BRILLIANT IDEAS THAT SOMETIMES COME TO ME AFTER DRINKING FOUR WHITE RUSSIANS**

1) Hey guys, let's take off all of our clothes and go swimming in a very cold lake. Flashlights? We don't need flashlights. Really, isn't finding your clothes in the pitch-black-ness half the fun?

2) I think maybe I should punch a Coke machine. I feel sure that my hand won't hurt at all the next day. Really. Ouch.

3) We should dress up the neighbors' guinea pigs like Nazis!

I know, I know. Nazis aren't funny ever. But let's be honest--guinea pig Nazis?? Always funny.

If you're not convinced, picture the little Nazi guinea pigs doing a charming dance. If that's not funny, then your sense of humor muscles are broken.

In retrospect, it's possible that the title of this entry should be, "REASONS WHY I SHOULDN'T DRINK EVER"

Ah well.....

**The drink, not the people. The only idea I get after drinking four white Russian people is, "I might be a cannibal. Also possibly a racist.

p.s. This post was brought to you by search engine reputation management. Errr....whatever that means.

A drugged-up New York City man went on a shooting-spree yesterday, hitting only red cars because he believed he was being threatened by the Bloods street gang.

Meanwhile, handicapped people all over the city are hiding out, just in case he next concludes that he’s being threatened by the Crips.

Apparently Iran would like to have some nuclear weapons.

Who can blame them? Getting nuclear weapons is sort of like being in the Hells Angels. It's not that people actually respect you or think you're any smarter or more important than you used to be, but they sure pretend to.

We, on the other hand, would not like Iran to have nuclear weapons. We would like them to have tea parties and crayons and possibly even Pop Rocks, but no nuclear weapons.

The interesting conundrum is this: We were the ones that gave them the stuff to build the weapons in the first place.

Because we wanted them to have nuclear weapons.

We did. But now we don't. See?

Happened with Iraq too.

We were awfully worried about them having weapons of mass destruction. This worry made lots of sense because we had given them weapons of mass destruction several years earlier.

We wanted them to have them then.

But not now.

See?

Er, may I offer a suggestion?

I think all this "Here, have some weapons/If you have any weapons we're going to bomb you" cycle could get exhausting eventually (and by "eventually," I probably mean "yesterday.")

So how about now, when we give people weapons, we just assume that we're probably going to want them to not-have-weapons at some not-too-far-away point.

Thusly, instead of giving the weapons away, perhaps we could just let the other countries check them out. You know, like library books.

That way, when we want them back, we can just be like,

Sorry Pakistan, your weapons are overdue. You'll have to return them as soon as possible.

No, you can't renew them.

Someone else is waiting to check them out.

It'll work, I think.

This post was brought to you by New Jersey cosmetic surgeons. Seriously. All the surgeons in Jersey got together and said, "We really need Jill Twiss's opinion on Iran's nuclear capabilities. Sigh....or possibly that's not true.

Thank you thank you and also thank you to Rich Schad for the very best slightly-after-birthday-present in the whole world.

It made my day.

The International Astronomical Union made the decision today that Pluto is no longer a planet.

Ironically, this occurred just one day after Paramount Pictures made the decision that Tom Cruise is no longer a star.

Tropical storm Debby (with a "y"), the fourth named storm of the season, formed in the Eastern Atlantic on Tuesday.

It is still unclear whether Debby will mature into a full-fledged hurricane.

If she does, though, one can only assume that she will follow in the path of other maturing Debbys and pose for Playboy, appear on "Skating with Celebrities," and start insisting that everyone refers to her as Hurricane Deborah.

Guess whose birthday it is?

I'll give you a hint:

She's awfully nice, and has lovely hair, and.....

Well, she's me.

Me!

Happy birthday to me. Yay.

Er, I'm having a sort of happy-birthday-to-me gathering in NYC.

So if you read this and live in NYC and want to come, drop me an email at jilltwiss@hotmail.com and tell me how you're not creepy and I shall invite you.

So John Mark Karr was arrested in the murder of JonBenet Ramsey.

He was creepy and old and she was creepy and six and it's all over the news and you can read about it there and I don't much feel like talking about it.

Well, except this:

Apparently, John Mark Karr has been married twice. And the first time he was married was to a thirteen year old girl.

I find this horrifying.

Because, all moral judgments aside, have you ever MET a thirteen year old girl?

*I* have and, frankly, I'd rather watch four-hundred-seventy-two episodes of "Webster" while being stabbed in the eye with a ballpoint pen than be forced to spend an extended period of time with one.

