Monologue | Wednesday night on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” on NBC: Police in Cairo have detained an American man who arrived on a flight from J.F.K. with two handguns, 250 bullets, swords, daggers and knives in his luggage. When they heard this, J.F.K. screeners were like, “Sure he had all these things, but here’s what he didn’t have — bottled water or nail clippers.” Read more…

Monologue | Monday night on “The Late Show With David Letterman” on CBS: The State Department now has warned against travel to the tribal regions of Pakistan. There goes my summer vacation. Read more…

Cajun-Style Night Fishing

(Sent by Roy Wilson)

COLUMN: Trivial Fulfillment Is an Oxymoron

By Tobin Barnes
No one could ever count to a trillion. A human’s life span isn’t long enough.
  
I learned that from a free application called “Awesome Facts” that I have on my iPod Touch. Applications are little specific programs you can download to smart phones, iPods, and iPads.
  
I talked about the new iPad last time. Through intricate and somewhat disturbingly convoluted reasoning, I said iPads are first going to make humanity obese and then later make us into nothing but brains without bodies.
  
My arguments almost made sense.
  
Nevertheless, I suppose I’ll be getting an iPad or one of its derivatives someday. That technology is the future. But I’m in no hurry. And that has nothing to do with my fears of becoming fat or turning into a bodiless brain, although either would give anyone pause about welcoming the “brave new world.”
  
No, I’m in no hurry because I already have an iPod Touch, and from everything I’ve learned, the iPad is mostly just a bigger iPod Touch: same touch technology, same Internet access, and same music and reading potential, as well as many of the same types of applications, only everything’s bigger.
  
No doubt, bigger can be better, but I’ll wait for the second or third generation improvements and meanwhile put up with the much smaller screen on my iPod.
  
So I’m familiar with the technology and the applications, and I’m a big fan despite what it most certainly means for the future of humanity. Heck, I’m already brainier.
  
I probably wouldn’t have ever run into that stuff about counting to a trillion without my “Awesome Facts” application. It’s neat.
  
All I have to do is “touch” the application and up comes an awesome fact...and I mean awesome! That may not turn a lot of people on, but admittedly, an awesome fact can give me a little bit of a rush, kinda like an ice cream freeze.
  
If you know anything about me, you know I’m a trivia nut—not that it’s ever done anything for me other than to remind others of my strikingly nerdy similarity to Cliff Clavin.
  
And my only justification for such indulgence might be a paraphrase of the Rolling Stones: “It’s only trivia, but I like it.”
  
Actually, trivia in many ways is just knowledge that other people think is unimportant, but we trivia buffs know better.
  
For example, “Awesome Facts” told me that “One in ten Americans don’t know that the Sun is a star.” Now some dumb clucks think knowing the sun is a star is trivia, but we know it’s essential knowledge, right? And furthermore, knowing that one in ten Americans is a dumb cluck gives me a little jolt of “Hey, I’m not a dumb cluck!”
  
Now here’s another awesome fact:  “Technically speaking, crystal glass is actually a liquid that flows very slowly”—so slowly that you won’t notice it in your lifetime. Now that’s a slow flow.
  
Yeah, stuff like that just gets my motor running. Wow.
  
And sometimes I run into an awesome fact that confirms what I suspected before, and that, too, can be gratifying.
  
For example, “It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.”
  
With that, I now know that one of my old man’s stories is true. He used to tell me about the time he and some friends led a cow up to the top of this wooden tower. It was meant to be a prank. The tower, which no longer exists, was on the college campus of my hometown.
  
Sure enough, they couldn’t get the cow back down the steps. They had to kill it up on that tower and butcher it there. Yeah, pretty much of a mess.
  
Admittedly, I was often unsure whether my dad’s stories were true.
  
Trivia has finally given me closure.

