If I had robot friends, they would interact with me on my blog. Here's how they would do it:

a) click on the appropriate response to the poll, after careful deliberation and a few cans of 5W30 (winter viscosity grade, obviously)

b) read all the prior entries, risking loosening bolts and superheating electrodes, what with all the laughter and such

c) reread the entries, wiping tears of elation

d) click on the comment line below the entries that have given their lives deeper meaning

e) respond with some pithy and invigorating discussion

f) sign with some random, free-wheelin' devil-may-care screen name (robots get such a kick out of mischevious anonimity)

g) kick back and snicker, awaiting the hail of comments deliberated by me at some random baby-up hour of day or night

Yeah, robot friends are cool.

With that in mind, here's todays contest for all you young cowpokes out there:

It has no known nickname.

It was born on Earth.

It is hirsute.

It is erudite.

It is not hermaphroditic.

Not floral, but has two lips.

Winners will be chosen based on average annual income. Good luck.

Wake up a weenie

Okay, okay...I really should get to work, but since you've asked so nicely, here's your photo of Donna Pescow circa 1979. And of course, that life-blood of your lives, the daily contest:

From the hit show 'Angie', to whom were the writers referring in the theme song when they wrote, "When I was young, I played the games of childhood like a child would, but I'm a big girl now"?

a) Idi Amin

b) Chuck Barris

c) G. Gordon Liddy

d) the prolific pretzel industry

As always, good luck. Winners will be determined by pant size.

Spend and Purge

There are a couple (beyond the other dozens) of interesting facets of this arrangement called 'stimulus package' that absolutely no one that i've heard (read: 'official') have even touched on in what we call the mass media...the propaganda that informs the sleeping masses...
First off, the majority of the american dollar currency is wysiwyg: paper. By some estimates the matching gold in federal reserve is as much (or as little) as .04 on the dollar. That's our dollar having a real value of four cents. Interesting. So really it's like writing checks and thinking everything is fine...as long as we have checks in the checkbook, there must be money in the account. There may be a flaw to that logic. Maybe, i'm no expert.
The second, perhaps more contemporary aspect is that China is largely floating our economy (giving us our fix, as it were) and has been for some time. Europeans, by contrast (and admitted, this is simulacrum on my part, not empirical), pay for Chinese imports on quite a different scale: what we might purchase at wally-world for three bucks may run eight bucks or more in France or England et al. The whys are complex to be sure, but you get the sensation of a looming shadow stretching ever so slowly toward you on the prairie, don't ya?
Hey, I'm thrilled to get a few hundred bucks. We have little choice but to play by the rules, and honestly, I'm basically okay with that. I really do strive to 'be the change' Gandhi spoke of, and if I have little say in the parameters, so be it: the stage is set as we walk on. Sure, let's improvise a bit and everything else we do, and even when the sandbags are falling from the eaves, let's laugh and love and cry and live our lives to the absolute fullest we can. Anything else is truly and in every sense a waste of time.

Enough of that crap, on to the contest, champ:

Currently, 10 EUR will get you 15 USD, the Canadian buck is stronger than the dead president's club by a bit, and ten pounds weighs in at almost twenty dollars US.

How many draconian electoral votes is your state worth in electing the next wealthy, well-connected politician?

a) happen to think the electoral college is actually a brilliant and invaluable tool of democracy; I give my response over to whomever is elected to speak for me by my state representatives.

b) 2. No, 5. 6 at most, I'm pretty sure. No fewer than 1.

c) Crude barrels hit an historical high of just over a hundred bucks two days ago, can't afford to heat my home or drive my car, but at least I've got 437 electoral votes coming to me! What? What do you mean...?

d) I'll need my calculator to find the general population divisible by the square of a quotient deducted from pi, provided Pythagoras wasn't full of shit on this one like that other stuff.

As always, good luck. Prizes will be awarded in the form of a different piece of paper we'll call a 'check' sometime in May.

I sound pretty, oh so pretty

Went to church sick today

just to sing in the choir.

I was the only tenor,

what an unfortunate mire.

To make matters worse

we were made to perform Handel,

with the dinky-dink piano part

like socks worn with sandals.

My sinuses so clogged

that my eyes ran like creeks;

my head hurt, my mind swooned,

my voice up shit's creek.

Here's today's contest

I thought you'd enjoy.

If you don't then don't play it,

it's really just a ploy

To get you involved

in a different kind of trap,

until your stimulus check comes

and you can buy more worthless crap.

Here are some human-things,

bald and naked, it's true,

but what is the moral of the image

as it pertains to you?

a) would have you believe

that you're life is like a monkey:

The Universe the Grinder Man,

you dancing like its flunky.

b) it's quite obvious

that these nudies aren't even real.

The image is in your mind,

the moral how you feel.

c) are you kidding?

You can't ask me that?

I get the impression you're incinuating

that this monitor makes me look fat!

d) The moral is clearly a caustic

satire of the trying

current administration

and its bald-faced naked lying.

The good news is

you've already won the prize.

If you took a breath this morning

that means you haven't died.

And if living is the winning

combination to this all,

then stop stressing over complex shit and

go outside and have a ball.

Prom Night

Everyone else has been getting this three-week bronchitis cold thing, so I figured, "what the hell?" and decided to try it out for myself. I am currently febrile and mildly delirious, which sometimes makes things more fun.

This is a photo from my honeymoon...just kidding! I actually just bumped into this guy in the backyard. What you don't see is that the prick is picking my pocket! The gall. I had been collecting those three screws and small wad of lint for a week.

Here's the current contest amigos:

Hyperion Book Publishers have offered me a 2.5 million dollar deal to publish my collective memoirs. Random House has tabled 3.2, and Black Dome $12.46 plus lunch...once.
Is the cat in the photograph at right stepping in:
a) urine
b) the collective canine ego
c) a spilled bottle of Suave Extra-Firm Hold Hair Spray
d) synch with our inner thoughts
e) I can't tell you, you don't have the proper security clearance

Good luck, buddy.

This is exactly what you've been warned about. I can hardly believe you're still here. Since you are, here is today's contest:

Figure out what Ms Anderson's haiku is about and win a prize. Ready?

I have three of them

Everyone seems to think two

But you know better.

(Hint: I will never give a hint)