In our part of Idaho, we watch the first half of Leno and then the first half of Letterman. Then we go to bed unless Letterman is interviewing Genghis Kahn.

Both shows start with a monologue. Lenos monologue drags on. Lettermans is very short. Both use jokes that are repetitive and silly. Leno favors celebrity jokes over squirrels, rats, and nuts. Ive never figured why they repeat jokes. They also use each others jokes, perhaps slightly modified. If either ever told a very funny joke, that might wake the audience.

While Leno is reading his crazy ads or wedding announcements and Letterman is playing Name Your Cuts of Meat we need something to do. Here are some suggestions:

Stop holding it. Go to the bathroom.

Read your copy of War and Peace.

Go to the kitchen and make that liverwurst and onion sandwich youve been craving.

Write a letter to President Bush praising his wit and competence.

Memorize the Gettysburg Address (Not Lincolns, the two-hour one given by the guy that spoke before Lincoln. His name was Edward Everett. You can find the beginning and ending paragraphs at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address#Program_and_Everett.27s_.22Gettysburg_Oration.22. After that, you are on your own.)

Build a large ship in a bottle fetched from your office water cooler. (Hint: Cut the bottom off the bottle; slip the ship in when no one is looking, glue the bottom back on.)

Call your Aunt Mildred in Cincinnati. Tell her you think about her all the time and that you love her and that you just love the hat she knitted and gave to you for Christmas in 1984. (If a stranger answers, your Aunt probably died in 1985, especially if you didnt get a pair of knitted gloves for Christmas in 1985.)

Make a pass at your spouse. If he or she wont wake up, get a Popsicle from the refrigerator.

Run down to the drugstore and buy a Snickers bar with almonds. (Okay, buy two.)

Put your television on Mute. Listen to your Elvis Presley 8-track tapes.

Go to sleep. When the television plays the National Anthem and the screen goes white, turn it off and go back to sleep.

The End

John T Jones, Ph.D.

Jones was a vice president of a Fortune 500 company subsidiary having the major responsibility for research and development and certain engineering functions. After he retired, he became editor of an international trade magazine. Jones is Executive Representative of IWS, sellers of Tyler Hicks wealth-success books and kits. He is a direct mail and mail order marketer and operates a dozen websites.

He has written three technical books, four novels (Bull, Revenge on the Mogollon Rim, Bone China, and In No Way Guilty), and many published papers on business, marketing, engineering and other topics. Details on many of these topics can be found at his personal web site.

Jones is a hack poet and amateur landscape painter. He lives in Idaho with his wife of 52 years. He has five children, three in medicine, a lawyer, and a portrait artist. The Jones? have thirty-two talented grandchildren (many with special musical talent and skills), and one great grand child.

Jones is a prolific writer which started when he was an engineering professor at Iowa State University (Go Cyclones!). He doesn?t know how to stop.