• I just generated my #TweetCloud out of a year of my tweets. Top three words: tonight, comedy, night – http://w33.us/2kit #
• http://twitpic.com/rpdom – The Reindeer toilet. If this is in your house, I hate you. #
• It’s childish, I know.. but I snicker every time the CNN anchor says, “Cyber Monday.” Cyber-anything = “cyber-spanking it” in my mind. #
• You’re all invited to “Thanksgiving 2: Electric Boogaloo” – dinner & break-dancing movies tonight at my house: http://adjix.com/xbvq #
• Turkeys are cheap if you buy em the day after Thanksgiving. The bird is in the oven! The kegerator is full of Paulaner Hefe-Weizen! #
• AND after the meal, we’ll be gathering around the tv to watch the break dancing cinematic classics Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2. #
• (I hate sports, so this is what we do instead of watching football or whatever it is people do.) #
• I KNOW we did the exact same thing Feb 25th, but “Electric Boogaloo” is too fun to say & “Thanksgiving 3: Electric Boogaloo” sounds stupid. #
• Technically, this could be “Thanksgiving 4: The Quest For Peace” – but I don’t want to over think this. #
• I know it’s late notice, but “planning” is for ass-hats. If you can’t make it for any reason, we’ll take that to mean you don’t love us. #
• The E! Network interrupted the Punky Brewster ‘behind the whatever’ show with “breaking news” about Tiger Woods. Suck it, everybody at E! #
• Thanks to everybody who came out for “Thanksgiving 2: Electric Boogaloo 2: Electric Boogaloo’er” last night. Turkey + booze + breakin = fun #
• Random Chad Fact: I have an insane, irrational hatred for sports, athletic ability, and physical effort in general. #
• Having tooled around with Google Wave for all of 7 minutes, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a failure and they should turn it off. #
• Watching Maria Bamford’s free ONE HOUR HOMEMADE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL again. You should too: http://mariabamford.com #
• Cash is great. I also take checks, paypal, cheese, beer and pictures, but leave only footprints & the scent of cheep booze & beef jerky. #
• every news show on tv has turned into some retarded mix of Entertainment Tonight, Mtv News & the end of Planet of the Apes. #
• my favorite thing on Twitter: random person says, “Get 1000’s of followers!” – then you click on their page and they’ve got 42 followers. #
• I still view everything as a giant jocks vs. nerds struggle. I was in a bar this weekend and football was on tv.. #
• ..someone asked me “who’s your team?” and I told them “I wish they ALL would lose.” You should have seen the confused stares. #

I spend a lot of time reading and discussing news stories about comedy, interviews with comics, reviews of shows & cd’s and whatnot. For a long time, I’ve seen sites like SlashDot.org and Digg.com and Fark.com and thought there should be a site just for COMEDY news. It’s not “here’s a funny thing I found on the internet” it’s the stories from behind the scenes.

So here’s what I did:

ComedyNews.Org is a socially-powered comedy news site featuring interviews, reviews and news stories from around the world. It’s a web application that allows you to submit an article that will be reviewed by all and will be promoted, based on popularity, to the main page. When a user submits a news article it will be placed in the “unpublished” area until it gains sufficient votes to be promoted to the main page. Users can comment on each article in threaded discussions.. and there’s a bunch of social network-y crap going on, too.

If you’re a comedy nerd looking for comedy nerd news, stop by and chime in. If you see a comedy-related story out there, please submit it!

I may be a cold, heartless bastard.. but I think our society is too nice to insane people. A little too much leniency is given to people just because they’re “crazy.” I’m not talking about wacky eccentrics or goofy morons who act silly, I mean people who are really nuts. We encourage crazy. The message we send out is “whatever you do is ok if you’re insane,” and I think that’s bullshit.

Potential organ donor Andrea Yates wishes she had more kids to kill.
Andrea Yates

As I type this, closing arguments are underway for Andrea Yates, the Texas woman on trial for capital murder who claims she was legally insane when she drowned her five children last year. As is so often the case, the defense attorneys are using the old “insanity” defense. They fully admit that Yates killed her children, mind you.. but when she did it she was “crazy.” Under Texas law, if the jury believes she knew right from wrong they cannot find her legally insane.

We’re talking about a woman who methodically drowned her children one after another in the family bathtub.. a jury in Houston will deliberate to decide if she’s legally insane.. and that’s the craziest thing I’ve heard in a long time. OF COURSE she’s crazy, she killed her kids! Who cares if she “knew right from wrong?” What’s the difference?

Either way, she killed her kids.. plain and simple. She is on trial for murder and she readily admits that she did it. Case closed, she’s a murderer.. give her the chair and let’s move on.

