Teen prankster bumps into World’s Grumpiest Gun-owner during ill-timed toilet-papering...Rick Tenan goes from 60 to 0 in one second, illustrating Reason #785 to never go hang-gliding…Wallace the pit bull goes on injured reserve for the 11th Annual Purina Incredible Dog Challenge’s Frisbee event after, ahem, eating spatula…Rattlesnake takes up residence in mailbox, provides mailman with all-expenses paid trip to hospital…Police looking for piece-of-garbage thief instead find piece-of-garbage child-sex-predator in actual garbage…”Cheeta” the (illegal) monkey lands owner in jail after being discovered while riding bitch during routine traffic stop…And finally, Mr. Johnson makes unexpected appearance on Survivor, angering the 2 people who still watch Survivor.

Truly trivial observations of the week:

John McCain and Sarah Palin, as well as their more conservative supporters (otherwise known as lunatics), have been telling me recently that Barack Obama is a terrorist because his name sounds like “Osama.” (Cue audio track: crickets, crickets, and more crickets…)

The same people are telling me that, because he wants to raise taxes on 5% of Americans and cut taxes for the remaining 95% so there is some balance between who pays the collective bills around here, he is somehow a Socialist. While The Cupcake normally tries to avoid tactless statements like “I doubt Sarah Palin could clearly articulate what Socialism is even if she had a political science textbook in front of her”, I have to say, I doubt Sarah Palin could clearly articulate what Socialism is even if she had a political science textbook in front of her.

Let's get some things straight about Obama: He is not a terrorist. He is not a Muslim. He is not a Socialist. He is not a radical. He is not related to Saddam. If you make less than $250,000 a year, he is not going to raise your taxes. He is not part of the Rebel Alliance. He is not radioactive. He is not the 16th "Named" storm of the 2008 Hurricane Season. He is not a fugitive from the planet Krypton. He is not a Pod. He is not going to run America into the ground (unlike some people I can immediately think of).

Moving on...

The Cupcake is very bummed out about Paul Newman. There aren’t enough people like him in the world. Salad dressing. Race cars. Philanthropy. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Cool Hand Luke. The Hustler. The Color of Money. Vanity Fair published this brilliant article just before Newman passed.

Speaking of disappointment...

Whenever I visit downtown Decatur, GA, it boggles my mind that people go there to burn life’s most precious commodity; time. Other than the killer Nathalie’s Fish House and the truly remarkable Café Lily, Decatur is quite the void: lots of middle-aged yuppies that take themselves way too seriously (think “Stuff White People Like”), restaurants that take themselves way too seriously, shops that take themselves way too seriously – I swear, even the squirrels look like they take themselves way too seriously. It’s all very superficial and very perplexing.

By the way...

Ignoring the obvious election sketches, is it my imagination or is Saturday Night Live on the ascent recently? That Andy Samberg-Mark Wahlberg thing was ridiculous. And, I can’t even think about MacGruber without laughing my ass off…

You should check out:

The Cupcake just returned from a trip to San Francisco…the music haul was impressive: The Germans clocked in with Cape Fear; a visit to Rasputin’s yielded the used find of 2008 ($5!): The Orb Live ’93 double-disc set – headphones required; underrated Factory Records alums A Certain Ratio represented with double-disc retrospective Early; and the flavor of the month, The Lovetones, were the steal of the trip ($1!!!) with Meditations.