We’ve had a lot of fucking rain around here. Almost seven times more than average. Whoa.

Yo. It’s a few minutes past midnight but I haven’t actually decided if I feel like writing a Howdygram post or not. I had a difficult and emotional day on Saturday that turned out to be another sad milestone in the deterioration of my overall health. For instance, Sam and I had to accept that I will no longer be able to get out of bed … not counting occasional use of my portable commode once or twice a week.

Oh my God! Chubby little legs and knee socks!

Hi, guys. First and foremost, please accept my groveling apology for not writing Howdygram posts on Saturday and Sunday but there were other responsibilities around here that had to take priority. These included: 1) dealing with TWO MIGRAINE HEADACHES (not at the same time; I am not A Idiot) and the last thing you can do during a migraine headache is try to be clever and write things; 2) purging considerable crap from our kitchen remodeling hoo-hah and reloading our refaced cabinets and drawers; 3) breaking my new black sit-down bench (details follow); 4) buying a lot of important stuff online; and 5) having a fever on Saturday and getting exceptionally clammy.

Aaron Schock, the hot male nipple-having former congressman from Illinois, has been told to “pay up.”

Yo everybody. It’s 6:29 Sunday morning, Sam is asleep, I wish I had a can of Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli and I THINK I’M STONED. God bless prescription painkillers! I took one at 5 a.m. when I woke up; I’m due for another at 9.

Tweaks, fonts, walker accessories and an overabundance of low-carb pasta rice.

Friday was HOWDYGRAM TWEAK DAY around here, which explains why I was so damn busy achieving a bunch of design updates that I didn’t have time to publish an actual post. My split personality as a Retired Graphic Design Person Who Takes as Lot of Naps popped out a little while ago and pestered me into making a variety of minor and altogether pointless changes to the Howdygram for no reason whatsoever. As illustrated below, these include a new font (Berthold Block Extra Condensed) for the banner, the sidebar titles, the navigation buttons, the copyright block at the bottom of the right column and the Putz of the Week ribbon. (I also increased the size of the post titles by one stinking point. Good luck noticing that one.)

Barry Manilow revealed today that he gay-married his long-time manager in 2014.

I’ve got all kinds of good news for you this afternoon, so let’s get started, okay? I’ll do my popular subtitled paragraph format to help you keep track of what’s what. Thank you.

Today is the first day of the Masters at Augusta National. If you want to come over I have a lemon pound cake.

It’s 7:30 Thursday morning and I regret to report that I think my shitty mystery fever is back. I’ve been shivering for the last hour and a half and my entire body hurts like I was hit by a city bus. I DON’T NEED THIS, PEOPLE. I’m almost afraid to tell Sam. Don’t blab, okay? I’ll take a bunch of pills and see how I feel in a couple of hours.

This might be an excellent moment in time for Tiger Woods to consider a few other career options.

I’m not a multi-tasker and it’s always been really hard for me to do more than one thing at a time. Such as RIGHT NOW, for instance. After Sam went to bed a couple of hours ago I had an overwhelming creative urge to horse around with the Howdygram but also thought it might be a fine time to install the new Epson WorkForce 3640 printer/scanner drivers and utility software on Sam’s iMac, which is practically the same as my iMac except a lot fewer fonts and he’s got crumbs on his keyboard. Also coffee.

Official Meatloaf Day and other meaningful diversions.

Know how to feel better about all the frustrating horseshit in the news? Do what I do. Spend a little time every day on the Royal Family’s website, because these calm, privileged, overdressed people are obviously so out of touch with reality it’s like they got dropped off on Earth from another planet with a lot of outrageous clothes. Check out the following pictures, okay? I especially love the geezers in tricorns and red dresses at the Founder’s Day lineup and the fancy velvet whatnots (with tassles!) and fluffy hats at the Order of the Garter hoo-hah. As for the Yeomen of the Guard, what can one say about a flotilla of men in red tights and 14th century ruffles? In service as the Queen’s bodyguards, they pretend to search the cellar ahead of the State Opening of Parliament every year, a solemn and recurring ritual that harkens back to the famous Gunpowder Plot of 1605 when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament. Seriously.

A list of exciting free crap you can do this weekend in Dallas/Fort Worth.

Holy crap, people, I just discovered the plug-in of a lifetime: Ad-Block Plus for my Firefox browser. At last, I’m not seeing any more POP-UP CRAP or BLINKING MESSAGES or IRRITATING ROLLOVER ADS ... even on YouTube videos! I’m sure Ad-Block Plus has been around for a long time and I’m a few years late to the party, but what the hell. I love this thing! And when Sam gets home from California we’ll install it on his Mac, too.