“Ten years I’ve been working in this town, that man never gave my food a good review.” – Psych
Why do skydiving companies get great reviews? Only the survivors rate it.
Every year here at Wilder, Wealthy and Wise, I like to end the year with a look back at how ludicrous and pointless that year was. 2023 is, so far, no different, but there’s still 11 days left for it to either get sillier or for them to indict Trump.
January 3
After 754 days of voting, a bloodletting, and an oath to the grim god Gorto the Nasal, Kevin McCarthy is elected Speaker of the House.
January 9
Joe Biden’s lawyer confirms that Joe had classified documents in his office, garage, closet, and several nuclear codes were stuffed in his Depends™. Biden’s lawyer contends, “It’s okay because he’s not Trump and we couldn’t read the nuclear codes because the ink was urine-soluble.”
January 24
Former VP Mike Pence notes that in a search, he found several classified documents, too, although his were wrapped around 30 pieces of silver. In related news, Pence announced the forming of his new heavy metal group, Judas Pence.
I guess Tom Brady and Robert Kraft both went to Florida for happy endings.
February 1
Tom Brady announces he will stop playing pro football and attempt to become Taylor Swift’s boyfriend or immortal, whichever is easier.
February 3
A train carrying hazardous chemicals derails in East Palestine, Ohio, causing mass evacuations and still not quantified environmental damage. As no Palestinians or Israelis were involved, it was quickly forgotten. Biden quickly uses the event to request more aid for Ukraine. BUT DON’T WORRY ABOUT OHIO – LOOK! – THERE’S A CHINESE SPY BALLOON!!!!!!
February 20
President Biden makes a surprised visit to Kiev. What makes it a surprise is that Biden thought he was just going out to get ice cream, Jack.
February 22
The “Three-Day Special Military Operation” in Ukraine enters day 730. Putin has since renamed it to “Special Military Operation Anniversary Tour.”
March 10
The FDIC announces that Silicon Valley Bank has been closed. Thousands of starlets awaiting surgery sigh in relief when they find out that Silicone Valley Bank is still open.
You didn’t think I’d pass that one up, did you?
March 10
Xi Jinping is re-elected president in China with a vote declared “fair and free” by the Democratic Party of the United States. “No evidence of anything wrong here, it looks like China has successfully defended their democracy, especially since Donald Trump wasn’t elected.”
March 15
The French raise the retirement age from 31 to 32 years of age. There are riots. The French surrender.
March 30
Trump Indicted on charges of “being Donald Trump”. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”
April 4
Finland joins NATO, adding a +5 to the autism level of NATO.
April 24
Tucker Carlson is fired from Fox News™, since firing your most popular host and one of the most popular people on television for no particular reason is what networks do all the time.
Mayonnaise may be trying to kill me. At least that’s what Tucker’s sauces say.
April 25
Joe Biden formally announces he is Joe Biden, and will win the presidency in 2024 so he can “take over and build from the wreckage that the current president created, Jack.”
May 2
The Writers’ Guild of America goes on strike against Hollywood. They are nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize™ for stopping their crusade against good movies and humanity.
May 6
King Charles crowned. Meghan Markle immediately rushes the camera and notes that she’s not king because she’s black and that’s why people don’t like her.
Meghan Markle – the first woman to turn a prince into a frog.
May 9
Trump is found liable for sexually abusing a really unattractive female in the very plausible and not at all made up story about him pulling her into a dressing room in a crowded luxury department store because that’s where billionaires commit sexual assault against homely women. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”
June 8
Trump again indicted on charges that he is, indeed, still Donald J. Trump despite Leftists wanting him to not be Donald J. Trump. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”
June 18
The search begins for the submarine that had been taking people to go to see the wreckage of the H.M.S. Titanic in person. Critics say the submarine name, “U.S.S. Turning Millionaires Into Something With The Consistency of Library Paste” was probably not to blame.
June 23
The Wagner Group begins a march on Moscow, despite it being June and Prigozhin not having reservations. The march ends when Prigozhin is given several gift cards and a Happy Meal™ with a Transformers© toy.
June 29
The Supreme Court rules that colleges and universities can no longer discriminate against people based on their skin color. Harvard™ and Yale© announce an immediate initiative to bring in hair texture and tendency not to sunburn as a specific reason for admission.
I guess a guy in a wheelchair could be a sit-down comedian?
