Richard Kaempfer’s $EVERANCE is a spot-on satire of the dangers of media consolidation. It cuts a swath through the evils of corporate America, the shrill inanities of the whole left-right political farce, and the corrupting influence of Wall Street.

The story follows Tom Zagorski, a popular radio DJ in Chicago, who wants his severance cheque. Instead of firing him outright, Zagorski’s boss is doing everything he can to make his life miserable, hoping that Zagorski will simply quit. But the resilient “Polack-American” has other plans. Instead of caving, he sends an incendiary email to the CEO of the corporation that owns Zagorski’s station, suggesting a series of absurd changes that would “save” the company even more money.

But the CEO takes Zagorski seriously, and even worse, his absurd reforms (which include posting security guards to protect all office supplies, and the NASCARization of the evening news) does save the company millions of dollars. Instead of getting him fired, the email gets him promoted — to Chief Operating Officer!

Now he’s even farther away from his severance cheque — and the only way he can get fired now is to destroy the corporation’s stock price, but Zagorski has the golden touch.

The book rips along, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, and if you have any interest at all in what has happened to the media landscape in the past twenty years, you’re going to love it.

This is published by ENC Press, who published my first novel, THE AMADEUS NET. (Available for purchase here.) I’ve read a number of the other authors that Olga has published, and I’ve enjoyed every one immensely, though I have to say I have a soft spot for fellow Canadian Craig Forgrave’s DEVIL JAZZ, in which the Devil recruits the souls of Hitler, Marylin Monroe and Van Gogh to bring about the end of days.

You will find some free reading in the form of funny blog material here and here. Vote for this post here.

Finally, JBM has launched its corporate website. Though it is ridden with problems, evil overlords, interstellar overlords and meglomaniacs worldwide will be relieved to know that JBM is open for business again.

From the JBM corporate website:

JBM — Famous for our Juggernauts, but expanding

Ever since Dr. Malifico founded JBM, we have been known world-over for the quality of our business mechanicals. They are not only gargantuan in scale, and lethal when required, but they are well-suited to modern business environments as well.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, JBM underwent a major restructuring, and instead of catoring exclusively to would-be evil overlords, bent on extorting a large percentage of GNP from both the free world and the Communist Bloc, JBM started catering to large business.

Our state-of the-art RED Juggernaut is still our best seller, and few business would be better served by other mechanicals. However, we are expanding our range, and creating LaserBots, TaxCrushing Servo-motors, and we are moving into industrial applications as well.

In a statement released to the press, our CEO has sated: “with a modicum of talent, ruthless efficiency and some element of surprise, JBM should be in a position to destroy the competition and own the juggernaut business mechanical sector..”

As I said, their website is a complete disaster, but their product offerings will be of interest to any up-and-coming evil mastermind bent on world domination.

It would appear that both Alltop and the funny blog aggregator, humor-blogs.com, are out for world comedy domination.

Vote for this post, or General Kang will send a Red Juggernaut after you.

BUMONSI CITY (The Skwib) — When hilarity blogger Captain HaHa discovered the phrase “penguin nun sex” in his blog stats, he decided to turn taboo interspecies romance into pure comedy gold.

“Yeah, initially I was totally weirded out by finding the phrase in my search string stats, but then I thought, hey that’s kind of funny. I should blog about that,” the pseudonymous blogger told The Skwib in a phone interview.

He went on to write a long post about how a large number of pervs were finding his perfectly normal website using freaky search terms. And then to make the post even funnier, he posted some of the other search engine referrals that weren’t necessarily rude, but were definitely odd.

“I especially liked ‘Captain HaHa hepatitis cures’. I mean, that means someone was Googling my pseudonym!” the blogger said as he stroked his keyboard obsessively.

According to statistics from ThoughtCounter.com, nearly all bloggers will blog about their search term referrals at some point in their writing careers.

“It’s almost irresistible,” Leslie Flapkak, PhD candidate at a ‘leading’ university, says. “Posts about search engine terms combine four of the five primary elements of all successful blogging: strange facts, self-absorption, statistics and some form of writing. On occasion, they even include references to cats, and in those cases, you have a perfect blog post.”

For “hilarity” bloggers such as Captain HaHa, the search engine referral post is a surefire way to get laughs.

“According to my research, the only things that are funnier are fake news stories and pictures of monkeys dressed as some kind of historical personage, such as Hitler or Stalin,” Flapkak said.

In related news: Blogger ponders on things instead of musing about them

You will find a great many other instances of hilarity at this humour blog list. Alltop will also have a fair few. Vote for this post and save the nuns! Or the penguins!

