Kansas - The Great Ja’sul, leader of the Xenite’s Flock Religious Cult proclaimed last week that their God Xeni spoke to him while he was in the midst of an American Idol-induced trance and assured him that on January 6th, 2009 nothing much would happen.

“I can say with the utmost confidence that the world on that date will be a boring, banal experience, and that nothing of major importance will go down.”, stated Ja’sul.

Ja’sul, 23, who’s real name is John Hinkler, made this proclamation from his parents basement where he currently resides. ‘I was watching a rerun of American Idol as commanded by Xenie when I entered a trance like state shortly after heaing Chris’s rendition of Queen’s ‘Innuendo’. While in this state of blissful detachment, Xenie came to me and revealed the vision’, Ja’sul continued.

Ruh’kyra, 21, one of the cult’s 3 active members did not take the prophecy’s news with delight. ‘Hell no, I’m not happy. I’m sick of watching this stupid show. My life is boring enough without John, sorry…I mean Ja’sul, telling me it’s not going to get much better anytime soon.”

Hi.

Ok. So I picked up this Cisco 870 series router last weekend when I was shopping at the Best Buy in Burbank. Normally I wouldn’t be caught dead in there but I heard they are one of the top chains for CD sales and I figured I’d go in to make sure they had my CD on the shelves. They like totally didn’t. Can you believe that? I mean, oh my god. So I marched over to one of those people behind the counter, you know that wear those hideous blue shirts…with tan slacks? I mean really. Blue with tan? Yuck, anyway, and I said I want to talk to your manager right now.

Well the girl behind the counter kinda froze for a second. You know, like she’s thinking…’Oh my god, Paris Hilton is actually talking to me!’ I take a lot of crap in the press that’s so not fair…and here is a perfect example of what I have to deal with. I’m telling her I demand to know why my CD isn’t on the shelf and that it’s pretty hard to sell millions of CD’s when my fans can’t find them and I can totally tell she’s not hearing a word I’m saying. I call it the ‘Paris Effect’. So I say to myself, ok Paris calm down…she’s not used to being in the presence of celebrity so I look at her name tag and grab a pen and find a candy bar wrapper in my pocket and sign it ‘To Angie, Paris Hilton’ and hand it to her.

Well now she gets this glazed over look on her face and I say, “Honey it’s OK. You don’t have to pay me for it or anything’

So after all that you know what she does? She rolls her eyes. Like what the hell? Then she says, ‘I’ll be right back’. So now I’m fuming. I mean I have gone above and beyond here and she’s going to make me wait!? I was going to just turn around and stomp right out of the store, but then I realized my fans would still not be able to buy my CD so I took a deep breath, crossed my arms and waited. Well this girl, ‘Angie’, went back behind the curtain where I’m sure she’s telling someone back there that I’m cheap cause I didn’t give her any money or invite her to a party when this guy with the worst comb-over I have ever seen comes to the counter holding my autograph in his hand. ‘Ms Hilton’, he says, ‘Employees are not allowed to accept gifts, it’s against Best Buy policy’, and then he hands my autograph back. Then he says, ‘What can I help you with?’

Now I’m going to tell him about my CD but I see he’s not even looking me in the eye. No, he’s looking right at my tits. I was just about to blow up when he kinda points at my chest and asks if I could please cover up as there are children in the store, and I look down and well…I guess in my anger and in crossing and uncrossing my arms, one of my tits fell out of my top….like this doesn’t happen to everyone once in awhile. So I pull my top up a bit and tuck in and ask him why the fuck my CD isn’t on the shelf? Now he gets that frozen look on his face and he starts to say, ‘It’s not on the shelves because it’s not sell…ing, err not in stock. It’s sold out. Yeah, that why…I forgot we sold the last one yesterday’.

Oh. Of course. So now I feel pretty bad. They can’t keep them on the shelves. So I tell him well I understand and that I’m sorry about my tits and that next time it would really help my fans if he could order more CDs at once so they won’t sell out of them.

Anyway he agrees and tells me he’ll make sure they order a ton more and then asks if there is anything else he can help me with. I’m about to say no, when I look over and on the counter is just the cutest thing I have ever seen. So I ask him what is that? He tells me it’s a Cisco 870 router, and then starts to turn away as if I wouldn’t need one or something. Whatever. So I grab it, put on my charge and go home.

Now I’m pretty excited, I mean, I have OnStar in my Audi but let me be honest with you. Sometimes talking to those people is such a drag. Like the time I called OnStar on my cell and told them I locked my keys and panties in the car and I needed them to open it for me and then give me directions to this new club that just opened. They wouldn’t do it. They said I sounded inebriated, and that they could not allow me back into the car!! I told them I wasn’t drunk, that I only had three martinis and smoked two joints, but they still wouldn’t open that damn door for me.

