eneral Motors Corp. announced today they would be recalling all production models of their popular Mars Rover sport-utility vehicle, due to unspecified problems with the vehicle’s onboard computer system. According to Robert Jungels, a spokesperson for the world’s #1 automaker, “God help the poor son of a bitch who’s counting on one of those things on a cold winter’s day.�

In an unrelated story, NASA technicians continue to twiddle knobs and fart around in an effort to repair their ailing Mars Rover, stranded on the barren Martian surface nearly 100 million miles from Earth. As of Friday, technicians were receiving only random blips of static and the sickening sound of grinding metal from the Rover’s powerful radio antenna.

“It’s just like my Lumina,� mused mission controller Mark Banks. “Looks like beautiful. Drives like shit.�

“As the owner’s manual states clearly in twelve point Helvetica, it is not recommended that the Rover be driven outside of the country,� explained GM’s Jungels when told about NASA’s car trouble. “Foreign gasoline is rarely up to US standards, and you never know what kind of weird-assed Chink nail you’re going to kick up from the road.�

Asked whether the red planet would fall under his classification of “outside of the country,� Jungels was emphatic. “Shit yeah.�

The scene at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena, CA was a desperate one over the weekend, with a crowd of engineers hunched over the Rover’s remote display terminal, offering a cacophony of suggestions. “Turn it over… no, jiggle the… you’re flooding it!�

According to NASA officials, the Rover failed soon after rolling of its landing platform on the Martian surface, and the “check engine� light has been on since last Tuesday.

“My dad was right, we never should have bought American,� lamented NASA engineer Richard Bennett, echoing a popular sentiment at mission control. Due to budgetary cutbacks, NASA’s original plan for a high tech NASA-only Rover designed by Honda and Toshiba had to be scaled back in favor of a more modest proposal before launch. The Detroit automaker’s low APR financing was said to be a major deciding factor for cash-strapped NASA.

“The funny thing is, the radio still works fine,� chuckled a bemused Bennett. “Clear as a bell. We’ve been listening to K-BIG all weekend, their whole doo-wop countdown. Except when Mickels is in charge, he likes to channel surf and we usually get stuck listening to some bullshit AC-DC song. If there is any intelligent life on Mars, they’re going to think we’ve got really shitty taste in music.�

Though it may be of cold comfort given the mission’s $850 million price tag, GM customer service representatives have assured NASA that the offending control module will be replaced free of charge, as soon as NASA can bring the Rover in to any of the over 7,500 authorized GM dealers in the United States and Canada.

Duke Prosecutor Disbarred, Accepts New Position as National Scapegoat

High Gas Prices Threaten Tradition of Setting Homeless People on Fire

Bob Barker Ceases to Exist After Retiring From Television

Tree Bark Face Turns Out to Be Likeness of Jesus Lookalike Vance Waxman

Time to set the record straight, Pop'n Fresh. Who's in the kitchen with Dinah? Neddikins Nedmiller, them's the cat! Surprise! Long time this mystery puzzled them noodles of them noodle-headed school marmots. "Whoozit?" they askin. "Whoozat strummin that banjo?". Sure ain't Poor Henry, nor Lonesome Tom, them out trappin' coons! Sures ain't Fat Teddy Wedkins, him out eatin' pies offa windowsills. Ain't neither Ralf the cat-eater nor Surly Joe, them went to town for the bark-strippin contest. "Whoosat leave left?" them melon-headed childrens askin. "Who's in that kitchen we know?". Well the time's up, you paint-eatin' imbeciles, and Neddy's left holdin the banjo. You all owe me a nickel.

Summertime's the time Ned likes to strap on a pair of latex jogging trunks and hit the slopes, them Korean bastards took Ned's tonsils in the great war. Rub-a-dub-dub there's a shark in my tub, that's what I always say! Memorial Day's the time to remembrin all them things you never remembered, like gettin' your porcupine sharpened or where you left your mother that cold wintry day. Veteran's day's the time when you take your horse in to get his elbows checked for white dwarfs, that's the day.

Newsflash! Sub sandwiches float! Jig's up, Kruschiev!

