Health class dismissed

The fallopian tubes and uterus look like some wonky Olympic mascot coming in for a hug.

Take on the world!

Whether you're teaching middle school math or taking your religion door to door, show the world you've got it going on with a short sleeved white button-down shirt.

Because you're a man of discerning tastes you only want the best. The best TV you can get on layaway. The best entree at TGI Friday's. And the best used Honda Accord on the lot.

So why settle for anything but the best when it comes to shirts for your active lifestyle? How many times has this happened to you: You're trying to write at your desk or knock on a door to spread the Good News, but all of a sudden ... sleeves! In your way! What's a man to do, hack off the sleeves with a letter opener? You're not Larry the Cable Guy or a contestant on Survivor, are you?



Show the world you're a man of refinement with our poly-cotton blend that sure to keep you cold on cold days and warm on warm days. Act now and we'll guarantee pitstains in the first two weeks or your money back.

Short sleeve white button-down shirt! Buy yours today!

Plaid! It's gonna be huge, says Gap spokesman

America has realized they're all stocked up on solid-color Ts and relaxed-fit chinos, thankyouverymuch. Unfortunately for the Gap, this is all they know how to sell.

Like a person in denial because life is just too horrible to face, the Gap has simply decided to pretend it's 1993 again and everything on the horizon is sunny. Kuwait is free, Kurt Cobain is making great tunes, seven strangers are picked to live in a house and do something besides drink in a hot tub, and - in the forefront of the national consciousness - a young Kate enters 8th grade after getting a drastic haircut.

And anyone who's anyone is rocking the plaid. Get your plaid dress today!

Quick question

Which one is a guy on Match and which one is Robbie Rotten, the villain of the Swedish children's show LazyTown? I can't tell either.

Women camp out for CBS’s Early Show

NEW YORK – After driving over 1,700 miles from their home in Boulder, Colo., Vicki Carter, Nancy Snodgrass and Rachel Brown spent Sunday night camped out on 59th Street to ensure they didn’t miss a moment of CBS’s The Early Show.

“We knew it would be worth it, because whatever happens on The Early Show is always buzzed about the next day,” Snodgrass, 54, said of the perennial also-ran morning program. “Harry (Smith) and Julie (Chen? Chan? Nobody even cares.) have that kind of chemistry can’t be manufactured.”

While The Today Show and Good Morning America regularly have devotees lining up in the wee morning hours for a spot on their favorite show, The Early Show generally sends interns and junior-level producers to recruit audience members. But don’t tell that to these best friends and self-described “Early Show Heads”.

“You’ve got breaking news, interviews with top celebrities, plus they always somehow get the first interview with (CBS’s) Survivor castoffs,” said Brown. “I don’t know what a 1 share is but I know great TV.” A share is the percentage of TVs in use at any given time.

Indeed, the ratings-deficient show, which has struggled to second place only twice in the past 30 years – the weeks of January 17, 1977 and December 28, 1998 – has been just as challenged to find live audience members to line the plaza outside the CBS studios next to the Apple Store.

“I was going to get an iPod for my daughter’s graduation, when a woman grabbed my hand and handed me a sign that said, ‘I (heart) Harry’ and forced me to wave it,” said German tourist Hannah Eisenbach. “It was awful. Oh, God, is she gone? Can someone call the German embassy for me?”

But the trio from Colorado has no regrets about their long road trip.

“We sang the theme song, played trivia games and glittered our signs,” said Carter. “The hours just flew by.”

After catching a few hours’ sleep in their tent, the ladies even had an exciting run-in with one of the hosts.

“I thought they were homeless,” admitted Julie Chen, “I called security but they explained to me they were apparently – what’s the word? Fans?”

Now with the addition of so-called fans, the sky’s the limit for the show that airs in the former Captain Kangaroo timeslot. The weather segment recently replaced crayons and a coloring book page with an actual map purchased on eBay. Chen and Smith have yet to be informed the cameras are plugged in, thinking they’re still practicing for their debut. The concept of ratings was recently explained to Smith via hand puppets.

