Just finished writing a fan letter to Steve Slater. Question: Should I send a photo of me looking hot, or a recent one?

And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor

On September 6 at B. B. King's Supper Club, enjoy the music of the Gipsy Kings as performed by Los Cintron. This tribute will be a Mediterranean mélange of world, Latin, and flamenco music. Please, be aware there will be no actual Gipsy Kings in attendance, so don't leap up out of your seat halfway through and yell, "Wait! That's not Nicholas, Chico, Paul, Diego, Patchai, Paco, and Canut!"

Then on September 13, join us for the music of the Blondie performed by a bunch of guys named Mike.

I don't go to the theater as often as I should. I'd go more often, but my long-term memory works fine. Two or three months, I find, is just long enough to forget how much I hate spending a couple of hours in an uncomfortable seat rubbing my arms and legs against a stranger.

Last night's stranger was at a performance of "Abraham Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party." It's very funny but serious too, an odd amalgam of silly comedy and Gay History 101. It's what the Carol Burnett show would have been like if its writers were in ACT UP.

Before the show starts, a randomly-chosen audience member selects the ordering of the three acts. It's engaging but a bit self-defeating, I think. Imagine Madame Bovary shooting herself during Act One and you can guess the problem.

Still, the writing is first-rate, and the cast is incredibly talented. The time flies by, even when your neighbor reeks of alcohol, nose-whistles when he breathes, and keeps his legs together about as well as your average Palin.

Today's email lists a myriad of fashionable new ways to spend my hard-earned cash. Should I head to the Pop Tart store and get toaster pastry sushi, or should I hire an artisanal pencil sharpener to refresh all my dull old #2s?

On reflection, I think I'll just burn the cash, thanks.

Martin Scorcese has decided to jump on the bandwagon. Following the success of films like Avatar, Toy Story 3, and How to Train Your Dragon, The Godfather director's next film will be released in 3-D.

Tentative wording on the poster is, "What's that coming out at you? It's PARMESAN!"

Tres Leche Cake

For people who tried the Dos Leche Cake and thought, "Hey, there's still some phlegm in my body that hasn't worked its way up into my throat."

The good news is, their dad's second amendment right is doing fine.

A Russian finalist at the World Sauna Championships in Finland died Saturday after being subject to extreme heat.

Both of the event's finalists were rushed to the hospital after collapsing during the competition, in which contestants are made to endure temperatures of 230 degrees Fahrenheit (110 degrees Celsius) for as long as they can. Vladimir Ladyzhensky later died.

Just to be on the safe side, they've indefinitely postponed the Bubblin' Vat of Caramel Plunge.

Tim McGraw in Concert

I'm thinking he fell off his horse, passed out, and when he finally came to he discovered cattle had eaten all of his chest hair.

After being battered, abused, and sworn at by an unruly passenger, Jet Blue employee Steven Slater grabbed a beer from the beverage cart and slid his way to freedom via the inflatable emergency chute.

And that's why we lock the emergency exits, say the folks at Wal-Mart.

Fashion & Style from Sunday's New York Times

Note to models: if you look in the mirror and see a skinny Jay Leno staring back, it's probably time to change clothes.

Confucius say people who ride rollercoaster naked have never been scared shitless.

The [new Pop Tart store in Times Square] will put on a brief light show every hour. First, visitors will “get frosted,” [COO Scott] Schoessel said, with a red light and a white light. That will be followed by brief pulses of light, “all different colors to mimic the sprinkles,” he said, “then another really bright light” to evoke wrapping the tarts in foil.

Take that, Les Miserables!

Eat Pray Love

As of this year, Julia Roberts has made 4,102 movies, and her career strategy has slowly become clear. She specializes in fantasy fulfillment for her peer group. She does everything women her age would love to do, being spectacularly charismatic while she does it.

In her twenties, Julia starred in Pretty Woman. It reassured women that even if they were streetcorner hookers, they could still end up with a gorgeous billionaire.

