It seems X-Rays won't be able to detect shoes with explosive liquids in them.

A new radio commercial:

MAN #1: Boy, this sure is a long wait through airport security, but you seem to be doing just fine.

MAN #2: Hey man, I'm jellin'

TSA GUARD: Excuse me, sir. Would you step over here please?

Had lunch at St. Jude's Sweet Corn Festival in Cedar Rapids yesterday. It's basically a mini-carnival right there on the church grounds. It's amusing to me that it's actually rife with sin. The Seven Deadly, as a matter of fact:

- The festival crawling with scantily-clad girls: lust.

- That time when you think, "hey check out the hottie," and it turns out to be a dude: anger.

- The midway, complete with people trying to win the best possible prizes for as little money as possible: avarice.

- Even after seeing other people lose repeatedly, you still think you can beat the game: pride.

- In most cases, of course, you wind up with a choice between a blue-dyed rabbit's foot, a rubber pencil and a Def Leppard keychain from the shelf of shame: more anger.

- Hot dogs, chilli dogs, sloppy joes, pulled pork sandwiches, baked beans, cole slaw, pie a la mode, and three ears of corn (dipped in butter, natch) for a buck: gluttony.

- Seeing that the guy next to you got a bigger ear than you did: envy.

- Finally returning to the hotel and collapsing into a food coma: sloth.

It's not fund-raising -- it's entrapment!

Separated at Birth?

Michael Chertoff:


John Waters:


If only SPY magazine was still publishing...

The Germans are known for being a pretty humorless bunch, which doesn't really make since, since German has quite possibly the funniest looking words of all. Seriously -- Dumbkopf? Glockenspiel? Hintergrundinformationen?

And yet, if you use Babel Fish to translate a joke, such as:

Why did the chicken cross the road?

To get to the other side!

You get:

warum kreuzte das Huhn die Straße?

Damit er an die andere Seite gelangen kann!*

Not a funny-looking word in the whole damn thing (well, "gelangen" is kind of funny). Maybe it's because the English word "chicken" is one of our funnier words (hello "K" sound) and the German word for "chicken", "huhn", is not funny at all.

That's where it hinges, I think. Maybe way back when the Germans developed their language, they didn't find chickens funny, and if you don't find chickens funny, then there's really no hope for you.

*You do have to tweak the english version a bit to read "so that it can arrive at the other side!" to get the grammar right.

The summer issue of Larson Allen's EFFECT Magazine is up on their site. As usual, it includes my Effective Perspective column. This one is about non-profit compensation -- oh the hilarity!

Here's an archive of all issues. I've written the Effective Perspective column for every one since Summer 2002. It's a different audience than I usually "play" to (namely the business/investor crowd), so it's been a fun way to stretch other creative muscles. Plus they pay me. Everybody wins! Especially me.

Yet another prediction of mine is coming true..

SAN ANTONIO, July 11 (UPI) -- U.S. funeral directors are changing the gothic image of funeral homes to reflect the more positive image of death held by most baby boomers.

San Antonio's Mission Park Funeral Chapels & Cemeteries chief Robert Tips told the San Antonio Express-News that as baby boomers become their primary customers, the U.S. funeral industry has shifted to a "celebrating life" mode...

I've been saying for years that death was going to be the Boomers' next big reinvention. Frankly, I'm surprised it's starting this early. Watch for the Time magazine cover story featuring an image of a crowded graveyard and the headline Where Will We Put Them All?

Plus, what's this about them having a "positive" image of death? You mean the way many of them seem to live in complete denial of it?

This Friday, I'm having a vasectomy, or as I like to call it the Big Snip. That's actually a misnomer, since there are two snips involved, but my testicles are a package deal, so I think the singular is justified.

The first medical professional I asked about this was my GP at my checkup a month ago. He told me that fewer and fewer GPs are doing vasectomies. He said he had done one once and that I definitely did not want him to do mine. This was my first appointment with this doctor, and I found his candor refreshing. I have a feeling that my previous doctor, a grandfatherly type who often teetered on the precipice between folksy and dottering, would have told me he was able to do them, regardless of where the technique resided in his skill set. Give me a doctor that knows his limitations any day.

Before you can get a vasectomy, you have to go in for a consultation. First, they want to make absolutely sure that you really want to do this. They tell you repeatedly that, reversal procedures notwithstanding, you should consider this a permanent change. Next comes the video.

My favorite part of the video was the scene where a bunch of guys are hanging out at a pizza joint after a (heh) softball game. Our hero mentions that he's thinking about having a vasectomy. His buddies then proceed to bust his chops mercilessly, impugning his masculinity, asking if he's having a sex change, etc. Seriously, who does this? Who would have the (heh) balls to do this? Clearly, the video is meant to address the fears men may have about the reactions of their friends and family, but all the video managed to do was momentarily insert fears where there were no fears before.

Are guys really worried about a vasectomy somehow making them less of a man? I suppose there must be. I don't see it myself -- if anybody ever implied that to me, I'd just say, I'm going to have a doctor make incisions in my scrotum, slice the tubes inside, tie them off, and stitch up the wounds. Then I fully expect to spend the weekend with my testicles the size of grapefruits -- and that makes me a wuss how?

Look, if you really want to make men feel better about it, how about offering to let them get a tattoo at the same time? Flames? 8-balls? I'd go for fuzzy dice myself. Of course, they'd just have to tattoo the dice -- the fuzzy part kind of takes care of itself. Not that I would need that anyway. I'm completely cool with my masculinity before, during and after this. Moreso even.

Hell, for the first time in over twenty years, I'm going to wear an athletic supporter. I haven't done that since the first week of high school gym.

Lileks gives the new Guthrie a good going-over. Of course, by "good" I mean "merciless."

While the new Guthrie was being built , I saw it from the window of a high-rise and thought to myself, is IKEA opening a store downtown? Why would they put it there?

Hey, I'm headlining the Minnesota Comedy Club this weekend. Come on out.

Yes, I mean you.

Now I'm off to the Apple Store to see about the keyboard. Apparently, the numbers rubbing off is a problem a lot of people have been reporting, which is both alarming and reassuring. I'm alarmed at Apple's shoddy workmanship, but I'm reassured that I haven't done anything in particular to cause or exacerbate the problem. An irrational fear I know. It's not as though I've got some sort of corrosive acid seeping from my fingertips -- and let's face it, if I did I wouldn't be a comedian. I'd be a Spider-Man villain.

I had my first checkup in about three years last week. I'm here to report that the hernia check procedure has changed. Rather than going under the "boys" and pressing his fingers into the space at the bottom of the pelvic bone and doing the "turn your head and cough" bit, he went over the boys and checked on either side of Mr. Happy. He didn't give me any explanation as to why he did it this way.

There are three possible reasons for the change:

1. Maybe this method is equivalent to the under-the-boys method, but I just haven't encountered it until now -- the Coke vs. Pepsi of medical procedures. Maybe they're equally valid, but not equally common and my doctor's the kind of maverick that likes to keep things interesting. Maybe it's a regional variation. Maybe my doctor learned from the Pennsylvania Dutch.

2. As men age, their boys have a tendency to drop. Maybe mine have dropped so far that they cannot be maneuvered around without actual cupping and holding, and nobody wants to add that sensation to an already uncomfortable moment.

3. This is simply the new way to do it, and I've never had a doctor young enough to have learned to do it that way.

A young man came up to me after a show (I think he was an EMT) and said that the over-the-boys method was what he had been taught, so it appears that #3 is the reason.

Jesus, guys. Put out a press release, would you? It's an awkward enough moment for us both without you changing it up without warning.