So screw OnStar. I figured why talk to some stuck up OnStar person when I can have a router tell me the route to my next party.

So anyway here is my review, and it’s not a good one.

I do not recommend the Cisco 870 series router to ANYONE. First off, the instructions that come with it only tell you how to hook it up to the internet. Now I realize it needs to get its maps and directions from somewhere, but the problem is, it ONLY tells you how to hook it up to the internet IN YOUR HOUSE. Hello?? Some people may need directions AFTER they leave their house. I mean really. So there are no instructions on how to get it to work in your car where it might like, really be useful? The other problem is it doesn’t tell you how to use it for directions. It’s got three lights on the front which I figure light up for ‘Turn Left, Go Straight, or Turn Right’, but until I can find someone to install it in my car it’s just sitting in my closet.

On the plus side, it’s really cute. Very cool looking. It would soooo totally accessorize with my silver Porsche. It just sucks the instructions are so bad.

So in closing, don’t buy this router, and ta ta for now.

-Paris

It’s come to my attention that lately there has been a lot of talk on the Interwebs about my speech regarding network neutrality and how the intertubes work. Most of this criticism seems to be coming from a vocal minority of the interweb community known as the bloggerings. Well, I’ve had my staff do some research into this community and let me tell you, this is a whole lot of ado about nothing.

These bloggerers, are trying to make it seem like I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about when it comes to the inner workings of the interweb. Well I have one question to put to these spoiled brats who have nothing better to do all day than to do bloggering, play games on their Playboxes and X-Stations, and download stolen music onto their iTunes pod, and that is, ‘Are any of you Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation?’ No? I didn’t think so.

So I don’t know where you get off telling me I don’t understand how the internets works. I am not a techno-idiot. When I said the internets is made up of a series of ‘tubes’ I wasn’t being literal. I was using an analogy for the benefit of all my less techno-savvy constituents. I know damn well the interweb isn’t literally made up of tubes, it’s made from pipes. Everyone knows that. Now pipes have been around for ages, however in times past they mostly were used to carry water, and that’s how most of my older constituents perceive them. When the new internet pipes came out in the 90’s many people became confused on how they worked. So to prevent confusion and prevent having to go into a long drawn out explanation of how interweb pipes don’t carry water but rather carry the internets, bloggerings, and other material I chose to use the term tubes as an analogy.

So all you bloggerers out there can just stick your bloggerings where the sun don’t shine. It may come as a surprise to you, but not only am I fully versed on how the interweb operates, but I also keep up with technology in other niches. For instance I have my own space site, which I use for my fan club. Go internet it at http://www.myspace.com/tedstevensfanclub. That right, it’s my space site, you spoiled bloggerers are not the only ones who have your own space site.

I also have an iTunes pod which is filled with empty three files from all sorts of wholesome artists such as Neil Diamond and The Osmonds. I’d just like to mention that unlike most of the bloggerers out there, I didn’t steal my empty three files from any interweb peer sharer either. I paid for them online from the ipod tunes.

Finally, I’d just like to say that these bloggerers are clearly unfamilair with economic issues such as how supply and demand can affect limited resources such as the interweb pipes. If we don’t provide a means for companies to control the material flowing through these pipes we’re all going to be in trouble once they all get clogged up. Even I will admit that the concept of having an interweb that isn’t regulated is a great idea, but it just doesn’t work in real life. What happens is people start to use the interweb for frivolous activities such as sharing, personal opinion, bloggering, and access to non-government supplied information. We didn’t build it for that. If that’s what you want to use it for then I think you should either build your own internets or be forced to pay a fee for the priviledge of forefilling your dalliances. That’s all I’m saying. Everyday I hear of some new way to use the interweb. Just a few days ago I heard of a site called U-tube. This interweb lets people internet videos and creates just vast amounts of material in the pipes. This hurts the company’s which lay the interweb pipes because now they can’t charge as many people to use the pipes as they once could. This isn’t right, and it’s isn’t American! So to all you bloggerers out there, get off your high-horses and stop playing your X-stations for a few minutes and try to educate yourself on how the real world operates, because you’re not living in the real world. You’re living in the cybermatrix, and the cybermatrix is just an imaginary place, regardless of how much you think it isn’t.

