Embrace painless breakups

A note to all sportscasters. You can now go ahead and stop using the phrase “Are you kidding me?” That one, used to convey delight and surprise at a feat of excellence, is pretty doggone toasty. So is “My goodness” and “Goodness gracious.” How about an update? What the hell. Something more current and a little less square, for crying out loud (yet another toasty cliche that has no meaning in the 21st century)? Maybe O-M-G, for starters. Yes, that's rapidly wearing out, too, but when compared to “Goodness gracious,” it is, amazingly enough, an improvement! Frank Zappa liked to say, “Great googly moogly!” That'd work. And that one now has a bonus of modernity, with that google bit. Frank, of course, came up with his way phrase before Google showed up.

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You see these reports from all these wank bloggers and the like about how gauche and tacky and chicken poop it is for modern people to end relationships via text or email, that this is just bad form and you should never do it and so forth. Well, hey, what's the big deal here? What's wrong with sending your soon-to-be-ex an email or text saying, “We're done”? It's easy, it's convenient, and what the heck—you don't care about this person any more anyway. So what do you care if he/she thinks you're a no class, no 'count slimeball? Bottom line—you don't care! Right? And jeez, look at the considerable upside. You avoid a messy, uncomfortable conversation riddled with awkweirdness. You avoid a bunch of tempermental accusations about past misconduct. You avoid all kinds of lame-ass questions about “So who are you doin'?” You avoid getting shit thrown at you. You avoid being threatened with lawsuits and extorted. All in all, you avoid what is generally a bad scene. Yes, it's obvious there are great reasons to break up via text, and let's stop beating up on those who adopt this most modern of exit strategies. Hey, look, now that you're bailing out, you are indeed a slimeball. Might as well act the part!

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OK, so the brilliant Stephen Colbert is gonna make his move to prime time. I can't say I blame him. He said recently that after playing a role for the last 10 years—his show on Comedy Central came on in '05—he's kinda ready to, you know, be himself. Go get 'em, dude. There's little doubt that the real Stephen will be just as entertaining as the faux bloviator Stephen. I just hope CBS lightens up a little on the censorship stuff and gives him a bit of room to stretch out. Steve was always at his best when he was doing stuff like offering Donald Trump $10,000 to bite his own nutsack. Colbert has eight more months on CC. He'll be gone and prepping for CBS as of Jan. 1, 2015.