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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Jimmy Riddle Hoffa. The name itself practically oozes mystery. Goopey, gelatinous mystery. Where did he come from? Where is he now? What happened between him coming here and him being wherever he is now? And what's with the kooky middle name?

James Riddle Hoffa, Sr. was born in Brazil in the nineteen tens. Several years later he was spotted in Indiana wearing a fake mustache. Experts are at a loss to explain how a boy of seven made the trek halfway around the globe, other than to say this: Hoffa was one tough bastard. Rumor has it that he holed up in the pancreas of a longshoreman as an infant, traveling the world over before bursting from the man's chest when he was ripe. This reportedly happened during a poker game, and few in attendance were left untouched by the experience, or the splattering gut juices. Asked to comment on the larval Hoffa, poker player Lefty Sanchez was heard to comment: "Sheeeeyit!"

Hoffa came to prominence as a grade-schooler in Indiana, where he organized a Student Union at the age of eight and brought the elementary school to its knees, effectively bringing an end to book-learnin' in the state of Indiana forever. It was an especially sweet victory for Hoffa, who had been demoralized when the Sibling Union he formed with his brother Tom and sister Nancy was crushed when management brought in scab siblings in the form of his newborn twin brothers Maxwell and Chuckie Hoffa.

Jimmy Hoffa dropped out of high school at the age of seventeen after a violent altercation when strikebreakers attempted to teach the class arithmetic. He went to work as a loading ramp at a local grocery warehouse, and eventually worked his way up to dolly, making thirteen cents a day. These were solid wages during the depression, and few dared complain about the working conditions for fear of losing their jobs. The ownership did as it pleased, and often fired men for parting their hair in the middle or spelling their names with a "D".

Workers toiled in thirteen-hour shifts, but were only paid for three hours a day, since the owners refused to pay for walking time and counted breathing as taking a break. Tensions finally came to a head when the owners fired five men for inhaling too much of the warehouse's oxygen, and the young Hoffa took this opportunity to form a worker's union. He was already well known among the workers for having formed several unions during this first three weeks at the warehouse, including the Left-Handed-Man's Union and the Guys-Waiting-In-Line-For-Gas-401. But this was to be Hoffa's most serious union yet, and he rose to the challenge admirably. Hoffa made the union stick and before long the warehouse owners caved and provided the workers with a coffee can to urinate in, ending years of pissing in each other's pockets. It was a major victory for organized labor and a telling harbinger of things to come.

Before long, Hoffa had convinced workers at several neighboring warehouses and dog tracks to join his union, which he was calling the Teamsters Union because he never learned to write that good. Hoffa spent the next several years traveling around the country, getting anyone and everyone to join his union if they weren't in it already, or to join again under a fake name if they were. Within a decade, the Teamsters had 8.7 billion members, which was impressive both because Hoffa had enlisted everyone himself, and also because that figure was nearly double the world's population at the time. No one was sure how many of those members were deceased, imaginary or canine, but the numbers spoke for themselves and business owners practically shit concern when Hoffa mentioned the word "strike." This was mainly because they also belonged to the union and were tired of getting splinters from carrying around picket signs all the time.

Everything was fantastic for Hoffa until he was arrested in 1967 and charged with trying to unionize the Mafia, and keeping the entire $1.9 billion Teamsters Pension Fund under a mattress in his house. Hoffa was sentenced to ten years in prison, and was forced to defer the Teamsters Presidency to his protégée, Frank Fitzsimmons. In 1971, then-President Richard M. Nixon, a three-time Teamster himself (also under the names Michard N. Rixon and Bobo Freelove) granted Hoffa a pardon, under the condition that he would stop trying to unionize the Nixon family.

Hoffa made a bid to regain control of the Teamsters Union upon his release, running on the platform of needing to double-unionize the union members to protect them from the tyranny and unfair practices of the Teamsters Union itself. One day in 1975, Hoffa was invited to a meeting with a Teamsters official and a local mob boss to explain what the hell he was talking about, and he was never seen again.

