A man who stripped down to his underwear at a Virginia airport to protest invasive security screenings was charged with disorderly conduct.

Police said Aaron B. Tobey was “absent of pants and shirt in full public view." Written on his chest in marker was the Fourth Amendment, saying, "The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated."

He was arrested and taken into custody.

"Well, I think you made a great point," said the policeman who searched for machine guns in his ass.

Reggie Bush tweeted his 1.4 million followers today asking if it was okay to use the phrase "No homo."

Because a guy who wears spandex pants to work couldn't find a gay man to ask.

Isn't this cool? I just got it in the mail today.

After an eighty-year-old man was arrested for exposing himself to a ranger in a national park, he told the ranger he'd do free yard work for him if he'd let him go.

The old man said he's especially good at hedge-trimming and the ranger replied, "Yes, I know."

In an attempt at balanced journalism, yesterday BBC News followed a story about the birth of Elton John's son with an "opposing view" from a man who thinks homosexuals should be killed.

Facing widespread criticism, they offered a statement in their defense saying they always followed President Obama's speeches with discussions about whether or not he'd stick if you threw him at Velcro.

After Elton John became a father on Christmas day, the UK Daily Mail published an editorial saying he's a shallow, selfish diva and so should not be a parent.

"Don't worry, nobody's taking you from mommy," said every woman in Manhattan to her Peekapoo.

An Indian man revealed his secret for becoming a dad at age ninety-four. Every day he drinks a gallon of milk and eats a pound of butter.

Then, when he's in the bathroom screaming, his wife bangs a younger dude.

Thank you, Internet Explorer, for filling my window with advertisements and commercials before actually displaying any content. In return, I'm going to tell you exactly what I think of you.

But first, did you know you can chop a carrot with just the slap of a hand?

Less than two months after Joe Francis and long-term girlfriend Christina McLarty married in a civil ceremony at his luxurious Mexican retreat, the pair have separated.

She's allegedly asked for ten million; he's offered his usual, a "Girls Gone Wild!" sweatshirt and lifelong sense of shame.

In England, Burger King has started selling a Whopper made out of Brussel Sprouts.

It comes with a side of air pumpkin and gravy pants.

"I used to tend to farmers' animals, and I took payment in Mangalitsa [hog] belly," [Dr. Erno Hollo] said. "In Hungary, Boy Scouts didn't make S'mores. They would take a slab of Mangalitsa, put the fat over the fire and drink the sweet fat as it melted."

So fuck you, graham cracker and marshmallow.

Witnesses say she walked in with enormous breasts and walked out with flats.

I'm glad Viagra is available by prescription only, because there are some people who just should not have erections.

Anybody who can't afford to go to the doctor, for instance. Really, if you haven't got $75 for an office visit, should you be allowed to reproduce? I'm thinking that terminal softy is God's way of saying that maybe you should stick to video games. Getting a boner would just be setting you up for disappointment, because next you'd be looking for chicks, and I'm thinking even a pillow shaped like a dachshund would have second thoughts about letting a financially-deprived dude fuck it.

Old people shouldn't have erections either. Whoever said an idle mind is the devil's workshop never met a bored old lady whose dentures pop out. Really, have you ever seen a dude over fifty who you wished was hard? When your accountant is doing your taxes and he tells you to check a box, do you reply, "Dude, I'm already checking it!"? When your dentist moves in close and jabs your elbow into his squishy bits, do you really wish he had an hard-on so you could be sure exactly what part of it was ball?

Now, I agree that maybe we don't really need government intervention, because the potential for abuse seems pretty small. I mean, if oxycodone was available over the counter, half of Brooklyn would be at Rite Aid right now. But Viagra? We don't have to pay $10 to get an erection. We can just head to the store and look at Mrs. Butterworth.

Nobody'll give them to their partners for Christmas presents. Hell, we already miss the toilet as is.

In the end, though, I think doctors should be in charge of our erections. Mine certainly is, though it's got nothing to do with pharmaceuticals. There's just something about a man in a clip-on tie.

"Conservationists write me these nasty letters because I support an industry like this," Sarah Palin said after taking a chainsaw to an Evergreen Timber tree. "They write me these nasty letters using their pretty little pencils on their pretty little stationery not realizing. Where do you think your pencil and your piece of paper came from, people? It came from a tree that was harvested."

