Maybe I’m hard up for a laugh today, but  I found this hysterical.  A co-worker sent it out to lighten newsroom stress today.  Worked for me.  It came from Newsblues.

Okay, it’s a slow boring post-sweeps, after-Memorial Day kinda day in the TV news business. So, your Surly Editor® offers these ten suggestions for spicing things up and making your co-workers think you’re an absolute nut case:

1- On your lunch break, pick up a box of condoms at the pharmacy, go to the check-out counter, and ask where the fitting room is.

2- In the memo field on your checks, write “for marijuana.”

3- Tell your children, “Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go.” Ask which one shall it be? 4- Order a diet water whenever you go out to eat.

Lawmakers are weighing whether they should be allowed to meddle in the dates set each year for hunting seasons in Louisiana.

In a 9-3 vote, the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee backed a measure that would let lawmakers review — and possibly reject — the season dates set each year for everything from ducks and deer to quail and turkey.

Currently, the authority to set seasons rests solely with the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission.

House committee members say the commission doesn’t reflect the interests of hunters around the state and instead skews toward south Louisiana.

Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham says the current system works well and keeps the state from political management of the state’s natural resources.

The bill by Democratic Rep. James Armes heads next to the full House.

From the Associated Press

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has nothing but praise for a soldier who defended his post in pink underwear.

Gates talked about Specialist Zachary Boyd of Ft. Worth last night in New York.

Boyd was sleeping at his post in eastern Afghanistan when he was awakened by enemy fire. As Gates described it, Boyd “grabbed his rifle and rushed into a defensive position clad in his helmet, body armor, and pink boxer shorts that said ‘I Love New York.”‘

The world found out about this because an Associated Press photographer was there, and The New York Times put the photo on its front page.

Boyd later told his parents he might get fired, but Gates says the soldier’s job is safe.  In Gates’ words: “Any soldier who goes into battle against the Taliban in pink boxers and flip-flops has a special kind of courage.”

From the Associated Press

Dear Luciana,

Sure, come to America.  Come to Louisiana.  Come to my cubicle at KTBS, where I will promptly, although accidentally, erase all of your pictures from your month-long stay in our country.

I am such the ambassador of peace.

I know you were gracious about my accident as I tried to download a single picture of you, me and Fletch.  Nice one, Sher.

But still, all of the sudden, when I hear “The Girl from Ipanema”, I feel nauseaus…like I felt before a track race in high school when I smelled Ben Gay as I was warming up around the track.  Like there’s no way I can do this justice. 

So, here’s to my new friend… a version of this great song I think is more beautiful than any American version.   Couple that with the reassurance that if all of your pics are not on the CD we made for you in an effort to retrieve them, I will personally come to Brazil for oh, a year or so, and help you take more pics that will be so much more entertaining than those you took of museums!!!    

Seriously, I so loved your visit here with us! Please come back soon, my friend! 

Sher   

Click here to follow Mike on Twitter. 

How cool to be going about your day at work or home and get a message telling you what it’s like in space.  Here are some of Mike’s tweets:

What I’m about to tell you makes me hang my TV-haired head in shame.

I often buy hairspray without much thought to the product, many times without even looking at the label.  I’m a tomboy at heart and whole girly prep gig sometimes escapes me.

It won’t anymore.

I grabbed a can of hairspray from the store shelf the other day that smelled like rancid roadkill.  In the makeup room prepping for the news, I’m spraying it with reckless abandon when my co-anchor politely comments that it’s an unusual scent, followed by, “Gee, your hair does NOT smell terrific.”

So, despite my reluctance in these tough economic times not to use what I buy, I headed back to the store.  “Cool, there’s a pretty red can,” I thought.   

D’oh!

Why couldn’t I have grabbed a can of hairspray with a name like Workforce 09 or Finishing Spray 25?  No, I had to get the one called, “Got2b 2sexy”. 

Got 2b 2embarrassed!

It’s way too difficult hiding this product from my son and co-workers.  See you back at the store.   

U.S. Army Lt. Cliff Pederson is serving his first deployment to Afghanistan and is staying in touch with us here when he can check in.   I met the Lt. and PFC Stacy Sunseri in the Dallas airport a few weeks ago and they agreed to an interview.  

You asked about food/living conditions.  Pederson says:

“The food is mostly items that come frozen and they are then boiled. Every once in a while we do get some fresh eggs/fruit/meat in, which is nice.
As far as living conditions, we have some wooden huts out here. Several of the OPs basically sleep in bunkers though, with plastic lining to keep the rain out.
I plan on putting most of my pictures up on flicker or something like that once I get back to the US and have decent internet.”

“What do you know…a missing person turned up alive and well.”  –Clay Kirby 5/12/09

Nick Caloway:  “What’s wrong with the Happy Meals?”  Clay Kirby:  “People weren’t happy with them.”  5/13/09

“Once you drop a scorpion in your pants, it’s over.”  –Mariposa Pickle 5/16/09

Go ahead.  You know you want to click here.

Parasitic flies are being used to turn fire ants into headless zombies.  It’s gross and fascinating.The flies lay eggs on the fire ants.  When they hatch, the maggots inside the ant eat away at its brain.  Nice.  There are pictures to document this, not to be viewed while you’re eating or doing anything special for a fire ant close to your heart.  Anyway, the ant then wanders around aimlessly while the maggot feeds and eventually turns into a fly, which can then negatively impact some 200-300 other fire ants.