They say, “but she’s insane! She needs psychiatric help!” No. Why bother? This planet is overpopulated as it is. Do we need to salvage this person? Do we need an extra body that bad? Hell, no.

Say we rehabilitate her. What is she going to do in the future that’s so damn great that we have to keep this woman around? Make a pie for the bake sale? Was she out there curing diseases or settling international disputes? No, she was a mother of five. That was her job.. and ya know what? She flipped out and killed her kids. Sounds to me like she doesn’t have any work here left to do. On to the afterlife.

We try way too hard to “fix” people. Some people are fucked up, plain and simple. We don’t need to integrate them back into society! Interacting with people isn’t exactly a murderer’s strong point. There are, however, other ways they could be beneficial to us:

A) Use the crazies for biological / pharmaceutical / medical experiments. Stop testing new drugs and methodologies on animals and people without health insurance. Use a convict! It’s a perfectly good human body just wasting away in a jail cell.

B) Organ Transplants. How many people are on the waiting list for a much needed vital organ? Death Rows across the nation are overcrowded. Bonk ‘em over the head, slice ‘em from head to toe and divy up the goodies. Thanks, boys!

C) Slave Labor. Sure we already kinda do that, but I want to step it up a little. I know convicts work for the state and various corporations for almost no pay.. but who cares if prisoner #61521855B made 250 license plates yesterday? The Egyptians made their slaves make cool things like the pyramids. Who is gonna give a crap when they dig up a license plate 3000 years from now? Put our prisoners to work making something memorable. If we work ‘em too hard and they die, there’s another organ transplant donor for ya.

I can just hear the people whining that I’m an insensitive meanie.. but, look: these people can be productive and contribute something to society. If they’re so “insane” then they won’t miss their kidneys, lungs and heart when the time comes. See? Everybody’s happy!

The World Trade Center tragedy is the most horrible thing that has ever happened here in the US. I have nothing but sympathy and prayers for everyone affected by the terrorism. I don’t want to be disrespectful to the victims and survivors of this tragedy.. but my way of dealing with things is to be funny. I need a release.. we all need to get away from the carnage for a while and enjoy ourselves. Otherwise, we’ll all go crazy.

The only thing about this whole situation that made me laugh is the news coverage. The national networks did an ok job (For the most part.. the only beef I really have with them is the increasingly moronic Dan Rather who quoted “an ancient Oriental proverb that says, ‘Revenge is best served cold.’” Dammit, Dan.. there’s a HUGE difference between revenge and justice.).

Dan Rather’s lack of professionalism aside, the most ridiculous thing was the local news. Watching the coverage, there was a palpable feeling that the local teams were just chomping at the bit… praying for an excuse to break in and act like they’re big shots. Having worked in local television for years, I’m pretty sure there were quite a few anchors across the nation sitting at the desk in the studio pouting. “But, but.. it’s five o’clock! It’s my turn to be on tv! Waaaaaaahh! Boo-hoo for me! Where’s my airtime!?”

So they took over the bottom part of the screen rolling local headlines. Like there’s anything going on here in Nashville that is worth mentioning while planes are crashing into the biggest buildings in New York City. I fully expected to look up at the 14,576,329th replaying of the second crash and see scrolling across the screen: “From the newsroom: At this hour, T-E-M-A reports no end in sight for construction on I-24…” Well, duh. “Planet Hollywood closes it’s doors (a city mourns)…” Whoop-dee-doo!

Not satisfied with merely cluttering up the already congested screen with their drivel, they go the extra mile to squeeze a local angle out of the terrorism. The national feed is squeezed back into a box on the screen with the audio low.. the local kids have a little box in the corner: “Hello. I’m Bob Localguy interrupting Tom Brokaw for this special report. Actually, I just got a new haircut and wanted to see what it looked like on camera.” Then they go out to the airport to show video of pissed off people sitting around watching CNN. Thanks, local news idiots, but I can see that live right here in my living room.

Later in the day they figured out a way to justify breaking in live again.. they’d woken Governor Sundquist from his coma and propped him up in front of a microphone. He was in a daze. Reporters were firing away with the stupidest questions ever. I was fully expecting them to ask; “What steps have been taken to protect Tennessee from invasion by Arkansas?” “Do you have a contingency plan in case the Bellcourt Theatre falls into enemy hands?” “Will the National Guard be deployed to protect Opry Mills?” “How will we defend the Grand Ole Opry?” “Is the Parthenon in jeopardy?”

