Yo ho ho (and a bottle of rum). It’s 2012. We’ve decided to live it up. You wanna know why? Cause the Mayans say it’s all gonna end this year. Well, the Mayans didn’t say it exactly. The Mayans don’t say much of anything anymore. The doomsdayers say it, but those guys will say anything. Nevertheless – it’s a great excuse to get a cupcake and a cappuccino and whoop things up. You not only have our permission, you have our encouragement. Sip your drink and find out what amused us this week.

1. The Big Bang Theory. We’ve written about this before, but that small blog post isn’t exemplary of how often we talk about it. The show is outrageously funny. Not just slapstick, although there are periodic pratfalls, it’s also brainy – but in a good way. And kudos to the producers for finding the stupendously talented cast. Kaley Cuoco as Penny is often overlooked by the hysterical Jim Parsons as Sheldon. The rest of the cast is equally good. Kaley can drop a deadpanned look with genius comedic timing. The recent additions to the cast of Mayim Bailik and Melissa Rauch, and the frequent guest appearances of Laurie Metcalf and Christine Baranski have only made it better. Start at the beginning and watch them all, but for the love of Zeus, don’t miss The Luminous Fish episode. We almost peed ourselves over that episode.
2. Bunnies for Ron Paul. Stop the presses. The ladies of the Moonlight Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada have come out to say they support presidential candidate Ron Paul. They call it, “Pimping for Paul”. Apparently there was a great deal of discussion about their candidate. They almost went with Newt Gingerich, “because he’s a cheater and we appreciate a cheater”, but ultimately they chose Mr. Paul. Why do you ask? Because “he knows what women want and what women’s needs are.” Apparently, this is because of his experience as a gynecologist. Of course, this means he “knows his way around a woman.” Swear to the god of the underworld, that’s what they said. So ladies and gentlemen, with a glowing endorsement like that, we’d like to introduce you to our new president. We’re moving to Brazil.
3. Hello Kitty. We worry about people who don’t like Hello Kitty. There is absolutely nothing to NOT like about Hello Kitty except possibly how much her stuff costs. For those of you put off because you think she’s not smiling. You’re mistaken. Just look how happyshe is.
4. Prehensile porcupine. We’re having some difficulty getting the red panda herefrom China. We’re not happy about this, but we haven’t given up hope. We’re thinking we might have to set our sights on something with a better chance of immediate satisfaction until wecan iron the wrinkles out of that other thing. We’ve decided on a prehensile porcupine. Just look at this cutie patootie. They come from Central and South America so ROAD TRIP! Also, we’re fairly certain we can convince people at the border that it’s a dog. We’re not even a little bit worried about it poking us with the quills. We’re the Quill Sisters. It’s obvious we belong together. This is a text book example of symbiosis. It’s like the universe wants us to have a prehensile porcupine. So now you’re asking why go all the way down South to get this particular porcupine aren’t you? Hello. Tail. Jeez, it’s like you people aren’t even thinking.
   

   SQUISHY Mitt Romney

5. Other presidential candidates. Sometimes, the Sisters just love listening to reports on the radio.  Just this past week, a reporter became so flustered when he was asked about Mitt Romney and his “sort of” win in Iowa that he said, and we quote, that Mitt Romney was a “moderate squish”.  Yep, you read that right – the word he used was SQUISH.  Squish for goodness sake.  Do adults use the word squish?  Do adults on the radio use the word squish?  They do!  All to the sister’s delight.

Tweee! Christmas is almost here! Santa is probably taking a last minute nap and the elves, no matter how jolly they are under normal circumstances, are nearing the end of their ropes and talking union like they do every December 23rd. Holy Yule Tide Cheer, an elf can only tolerate so much before they all start feeling a little Norma Rae. While we weren’t concerning ourselves with Elvish labor relations, we were chuckling over these five things.

