Anyone sick of the advertising theme yet? I’m not, but I think that other than MFR (which deadlines at 200 AM), this will be the last piece that you see from me about advertising for at least a fortnight—maybe even a castlenight. However, in the spirit of my theme of the week, I decided to re-title all of your monikers to sound like products, services and consumables that one might see advertised. No need to thank me. I had fun doing it. Also, here are your awards:

It’s been a morose week, my friends. We started with an execution and while recovering from that, we plunged right into the topics of sociopathic murders, sexual assaults, draconian anti-abortion laws, deceased toddlers, gym rudeness and celebrity deaths. Given the dark nature of this week’s smorgasbord, I couldn’t blame any of you if just went into a gloomy emo shell and wrote death poetry in the comments. You all could have just written, “why bother” every time a new post was listed, just because you were so focused on the subject matter and not the actual content of the articles.

I have to apologize to my fellow Wordsmokers for the two-week hiatus from the Smokies. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was forced to relocate my operations center from the alley where I had been converting your golden threads into shabby tapestries, to a completely different alley.

As you may recall, the last time that I wrote the Smokies, I had embedded a photo of what I liked to affectionately call “Smokies Central.” When I went back a few days after posting them, it was like a bad dream. Everything was gone: the dumpster, the Port-O-John… Well, I guess it was only two things, but you get the idea. It was as though someone had read the Smokies and decided to send a warning.

Meanwhile, back at the Wordsmoker laboratory (again)…

VWS: “Well, how does this happen?”

CL: “I don’t know. I don’t have a great vocabulary I guess.”

VWS: “It’s a fucking credenza. How do you mix up ‘credenza’ with ‘vestibule’?”

CL: “It won’t happen again. Besides, Sance fixed it.”

VWS: “It’s not his bloody job to fix your fuck ups. Never mind. What else do you have?”

Meanwhile, back at the Wordsmoker laboratory…

VWS: “What’s going on?”

CL: “Why, Virus, you startled me. I hadn’t expected to see you so soon after the FNFF. There’s some fresh coffee over on the table.”

VWS: “Thanks, I think I’ll have a cup. How are the Smokies coming along?”

On Christmas Day, a 23-year-old Nigerian national by the name of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in Amsterdam and attempted to explode an incendiary device strapped to his leg over Michigan. Two days later, the Wordsmoker site was effectively shutdown by saboteurs. In the case of the Northwest flight, it took the red faced Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula three days to release this statement:

I’ve noticed that you kids seem to enjoy a good test of knowledge. Lawyer Gay obliged us with a nice little matching exercise to whet our student appetites this week, even though he claims that this wasn’t his intention. With this in mind, I thought that it would be fun to just list the winning comments, and then provide you guys a multiple choice selection of commenters to choose from. You could try to guess which person made the award winning comment and score your answers against a key that I would publish later in the week. Then I realized what an absolute ridiculous and labor-intensive concept that is. Consequently, I decided to submit the Smokies in the same manner as usual. Because of the test/exam/quiz theme, I have departed from the usual chronological order to start with a Smokie that is theme related:

I was resigned to write the predicable “After Thanksgiving” themed Smokies, when I received an invitation that I knew would provide me with a new theme and inevitably delay my completion of the Smokies. The invite was to an “art scavenger hunt.” I had never heard of such a thing before, but if you have, please bear with me while I summarize.

Last Friday night, I was in a state of profound panic. The reason? I had not come up with a theme for this week’s Smokie Awards. As it is now Sunday morning and my panic has turned to shock, I have decided to just explain Smokie Related Anxiety or SRA. Generally, around Thursday afternoon, it hits me that I don’t have a theme for the Smokies or I realize that my theme is inadequate.

As you all know, we receive volumes of fan mail here at Wordsmoker. However, because of the sheer volume and our endeavor to produce a steady stream of only the highest quality written entertainment, there is simply not enough time to answer it all. However, once in a while, when I run out of ideas, I will dip into the mailbag and use one such letter as a theme. Little Vesper Applebottom from Maine writes:

All the way back on October 11, Mike Weidner entered this comment:

“MediaOhio: You ask who or whom Obama has appeased…”

I’ll have to admit that I really didn’t get it. Mediahohoho’s name is laid out like a stack of legos. The possible permutations are as endless as they are fun. Why reach immediately to obscure geographic references?