In her thirties, Julia starred in Runaway Bride. In it, every straight guy in the world wanted her, but she was the one who was afraid to commit.

As women age, though, their desires shrink to a smaller scale, and Julia's movies shrink with them. In "Eat Pray Love" -- at least judging by the commercials -- she doesn't settle down with a rich dude, or reject a whole string of smokin' hotties. No, she eats ice cream that would totally mess up the internal plumbing of women who are lactose intolerant.

If you're a Julia fan, you're probably thinking, "Now that is a fantasy I'd like to see."

You live vicariously through her, basking in the glee on her face. "Ohmigod," she's thinking, "this is amazing! I am so loving this, I don't care if it goes straight to my hips. I don't care if I'm on the toilet from tonight until Christmas. I'm a strong, independent careerwoman, and goddammit I DESERVE EXCELLENT ICE CREAM!!!"

In fact, Julia's main talent as an actress is letting you know exactly how great she feels. While she's eating the ice cream, she's licking her lips, licking her spoon, licking a pigeon that accidentally gets between them. She's making faces, repeating "Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod," staring up at heaven and unleashing her trademark cackle.

We can't take our eyes off her because we're so envious. This is a woman who treats herself to a good time, and really makes the most of it. Hell, I've never looked anywhere near that happy, and I own vibrating pants. When I eat really good ice cream, here's my reaction: "Wow, this is really good ice cream." I don't recall a single morsel of food in all these years that's prompted me to rub my nipples.

If you're thinking maybe this isn't enough to sustain a whole movie, you can put your worries to rest. In "Eat Pray Love," Julie eats spaghetti too. I know all you carb-phobic chicks are going, "Oh no she doesn't! Holy cow, I have gotta see that!" She outdoes herself in this scene. The waiter comes over with this heaping plate of steaming pasta and says, "Heya, pretty lady, you wanta some Parmesan on toppa?" Julia pinches herself like she can't believe a foreigner is offering her additional coagulated milk. Maybe this part is a spoiler, so if haven't seen the commercial stop reading: she does! The commercial cuts away but everybody watching has already guessed: this is gonna be two-cackle tagliatelle.

Anyway, this movie so brilliantly follows Julia's pattern I know it's going to be a smash hit. Julia's fans have passed through the same life experiences that she has, and once again they'll love watching her reenact them with style and grace. Heck, on Friday I'll be there too, laughing along with jealous pleasure, and God willing I'll be there for her next film, when she opens a jar of peanut butter all by herself, then drives across railroad tracks without piddling her pants.

Dear TeaBaggers:

It's time for me to come out of the closet: I totally agree with you. Government is too big, there's too much wasteful spending, and our politicians don't represent the regular people at all. I will absolutely, totally join you in overthrowing the government.

I've been kind of busy lately, though, so pencil me in for Next Time A White Republican Is President.

Yours in anarchy,
RomanHans

Larry Kramer gets mad a lot. You kind of expect that when somebody starts out furious and then gets old. At some point, though, he started turning on people who support gay rights.

After Barbra Streisand issued a congratulatory statement about Prop. 8 getting struck down, Larry Kramer released the following statement.

Barbra Streisand is a hypocrite. If she had made my play about AIDS, The Normal Heart, in 1986, when she first acquired the rights, only to sit on them for a full ten years without filming it, she could have done something for gay rights when we were really in the sewer of death. But no, she chose to go off and make such vitally important and classic movies as Nuts and The Mirror Has Two Faces. Barbra Streisand cares about gay rights as much as i care about spending a zillion dollars decorating a colony of houses in Malibu.

You know, I never argue with old people, even if they're always squeezing my cheeks or putting more Jello on my plate. I'm not going to debate if somebody can consistently support gay rights without "caring" about them. I'll just fill in an odd blank.

The Prince of Tides. 1991. Directed by Barbra Streisand, starring Barbra Streisand, nominated for seven Academy Awards.