Dear Sarah:

Lady, the last time a liberal wrote with a pencil and paper they were begging James Van Der Beek to marry them.

Hope this helps,
RomanHans

Everything You Need To Know About Panda Poo

An adult panda defecates about 40 times per day, producing nearly 45 pounds of waste.

Each one [is] about the size of a goose egg, with sticks of partially digested bamboo poking out.

Because the pandas eat a mostly vegetarian diet, . . . their droppings [do] not have a distasteful odor. "I was surprised," [said artist Zhu Cheng.] "It smelled more like tea."

And God, does it stick to your teeth.

From the Gay City News:

After a conviction in the Palisades [Interstate Park] case, an appellate court reversed the decision, writing that the "Defendant presented a persuasive attack on [plainclothes officer Thomas] Rossi's credibility, raising serious doubts about whether it was believable that a police officer could have had almost a hundred men approach him, pull out their genitals and start masturbating without any enticement by the officer at all."

Oh, I don't know. Does he have a sweet moustache?

I don't know about you, but I get so frustrated with URLs. So often they sound like they're advertising one thing, and then they turn out to be another. Sometimes I think they intentionally try to mislead us just to get us to visit. The following, I think, are some of the worst. I've broken them up the way I assumed you were supposed to, but the reality is something else altogether.

move r snotshakers.com
heal t hymen today.com
cap it alone bank.com
rocko fag es musical.com
bagel bare ast miami.com
wee knight gourmet.com
ass u me love.com
staffordrotary.org/four-way testes say contest.cfm
big 3 part sex change.com
eriec anal village.net

Virtue is its own reward.

Vice can find a paycheck.

I've got last-minute shopping to do, so I'll leave you with some of the New York Times' words of the year. I've never heard any of these, but they'll definitely come in handy.

mansplainer: A man compelled to explain or give an opinion about everything — especially to a woman. He speaks, often condescendingly, even if he doesn’t know what he’s talking about or even if it’s none of his business.

sofalize: A marketing term created for people who prefer to stay home and communicate with others electronically.

coffice: A coffee shop habitually used as an office by customers, who mooch its space, electricity, Wi-Fi and other resources.

Is Sarah Palin A Dope Dealer?

Or does she just talk to them a lot?

Before Sarah Palin used the word "refudiate," the New York Times had it in a piece about dope dealers.

[R]efudiate was not Ms. Palin’s word first, even if she unpacked the portmanteau all by her lonesome. David Segal of The New York Times had it in print in late June, in an article about people who sell marijuana for a living. They are not easy to interview.

“Simple yes-or-no questions yield 10-minute soliloquies,” he wrote. “Words are coined on the spot, like ‘refudiate'. . . ."

Actually, this would explain a lot. We'd understand why she can't remember reading any books or newspapers. We'd no longer wonder why her kids have names like Trig and Blog and Whoopsie. We'd understand the goofy smile on her face. And, last, we'd know the reason she can see Russia from her house. Why, it's just to the left of the unicorn, past the angry leprechaun's dancing tree.

A cheap businessman, instead of providing heat for his workers, has had them all hypnotized into thinking they're warm.

Martin Connellan, the owner of a shoe repair shop, keeps the doors and windows open to clear fumes, which drops the temperature below freezing. After a five-minute session with a hypnotist, though, now his employees are stripping down to their underwear.

Dear David Beckham:

You are getting very sleepy.

Sleigh bells ring
Are you listening?

This song totally takes on a different vibe when you scream the second line.

Do you want to be known as . . . the host who hovers, vulturelike, with a garbage bag, waiting for the right moment to snag the crumpled pieces of Christmas wrapping? A garbage bag -- which, when you think about it, is not so far from a body bag -- that telegraphs the end of the party, the end of the holidays, the years rushing past, fading health, death, decomposition?

Sounds like somebody forgot to take their Cymbalta.

And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

A British man is planning to marry his Christmas tree.

Andy Park, a 47-year-old divorcée, loves Christmas so much he eats Christmas dinner every night of the year, and now he wants to marry his little plastic tree.

Apparently, during the holiday season he spends all his spare time with the tree, putting his big, dangly balls everywhere.

