I tidied up my point of view, I got a new atty-tood.

                                         

Hello, Ducks!

Starzina Starfish-Browne here with your Eric’s Daily Horoscope for Friday, March 25, 2011.  Beware the Fridays of March, They say.  Although why They say that, We haven’t got any ides. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and We’re very glad it’s not the other way around, because there’s nothing We hate worse than shiny birds. (Actually, there are a lot of things We hate worse, but, for the purposes of the preceding sentence, We shall wave Our poetic license in your face and tell you to bite Us.) We have, however, just been informed that it is some Nuclear Winter temperature in between “cold as a witch’s tit in a brass brassiere” and “cold as a preacher’s prick in a dead altar boy”, so We are not as sanguine as We might previously have appeared.  We are also significantly less likely to sing “polly-wolly doodle” all day.  We are, however, still a cock-eyed optimist, so, if you’ve got a cock, We’re willing to keep an eye out for it.

(That, of course, is the punchline to an old joke about a hooker with a glass eye.  Our humor is so post-modern that Henny Youngman is spinning in Buddy Hackett’s grave.)

Micro$oft Weird™ doesn’t think “punchline” is a word.  Micro$oft Weird™ has no fu(king sense of humor.

Back in The Day (We have never understood that phrase…which exact day was “The Day”?), there was a newspaper column (remember newspapers?) entitled “Hints From Hell, Louise”.  We were about to launch into a dissertation on the fact that, as “The Day” was quite long ago, Louise must, in fact, be long since dead, although, presumably, not in Hell, as all she ever did in life was clean things. And who better to replace her pristine self than Yours Truly, who is, as some of you may know, somewhat of a Domestic Goddess in Her Own right.  However, upon investigation (which, oddly enough, at no point involved letting Our fingers do the walking through the Yellow Pages™ (remember Yellow Pages™?)), We discovered that “Hell, Louise” now has a registered trade mark symbol ( ® ) after it, and that the original Louise, whom We always imagined to be not unlike Barbara Billingsley in Leave It To Beaver, has been replaced by what We can only describe as The Ugliest White Woman In The Western World, Possibly The Universe.  If you look up “hag” in your dictionary (remember dictionaries?), this bitch’s picture is there, with a note that says, “See Also: battleaxe”.

Meanwhile, all of Our str8 boi readers and a number of Our naked skimmers (many of whom are one and the same) saw the entire preceding paragraph, and all they actually processed was “Barbara Billingsley’s beaver”.  Whereupon they all threw boners and immediately made appointments with their therapists.

All of which is a very long-winded way of informing you that, while We will not be replacing Hell Louise any time soon, We do today have a HINT From Hell, Louise to share with you, Our Gentle Readers.  The following is, naturally, based on Our very Own experience, possibly as recently as this morning:

If you have an automatic coffeemaker, you will make a much more delicious cup of coffee if you put both water AND coffee into said coffeemaker before turning it on.  Because, if you should omit one of the ingredients, say, the coffee, you will wind up with a steaming hot pot of boiling water.  And We are pretty sure there is no culture in the modern world in which people bound out of bed saying, “I could really go for a nice hot cup of boiling water!”

You’re welcome.

In still other news in the domestic vein, We subscribe, via Google Reader (have you tried it?  You should!  And subscribe to Us on it…), to a number of cooking blogs.  In one of them this morning, the writer was interested, for some reason which escapes Us, in making his own Tater-Tots™. (Please do not imagine that We are a food snob of any sort.  We enjoy Our processed American crap foods just as much as the next person.  And, while Tater-Tots™ are not one of Our personal favorites, We certainly don’t begrudge the next person (who IS this “next person” They’re always going on about?) his or her junk-food-junkie pursuits.  However, if We were suddenly and unaccountably overcome with a Tater-Tots™ jones, We are pretty sure the most likely and reasonable thing We could do would be, oh, I don’t know, GO BUY A FU(KING BAG OF TATER TOTS™!)

At any rate.

Our adventurous food reporter wasn’t about to let his quest be satisfied by his local Piggly-Wiggly.  Even though he already had actual Tater-Tots™ in his possession, he used them only as the standard to which his homemade versions aspired.  To that end, he began by dissecting said Tots and reducing them to their most basic components, which appeared to be mostly a bunch of shredded potato. (The only surprise there being that the actual vegetable was involved, as opposed to some factory-produced facsimile.)  Next, he obtained some potatoes of his very own, shredded them, and attempted to coax them to Tot-ness by various means.  Having failed at various attempts at this, he then opened his freezer yet again, took out a bag of frozen French fries, threw them in the Cuisinart™, and proceeded to create honest-to-goodness boner-fide genuine Tater-Tot™ replicants.

We are not making that up.