Thank you,

– Senator Ted Stevens (R)

Louisville, KY - A small tsunami measuring approximately 4 feet high terrified small children and frightened dozens at a local park pool in Louisville today. The wave, which originated in the deep end of the pool traveled the nearly 100 feet to the shallow end in under 6 seconds, giving parents and children wading there little time to react.

Though there were no reported casualties, several small children were knocked off their feet, pushed into the side of the pool, or became caught in the undertow as the wave receded and dragged out towards the deep end of the pool. The wave also reportedly caused several items of property to be displaced or lost.

‘It was horrific!’, Patty Gilberg sobbed, ‘ There was nothing I could do. One minute I was playing with my daughter Hana, and the next thing I know is this giant waves hits me, and before I can recover I see Hana being dragged back towards the deep end of the pool screaming’. Pausing to compose herself, Gilberg continued, ‘If it wasn’t for rope dividing the deep end from the shallow, my Hana might have been swept completely out of her end.’

Eye witness accounts indicate that the source of the wave came from the failed dive attempt of one Derrick Higgins, 32. Higgins, who weighs a reported 368 pounds, stated that as he moved towards the end of the diving board on the 5 meter platform, he slipped, causing him to fall the 15 feet to the water in a spasm of uncontrolled contortion and flailing and not in the graceful splashless dive he originally intended.

Officials have promised an investigation to determine if any policy should be created or if they should install some type of tsunami warning system. In the meantime Robert Yuless, Louisville Parks Supervisor, gave the following advice regarding pool tsunamis.

The Abyss - A visibly angry Lord of Hell announced today that over 75 years of planning was all for naught as a software bug prevented the execution of his plans to end the world on 6/6/06.

The Morning Star had been meticulously planning the worlds ending to occur on the prophetic date for decades using an old DOS calendaring program on his PC in Hades. This software was to execute and issue orders to his vast legion of demons, initiating the world’s destruction at 6am, on June 6th, 2006. However, since the Ruler of the Damned had never patched this system to handle the infamous Y2K bug, the PC actually issued orders which indicated that the attack was to occur at 6am, June 6th, 1906. The date, 100 years in the past, caused untold confusion and chaos among the army of the damn’s leaders, effectively preventing the attack from occuring.

‘God damn it!!!’, stated an exasparated Satan. ‘I am so fucking pissed right now. All this planning, all the drills, all the fucking lava and brimstone I ordered, for what!? Jesus fucking Christ what a mess!’

‘What really get’s my goat, is that I may have been able to salvage it had I not gone and taken a human form to get a really good view on the attack. I wanted to watch humanity’s reaction once it started. Once they understood, I mean REALLY understood what was happening, so I’m on earth waiting and then at 6am…no attack. Nothing. Then my cell phone starts to go nuts. I’ve got devils asking me how I expect them to carry out an attack 100 years in the past. They’re telling me they aren’t going to do it, that it’s against union rules. Of course I’m on earth in human form so I don’t know what the hell (pardon the pun) is happening…and by the time I started getting the phone calls, it’s game over. I’d have to get back to my plane of existence, and when you figure in all the temperal conversions between eternity and earth, and the time needed to figure out just what in Judas’s name was going on…ah, just fuck it all’

‘Well’, sighed the fallen angel, ‘I need to wait another 100 years now. I may as well make use of that time. Who designed this piece of shit DOS system anyway? I’m going to make sure whoever that bastard is pays.’

Milwaukee - Area goth Aalacho Darkheart, announced yesterday that ‘Black will be the new black this year.’ Aalacho, a name which referes to the angel of the 11th hour of night, and whose real name is James Anderson made the bold prediction to fellow goths gathered at an area park over the weekend.

‘We were discussing what we should wear to the NIN/Bauhaus and Bravery concerts this summer at Summerfest and I figured, you know, black might really stand out.’, a quiet and withdrawn Anderson said. ‘I kinda thought, hey what would get Trent’s (Reznor) attention, and it just came to me that he’d really notice someone dressed in black. But not the flat plain black of last year. Oh no, that’s so cliche now, but rather a shimmery kinda black. That’s the new black this year.’

Anderson’s friends mostly agree.

‘Absolutely. What else would it be? Hot Pink? Yeaha right. Get lost narc.’, a distracted and visibly annoyed girl named Jezibel confirmed.

Wisconsin – The ‘Food for Thought’ club, a student based philosophy dinner club made up of Madison area students hopes to have its very first dinner outing later this month. While any dinner club’s first meeting is cause for celebration, the Food for Thought Club has an added reason to be excited about their first dinner; It would be their first dinner after forming the club more than three years ago.

