t's been a good year to be NetFlix. The online DVD-renting and video-streaming service has continually posted increases in profits each previous fiscal quarter, sometimes gains as much as 88%. Despite claims that increasing postage prices and the difficulty of obtaining streaming content may hinder future profit reporting, NetFlix continues to make big money while offering less to subscribers than in previous plans. The announcement of higher-priced plans, the separation of DVD rental/streaming packages, and setting limitations on streaming devices have all been designed to offset any future losses and increase profits, but today NetFlix CEO Reed Hastings announced it wasn't enough, and has made a bold proposal to raise subscription prices on people who use neither service.

"NetFlix is facing a struggle in the future, to continue to bring high-quality entertainment to our loyal subscribers, those who rent traditional formats by mail or watch via our state-of-the-art streaming service, we need to increase our income," Hastings announced from his undisclosed location in the NetFlix bunker in California. "I see no reason to further burden our faithful customers with the costs. Which is why I am enacting a daring new plan to increase subscription costs to those who do not subscribe to us."

Under the new NetFlix plan, subscribers to the DVD-rental service will pay $7.99 for 1 DVD at a time and $11.99 for 2, while the unlimited streaming-only plan stands at $7.99, and those who choose not to watch movies in either format from NetFlix only pay $2.99.

"At long last, starting in November, NetFlix is bringing the thrilling experience of a recurring NetFlix charge that our subscribers have long enjoyed to all those who have not yet become NetFlix customers," said Hastings.

Response has been mixed from non-customers and consumer watchdogs alike. Nell Farthingford, a spokesperson for the consumer advocacy group Wait/What, said of the new NetFlix price increases, "Wait? What?"

Farthingford clarified why consumer advocates like her are concerned about the new plan.

"I'm not math expert, but it does sound a lot like people who don't receive any service from the company are being forced to pay them for nothing." Farthingford did concede, "However, if I'm already paying them $2.99, it's only another five dollars to get unlimited streaming content on my PS3, X-Box, Wii, iPhone, iPad, or NetFlix-ready device. That's not a bad deal."

Outrage swelled around the internet on message boards, where outrage is born and nurtured, with some people complaining that the media company is exploiting those who do not patronize them to increase their already-large profits. Following price increases in November 2010 and June 2010 on people who actually watched movies, tempers run high for those who are unhappy with NetFlix. As always, though, a few responders could see the business sense of the deal.

"It's only a three dollar increase from what you were paying before," said MovieLuv.net forum user rhAsTings. "Quit your cryin. If you don't like it, you don't have to not use it. Just subscribe today."

Stockholders have already exhibited excitement of over the potential gain of $2,574,000,000 in the third quarter, and insiders at NetFlix are reportedly shitting themselves wet at the prospect of increasing their presence overseas, raising their number of non-subscribers to an estimated 6 billion by the end of next year.

Hastings said, "I see no reason a simple hut-dweller in Botswana should not be afforded the same luxury that a meager trailer-dweller without internet will soon enjoy—the joy of becoming a NetFlix bill-payer. Today we have the United States… tomorrow, we take the world!"

Upon receiving news of the NetFlix proposed price plan, Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos dramatically smashed a china cup against his Kindle and bellowed, "You will bow down before me, Reed! You… and your heirs!"

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If my inbox and the random uninformed street noise are any indication, interest in the ancient Macedonian king and conqueror Alexander the Great is at an all-time high right now, thanks in large part to the release of the Alexander the Great's Great Abs workout video last month. But some portion of the public's Alexanderlust is likely attributable to Oliver Stone's upcoming biopic, which garnered blood-red headlines recently due to Stone's decision to make the film's battle scenes more realistic by staging actual battles between armies of actors, leading to hundreds of casualties. America was outraged and excited, while the rest of Hollywood was relieved that there'd finally be some waitering jobs opening up around town.