Monologue | Thursday night on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on ABC: Hey, it turns out the prime suspect in the failed attempt to bomb Times Square is not the brightest. They figured out the events leading up to Saturday. First, Faisal Shahzad buys an S.U.V. off Craigslist, using a traceable email, and fills it with, basically, wedding sparklers. Then he drives two different cars into New York — the one with the bomb in it and a getaway car. He plants the bomb but leaves the keys to the getaway car in the car with the bomb in it. So he has to take the subway home. And then, once he gets home, he realizes he also left the key to his apartment in the SUV with the bomb in it, and has to get his landlord to let him in. If this isn’t the work of a stoner, I don’t know what is. Read more…

Monologue | Thursday night on “The Late Show With David Letterman” on CBS: How about that Times Square bomber? Now, I’m no genius, but this guy left his house keys in the bomb car. It was the one flaw in an otherwise perfect crime. Read more…

Rox: "My Baby Left Me"

A lot of great traditions mixed up in here. I think you're going to like this:

COLUMN: Things Are Bound to Get Chubbier

By Tobin Barnes
I’ve been turning things over in my mind lately—uh huh, trying to think.
   
It’s oftentimes painful.
   
But unlike turning over garden soil in the spring so it’s less compacted and ready for planting, turning things over in my mind doesn’t accomplish much other than inspiring me to turn things over again.
   
That’s right. My mind has become a recycled compost heap.
   
Nevertheless, things have occurred to me, though admittedly of dubious value.
   
For example, I recently turned over the idea that human beings are going to be blobs some day. And, heck, it seems more than likely since we are already halfway there. But now that they’ve come out with the Apple iPad, it’s pretty much a done deal.
   
Blobdom is now cemented into our future kinda like the cornerstone of a new Chucky Cheese franchise.
   
Heck, you’ve got to know that touch computer technology is the way things are going. That’s right, touch. It’s not even press or pull, which would indicate some little effort. You just touch the screen. You can’t even call it contact.
   
We’re not going to get exercise sitting upright, moving a mouse, and tapping keys anymore. And already for some that was the extent of their aerobic exercise—that is, except perhaps for moving a hand down to food and drink and then moving it back to mouth.
   
Now with the iPad and its ilk and kith and kin that will soon be barraging us in infinite product lines, all we will have to do is touch what we want. And even if we touch one thousand desires a day—music, videos, friends, reports, etcetera—what’s that, about ten calories?
   
After all, you can use an iPad in nearly any muscleless position of relaxation you can think of, including totally bean bagged in bed in a state of effortless suspension.
   
Gees, maybe even touch will be outmoded. It will merely be a matter of looking at icons and stuff will pop up on a screen. How many calories a day do you think it takes to run your eyeballs?
   
Of course, we won’t ever have to type anything again; instead, we’ll just input stuff by saying it, like we’re in Star Trek. That technology is already well on its way.
   
Speaking of Star Trek, I remember one old classic episode where the people of a planet had evolved into nothing but brains in these things like glass terrariums. They just thought and their desires were fulfilled through brainwaves.
   
It threw Captain Kirk for a loop. Couldn’t even shake hands with these guys, let alone exchange cigars.
   
Maybe that’s going to be us some day—pickled brains in bottles sitting in carrot juice.
   
But first, I think humans are inevitably going to go through a blob phase to get there. Our bodies will become slack, pudgy, useless appendages that we’ll eventually decide to discard.
   
Fat bodies, after all, just divert energy from enriching brain cells.
   
Yeah, so I’ve been turning this compost heap over and over in my mind, and I think that’s where we’re headed.
   
We’ll all just be brains with no need for lipstick or even styling mousse.
   
That’s right. Mark it down.
   
It all began with the iPad.
   

Monologue | Thursday night on “The Late Show With David Letterman” on CBS: There’s a show on CBS called “The Mentalist.” It’s about a detective with heightened powers of observation. Let me give you an example of how good this guy is. This guy is so good, he can tell the difference between a Goldman Sachs executive that is a lying crook and a Goldman Sachs executive that’s a lying weasel. He’s that good. Read more…

Monologue | Thursday night on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” on NBC: Rielle Hunter appeared on “Oprah” to discuss her love affair with John Edwards. Not to be outdone, next week, John Edwards is appearing to discuss his love affair with John Edwards. Read more…