Happy Easter to you all!

Ironically, I wouldn’t have known Sunday was Easter if I hadn’t got an instant alert text and a Facebook update from the big bad Bunny himself.

Folks, the staff here at News-Herald Dot Comedy isn’t against the digital revolution and the fact social media is taking over our every day lives like fast-food restaurants without all the health detriments and happy meal toys. However, our new ways of communicating and need for instant gratification when it comes to information and simple speech has hopped down the I-phone bunny trail and has kind of depersonalized the holidays.

Don’t believe us? How many of you had your kids paint eggs on an app you purchased for your handheld device instead of actually buying a dozen Grade As and some food coloring? We will wait for an answer as you log off the Eggscellentdecorating.com web site and download pictures to print and place neatly in your virtual basket.

Did you wish all your family and friends a Happy Easter today? Make a bunch of phone calls? Send snail mail cards and cutouts from the kids? Heck no, you went on Twitter and Facebook and sent out a mass text that had all the sincerity of Charles Manson at a parole hearing.

Be honest. It’s OK. The world is different than it used to be. Accept it, and prepare a hash tag tonight when you hit your knees and pray for a time when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t as important as God.

We wish the days of hiding Easter eggs in the yard could come back in to popular culture, but that is about as plausible as asking Snoop Dogg to get through a 20-mile bus trip without lighting up a medicinal plant for glaucoma.

It is what it is, folks, and the staff at NH Dot Comedy has come to a point in life, no not a point, a moment of clarity.

We are pretty sure the Easter Bunny has a Twitter handle and a Facebook page, and no real use for actually going door to door hiding baskets, but we can’t be sure because we are on a Verizon package and EB has Sprint.

Oh, the problems of 2012.

The holidays used to be about getting together with family and loved ones. Now, it is getting together with people that love the same technology that you love.

You think it’s a chocolate bunny? Guess again. Chocolate doesn’t taste as good when it is a digital, 2-dimensional recreation of a Malley’s favorite.

So, Happy Easter. But check your Facebook to make sure you haven’t missed any specials at the Easter Bunny’s latest slideshow/photo-op.

And if you don’t have time to go to the mall, no worries. Just hang out at home and Tweet yourself into a picture and call it a day.

Got a problem with that? Take it up with Mark Zuckerberg.

BTilton@News-Herald.com

The DotComedy staff has been away for a while, and we apologize to all of our loyal readers.

Yes, that’s right, all 22 of you will get cards in the mail very soon - just weed through all the debt consolidation coupons and lawn care offers in your mailbox and you will certainly find it.

The fact is, we haven’t had a new entry since late December. There is a reason. Like Ferris Bueller said, the world moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and take a look around, you could miss it. Now, we might have completely screwed up that classic movie quote, but you should get the gist. If you don’t, rent the movie or get a Matthew Broderick autobiography from 7-11 with your next Slurpee and corndog purchase.

The point is, we as a society are very busy. We have things to do. Work, kids, life, watching reality shows,  tracking comets, collecting coins, losing weight and keeping up with all things in the Lady Gaga sub-universe.

Whew, what a workout.

Here are the top 10 reasons we haven’t had a new News-Herald DotComedy post since before Christmas.

10. Been busy trying to read the fine print under our Best Buy receipts from gifts purchased during the holidays, despite the fact all we bought was batteries. The founding fathers didn’t have the much to say about the Declaration of Independence.

9. Swamped with research for information on other sporting goods-like politicians who ran for major posts in modern America, inspired of course by Mitt Romney. Unfortunately, we have only come up with Knee Pad Morris, who ran in the primary against a guy named Abe Lincoln in a high school election in the 1800s.

8. Too much time spent waiting for Madonna to get younger and relevant during halftime of Super Bowl XLVI.

7. Deciphering anything mumbled by Kim Kardashian that might pass as intellectually stimulating conversation. Come on America, we can do better than being infatuated with a self-created TV "icon" that makes a pet rock look like Albert Einstein.

6. Had to renew our driver’s license, which in some situations makes resurfacing the Statue of Liberty with a toothbrush seem like a P90X workout by comparison.

