Budget cuts at Daily Ramblings

Goodbye Carl. See you later, Fred. Sorry, Jamal.

Man, it definitely hurts to lose Jamal. Oh, hello. I'm Paul Ryan, writer and webmaster for Daily Ramblings. Things are rough all over, and the hard times haven't magically passed our company by. I had to lay off 37 Daily Ramblings workers this morning, and while I'm glad to see our stock rising because of it, it's sad to see all these faithful employees getting flushed down the shitter.

Oops, did I say "shitter"? I meant to say "crapper". The copy editor who cleans up my columns got canned today, too.

But seriously, a lot of our important employees are gone now. There's Jamie, the girl who ran the KFC mealwagon in my apartment ($5.75/hr. plus tips). There's Dug, the guy who wiped my ass for me in the restroom every day ($4/hr.). There's Aggie, the 86 year-old homeless woman who wrote half my columns in the past six months (Free). There's Dicky, who was paid to fart on command for my enjoyment ($97/hr.). And of course, there was Amanda, my assistant (BJ's for $11.48/hr.).

But these budget cuts mean more than just losing people I don't care about. It means we have to do away with some of my stuff, too. 12 of the 15 luxury cars (with real pleather interior!) your donations and store purchases paid for have been returned. My vintage erotic art collection was sold to Paul Reubens. That gigantic bear I had that could solve complex geometry equations? Sold to Nickelodeon. And do you remember those 24-carat solid gold condoms I bought? All returned. Even the used ones.

Luckily, I don't place blame on myself for these things. No, I blame you. How could you let this happen, reader? Maybe if you had read a few more columns, our advertising would have gone up. Maybe if you had sent in more donations, I would have gotten sick of squandering such donations on porn, and actually used the money for practical things. The blame rests with you, reader. If Jamal were still here, I bet he would have punched you in the back of the neck at some point.

But that's okay. Just keep doing what you're doing. Never mind the fact that I'll now be forced to use slave labor at this site . . . more often than I do now. Never mind the fact that my wife - who only exists in paper trails to throw off the IRS - will now have to jab a fork into her uterus until it blackens and dies within her, because we can no longer pay for birth control.

Times are tough, reader. Life is hard for all of us including me. But if you give a little more during these rough days, I can have more. And isn't that what life is about?

This column paid for by the "Vote Paul Ryan/Mayor McCheese in 2004" Campaign.

A big thanks goes out to those who used the RNC spamming tool found in yesterday's column. We sent 122 total e-mails to them. Hopefully, we can send them even more tomorrow. I know I will!