Claude was having an existential crisis.

He’d tried to deny it, but just as Brother Sartre had suggested in a recent penmanship competition, it was becoming clear to the strapping Greco-Roman enthusiast that his life was devoid of meaning, unless he could give it some himself.

But where to look for meaning?

Then Serge put him in a sleeper hold. A delicious, overpowering sleeper, pungent with Russian vodka, sweat, and dare he say, import?

From the Toulouse Le Grandfig collection. Other existential crises seen at Alltop and at thisfunny blog aggregator too.

The ever-vigilant Mr. Snitch recently noticed an interesting story about a New Jersey man stealing $100 worth of meat by stuffing it down his pants. This is not a phenomenon restricted to the Garden State. I happen to know on good authority that our local ValuMart (here in sunny Wortley Village), has suffered the same indignity of pant-stuffing meat-lifters. They are easily apprehended because most men are not adept at running with large pieces of beef slapping around in their pants. (Present company excepted, I’m sure.) However, Mr. Snitch then goes on to ask the obvious question: what happens to the meat afterwards? Is there a discount for “slightly used meat”, or do the police hold onto it, so to speak, pending trial?

The verdict is in on The Dark Knight (it’s the feel-good movie of the year), but until I read this Compendium of Killing Jokes, I thought it was supposed to be laughing AT The Joker, not WITH him .

While we’re on the topic of movies, you’ll want to run right out and get some of the Exclusive X-Files Merchandise available from NeonBubble. I can hardly wait until my David Duchovny’s The X-Files: I Want To Beekeep kit arrives, but I’m a little anxious about what the “8-inch hive tool” is for.

I’m not nearly as concerned about the delightful brain of the historian Rob MacDougall; it’s recently applied its wattage to a trio of world-building exercises of the steampunk variety. I especially liked “The Kinematrix Has You”.

What can Brown do for you? Well, it can help you if you’re caught short, but only if you’re a damn fast folder.

Mean Ol’ Meany has more advice for everyone on how to avoid other kinds of intestinal distress, though nothing to cope with the kind of idiocy in the clip below, which is reminiscent of my last peyote bender. (Warning: This Family Guy segment may make you feel a bit squingy.)

Once you’ve recovered from that, you may want to learn How to be #1 on Humor-Blogs.com. Advice from LOBO, who’s deranged blog is a constant worry to the authorities. (Incidentally, The Skwib was once #1 on Humor-Blogs.com, but that was before the new voting thingy. You can help The Skwib crawl its way back on the leaderboard by signing up for an account and voting here. Don’t make me get the ipecac! )

Did any of that unhinge you slightly? Well then perhaps you’re ready for the Carnival of the Insanities now.

You’ll find more meaty links many a funny blog at Alltop as well.

Is it possible to play bocce ball with a crowd of inebriated Welshman?

Simon Moore at the University of Cardiff in the UK and his colleagues believe so, and they’ve done the research to discover how to set up just such a game.

They have created a model to demonstrate how a herd of Taffys behaves as it spills onto the streets after an evening of metheglin, real cider and conversation in four-part harmony. According to the New Scientist:

The team made 24 visits to Cardiff city centre between 11pm and 3am on Friday and Saturday nights, breathalysing people and monitoring their gait. Of the high number of drinkers around, they found that a round 25 per cent were staggering.

The team factored this information into their simulation, then ran simulations with crowds in varying states of inebriation trying to make their way through a narrow alleyway to three different destinations.

(I’m still trying to figure out how you have three destinations in an alleyway — presumably there is only two ways in or out, unless the Welsh are capable of limited flight, and can go up as well.) Anyway, they discovered that the extremely drunken crowds didn’t flow very well, especially the crowd where David Evans (or was it Jones?) was coating most of the alley in a toxic mix of Campari and Welsh rarebit.

They hope their research will lead them to creating better streetscapes to deal with such situations. If successful, they then hope to do something about the yobs in London.

Here is what a model of the sober crowd looks like:

And the 50% drunk crowd:

Now, here is the 100% drunk crowd:

You can find the actual animations here, the New Scientist story here (you’ll need a subscription to read the whole thing), alltop here and humor-blogs.com here, where you can vote for this post, if you feel so inclined.

Satire is destroying the world. There. I’ve admitted it, and now you know the secret desire of everyone here at The Skwib is to bring about a humorous apocalypse. A humockalypse, if you will. And we’re a week late to chime in on the New Yorker fiasco — an example of failed satire if ever there was one — so we’ll let some of our participants this week can do it for us.

