Top five easy last-minute Halloween costumes:

Forgot to get a Halloween costume? Not to worry -- here are some ideas for costumes you can easily throw together from stuff lying around the house:

5. A blue blazer, distracted expression and your laptop: You’re a Northwest pilot.

4. A couple of teabags, an unintentionally funny, misspelled sign and an attitude of aggrieved ignorance: You’re a teabagger birther deather patriot.

3. A couple of teabagger-supporting stories, an unintentionally funny, misspelled graphic and an attitude of aggrieved ignorance: You’re a psychotic ranter FOX “journalist.”

2. A pin-striped suit, bucket full of money and an attitude of shameless greed: You’re a Wall Street bailout baron.

1. Take off your levis and show off your johnston: You’re Levi Johnston.

More Tales of the Clueless

Over the years Dean has become reluctant to show his co-workers how to do much of anything on their computers, for several reasons. It takes ages to get them to grasp simple concepts, they don’t want to do anything differently from the way they’ve always done it, and rather than actually learn anything, they tend to keep asking Dean to “come and do that for me again.”

Their news guy gets a daily feed from the AP that includes news from the entire region. He wants only the local stories, but he prints the whole feed – pages and pages of it – then takes a pair of scissors, cuts out the few stories he wants, and tapes them together.

Dean finally couldn’t take it any more and braved showing him how to select the text he wanted, copy it to the clipboard and paste it into Notepad. It took most of the afternoon ("What do you mean, highlight it? What's a clipboard? What do you mean, launch Notepad? What's Notepad?") but he was willing to make the heroic effort to save this idiot from deforesting northwestern Montana.

So the next morning, news guy is saving several trees with his new mad copy/paste skillz, right? Umm, sort of. He called Dean over, pointed to the stories on the screen and said, “Okay, I want this one, that one, that one and that one.” Then stood back and expected Dean to do the copy/pasting for him.

Dean: “I showed you how to do that so you could do it yourself.”

News guy: “Yeah, but it’s easier for me to have you do it.”

Dean said, “I’m sure it is,” hit “print” to send the entire regional feed to the printer, as the guy usually did every morning, and walked away.

News guy: “Hey! You’re wasting all that paper!”

Tales of the Clueless

Dean’s co-workers are incredibly clueless about computers in general and the internet in particular. One day Dean cut an ad for a local restaurant and the salesperson wanted him to e-mail it to the client. He left this e-mail address on the production form: RestaurantName.com. So Dean asked the salesperson for the whole e-mail address.

Salesperson: “That’s the address, right there. RestaurantName.com.”

Dean: “That’s just their website. I need the whole address.”

Salesperson: “Just send it to that address.”

Dean: “I can’t. That’s not an address.”

Salesperson: “I don’t know why you won’t send it to that address.”

Dean: "This isn’t an address. It doesn’t have the first part. You know, the ‘someone@’ part.”

Salesperson: “I don’t know about any someone-at part. Just send it to this address.”

Round and round they went. Dean finally asked the salesperson, “Okay, what’s your e-mail address?”

Salesperson: “CompanyName.com.”

Dean: “No, that’s just the domain. Your e-mail address has the ‘someone@’ part in front of it.”

Salesperson: “Huh? I don’t know what you mean. That’s my e-mail address.”

This salesperson had been complaining lately that he wasn’t getting things he had asked people to e-mail him. No doubt because he’s been giving his e-mail address as just “CompanyName.com.”

Dean gave up, went to the restaurant’s website, checked the “contact us” section, found an e-mail address that he recognized as the owner’s nickname, and sent him the spot.

He then made a heroic effort to explain to the salesperson that his e-mail address was actually FirstName@CompanyName.com. To no avail. The salesperson was having none of this silly ‘someone-at’ business. He’s still giving out his e-mail address as CompanyName.com. And still complaining that he’s not getting his e-mail.

Summer, meet winter.

This is one of my petunias this morning.



Summer, meet winter. So much for fall.

Just how crappy is the weather here today?

5. We put a keg of brandy around Woody’s neck. It’s not for rescuing anyone. We’re just too lazy to keep walking to the liquor cabinet.

4. I’m getting all nostalgic for those balmy North Dakota winters.

3. Senator Max Baucus’ local office has switched over to its usual winter heat source: burning bales of insurance lobbyist money.

2. Glenn Beck is claiming the weather system is illegitimate unless Old Man Winter can produce a certified birth certificate.

1. Letterman’s busy writing an apology for it.

Roguey Maverick, or Mavericky Rogue?

Is Sarah Palin a roguey maverick, or a mavericky rogue? Then again, “Going Rogue” could be a misspelling and perhaps the book is really full of makeup tips.

Top five alternate titles for Sarah Palin’s book:

5. Russian Dressing: How Foreign Policy Experience Can Get You Some Great Designer Duds

4. Oh, the Things I Know! How to make moose chili, bag a running wolf from a helicopter, and get a great deal on a used snow machine.

3. I don’t have any title ideas right now, but I’ll find some and bring ‘em to ya.

2. The Lyin, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

1. I know I said “five titles,” but I’m quittin’ this list now ‘cause I’m not gonna be some dead fish go-with-the-flow lame duck writer who “finishes” stuff.