Hope this helps, Larry. Back to the porch and, please, no more Jello for me.

[Queen Latifah is] often reluctant to discuss the topic in the media, but last year, she addressed rumors that she's a lesbian. "They want to make up stories and make me gay all the time and it's like, "Keep running with it,'" she told Essence magazine. "I've definitely been annoyed by it, but I learned a long time ago that it was pointless to say anything."

Well, I'll bet Latifah is way past annoyed with the publication of this picture. Here she is on a yacht off the coast of France with her personal trainer, Jeanette Jenkins. You know, the woman Latifah bought the house with. Personally, I think Latifah should sue the chick for malpractice, because despite the fact this personal training is full-time, live-in work, Latifah still can't fit into a female bathing suit.

Everybody else on the internet is saying this adds more fuel to the gay fire, but I'm sure there's a rational explanation.

Maybe they're about to do squats.

My Favorite Line in "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore"

"So if I call your house looking for Pussy, you're not gonna come to the phone?"

And already there's two footprints and a drawing of a dick in it.

It looks like the rope is tightening around Lance Armstrong's neck. It's about freakin' time. Anybody with a brain can piece it together: if ten of the world's top bodybuilders say they pump iron eighty hours a week, are we really going to believe the eleventh guy who says, "Oh, I'm just naturally muscular"?

The feds are questioning Armstrong's teammates from the United States Postal Service team. Could that get any more ironic? World-record breaking speed demons, brought to you by the folks who throw your mail at your door because their legs are too swollen to walk? The folks who, when you try to mail a package, hold their fingers over the computer keyboard and repeat, "Okay, this time I'm gonna do it. I'm really gonna hit a button!"

I'll never forget the time I went to the local post office and asked for ninety-nine first-class stamps. The woman pulled out a sheet of a hundred, then started counting from a corner. "One. Two. Three. (Pause.) Wait. Where was I? One. Two. Three."

I'm really surprised the Post Office doesn't advertise their bike-racing sponsorship more: "Every time you mail a package, a musclehead gets more juice." Heck, I'm packing Snowflake into a cardboard box as we speak.

Anyway, now a couple other racers are allegedly saying Armstrong encouraged doping, and that the team sold spare bikes to finance it. Yup, this are my kind of people: selling bicycles to buy steroids for an entire team of athletes. Meanwhile, I can't swap my car for two tabs of hillbilly heroin.

Still, I'll tell you what: forget Armstrong. Forget the whole thing. I'll sign a certified statement saying the entire United States Postal Service bike racing team was fortified with nothing more than Kool-Aid and Quiznos. Now would somebody please deliver my last eighteen issues of Shirtless Fireman magazine?

And then ride home in this great new invention called a "horseless carriage."

Kyle Frey, a 21-year-old wrestler, noticed a pimple on his arm but ignored it. Within days, it covered his bicep and turned painful. At the emergency room, he learned he had a potentially deadly infection, and he spent five days in the hospital.

How can you avoid getting a dangerous infection at the gym? Easy:

• Carry one gym bag for clean clothes, another for dirty clothes.
  
• If you do floor exercises, bring your own mat.
  
• Bring your own towels and antibacterial soap.
  
• Wash your hands before and after using any equipment.
  
• Wear shoes in the shower.
  
• Carefully dry your armpits and groin.
  
• Blow-dry your toes on low heat.
  

Coincidentally, these are the exact same rules you should follow if you want all the other gym members to call you "Creepy Gaywad."

After Joe.My.God and Queerty published post after post about it, Gawker is now reporting about Tom Emmer, the extreme right wing politician in Minnesota who is partially supported by Target stores.

Well, it's about fucking time. Now something tells me Target will reply with something other than, "We support anti-gay politicians? Tough!" I'd like to pause here and officially spell out my thanks to Gawker, the Sandra Bullock to the gay community's pitiful black guy.

