proudly resents ...

The Week in Loserdom:

With so many Losers busy with the holidays, Loser news slowed a bit this week. Election debate flared up, again and was shouted down, again. Joe Romm graced Loserville with a fabulous eb-way ite-say and much time was spent on the delicate topic of mannequins' personal parts.

Also, The Weak Week is pleased to announce a new feature (below) How Cool the Drool: in which we rant about the Czar's prize selections.

Results of Week XLIV

Summary: Week XLIV^* asked for headlines from fifty years in the future. TWW has been dreading the day when it would have to write this review, but the time has come. While TWW is often critical of a decision here or there by the Czar, our editorial board generally agrees with the results and, in all honesty, sympathizes with the difficult task it is to judge the contest. About once a year, however, the Czar falls asleep, or lets a spaniel pick the winners, or some such. He made it through the first forty-three contests of the restoration, but stumbled badly with Week XLIV.

We should start by pointing out that all the printed entries were fine, there was not a clinker in the bunch. That said, the winner had honrable mentions better than his "Mother Leninsky" winner and plenty of other Losers shared Monica entires that seemed as good. The first runner-up was a dandy, but when the Post prints it fifty years from now it will be at least eighty years old. The "anal probes are just for fun" gag has been used more times than Ms. Leninsky herself. More generally, the Czar passed up many great entries by several Losers only to print the adequate and predictable. The Czar passed on all the bad pun headlines TWW thought would get ink and largely snubbed many Losers great entries that hinted at some huge disaster in our future. In a couple of cases the Czar even appeared to go out of his way to edit Losers' entries to make them less funny. TWW has no complaint with who got ink. Based on entries we've seen, the Czar simply skipped over the best efforts. We have no idea what went wrong, but the Czar should go in and get checked for brain tumors, ASAP.

The Siberian Express: The club car on the Express is full this week. Trading vodka shooters during the long ride we find both Sorensens, John Fiorini, Jennifer Hart, and Steve Fahey.

Score Losers: Witte breaks into the 400 club (member number three) with the win (plus four HMs). Beland becomes the third Loser ever to reach 90 hits in a year. Chris Shreves becomes the hot new meat with appearances four and five (including a shirt) since debuting in Week XLV.

Week XLVIII (Explain an Idiom):

For the second week in a row the Czar offers a contest off the beaten path. Inventing the origin of an idiom sounds like a contest for the regulars and one that will tax their creative minds.

The Weak Week Word to the Wise (WWWW) : Losers may want to turn to the series of books that began with A Hog On Ice. These books explain the actual derivation of idioms, though many of them are not really common. Bartlett's is, as usual, another source worth the effort. More generally, this is probably a week to work on polishing a few good entries rather than trying for quantity. The Czar won't have room to print a lot and it will take some work to make the explanations really funny.

Russ to Judgment: On a one-seventeen scale, sixteen being best, Week XLVIII gets a:

This is certainly a contest worth a try. TWW expects a lot of work for the contestants, and only a few really funny entries, but this is one that might surprise us.

How Cool the Drool: On a one-five scale (where five is a stuffed mongoose) this week's Scenic South Dakota plate gets a:

The plate sounds dreadful, but it will be hard to show off proudly (visitors to your home or office might think you actually like it).

The Week Link (The Original Week 48):

For the first time in our sad, sick, sorry, little existence the Czar asked us simply to beg for prizes (in this case the last remaining Year One shirts). The results included no overall winner, just a bunch of runners-up who received, of course, shirts. Chuck Smith scored a rare (for him) "And Last," but few of the other regulars managed ink. Steve Dudzik and Sarah Worcester's "son" each managed a shirt for claiming he was dying. Week 47 also saw the results of Week 45 (good news/bad news) in which Linda Malcolm won drool for the first time (a Barry Manilow Box CD set).

Read more Weak Weeks

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