Some of us here at The Black Table work in financial journalism, which is fine: It pays the bills, it's moderately interesting and, um, did we mention the bills thing? Through this job, many publishers will send us copies of books about financial issues and what-not. We flip through them for about 30 seconds and then go sell them to the used book store down the road.

The following are selections from the new book "400 Greatest Jokes For Investment Advisors, Financial Planners, Financial Speakers, Insurance Agents, CPAs, Bankers & Stockbrokers," by Larry Kline, president of NF Communications, a leading supplier of marketing programs to the financial community. So, you know, he's a real card.

"My doctor sure got me on my feet again. His bill was so high, I had to sell my car."

"A pregnant patient, upon having a conversation with her doctor, learns that her insurance policy covers parts, not labor."

"An actuary is someone who studied to be a CPA, but didn't have the personality for it."

We don't understand what any of those jokes mean. None of them. Any help?

Bills. Paid. All will be fine. Right?

We've got a whopping 13 reviews this week, sure to warm the cockles of your heart (and there's nothing like hot cockles). Submit your reviews in the little box on the right … IF YOU DARE.

--BT

The Black Table needs your help! Every week, we need reviews of the latest media-related crud, new products from Capitalists and odd idea, concept or trend. All you need to have is a sharp opinion that you can distill down to one paragraph of 150 words and give a letter grade. To submit, please fill out the form below. Entries may edited for length, style and clarity. Hit us with your best shot. Fire away.

SAYING GOODBYE TO "FRIENDS": Well, not so much goodbye as, "you mean you still haven't left?" Because let's face it: "Friends" wore out its welcome years ago. Now, it's the television equivalent of those popular people from your high school who not only still live in your hometown, but continue to date one another. You know, I've moved on, as have many of us who left you behind because once we all graduated, we all forgot who the hell you were. Come to think of it, are you finally catching on to the fact that not only have we all moved on, but nobody really gave a shit about you in the first place? It's pretty pathetic. We're still going to watch the finale, though. C- -- Tom Panarese

YOUR LAZY EYE: You come up to my desk and engage me in conversation and, being paid to offer customer service, I'm obligated to reply. Yet … where to focus? Eye-to-eye contact is

good, but while one of your eyes is on target the other is off on some neurological bender. I have to look somewhere. The nose? No, too low. Forehead? Disconcerting for me; I'm speaking to a furrow. So an eye it is - but if I stare long enough even to figure out which of your see-holes is laser-targeted to within at least a radian of me, I'm already venturing into "stare at the gimp" territory. Damn it, man. Put on a patch. Or put an arrow on your forehead that says "HERE, THE LEFT ONE!" Don't make me go from eye to eye like I'm watching brow tennis. For making me awkwardly look, and look away, and look again: C -- AMR

SUNDAY'S EPISODE OF THE SOPRANOS: All right, all you people who watch the Sopranos later on in the week, go read something else on The Black Table -- To the rest of you: Holy Fucking Crap! I never understood what "water-cooler" conversation was all about until this episode. I've watched countless season/series finales of many popular shows, but never have I had the urge to talk to about it the next day with people at work. Enter Sunday's Sopranos episode. I've initiated and interrupted three different conversations about the show today: "Can you believe Finn and Meadow are getting married?!", "How hilarious was that screw up with Joe Peeps' headstone?", and finally -- "Can you believe that fucking fat Vito Spatafore is a homo?"
Let's just hope we won't have to wait out a whole season to get some resolutions to these story lines. I'm still pissed Dr. Melfi never sicked Tony on that fast-food guy that raped her in the stairwell. A -- A.J. Daulerio

SINCERELY LIKING YOUR EX-BOYFRIEND'S BAND: When you were together, you went to see them every time they played, maybe at CB's Gallery, maybe Royal Oak. You stood close but not too close to the front, nodding in time, suppressing a proud little smile. They were good -- really good. The song about you was the best one, but you liked them all. Now you're broken up, but the fucker still includes you on the mass email he sends before every show. Obviously you can't go and look like a desperate groupie, especially since he's back with his old girlfriend, but if you never hear that song again, the one with the pretty guitar part in the middle, you just may die. F -- Johanna More

THE RETURN OF FLIP-FLOPS: The downside of rising temperatures is the return of flip-flops as standard office commuter attire. Ladies, please stop wearing flip-flops to work. There are few appropriate flip-flop donning occasions - a sandy beach vacation, a dorm shower, the backyard (only for those Black Table readers 12 and under). Flip-flops, contrary to your apparent belief system, do not go with pencil skirts and sweater twinsets. They do not match your Coach clutch or your Louis Vuitton shoulder bag. They do not belong on public transportation, regardless of how many sequins and rhinestones are sewn on the straps. They look stupid with your jeans and your metro trousers. Yes, we see your immaculate pedicure. But the attempted throwback to childhood clashes with your multi-tonal highlights and sunless tanning streaks. You're not an Olsen twin. Give it up. D -- chelle

DEODORANT SCENT NAMES: Used to be, you had your Regular, Fresh, Musk and, for jocks, Sport. We're now way beyond the land of logic, Dorothy. You got your Arctic Peak, Cool Wave, Pacific Light (?), Wild Rain, Icy Surge, etc. The brand Axe offers, for our olfactory confusion, Voodoo (smells like, what, chicken bones?) and Orion (son of Poseidon and some mortal chick). But, by the end of a sweaty day, the smells emanating from your pits need new names, I think: Wild Rain Road Kill, Cool Wave Raw Sewage, Orion's Corpse, Arctic Peak Dead Explorer, etc. F -- hillmarky

DINERS THAT PLAY NIRVANA: I'm hungover on a Saturday morning and just want some eggs, bacon, chocolate milk and a place to read my Daily News. I shuffle into the nearest diner, order my breakfast, open my paper and settle in. Then, out of nowhere, inexplicably ... the diner starts playing Nirvana's "In Utero" over the loudspeakers. There are many things listening to In Utero makes you want to do:

• Fling yourself against walls.
• Rip your shirt off and start screaming.
• Inject heroin.

