Let me get some comedy bidness out of the way first.

1.

I'm up at Zanies tonight. 8:30pm (North & Wells). Best of Chicago Showcase. Not sure who all is up tonight except for Renee Gauthier. Should be sweet. Tomorrow night Mike Holmes is up. Come see some good stand-up before they unleash Danny Bonaduce on Friday. Yuck.

2.

TimeOut Chicago has listed its favorite jokes/tastiest rimshots of 2006. My Pamela Anderson joke was amongst 17 the chosen. Ken Barnard, Jared Logan, Becky Garcia, Dave Odd, Tony Sam, Kumail, Robert Buscemi, and Fay Canale were other pals of mine to get in there.

http://www.timeout.com/chicago/Details.do?page=1&xyurl=xyl://TOCWebArticles1/96/comedy/quip_and_save.xml

3. Congrats to T.J. Miller for getting chosen for the HBO Aspen Comedy Festival. T.J. is going to be a big star and he totally deserves it.



Okay...

Here are the three arguments I've had in the past 48 hours.



- Can cats get AIDS?

My co-worker, Kurt, has a family cat which he claimed lost 16 pounds due to "AIDS". I argued that cats cannot get AIDS. I'd heard of monkeys with it, but nothing else. Here's what I found...

Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is like HIV for cats. 2.5% of cats in the U.S. have FIV. Although Kurt claims the cat in question was born with Cat AIDS, most FIV cases are caused by deep bite wounds. Experts disagree as to whether FIV can be spread by casual contact. The virus is also transmitted via mucosal surfaces such as those in the mouth, rectum, and vagina. FIV acts on a cat just like HIV does on a person. Humans cannot get FIV and cats can't get HIV. FIV can infect larger cats like lions, but they don't show any symptoms.

Verdict: I lost. I told Kurt he should be an advocate for Cat AIDS awareness.



- People in the Depression were so poor that they at their own poop.

Over Christmas, my sister was claiming that on one of our school's many field trips to the Herbert Hoover Museum in West Branch Iowa, she saw an exhibit on how people in Belgium were so poor in the Depression that they made "poop cakes" out of their own feces. Soon after, our fiftth grade neighbor girl who had recently been to the museum was talking about how people in the Depression were so poor that people ate "horse poop". And she brought it up UNPROVOKED.

Verdict: I can't find anything to prove this or disprove this. Although you can call the information desk at 319-643-5301.



- George W. Bush is the worst President in U.S. History.

He's not a good President. We all know this. But my contention is that the worst U.S. President is still William H. Harrison.



The guy gives the longest inaugural address in American history. It was 2 hours. Even his pal, Daniel Fucking Webster had it edited down. It was a cold and windy day in 1841. He caught a cold, which developed in to pneumonia and pleurisy. They tried everything - opium and even snakes to make him better. He died a month later. Moron. Plus, he was a Whig.

Verdict: What's worse? Still undecided.