‘We had originally planned to meet out for dinner somewhere at least once a month’, says club president Andrew Wurton, ‘but we never expected to encounter the difficulties we’ve had in trying to decide a venue, date, time, or even the means and process by which to decide these things. I mean it took over 4 months just to decide that a majority vote would suffice to choose our club’s name.’

‘The problem was we just had too many conflicting philosophies in the club and went into it without a proper philosophy on what the club would be.

‘For example’, Wurton continued, ‘The anarchists didn’t want any rules. They just wanted to eat wherever the hell they felt like and if others showed up, well jolly good show then. Meanwhile the Utilitarian’s felt they couldn’t make a proper decision on a place to eat without first charting everyone’s happiness in relation to each item on a given menu. You know, Bob likes chicken but hates tacos, Mary really likes tacos but doesn’t care for steak, Frank doesn’t like Tacos, but just loves Steak. They spent weeks just trying to figure out which restaurant would provide the group with the greatest amount of utility, and then after we had chosen a place, we find out the restaurant had been out of business for like two weeks.’

‘After that it was back to square one. We had just about decided on a place again, when the Deontological Kantists got into it with each other on whether it was morally acceptable to eat at a place which served meat. This upset the utilitarians because they had created another chart which showed quite clearly that eating meat provided much more happiness to the group than strictly non-meat menus. Meanwhile we had this Cartesian rationalist who kept saying she couldn’t decide on a place until she truly came to ‘know the essence of the food’’.

‘So, after our second year anniversary, still without ever having a club dinner, I came up with the idea of a new philosophy called ‘philosophical dinnerism’. Basically it was a new philosophy with its focus purely on how to have a philosophy based dinner club.

The first step in creating any new philosophy is to clearly define your goal, which we defined as ‘Having members of the club choose a place and time to go eat and discuss philosophy, and then do so’. This hit a rough spot right away when our Cartesian rationalist kept questioning the existence of the rest of the club’s members. To resolve this issue we created the first tenet of philosophical dinnerism which states:

The question of the existence of the rest of the club shall be deemed irrelevant to the purpose of the club. For even if the rest of the club exists only in one’s mind, and are in fact figments of the subconscious mind, or illusionary imaginings brought into existence by some deceiving power or demon, these figments still posses the ability to engage oneself in philosophical conversations and reflection, which is a stated purpose of this club.’

‘That finally shut up the rationalist. Fucking Descartes!’, exclaimed Wurton.

‘Anyway, after we agreed on the first tenet we moved on to how we would decide which place to eat. This had always hit a snag with the utilitarians, so we created the second tenet of dinnerism which stated:

The Greatest amount of happiness (or utility) for the dinner club, comes about only by actually having a dinner out somewhere. Since this utility supersedes the individual food preferences of club members, the venue shall be chosen on a simple majority vote of its members.’

After creating these two tenets we were able to decide on a resteraunt in about 20 minutes. We’ll see how it goes next week, but I’m very excited about it. I mean after waiting three years, how can you not be?’

When asked if he foresaw any problems, Wurton replied, ‘I am a bit concerned what’s going to happen when it comes time to pay the bill. But I’ve got a couple ideas for a third tenet should it come to that…but we’ll see how it goes. Right now I’m just hungry.’

Columbus, GA - Scientists around the US today are expressing concern that the latest victim of the Bird Flu may indicate that a substantial mutation of the deadly avian virus has occurred allowing the virus to spread to corporate mascots

Yesterday, The American Family Life Assurance Company (Aflac) announced that its popular corporate mascot, the Aflac Duck was found dead in its wading pond in Columbus late last week. Preliminary autopsy and test results point to the cause of death being the H5N1 Virus, more popularly known as Avian Influenza, or “The Bird Flu.”

The virus, which has reached epidemic proportions in Asia and Europe, has killed millions of birds and has largely resisted efforts to contain or control its spread. Though fatal to birds and easily spread among bird populations, the virus has not been considered a serious threat to humans or other non-avian species as the virus has lacked the ability to spread from a non-avian host.

Scientists fear that the death of the Aflac duck may be an indication that the virus has jumped this ’species boundary’ and has mutated into a form which is now virulent to bird-like corporate mascots.

Disney CEO, Robert Iger, has indicated that the entertainment giant would be taking no chances and has put into place a strict quarantine at all its locations around the world. Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Scrooge McDuck, and any actors playing them have been removed from the various Disney theme parks and attractions and placed into isolation where their health can be monitored and they can be kept isolated from other mascots.