After that, he hangs up ornaments.

Miss Congeniality? Hitler.

The CIA was quick to refute the rumor. "That's just preposterous," said a spokesperson with the Occupational Mediation Group.

Katy Perry, on what she does with Russell Brand in the sack:

I have secrets and magic tricks, of course.

Presto! Your erection is gone.

Dear Owners of the Straight Acting Bulletin Board:

Recently I was browsing online personal ads and found your "Butch Board."

You say you like "straight acting" men. You're "masculinely politically incorrect." Your site is a safe haven for "straight acting" men, where "[m]en that have very few effeminate traits" can "find each other!"

I get it: you're all butch, butch, butch.

So how come the "Sporting Life" board has 325 posts and "That's Entertainment!" has 9,384?

Just asking,
RomanHans

With the wild success of Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers, Universal Pictures has given the green light to three more films in the franchise.


2012's offering will focus on Pam Focker and her relationship with her children, and has tentatively been dubbed Sorry, Mother Focker!


In 2014, the wacky family takes a serious turn in a piece about sexual slavery, Bought Fockers.


Last, in 2015, a family headed by two dads will be added to the fun. Hoping for a lucrative spinoff, the producers want us to Meet the Cox-Uckers.

Well, the other shoe has finally dropped. A friend who works on Broadway leaked this letter to me in advance of a press conference tonight.

---

Dear Theatergoers:

The producers of Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark regret to announce there's been another accident involved with the production. Fortunately, the injuries aren't life-threatening. We send our best wishes out to all injured parties.

We realize that, with four accidents in four weeks, it would be foolish and irresponsible to continue the way we're going. For that reason, we've decided to rename the show Spiderman: And Then There Were None! Can you guess who'll be next to plummet from the sky?

Ticket prices start at $85. Don't forget to bring an umbrella!

Signed,
The producers

---

Charles Barkley on Brett Favre's penis:

My biggest problem with the whole Brett Favre thing is, if you're going to send a woman a picture of your junk, it should be huge. You can't send small junk to a woman and expect anything. Seriously, you have to be like Ron Jeremy or some of those other porn stars. If you send a woman a picture of your junk, it should be humongous, it shouldn't be small. That's one of the Ten Commandments.

Great, huh? I really like this Barkley guy.

In fact, I just sent him a picture of my dick.

"Evan Almighty" came out three years ago, and I ignored it. I thought it would be lousy. I figured it'd be crap. What a stupid assumption that was! It wasn't bad: it was a massive pile of shit.

"Evan Almighty" is, indisputably, the worst film ever made. Nothing else comes close. Did "Plan 9 From Outer Space" cost $80 million dollars? Did "Showgirls" feature A-list stars? Do they repeatedly air "Troll 2" on a major network at Christmastime?

Evan, played by Steve Carell, is a modern-day Noah. Remember Noah's wife? The writers here don't either. The only lines spouted by Lauren Graham over two hours of screen time are, "Honey, are you positive God told you to build an ark?" and (SPOILER ALERT) "Gosh, I should have believed you all along!"

Likewise, their kids are the invention of someone who's never met actual children. Their love never wavers. They just want to be around Dad. They bring their skateboards and turn the semi-constructed Ark into a half-pipe. Look! Matthew did a quadruple Ollie. There's no disrespect. Also no girls, no swearing, no cigarettes.

You expect them to solve the Da Vinci code next.

The movie's main target, though, is disbelievers (read atheists and Democrats). Those NPR-listeners who'd run over Jesus in their Priuses if he got between them and the Whole Foods parking lot don't believe Evan. Heathens! He lectures them, but still they don't believe. He builds his ark, but still they don't believe. One pair from each of eight thousand species of animals, most from different continents, spontaneously wander to the ark and climb up the gangplank, but still they --

What?

Yeah, we're thick that way. "Yeah, honey, I saw it. That crank somehow got sixteen thousand animals to walk here from Nigeria and Peru, and now they're lined up to get on his boat. They're as blotto as he is. Hey, is Rachel Maddow on?"

The disbelievers stand by the ark and laugh, only backing away when the animals lurch at them. See, all this takes place in a state where you don't need to keep ferocious animals in cages. Naturally I'm thinking it's some flat, warm part of Sarah Palin's Alaska. When lions and tigers and wild boar growl at, say, police officers, they'll just look scared and scamper behind a tree. Because there's nothing written in the penal code, there's nothing they can do.

