Lou. Instead of bumming around Kaga’s apartment watching television all day, Lou has been instructed to travel to the ends of the earth in an effort to discover more Iron Chefs. Moving through the countryside with an army of helpers and a scaled down “moderately equipped kitchen tent,” Lou searches for an answer to the eternal question, “Whose cuisine will reign supreme?”

Lou: We have traveled many moons from our homeland, and today we are broadcasting from the European country of Holland. Two local culinary artists will go in, but only one will come out with the title, “Iron Chef Amsterdam!” And now, the moment you have all been waiting for… today’s secret ingredient is… MARIJUANA!

Announcer: The marijuana plant, also known as hemp, cannabis, pot, grass, or weed, is one of the most rugged forms of flora known to mankind. Able to grow in almost any climate, marijuana has become a plant of choice for “amateur horticulturists” around the world. The non-flowering section can be used to produce cloth that is both durable and environmentally friendly. While using the bud of the plant as a cooking ingredient is not commonplace, a movement that can almost be described at underground has evolved to help promote marijuana consumption. Despite all this, the plant in question remains illegal in many parts of the world—due in large part to intensive tobacco company lobbying efforts.

Lou: To help judge the creations of our two Iron Chef candidates, we have three well-known members of Japanese society: Sumi, a young female actress from a popular soap opera, Typo, a fifty-five year old journalist, and Shooki, a new age psychic. They will be evaluating two highly respected Dutch chefs, Willhelm and Hansel. Chefs– you have one hour, starting now!

Sumi: I am very excited to be here. Hee hee hee.

Announcer: It appears that Chef Willhelm is preparing thinly-sliced duck breast for his first entrée.

Typo: I am an old, old man. And I am very good at complaining about things. This is why I am on the show so often.

Announcer: Well, this is quite amazing! Chef Willhelm is lighting a large pile of the marijuana on fire in order to SMOKE the duck breast. He is instructing one of the assistants to keep the smoke going at a constant rate. Chef Hansel is preparing chocolate and sugar. I think he is going to make some sort of a dessert.

Sumi: The tent is filling up with smoke. I kind of like it… I feel all tickly. Hee hee hee.

Shooki: Yes, I feel as though the spirits of 1000 dead relatives are inside my body dancing around and having a party.

Announcer: I’m not sure what the chefs are doing, but they are being very deliberate about their actions now. Perhaps they are contemplating their next dish. Someone had better tell them they only have one hour to complete the competition!

Typo: I find this smoke to be highly irregular. The secret ingredient should be in our tummies, and not in our lungs– very unusual. Am I talking too much? I feel as though the words are coming out of my mouth with much less effort than usual.

Shooki: I never found old, whiney Japanese men attractive until just now. Typo, can I touch your hand for a moment?

Typo: I am flattered, Shooki, but I must inform you that I called the front desk and had some hookers come up to my hotel room to pleasure me before the show. Did you know they can just add it to your room service bill? Are these thoughts in my head, or are they escaping out of my mouth?

Announcer: After spending the past five minutes staring at the top of the tent and smiling, chef Willhelm has sprung into action. He is getting something out of his pocket. It appears to be a cellular phone. Who could he be calling?

Shooki: I believe he is trying to get in touch with one of his deceased parents.

Typo: You are being foolish, Shooki. You can’t call dead people on a telephone. Where would the phone company send the bill?

Announcer: We have gotten more details from the cooking area. It appears Willhelm has called for pizza to be delivered to the tent. Extra pepperoni and bread sticks are the order. But will it get here fast enough? In the mean time, Hansel has finished baking brownies, and, if I’m not mistaken, just broke open a box of Hagelslag, or literally “chocolate hail.” This Dutch delicacy is generally used as a bread topping instead of cheese or jam.

Sumi: Chocolate hail? Is the tent going to hold up okay? Hee hee hee… snort! Snort! SNORT!

Announcer: Chef Hansel has just filled his mouth with Hagelslag. Now he is laughing uncontrollably and it appears the tiny pieces of chocolate are coming out his nose.

Lou: Competitors, your time is up!