July 27
Hunter Biden’s plea deal sentencing the United States government to give Hunter Biden an apology and $23,000,000 for inconveniencing Hunter by stopping him from snorting coke off of hookers while taking naked pictures of himself falls through when OMIGOSH! ALIEN HEARING IN CONGRESS! IGNORE HUNTER! ALIENS! IT’S REAL I TELL YOU!
August 1
Trump again indicted on charges that, despite being warned, he is still Donald J. Trump. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”
August 8
Hawaii wildfires break out, and Joe Biden immediately announces more funding for Ukraine to the tune of “a gazillion trillion”. For residents of Hawaii, Biden promises a “buy one get one free” coupon to Subway™.
August 14
Trump again indicted on charges that, he is “still breathing and stuff.” Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”
August 23
Wagner Group leader Prigozhin is killed in a totally accidental and coincidental plane crash. Shards of shrapnel from a Transformers™ Happy Meals© toy are suspected to have caused the malfunction.
Is Prigozhin really the only one who didn’t see this coming?
September 14
Queen Elizabeth II is still dead. Meghan Markle announces that she has assumed a new form, Mega Markle, and will eventually usurp the throne after her dragons are full grown and that, “Those meanies are gonna be sorry!”
September 28
Dianne Feinstein passes away at the age of 1371 years old. She is survived by her great grandson, Count Chocula®.
October 3
Kevin McCarthy sacrificed to Gorto and removed as Speaker of the House in a mostly peaceful ceremony. Three weeks later, Mike Johnson of Louisiana is elected Speaker, after promising “gumbo, elephant rides, pantyhose, and hot sauce” for everyone.
November 8
The Vatican decides that the new basis of Canon Law is that “anything goes, and if it feels good, do it.” It is also announced that Holy Water is a dated concept, and will be replaced by “Holy Lube”.
I used to take dead raccoons with me when I traveled by air. It was my carrion luggage.
November 14
Xi Jinping visits the United States and San Francisco shows they can clean up crime and the streets, but only for a foreign communist ruler. I mean, you have to look good for him, right?
December 3
Venezuela decides, “What the heck, let’s go get some oil” and decides to invade Guyana. Venezuela’s sixteen-man army with six working helicopters quickly crashed after not being able to find Guyana, which was unaware that they had neighbors, since the Internet has yet to reach there and their number one television show is Seinfeld.
December 16
Senate aide allegedly has sex in the Senate. Senate Democrats say it’s okay and perfectly legal, since at least one participant is an illegal alien, and, besides, Democrats are used to screwing everyone.
Most years, I have to make up some silly stories. 2023? Every time I’m showing Donald Trump being indicted in the above list? He was indicted. Can you imagine the excited Lefty flop-sweat each morning at Stephen King’s and Rob Reiner’s house when they hear that Trump was indicted, again?
Here’s to the world being absurd – it makes The World’s Foremost Hugo™-Nominated Humorist writer’s job easier.
NOTE: If you sell something or write something and are a regular commentor, please feel free to link your stuff or site as long as it’s legal and tasteful – my choice there on the tasteful part. If we’re going to build our own future, we should buy stuff from each other (if we like the stuff).
Me: Meghan Markle – the first woman to turn a prince into a frog.
Daughter: What?! Is Harry a Frenchman now???
Me: Might as well be. He’s surrendering on everything.
Harry = La Becassine Grenouille
Hahaha!
We have reached cosmic levels of absurdity in America and it is just warming up for what promises to be the most unpleasant year in America since that little regional disagreement in the 1860s.
It is. Colorado just added the monkey to the punchbowl.
In my beloved field of pure science, wokeism and shortmindedness reigned in 2023.
Science magazine picked GLP-1, better known as the weight loss drug Ozempic, as the Breakthrough of the Year because “These new therapies are reshaping not only how obesity is treated, but how it’s understood—as a chronic illness with roots in biology, not a simple failure of willpower.” Nor apparently by routinely super-sizing your Biggie Meal at Micky Ds. Science Magazine also got a snarky shot in on Elon’s X (“formerly known as Twitter”) as the Breakdown of the Year.
https://www.science.org/content/article/scienceadviser-all-breakthroughs-2023-what-topped-science-s-list
(A quick aside regarding woke insanity about obesity: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/outrageous-southwest-free-extra-seats-obese-people )
Lab Equipment Magazine didn’t do much better, listing Artificial Intelligence (AI) as their Number One (which technically isn’t even science) and hailing “vaccines for pregnant individuals” before veering off into Green Future and Climate Change Land for their picks.