The movie is awash with small miracles, like when Evan's building the ark. "There's no way I can finish it in time!" he screams in frustration.

"But you could if you got the animals to help," little Luke offers, in between Flip 540s.

"That's brilliant!" Evan screams. "That's it! The animals can help! The animals can help!"

And in the next scene you see a monkey holding a hammer. A monkey holding a hammer, on a boat the size of eighty football fields. Hoorah! Fuck you, Teamster oafs!

Literally every second of this monstrosity boggles the mind, but one scene in particular stands out. You'll pinch yourself to make sure you aren't dreaming. Before the flood, Evan's kids notice that the animals are acting weird. "Animals have an amazing ability to sense things that humans can't," tousle-haired Leviticus says. "When there's weather coming, they sit."

Got that? It's a work of art, that line. So much shit packed into so few words.

First, "weather coming"? Not "bad weather," just "weather." Like your puppy will take to its haunches when partly cloudy appears.

The main problem, of course, is that the "sitting" part is pure bullshit. Animals freak out when storms approach. They howl, they run around, they paw at the ground. Maybe this was in the original script. But when the producer saw it, he said, "Hey, I'm paying three hundred bucks to have a tiger growl. I'm not forking over eight thousand to have some fuckin' ibex paw dirt. Change that: Instead of the animals going apeshit, they'll . . . they'll . . . sit."

"Sit?" the writer repeats, incredulous. "Like, sit down?"

"Yeah," the producer confirms. "When they sense trouble, they sit. In fact, we already got dogs who'll do it. I can pay for three hookers and an ounce of blow with the cash I save."

Eventually, of course, the flood comes, but it's not from God. That'd just be too religious, despite the fact the DVD actually smacks you with a hammer if you don't have a crucifix in your home. Water pours through the center of town, eighty feet high, lifting the ark and washing away everything in its path.

Ten feet away, people watch in awe. They point. "Look at all that water!" they say. And then, because it doesn't actually flow toward them, they turn back to what they were doing. "So, what else is on sale at Rite Aid?" they say.

As the water evaporates, the religious people high-five and the disbelievers pack up and move away in shame. The happy ending is confirmed by a TV news anchor. "Everything's great now," he says. "Don't know how the animals will get home, but since we don't know how they got here, that seems perfectly cool."

Fade to black. You're frozen in your chair. Stunned. Speechless.

In fact, if Steve Carell hadn't taken off his shirt about halfway through, you'd swear you wouldn't watch it next year.

Well, I'd get excited too if I'd forever immortalized the elusive charm of my dick.

Just a perfect day,
Drink sangria in the park,
And then later, when it gets dark,
We go home.
Just a perfect day,
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later, a movie, too,
And then home.

Oh, it's such a perfect day,
I'm glad I spent it with you.
Oh, such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on,
You just keep me hanging on.

Just a perfect day,
Problems all left alone,
Weekenders on our own.
It's such fun.
Just a perfect day,
You made me forget myself.
I thought I was someone else,
Someone good.

Oh, it's such a perfect day,
I'm glad I spent it with you.
Oh, such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on,
You just keep me hanging on.

You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow.

Dear Susan Boyle,

Christmas songs don't usually start with hints of helplessness and end with repeated threats of vengeance.

That's what Christmas dinner is for.

Hope this helps,
RomanHans

Stan Knew It Wasn't His Imagination. Whenever He Went To The Museum, Everybody Stared At Him.

Sweet Connie is a groupie who boasts that she's had sex with somewhere between 700 to 1,000 musicians and roadies. Maybe you heard about her in the Grand Funk song, "We're An American Band":

Sweet, sweet Connie, doin’ her act
She had the whole show and that’s a natural fact.

In a new VH1 documentary about groupies called Let's Spend the Night Together, Sweet Connie talks about inducting Don Henley into the Mile High Club:

I had my eyes closed, because that's what you do when you're making love, before feeling another set of hands on me and it was the pilot. Then I realized, who could be flying this thing? Don tells me not to worry, it’s on autopilot. My only complaint is they didn’t ask me how I felt.