As of press time, Good Morning America refused to make eye contact with the loser program, while The Today Show tripped The Early Show in the cafeteria.

Trifecta?

All righty, I agree, this one is relatively minor, but nevertheless, Merriam-Webster says "counter-culture" isn't a hyphenated word. I hope this continues to be the source for all your nail-biting hyphenation news.

UPDATE: Eh, I think this counts. Partial credit at least:

Rue the day you messed with me, MSNBC.com. Go on, rue it.

UPDATE: YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS! I win.

Frank always hated proper grammar

Can I do it two days in a row? "Anymore" should be two words. Your move, MSNBC headline writer.

Marketing opportunity via gchat

Me: What’s up with it, vanilla face?

Friend: Not much, strawberry face.

Me: If anything, I'm super vanilla face. I’m the color of not just vanilla but soft-serve vanilla. The super bleached-out white stuff.

Friend: Ha. I don’t think so.

Me: It’s true. I’m worshipped as an albino god in some corners of the world.

Friend: Haha.

Me: With cinnamon freckles. I will also accept being called cinnamon face.

Friend: Wow... Ben & Jerry's have got a flavour for you

Me: Yummers. freckle ice cream! It can be a charity one for a skin cancer foundation. They have one for mole awareness too. It has raisins

Friend: If I saw it at my local grocer, I would eat Cinnamon Face

Me: Totally! Who doesn't love mole raisins?

Friend: Cancerous mole raisins at that

Me: Irregular. It just gets tastier and tastier

Friend: Low fat could be benign.

Me: I realized like 70% of my recent blog posts were ice cream related

Friend: Way to go, cinnamon face. Let's get that number up to 90%

I blame Frank

I'm choosing to read this as MSNBC blaming one man in particular. Good work, lil' buddy.

UPDATE: I make things happen, yo! Within seconds of me posting, here's the headline now. Check it:

Sorry about breaking into your home. But thanks for the asparagus.

When my grandmother died last summer, our scattered family gathered to tell her stories and congratulate ourselves for the good fortune of having her genes. Among the many aunts, uncles and cousins (many from the last category drinking from a flask at the wake), I also met a sweet old couple.

They were both adorably gray and pocket-sized, spry and dignified and so smiley. The man had an indeterminate European accent, like Arianna Huffington (or, if you prefer, Rainier Wolfcastle). They were adorable and I just wanted to collect them and put them on a shelf.

We were introduced (I assumed my mom had caught how we were related) and started chatting. Turns out we all lived on the Upper East Side. Now, when I say I live on the Upper East Side, I mean I live in the relative ghetto. A walkup, more bars than small dogs, etc. I keeps it real. They, however, live on the UES you think of, a pre-war building near Central Park with some marble-encased lobby.

They invited me for dinner and I marveled how sophisticated and worldly we were eating organic veggies and making witty puns. The husband literally described some New Yorker cartoon, which was my second most Upper East Side moment ever (just behind having to shut my window because my neighbor was singing opera across the courtyard). Haha, look at me being so fancy! I think.

Then I make the mistake of asking how we’re related. “Your grandfather’s stepbrother George is my cousin,” the man said.

A small bell went off in my head. George? My grandfather didn’t have a stepbrother George.

“George? Your grandfather didn’t have a stepbrother George.” My mom confirmed that night.

“Then who the hell were these people? Who did they think I was?” Had I been a hostage? Was I breaking and entering?

I thought about this story yesterday out of the blue, then I read the obits last night and it turned out the woman’s brother (not George) had died this week. While it's not quite the paranormal stuff my friend and I were talking about that afternoon, it is a weird coincidence.

To this day, almost a year later, I still have no idea whose apartment I was in. They were really nice though.

