My grandpa always said laughter is the best medicine, i guess that's why so many of us died of tuberculosis

If you don't ever do another thing i tell you, check out The Onion this week and next. It's celebrating 10 years online and posting a sort of "best of" collection. be sure and click on the various years to see all the content. they feature a different year each day.

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two quick Ryan Chatelain plugs:

-If yous in New York this weekend, check him out at 8 p.m. this Friday at Stain Bar in Brooklyn. We're making a concerted (get it? concerted? like a concert? he's a musician. get it? get it?) effort to top his record-breaking crowd of ...drumroll...six people at his last show there. Obviously the bar's marketing efforts leave much to be desired.

--He's also launched a new music Web site, Marked Online Music Magazine. check it out early and often.

and if you have anything you would like me to shamelessly plug, just let me know. the only requirement is that you know me well enough to know how to find me to let me know about whatever it is you want me to let people know. i'm particularly talented when it comes to the craft of using particularly long sentences that ramble on word after word after word but don't really say anything that couldn't have been said better or at least as well as a short sentence like this one: I write long sentences.

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Happy, happy Joy, joy!

Dispatches from the Northshore is pleased to launch a new reader contest. Check back this afternoon or early tomorrow for specifics.

i think it's the sort of thing that everyone will enjoy. Well, everyone but a certain someone i know... bwah ha ha ha ha ha