Have you read about this guy suing the video game companies? Apparently a teen stole a car and shot three police officers and this is being blamed on the video game, Grand Theft Auto.

I find this odd, because I regularly play the board game Battleship and yet have never been tempted to blow up a submarine.

I spent much of my childhood playing Operation, yet I've never tried to remove someone's heart with a pair of tweezers.

I play Monopoly all the time and yet have never felt the need to purchse a hotel whilst riding in a thimble.

Nor have I ever found Free Parking. Especially in New York.

Due to overwhelming demand, (ok, really just one person asking in the comments) I'm going to post a few more of my Tom Swifties.

This is also because I am too lazy to actually do the NEXT exercise in the comedy book.

I think every other comedy exercise should be something like, "Sit on the couch and watch some other people do comedy. Or watch Fear Factor. Whatever." You know. Just so we don't get TOO ambitious.

Anyway, here are a few. Three from one genre. And a random one. Just so you don't think there's method to my madness.

"Hey baby, want to take a ride through the snow in my one horse open sleigh?" he said dashingly.

"I really am devoted to you," Olivia said hopelessly.

"I don't know what my problem is. I'm as helpless as a kitten up a tree," she said mistily.

"Ok fine. You can be blue and I'll be gray," General Lee said civilly.

I got a "How To Write Funny Stuff Even Better Than You Already Write Funny Stuff" book for Christmas. It's full of all sorts of exercises that will, I feel assured, make me the best comedy writer ever.

And I've been doing the exercises. Which, I must admit, is highly unlike me. Normally I would just read the book and imagine the funny things I would write if I were the kind of person who did comedy exercises. Which I'm not.

But there comes a time in one's life when one must take the bull by the horns (and by "take the bull by the horns" I mean procrastinate cleaning your room by sitting down and doing some comedy exercises whilst eating Cheetos.)

And so I did the exercises.

My first exercise was to write one-hundred and one Tom Swifties.

For those of you that are unclear as to what a Tom Swiftie is (because you, unlike me, actually clean your room when your supposed to and don't eat Cheetos ever), the books defines it as "a joke that uses a slightly different double meaning for an adverb." Here was the example they gave:

"I dove into the pool and knocked all my teeth out," he explained shallowly.

You see? You see how it works? You write something dorky and stick a pun on the end and call it funny. Sounds like my kind of joke. Thusly, I wrote 101 of them. But fear not, I shall only share with you my favorites. Writing them is really rather addictive.

1) "I can't believe that Will has a show by himself now," she said gracelessly.

2) "Unfortunately, your baby has three arms," the doctor said handily.

3) "From now on, I'll be your bra," he said supportively.

"I'm pretty sure that's not necessary," she said flatly.

4) " ," he said dumbly.

Write your own. Write 101 of them. And when you're done, I think you might discover something about yourself. Something important and meaningful. Something that might even make you cry.

Yes. You, like I, will find out that you are even a bigger dork than you previously thought you were.

And it's moments like that, that make it all worthwhile.

I feel absolutely terrible for this poor man that has this *new and improved* AIDS virus.

I mean, not so much because he has AIDS (although that's admittedly crappy), but because they keep publicly broadcasting on the news all the stupid things he ever did in his life.

"The man, in his 40s, was a crystal methamphetamine user. He regularly engaged in permiscuous, unprotected sex and was known to have multiple sexual partners."


I can only hope that I never get any disease where they feel the need to broadcast on the news all the stupid things I ever did.

"The woman, in her 20s, eats food even after it falls on the floor. She regularly turns men gay, and has been known to choreograph dances to Debbie Gibson music in her apartment."

How embarrassing.

So you've probably heard that they've just found a new strain of AIDS that kills you even faster than the old strain of AIDS and it's resistant to medication. Sigh.....

Too much bad news.

How come we never hear about good discoveries like this?

"Today scientists discovered a brand new strain of puppies that are 47% cuter than than puppies have ever been before."

Or, "Today scientists discovered a new strain of Brad Pitt....."

Wishful thinking.

I've been in a bad mood all week. My student's disappearance on top of the usual ickiness that life sometimes brings have made me upset and grouchy all week.

But today, a happy surprise.

Flowers at my door. Roses and carnations, to be specific. Red and white ones. Yummy smelly ones. Live ones. In a basket.

The card said "Jill: Happy Valentines Day. --Steven Fedex"

This was confusing, because I don't know anyone named Steven. Particularly, I don't know anybody named Steven Fedex. Even more particularly, I don't know anyone named Steven Fedex who would send me flowers.

But there they were, disproving all of my particularlies.

Turns out (as I found out from the apartment office manager who delivered the flowers) that Steven decided to identify himself as they did back in the old days. You know, like Steven Baker would be the baker and Steven Smith would be the blacksmith?

Well, apparently Steven Fedex is the Fedex man.

He delivered me a package a few weeks ago and, for whatever reason, the encounter prompted him to send me flowers for Valentine's Day.

Thank you, Fedex man.

UPDATE: Antigone has been found safe. Thank you everyone for your help.

UPDATE: Antigone is still missing. It's been 12 days. Her parents are now offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to her. Please feel free to post any of this information on your own website with a link to her picture. The more people that see her picture, the better chance we have of finding her. Please help get the word out. She could be anywhere in the USA by now. Thank you.

Today, I have a big favor to ask of all of you.

One of my jobs is tutoring a local family--three boys and a girl. I've worked for them three days a week for almost three years.

I found out this afternoon, that the girl is missing. She went to school several days ago, and never came home.

She is 16 and was last seen in Bedford, NY about a week ago. Another boy from her school is missing as well (the theory is that they ran away together, but this seems very unlike her.) They have no car, clothing, money, etc.

Just take a minute and look at this picture and keep an eye out for her, please. Especially if you're in the New York area, but she could be anywhere. She speaks fluent English and Albanian.

You guys are always the best, most brilliant readers ever, so who knows? Maybe you'll help. And please do your best to get the word out. Maybe we'll make this like an Amber Alert for blogs or something.

Thank you.

TWO JOKES THAT I WROTE THAT I PROBABLY WILL NEVER USE ONSTAGE BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL THROW THINGS AT ME:

1) When I hear stories about people who attempt suicide and fail, all I can think is, "Well, apparently he couldn't do THAT right either. Loser."

2) I wonder, if I ever get a yeast infection, will my vagina rise?

I think I should be the host of a tremendous new gameshow entitled, "Who Wants to Bake Me a Cake?"

There would be three contestants, each competing in difficult challenges, and the grand prize winner would get to bake me a cake.

But this would be the secret that they wouldn't find out till the end---THEY ALL WIN. So they all get to bake me a cake*.

You see how this works?

A lovely gameshow where everyone wins. (And by everybody, I mean that I would get three cakes. )

I think it would be a hit.

Additionally, I think I am hungry.

* Brownies would be acceptable as well. Also scones.

Ok, I have this one last script left to write and then I'll be able to get back to writing here in a less crappy and sporatic way. Sound like a deal?

I feel like this script-writing job is my new boyfriend, and my blog is all my old friends saying, "Why don't you hang out with us anymore? He'll never love you like we do. He's ugly anyway."

But I'm dumping my new boyfriend-script tomorrow and I'll be back to eating Ben & Jerry's with you and complaining about men. Or whatever it is we do together.