Happy Friday, y’all! So check it out – a criminal mastermind in Richardson, Texas has apparently trained a monkey to steal plants from a nursery.

We mention this here for a number of reasons:
First, Stephen Colbert is off today, so we’re picking up the slack.
Second, we got this story from MonkeysInTheNews.Com, which means there’s a website called Monkeys In The News. (dot-com.)
Third, we needed to provide an alibi for Renata’s dog, who was busy getting expelled from puppy school last night, and nowhere near the scene of the crime. We swear.

Everybody has a Michael Jackson memory.
If you didn’t, well, you do now. RIP.

APRIL 16, 2009 -SAN FRANCISCO, CA: Business/Money reporter David Louie (of the ever-popular San Francisco ABC affiliate KGO TV) seeks the insight of Mortar’s very own Mark Williams about Google’s 1st quarter drop in advertising revenue.
Check out the riveting video, and revealing images of our top-secret lair:

Just goes to show that not even our Silicon Valley neighbors- and by “neighbors” we mean people that would release the hounds if we came close to their uber mansions -are immune to the dreaded “R word.”
The Full Story, if you like that sort of thing

We've got some people in L'Aquila.
Say a prayer, light a candle, and if you can, please donate to the Italian Red Cross. Grazie.