Three huge news stories featuring skanks, food and weather.

Yo from Texas. I’ve got THREE HUGE NEWS STORIES to share with y’all today, so grab yourself a Marcytini and a couple of sugar-free Russell Stover marshmallow Santas and get comfortable!

Fine dining and wholesome family entertainment are the hallmark of Howdygram headquarters.

Know what? Lots and lots of REALLY EXCITING CRAP is happening around here this week! To prevent an outbreak of general hysteria maybe I’d better organize my thoughts into neatly-subtitled paragraphs for your reading pleasure.

If you bet on Texas to contain Ebola, you’ll lose. Rick Perry is as dumb as a box of rocks.

Color me shocked: WE ACTUALLY GOT THOSE BIG-ASS THUNDERSTORMS predicted by Weather.com! They started to blow through here around 5 p.m. with violently strong circular winds, sheets of heavy rain and plenty of noise and lightning. Mesquite survived unscathed except for two brief power outages; areas west of us — such as Arlington near Cowboys Stadium and snooty Highland Park — had considerable damage and about 250,000 residents are still without power. A couple of photos appear below in case you need to see this for yourself.

I’ve discovered the perfect, squeak-free pre-popped popcorn.

The lying sacks of poo at Weather.com are forecasting thunderstorms today for the drought-ravaged Dallas metro area. We haven’t had any rain here since two days of really pathetic sprinkles back in mid-September that brought the month’s total rainfall to barely half an inch. That’s 2.5 inches below “normal.” We’re screwed. WE NEED RAIN AND WE NEED IT IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE CATTLE CAN’T DRINK DUST. The big hoo-hah is supposed to start around 4 with “severe storms” and “locally heavy rainfall.” (I’ll believe it when I see it.)

Pleasant and productive activities.

Hi, guys! I’ve had a pleasant and productive day that’s included all of the following pleasant and productive activities so far. There is always a possibility that additional pleasant and productive activities may be added later but we won’t worry too much about that now. Thank you.

The Howdygram would like to extend its best wishes to the vibrating residents of Napa Valley, California.

And now for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. It’s 4:15 a.m., I just woke up for no reason at all AND I FEEL TERRIFIC. As a matter of fact, I’ve been feeling terrific for the last several days and I can attribute my good fortune to the following: 1) I’m taking Naproxen twice a day; and 2) the month-long plantar fasciitis flare-up in my left heel is history. As a result, for the first time in maybe three years I’M COMPLETELY PAIN-FREE. It’s a life-changer.

Welcome to the decadent life of a housebound senior citizen.

Even though you might think it’s not much fun being a stay-at-home retired senior citizen with shitty knees and feet, most of the time you’d be REALLY WRONG. My life at Howdygram headquarters includes a wide variety of interesting activities and decadent perks, which I’ll outline for you below in subtitled paragraphs.

My shitload of exciting Tuesday news bulletins plus a “Real Housewives of New Jersey” recap.

It’s Tuesday and I’ve got a shitload of exciting news bulletins to share with you. So many, in fact, that I almost don’t know where to start!

Canned bacon and some Sunday night TV recommendations.

As I prepare for a Sunday nap-a-thon that’s scheduled to begin within the next half-hour I thought I’d include this addendum to yesterday’s post about the joys of canned meat for senior citizens. Today’s happy Internet discovery is Pleasant Hill Grain, where a person can buy the same kind of products I recently found at Brinkman Farms — canned turkey! canned chicken! canned ground beef! — plus the added hysteria of real canned bacon. Yes, friends, I’m serious: PLEASANT HILL GRAIN SELLS BACON IN A CAN, and it’s cooked, ready to eat and costs only $13.49 for 52 slices rolled up in paper! Sam and I almost never eat bacon but I think we might have to give this exciting product a shot.