When Nedinski was six years old of the equinox, his momma take him out in the deep woods of them black forest to teach him 'bout them magic-talkin tree midgets. Ned learn that day 'bout the city of them trees, and them midgets who frolic and play there with them tree rats, and them scream like freight trains and fling their scat like Sandy Kofax when they're sad. Ned learn that day not to make the tree midgets sad, so today he passes that wisdom on to you. Don't make them tree midgets sad.

Ned remember them summertimes when he was knee-high to a boa constrictor, runnin' round in the yard like a Chinaman celebratin' China Day. None of them neighborhood families had money for none of them Water Witch lawn toys or no Crazy Clown neither, so Neddy and his buddies Ron-Ron and The Gooch would tie the garden hose to that epo-leptic kid Stanley and chase him 'round with flashlights, turning 'em on and off an off an on until he'd start doin' the 'lectric wiggle like a honeybee mappin' out the way to the treasure. Then we frolic and play in the water, til them vultures start to circle overhead. That's when it's time for some chocolate milk 'n grape nuts, by gum.

Summertime's also the time for them eye-bogglin' great scientific advances, like Nedmiller's beach catapault. Nothin' quite matched the joy wrapped up inna small boy's scream as he's rocketed out of his swim jimmies and kerplunked into the ocean 'bout a quarter mile out to sea. Also works for family dogs, too, but warning: NASA loses their sense of humor faster than a jellyfish in a weasel condom when they pick up flying schnauzer formations on their radarmascope. This year Nedrums is workin' on his sister-invention, the sea-catapault! Doublin' the pleasure 'n fun when you see sharks and manta rays and small whales flung up onto the beach and highway! Hot damn!

Back to the lab with Neddington P. Bear! Lotsa hours to spend, wrappin' malamutes in apple cores and Polydent, and checkin' the summer sausage for a hernia. I hope the best to you and yours with your summer projects, and may all your hornet's nests be kosher! TTFN!

º Last Column: Lost My Way on the Slow Gray Train
º more columns

Well well, welcome back to the chaotic worm fart that is my life. I don't know what it is that's out there, call it God, Buddha or the force, whichever stirs your Kool-Aid, but I have discovered that it has a sense of humor.

Over the past couple of months I had worked my life into a pretty boring rut. Don't get me wrong, I still think my life is the shit stuffed between two slices of bitchin', but every once in a while I need some adventure. Now I'm not talking about a road-trip-go-see-stuff kind of adventure, but your bona fide "Indiana Jones-Grand Theft Auto-pull a badass heist like in that movie Heat" kind of adventure. You know the essentials: drugs, hookers, and all kinds of "ill shit."

It took about two seconds to decide that the best setting onto which to unleash my bad self was America's Playground. No, not the multi-colored play area I've been living in at the McDonalds down the street, because last week those bitches took my land and slapped me with a restraining order, just to put the In'jun in injury. Those imperialist dogs got their anus in an Andy just because I went in there pretending to be blind, then demanded loudly that my seeing-eye midget be given twenty Happy Meals for free to make up for my disability.

Leave it to Nevil to fuck up my wet dream.

Everything was going smoothly at first; they even put a toy in every Happy Meal. Booya. But what I hadn't noticed was that Nevil was walking in circles around me the whole time, following a bug or something, and before long his leash was coiled around my body like a goddamned python. Playing it smart, or at least blind, I kept my eyes closed through the con. If there were any witnesses, there'd be no way those rat fucks could scream out "Hey I thought that guy was supposed to be blind! He was all lookin' around and shit!" just to ruin my good time.

Then I heard something that sounded like the dude behind the counter dropping one of the Happy Meal toys on the ground. Either that, or it was an entire Mariachi band stomping on cockroaches, but I considered that possibility less likely given the situation. Either way, Nevil's instincts from his time in the wild took over and he pounced on that toy like Ted Kennedy on spilt booze. Thanks to the leash, that little shit spun me so hard I turned into a blind tornado, devastating everything in my path. My seeing-eye cane smashed against the wall and I accidentally stabbed the day-shift manager in the pills with the sharp end. And the dude did not take it well. I said that I was sorry and shit, what the hell else did he want? The worst part is, I didn't even get my Happy Meals before they chased me out of there with buckets of hot French fry oil.