https://www.laboratoryequipment.com/608790-10-Scientific-Discoveries-in-2023/
Nature Magazine leads off their look forward to 2024 with AI as well, then mixing various Space Projects in with Planetary Disaster musings on mosquitos and plastics.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-04044-9
Another aside: In space the big hype story for 2024 is gonna be the launch of Artemis 2 crewed by “an Individual With A Vagina and a Person of Color, along with Two White Guys”, instead of “four American Heroes”. Comparisons with Apollo 8 will be made. Don’t fall for it. The Artemis is such a dysfunctional rocket made from left-over Shuttle parts and gov/industry cost-cutting that it is completely unable to enter low lunar orbit on its own like Borman, Lovell and Anders did on a Christmas Eve so long ago in 1968. It’s gonna limp around the moon in a free-return trajectory like Apollo 13 did in an emergency situation – and “emergency situation” pretty much sums up what’s coming up for America in 2024.
Here’s my vote for the Top Science Story of 2023 – made by a 98 year old man, no less. Roy Kerr is a genius who in 1963 figured out one of only three known solutions for Einstein’s equation framework describing black holes. All three of these solutions, including Kerr’s, have a so-called “singularity” at the center of the black hole, where all the matter inside has to eventually get to and impossibly vanish. Everybody knows this can’t be right and there’s gotta be something more to the story – but what? After 60 years, Kerr has come up with a no-singularity version of his 1963 math. By breaking through the singularity logjam, who knows what lies ahead to discover about the true nature of reality itself?
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/singularities-dont-exist-roy-kerr/
Ack! Shoulda said “Three American and one Canadian Heroes” above. After spending $92 billion of US taxpayer money specifically on Artemis thru 2025 ( see https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-22-003.pdf) , we gotta give 25% of the available crew seats to Canadian Jeremy Hansen.
‘In space the big hype story for 2024 is gonna be the launch of Artemis 2 crewed by “an Individual With A Vagina and a Person of Color, along with Two White Guys”, instead of “four American Heroes”.’
¿ = 2024
Yessiree gonna be another banner XX year. Don’t even ask Y.
Artemis dubbled, Greek goddess of the hunt, wild animals, vegetation, childbirth, and chastity. Well, chastity not counting the critturs.
Nobody invited them into ‘space’ but they’ll solve that by forcing heaven whilst naming their flying penises after a feral, demonic moon goddess. Sounds like Marvel Jack Parsons is running JPL from hell.
Betcha Ozempic ends up causing some major health problems. My bet: heart problems.
re: singularities
Singularities are a mathematical artifact. They are only “real” if you believe the map is more accurate than the territory. I’ve been saying for a few years now that black holes are hollow shells which contain, in their central voids, nothing. The void is the realm of zero energy density. The shell is the realm of maximal energy density.
Simple reasoning: There are both maximal and minimal energy levels. You can’t exceed the maximum, because there is no more energy to draw from. You can’t drop below zero energy for similar reasons, and because negative energy is a contradiction in terms. There are no infinities. There are no singularities. There are no contradictions.
Side effect: Space-time is a field of potential energy governing motion. Proper time (that which an object experiences) is potential energy. Proper time is imaginary (as in the square root of -1) and the fount of all change. We experience the real (number line) shadow of complex (a + bi plane) events.
By the way: It has been known for over a decade that all the energy of a black hole may be contained in its skin. No singularity required.
Count Chockula LOL
Don’t forget Frankenberry!
The May 9 entry – As I recall, Trump wasn’t found guilty of sexual assault on the woman – he was specifically found NOT guilty of rape, but guilty of defaming her for claiming the rape never happened. According to the jury, who didn’t award her enough money, so she’s going back for a 2nd bite at the apple
And her star witness? The chick who wrote “The Preppy Handbook”. You cannot make this stuff up.
General review: lots of good laughs here — thanks!
Annoying copy-editor notes:
Sept. 28: the Count’s name is spelled “Chocula.” (No “k.”)
Nov. 14: that commie Xi visited the United “States,” with a “t.”
Dec. 16: it’s a Senate “aide.”
Your closing note: I don’t sell anything (a little hot air aside), but I would like to recommend the good folks at Above Time Coffee. They know who their people are, and have paid a price.