Hey, say what you want about Paul Mart, a bodybuilder at the Gay Games, but I'm not talking. Dude is NINETY-TWO. I'm a third his age, and I need a vacuum cleaner and Vaseline to put on a jockstrap.

No time to post today. I'm working on a pitch for a TV sitcom. It's about a guy whose dead grandma materializes when he least expects it, just long enough to offer pithy wisdom or unexpected sass. Tentative title is "Nana from Heaven." Look for it on CBS next fall!

You know, I'm not even sure what I meant anymore.

The twelve British lads celebrating a stag party on a fishing boat agree they might have drunk a few too many beers. When the captain went below deck, someone suggested they all get naked and surprise him, and seconds later all clothes were off.

What might have been just a minor prank, though, turned into a full-fledged naval incident when the Coast Guard spotted the crew and called an Air Force helicopter to fly in close and investigate.

I am never going fishing with British dudes. At least with Americans, when somebody shouts "Thar she blows!" you know what they're talking about.

I've had it. Totally, completely had it. Everywhere I look, it's gossip, gossip, gossip. It's like every scientist I know is ignoring his work on submolecular acceleration to keep up with the rumor mill.

I mean, first, Dimitar Sasselov, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, breathlessly emailed news that NASA's Kepler satellite discovered 140 earthlike planets in a small patch of sky in the constellation Cygnus.

Naturally all my friends with PhDs are like, "No way." "Way!" "No way." "Way!" I mean, we're talking a Russian named Dimitar here, not some dude from California named Steve. Imagine my surprise when, like a week later, Dimi's eating his words. "Well, maybe I meant 'earth-sized' instead of 'earthlike,'" he said.

Oh. No prob. No diff. Well, except for the life-supporting atmosphere. D'oh!

Then, three weeks ago we heard news that'd literally change the world. Researchers at Fermilab had discovered the Higgs boson, came the word from everybody and his lab assistant.

Naturally we broke out the champagne. This was the "God" particle, that legendary mystical nanospeck that imbues other particles wth mass. Even before the Moët goes flat, though, the Fermilab physicists report that, well, maybe they didn't find it at all.

Yeah. Right. "Physicists." Maybe it was a natural mistake. And maybe somebody should imbue their heads with mass.

In by far the worst case, though, last December physicists everywhere went berserk over news that an experiment at the bottom of a Minnesota iron mine had detected vast quantities of dark matter. With trembling hands we tuned into the webcast when the team introduced their findings at Stanford and Fermilab. The New York Times held its front page. And you know what the truth was? They found exactly two dark matter particles. You know, like one more than you'd find in a petri dish full of staphylococcus aureus.

My head spun so fast it made my centrifuge envious. Is that crazy? It's like telling your class you're going to explain Guberman's Rules of 11-Dimensional Symmetry but then showing them slides of, like, bosons.

Call me alarmist, but I see this as a horrible trend, to the fourth degree sigma plus or minus two. Rather than decades of research accompanied by peer review in prestigious journals, now it's all hype, hype, hype followed by studies that couldn't prove Fermat's Theorem for Cheese. Does this mean the end of science? Well, its half-life has certainly expired.

My wife caught me teary-eyed at my bunsen burner last night. Finally I broke down and admitted my misgivings. "Maybe there's a reason Scientific American isn't sold at supermarkets next to OK!" I said. I mean, if you can't believe a scientist, who can you believe? I just thank the elusive God particle that these dudes are working on science rather than the important stuff, like figuring out if Tom Cruise is gay.

Paul the Octopus to Record Elvis Album

World Cup oracle Paul the Octopus is poised for a new career -- as an Elvis Presley impersonator.

The psychic sea creature became a global star after 'predicting' the correct outcome of all Germany's matches in South Africa.

"One of the most exciting things is that he has a record deal in place for an album called Paul The Octopus Sings Elvis," said his agent, Chris Davies.

Oh, puh-leeze. There's no way you can compare an octopus to Elvis. The sad lump couldn't even sit on a toilet, let alone predict the World Cup.