5. Keeping up with all the “Armageddon experts” predicting the end of the world is time consuming, especially when the pop-up ads on their Web site get in the way of detail-oriented instructions on how to plan for the end of days. There is nothing like counting every last breath while extravagant advertisements for shoelaces and custom-made doghouses delay critical information.

4. Tried to open a DVD bought from the local movie rental store - after searching for a local movie rental store for a week - and then ripping through the packaging of a used film only to find out there is an ancient Mayan key and a set of pliers NASCAR must provide to get the disc out of its packaging.

3. Supposedly, a flash mob was going to break out at the DotComedy offices, but instead it was in impromptu local production of a renewal of “Mary Poppins” had lost its GPS device and held up activity while recreating Donald Trump to fire all the chimney sweeps.

2. Applied for a credit card at Wal-Mart, might miss a few birthdays while waiting for approval.

And the No. 1 reason we haven’t had a new DotComedy entry since December … still waiting for a presidential candidate to be honest, interesting or authentic during a debate. …. Still waiting.

Got a problem with that? Take it up with Ferris Bueller.

BTilton@News-Herald.com

The 12 Daze of Christmas

Holidays got you in a daze, yet?

Yeah, us, too.

The staff at News-Herald DotComedy are just about Christmas-ed out, and it ain’t even the fat man’s spotlight day.

Love Christmas, but there are some things we could do without.

The 2011 edition, just in case any of this sounds familiar, it is a yearly event to complain about the holiday season.

Ready? … No, not us either. Endure and enjoy.

1. Ugly sweaters - We don’t wear these fashion eyesores for St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving or Easter (sometimes) so is there any reason we need to raise Bill Cosby’s 1985 closet and parade around like human without mirrors or clothing sense just because mistletoe is hanging in the office? Wear a plain white T-shirt and move on.

2. Raging shop-a-holics - We appreciate all the prudent shoppers and coupon clippers out there, but when you get in a line at the store longer than Charlie Sheen’s arrest sheet, try to be courteous of the 1,250 people behind you and not argue with the poor clerk making minimum wage over saving 19 cents on an expire coupon for Boggle.

3. Staged exhibitions of goodness - This is mostly a guilty pleasure of pro sports teams. Every guy who dresses in a Santa hat and delivers presents or food because his PR firm tells him to is mostly insulting and transparent. There are some good guys out there, but TV cameras don’t need to monitor every move like it is the opening of the Al Capone vault.

4. Internet ads spoofing Santa - Nobody needs a car dealer or a pawn shop putting together a commercial made with the production value of Wayne and Garth on crack infiltrating every click of a mouse on a Website. We get it - you are into playing the Christmas ad card. But Santa pimping used tires in a suit more plausible for a nursery school pageant isn’t making anyone run to your store. STOP!

5. Restaurant specials that make no sense - If you go into a Mexican restaurant to get your favorite burrito, there is no reason to have a Rudolph the Rednose Salsa on the table. Serve what you serve. Do what you do.

6. A lone candle in the window - Listen, if you don’t want to go Clark Griswold and decorate the house, that’s fine. Just don’t insult our intelligence or holiday spirit by slapping a wreath on the mailbox and calling it decking the halls. Go all in or go to Barbados for the winter.

7. Christmas tree branches on the car - Unless your BMW has an evergreen potted and planted in the trunk, stop it with the random Xmas tree branches roped around the top of your car. We get it, you like Christmas. So does the staff of DotComedy, but we aren’t changing the font on our writing to have a pine needle coming out of every comma.

8. Sports talkers who have an axe to grind - Colin Cowherd gets on ESPN Radio and undresses everyone who thinks maybe, just maybe, Christmas is a solemn celebratory day that doesn’t need 5 NBA games and an NFL contest at night? Hey Colin, go Jingle Bell yourself. Your Xmas traditions may include lots and lots of sports. Some of us like one day away from the professional athletics black hole and the idiots who don’t know much about it but yap consistently about it … whoops, did we say that out loud? No holiday spirit there.