But with renewed public slob interest always comes the usual swarthy stink of misinformation, and this time it has clouded around Alexander's so-called reputation as a great military leader. The trouble here is that most modern persons tend to think of sarcasm and irony as relatively recent inventions. But in fact, people in the ancient past were far more sarcastic than we are today, which has lead to more than a few historical misconceptions. Chief among these is the story of Alexander "the Great," an astonishingly mediocre leader who was given his title by a highly ironic public. Likewise with other historical misnomers, including the "Great" Wall of China, Atilla the "Hun," and the Ottoman "Empire."

The ancient Macedonians were the most sarcastic people in recorded human history, a trait many historians believe lead to their downfall, since it eventually became impossible to tell when anyone meant anything sincerely at all. In those days "Alexander the Great" was always said with an eye roll and a drawn out vowel in the word "great," implying a sentiment like "Oh greeeeat, here comes that shithead Alexander."

Alexander was a handsome young man, by the standards of that day, which meant he was ugly. As a boy Alexander was tutored by Aristotle, but not correctly, since Aristotle enjoyed nothing more than proving his superiority by teaching bogus information and marveling at how stupid children were to never catch on. Aristotle's tutelage provided the foundation for Alexander's life-long misunderstanding of world events, which led to his conquering of allies Persia and Arcadia in 330, then the eventual conquering of his own nation during a bloody siege in 328 B.C.

Alexander took over the throne of Macedonia after the murder of his father, Philip the Merely Adequate, in 336 B.C. Historians believe that Alexander's mother Olympias plotted Philip's murder, thanks in part to the cryptic title of her later autobiography, Die, Cocksucker. Some point the blamey finger at Alexander himself, due to the well-known fact that he went out of his way to piss on his father's grave every morning thereafter for the rest of his life. Even when he was away at war, Alexander would send special scouts back from the front to "water" the grave every morning at dawn. But this was a common show of respect in those times, at least among the rare sons who hadn't been poisoned or wrapped in bacon and left unsupervised to wander in the lion pen by their fathers before reaching adulthood.

After succeeding his father as king, Alexander shocked the kingdom by not assassinating his retarded brother Arrivederchus, which counted as extreme liberalism back in those days. In actuality, Alexander liked to keep Arrivederchus around to help him look more "the Great" in comparison, and his somewhat autistic brother was handy for estimating casualty figures after large battles. This unprecedented show of open-heartedness also served as a public-relations boon after Alexander had most of the rest of his family assassinated.

Among Alexander's many achievements over the course of his career were the conquerings of the Tits and the Oldmans, and providing universal health care for single-parent families. Alexander made a name for himself primarily by conquering peoples who were just on the verge of collapsing already, then taking credit for an astounding military victory. When Alexander conquered the Dinks in 326 B.C., Macedonian soldiers actually had to roust most of the Dink army from their beds to inform them that they'd been conquered. This took several days, since the Dinks were profoundly heavy sleepers, and this harrowing campaign went down in history as one of the most grueling of Macedonian military victories.

Peoples were routinely being conquered back then, because no one really gave two shits about that kind of thing, and if somebody wanted to all the fuss and headache of being the ruler, then they could have it. Any enterprising or even vaguely competent military leader could make an easy name for himself conquering the many apathetic kingdoms that littered the map in those days. Long-forgotten peoples like the Choads, the Ninnies, and the Blue Finks existed in large part just to be conquered. Oftentimes a conquering army would send ahead advance scouts to organize the haphazard country folk into "nations" of people so that they could be conquered in a memorable fashion.

Even with that being the case, Alexander got a little carried away with it and ended up conquering most of the known world before he was done. That the "known world" consisted of only a 20-square mile radius around Macedonia was of little consequence at the time, since nobody knew that there were oodles of other peoples out there remaining unconquered in far-off places. Twenty miles is still a long way to walk, however, and the Macedonian soldiers never forgave Alexander for making them hoof it so far entirely on foot, due to his lust for horsemeat gyros.

Regardless, Alexander conquered many a feeble people, and his troops came to call him "King of Everything," because he told them to.

Alexander eventually died of a broken heart at the age of 32, on the outskirts of Macedonia in 324 B.C. Historians are split over whether this was a romantic kind of broken heart, brought on by the untimely and ultimately tacky death of Alexander's lifelong gay lover Homocleus, or if this was just a primitive medical term referring to the fact that Alexander's heart reportedly leapt out of his mouth like a bullfrog while he was being beaten to death by the very soldiers he'd dragged to all ends of creation on his asinine crusade.