Modern Family creator Steve Levitan justifying why, during a recent scene, the straight couple kissed but the gays didn't:

Two of the writers on our show who are gay were explaining their very different points of view. And one of them is very comfortable [with it]. The picture was shown of the two couples kissing in the airport and he said "I would never ever kiss my partner in the airport."

I wouldn't either. It makes everybody think you're Italian.

My current boyfriend, Raoul, is addicted to So You Think You Can Dance, which means I'm doomed to fourteen hours of fartsy gymnastics every week. Just for my own mental health, I invented a drinking game that really helps those turgid dance routines electric-slide by. If you're doomed to a similar fate, here are the rules I made up.

• Take a shot whenever somebody dances to a third-rate cover tune by an American Idol loser.
  
  
• Chug a beer whenever an edgy, pierced choreographer with a partly shaved head writes a piece where a boy meets a girl at a park bench.
  
  
• Chug a beer whenever Nigel Lythgoe congratulates the show for revolutionizing dance in America, then makes two teenagers foxtrot.
  
  
• Take a shot whenever a girl does something that'd get a fiver stuffed into her bra at Flashdancers.
  
  
• Chug a beer whenever a judge extols the sacred beauty of dance, and then the next dance features a move called "Look at my crotch! LOOK!"
  
  
• Take a shot every time the eternally-chipper Cat Deeley says to a contestant, "Come here, you!"
  
  
• Chug a beer every time a judge tells a dancer "The ladies here sure love you" and the dude is queerer than Elton John's purple codpiece.

Of course, you can customize this any way you'd like. I used to take a shot whenever a white chick whipped her hair like a pole dancer, but then I'd routinely pass out during the opening credits.

Health and Safety Alert From The New York Times

After you feed a thawed, hairless baby mouse to your pet snake, don't forget to wash your hands.

This has been a Health and Safety Alert From The New York Times.

Okay, I'm going to come out of the closet here. I've been hesitant to admit something here out of fear of being shamed, but I think I finally worked up enough courage to come out and say it.

I drink my own urine.

I've been drinking my own urine for about two years now. Just a dribble a day at the beginning, but I'm recycling most of it now. I finally shared my secret with a good friend a couple weeks ago. He took it better than I thought he would. "So, you're doing it because it's healthy?" he asked.

"It's healthy?" I replied.

After talking to him, I realized there are lots of advantages to drinking your own urine. When you go to a music festival, you don't have to bring a bota bag. When your boyfriend catches you naked, trying to force your head into your groin, you've got a convenient excuse.

Still, I realize people like me are a rare breed. Most people would pull an unknown shellfish out of the ocean, pry it open, see that it looks like mucus and toss it away. It takes a rare breed to find something disgusting and say, "Gosh, I wonder how it tastes!"

I hope with this admission, more people will give it a try. Heck, maybe one day it'll be as commonplace as drinking wine, and we'll see signs in restaurants telling customers to BYOP. Maybe we'll even have sommeliers to steer us to the correct dish to match with our wizz. "The Dover sole is extremely delicate," he'd advise. "You didn't eat brussel sprouts last night?"

Of course, it's hard to get started. "Why, I don't drink Sunny Delight," you tell yourself, "and it didn't spend two hours in my kidneys!" But it gets easier as you slowly learn to appreciate the heady scent of wee. Which brings up the one small side-effect. Now when I'm in Central Park or on the subway and I walk through a smelly tunnel, I feel like a fat girl walking past Cinnabon.

Now Girls!

[Pittsburgh Steelers' quarterback Ben] Roethlisberger's senior year of high school, when he became the starting quarterback and set state records, had its share of drama. Some of his receivers felt forced to befriend Roethlisberger out of fear that he would not throw the ball to them.

And if you caught a ball another quarterback threw, well, forget about coming to his sleepovers.