1. Outstanding aliases. There were three gentlemen sentenced to prison this week (ho ho ho) for crimes that aren’t humorous in anyway. What was funny was one guy’s alias. The name his mother gave him at birth, Henry Oliver Ford, is a perfectly respectable, reasonable, and normal name. Henry sounds like a stand up fellow. I guess that’s why, in order to get any respect in the criminal underworld, he had to come up with an alias. Are you ready for what he chose? Steady yourself because once we tell you, we can’t take it back. His hand picked alias is “Cleothus Lefty Jackson”. We can’t make this stuff up. If Amylynn picked

We'd never stop doing this either if we had this dress

that name for a bad guy in her book, Ava and Kelli would never let her keep it. Why? Much too absurd.

2. Sparkly Christmas clothes. Tis the season for sequins. Except for Christmas and New Years Eve there are very few opportunities to wear glittery clothes. It’s a shame really, but still a gal has to have standards. Any other time of the year, with very few exceptions, the Sisters will make fun of sequined women. Hop on over to your favorite hoochie store and grab yourself some bugle beads. Oh what the hell, grab some gold lame while you’re at it. Throw caution to the wind.

3. Silly Christmas Carols. Under normal circumstances, Andrea Bocelli and the Muppets probably wouldn’t be paired together for anything. And how funny is the Bob Rivers song The 12 Pains of Christmas? “Rigging up these lights, indeed!” And anything by Straight No Chaser. You know what we never need to hear ever again though? Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer. We are prepared to run over her ourselves and then use Ava’s new pink gun to shoot the friggin reindeer. We understand reindeer meat makes excellent chili.

4. Hemispheric anomalies. Amylynn had a text conversation with an old friend this week that is still making her giggle. The whole thing began when he made threats regarding the liklihood that he would receive a Christmas card

It must happen because no one would photoshop this

with a polar bear and a penguin on it. Apparently, it upsets him greatly that people are so stupid as to put two animals together that would never, ever, not even during the apocalypse, meet each other in real life. It would seem that he has put a great deal of thought into this and it amused Amylynn to no end. There are several things she did not point out to her irate friend. The first being that he needs to get over it because if there is one thing the Sisters are 100% sure of is that people are remarkably stupid. And number two, THEY’RE TALKING PENGUINS! Is it alright if Santa meets the penguins? After all he lives on the North Pole with the polar bears and we don’t want anything happening with the space/time continuum.

5. Cookies. How could we slit out wrists when there are still Christmas cookies to eat? Beautiful, sprinkled, frosted bits of pastry goodness. Well, except for oatmeal raisin. We’re not willing to eat oatmeal raisin cookies no matter how you disguise them. It’s the raisins – just can’t do it. It’s a weird word for a weird little “food” item. Sure if you want to eat something that looks like a tick, go right ahead. You can have ours. We, however, will be eating the sugar ones, the cut out snowmen and the gooey chocolate chip ones. We’ve got a whole plate of the twisty, powdered sugar thingys with the fudgey dollop and a cup of coffee. Life is good.

We hope you’ve mailed off your letters to Santa by now. Have you done your Christmas cards yet? Us neither. Last year we’re not even sure if they ever actually went out. That’s pretty pitiful for a bunch of writers, but what can we say. We tell you everything on this blog already…. What do you need a card with Santa and a bunch of penguins on it for anyway? You know we love you. Sigh. Fine – we’ll make the effort to get them out this weekend. These 5 things, among others, were what were distracting us from our seasonal chores.

1. Hellboy. We really wish we could explain our fascination with Hellboy, but we can’t. We watch either of the movies anytime they’re on TV. There’s a lot to love. We haven’t read the comics he is derived from, but we love the movies directed by Guillermo del Toro and adore Ron Pearlman as the title character. It’s a damn good thing we knew Ron first from Hellboy because if all we knew about him was the evil character he plays on Sons of Anarchy….well, that would be bad. Hellboy loves cats and chili and Baby Ruths. He’s an overgrown adolescent in a huge body, including one hand in the form of a giant club. He constantly cracks wise. Now that we write it, that may be the root of our love of him. Anyone with a great snarky comeback or a snide remark is OK in our book.