9. Low-fat holiday recipes - You know what rules about this season? Eating like Pavarotti on his last day on death row. Let’s all get fat and worry about it later. Stop handing out tips for shaving 17 calories off the triple scoop ham and cream cheese peppermint milkshake. Don’t care about fat content when we are shoveling mashed potatoes down with a flatbed truck and a forklift. Leave us alone.

10. Batteries included or not - Forget all the instructions and demands and ties on toys that are harder to undo than the combination to the main room at Fort Knox. Christmas shouldn’t be a Mensa final exam. Just let us enjoy the stupidity of spending more than we have to make other people happy.

11. People rooting for a white Christmas - No offense to co-workers, friends and family on this one, but in the most jolly of holiday tones … shut the BLEEP up. You like snow? Enjoy car crashes, shoveling til you have arthritic hips and frostbite? Good. Tell you what, move to Anchorage and leave the rest of us alone. Mother Nature will do her deeds at her own bidding. I don’t need Steve in the next cubicle praying for a crippling blizzard just so he can get into the holiday mood.

12. Top 12 lists just to be clever and play off every Christmas cliché ever created - See the above list.

Merry Christmas.

Got a problem with that? Take it up with Clark Griswold.

Btilton@News-Herald.com

Happy Sweetest Day!

So what if people in a majority of the 50 states don't have a clue what that means, enjoy it anyway and celebrate with chocolate, love and the possibility of feeling guilty if you forget, you deadbeat husband, wife, girlfriend or boyfriend.

Sweetest Day is Saturday, October 15th. Grab your credit card, run to the store, buy a card and some plastic flowers on sale from the previous year and act overemotionally like Susan Lucci only wishes she could during Emmy nomination week. You don't buy into a "Hallmark Holiday" like Sweetest Day? Fine, so go live in Hawaii and celebrate Poi Day instead. Rub a piece of conch shell on your forehead, say a prayer to the nearest volcano, sing Don Ho songs until a cop beats you over the head with a pineapple nightstick and campaign for a move to the Great Lakes region where we get overly mushy on a late Saturday in October that is nothing more than Valentine's Day's little brother.

Folks, we might be officially "holiday-ed out" as a nation. Sweetest Day, Secretary Day, Boss' Day, Columbus Day, Holiday Celebration of an Upcoming Holiday Day. We have it covered as a nation, don't we?

Even Lady Gaga and Joe the Plumber think we might be overexposed and overhyped when it comes to celebrating every other day of the week as a national holiday.

Columbus Day? Really? The staff at DotComedy isn't saying the achievement by Chris wasn't special, but if Columbus gets a holiday for running three free-floating garbage scows into a land mass the size of the United State and calling it a major find, then Vespucci, DeSoto, Hudson and Inspector Clousseau should all get their own day on the upcoming Ziggy day planner.

Folks, National Smile Day might be taking the whole holiday thing a bit far. National Breathe on Your Own Day, National Steak Sauce if You Like it and If you Don't That's OK, Too, Day and National Holiday Celebration Day could have memos sitting on President Obama's desk the way we are headed.

Ease up on the holidays, OK? How about Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, 4th of July, St. Patrick's Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day and Halloween is the limit?

Sweetest Day is nice for the greetings card industry, of which the DotComedy staff has a special place for, but we need to set limitations.

It's all too much.

After all, the Ziggy Day Planner only has so many open dates left as it is. And Lady Gaga and Joe the Plumber are still looking for gifts in the mall for Lewis and Clark Day ... the only issue is all the stores are closed for Columbus Day.

We think?

Got a problem with that? Take it up with Don Ho.

BTilton@News-Herald.com

Labor Day is a weird holiday because it is supposed to celebrate the spirit of the working man and woman in America by giving them the day off, when in reality, it only causes more work.

Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer. It’s when swimming pools close, county fairs go away, patio furniture gets taken inside, white pants and shorts get taken off the potential wardrobe menu.

The hard work starts the Tuesday after Labor Day because we all at some point have to figure out what the heck we are going to do for the next 7 months in a deep freeze mixed with depression and boredom, splashed with a dash of annoyance.