Local police and federal investigators were confident they would find Hoffa's body before long, since it was very likely he had unionized his kidnappers during his disappearance and finding them would be a simple matter of searching the records for a Kidnappers 299 Union. Unfortunately these efforts proved to be fruitless, and neither Hoffa's body nor his assailants were located in the next 25 years.

Rumors abounded following Hoffa's disappearance, and over the years several theories have developed explaining Hoffa's whereabouts. Law enforcement agencies believe Hoffa was kidnapped and killed by the Mafia, who were concerned that by regaining control of the Teamsters Union, Hoffa would succeed in unionizing the Mafia and then nobody would ever get killed. But few can agree on where Hoffa's body ended up.

Some believe his body can be found buried under the end zone at Giants Stadium, or they point to the Giants' "Take Home a Chunk-o-Hoffa" promotional give-away from during their 1976 season. Others believe Hoffa's body was cemented into the walls of an L.A. nightclub, or a parking garage that was built in Michigan the year he disappeared. Still others believe his body was shot into space using a gigantic catapult operated by Don Knotts, though law enforcement officials have been reluctant to endorse this theory.

But where, you ask, did Jimmy Hoffa's body really end up?

Ever eat a Slim Jim? Now don't ever let me hear you say that the Mafia doesn't have a sense of humor.

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Back in my school days I was of truest retro nature, riding a camel to school in a day when all the kids rode dromedaries, or at least Malibus. Can you pluralize Malibu? Sounds like a sickly French school bus to me.

Bas Lurman or no Bas Lurman (though of course I prefer the former), I have to say that retro anything is a good excuse to wear the clothes you get off the old couples when you do those home invasion robberies. You agree, no? Not fewer than seven times have I had the fashion-savvy passerby comment upon my depression-era negligee and feather boa. But I have to admit that even I cringe at those old high school yearbook photos, thinking as I did at the time that I was posing for a Playboy spread. Quite the challenge for a young Wisconsin boy but we're of scrappy stock and suffer for our art.

And suffer we did! The episodes with Scrappy were the hardest Scooby Doos to watch, indeed. I always thought "Scooby Doo" sounded like something you find on your windshield after you get your car out of long-term parking at the airport. But still the courts would not hear my intellectual property suit, which was a shame since its pinstripes were exquisite. Am I getting through to you?

I'm so confused... if only Alex Trebek were here to help me out in my time of need…

-dissolve-

"Welcome to the show Stu, why don't you start us off and pick a category? Your choices are: "Kidd Rock's in My Outhouse!" "High School Fashions of the Damned" "Andy Rooney's Hemorrhoid Pillow" "Things You've Eaten By Accident" and "What's In This Damn Shampoo?"."

"I'll take Vanna White for a ride, Alex!"

"That's not an option, Stu. That's not even the right show."

"Judges?"

"Goddammit Stu! Only I can question the judges! You're treading on thin ice mister!"

-jarring return to reality-

Last year I met those Hansen kids in person and I have to say, those were some cute motherfuckers. We're talking cute beyond all intelligible speech. I had to communicate through a hand puppet the whole time. If I'd had more time to prepare, it probably wouldn't have been a boxing puppet of Hitler dressed up as a nun, but it was short notice and all. I don't think they really meant what they said about my ruining of their lives and all that. Crazy kids.

But a restraining order is a restraining order, as my dad used to say. And this one, I believe, has also been ratified by NATO. That can't be right.

I was just commenting the other day: Man, Clorox sucks on cereal! Oh, wait -flips through mental file- I guess the relevant comment would actually be: I need to come up with a plan for my life. A mission, even. Do you have a mission, should I choose to accept it? Why thank you, I love Spanish architecture! Haha. That one never gets old. Seriously though, my plan:

(Read slowly, 'cause I don't write that fast.)

Five years from now, I'd like to be, for all intents and purposes, Bjork.

There you go. That is my five-year plan, though Dad tells me it shouldn't have taken five years just to come up with that. I told him to bite it, Hotsy.

Anyway, now I see a wayward soul trying to put a parking ticket on my windshield outside, I must go and act as his conscience. I did mention that I'm three inches tall, and a cricket, right?

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