Congressional Franken Privilege

"Your honor, I'd like to present exhibits A and B!"

The roulette wheel of celebrity hanky-panky has clattered to a stop again, and this time the silver ball has landed on Senator Al Franken, who is accused of asking a woman to kiss while rehearsing a comedy skit, but then sticking his tongue down her throat without having received written permission to do so.

Later, while she was sleeping on an Air Force transport plane, a picture of Franken was snapped in which he appeared to be gleefully groping her breasts - or at least, as close as you can get to groping someone who is wearing a heavy flak jacket.

So, did Al act like a jerk with sophomoric humor? Clearly. Did he violate his victim to the extent that he should be thrown out of the Senate? No - although there are plenty of GOOD reasons to toss him into the street.

We're tired of this played-out round of celebrity "gotcha" which is (quite deliberately) distracting from real news. When the crimes are real and substantiated, there should absolutely be appropriate punishment. But until assholery itself becomes a crime, it's time for the media to let go of their current obsession with this particular genre of shiny object.

That being said, as long as we've already done the Photoshop work on Al, we thought we'd have some more fun. See, we like sophomoric humor too!

BONUS: REMODEL CITIZENS

A few folks have asked about the current state of our remodeling, and Friday seems as good a time as any for an update. Mostly because we can then drink all we want without worrying about messing up a work day.

Here is our splendid, all new Kitchen...

We cleverly went with an all white and brushed stainless steel look so, in the eventuality that we're murdered in our sleep, the police will find scads of fingerprints in here. Seriously, this is all quite pretty and we're already sorta kinda using some of the baffling new appliances in extremely cautious ways.

Follow us now to our elegant Living Room...

Notice the exquisite (and expensive) wood-look porcelain tiles, which now extend through virtually the entire house. Notice, too, that there's almost no real furniture in there because we gave most of it away. And that odd little rug is actually an indoor/outdoor mat which is sitting there for no particular reason other than to make any Islamic guests feel comfortable at prayer time.

Meanwhile, we're more than ready to entertain in our sumptuous new Dining Room...

Whether you desire a box lunch or a table for two, we're ready to handle anything - including a pre-wash cycle for your dirty dishes courtesy of Penny, the official dog of Hope n' Change, who has officially regained her full measure of piss and vinegar.

Notice the newly painted walls, and the "living color" which changes before your eyes - depending on the light and time of day - from a warm beige to vanilla ice cream, then to milky cantaloupe with occasional suggestions of actual human skin. The color is technically a neutral, meaning it can't engage in political arguments.

And how about this stunning Breakfast Nook...?

Okay, technically the only one having breakfast in here is Penny, whose bowls perfectly accent that same expensive porcelain wood-look tile. We used to have a table, chairs, and hutch in this spot - but we gave them away to starving orphans before starting the remodeling, because that's just the kind of people we are.

Still, this spot will give us a great view of our well-sculpted (and intimately sized) back yard, as well as panoramic vistas of the famous scenery of North Texas. Which, in other states, they call "clouds."

And after a long day of living in luxury, what could be better than a Cozy Bedroom...

You know what's great for a good night's sleep? Stretching out on expensive porcelain wood-look tiles with an old sofa pillow under your head! Not tired yet? Then enjoy sorting through multiple boxes of Wires from Hell!

Anyway, you get the drift. We've now got walls and floors (and working kitchen and bathrooms) but haven't made much progress on finding new furniture, getting plantation shutters for the windows (those aren't racist, are they?), and squaring away all of the mess that is still sitting around in boxes.

As we've mentioned previously, our process (not to be confused with Mrs J's process) for sorting junk from treasures is less than perfect. Today we went through a box of knick-knacks, geegaws, and oddities and found a small box claiming to contain a pocket sized HD video camera. "Wow," we said to ourselves, "this is hopelessly outdated, we never used it, and could never conceive of a use for it." And then we gave it to Goodwill - right? Wrong! Because first we had to check to see if it worked (it's just wrong to give broken electronics to starving orphans) and secondly we had to check to make sure it didn't contain any videos of our coven dancing naked around a bonfire. BUT...the camera's internal battery was dead, so we had to find a USB port somewhere to plug it in so we could try it later in order to determine whether it was A) Trash, B) the only Christmas present some orphan will get this year, or C) incriminating evidence. And the camera is STILL charging, so we didn't exactly get a motherlode of clutter taken care of today.

We did, however, actually visit a furniture store today and found ourselves simultaneously over-and-underwhelmed. For one thing, we wanted to find a replacement for the kitchen hutch we gave away, and were informed that no one makes kitchen hutch's anymore. Next we'll be told that we're out of luck replacing our pie cooler and the ice box.

So our next big adventure will be joining forces with a design consultant to help us populate our renovated home with eye-catching, functional furniture and bold, trendsetting objet d'art.

We plan to begin with a giant wheel of Jarlsberg cheese on the living room wall.