The Two Main Points of Dinner With Schmucks

1. Paul Rudd is way too good of a person to laugh at people who are pitiful or retarded or differently-abled than himself.

2. You aren't.

American priorities have always been warped. At some point I came to terms with the rich: I'm inured to the fact that billionaires are drinking champagne while toothless grandmas are dumpster-diving for their next meal. Once we introduce pets to the equation, though, it starts to irritate me. New York dogs, for instance, have better wardrobes than high school students in Africa.

Yes, even the ones wearing Juicy Couture Pour la Pooch.

Well, today the Observer's Very Short List newsletter gives us irritation squared. This little newsletter has always been a celebration of the trivial, every day blaring discovery of the hottest new film, song, or pomegranate-green tea muffin that's ever been created by mankind. Every day they draw some artsy Venn diagram that allegedly illustrates something but instead makes USA Today's bar graphs look like Nobel-quality work.


Today, they gush over a website/book of images called Inside Insides. I'll let them explain it.

Magnetic resonance imaging uses a strong magnetic field to give high-contrast images of the internal workings of water-filled things, such as knee joints, brains and, well, vegetables. The fruity MRIs on this site show a moving cross section of the fruit, producing images of vaguely familiar food shapes repetitively blossoming and oozing in gray tones. Though nothing revealed by these scans is all that surprising (we’ve all seen the insides of an eggplant), the format of the imaging takes advantage of the weird symmetries in plants and fungi to make beautiful, dreamlike patterns—the mushrooms pulse like jellyfish; the cabbage expands like a controlled explosion; and the celery spins like a fractal—thus proving technology can make even a salad exciting.

Got that? That spur your interest at all? Me, not so much. Mostly I find myself getting irritated that fruits and vegetables are getting health care that 80% of Americans can't afford.

I'm kind of angry that rutabaga stands a better chance of getting a checkup than the guy who picked it.

And I'm totally pissed off that some bored, overprivileged idiot is sending broccoli through a technological marvel invented to detect human disease when, you know, odds are there's no undetected brain tumor in its stalk that'll make it leave its little brussel sprouts prematurely.

News flash, dude: this million dollar machine wasn't created so somebody could say, "Oh, cool! Look at this photo of celery!" Or "Man, that cauliflower rocks!" If you've got access to an MRI machine and nothing to do, here's an idea. Walk outside and find the first non-white you can find. Odds are this person doesn't have health insurance. Ask them if they want a quick checkup. For free. Just to be nice.

If instead you head to the kitchen and think, Gosh, I wonder what an kumquat looks like on the inside, you're a full-fledged idiot.

Ohmigod! Shocking! Never-before-seen photos of Angelina Jolie at her absolute raunchiest. Electrical tape on her nipples! A dog collar around her neck! And . . . shudder . . . is that heroin she's smoking?


Uh, quick note from a resident of Realityville: real tape sticks.

Well, That's Awkward.

The sun has set at the Hard NYC music festival on Governor's Island. The crowd is exhausted after standing for six hours through acts of various quality, but there's just two performances left: the South African rap/performance art duo Die Antwoord and M. I. A. The MC tries to stir up the crowd.

MC: Hey, y'all! Make some noise! Who are we all waiting for?

CROWD: DIE ANTWOORD!

MC: Oh. Uh, well, she'll be up in just a couple hours!

Yep, it's me! Somebody who just realized he's at the wroooong house.

A gay bar in Maine was cited by the health department for having bartenders who show too much skin.

According to authorities, the shirtless bartenders at Mainestreet pose a health hazard because they're hairy and they mix drinks.

We're gay men. We can handle it. We floss with strangers' pubic hair.

Last night Lexus held another Darker Side of Green party to alert the world to the dangers posed by climate change. For a political event, it was about as close to heaven as you can get, with stars like the gorgeous Liev Schreiber, Ewan McGregor, Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs djing, and free-flowing Patron tequila on a spacious, handsome terrace at the Bowery Hotel.

