Go Buy Some Postage Stamps

 Are you feeling a bit down right about now? That's okay, lots of people are. One thing you can do is to reach out to others - to your friends and family. I know it is easy to send off a text or email, but try doing this. Get some paper and a pen and write an actual letter. Ask how your friend/family member is doing. Tell them you hope they are fine. Write a bit about what you have been doing lately. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Did you take the dog for a walk and he saw a squirrel? Is there a funny joke you heard? Did you see something in the news that made you smile? (That can happen, usually at the end of the news broadcast.)

Just write a letter and mail it off. If you don't have a stamp, you can get some at your local Post Office, or other places around town. Our grocery store sells stamps and so does our drug store. You can also buy them online at USPS. There is a bit of a cost to mail them to you, but it is quite conveneient. And they have lots of neat designs. You can get some Bugs Bunny stamps, some Fruits and Vegetables stamps, some cool Tyrannosaurus Rex stamps, 1969 First Moon Landing stamps, U.S. Flag stamps and Made of Hearts stamps. Plus lots more.

If you order online, do check the price. Some are sold in booklets, some by the page and some in a coil. There are some coils that have 100 stamps, so that's going to cost you $55.00. However, there are some people that send out a lot of mail and they buy the large coils that set you back $5,500.00! Five thousand dollars!!!!! So just make sure you double check your online order. Ouch. You would have to write a lot of letters if you bought that many stamps.

Could You Do Me A Favor, Though?

Monday, April 13, is my friend's birthday. He lives in Alabama. Is there someone who would be willing to come to my house and pick up a birthday card that I signed and then bring it to his house by Monday? I would be willing to pay you 55 cents.

What? No takers? No one is willing to do this little favor? I said I would pay you 55 cents!

Okay, I am pulling your leg. But my point is - USPS. Our friendly Post Office. They have been getting the short end of the stick for a long time. And now it is looking even worse. Their business is down like everyone else. We really need them to be doing well. They are there for us when we need them most. What would we do if they were not here for us? How would I mail a birthday card to my friend in Alabama. Oh, sure. You say just send an email greeting. But that is so not the way to say Happy Birthday. Send it by some delivery service, one of the big trucks that delivers packages? How much do you think that would cost? Not 55 cents, I guarantee.

I could go on and on. But here's the thing. The Post Office has been there for you. Now you need to be there for them. Buy a page of stamps. You can order them online and have them delivered by.... your letter carrier! Send some real actual letters to your friends. They would love it.

And, let your representatives in Congress know that you want the Post Office to be there for all of us, today and tomorrow.

Now, go write a letter and mail it to someone you love.




1973 Love Stamp

Horatio Magellan Crunch

Stephen gave a touching tribute to his mother, Lorna. She was a special woman. We all can know her just a little bit by looking at Stephen.

But, now on with the show.

There is a scandal that has rocked the country. It couldn't have come at a worse time. Cap'n Crunch claims to be a Captain, but his uniform, more specifically the three stripes at the bottom of his sleeve, indicates he is merely a Commander. Will this cause a boycott of the cereal that he created? I doubt it. Like most scandals, there's not necessarily as much to the story as you might think.

If you Google "Horatio Magellan Crunch" and then look at Images, you will see that not only are there images of him with those three stripes, but also with two stripes and even one stripe. I am confident this is simply a case of photos being used of the Captain that are from a few years earlier when the Captain was more youthful looking. Or, you can go with his explanation that it's the crunch that make the man. His ship is the S.S. Guppy and he's the boss of that, so ipso facto, he's a Captain.

Houses are being flipped again. North Carolinians who don't buy gas for their cars are still going to have to pay a gas tax of sorts. Smoking is down and that means not as much income from cigarette tax and therefore not as much money to fight cancer. So, as is often the case, just when you think you have everything figured out, something happens to completely mess it up.

Last night's guest was The Postal Service. Not this Postal Service, but this Postal Service. After a very lively interview which even included a plug for Toys R Us, not to mention a comparison to the actual Postal Service, they performed "Such Great Heights." And as often happens, there is a bonus song, "A Tattered Line of String," over at Colbert Nation.

Extensive Vocabulary

Do you want to get rich? You know, rich like Stephen Colbert? His strategy is to buy Forever Stamps. You buy them today for one price and then when the price goes up, like it is on January 27 of this year, you can still use the stamps that were the cheaper price. That's a good deal. But the idea of stamps going up in price a penny, one whole cent, made Stephen really mad. No more is he going to put a  46 cent stamp on a letter, mail it in Miami for delivery in Seattle. Nope. He will buy an airplane ticket and deliver all his mail himself. Yikes, for me that would have meant traveling to more than ten states to deliver my Christmas cards. Can I get an airplane ticket for less than 50 cents? Hmmm, I wonder.

Leading right from the cost of mailing a letter vs. delivering it yourself via air travel was Stephen's segment about anger. Someone said that getting angry can make you live longer. A better plan is to just take Vasca-Ternity Pills. Sadly, trying to get the bottle open made Stephen, yep, angry. Another way to stat young is to get a blood transfusion from a young person. Enter Jay the Intern, or rather, the Vacsa-Tern. Poor Jay the Intern.

Stephen's guest for January 8 was Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe. We learned that he is a nice football player in that he often gives the football to the other team. Plus he can flex which impressed Stephen somewhat... Most importantly, we found out about the extensive vocabulary that Chris Kluwe has. He mentioned the election from this past November, Minnesotans defeated an attempt to define marriage in their State Constitution. It seems to me that a Dictionary should define marriage and a Constitution should determine how a state is governed.