It's come to my attention I'm maybe not so good at being an adult

Friend (eating ice cream): I can't believe no one can stop me from eating ice cream for dinner if I want. Isn't being a grownup awesome?

Me: I know! Plus, you get to work as much as you want and nobody will stop you!

A snack, with a sidenote apology to the Jews

What’s the deal with airline peanuts Tasti D Lite? (Or as I, and I alone, call it "Tasti D".)

It’s not ice cream or frozen yogurt, or uh, good. No, good is not an adjective I’d use to describe the stuff. Cold. Cold is the word I’d pick. I want it to be like fat-free soft serve, but it’s some sort of whipped chemical “fudge” or “marshmallow” or “raspberry” flavor.

It doesn’t actually matter if it’s good though, because your tongue goes numb from the chemicals long before you’ve finished a cup of it. I don’t know why I keep forgetting this lesson. Like a person with short-term memory issues, when the weather gets warm, I stop by to try one of their 400 rotating flavors only to pitch it halfway through when I start smelling burnt hair and tasting pennies.

As my friend Julie told me around this time last year, “It’s a lesson we all have to learn. It averages out to three tries before you realize it’s always gross.”

(Unrelated: I thought I saw Julie in Midtown the other day, so I pointed at her and said, “Hey! Ju-” before realizing it wasn’t her. So essentially I pointed at some random girl, yelled “Jew” in her face, then retreated into the crowd. I’m still awesome. This might top the baby I used to watch who called juice “ju” and she’d demand it from strangers on the street with her tiny little j’accuse finger pointing at them. Sorry, Jews of the tri-state area.)

I'm sticking to the Mr. Softy truck from now on. It warms my heart in the summer to see businessmen in suits waiting patiently while their cones are dipped in rainbow sprinkles.

Who doesn't want to look like a member of the Johnson administration?

I'm trying to fight it, but it's coming to my attention that I'm the phoniest phoney that ever did phoney: I really, really want a pair of black-rimmed glasses. That's right, I want to kick it Weezer style. Or like a balding member of the Johnson administration cabinet. Or like every damn writer I know. How else are people going to know I write? Uh-huh. Gotcha.

The problem I'm running into is that I can only find the drugstore kind with sight-enhancing glass. Damn this perfect vision of mine! Damn you 20/20! Even I can't see the logic of wearing glasses that make your vision worse.

I think I need to just get a pair of joke disguise glasses and take the moustache off.

Oh really, Denise Richards, is your life complicated? IS IT?!?!?!

So, uh, how was your week last week?

That sounds nice.

Me? Weeeeeeeell, not the best. I like to keep things happy here at Postcards, but last week was truly the week Jesus himself took a crap on me.

It started off with a total and complete betrayal from one of my oldest friends, which ensures we'll never speak again. There was also a small matter with a crane nearly killing me in my sleep.

My sister pointed out that bad things come in threes. I was kinda hoping that the Sex and the City movie being sold out could be my third thing, but no.

My computer, my beloved little refurbished laptop, went to that Genius Bar in the sky.

Steve at the Apple store: Uh...hmmmm...uh-huh.

Me: Oh no! Talk to me Steve; you're just making sounds.

Steve at the Apple store: Um, it's your logic board.

Me: That does not sound promising.

Steve at the Apple store: It's what we like to call a "vintage computer," which means Apple doesn't make the part anymore. So what you'll have to do is go online and research getting the proper logic board for this model, then find a repuitable person to install it prop -

Me: I'm gonna stop you right there, Steve. I'm not going to be doing any of that.

I've never been so happy to see Monday morning come so I could put last week behind me. I usually go by the rule of thumb that the worse you feel the better you should try to look. (I guess so people can say, "What a cute skirt!" instead of, "Why are your eyes all puffed shut?") I looked in my closet and didn't have anything fancy enough to fix my bleak mood.

If I did, I'd be blogging in a prom dress right now.