Yeah, Labor Day is a real treat of a holiday. Can’t imagine why there isn’t an iconic figure associated with it like Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny. The only thing missing from this Blah-ville march away from sun and fun is the Grim Reaper leading the Labor Day parade and tossing out calendars with NOTHING to do until the following Memorial Day.

The staff at News-Herald DotComedy isn’t real keen on Labor Day, in case in any way this is unclear. Sure, we like the extra day off from work that week, but it’s like celebrating at party that is nothing more than an appetizer before much more miserable picnic that for some reason we all forget about because for one day we get to eat hot dogs and play Cornhole before reality sets in at sunset.

Wow, Labor Day! Hey kids, ready to get festive? It’s Monday, so we can’t do too much or stay up real late because we have school and work tomorrow. Break out the party hats because it is September and it won’t be long until we are dining on the deck with Jack Frost and shoveling snow like an out-of-work elf at the North Pole trying to impress the fat guy in the red jumpsuit.

Really? This is a holiday? How many over-charred hamburgers and cold pasta salad plates can we stomach with a big grin our faces before we all go Michael Douglas in “Falling Down” and end up on the side of a hill in Willowick with a mail bag in one hand and Dick Goddard’s almanac forecasting gray skies and sleet for the next century in the other?

Again, not one person in this country will ever be given a day off from work, march into the boss’ office and shout … “NO! I want to be keeping the country safe from laziness today, so give me a 14-hour shift!”

It’s just that it is hard to lump Labor Day in the same “holiday” pile with Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the 4th of July or even St. Patrick’s Day.

Seems like a tough sell is all we are saying, so enjoy the day for what it is worth, and then recognize the next day on Tuesday is the start of a march toward a winter wonderland that ain’t so wonderful.

It is a point of demarcation in the calendar. Labor Day is the end of days - fun day, happy days, free-for-all days, and is more of an Oprah Winfrey day where the ominous hand of a powerful force is shoving you in a direction you don’t want to go.

I don’t want to close the pool or take in furniture or worry about October being just around the corner. Kids are fine, but do we need to hunt for pirate costumes on the first Monday in this fine month of September?

Yep, we hate Labor Day. It is a day off work - sort of, for some of us - but it is more a skull and crossbones on the calendar marking the end of fun and frivolity for another year!

Even Charlie Sheen would have to pop some extra “gum balls” to get through that kind of madness.

It ain’t exactly Mardis Gras, folks. It’s Labor Day. Deal with it. Work on doing something better on this particular Monday is all we are saying.

But as usual, maybe we have said too much.

Got a problem with that? Take it up with the Grim Reaper.

- Btilton@News-Herald.com

Folks, the country must be officially out of talented writers.

That's the only thing the staff at DotComedy can come up with after scanning the national TV channels in search of entertainment in much the same voracious way a starving man straight out of a war-torn country looks for edible food in Burger King.

Big Brother? Jersey Shore? Real Housewives of Beverly Hills? Breathing - the Drama of Taking in Oxygen and Blowing It Out on Regular Basis?

Waiter, check please.

We have somehow morphed into a world of mindless voyeurs who aren't looking for entertainment anymore, we are simply looking for the real life struggles of ego-maniacs who if they weren't on TV, would be told to shut up as they were babbling about their daily ATM transactions while in line to catch the next Carrot Top movie.

It's embarrassing, and sorry to put a huge blanket that would be tight on Andre the giant over this next statement, but you are all guilty of it.

Why are there reality shows popping up quicker than a bag of Orville Reddenbacher's latest fast food disaster than talented writers popping out of 4-year universities? Because we are lazy and quick to check our IPhones for the next episode of Roseanne Barr's "I Keep Getting Richer Without a Shred of Talent Because You Watch This Show."

Isn't Twitter and Facebook enough of a glimpse into the real lives of ultimately non-important Americans? Do we need a new show every week called "Ice Road Animal Attacks Dancing With Switched Real Names Ex-Celebrities High on Chocolate"?