Alexander was survived by his wife and their son, the byproduct of an uncomfortable seven-minute tryst made necessary by the high failure rate of man-on-man pregnancies in ancient times. Though homosexuality was the norm of the day and a lot more fun, men of power still took brides for the purposes of creating an heir, necessitating an awkward wedding night followed by twice-yearly postcards on major holidays.

After Alexander's death, his mother had virtually everyone else in the government killed in various plots, until her machinations became too complex and she inadvertently plotted to have herself killed in 318 B.C. In time, Alexander's son Alexander the Better Than You've Heard became king, only to be killed soon after as a result of one of Olympias's old plots that someone found lying around.

With the release of Stone's film, audiences will at long last flock to learn the truth about Alexander, or at least four or five will who aren't going just for a chance to see Colin Farrell's dong.

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First off, we need to get it right out in the open that I had nothing to do with that huge whale that blew up in Taiwan last week. Yes, I've received all the congratulatory post cards, phone messages, and boxes of chocolate everyone has been sending, and I thank you all for those. But I'm sorry to say the "Way to go, dude!" is not rightfully mine this time around. I wasn't even in Taiwan last week, and before you start going on about remote controlled detonators and the like, let me also add that I didn't blow up any large mammals last week that I'm aware of either. I'm sure there are still some Omar Bricks fans out there searching for some loophole where whales aren't really mammals or they're related to the platypus or some bizarre shit like that, or maybe I was sleep-pranking again, but trust me on this one guys. Just let it go. Somebody else Bricksed that whale, I spent all last week in line at the DMV getting my death certificate revoked. More on that later.

Make no mistake, I'm completely flattered that when a giant dead whale explodes in the middle of a busy Taiwanese street half a world away, showering pedestrians and shopkeepers in smoky whale gore like some kind of fucked up dead fish piñata, the name Omar Bricks springs immediately to mind. It makes me feel like a lifetime spent in the pursuit of excellence has really paid off. Good to know I'm on the "Who the fuck??" A-list.

But anyone who reads this column closely should know that ever since I blew up that dead horse at the fair a few years back, I haven't been able to get my hands on anything more explosive than a packet of Pop Rocks, scout's honor. Whoever said that reputation is the motherfucker of investigation knew what he was talking about, it's like I'm a walking background check or something. I don't know who blew up that whale, if it was a member of my Taiwan fan club or some long-lost chinky relative who always blended in at the family reunions, but you've got to admire his slanty-eyed spunk. Most people would have stopped at stuffing a stick of dynamite up a carp's ass, but this guy was thinking big. Really big, I hear this was some kind of freakish Shaq whale with a five-foot dork, no kidding. I heard that most of the people who were hurt by flying whale meat didn't duck because they were too busy yelling "Look at that whale cock!" to their friends when it blew.

The official report, of course, is that some kind of nasty gasses built up inside the whale carcass while they were transporting it from the morgue over to the whale graveyard, causing the thing to blow Orca dramatically all over Tainan street right at rush hour. Right, and swamp gas reflected off a unicorn's ass explains the Kennedy assassination. The government guys who are in charge of making that shit up are the same dudes who wrote Ishtar. I trust them about as far as I can throw up. Which is pretty far, but still.

According to commune fact machine Griswald Dreck, whales don't even get gas, thanks to a diet that's heavy on soup and light on Tostada Bel Grandes, if you know what I mean. And when you think about it, the way Griswald has, it really starts to make sense. Can you even imagine what the world would be like if whales had gas? Those fucking things are huge. You'd be reading about ocean liners being capsized by fart bubbles every day in the paper. It'd be just like Titanic, except it would smell even more like rotten eggs.

Well, shit if we're not out of space already, looks like we'll have to wait until next time to explore the issue of why the DMV won't issue a driver's license to somebody who's legally dead. Turns out that "officially" being killed in a car explosion a year and a half ago has a down-side to go with the tax advantages. Go figure.

Bricks out.

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