See you at the livestream tonight (unless I fall asleep). This time of year, when it’s pitch-dark at 5:30 pm where I live, 9 pm feels like 1 am. And … Merry Christmas!
All fixed, thank you!
“since the Internet has yet to reach their and their number one television show is Seinfeld.”
should be:
since the Internet has yet to reach there and their number one television show is Seinfeld.
– der grammar uber Nazi
Thank you! Fixed!
“Dec. 16: it’s a Senate “aide.””
Akshually, to correct the correct, it is “A Senate AIDs”
addendum to the correction:
The funniest part about that hole* thing is how the alleged penetrant 3 days before had yelled at a jewish Senator, “FREE PALESTINE!” What a cohencidence. Yell an antisemitism at a semite, and 3 days later embarrassing material appears on the internet…
* no correction needed
msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jewish-congressman-confirms-identity-of-democrat-staffer-who-yelled-free-palestine-at-him/ar-AA1lKUet
I was gonna make an AIDs joke, but I got behind.
Great article although also sad that this is the reality we now live in these days. I think back to my childhood and never in a million years would have thought we would see some of the nonsensical things that are going on right now.
You mentioned in closing about buying items from likeminded individuals.. Funny you should mention that as I’ve been trying to reach you for a while now to discuss the benefits of buying an extended warranty for your automobile 🙂
Hahahaha! Does it fix rust?
For the science fiction fans, here is a link to a friend’s books ( he’s one of us from way back). I would describe his books as similar to the Pournelle/Niven collaborations. Very based, Christian outlook and very enjoyable reads.
https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B01IGYVNWU/allbooks?ingress=0&visitId=41d7117c-9224-4c29-a25e-8010ada3df1b&store_ref=ap_rdr&ref_=ap_rdr
Excellent! Thank you!
You forgot to include that Mike Johnson is offering free passes to Justin Wilson’s Alligator Farm & Cooking School down on the bayou in Coon-A** Parish.
I gar-an-tee.
Uh-huh!
John, for various and sundry reasons, this has not been the best year personally. That said, your rehashing of the entire universe as we know it points out to me in the scope of things, this really was trivial compared to all the ridiculousness that was folded into the world.
I cannot wait for 2024, he says with bated breath…
It will be . . . epic.
Dec 13
2023, already being jealous of how much 2024 will outperform it in clownishness, spitefully posts a spoiler of the biggest event planned for 2024:
Oh, yeah. Colorado just told the whole nation, “Crazy? Hold my beer.”
“With liberty and justice for all. God bless America.”
There is no liberty for the Right. There is no justice for the Right. The Left hates God.
Thanks for the reminder.
I believe I feel some sort of annual lecture coming on.
I may even think about this one for more than fifteen minutes when I write it, more than fifteen minutes in advance, and actually plan some of it out.
First time for everything.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery for the Missus.
And in the spirit of the season, and spreading some holiday cheer:
Whenever I get depressed about Emperor Poopypants, I remember who sits but a heartbeat away from the throne.
And in the words of Julie Andrews as Sister Maria, “♫…and then I don’t feel…so bad!♫“.
Always love the lecture!
The Mrs. is feeling better – though the side effect of the antibiotic is . . . hallucinations. She said she woke up last night and everything was purple.
Feel free to change the bulbs in the bedroom lights, just for sport:
https://www.amazon.com/Pack-BlueX-Purple-Light-Bulb/dp/B07WGQXJ7C/ref=sr_1_5?crid=3SMVBB0TGV7WQ&keywords=purple%2Blight%2Bbulbs%2B60%2Bwatt&qid=1703233452&sprefix=purple%2Blight%2Bbulbs%2Caps%2C167&sr=8-5&th=1
Better fun cannot be had for $10.
Ha! I do have some bulbs that I can change the color on. She wasn’t horribly amused.
All around then, a good year for Gorto, who is feeling much better this week after sinus surgery, thank you very MUCH.
Ten days more to electroshock another ludicrous and pointless annum to life, yea yon Foul Year of the Lord 2024, and Gorto has every reason for optimism.
I wonder when the last normal year will be – or if we’ve already had it?
“Normal” ended on 3 November 2020. All after is “Clown World”.
“Normal” ended on 4 November 2008. All after is “Fundamental Transformation”.
“Normal” ended on 11 September 2001. All after is “War on Terror”.
“Normal” ended on 9 November 1989. All after is “New World Order”.
Very, very well said. I think you could keep going . . .