rian Nichols, the world's most rightfully-imprisoned black man, appeared Friday in the same courthouse where he killed three people on March 11 in Fulton County, Georgia. Asked to enter his plea by a very timid judge, surrounded by trigger-happy bailiffs and police, Nichols pleaded "déjà vu" in his case.

While his attorneys very politely reminded him he could only plead "guilty" or "not guilty," though "not guilty" seemed an extremely unlikely choice, Nichols laughed off his odd feeling of having been through it all before.

"Sorry," the very large former linebacker told the court, as they listened with wide eyes and trembling lips. "It's just like, wow, I feel like I've been here before in some way. I have this whole memory of struggles with officers and gunfire and—anyway… guess we should get to trial and stuff. So, who's the misguided people who are going to testify against me?"

The judge, who asked not to be identified or even revealed to the suspect, addressed the court from inside a large crate he or she had hauled up behind the bench, and suggested they put off the proceedings and gave the prosecutors a chance to build up a rock-solid case against the defendant—who, the judge acknowledged, certainly may very well not be guilty, for all we know.

A little more than a month ago, the gigantic nasty African-American Hannibal Lecter wrestled out of custody of court officers, secured a gun, and shot three people, including a judge, before making his way outside for a spree of carjackings and hostage-taking that eventually ended in his arrest. Numerous charges were added to Nichols' already long list, which included rape, aggravated sodomy, and false imprisonment, the charges of the previous trial where the convicted badass attacked the court. It was the second trial on the charges for Nichols, after the first trial ended when the jury couldn't come to a decisive verdict.

"Boy, I feel like quite the ass now," admitted one of the holdout jurors from the first trial, who asked to remain anonymous out of embarrassment and fear of possibly being killed. "I owe a few of my fellow jurors some apologies now, that's for sure. Back then I sure didn't think him capable of rape and kidnapping, but now that I think about it, I was worried about him leaping into the jury box and bludgeoning me to death. I just assumed the two were mutually exclusive."

Court officials took no chances with Nichols this time, bringing the besuited behemoth into court in leg irons, shackles, and wearing a global positioning device on his ankle that would self-destruct upon walking out of the courthouse area. For extra safety measures, the gray suit Nichols wore was also packed with gunpowder by deputies and a twenty-foot fuse trailed behind him, just in case he tried to make another break for it.

Bailiff Vigo Metzel was in charge of Nichols' secure transportation to and from the courthouse.

"Some of us wanted to give him one of those half-hockey masks to keep him from eating people, but we thought that just made him look even more terrifying. No one would want to be on the security detail then. Besides, no one would volunteer to put the mask on him."

When questioned as to why anyone would want to defend a client with so much stacked against them, including verifiable security footage from the very court where he's going to be tried, Nichols' attorneys, who also asked not to be identified, said that even though it was unlikely Nichols would go free, they wanted Nichols to know definitively whose side they had been on in the event he ever breaks out again.

In the meanwhile, Nichols has privately told his attorneys and the prosecution that he only made his escape attempt from the courthouse in March so he could find the real perpetrators of the crimes of which he was accused. If he had found them, Nichols said, he certainly would have killed them, too.

Lost Leaves Plotlines Half-Solved in Honor of Shooting Victims

MySpace to Offer Breaking News on What Ira Mankovics is Doing Right Now

Alec Baldwin Records Devastating Voice Mail Message for Shooter

Sony’s Poorly Timed “PS3 Price Massacre” Backfires

The summertime is the number one time for partaking in America's favorite pastime: collecting mosquito larvae in the wild and using it to make homemade jam and preserves. With us today are two people who should need no introduction, mosquito breeding habit expert Dr. Lipton Cloff and homemaker to the stars, Nancy Van Hummelstein. Hey you two, was it you guys I saw pulling into the studio parking lot together in that red convertible with the Irish clogging music blasting?

NVH: You bet, Stu. We've been partying for three days and haven't slept in over a week.

DLC: That's right. And I'm high on some rancid larval peyote. Please excuse the condition of the green room.


Happens to the best of us, Lipton. Okay, folks, before we strap on the hip-waders and get our egg-siphons ready, we're going to check with our lawyers to make sure we won't be on the hook in case Dr. Cloff goes buggy on us out in the field and has to be put down. We'll be right back after this commercial break:


Boy Ricky, your dad sure does love nuts.