Don Henley:


Typical Pilot:

Oh. Well, I guess it's cool.

Things We Learned From Today's New York Times

Today's New York Times has one article telling us to budget up to $50,000 for holiday decorating, and another saying 300,000 roses for a party might be a little much.

You know what that means, right? Jesus' birthday is coming up!

If you don't have time to read design and party tips because you're frantically searching for someone to fluff your foyer, here are the two articles broken up into bullet points.

1. When you have three or four homes, hiring someone to decorate your Christmas tree isn't an option: it's a necessity.

2. This year "hundreds of volunteers" decorated the White House following Michele Obama's theme of “Simple Gifts.”

3. Words used by decorators in order of increasing frequency: (3) if, (2) and, (1) zhoosh.

4. Asking someone the size of their family farm is like asking how much money they make. Besides, who can remember if it's bigger than Ecuador or Peru?

5. Out? Christmas stockings. In? Curated tote bags.

6. It's important to make your job look effortless. Well, unless you have a boss, of course.

7. Remember that these are tough financial times, so make sure your party doesn't go over the top. Under the top? A Christmas tree decorated with ostrich feathers and a six-foot disco ball.

8. On a budget? Think about bartering with, say, whoever does your PR.

9. Before you become an event planner, ask yourself a couple key questions: Is there a freeway named after your family? Does mummy's bio include the words "spent her childhood traveling in Europe"?

10. Vulgarity "is the garlic in the salad of taste." Fickleness? The baby corn.

11. If Robin Bell is your holiday fluffer, I hope you like suspenders that match your bow tie.

Okay, so the Catholic Church doesn't move so quick. It took 600 years for God's loving children to call off their fatwa on Galileo, making the Islamic activists who put a price on Salman Rushdie's head look like amateurs. And yesterday they formally announced that yes, the Virgin Mary really did appear to a woman in Wisconsin 151 years ago.

There's no explanation of how they finally decided, which makes me curious. I mean, it's not like miracles leave evidence. You can't exactly prove that Jesus intentionally zapped his likeness onto that dude's french toast. When somebody sees the Virgin Mary floating over a corn field, you can't follow her footprints back to heaven. Holy folks don't leave DNA behind.

In this case, there was only one witness. Adele Brise, a 28-year-old Belgian immigrant who had lost an eye in a childhood accident, saw a woman in white hovering over the ground. On the third visit, the woman identified herself as Mary.

Which seems a little redundant to me, because so far nobody's spotted a woman floating in the sky who identified herself as Flo, the Prudential Insurance lady. Really, does Jesus' mother need to introduce herself? You wouldn't think so. When I met Johnny Depp, though, his first words to me were, "Hi, I'm Johnny Depp," so maybe this isn't as strange as it sounds.

Mary conveyed a message to Ms. Brise. "I am the queen of heaven," she declared. This strikes me as tacky, like what Zsa Zsa Gabor would say if she was dating Russell Crowe. It's definitely egotistical, though I bet it gets her a good table at Le Cirque. Still, this could be sour grapes on my part. "I'm a relatively popular blogger" doesn't get me extra chocolate sprinkles on my latté.

Mary told Ms. Brise to pray for the conversion of sinners, and then said something that strikes me as bizarre. "You received the Holy Communion this morning and that is well. But you must do more."

See, as someone with nearly a degree from a major university, I'm a logical kind of guy. Since I was a kid, I've used the various bits of hard data provided by the Bible and a semi-religious education to piece together a picture of heaven. Mary's declaration, though, just raises a question in my head.

How, exactly, does she know when somebody's had communion? I can only come up with two options. Either Mary is watching us too, or somebody told her.

We all know from Charlton Heston movies that God is the all-powerful dude who watches over us. Maybe Jesus watches over us. But Mary? I never thought she was looking. I've always pictured her like the First Lady of heaven, shaking hands with kids and exhorting people to recycle.

Frankly, I'm not thrilled with the idea of a whole bunch of people up there watching. In fact, I'm picturing some kind of sports box up in the clouds. It makes me wonder if there's a vendor who occasionally wanders by selling beer and peanuts.