I would think that about forty-five minutes of "Omigod! Did you hear what Jenni told Amber that Kaitlin told Trever about YOU?" and "Well, do you like me or do you like like me?" would cure anyone of their pedophilia.

Qualities I look for in a pillow:

1) Squishy

2) Not TOO squishy.

Sigh....

Pillow shopping can be very trying.

Dell is recalling 4.1 million notebook computer batteries because some of them are causing the computer to erupt into flames.

I wonder how many of those spontaneous combustions led to the computer-user finding Jesus and solemnly vowing never to look at porn on the internet again.

Several, I suspect.

Every good story should begin with a kazoo, I think.

This is such a good story that it shall begin AND end with a kazoo.

Actually the kazoo at the beginning is just a ruse to get you involved. As the popular saying goes, "A story that starts with a kazoo ends with a six-pack full of joy in the hearts of children everywhere."

Sometimes when I say "popular," I mean, "I just made it up."

You understand.

I think that I shall give this story sort of a Reader's Guide to help you follow along. This is because the story might be long and also because I feel like it in my innermost heart.

Here are a few key sentences that you will see later in the story:

1) "If you come onstage and hum the theme to 'The Andy Griffith Show' we'll give you your own kazoo."

2) "Hey, there's a microphone pointed at my crotch."

3) "Your friends at Jack Daniels remind you to drink responsibly."

If you'd like, you can stop reading now and construct your own story using these three sentences. In fact, I think I'd rather prefer it that way.

But here goes.

The real story begins in a bar with sawdust on the floor.

Yes, there were sawdusty floors and swinging doors and people in cowboy hats in this splendid bar. Additionally there was a painting of a naked woman and, just above that, a giant stuffed turkey.

(Does "Sawdusty Floors and Swinging Doors" happen to be the name of a country song? And, if not, could we make that happen? I feel certain that one of you knows The Right People.)

'Twas this Sawdusted-Bar that I thought would be the perfect place to prepare for my First-Stand-Up-Comedy-Performance-In-Two-Months. 'Twas just an open mic and 'twas in South Dakota so my terror was completely uncalled for, yet there it was.

So there I sat, directly under a sign that said, "Your friends at Jack Daniels remind you to drink responsibly" attempting to write comedy. Lucky for me, I have no friends at Jack Daniels so I was not required to drink responsibly in the least.

Unfortunately, this was more of a place to write ballads about the loss of one's truck than it was a place to write comedy, but I did my best.

The open mic began.

I should have been immediately wary when, as soon as I signed up, the host said, "After your set, if you come onstage and hum the theme to 'The Andy Griffith Show,' we'll give you your own kazoo." On the other hand, who (other than possibly Oprah who can afford all the kazoos she wants) could turn down such an offer?

The performance was, as a whole, uneventful. The microphone was a guitar mic, which means that one microphone is pointed at the singer, while the another microphone is pointed at the guitar. However, when you're a comedian, it means that one microphone is pointed at your mouth, while the other microphone is amplifying your crotch.

Thus my set began with, "Hey, there's a microphone pointed at my crotch. We should call this The Vagina Monologues."

A good tip for anyone else deciding to perform in Custer, South Dakota is this: they do not understand references to old Broadway shows. Mentioning things like "The Vagina Monologues" even when it is a terribly humorous joke will lead to nothing but blank stares and possibly an angry glare or three.

Lesson learned.

But to get to the part of the story you really wanted to know about, after my set I did, in fact, hum the theme to Andy Griffith and got my very own special yellow kazoo. The only confusing part was that they made me sign it before they would give it to me.

The only explanation that I can come up with is that they assume that I go to parties where EVERYONE has a kazoo and I will want my name on mine so as that I can tell it from the dozens of other kazoos that will be floating around.

Errr....I feel like this story really fizzled out at the end. I'm sorry. But I'm going to bed anyway. Better luck next time and all.

Goodnight friends.

I'm home. Exhaustedly home, but home nonetheless.

Which means I shall be writing again .

Here are a few things I think I would like to write about soon, unless of course something else I want to write about happens and I write about that instead.

Thusly:

1) The pros and cons of skinny dipping

2) Why I am not funny to Orthodox Jews

3) Me and how I might possibly dress guinea pigs up like Nazis (believe it or not, #3 is NOT the answer to #2)

4) Perils of writing in a bar with sawdust on the floor

5) How I ended up with a kazoo autographed by myself

Feel free to state your preferences and suchlike as to what I should write about first with full awareness that I might ignore them and write about whatever I want.

Oh, also I missed you all.

Desperately.