The brilliant Tracy Morgan moderated a short debate between Rolling Stone's executive editor, Eric Bates, and climate change skeptic Lord Monckton of Scotland. As always, the liberal was earnest and boring, and the conservative was crazy fun. Naturally, the conservative's argument didn't hold up to third-grade thought.

Lord Monckton made two main points. The first is that the U. N.'s model of climate change doesn't accurately reflect reality, so it can't be believed. Apparently the U. N. has an equation linking temperature change to CO2 levels, but temperature is increasing only one-third as fast as it predicts. Sure, that'll raise a question or two, but it doesn't justify Lord Monckton's conclusion that the whole thing is crap.

His second point was that consensus doesn't mean anything, and he quoted Aristotle. Sure, if 63% of the world believes in fairies, it doesn't mean they exist. But he implied that if every environmental scientist comes to the same conclusion, that consensus should be tossed out too. Somehow they should be viewed with as much skepticism as that posse that wanders your town looking for the chupacabra that killed somebody's dog.

Anyway, both sides agreed on one thing: we're all going to be fried very soon. The left thinks we should do something, though, while the right doesn't want to risk the cash.

Thanks to Lexus and Patron for another great night. I don't think anybody would deny that as the world heats up, we'll all need sturdy cars and strong tequila.

Teen heartthrob Zac Efron and his High School Musical co-star Corbin Bleu spent more than $2000 on lap dances and booze at Flashdancers Gentlemen's Club. Zac and Corbin were accompanied by "one other male friend, who paid for everything." The guys took a shine to three pretty brunette dancers, showering them with cash and requests for personal dances.

The trio were seen repeatedly glancing down at their crotches and muttering, "Nope, still nothing."

A new Roman Polanski rape accuser says the director handcuffed and sodomized her when she was twenty-one years old, in 1974. She is writing a book about it.

The book will be called One Good Page Out Of Two Hundred.

Topless protesters showed their support at a Maine gay bar after the health department cited it for having bartenders who show too much skin.

According to authorities, the shirtless bartenders at Mainestreet pose a health hazard because they're hairy and they serve food.

But the bar received an outpouring of support Saturday night when hundreds of customers turned up, with many of them topless in support of the hunky waitstaff.

Great. Fine. Looks like I'm never going to sell my armpit nets.

After ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, Snooki asked if she could walk around in a bikini and stilettos with a sign telling people what round it was.

"The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work," says Ben Stein, whose high school had a lacrosse team and who inherited a vacation home from dad.

I just spent 25 minutes online-chatting with "Cesar P" at Time Warner Cable.  It's a borderline interesting story: my cable didn't work for a week or so, so they issued me a credit refund. While they've been automatically debiting my checking account for my bill, though, they decided to send the credit somewhere else. Cesar said they'll phone me tomorrow if they can figure out where.

Anyway, I tried to save a transcript, but the chat box doesn't allow cut and paste, so I hit "View Source."  It didn't give me a transcript, but it let me see the list of words they filter so your outsourced "analyst" isn't constantly barraged with profanity.

PARAM NAME="ProfanFilters"
VALUE="bitch|shit|asshole|bastard|fuck|buttshit|fucker|
motherfucker|dammit|whore|slut|shitbag|shithead|ass|
cock|cocksucker|dick|penis|goddammit|asshat|sonofabitch|
nigger|honkey|honky|spic|sandnigger|cunt|pussy|funckin|
fuckn|dickhead|shitting|hell|cum|erection|hardon|
ejaculation|dildo|fuckhole|jysm|arse|twat|piss|wetback|
skeet|porchmonkey|fagget|fag|lesbo|homo|dike|coon|
muthafucker|faggot|faggit|spick|punta|fucked|fuckers|
bitches|bastards|motherfuckers|nigga|niggas|crotch|
mother fucker|bull shit|damn it|fucking moron|fucktard|
tard|gaytard|crack slut|crack whore|negro|pimp|pimp slap|
butt pirate|fudge packer|chinc|chink|slope|suck|camelfucker|
niggaz|bitchass|fuckboy|skank|retard|bustard|assholes|
phucktard|WTF|ahole|fuckwad|dickweed|shitface"

Got that? So if I typed in "Oh suck crotch jysm, you honkey crack slut!", for instance, Cesar would read "Oh, you!"