2. Elves Four Food Groups. The movie Elf is one of the greatest Christmas contributions in the last several years. Will Ferrell as Buddy is a genius. When he launches himself at the tree to put up the star….well, we rewind that over and over. According to Buddy, the four Elf food groups are: candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup. We totally could buy into that diet. We figure you’d be so hyper from all the sugar that you’re bound to lose weight just from the running around. Not that anyone would notice any difference in our level of hyper, but at least we’d have something to blame it on. Remember, the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.

3. Kerfuffle. We were reading an interesting article on MSNBC the other day about how atheists ramp up their advertising budget around this time of year. In an effort to spread the awareness and to give the timid atheists out there an opportunity to come out of the closet, there are many displays which often cause the religious among us to, well, to freak out. MSNBC described one such incident as a “kerfuffle”. OH. MY. That is our new favorite word. Kerfuffle. Doesn’t it sound like a made up word? NO! It’s not. Mostly used by the English (the Great Britain English not us American English speakers) it means a fuss or commotion. All this time, we thought we were being difficult to wait staff and baristas but, no, we were causing a kerfuffle. Go ahead – use it in a sentence today. We give you all permission to cause a kerfuffle in our name. When the police come, you can blame us. It won’t be the first time.

4. Elizabeth Taylor auction. We are anticipating very exciting Christmas mornings at the Quill Sisters compound this year. Elizabeth Taylor’s estate auctioned off her jewelry this week. The 33.19 carat Richard Burton Diamond sold for $8,815,500 and the necklace Burton gave her, known famously as La Peregrina, went for a perfectly reasonable $11,842,500. A pretty little diamond bracelet Michael Jackson gifted Liz went for six times the pre-auction estimates. The Quill Husbands know of our love of sparkly things AND classic Hollywood so we have every confidence the “Asian buyer” was really an agent entrusted to pick these items up for our very busy spouses. We suspect you’ll hear the squeals all the way under your own trees on Sunday morning.

5. Sufganiyots. The local Picayune had a headline that simply could not be ignored this week: Eight Days of Donuts. If you’re eyes and ears didn’t just perk up, well, perhaps you’re dead. Apparently, those unassuming Jews have been hiding a very pertinent fact about Hanukkah. We can’t understand why they’d keep quiet about the fact that there are EIGHT days of donuts. Are they trying to keep them all for themselves? Honest to Moses, this may be the best reason to convert yet. These little donut gems are described as “reminiscent of beignets” and are stuffed with fruit jams or custard and sometimes, hold on to your yarmulkes, caramel and fudge. Some are even filled with spoonfuls of cheesecake. We’re all a quiver just thinking about it. We have no idea how to pronounce them, but we want some right now. This fits right into the Elf diet in #3. We fully expect to slip, sated and happy, into sugar comas by New Year’s Day.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Holy crap, can you believe it? We know that Santa is watching and we’re trying ever so hard to behave ourselves, but honestly, it’s not easy. The Sister’s generally do have trouble behaving. It’s a darn good thing these five things were around to distract us.

1. Presidential candidates. Tis the silly season! The Wall Street Journal this week brought a candidate to our attention we feel absolutely compelled to back. Vermin Supreme apparently is a perennial candidate, a performance artist who spends a great deal of time making fun of the electoral process. Here’s the thing

Here he is wearing his cod piece - clearly ready for the debates.

though: he might really be the one. He is running on a platform so magnificent we feel confident that you’ll also see his brilliance. Are you ready? His Democratic platform is zombie preparedness, mandatory tooth-brushing and the promise of a pony for every American. A pony! Are you kidding? Sold! And Amylynn gets her brother’s pony because he’s allergic. Ava thinks we could start a pony exchange for those people that don’t want theirs, then when we collect around twenty extra ponies, we bargain with the Chinese for one of their red pandas. That seems a fair trade – twenty ponies = one red panda. This is going to be awesome!

2. Bono gives us a compliment. Well not the Sisters, exactly, but how cool would that be? Think of the post we could write if Bono happened to make a comment on our blog? Actually, if ANYONE made a comment on our blog. Sigh, that’s not the point. Bono told Time magazine that American leadership has been one of the greatest influences in the breakthroughs in fighting Aids. We think that’s a pretty nice compliment since it seems all we hear are negative things about our leadership – and all too often, rightly so. Bono gave kudos to Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Obama. So pats on the back everyone.  You can still give someone a merry Christmas. The pandemic is on the decline – now is not the time to let up.

