8:30 p.m.

• Some more wedded bliss. Peep the following conversation that took place earlier today. You can figure out who is who.

“Do we have any noodles?”

“What kind?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“We got egg noodles in the basement.”

“I wasn’t talking about those.”

“What kind were you talking about?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Those oodles of noodles (which is what she calls those Ramen Noodles.”

“I don’t know.”

Of course, now she’s on a Ramen kick, which means she’s going to go out and buy a shitload of these things. This of course means she’ll get tired of eating them after the second or third bag. This of course means we’ll either have them in our house for the next five years or I’ll be forced to eat these things. Joy.

• OK, so this is funny.

All the world's a stage at some of Minnesota's bars.

 

A new state ban on smoking in restaurants and other nightspots contains an exception for performers in theatrical productions. So some bars are getting around the ban by printing up playbills, encouraging customers to come in costume, and pronouncing them "actors."

 

The customers are playing right along, merrily puffing away—and sometimes speaking in funny accents and doing a little improvisation, too.

 

The state Health Department is threatening to bring the curtain down on these sham productions. But for now, it's on with the show.

 

At The Rock, a hard-rock and heavy-metal bar in suburban St. Paul, the "actors" during "theater night" do little more than sit around, drink, smoke and listen to the earsplitting music.

 

"They're playing themselves before Oct. 1. You know, before there was a smoking ban," owner Brian Bauman explained. Shaping the words in the air with his hands, like a producer envisioning the marquee, he said: "We call the production, `Before the Ban!'"

 

The smoking ban, passed by the Legislature last year, allows actors to light up in character during theatrical performances as long as patrons are notified in advance.

 

About 30 bars in Minnesota have been exploiting the loophole by staging the faux theater productions and pronouncing cigarettes props, according to an anti-smoking group.

 

"It's too bad they didn't put as much effort into protecting their employees from smoking," grumbled Jeanne Weigum, executive director of the Association for Nonsmokers.

 

The Health Department this week vowed to begin cracking down on theater nights with fines of as much as $10,000...

When it comes to this topic, I don’t venture into smoky establishments. However, I feel it should be the employer’s right to decide if their business should be a smoking or non-smoking business. The only exception to this is if the business rents the property and the property owners don’t permit smoking. And I loathe the argument of “Well what about the employees?” Uh, GET ANOTHER JOB. Even in this HORRID BUSH ECONOMY, it’s not that difficult to get a job in the food-service industry. Shouldn’t a prospective employee have the foresight in the interview process to figure out that they might have some stinky outfits at the end of every shift?

• Oh you got to be fucking kidding me.

House lawmakers don't want the cost of television coupon program to catch them by surprise -- or without enough money to ensure millions of Americans can still watch TV after their analog sets flicker out of existence.

 

On Wednesday, they asked for regular updates on the cost of coupon program for converter boxes needed to update older TV sets. People who watch free, over-the-air broadcasts via an antenna on analog sets, will need such devices when the nation switches to an all-digital format in February 2009.

 

Under the $1.5 billion program, the government is issuing two $40 coupons per household to subsidize the cost of the boxes. The boxes are on sale at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co. Inc., Circuit City Stores Inc. and other retailers.

 

Reps. John Dingell, D-Mich., who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Ed Markey, D-Mass., who chairs the Telecommunications and Internet subcommittee, said they want quarterly updates from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Federal Communications Commission on whether additional funds will be needed for that program. Both agencies are involved in the digital TV transition.

 

"Judging from the rate that consumers are applying for coupons, it is unclear whether the funds currently allotted for the converter box coupon program will, in fact, cover all requests," Dingell said in a release. "Quarterly reports from the NTIA and FCC will help us determine whether the program needs additional funding and adjust accordingly—before it's too late."

 

About 2.5 million consumers have ordered more 4.8 million coupons so far since the program started Jan.1.

If you can't save up from now until when this HD switch is to take place, you shouldn't be watching television in the first place. You should be getting a job. Gee, who would imagine that a government handout would cost more than its anticipated sum? I'm shocked, SHOCKED. Good thing our soon-to-be government health care will be free.

• Speaking of free health care, today we got the bill for the procedure Mrs. kkk had for getting the dead fetus out of her. More than $7,000. For a 15-minute operation. The anesthesia bill came out to more than two grand. Our copay? $60. Yeah, that'll make a dent to that bottom line. I can't even imagine how much it would have been if kkk jr. would have lived.