Pun Salad

Just we boys:

• Hope you don't mind a little proud parenting: Pun Son performed for the teeming masses last night in Johnson Theatre at the University Near Here and was pretty darn good. And I'm talking standing-O-from-the-capacity-crowd good.

  (Yes, if you want to get technical, there were other performers too. In fact it was a massive production. Still, my attitude is: it was nice that they showed up to accompany the real star of the show.)

• You might expect a story in USA Today headlined "Does 'Fair Game' follow history's script for Plamegate?" would actually have something interesting to say about the accuracy of the new movie starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts about the Valerie Plame imbroglio. But instead, we get paragraphs like this one:

  So in one sense, the movie is Plame's and Wilson's revenge on [I. Lewis "Scooter"] Libby, Cheney and other White House operatives they say sought to punish them by deliberately outing her to reporters, including columnist Robert Novak, who then published it, thus ending her career as a nuclear counter-proliferation agent for the CIA.

  Notice anything missing from that? Right, Richard Armitage, the non-White House operative who actually leaked Plame's identity to the late Robert Novak.

  Ah, well. What do you expect from McPaper? I think the Washington Post did a better job (albeit on their Editorial page), which deemed the movie to be "full of distortions - not to mention outright inventions." Among other tales:

  "Fair Game" also resells the couple's story that Ms. Plame's exposure was the result of a White House conspiracy. A lengthy and wasteful investigation by a special prosecutor found no such conspiracy - but it did confirm that the prime source of a newspaper column identifying Ms. Plame was a State Department official, not a White House political operative.

  Fair Game won't be in my Netflix queue anytime soon. And I'm wondering why I bother to read USA Today.

• It's that time of year, and a long-standing Pun Salad tradition is to link to Dave Barry's Guide to Holiday Gifts. And, even if you are the world's lousiest gift-giver, you're almost certainly going to do better than these items. For example, the "Body Perks Brand Nipple Enhancers":

  This is the perfect gift for the gal on your holiday gift list who would like to appear perkier in the gazombular region. Body Perks are little silicone dealies that go on top of a woman's natural nipples so as to give her frontal zone that cold-weather, smuggling-raisins look that for thousands of years has caused men to walk into utility poles. Why are men so interested in women's nipples? Why aren't women equally interested in men's nipples? Why do men even have nipples? We at the Holiday Gift Guide do not have answers to these questions. We just enjoy saying "nipples." Nipples nipples nipples. Is it getting warm in here?

  Bodyperks is based in Wayzata, Minnesota—which we also enjoy saying—and their website is here.

• I used to watch a lot more football than I do these days. Possibly because they don't make 'em like Don Meredith any more.

  Once, Meredith threw a fourth-down touchdown pass to Dan Reeves against the Redskins, the score occuring one play after Washington linebacker Chris Hanburger delivered a thunderous direct shot that rendered Meredith semi-conscious.

  When that was mentioned to [Coach Tom] Landry in the locker room afterward, the coach pretended to be unaware Meredith was unsteady.

  "He kind of acts like that all the time," Landry said.

  RIP, Dandy Don.