But before we get to the Obama-New Yorker Incident (The Oborker Incident), Satirepatch has stunning news in evolutionary biology: Scientists Discover Lawyers Becoming a New Species .

And now back to The Orborker Incident: As always, Madeleine Begun Kane is spot on with her poem, lampooning A Humorist’s Lament (Covering The New Yorker Cover Brouhaha In Verse) .

Jon Swift then teaches the New Yorker (and all the non-satirists out there) how it is done with his take on the Obama cover.

So who says Obama or McCain will be the next US President? Neil Benson is a self-described “mostly retired former mental health professional” (so that should give you some warning) and he has a prediction: Our New President: Nancy Pelosi.

This post from Free-Ass. Press is satirical and ironic, as it was (briefly) the #1 story on Digg.com: Digg Users Hate Everything; Bury Internet .

Julius Bloop gets all medieval on the carnival with: Diary Of A World Of Warcraft Player – Moms Are For Real Life Only .

Humungus has yet another scheme from the Flinstone-Rubble Compendium of Instant Wealth: Employment opportunities available!.

Yitzchak Goodman has uncovered the lyrics to The Other Black National Anthem .

Sammy Benoit relates the news that PETA Says Term A*S HOLE is Cruel to Animals .

In this week’s one single, non-satire moment, Barbara Diamond relieves all the ironic tension by reminding us of the dangers of hippos in: OH SHIT, RUN.

And that’s it for the 103rd edition. Thanks to these fine folks for helping us with webby-stuff: the Blog Carnival for their form; and the listings at the Ubercarnival, Ferdy’s permanent floating ping festival, and for the listings at the Blog Carnival too. Also, you may find some satire here if you poke around a bit. Here too.

Technorati tags: carnival of satire, satire, humor, humor.

I have never owned one of your quaint “internal combustion engine” vehicles, so I have not had to worry about the high price of gas, but I have been getting nailed on the cost of most foods appropriate for the Thringian Keg-Beast that I ride to work every day.

On my home planet, I fed my Keg-Beast leftover hyper-bananas from the über-chimp orgy the night before, but since I’ve been on Earth, there has been a dearth of both hyper-bananas (apparently they won’t grow in your frigid Earth climate) and über-chimp swinging events (this explains why I am so cranky). So, I’ve found alternatives; the Keg-Beast works best on a mixture of corn syrup, mescaline and the sweat of writers living in a state of quiet despair. Most of those elements are plentiful and relatively cheap, but do you have any idea how costly corn syrup is?

You humans are stupid! You’re burning fossil fuels to grow corn, which you turn into ethanol to burn along with your fossil fuels. Why don’t you just cut out the middle-man and take a flamethrower to your cornfields when they’re ripe? You will lose only a fraction of the energy value and most of the vegetable matter will end up adding to global warming. As an added bonus: big fire!

Then your planet will be able to grow hyper-bananas, and all will be well.

… Assuming we can get a few female über-chimps down here too.

Next time: I’m trapped in the Andromeda galaxy because my hyper-drive engine is asking for a better benefits package — how do it get it back to work without giving it full dental?

Alright, The Skwib has disappeared from the top thirty of humor-blogs.com. You know you have to sign up for an account and vote, or this sad state of affairs will go on? Do you really want such a travesty to continue? You do? Alright, then go visit Alltop instead. I won’t mention it again.

I found this old ad via Donklelephant, via Fark (yeah, sometimes I’m weak). I love the sales features: no diet, no bath, no exercise! –Wait, no bath?

I’m sure they mean the notion of “Taking the Waters” for weight loss and the curing of other ailments. This quaint European custom is still practiced today in such places as Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) and Baden Baden (literally, Bath Bath). If you’ve never had the opportunity to “Take the Waters” I’d recommend keeping it that way. Generally speaking, the “Waters” are loaded with sulphates, sulphides and other combinations of salts that will make you wish you we never born.

I stayed at one spa that had telephones in the toilet (restroom or bathroom for all us North Americans). When I checked in, my thought was, “what the hell? Who makes a call when they’re on the crapper?” Then I “Took the Water” and a few hours later, while attempting to eject all the major organs in my body cavity through an opening clearly not designed for such use, I understood.

“Ah, the phone is there in case I need to call for a paramedic. Or perhaps to dictate my Last Will and Testament.”

Seriously, walk around Karlovy Vary, and you’ll be able to spot the people who are “Taking the Waters” and who have already learned why there are phones in the toilets. They’re the ones shambling around like zombies (the slow, dopey kind), clutching their little porcelain cups to their chests, dreaming that one day, they will have visited all of the evil sulphur springs in town — consumed the vile, spurting aquia wretchia, and then they will be done, “Taking the Waters”. With any luck, they will die before having one last go at the room with the other porcelain instrument of torture (and phone).