I'm going to scratch this option. I don't like picturing heaven with a VIP area. It conjures up an unpleasant scene where regular humans are kept away from the special folks by a velvet rope. "That's not fair!" your sainted grandmother yells at them. "I wanna look at earth!"

"Yeah?" Mary snaps. "Check back when you give birth to the Light of the World!"

Instead, I'm going to assume that somebody told her, and by "somebody" I mean either Jesus or God. But honestly, are they going to update Mary every day about who went to communion? That'd make Reader's Digest look interesting. Maybe this Brise woman was like the Brett Favre of Christians, and over coffee every morning they updated her stats. It still strikes me as gossipy, though. I'd hoped that information re my immortal soul would be shared on a strictly need-to-know basis. I mean, I'd think less of Santa if, a day or two before Christmas, some elf's girlfriend walked up to me and said, "You're not getting any presents, because Santa thinks you're a jerk."

Still, it seems pretty clear something happened in Wisconsin. After the visions, Ms. Brise built a church and a school that still stand today. I'm thinking that's what swayed the Vatican, and it'll buy reasonable credence from me. Because the folks who see Jesus on a tortilla usually just end up making nachos, and Santa and I both think that stinks.

Household Tips

RomanHans' Household Tip #487: Flip your mattress and then rotate it twice a day. It may not get rid of bedbugs, but at least it'll make them barf.

Conjoined Gingerbread Men Cookie Cutter

You might think this would be a fun holiday gift, but you'd be entirely wrong. It's creepy. I made some, and when I bit into one side, the other side twitched.

According to a study by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media that surveyed animated movies from 2004 to 2009, not one of the animated female characters had a shape that was possible in real life.

"Well, blow me down!" replied Popeye.

So, the folks at Harvard now say the urine-soaking of the LGBT books in their library wasn't an act of vandalism: it was the odd synergy of two odd, perfectly understandable acts.

One person just happened to leave a bottle of urine near the books, and somebody else found it and accidentally spilled it all over the books.

In unrelated news, I accidentally left a paper bag full of dog shit and a Zippo on Sarah Palin's front porch.

How Dee Snider Drives

He muscled the Hummer onto Northern Boulevard, slipping through holes in traffic that, frankly, no one but a former heavy metal frontman who once sang "We ain't gonna take it! You're all worthless and weak!" would think to attempt.

The New York Times Eliminates A Couple Explanations For Disappearing Appliances

The appliances did not develop legs and walk away, and they did not simply disappear.

A new computer game called Heroes of Newerth has a special "flamboyant" option where you can replace the announcer's voice with a stereotypically queeny one that squeals things like "Diva!" during the game.

A former staffer with S2 Games says the voice was intended to sound “faggoty” and “queer.”

"Oh, it was just harmless fun," said the graphic designer who made the box look like Liberace's bathroom mirror.

Loved Paul McCartney singing Beatles tunes on Saturday Night Live. In related news, Debra Messing will be appearing at Radio City Music Hall to re-enact scenes from Will and Grace.

This is so cool! I was going to write an angry letter to a local business, but luckily I found a form letter online. It's Form 8701, "Complaints Concerning Exclusionary Holiday Displays." All I had to do was fill in the blanks!

---

DeRego Deli
872 Flatbush Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11201

Dear Business Owner:

I've been a customer of your establishment for twelve years, and in that time I've seen your store go through many changes. You've stayed up-to-the-minute in business trends. You've constantly updated your merchandise. You've adapted to fit the styles.

You work tirelessly at keeping your store current. Which is why I was shocked to walk by your store yesterday and see a holiday display seemingly straight out of the Dark Ages.

Our government acknowledges its responsibilities. As America becomes more and more diverse, official publications are offered in the native languages of the emigrants. In New York, for example, you can find voter manuals in 112 different languages! To ignore these potential new customers would be a fatal mistake for a business. Yet that's exactly what your Italian deli is doing.

While years ago a Christmas tree and a menorah would have been a fine, balanced holiday display, now it's sadly passé. A full 12% of Americans are either Satanist, pagan, or heretic, and we too demand equal representation. We want our beliefs to be shown the same respect as traditional Judeo-Christian displays.

On behalf of this segment of the population, then, I'd like to politely request that, next to the little silver Christmas tree and plastic menorah in your window, you display our traditional holiday symbol, Satan's Funeral Pyre of the Damned.