Ava been saying for years she's less than six away....she's yet to prove it.

3. 4.74 Degrees. Do you remember that game 6 Degrees of Separation? The theory was developed by psychologist, Stanley Milgram, in the 1960’s that you and every other person on the planet were only separated by six people. The concept meant that you could meet anyone as long as you could line up the right six people to get you there. The Sister’s could meet the Pope or Robert Redford or Idi Amin so long as we found the right six people to introduce us to the next person and the next until there you were, shaking Barry Manilow’s hand. Well now, thanks to Facebook, that number has shrunk to 4.74 people. We’re assuming the .74 of a person represents a midget. We’ll be the first to admit that we don’t understand exactly how it’s supposed to be easier to meet people now days if you always have to have a midget in the mix. Whatever. We brought this up because of Bono. If you’re still confused, reread #2. We have a comment open and ready for his pithy bon mot. You 4.74 people go ahead and line yourselves up.

Look! It's Tiffany blue!

4. Kepler-22b. They discovered another Earth! Well not exactly Earth, but it’s the closest planet within the “Goldilocks zone.” That’s the hard to find zone scientist have created that holds the parameters for life on another planet- not too hot or too cold. NASA describes Kepler-22b as having a “shopping mall-like surface temperature of near 72 degrees.” Dear heavenly bodies! It’s like they’re begging the Sisters to go there. And with our burgeoning relationship with NASA we feel confident that we’ll be welcomed aboard one of the first colonizing ships. We already have plans to open our cupcake/book/jewelery store next to the first Starbucks. All that’s left to do is come up with a better name than Kepler-22b. That’s just a ridiculous name.

5. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens.  One of the Quill Sisters loves Charles Dickens.  Being a HUGE fan of the Christmas season, her favorite is naturally “A Christmas Carol.”  Almost without fail, she re-reads it each holiday.  She has been known to stay up late into the night to watch any version of the movie.  Any version, even the bad ones, yes,  you Kelsey Grammer.  This upsets her children but she will not be dissuaded from this path until she’s seen it at least 4X every year.  Her favorite line?  Scrooge to Marley’s ghost: “There’s more of gravy than grave about you”  How brilliant is that?  That Charles Dickens sure could turn a phrase!

Wow! It is definitely winter down here. Two of us completely disapprove and we can’t get an opinion from the third because she’s out playing in the “weather”. We’re not sure how she’s related to us – rogue genes, we suspect. Nevertheless, some things were funny, or if not funny, then at least eyebrow raising. Here are five of them.

1. Funny birthday cards. There have been several instances when we’ve shared items from the www.Shoebox.com blog. Those people are hysterical and we want that job. Well, that job and whoever is in charge of naming nail polish. Oh look, now we’re on a tangent. How unlike us. Sister Ava’s birthday arrived, unheralded by the end of the universe we’d like to point out, and she got a particularly funny card that her Sister had been holding on to for months because it was so funny. There are few things more enjoyable then standing in a card store cackling away at the cards all by yourself. Unless, it’s giving that card to someone who will find it equally funny.

2. Naïve men. Something not even a little bit funny happened at work this week and no matter how we spin it we can’t make it funny. The only thing was that a man told us to quit thinking about it, to let it go. Honest to Zeus, it’s like he’d never met a woman before. Don’t let it bother us? We keep looking behind us to see who he’s talking to because surely he didn’t mean us. We live for dissecting conversations for hidden meanings. For the love of Hades, we’re writers. We dissect everything. Stupid silly men.

3. Smart women who happen to be beautiful. There was an article about Hedy Lamarr on the Internet that we remember hearing about before. Ms. Lamarr was often referred to as “the most beautiful woman in the world” back in her heyday of Hollywood 1930-1940s. Honestly, the woman was scrumptious. And apparently brilliant. She was also an inventor of high tech things that make the internet and cell phones possible today. Even if you point out that she didn’t actually create the tool, and not all by herself, we’d also point out that the concept was hers. There is nothing like the triple whammy of being beautiful, smart and talented. Just look at the Sisters!