Other corporations with high-risk mascots have taken similar steps. Barry M Meyer, CEO of Warner Brothers stated, “Don’t expect to see daffy Duck walking around any time soon. He’s being placed on a mandatory vacation until we can better access the threat level the virus poses.”

Aflac also announced it will be offering a new policy aimed at corporations with bird like mascots. Daniel P. Amos, the company CEO, stated, “We’re really a big family here at Aflac, and when news of Affie’s death came out last week, it hit us all pretty hard. While we can’t do anything about the virus itself, we can offer some peace of mind to other mascot owners out there. Should your mascot contract the avian flu, our new ‘Affie’ policy will ensure your mascot’s medical and (if needed) funeral costs will be covered.”

“We also hope that this new policy will reduce some of the panic we’ve been seeing out there in the mascot community. I know that Big Bird has not been himself the last few days. A friend of mine from PBS told me yesterday that Big Bird went totally bezerk and started screaming at Elmo when Elmo arrived to visit him without wearing a HEPA-approved face mask over the weekend. I guess Elmo ran off crying and now no one’s seen him on Sesame Street for days. While I understand this policy can’t offer protection from getting the virus, I do hope it may reduce the stress some of these mascots are obviously feeling right now.”

Washington DC - At 11:12 this morning, Vice President Dick Cheney had Press Secretary Scott McClellan inform the Washington media reporting pool that the Vice President was going to ‘take a dump’ and would not be handling his duties as Vice President for the next several minutes.

The Vice President, still stinging from criticism stemming from his decision to release news of his hunting accident last week via The Corpus Christi Caller-Times instead of through the White House Press Corps, felt he’d better not take any chances should anyone wonder where he was for the next few minutes.

Scott McClellan, the White House Press Secretary stated, ‘We took a lot of heat last week for not having any type of ‘game plan’ should something happen to the Vice President while hunting and for the resulting delay in reporting the incident. Well we’re not taking any chances anymore. He’s gone to take a dump and we feel the Vice President will be back to perform his duties shortly, but should anything happen, we’re ready for it’.

McClellan did not take any questions from reporters.

Hollywood - In a turn of events that has sent shockwaves through the FOX network and set most of the Hollywood gossip channels tittering, it was announced this morning that Paula Abdul would be dropped from the judging panel of the hit show ‘American Idol’ due to demands by co-judge Simon Cowell.

Rumors indicate that Cowell made these demands after hearing Abdul’s 1988 hit ‘Straight Up’ for the first time at a party this weekend. The cantankerous Cowell was reported to have been shocked to find out that the ‘hideous banshee-song being played’ was in fact being sung by one of his co-judges.

Sources at the party report that when Cowell arrived the DJ made an announcement indicating the next song was in honor of Cowell’s presence. When the song ‘Straight Up’ started playing sources indicated that Cowell looked confused, at first believing the song was actually a demo tape from a friend of the DJ. After being told it was one of his co-judges best known songs, Cowell appeared stunned for a few moments and then walked out.

Vanessa Pevera, a friend of Cowell, after being asked how it was possible that Cowell had never heard the song before answered, ‘Well you have to remember that Simon was in England back in the 80’s and a lot of the musical influence back then was coming from Europe, not America. Paula Abdul’s music never really registered overseas. Also, Simon was quite the partier back then. I doubt he remembers much from that entire decade.’

Inside sources at the FOX network state that Cowell was furious, and felt mislead by the network since they had ensured him before the show’s first year that Paula deserved to be on the panel and was a great singer. Cowell had been pushing for more well known female names to be on the panel.

Simon Fuller, the shows Executive Producer indicated that while they would like to keep Paula on the show, their hands are tied.

‘Our numbers indicate that the female audience is by far our largest demographic and that this audience is being drawn almost exclusively by Simon’s presence. He’s arrogant, cute, and British. The ladies can’t resist that.

During the initial scoping we had hoped that Paula would lend some credibility to the judging panel due to her being a singer and we also hoped she would draw in some of the male viewers out there. This just hasn’t happened.

While we’re sorry to have to let Paula go, we do wish her the best. We also see this as an opportunity to tweak the panel and find a person to draw the 25-40 year old male audience we’ve never been able to get.’

When asked if this meant a change in direction for the show, Fuller replied, ‘No, I wouldn’t say a change of direction for the show…just in the requirements one has to have to be a judge. We feel the panel is legitimate right now with Simon and Randy, as they both have ties to the industry. What we’re going to do is look to the male dominated market of sports for the third judge. In fact, we’re pretty sure we have our guy. We’ve been talking to John Madden’s agent the last couple days, and he says John will do it. His only condition was that we needed to provide a telestrator for him to use on the show.’