This oversight may not sound like a big deal to you, but let me assure you that it is. Satan's Funeral Pyre of the Damned is fraught with meaning to fervent believers. The weather-dried bones symbolize the rank carcasses of the godless, the scattered piles of dirt symbolize the ashes of the damned, and the thin yellow fluids symbolize the pus of the syphilitic. Our rich tradition has much to celebrate.

I hope you find this letter the impetus to correct your oversight. I look forward to the day I can pass your store, look at your holiday display, and feel the anger, confusion and disgust that constitute the basis of our religious heritage.

I hesitate to think what will happen if you ignore this missive, because without Satanists, pagans and heretics patronizing your establishment, who's going to buy your sandwiches?

Sincerely,
RomanHans

I'm hoping there's a future with Andre, but all the signs say otherwise. It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that when somebody tells you about the people they're sleeping with, they're not going to sleep with you.

"I met this guy online," he says, neglecting to mention whether it was at SierraClub.org or SuckThoseTootsies.com, "and we talked a couple times on the phone. Finally he says we should meet, and he tells me to bring a bathing suit."

I stop stirring my coffee. I've never been a multi-tasker, and feeling incredulous is work for me.

"Naturally I'm curious," he continues. "Nobody's ever said that before. But he sounded perfect. He's available: he lives with his ex-boyfriend, but they don't sleep together. If anything, he says, he's too honest. I'm consulting my mental checklist, and the guy sounds perfect. So I said okay."

My mouth actually drops open at this point. The guy sounds like a disaster, though I don't have a mental checklist. I've got my Red Flag Rules that nobody's supposed to break, and flags are flying inside my head.

First, a swimsuit, on a first date? This is Manhattan, not Redondo Beach. There's no sand. The surf is not up. Options for the evening do not include playing volleyball and then listening to Moondoggy play his guitar.

Second, "too honest"? This translates roughly to, "When I get drunk, I'm going to tell you exactly what I think of you."

Third, if this guy isn't sleeping with his ex, then they're spend every morning arguing about why not. Maybe you don't mind squeezing into the middle, but I find all the drama distracts from my enjoyment of bacon.

"So he picks me up and takes me to this hotel," Andre says as another flag flies in my head. "We go inside, and he goes up to the desk clerk and gives her a credit card." Outside I'm smiling, but really I'm waiting for duct tape and knives to appear. "We go up to the penthouse and there's this enormous pool! There's a DJ and a bar and all these gorgeous people in swimsuits, so we change and we swim! I had an incredible time. And I talk to him two days later and he's in Miami with another guy."

Now, obviously I'm sad for Andre. This was a miserable experience. I hate how people wave the Colorful Umbrella of Positivity and get stomped on by the Giant Boot of Reality. But I'm also thinking, "God, what a rube," and congratulating myself on the vast superiority of my Red Flag Rules over his mental checklist.

As a public service, I share the rules and this guy's violations with him. "No swimsuit on a first date?" he asks incredulously. "Why not?"

"It's too early! It's like saying, 'Hey, I've got to see you nearly naked!' and the first meeting is too soon for that."

"So which is the Swimsuit Date?"

I think for a minute, trying to place it. "The fourth, I think."

"When's your sex date?" he asks.

I blanch. Really, you're not supposed to admit this. "Somewhere around the third," I say.

"So you'll have sex with somebody before you'll go swimming with them?"

I shrug. Hearing my words repeated back, they don't seem to make a lot of sense. I think for a minute, then realize they do. "My hair won't get wet, my deodorant won't wash off, and I won't have to worry about accidentally swallowing other peoples' bodily fluids," I say, and I can almost see the flags go flying in his head.

The European Union is telling the Czech Republic to cease testing the homosexuality of gay asylum seekers by hooking them up to a penile tumescence monitor while they watch straight porn.

Call me crazy, but I have no problem with this. How else will you know if somebody is gay? I think they're going to a lot of extra work, though. I'd just ask, "Do you mind if a doctor slides a plastic ring onto your dick?" and anybody who says, "Are you kidding me?" is cool.

It's open season on bears in New Jersey, because they're an annoying, predatory species that's always hanging around with trash. No word on when it'll be legal to shoot at the cast of Jersey Shore.