Russell Stover’s new sugar-free Fruit Bites are fucking incredible. (My favorites are orange and blueberry.)

I think I overdid it. Before Sam left for work today he brought in a FedEx delivery from Russell Stover ... six bags of their thrilling brand new sugar-free Fruit Bites. I ordered all three flavors ... Dark Chocolate Orange, Dark Chocolate Blueberry and Dark Chocolate Cranberry. On my God, people, THESE LITTLE THINGS ARE FUCKING INCREDIBLE. The centers are soft and chewy like those dark chocolate orange stick thingies I used to buy from Trader Joe’s, except Russell Stover’s are round and approximately the size of a little gumball. Anyway, Sam left all of the chocolates on my desk, and as soon as I shlepped into the study after a disappointing afternoon nap I ripped open one of each flavor and started to shovel them into my mouth two at a time. It didn’t take long, however — maybe a total of six little chocolates — until I realized if I don’t slow down I’ll definitely upchuck.

Incidentally, Russell Stover used a new kind dark chocolate for these and it’s not as sweet. I LOVE IT. I think bittersweet chocolate is supposed to be exactly that: BITTERSWEET, like the Hershey’s miniatures I used to get as a kid.

Click here to place an order. And if you’re not a senior citizen with diabetes you can also buy them with sugar, thereby allowing you to choose from even more flavors, like caramel, pomegranate and coconut. Plus they’re all 20% off for a limited time. Oy, right?

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Beer-sobbin’ country music legend Merle Haggard, 79, died yesterday — on his actual birthday! — of complications from pneumonia.

Haggard, who started life as a Warren Beatty lookalike and eventually aged into a grizzled old coot (see right), recorded more than three dozen number one country hits in a music career that spanned six decades. He overcame an early life as a juvenile criminal and a prison term in San Quentin to cash in on an “outlaw” image that helped him sell millions of hard-luck records. A few titles included “The Bottle Let Me Down,” “Okie from Muskogee,” “Misery and Gin,” “I Don’t Want to Sober Up Tonight,” “Workin’ Man Blues” and “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink,” the first of which Merle performs (below) in an old twangy video clip from 1968.

The country music industry, of course, is having a collective stroke about Merle’s death. He was Willie Nelson’s best buddy, a pal to Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash, and an authentic icon who was born in a converted railroad boxcar in Oildale, California, to a pair of Okies who fled the dust bowl during the Great Depression. Holy crap, what a story. (I wonder if it’s true.)

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I am dumbfounded to announce A Very Big Billion-Dollar Hoo-Hah in North Texas, our very own “Crystal Lagoon” — similar to the outrageous water attractions in Dubai and Chile that look like Acapulco from the 1960s — to be built on the shore of Lake Ray Hubbard in Rowlett on the site of Elgin Robertson Park at I-30 and Dalrock Road about five miles from Howdygram headquarters. The groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for April 26. The lagoon project will be the size of 10 football fields and include a marina/resort, restaurants, retail stores, an apartment complex, condos and the largest goddamn fountain in Texas. Hysterically excited visitors can go sailing, paddle-boarding and swimming.

What shocks me most about this? Probably that Lake Ray Hubbard is a reservoir and the only water supply for most of the suburbs east of Dallas — such as Mesquite, where Sam and I live — and every time there’s a drought, which is maybe every other year, the goddamn thing evaporates and recedes until all the little boats are sitting in mud and we’re not allowed to wash our cars or water our lawns. Plus, this photo (above) is very idiotic because Lake Ray Hubbard doesn’t have any “surf” and there are no sand beaches. It’s just a big, ordinary, man-made puddle of water that a few million Texans desperately need to flush our beloved toilets. WHY ARE THESE ASSHOLES WASTING MY WATER ON A FANCY-ASS LAGOON AND WHO THE HELL WOULD BUY A CONDO OVERLOOKING A MUD PIT?

The following map denotes: A) Howdygram headquarters; and B) the future site of Rowlett’s ritzy “Mexican Riviera.” God help us.

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Federal authorities have finally apprehended the last armed militia moron associated with occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge earlier this year in Oregon.

Jake Edward Ryan, 27, of Montana, was found sleeping in a stranger’s shed — armed with a loaded handgun and a bunch of knives — after the property owner called 911 on Tuesday. Ryan was dragged into a federal court on Wednesday, where he was indicted for conspiracy to impede officers through intimidation, threats or force, possessing a firearm in a federal facility and degradation of government property. Plus he also was videotaped helping occupier Sean Anderson dig a trench on a sacred Native American archaeological site. It’s a little hard to plead “not guilty” when every stupid illegal thing you did was filmed and posted on YouTube!

Last month a bunch of delusional supporters in Montana threatened another armed standoff if Ryan were arrested and brought up on federal charges. Sure, why not? The last one was such a huge success …

Jake Ryan is the 26th jerk to face charges related to the standoff at the Oregon wildlife refuge. They are all rotting in jail right now, WITHOUT BAIL. Don’t you just love these fine examples of Jesus’ Second Amendment and the fight against government tyranny?

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Sam sent me an email a couple of hours ago to let me know he’ll be stuck at work until 4 a.m. tomorrow — no, that’s not a typo! — until his first-shift counterparts show up for the next 12 hours. They’re all basically babysitting a large herd of high-end clients through their first IPO, an activity that results in very little sleep, no time to pish and a lot of frayed nerves. I will most likely be conked out on the chaise in the family room when Sam finally gets home. I hope he makes enough noise to wake me up so I can visit with him before he goes to bed.

I’m going to design a few greeting cards now for The Howdygram Store. Thank you, as always, for reading this.