Cultural

Thousands of attractive, dysfunctional narcissists from 18 to 24 years old are descending on open casting calls for MTV's The Real World, while snubbing the CNN version of the real world. Given the alternatives of cavorting with beautiful, horny people in a contrived living situation in Las Vegas, or dealing with the constant fear of death infiltrating the mail or falling from the sky, these young adults are making a clear choice for their preferred reality.

The hirsute drinker snubbed out his cigarette on the bar as closing time approached. "I should be out there right now," he complained, "but it's pointless." From the vicinity of a Bud Light bottle suspended over the next stool came "Yeah, now the only way I could get a rise out of people would be to toss some flour in the air. I'm as patriotic as the next American, man, I'm not going to exploit things that way."

The band Anthrax may have been only joking about changing their name to Basket Full of Puppies, but they just might be on to something - the market for depressed and angry music has declined to its lowest level in recording history. Tower Records reports that sales of metal have declined 75%, industrial music is down 90%, and not a single Goth CD has been sold since September 11 (the spokesman declined to comment on when the last Goth sale before September 11 occurred).

In a follow-up to an earlier story (Hell affected by energy crisis), We're All Doomed has uncovered evidence that Satan has planted an agent in the Boston Red Sox organization to prevent any chance the team may precipitate a freeze.

With the demise of the free Napster music-swapping service, the United States can no longer be considered a free country. "It totally sucks, man, like, whatever happened to the Constitution?" asked longtime Napster user Josh Gannon, 16. "I've been on Napster a year now, and I'm telling you, getting all the music you want for free is like, the best thing that ever happened to this country. It's time for a revolution - are there any of those militias around I could join?"

The U.S. Copyright Office today reported that the 1000th song titled 'Crazy Love' was registered, reaching the milestone just ahead of 'Blind Love'. Said blues singer Blind Willie McGee "I had no idea the title had been used - I thought it was entirely original." God announced today that, as a result, the Apocalypse will be scheduled shortly. "It's become clear", She said, "that the creative spark I had granted to humanity has run dry prematurely. I'll have to start again with a different species - perhaps some kind of lizard."