The list seems kind of strange to me. Asshat? Gaytard? Fuckwad? C'mon, we're talking about an overpriced CABLE COMPANY. Do they really spend that much time arguing with Bart Simpson? Besides, Time Warner Cable frequently appears to be run by phucktards; don't we have a constitutional right to tell them so? It hardly seems fair that after suffering through their miserable service we're stuck with calling them surly, beetle-headed strumpets.

Still, I'm proud to say this filter didn't alter my chat at all. But if your name is Dick Bustard and you like to shoot coon on the ski slope, maybe you'd better use the phone.

When the author Justin Spring finally tracked down the executor of Samuel Steward’s estate, he had no idea what this sexual outlaw and little-known literary figure had left behind after his death in 1993.

So he was taken unawares by the 80 boxes full of drawings, letters, photographs, sexual paraphernalia, manuscripts and other items, including an autograph and reliquary with pubic hair from Rudolph Valentino, a thousand-page confessional journal Steward created at the request of the sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, and a green metal card catalog labeled “Stud File,” which contained a meticulously documented record on index cards of every sexual experience and partner — Rock Hudson, Thornton Wilder, “One-eyed Sadist” — that Steward said he had had over 50 years. . . .

On each of the 746 cards that ultimately made up his alphabetized Stud File, Steward listed his sexual partner's name, his place in the lineup (i.e., the 354th person Steward had sex with), the dates and locations of every encounter, a coded description of penis size and of every specific sexual activity, and a brief comment.

Great, great story. I already pre-ordered the book. Meanwhile, which do you think is the "coded description of penis size" -- the 7 or the 9?

A group of pooping pigeons forced the Kings of Leon to stop their concert after three songs Friday night in St. Louis.

The pigeons started pooping the minute the band started playing. "I was hit by pigeons on each of the first three songs," Jared Followill said.

Really, this confirms my suspicion that pigeons are the stupidest birds. Cockatoos would have held it until they started playing "Sex on Fire."

I watched Mad Men last night. It was great! If you haven't seen it, I won't spoil it with any details. Let's just say that quite a bit of time has passed, and the partners at Sterling Cooper have changed to fit the times.

A British chicken farmer has discovered an image of Jesus Christ on one of his flock.

Mitchell Grainger, 25, took a photo of his chicken taking a dust bath, and later discovered the miracle in the photo. "I literally said 'Jesus Christ' when I saw the picture," says Grainger. "The face of Jesus is clear to see and when I showed my mom she even pointed out the ring of thorns."

Meanwhile, the chicken's name is Gloria. After Gloria Gaynor. Why, what'd you think?

After the double disqualification, Abdullah [the Butcher, a professional wrestler] sits on an overwhelmed bench in the dressing room and dispenses wisdom to a small, rapt audience. He is their Buddha, the triple-plus-size version.

You know, I'm thinking maybe the New York Times should think twice about comparing somebody who jabs his opponents with a fork with Buddha. Buddha would have jabbed them with chopsticks.

Let's Learn the Law!

When heterosexual Christians hold an anti-gay rally in a public square, they temporarily control that space. They don't have to accommodate anyone with an opposing point of view. The police will enforce this, throwing out anyone who isn't wanted, including journalists perceived to be homosexual.

However, when gays hold their Pride Rally in a public park, the First Amendment still holds. Anyone can enter and express themselves at any time. Thus heterosexual Christians are allowed to run up to random festivalgoers and scream that they're perverted deviants doomed to go to hell.

We think the more you know about our judicial system, the more you'll respect it. And that's today's Let's Learn the Law!