God, We are really going on this morning.  Eventually, there will be no time left for the actual horoscope.  At any rate, We have a cousin who has matriculated (is it just Us, or does that word always sound as though it means something completely different from what it actually means? Something, in fact, Not Quite Nice.) at college this year.  Her SitOnMyFaceBook status this morning was “Really not in the mood for Death and Dying class.”  Really?  Imagine that.  Are there other students, bounding jubilantly across campus, exclaiming, “I can’t WAIT to get to Death and Dying class!”  If so, is some sort of intervention being planned?  That really does belong on the list of unanswerable statuses (stati?).  What, in fact, can one say? “You think YOU’VE got it bad…I’ve got “Terminal Illness” and “Perpetual Ennui” back to back right after lunch.” Meanwhile, naturally, the question on everyone’s mind is, is the prerequisite course entitled “Life and Living?”

Don’t forgot to make your reservations to laugh at Himself and his little friends on April Fool’s Day:  http://thewineroom.com/wineroom.cfm?t=main&p=main  .

Meanwhile, We enjoyed this so much the other day, We thought We’d do it again.  (And, apparently, again, and again, and again. (We figger We might as well amuse Our Own Self.)):

And so, without Spiro AgNEW:

Little ‘Scope, little ‘Scope of Horrors.
Bop sh-bop, you'll never stop the terror.
Little ‘Scope, little ‘Scope of Horrors.
No, oh, oh, no, oh, oh, no, oh, oh, no!

Art, music, drama and other cultural affairs hold your interest today, (Which of those things is related to grocery shopping at the Ack-A-Me and cleaning Casa de CumStain?  Because some folks are coming here tomorrow, expecting to worship Satan, and they won’t wanna do it in a dirty hovel on empty stomachs.)

(Have you accepted Judith Krantz as your personal savior?)

and you may want to branch out and explore some new territory. (That is such an obvious euphemism that We don’t even feel compelled to point it out.  However, We fail to see where in Our plans We’re going to encounter this “new territory”, unless it’s the boy that the Ack-A-Me has hired as its new Produce Fondler.)

At least one of your people can serve as your guide if you ask politely.  (We have people?  We’re pretty sure We don’t.  If We did, why the hell would We be cleaning Our Own hovel?)

As the old saying goes, you need to make hay while the sun shines. (What does that even mean?  We have absolutely no use for any hay whatsoever.  And, if hay does, for some reason, need to be made, you just got done telling Us that We have “people” to make it. Asshat.)

Today you’re going to have the attitude (Oh, We have atty-tood, a-ight.)

and energy to finally tackle an unpleasant task you’ve been putting off … so do what you need to do to make that task your number-one goal. (If We make it Number Two, will We try harder? (Heh…We said “Number Two”.))

If you have to rearrange your schedule or back out of a social date, do it. (What is this “date” of which you speak?)

You need to do what you feel like doing, (Oh, We don’t think so.  We’re pretty sure that will result in neither a clean hovel nor shopped groceries.  Although it MIGHT get someone’s produce fondled….)

especially if it’s something that has needed your attention for a while.  (That? Would be having OUR produce fondled.)

 Let go of your ‘whatever’ attitude. (And embrace your ‘warthog’ attitude.  Or your ‘washcloth’ attitude.  Or your ‘wiffleball’ attitude.  Whatever.)

Now more than ever, (We just spent five minutes attempting to find an old advertising slogan that included the phrase “now more than ever”.  Not only did We fail, but time continues to tick away, and a young man’s produce remains unfondled.)

you can come up with a great plan on your own (Zucchini, melons, peaches…ooops, was that the outside voice?)

 — and it’s sure to be stellar. (Whatever.)

Pick the restaurant or suggest a great movie for the two of you to take in. (The Grapes of Wrath?  Fried Green Tomatoes?  The Pineapple Express?)

(Heh.  See what We did there?)

(Oh, shut up.)

*****************************************************************************    

(Your YOUR-O-Scopes:

http://www.humorscope.com )

Starzina Starfish-Browne was born in the wagon of a traveling show…well, okay, not really.  She was actually born in Lowake, Texas, the daughter of a beautician and either a garage mechanic or the town mailman.  At sixteen, she escaped her humble beginnings by running off with Doctor Browne’s Traveling Medicine Show and, more to the point, Doctor Browne. Following the dissolution of this unfortunate entanglement (Doctor Browne was a Virgo and Starzina is, of course, an Aries), which produced a daughter, Starzina entered a contest in Soap Opera Digest and won a scholarship to Oxford (yes, in ENGLAND), where she earned her doctorate in the newly-created dual major of Astrology and Human Sexuality.  There is absolutely NO TRUTH to the rumor that Starzina’s second daughter has Royal blood, despite tabloid photographs allegedly depicting her cavorting on the Italian Riviera with Princes William and Harry, clad only in Prussian helmets and armbands of questionable taste.  Starzina currently resides with her daughters in Philadelphia, the City That Loves You (On Your) Back, where she enjoys Double Coupon Day at the local SuperCruise and “encouraging” the coxswain of the Penn rowing team.