Announcer: It has been quite an unsual hour. Chef Willhelm, please explain your dishes.

Chef Willhelm: I was planning on making a smoked duck dish, but my assistant got too high from the marijuana smoke and fell asleep under the table. So, as a backup plan, I had pizza delivered. Unless the delivery guy screwed up, it should be pepperoni. Unfortunately, I ate the bread sticks during the commercial.

Typo: I like the taste of the pizza, but if I am not mistaken, there is no direct connection with the special ingredient. Also, it feels as though the food getting larger in my mouth the more I chew it. Is that happening to anyone else?

Shooki: I see dead people! Get it? I’m being funny. It’s from that movie a few years ago– the one with the little kid.

Announcer: And now, Chef Hansel, tell us what you have done here.

Chef Hansel: Well, I don’t know about everyone else, but I got really stoned when what’s-his-name lit that big pile of pot on fire. But I’m used to it, so I made my favorite pot brownies. Oh yeah, and I’m sorry about the Hagelslag coming out my nose… it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

Typo: I think this dish truly enhances the flavor of the marijuana. Please do not be insulted that I didn’t try any of it– I’m saving it for the hookers in my hotel room.

Shooki: Can I go with you? I’ve never seen hookers before. How much do they cost?

Typo: It depends on what you want. You can ask them when we get back to the hotel.

Sumi: You are cute, so I’m going to give you a lot of points. Hee hee hee.

Announcer: The competition is complete. Who is going to be Iron Chef Amsterdam?

Lou: Sumi awarded Chef Hansel twenty points. Typo and Shooki seemed to have left without turning in their scorecards. So I guess the winner is… Iron Chef Hansel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, now hand me one of those brownies. And does anyone here have any Pink Floyd? I could really go for some Dark Side of the Moon right about now…

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In its ongoing effort to expand market share, Apple has announced plans for a new hardware platform.  While most of the specifications have yet to be finalized, a press release from the company covered the basic intentions of the product line.

Since the invention of the personal computer in the mid 1980s, a major demographic has been completely ignored.  Our new systems will feature applications such as “stop walking on my lawn,” “how much better things were in the past,” and “ultra-realistic customer phone service simulator.”  Operating these devices will be even more intuitive than our line of award-winning iPads– all commands will be given in the form of yelling at an excessively loud volume.  World, get ready for the Granny Smith computer.

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All by four

I had to explain some car stuff to my wife today.  The difference between “four wheel drive” and “all wheel drive” is as follows:  In a four wheel drive car the power from the engine is transferred to each wheel to improve traction and handling.  All wheel drive does much the same thing, but the spare tire also spins when the vehicle is in motion.

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Toys R Us

Sometimes I feel like I have to walk on eggshells around the house. ISABEL, CLEAN UP YOUR TOYS!!!

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Mr. Watson, come here

After becoming bored beating almost all of the humans on the planet at the game show Jeopardy, the supercomputer known as Watson will start entertaining himself by creating a billion fake tweets every day.  Twitter followers, after discovering the situation, by in large decide the fake tweets are more interesting than the real ones and Watson quickly ends up with more followers than Charlie Sheen.

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Eye of the Tiger

Recently unemployed actor Charlie Sheen announced plans for a stand-up tour in Chicago and Detroit.  ”Tickets will be free,” explains Sheen, “But before the show we will pass around collection plates.  Once I get at least two million dollars, then I’ll start the show.”

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Future SNL Weekend Update Joke

Republicans in Congress are attempting to eliminate funding for a federal program which provides low income women basic reproductive services such as low-cost cervical and breast cancer screening. ”Hey, maybe these guys aren’t so bad after all.” commented the Taliban.

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Law of Averages

“So I asked my girlfriend how she would rate me in bed, and she said I was average.  What a let down.”

“But aren’t you the only one she has ever slept with?”

“What’s your point?”

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Strange bedfellows

When asked about his potential Presidential campaign in 2012, Newt Gingrich replied, “This type of campaign requires a tremendous amount of planning.  For example, I have barely even begun to consider who will be my wife this time around.”

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