The wound didn't kill that prick, but apparently it went deep enough that my face and novelty tee-shirt stuck in his memory, and now I'm permanently banned from every McDonalds by old Ronald himself. I can't go within a mile of any of their establishments without risking extradition to the Royal Court of McDonald in Paraguay for a life sentence of breaking rocks and making apple pie pockets. Those fuckers even put up police sketches of me in every restaurant they own. Lousy sketches, too. Who am I, Jesse James? Now what in the hell am I supposed to do for food?

Thanks to the McDonalds incident my whole caper had to be moved to Las Vegas, which is still cool, but can't hold a flame to that play-pen. But since I was planning on letting it all hang out in Vegas, I needed to find someone to watch Nevil for me while I was gone. It's never fun to lose a midget in the city that never sleeps, plus he's far too sensitive to be exposed to 99% of the shit that goes down in that mafia wonderland. Finding a midget sitter was harder than I'd expected, because I really didn't want to pay anyone and I had no idea when I would be coming back. One by one, my neighbors slammed their doors in my face like I was a naked Jehovah's Witness selling used condoms. Man did that bring back memories.

Down but damn sure not out, I dreamt up the perfect solution to my problem: I took Nevil out behind my apartment complex and chained him to a fire hydrant. And I didn't pay the hydrant shit. Who knows, maybe some sympathetic pedestrian stopped and fed him salad croutons or something while I was gone, stranger things have happened. "Good work Mickey, way to kill two birds with one stone," I said out loud. Then I hopped into the back of a pickup truck driven by some Mexican who looked like he was headed to Vegas, and prepared to blow the world's mind.

When I reached the city of sin, I was in high spirits from all the fresh air and a can of boot black I'd found in the pickup's bed. "I'm young, relatively healthy, and ready for what the night will bring," I thought to myself. Thirteen minutes later I was in a strip club, and I didn't come out for two days. Mainly because I spent all my money in that first half hour, after which the mentally unstable-looking bouncers stapled me to the wall in the men's room. They used me as a human spring-loaded billy club dummy for about nine hours, then it was decided that I had repaid my debt.

I could have left sooner than I did, but it took some time for my fractured shins to heal up enough for me to drag myself out through the bathroom window. It was a tight squeeze, but enough of my ribs were broken that I was able to squirm right on through. Just let it be known for the record that I think something is wrong with my spine, because every time I step on my left foot I piss my pants, then barf up dry-roasted peanuts.

I couldn't think too clearly at that time because from all evidence my skull was cracked, and a piece of my brain was dangling carelessly out of one of my ears. While I was trying to remember who I was, what language I spoke and why my feet were covered in dead purple cow-flesh, some homeless crackhead wandered upon my mutilated body and started poking me with what was left of an umbrella. He was eyeing me like I was going to be in his next homemade snuff film, which is why it surprised me when he leaned down and put a crack pipe to my lips, while motioning for me to inhale.

With all the breath I could muster, I forced my torn diaphragm and punctured lung to fill with the thick white smoke. This guy must have been the Yoda of homeless crack addicts, because in minutes I was on my feet, and feeling better than ever. And I do mean ever. After a few more tokes I felt like a million bucks, and all my limbs were working again. But when I looked up to thank my crank-fueled angel of mercy, that little ninja fuck had vanished like a welfare check. Oh well, off to face the city once again.

Feeling rejuvenated, I wandered into the cheapest motel that I could find, which was an empty dumpster behind the Golden Nugget. My trip hadn't started off exactly as I'd expected, but I still had big plans for this monument to man's greed. Mickey Hanes was born to take advantage of a town where the only moral is that if you have enough money, you can do whatever the fuck you want. For the first time in three days, I closed my eyes and rested.

In the morning I awoke to the all-too-familiar sound of a dump truck lifting my dumpster into the crisp morning air. With a quickness I dismounted the dumpster using skills I didn't know I had. I floated through the air almost in slow motion, graceful as a ballet dancer dodging blowdarts. If an angel had seen the grace and elegance of my execution, he would have pissed himself.

The landing, however, was a completely different can of beans. Cirque du Soleil doesn't have shit on me. Caught up completely in my kick-ass performance, I forgot a small but important detail... the landing. I remembered the landing only in retrospect, after the sidewalk tried to shove itself dow

º Last Column: I, Robot Builder
º more columns