What it doesn't make you want to do is eat breakfast. Every time I'd pick up my fork, I'd want to jam it into my arm and unleash a tortured howl. In Utero is far too powerful to listen to before 11 a.m. -- particularly in public. Still ... you have to respect the diner's gumption; they could have played Billy Joel or some such nonsense, one supposes. C -- Will Leitch

STRANGE ITEMS IN YOUR FOOD: Biting into a ham sandwich, your molar grinds on something unfamiliar. Covered in enamel but -- bonded with your imagination -- more sensitive than the most sophisticated machinery in the CSI lab, your molar screams: Piece of pig spine! Or you pour a bowl of cereal and out tumbles an odd-colored speck welded onto a flake. A once three-dimensional crawly beast, now flattened by conveyor belts? Missing some of its legs, it disappoints cereal-eating entomologists everywhere. Or you open a jar of peanut butter, known for its consistent brown, um, browniness, except for that bit of black threaded ... plastic? Not peanuty, more assembly liney. So 800 numbers are dialed, Web sites are visited and along comes a deluge of apologies, certificates and coupons for the same product that inspired the nightmare in the first place. Meanwhile, you can still hear your teeth grinding on that bit of bone as you fall into a fitful sleep. C -- Deanna Larson

"CLASSIC ALTERNATIVE": K-Rock, from its very inception, has sucked. Even as a classic rock station, it paled in comparison to WNEW. Well, lo-and-behold, with nu-metal out the window and with emo and pop-punk already being done better by the college stations, K-Rock is now embracing the "classic alternative" genre, playing what commercial radio deemed "alternative" in the late-'80s, early '90s (Hum, Oasis, Tripping Daisy, some Seattle stuff, the occasional REM or U2 with some Strokes and White Stripes thrown in for kicks). You have to be fucking kidding me. I'm not expecting K-Rock to start playing Sonic Youth or Dinosaur Jr. or even Mudhoney, but the fact that there's little "classic" or "alternative" about songs like "Lump" and "Sex and Candy" makes me long for the days when everything was fucked up and everybody sucked. Wait, like now. F -- Jason Notte

ROLLITOS AD CAMPAIGN: The new commercials for Rollitos, which are basically Doritos rolled up like a blunt, feature an ad campaign with the catch phrase: "Now your favorite snack is easier to eat!" Thank you Doritos; it was difficult for me to polish off an entire bag of Cooler Ranch tortilla chips in one sitting. At first I thought this new buzzword 'easier' was utilized solely by Doritos, but now it has popped up in my aim.com window, tempting one to "Ask Your Crush Out Over IM: It's Easier". Apparently being a corpulent, lazy, coward is now something you should seek to attain; easier is now a synonym for better. Thankfully, I have a feeling this new trend toward being a corpulent, lazy coward is going to make me a very popular girl indeed. D -- Andrea Anderson

SUPERTARGET: I spent most of my life past age 14 dreaming of ways to get the hell out of suburbia. I was thoroughly convinced that I was living in a suckhole devoid of any culture and/or fun. There was nothing to do and nowhere to go. In this desperate need to entertain ourselves, my friends and I devised a plan: Let's drop acid, go to Target, drink as many Mountain Dews as possible and witness the fun unfold. The store was huge and glowing and beautiful. We'd always get lost and pretend we were fighting magical dragons. C'mon, you totally did acid too. Now, many years later, after working a 40-hour week, I still like to wake up on Saturday and head on down to SuperTarget. Not only do I still get that warm nostalgic fuzzy from my misspent youth, but I'm comforted by the fact that I can get a BBQ grill, tampons, socks and food in one place. I know there's some moral dilemma I should be freaking out about, considering it's the result of suburbia, but screw that. SuperTarget's Super! (Even without the dragons.) A -- Angie York

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY'S MUSIC SECTION: If you were a space alien who crash landed on Earth and passed judgment on the state of recorded music using Entertainment Weekly's music section, you'd think the industry is in some kind of fucking Golden Era reminiscent of the British Invasion. In its Summer Movie Preview issue, EW reviewed a dozen new music releases and gave half of them -- HALF! -- a B+. Only three records received a lower grade and something called Jimmie's Chicken Shack received the worst grade, which was a C. With a sliding scale reminiscent of a first-year T.A. who gets shitfaced with students, EW has as much credibility as the front window at the Sam Goody's in the mall. For all that's been said about Internet piracy, EW's music section likes to overlook one glaring fact: Most music is average, boring, unoriginal, uninspired, shallow, insipid, hollow, worthless dreck that isn't even worth stealing. At least the movie section has the balls to give out Ds. F -- Eric Gillin

THE SIDEWAYS SHIT: As I rise from the toilet to summon a doctor, I think to myself, "I didn't think a straight man could become impregnated." If I had swallowed a roast or a turkey whole, then I would have nothing to complain about, but it boggles my mind to understand how somewhere between my mouth and my little anus, spaghetti can turn into a fucking hammer. Maybe my lungs are striking back from all the smoke, or my liver is trying some trickery for all the abuse it has taken. Whatever it is, Mr. Anus needs to team up with Mr. Balls and stop this shit. D- -- Ross

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