So, yeah, tapeworms. If I can avoid the “baths”, why not?

If you enjoyed this, or found it revolting, or it made you feel all squingy, why not let everyone know?

You may continue your quest to find the funniest blog at humor-blogs.com, or perhaps alltop. But you’ll just come back here…

Flush with the success of their most recent Mars mission, NASA is now planning on taking humans to the Red Planet. And they’re starting by collecting urine. Roughly eight gallons a day.

This massive pee-hoard will help contractors test a new toilet for the Orion space exploration vehicle. (Which is going to the moon, not Mars, but you have to break up big jobs into little dribs and drabs.) Apparently, the copious amount of wee-wee is needed because it is difficult to “fake” urine. (Talk to my ex-wife, she could fake anything.)

The request for massive amounts of piddles and widdles was sent in a memo to the workers at the Johnson Space Center, and was not intended for dispersal to the entire globe via the Internet, but the Genie is out of the bottle, so to speak.

So far, NASA officials have concentrated (not too much, we hope, and we certainly hope they weren’t eating asparagus), on why they need so much for their testing, in hopes that we will not be able to see through their cloudy, noxious yellow schemes.

You see, the flight to Mars will require the astronauts to be completely self-sufficient, and part of that means they will not be able to waste anything. (Yes, pun intended.) That will include, you guessed it, pee. Somehow, they’re going to have to figure out a way to recycle everything they can, so no doubt there will be more calls for large numbers of NASA workers to “see a man about a horse”, while they test those systems too. So all you would-be astronauts, keep in mind that your journey to Mars will include about eight months of drinking your own (and that of your capsule-mate’s) … uh, recycled liquid wastes.

So you see, Grimshaw was only ahead of his time. [I could not find the YouTube clip of the Python Sketch, so the script is below.]

And if you’re dying to know how one powder’s one’s nose in space, Canadian astronaut, Chris Hadfield tells all (and I guarantee you’re never going to look at shooting stars the same way after you watch this):

[link to Chris Hadfield video explaining "elimination in space"]

Donate your own opinion about this post here.

Other funny blog posts are at humor-blogs and alltop. Sky report here. And now for something completely different:

A hospital lobby. A line of people are being ushered through. A sign says ‘Blood Donors’ with an arrow in the direction they’re all going. Mr Samson (John Cleese) is in a white coat.

Samson: Blood donors that way, please.

Donor: Oh thank you very much (joins the line).

Samson :Thank you. [Grimshaw (Eric Idle) comes up to him and whispers in his ear, Samson looks at him, slightly surprised] What? [Grimshaw whispers again] No. No, I’m sorry but no. [Grimshaw whispers again] No, you may not give urine instead of blood. [Grimshaw whispers again] No, well, I don’t care if you want to. [Grimshaw whispers again] No. There is no such thing as a urine bank.

Grimshaw: Please.

Samson: No. We have no call for it. We’ve quite enough of it without volunteers coming in here donating it.

Grimshaw: Just a specimen.

Samson: No, we don’t want a specimen. We either want your blood or nothing.

Grimshaw: I’ll give you some blood if you’ll give me…

Samson: What?

Grimshaw: A thing to do some urine in.

Samson: No, no, just go away please.

Grimshaw: Anyway, I don’t want to give you any blood.

Samson: Fine, well you don’t have to, you see, just go away.

Grimshaw: Can I give you some spit?

Samson: No.

Grimshaw: Sweat?

Samson: No.

Grimshaw: Earwax?

Samson: No, look, this is a blood bank – all we want is blood.

Grimshaw: All right, I’ll give you some blood. He holds out a jar full of blood.

Samson: Where did you get that?

Grimshaw: Today. It’s today’s.

Samson: What group is it?

Grimshaw: What groups are there?

Samson: There’s A…

Grimshaw: It’s A. Samson (sniffing the blood) Wait a moment. It’s mine. This blood is mine! What are you doing with it?

Grimshaw: I found it.

Samson: You found it? You stole it out of my body, didn’t you?

Grimshaw: No.

Samson: No wonder I’m feeling off-colour. (he starts to drink the blood; Grimshaw grabs the bottle)

Grimshaw: Give that back. It’s mine.

Samson: It is not yours. You stole it.

Grimshaw: Never.

Samson: Give it back to me.

Grimshaw: All right. But only if I can give urine.

Samson: …Get in the queue.