Girl Scouts to pay for Wall?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
Eat me.

With neither Mexico nor the United States interested in underwriting his dreams of a Wall, President Wally O’Steele has proposed privatizing the project by handing it over to the Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas.

“They’re gonna have to sell something a helluva lot tastier than Thin Mints to make the nut, but that’s how the cookie crumbles, amirite?” slobbered O’Steele, flanked by his alleged wife Melons, wearing a Girl Scout uniform three sizes too small and lobbing condoms and poppers into a mostly empty Luby’s parking lot in McAllen, Texas.

“No Brownies!” he added, digging with a stubby finger at a crust of Adderall clogging one nostril. “Not on this side of my Wall, anyway.”

In other news, Samsung’s new washer/dryer lets you decide when you’d like it to explode.

Polishing the Apple

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments
The “new” iPhone 5.

I may be smashing the State today, but yesterday I was helping Tim Cook turn Apple around.

No, I didn’t buy one of the new Minis, or even a new-used iPhone.

I had the battery replaced in the old iPhone 5. Set me back all of fiddy magic beans.

You’re welcome, Timmy old hoss. Don’t spend it all in one place.

I just gave Darth Cheeto a rep in the nuts

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
It’s morning in Albuquerque.

I just rang up our freshman representative in DeeCee, Deb Haaland, and asked that she and her colleagues start working up articles of impeachment.

Haaland was quick out of the chute with a response to last night’s State of the Wall Address, saying:

“The real national emergency right now is thousands of New Mexicans not being able to put food on the table or pay rent, because of the government shutdown. New Mexicans need quality public education, good paying jobs, and a renewable-energy economy — the wall does nothing to address those issues. On day one, the House passed a bill to get federal workers back to work and paid, and now it’s time for the Senate and the President to do their part.”

I imagine that the congresswoman has a pretty full schedule, being new to the job, but as I told the woman who answered the phone, “This administration is a cartoon that never was funny, and it’s long past time the show was canceled.”

Mirror, mirror

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
Mirror, mirror, on the bar; who’s the loony in that car?

I got back on the bike on Saturday for a short spin to blow the ol’ carbon out of the cylinders.

The roads were crusty and dusty, where they weren’t wet and/or icy, so I needed something with fenders (the Soma DC) plus winter tights and a truly ancient Pearl Izumi hi-viz jacket. Seriously, this Day-Glo duster must date to 1994 or thereabouts. It’s old enough to be living in our basement (if we had one) while we paid off its college loans. “B.A.” stands for “barista’s assistant?” Who knew?

There were lots of hi-viz jackets and tights traversing Tramway, so I guess everyone was as sick as I was of huddling indoors or shoveling snow. But boom, come Sunday, we were back in the icebox and I decided to go for a squishy run instead of a second ride.

This time we got rain, which was a nice change. Don’t gotta shovel no rain.

Speaking of shoveling, I see Wally O’Steele hopes to lie straight to our faces in prime time tomorrow, eliminating the middleman (the “fake news”).

I don’t believe that the networks’ news departments are obliged to broadcast fiction — that’s the purview of their entertainment divisions — so p’raps the usual filters will remain in place.

Or maybe Comedy Central could air this piece of performance art, with Garrett Morris on a split screen, riffing on an old “Weekend Update” bit from “Saturday Night Live.”

It’d be a two-fer — delivering news for the deaf from the dumb.

• Late update: The networks blew the call, from James Fallows.