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At least David Letterman brought class back to television. If you missed the Late Show on Monday, September 17, man did you miss something special. That’s all there is to it. Dave knows exactly what to say when there’s NOTHING you can possibly say. He’s a hilarious comedian, a seasoned broadcaster, a legend in late night, a comedic genius.. but most importantly, a great man. A good person. I can’t possibly put into words the amount of respect and admiration I have. I’m proud to say he’s my hero.

If you did miss it, the video and audio clips are up at www.cbs.com/lateshow/ under “Dave TV.” His speech is under ‘Dave’s Monologues’, and ‘Big Show Highlight’. The Dan Rather interview is also under BSH. A transcript of Dave’s opening remarks is at David Yoder’s site.

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Michael Jackson is doing his part to help out the WTC victims.. he’s putting together another song (kinda like “We are the world”) called “What more can i give”…. What more can you give? I dunno. you’ve got an amusement park in your back yard, how ’bout you give some of your own damn money? I’m eating Raman Noodles every day.

Mike’s got a bunch of friends helping him out on this one: Destiny’s Child, Britney Spears, N’Sync, Backstreet Boys… ya know, if all these crappy, TRL-happy, cheesy-ass disposable pop groups can come together for the good of man.. can’t we ALL come together as a people? Huh? HUH?

Pop Singer Michael Bolton Loses U.S. Top Court Appeal

WASHINGTON – Pop superstar Michael Bolton lost a U.S. Supreme Court bid on Monday to overturn a $5.4 million jury verdict that his hit, “Love Is a Wonderful Thing,” copied parts of a song by the legendary soul singers, the Isley Brothers. This decision officially confirms Bolton as this year’s early leader among pop acts completely devoid of original thought and talent. Ricky Martin follows at a close second, due to his Pre-Presidential Inauguration Concert. The nation is still in shock following news source Reuters’ use of the phrase “pop superstar” in conjunction with Michael Bolton.

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‘Friends’ Beefs Up for Battle Against ‘Survivor’

HOLLYWOOD – In a desperate move to limit the potential damage from CBS’ “Survivor: The Australian Outback,” .NBC will serve up extra-long episodes of “Friends” and a shortened prime-time version of “Saturday Night Live” from 8-9 p.m. on Thursdays next month. When reached for comment, an unnamed NBC representative was quoted as saying, “It’s OVER! It’s ALL OVER! Oh, my God it’s all crashing down around me! What have we done? What have we dooooooooonnnnnnnnnnne?!”

This reporter thinks they should just have hour-long Friends episodes where the gang sits around watching Survivor on their tv. Then, you get all the things you love about Friends, you don’t miss what happens down in Australia, and NBC would be slightly less conspicuous with it’s lack of faith in their product.

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In other entertainment news, Tupac Shakur is still dead. We’ll keep you updated on this late-breaking story as it unfolds.

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George W. Bush Delivers 14-Minute Inaugural Address

WASHINGTON – Minutes after he was sworn in as the 43rd president Saturday, President George W. Bush delivered his inaugural address, ‘We Are Bound By Ideals.’ While the entire speech makes for an interesting (if not appalling) read, I’ll only bring up a few points here for discussion purposes.

“And I thank Vice President Gore for a contest conducted with spirit, and ended with grace.” Grace? GRACE?? This ‘contest’ ended with anything but grace. The re-writing of history and bastardization of facts begins as soon as he takes oath.

“We have a place, all of us, in a long story; a story we continue, but whose end we will not see.” Oh, I disagree.. I think we’ll see the end very soon. The apocalypse is nearer than ever my friends! Prepare yourself for what is to come.

“We will build our defenses beyond challenge, lest weakness invite challenge. We will confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors.” First of all, our defenses are already beyond challenge. That’s not exactly a program we’ve shortchanged. Our educational system, however, is underfunded across the board and is almost laughable on a world-wide level. We’re widely thought of as a nation of dumb-asses, and Dubbya, you’re not helping.

“I will live and lead by these principles: to advance my convictions with civility; to pursue the public interest with courage; to speak for greater justice and compassion; to call for responsibility, and try to live it as well. In all these ways, I will bring the values of our history to the care of our times.” George, if you want to pursue the public interest, resign!

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Parents Starved Children ‘On God’s Orders’

NAIROBI – Six emaciated Kenyan children who were kept indoors and deprived of food for four weeks “on God’s orders” have been taken to a children’s home and their fanatical Christian parents have been arrested, police said on Monday. You know, I was a bad child myself.. but you know you’ve got really bad kids when even GOD hates them.

Well, that’s all the news unfit to print.. until next time, this is Chad Riden saying, “koo koo kachoo.”