4. Muppets. It is unfathomable that none of the Sisters has gone to see the new

click to enlarge

Muppets movie. Fans forever, we’ve been really excited about it, but life keeps getting in the way. As one of the year’s best reviewed films, you know it’s going to be everything we hope it will be. Perhaps that’s what the world needs more than anything: The Muppet Show to come back. Lady Gaga would be outstanding as a guest host. Let’s all get together, hold a séance and bring Jim Henson back.

5. Tree houses. We’ll be honest and tell you that not all of the Sisters share this obsession, but Amylynn keeps bringing it up so we humor her. When she shows us pictures like this, we can understand where she’s coming from. These aren’t tree houses from your childhood, slapped together deathtraps made of rotting plywood and rusty 16 penny nails. These are inspired, whimsical, fantastic tree houses a grown up could hide in for hours. She can imagine her computer in there with her bulletin boards on the walls, Adele playing on the CD player and magical, lyrical words flowing from her fingers – all while high up in a tree. It’s really a shame there are no big trees in the desert.

Here we are, another week closer to death and we still don’t have a lion cub or a red panda. This isn’t right. We do have some concerns however because Ava has been searching on the Internet for how to smuggle a red panda into the country. You should be alarmed because she is actually formulating a plan. Let’s all hope the FBI doesn’t get involved. While we’re keeping an eye out for the black helicopters, these things hit our funny bones.

1. Russian Mummies. Ladies and gentlemen of the Internet, we’d like to introduce you to Anatoly Moskvin of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. Mr. Noskvin was discovered to be harboring 29 (29!) stolen female corpses that he mummified and dressed up in “bright dresses and headscarves” to look like dolls and displayed them around his apartment. Mr. Moskvin is 45 years old, described as “quirky” (!!), lives with his parents, and is considered an authority on cemeteries in his area (!!!). The mummies were discovered when the police went to his residence requesting assistance in a case involving desecrated graves. Indeed. Once again, the Associated Press does not explain what his parents thought of Anatoly’s little hobby. Really, would it kill the AP to fill in the blanks?

2. Aliens in the White House. The White House, yes, that White House (the one where the President of the United States of America allowed HIS family to have a puppy) recently issued a statement that they have no evidence that extraterrestrials exist. This gives the Sister’s pause. Now, we don’t necessarily believe in aliens, but we’re certainly game to look at a little evidence. The fact that the White House is specifically informing us that they know nothing is a little like your kid coming out of the kitchen and volunteering the information that everything is fine in there and you don’t need to look in the pantry. ET if you’re out there, we would totally believe in you if you brought us a red panda. We’re just saying.

3. Shoes. Shoes. Shoes. On the heels of the blog where Amylynn bought shoes we just wanted to formally announce that we do love shoes. We love shopping for shoes. We love trying shoes on. We love buying shoes. Red shoes, black shoes, silver shoes. We love pumps and strappy sandals and mules and boots and wedges. Our only regret is that there aren’t more closets in which to put them. Shoes make us happy and light-headed. **sigh**

4. Anniversaries. It is Amylynn and My Honey’s wedding anniversary today. They were married on 11/11/00 thus they’ve been married eleven years today. Eleven years on 11/11/11. That was done both by design and happy accident. Let the festivities begin.

5. Travel conveniences. Amylynn leaves on a family vacation in ONE WEEK (not that she’s counting) and with all the travel the other Sisters have been doing, we’d like to praise the suitcase on wheels. Shhhhh. Did you hear that celestial choir singing? Remember waaaaay back when they first

Hahaha! Remember this?

 came up with the concept? They just put wheels on the regular, square cases and, once pulled, they just toppled over. We remember our father having a nervous breakdown in an airport once. Now days, of course, they’re just brilliant – thank Zeus – because we couldn’t handle all of our international travel without them. (Oh, dear, there’s that delusion again.)

