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[Note: This is late, but still somewhat amusing.  Remember to 
submit topical humor to topical@clarinet.com for priority
processing.  --Ed.]

Starlog 11 August 1993
Report on Perseids Comet shower from the U.S. Eastern Seaboard

The Smith/Tuttle meteor cut acrossed the earths trajectory recently,
which many speculated would leave lots of space floatsam around for
the world to go careening into, ultimately providing a "meteor shower"
and a solid alternative to network programming.  This caused a major
opportunity for the government, who are desparately trying to show
President Bill in a good light; the Nielson people were supposed to
ask the question "Would you rather have the governement run by Bill
and Hilary or a couple cans of Spam?"  Most intellegent people would
be out of doors somewhere looking at the meteors and so theoretically
the remaining folks would give the correct anwer.

We decided to travel to one of the best star gazing places around -
our deck out back.  Living in a forest like we do, we have very little
light pollution in our back yard.  Heck, 50 bazillion mosquitoes love
it there and hold annual conventions all the time...although we have
noticed a marked decrease since the infamous "tail-bite" scandal a few
weeks ago.

A couple of the neighbors came over, we layed blankets around for
people to lay on, and got out our star gazing equipment: Malted Milk
Balls.  Many people make the mistake of underestimating Malted Milk
Balls in stargazing and meteor gazing and other-worldly stuff, but not
in our family!  We try to keep a supply around for various special
events, natural disasters, and going onto to deck to watch Perseids
meteor storms.

It was finally dark enough to see the stars around 9:00pm, at which
time we all lay back and watched: the clouds.  Yes, the clouds moved
in and pretty muched blocked the view of the sky.  Suddenly, we had a
great shooting star that you could see through the thinnest parts of
the clouds!  It was huge and left a large firey wake behind it,
generally illuminating the sky.  EXCELLENT!  The show had begun!  We
sat back for more.

About a half hour later my wife & others of the female persuasion
decided it was time to make "Orange Julius's," another critical
stargazing acrument.  Great idea!  But they turned on the Kitchen
lights, soliciting complaints from the deck population who still were
trying to see the sky, intently watching the clouds.  Every once in a
while a hole would appear where the clouds broke up and everyone would
hold their breath and see: stars.  Then, we would go back to our usual
scientific observation of celestial bodies: "Oh, look kids, that one
looks like a ducky!"

After another hour those of on the deck decided to go looking for our
Orange Julius's, which our wives were still making.  This is one of
the fundamental differences between men and women.  Making things in
the kitchen for a group of women is generally a social event, and if
something useful happens to pop out it's just luck.  It's probably
fattening anyways so who needs it.  Men on the other hand go into the
kitchen with two things on their minds: food and leaving large
handprints on the freshly-polished refrigerator.  "Food" to a man is
only found in two places: on the table, and in the refrigerator.
Anything in the refrigerator is food: coldcuts, soy sauce, beer,
fishing bait, whatever.  Things in cupboards are not generally food,
but food additives: seasonings, soups, Malted Milk Balls, napkins,
phone books, etc.

This is important to know because about this time I got a call from
the Nielson ratings people with the now well known question, to which
I replied a couple of cans of Spam.  

"Why aren't you out watching the meteor shower?" asked the pollster.

"Too much cloud cover to see anything, so we came back in," I replied.

"Well, that certainly explains our ratings in New England.  Tell me,
how can you justify food over Bill and Hilary?"

"Spam's not food."

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