Every channel on every satellite dish in the universe is now inundated with these mindless reality shows featuring Joe Public searching for a way to cash a check because Joanne Public has nothing better to do on a Tuesday night than vegetate with a bag of Doritos shaped like Oprah Winfrey.

Ridiculous.

Anybody remember "Seinfeld" or "Cheers" or "24" or ... gasp ... the news? Now it seems any wannabe TV producer in Hollywood can guarantee payment on another Botox treatment/yacht purchase seminar by simply putting a camera outside of K-Mart and waiting for the next trainwreck in Muncie, Indiana. God, please, the staff at DotComedy prays to you to bring back good writing and semi-intelligent programming.

The slippery slope we are on is seemingly leading to a bathroom camera in the Senate to make sure we don't miss any of the hijinks or crazy banter between a Dem and a Republican when it comes to the art of headbutting the hand dryer to avoid touching anything with their freshly-cleaned hands.

Are we all so devoid of a trigger in our minds to decipher complete crap on TV from reality crap? The whole world changes plans in their daily life every time we think there will be reruns of the 2007 season of "Deadliest Catch" on the 4th of July.

Charlie Sheen will be popular forever because we would rather watch this deep-fried idiot brush his teeth than give a courtroom drama on ABC a chance. WOW!

I would say this is the seventh sign of Armageddon, but the first six haven't gotten through production on Fox's new reality channel.

A couple from Modesto, California arguing over what spatula they are going to use to flip pancakes is not must-see TV. Wake up, people.

Cash Cab meets Top Chef in a battle royale judged by the chick who is hoarding pieces of the Titanic in her basement is not appointment viewing ... unless it is on TV. And yet that's what we want our channels filled with?

Not us.

The staff here longs for a change in the American psyche when it comes to television programming in the very near future ... and we hope we are on the production crew at the Rubik's Cube Reality Show factory when it does.

Got a problem with that? take it up with Joe and Joanne Public.

-Bill Tilton
-BTilton@News-Herald.com

Beautiful weather, time off, what could go wrong?

Everything, if you have rugrats blocking out the sun with their energy and their impatience.

There is something to be said for too much time with loved ones in nice weather, and that thing that needs to be said if we are all being honest is ... "Why didn't I take the red-eye junket to Las Vegas?"

Look, we all love our kids, but only Curly from the Three Stooges would smack his own head less than a parent who has to be tied to his children 24/7 during his "down time".

The staff here at News-Herald DotComedy expects to hear the criticism and dodge the William Tell arrows on this one, but the truth can be painful. Vacation is defined as relaxing time off to decompress and recharge the battery from the daily grind of work. That definition doesn't come from Webster because the poor guy was too busy scanning Aisle 7 in Wal-Mart for a two-piece bikini for his daughter and couldn't complete that section of the dictionary.

It would be nice on vacation to sit in a chair and be at peace with one's thoughts when that desire strikes. The problem is when kids are involved, the chair is always a threat to be set on fire and your only thoughts are why isn't summer camp open to a 2 1/2-year old who runs around like the Energizer Bunny on four cases of Red Bull.

Say what you want, but summer vacation when kids are involved are more of a job than your actual job. How do you keep them happy, what's the next activity, who has the money tree from the backyard and which kid is swinging from the highest branch complaining he got bilked out of the last Chicken McNugget?

Sea World, Cedar Point, the Emergency Room. Get season passes to all of them.

Set the alarm instead of waking up naturally at your leisure. Buy extra alcohol but don't plan on drinking any so you can see straight when you are rocking the swingset at 7:45 a.m. Prepare for all of it.

This ain't spring break when you are 22, trying everything you can to have fun, yet AVOID having kids while participating in every one of the 7 deadly sins. This is real life and just because you don't have to go into the office doesn't mean you don't have work to do.

Have a good summer, just don't relax in your lawn chair and ease back with your thoughts.

There's always something else on the list at Wal-Mart that needs your attention or a shake of your money tree.

Got a problem with that? Take it up with Curly from the Three Stooges.

BTilton@News-Herald.com