What a long, long week. We’re all exhausted. They say winter is coming, but that really remains to be seen. Literally. We’ll see. There was some sort of wild talk about snow in higher elevations. That can’t be right. Two out of three Sisters refuse to participate in snow. While we were worrying about snow and digging out our Uggs these things brought us amusement this week.

1. Penn Jillette. Penn and Teller are an amusing act. We also like Penn because he’s an outspoken and intelligent atheist. He has a new book out called God, No! In it he has rewritten the Ten Commandments for Atheists. It’s shocking how similar they are to the other Ten Commandments only without that “God” part. For example, number four reads, “Put aside some time to rest and think. (If you’re religious, that might be the Sabbath; if you’re a Vegas magician, that’ll be the day with the lowest grosses.)” If you’re a mother, that means never. We’re just saying.
2. Bobbing for things. There was a Halloween party this year. We all had a great time. The Sisters went as a goddess, a pirate and a zombie. The host of this party, in a moment of outrageous inspiration, had a bunch of mini-bar sized bottles of booze floating in a big bucket of water. If you wanted one for your drink, you had to bob for it. HA! Apples schmapples. Unless it was apple schnapps, of course.
3. Health food. It has come to the Sister’s attention that the McDonalds pie is actually health food. “What?” you screech. “How can that be? Surely you’re crazy,” you insist. We have done some research and we have irrefutable proof. Behold. The McDonald’s Apple Pie is only 250 calories and 3 grams of fat. If that’s not health food, then we don’t know what is. Well, actually, we’re pretty much in denial about health food and what actually qualifies it as so, but we feel quite confident that the above figures put McD’s pies right smack dab in the middle of “heath food.” Dollar menu, anyone?
4. 72 Day marriages. If you haven’t heard of the pending dissolution of
   

   Not all bliss

   Kim Kardashians nuptials then you’re living in a vacuum. Even the furthest Sherpa in Nepal has heard the tragic news. While we’d all like to see the institution taken a little more seriously, and we despise the waste of the money for the wedding (especially since our invitations were clearly lost in the mail), we do think there are other precedents that might have been sent here. Perhaps there are many undertakings that would benefit from a 72 Day Back Out Plan. We propose a “Just Kidding, What Was I Thinking” plan.  Mull this over and see where it might fit into your life.

5. Daryl. The Sisters love The Walking Dead on AMC. It is an amazing show with a fabulous story line, unbelievable special effects, and an amazing cast. Our favorite character, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is Daryl Dixon. The thing about Daryl, as played by Norman Reedus, is that he is not the character anyone would typically identify with. He’s a very rough, red-neck kind of guy. The thing is, though, he says and does the exact thing you’re thinking at the time. He’s not supposed to be a hero. Originally I don’t think they’d even written his character as a likable guy. He’s the kind who says things like, “Some people just have to die. Oh, come on, you’re all thinking it.” And of course, we are. We love Daryl and his cross bow and his WTF attitude.

We’re back from the enchanted lands of New Mexico. Well, to be completely truthful, not all of us actually went. We had to leave one of us here to glare scornfully at the bad drivers, annoying waiters and uppity baristas. We do not take our obligations lightly. But we are reunited, the planets are aligned, and many amusing things are happening in the world. Here are five of them.

1. Pope John XXIII. “It often happens that I wake at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember I am the Pope.”
   

   This is a super-duper thinking cap

   You know, this happens to the Sisters all the time. We will think of a serious problem and think, “We need to tell the smartest people we know” and then we remember that’s us! It also works with funny things. However, it is good to know that at least THAT Pope contemplated deep things in the night. Things like world peace, the Vatican art collection, birth control for third world countries, – you know, insignificant things.