You're not kidding, Joey. Mom says she and dad had to go to three different marriage counselors because dad couldn't keep them out of his mouth.

Really? Wow Rick, I though that all had something to do with your dad's affair with Mr. Humbertson.

What?


This just in: A New Jersey toddler has been indicted for having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a Guy Smiley Muppet doll. Reflections of a Goocher is there with the live interview:

SU: Toddler, what are your thoughts on the police's handling of this case in regards to your personal civil rights?

NJTWHBIFHISRGSMD: cruncha crackers moo says cows.

SU: Very well. Would you care to comment on the controversial sexual orientation of the domestic partners Muppet Bert and Muppet Ernie?

NJTWHBIFHISRGSMD: yoshu and the hey bert! ha ha ha

SU:Thank you for your time.

I'm sorry folks, due to unforeseen circumstances, circumspection and circumcisions that's all the time we have this week. Let's have a big hand for Nancy Van Hummelstein and Dr. Lipton Cloff, who will be around to answer your questions after he comes down out of that tree and can be convinced that he's not the letter "G". Let's also hear it for Jason and the Argonauts, who played a great set while we were at commercials. Thanks everybody, drive safe and remember: if you can't think of anything nice to say, go join a book club.

º Last Column: If Pigs Could Fly I'd Wear a Tin Sombrero
º more columns

Nancy, sweet Nancy—the heart and soul of my existence. I would say you are the wind beneath my wings, but using such a contrived cliché to explain our love would make me vomit blood. You are not mere wind under silly bird wings, or I suppose bat wings or angel wings. You are a concussive force of destruction, 300mph winds that could drive straw through a brick wall.

It's no joke, Nancy. My love for you is so strong I sometimes feel like it will overcome me. I am not unlike Frodo, carrying a burden too big for such a small insignificant midget to handle, continually tempted and in danger of being overwhelmed by the power of the one true ring that is your love. All of that describes my affection for you, except for the implied evil I may not have ruled out quick enough.

Yours is no simple love I could slip in my back pocket and forget about, least of all because it is not a real tangible object. Your love is constantly on my mind, except for when I'm at work or in the bathroom, and it occupies my every other waking thought. That's got to be a good 65% of my day.

No, our love, mine for you and you for me, though I have yet to see a column expressing yours in such a way, our love is the strongest force nature has ever known. If it were a knife it could split open the earth to its very core and allow the hot magma within spill out into space. It would have to be a big knife, of course, but that's basically implied. It is a love more powerful than anything ever covered on the weather channel, even tornado hail.

If our love were funk, the whole world could get down to it. It would blast through speakers and rattle every window on earth, as if booming from a 2,000-mile long lowrider.

I am thoroughly convinced our love is the strongest thing in the universe, like the Hulk arm-wrestling Mr. T. It is like the pungent smell of paint thinner and that perfume you bought from Lazarus that one time, you remember which one—you kept complaining you couldn't get it off for a week. It is more than that powerful. But this is all good, because who wants an average love? A textbook love, with boring pictures like Leave it to Beaver's parents. You ever notice how they slept in separate beds? What was going on there?

Yes, I don't exaggerate to say our love may be the biggest thing the universe has ever known. Or perhaps I do, just a little, but our love is well worth embellishing, it is that cherished to me, and probably you—haven't heard a lot in response lately. But our love is so good, we don't need to parade it around town like our neighbor with his convertible Chrysler. Ooo, I'm Jack Hamilton, I can afford a convertible, well, who cares, Jack? Your love with that girl who comes over on Friday night is only Friday-night love, and I have a love so strong in can occupy 8 days in the span of only 7. I'm not sure how exactly it works, if it squeezes extra seconds in-between or adds the extra hours at the end of the day, but it does just that.

Unfortunately, our love is susceptible to lying. Not my lying, because I swear I thought those earrings were real diamonds when I bought them off the guy. We both totally got taken. But I don't expect you to simply take me back on the basis of my proclamation here, I just want to get together and you can hear my side of the story. It was a pretty shitty Valetine's Day for me, too, Nancy, having to sleep in my car because you got more than a little pissed off. Still, I don't hold a grudge, and you've had time to realize some of those things you said about my penis were quite out of line. Truce?

º Last Column: On the Vindication of Stockcar Car Racing
º more columns