Hardee’s marketing efforts lately have focused on their Thickburger menu, which includes such items as the Western Bacon Thickburger and Low Carb Thickburger. However, the campaign is slowing and they need an infusion of creative. Please contribute your suggestions for new Thickburgers. Ideas include:

Swift Boat Thickburger
The War Against Terror Thickburger
Alternative Lifestyles Thickburger
Lance Armstrong’s Triumph Over Cancer Thickburger
Alan Thickeburger

I recently bought a new mobile phone, which will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me. “One friend suggested I put that message on a t-shirt.” The new one has a built-in camera, which means that, because I am too lazy to use the good-quality digital camera that I quite often have with me, I will be able to take crappy pictures and share them with the world.

You might be thinking the photo above is a commentary on urbanization, the depersonalization of modern society or creeping commercialism. In fact, the only reason I took this picture is because the Hardee’s sign reads:

NEW LOAD
BISCUIT &
GARY BOWL

I guess I just don’t have what it takes. Thousands of bloggers, including many linked over there on the left, manage to produce amusing, informative, interesting and worthwhile writing while balancing full-time jobs, parenthood, the demands of quotidian existence and probably volunteering for Doctors Without Borders, for all I know. I get a 9-to-5 job and the best I can do is take a month to come up with something about microwave popcorn. What’s worse is that when I do finally post again, my post is about how lame I am for not posting. How lame is that? The only thing worse would be if I wrote about spam.

I’m still getting about 150 a day, which gives me a chance to see the themes developing. It’s nice to see that it’s not all about penile enhancement anymore. Mortgages are always popular, of course, but yesterday the theme seemed to be, “Euphemisms for ‘Reduce.’ I got emails encouraging me to butcher, chop, knock and scalp my mortgage payment. When I find a broker who can help me eviscerate my payment, we’ll talk. “I’m waiting for them to get confused and send me one that says, “Women Worship Low Payments or “Drill Your Girlfriends Mortgage All Night!”

Today’s theme seems to be “Long Lost Friends” Sebastian wrote to say, “We used to talk” and Mcclain wonders if I “remeber way back when? Granted, I am getting old and my memory is not what it used to be. But I think I would remember if I had ever made friends with Parson Straightaway and Eldridge Landscape.

Well, there you go. Nearly a month of silence, then I give you a lame compendium of spam subject lines. The least I can do is finally release this one, which I’ve been holding in reserve for months:

Boy in front, sheriff around and mirror behind are what made America great!

1. Microwave popcorn is never as good as you think it will be.

2. No matter how many times you learn this lesson, you are still capable of deceiving yourself.

3. You will cook it for too long, because you are a greedy bastard and want every last kernel.

4. You will burn it.

5. You will eat it anyway. All of it. Even the burned bits. You will upend the bag over your mouth and get popcorn grit all over your clothes.

6. When you are done, you will feel:
a. kind of sick
b. very thirsty
c. greasy

7. You’ll need to wash your hands like Lady Macbeth to get that “butter” off.

8. You will be forced to endure the smell in your office for the rest of the day.

9. Despite the fact that your co-workers know all of the above to be true, the smell will entice them to make their own, starting a chain reaction that could conceivably go on all afternoon.

10. Microwave popcorn should be prohibited in offices, like smoking. There should be microwave ovens outside the front door for people who are addicted.