2. George Clooney. There are many, many things to contemplate about Mr. Clooney. If you want, we can pause a minute while you contemplate them. Sigh. Alright, let’s move on or we’ll waste the whole day with contemplation. When asked about Twitter, Mr. Clooney stated he didn’t follow it, adding, “No, because I drink in the evening and I don’t want anything that I write at midnight to end my career – ‘You can kiss my ass,’ all spelled wrong.” Tell us what you think, but that sounded like an invitation to us. We’ll bring the wine and a red editing pen.
3. Sore losers. We discovered Scrabble people are a little crazy. At the very least they take their championships way too seriously. At the
   

   Don't let us catch you smuggling these

   World Scrabble Championships in Warsaw there was an accusation of cheating. **GASP** This is big time people. There were demands for a strip-search in the bathroom when the British competitor Ed Martin was accused of concealing a letter tile. Now that would seem completely feasible if Amylynn or Ava were playing. Neither of them is really to be trusted. Kelli, however, is a fine Scrabble player and would never resort to such underhanded tactics. Amylynn and Ava need all the help they can get.

4. Facial Hair. Our town boasts the top winner of the National Beard and Moustache Championships held this year in Lancaster, PA. If you are unaware, this is almost as big a deal as the World Scrabble Championships but, mercifully, there were no accusations of cheating or demands for strip-searches at this particular competition. We can barely express how thankful we are of that. Clearly the bearded and mustachioed among us are much more
   

   This is what we're talking about!

   civilized. Our winner, Mr. Patrick Gorman wears his moustache in the “Hungarian” style (!!) which is not to be confused with the “Freestyle” type which include waxed loops and such vulgarities.

5. Jack-o-lanterns. We love carved pumpkins. We try to make amazing jack-o-lanterns but there are some people out there who are like the Michelangelo of gourds. One of our favorite things about this season is the outrageous, unbelievable pumpkins. Behold.

If you remember, last week we were all excited because fall had apparently fallen and we were finally experiencing some cooler weather. Psych! It’s supposed to be 97 degrees this weekend. Despite the “cooling” trend, we did find some things that amused us this week.

1. Harold Camping’s back. Remember way back in May when we were expecting the zombie apocalypse? We wrote about it here and here. Mr. Camping in his infinite wisdom had declared that May 21 was the hot day. Hot literally for us non-believers. Well, disappointed as we were that it didn’t happen, we have another shot at it. The new date is October 21. Apparently the Rapture will be a much quieter affair this time around. We’ll see you in Hell. Wear layers.
2.  Phoenix Jones. You know what we think the world needs more of? Wacky crazy people. Honestly, we’re a little tired of these run-of-the-mill crazies out there that get all the air time on the news. The world needs more people like Phoenix Jones, a “superhero” from the Seattle area. He has his own suit and mask and he runs around breaking up fights and spraying women with pepper spray. He may be misguided but at least he’s a crazy with flair. His Wikipedia page says he the leader of a ten-member costumed vigilante group calling themselves the Rain City Superhero Movement. You really need to go to the page and see who they all are. Really – how can you not love these guys?
3. Liberace. Normally, the Sisters wouldn’t be even remotely interested in Liberace. We’re not of the right
   

   Can't you totally see it?

   generation or the correct sexual persuasion, but this story caught our eye. Michael Douglas is going to play the showy pianist in an HBO movie. We’ll pause here while you contemplate that. Are you ready to move on? Do you need a tissue? Hold on to your pants while we tell you that Matt Damon will be playing his young lover. They’re calling it, “Behind the Candelabra.” Whew! That’s good stuff. We’re going to have to stop here if we plan to get anything else accomplished today.

4. Nebraska and zombies. We seem to be fascinated with this topic lately. Nebraska is one of those quiet little states that sit up there all unassuming, but we think we need to pay better attention. Perhaps they know something we don’t. The Ace Hardware stores up there are stocking zombie preparedness kits. Some might scoff and say it’s simply an excellent marketing ploy considering the season, but what if it’s not? Whatever the case may be, those Nebraskans are very funny people. The quiet ones can be sneaky like that.  Or, maybe see #1.
5. Dragon King. The Dragon King got married. He is the king of Bhutan and he married a lovely commoner in a 17^th century Buddhist ceremony. First of all, if you have to take on the responsibility of being king of somewhere at least take on an awesome title like “Dragon King”. That totally rocks and, if you get into a land war, we suspect that would scare the hell out of your enemy. Or it should. And second, we totally approve of all these kings and princes marrying commoners. This is an excellent trend.