If you’re searching for a quick and easy summertime meal that looks great – and you don’t care how it tastes – you can’t do better than shish kebab.

Shish kebab consists of hunks of meat and vegetables strung on a skewer and cooked over an open flame or barbecue grill. As the meat hardens to a leathery finish, most of the vegetables scorch, while the potatoes remain cold and undercooked. Yum!
At serving time, simply offload each skewer onto a plate. Ignore the fact that the hunks are way too large to manage with plastic picnic utensils.

Variants include samak kebab (fish on a stick), tandoori kebab (spiced meat on a stick), and public relations kebab (sh*t on a stick).

For dessert, try serving yogurt on a stick, pudding on a stick, or ice cream on a stick.    

Even though the official start of summer is June 21, traditionally the season begins on Memorial Rain weekend. Here are some holiday rain activities for your sopping wet family.

Picnic  Select foods that are easily transportable and waterproof. The thick skin of bratwurst will shed rain; pre-warm the brats so you needn’t tend charcoal briquettes in the thunderstorm. Skip the buns (too soggy) and simply eat them with your fingers as you sit in the car watching the windshield wipers go back and forth.

Parade  Keep those wipers going! Otherwise you’ll miss the marching brands with their drenched uniforms and rusting instruments. Crack the car windows open to prevent windows from fogging up.

Road trip  Plan a day trip so you can see what a scenic spot or historic monument looks like in a driving downpour. Bring a change of clothes (or two or three) to use after the inevitable dash to a public restroom.

Sporting event  Whether you’re participant or spectator, Memorial Rain weekend’s running and biking races have extra zip as lightning fills the air with ozone.

Always shuffle through your preplanned workout, even when your body is screaming for rest. The obsessive-compulsive within will thank you afterward (provided you’re still conscious). 

Boredom makes a dumb exercise routine seem appealing by comparison, so if you want to be, say, an ultramarathoner, don’t “get a life.”

Caffeine is the great equalizer. Who needs a nap, or any sleep at all for that matter? And once you’re done with your regular workout, you can cross-train by bouncing off the walls.

The End of the World As We Know It comes sometime today. (The doomsayers, like weather forecasters, are fudging on the exact time.) If you're not among the few taken up by The Rapture, here's what to expect on Earth come Sunday morning.
--President Donald Trump tells his cabinet "You're fired!" and hires General Motors' board of directors in their place.
--The Department of Natural Resources announces that all homeowners must spent at least 10 minutes daily mowing their lawn, followed by 25 minutes wrangling grass clippings with a noisy leaf blower.
--Jerry Lewis decides that instead of retiring, he will broadcast the MDA telethon 24-7 / 365. The FDA orders all cable and satellite stations to carry it.
--To settle the NFL lockout, the entire 2011 season is pre-empted by a lottery. The Chicago Bears and the Minnesota Vikings are declared co-winners of the Super Bowl.

Packages of Jelly Belly gourmet jelly beans provide suggestions of "fun combinations to try." For instance, Lemon + Cotton Candy = Pink Lemonade. Here's a few they haven't thought of yet. Maybe these will be adopted as offical Jelly Belly combos, and the royalties will make me rich.
Black Licorice + Feathers = Eat Crow
Perch + Breading + Grease = Friday Fish Fry
Banana Daiquiri + Cuba Libre = Fredo Corleone
Green Beans + French Fried Onions = Thanksgiving Dinner

In today's tough real estate market, you simply must maximize the curb appeal of your house. Here's a quick gauge of your property's appeal to prospective buyers.

With a starting score of 100, subtract the following:
10 points for each hole in the roof or exterior walls
15 points for every wild animal living on the premises
20 points for abandoned autos on the front lawn
50 points if someone emerges from the front door with his shotgun aimed at the house hunters 
75 points if wind blows the house down while prospective buyers are looking at it 

Scoring:
75-100 points  Your house is market-ready
25-74 points  Add touch-up paint and potted geraniums to distract from the flaws
0-24 points  Hire a carpenter to build a false front, like a movie set
Negative score   Bulldoze the place 
 

Every other media outlet has been covering designer hats seen at the Kentucky Derby, so here's our fave. We're not sure whether it's "best of," "worst of," or both.

Oh, and some women in attendance wore hats, too.

San Jose, CA -- Moments after the U.S. military operation that killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, the terrorist mastermind's nose appeared on auction site eBay.

Offered by a seller using the screen name CIAGuy, the nose appears to be in mint condition. Its starting price of 2 cents (U.S.) rose quickly into the millions, as an apparent bidding war broke out. The Obama administration reportedly wants to present the nose to the Smithsonian Institution, while Al Qaeda expressed hopes of reviving its leader by cloning the nose, a la Woody Allen's "Sleeper."