Inside my package of sliced turkey breast was a small plastic wrapped insert. After wiping off enough turkey grease to open the package, it was a tiny little sweepstakes card for merchandise from a company called “Fathead”. I opened it up to play, and sure enough, I didn’t win. But since this message was printed just above the company logo, it ended up saying, “Sorry, you are not a winner, Fathead.” I found this pretty entertaining, and feel this message needs to be slipped into more food products.

I have now crossed the 100 board game mark*. It is an awesome thing to realize we could play a board game every night and not repeat ourselves for well over three months. It is probably time to stop paying money for board games now, although I am still always looking to acquire good board games through trade and serendipity.

But what is a good board game? Well, why not read my most recent feature article about a fellow who wrote the book (well, a book) on game design. Basically, a good board game has good mechanics, and I tend to favor “German-style” games (aka “Eurogames”).

My computer was down for a few days earlier this week, but it’s back up now, and I’ve got a new episode of News In Rap for you. You can get lots of news, and impromptu rhyming, all in 10 minutes or so. What’s not to like?

Oh, you don’t like news or rhyming? I have a sweepstakes card for you…

*By which I mean, my collection has surpassed 100 board games. I would not want to cross 100 Board Game Mark, who sounds like a Dick Tracy villain.

Me!

If you read my column today, you’ll find out that I’m the featured reader tomorrow at Papyri Books. After that, I’ll be performing at the Red Room and probably freestyle rapping in a manner not entirely dissimilar from the News In Rap podcast that I just posted. It would seem to the untrained eye that I have a penchant for self-promotin’ and linkin’, but that’s only because it’s true.

I read a news story that Sarah Palin masks were selling like hotcakes in the two weeks before Halloween. I guess it’s clear what some people are most afraid of. If you want to know what I think people are most afraid of, check out my most recent column. And no, it’s not Sarah Palin.

In other news… well, I’ve been reading a lot of other news. And freestyle rapping about it. A nerdcore beatsmith by the handle of Pelicaine has crafted for me a very charming news show theme song, which got its inaugural use yesterday in my www.NewsInRap.com podcast. Like a hot librarian, I advise you to check it out.

And speaking of other news, I just had to share this tidbit from Losernet. It’s a tiny news item, but basically, a funeral home is trying to convince people that the staff there aren’t creepy and weird. And this is their best idea.

Hey, they can’t all be good.

Last weekend I attended my fourth wedding* in as many months. I continue to be surprised how different each wedding is that I attend, although this most recent one was perhaps more different yet, what with it being an orthodox wedding. Still, there was a bride, a groom, and other people I knew, so it was a wedding. And there were even animatronic parakeets on each table, which were bizarre but charming.

In other news, my most recent book review** ran in the USA Today yesterday, about a book on neurological marketing techniques. It was a fascinating read about how corporations will approach advertising in the years to come, and it takes subliminal advertising to whole other levels. It’s sort of awesome and scary, or at least, would be scary if so many other things weren’t much more scary.

*That is, fourth wedding of other people. I try only to get married every other month. Prospective wives, feel free to send gifts!

**Not, of course, a review of my book, for which I am still trying to find a publisher.

Or seven, possibly. That’s why you should go read this article about the seven powers we really want to see on Heroes. If you dig it, Digg it. If not, well, then maybe you’ll prefer my most recent column, which was about tissues.

Last week, I performed my stand-up act for the first monthly Comedy Open Mic at a new local restaurant. I used a lot of the same material I used four years ago at a conference in Ohio, but for some reason, it didn’t go over nearly as well. I’d have thought a crowd of humor writers would be a tougher crowd then a bunch of local folks attending a comedy night, but I was wrong.  Oddly, the local folks seemed to really dig the improv we did post-stand-up, which (to my mind) wasn’t a patch on my carefully crafted routine. Oh well; that’s why I do improv stuff.

Well, that’s it. I’ve now summarized in rap the last of the 2008 presidential debates. Like last time, I sat down at my computer with the transcript of the debate, put the beat on repeat, and rapped. For almost a half an hour. You can hear this epic freestyle that covers all the important points of the debate right on my podcast page.

I guess I’ll need a new plan for next week’s podcast…

…fry, fry again.

I’ve always had an unhealthy love of fried food. I am perhaps best known for my signature dish, the fried burrito, which I learned from an old highschool friend of mine. But in general, I’ve always believed that frying anything makes it tastier. My column this past weekend examines why that might be the case. But now that we have a deep fryer, it’s tricky to only use it occasionally. Especially since every time we use it, we end up with delicious food. Most recently, we made vegetable tempura* and fried calamari, which was unsurprisingly delicious.**

Anyway, I remember always arguing with people that frying any food would make it better. When I was young, people would offer ice cream as a counter-example. But having gone out for dinner recently where fried ice cream was on the menu, I must say to those people: Time to find a new counter-example.

* An amusing meal because it lets you eat plates of deep fried food while thinking to yourself “This is probably healthy.”

** Or in the case of the calamari, squidelicious.

I stayed up waaaaaaaaaaay too late (still now) to write a song that summarizes last night’s presidential debate. The text is here.

So, my column last Friday was about current health scares relating to contaminated food. One of these was the big powdered milk scandal in China. And then I realized that the other day, I was wearing a “Got Milk?” shirt. And a very very wrong idea occurred to me, which is something along the lines of a “Got Powdered Milk?” shirt with a little stick figure baby with X’s for eyes lying at the bottom.

Nope, much as I may dislike some politicians, I’ll never be able to run for office.

As promised, here’s my column to chronicle my trip to Maine last weekend. But since you read this, you get an additional story. I save the best story for you because I care. Read the column first.

Back? Okay. So, when the car died and we got it towed back to the farm, we convinced our host to take his truck out and run a chain from the back of the truck to the front of the car. Tom sat in the driver’s seat of the car, our host sat in the driver’s seat of his truck, and I stood off to the side of the road to get a full view so I could warn people if disaster was imminent.

Tom was convinced disaster was imminent because his car was being towed forward but he had no brakes, so as soon as the truck stopped, he might rear-end the truck. Our host was not concerned about this, but given that our host was one of the most easy-going people I’ve ever met, that didn’t comfort Tom overmuch. In retrospect, my ability to avert disaster by shouting “Look out! Imminent disaster!” was probably fairly limited.

What happened, though, was that they started towing, and Tom started shouting out “I have no brakes!”, and our host yelled “Alright,” and just kept driving, and I was walking along to keep up with them, and then running along to keep up with them, and soon I was alone on a dark Maine road (read: no streetlights) in the middle of the night.

Thankfully, I knew the farm was only a two minute drive up the road, so I was able to walk back with no difficulty.