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Flight Quarantined in Tokyo Obesity ScareMay 26, 2003 |
Tokyo, Japan Ivan Nacutchacokov Nobody thought to get a picture of the plane, but this reporter's lunch was well-documented, and delicious
"I was sitting next to one of them," claimed passenger Roger Mickle. "And he was going on and on about how he just couldn't keep the weight off and didn't want to get his fat ass laughed out of the gym. I'd heard about that kind of shit on the news and thought I should notify a stewardess. I hear it's some kind of epidemic these days."
Some observers have called the event an overreaction on the part of a Japanese government fearful of American obesity spreading to their relatively thin nation. Emergency vehicles met the plane on the runway in hopes of containing the threat, but all passengers...
n American Airlines flight from San Jose to Tokyo was quarantined on the tarmac at the Tokyo airport last week when five passengers aboard showed symptoms of being obese.
"I was sitting next to one of them," claimed passenger Roger Mickle. "And he was going on and on about how he just couldn't keep the weight off and didn't want to get his fat ass laughed out of the gym. I'd heard about that kind of shit on the news and thought I should notify a stewardess. I hear it's some kind of epidemic these days."
Some observers have called the event an overreaction on the part of a Japanese government fearful of American obesity spreading to their relatively thin nation. Emergency vehicles met the plane on the runway in hopes of containing the threat, but all passengers were later released when it was discovered that the five were merely fat as hell.
"Oh yeah, they were pretty fat," said Jim Roache, a passenger in first class. "One of them was even fat as fuck. But obese? I leave that for the doctors to decide. I'd hate to call somebody obese and have them go on some kind of cake-eating rampage when it was a misunderstanding and they were just 'fucking fat'."
Tokyo officials issued a statement after the incident, explaining Japan's fear of American-style obesity. Though no conclusive scientific evidence has surfaced to suggest obesity is contagious, many researchers believe the American lifestyle and diet, major precursors for obesity, can be spread through direct exposure.
"These trans-pacific flights have to be watched very carefully," explained Japan's Health Minister Chikara Sakaguchi. "If you know what to look for, say the stain from a French fry on a blouse, or the glazed-yet-satiated look in a passenger's eye, you can spot the warning signs before this epidemic is spread across the ocean."
Asked if Japan was in danger of an obesity outbreak, US Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona scoffed.
"Japan? Obese? Please. They're way too in love with fish to really ever weigh in with the big boys. Very few countries really have what it takes, you'd be surprised. There was that scare in Toronto, of course, but it was always just media hype. I've been to Toronto, and those baloney-eaters don't know the first thing about being obese. They wouldn't know obese if it sat down at their table and ate all the potato salad. Americans, we take them to school about being just disgustingly fat."
Regardless, Minister Sakaguchi remains cautious.
"We love the Americans, and the many gifts they have bestowed upon our culture. This, however, they can keep. No thank you, so sorry. We honor you, proud Americans, your hearts exploding like Fourth of July fireworks, but people of Japan must eat vegetables sometimes. Is… is in religion. Yes. So thank you, but please keep your big rolls of blubbery fat over there like good neighbor. Sayonara." The commune news once caught a nasty bug, but it turned out to be a potato beetle. Ugly bugger though. Ivan Nacutchacokov cuts the tags off of smaller pairs of jeans and sews them onto his own, though nobody really believes his beerbellied ass has a size 22 waist.
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Mohammed Confesses to 9/11 Attacks, “Falling Down A Lot” During Interrogations Castro Announces 2008 Candidacy; Clinton, Obama Drop Out of Race Conditions at Walter Reed Upgraded to “Nightmarishly Clive Barker-esque” Unveiling of First Black Disney Character Raises Some Concerns |
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 April 1, 2002
We've Opened the Home Audio Floodgatesit's overtones, there's some kind of tone problem, of that much I'm sure. Maybe I wouldn't be right in referring to it as an "article" when it's more of a "ranting letter," but it's very chilling to realize.
The writer of this letter, Earl Chico of "Behind the Walgreens" (as the letter signed), suggests that CDs are nothing more than tiny records. I hadn't thought much of it before, but once this was brought to my attention I rifled through Ramrod Hurley's CD collection and studied each Enya and John Tesh offering closely. By God, Chico's right! They are tiny, circular, there's a hole through the middle, they're flat, and they're played through an expensive piece of stereo machinery you can purchase for high mark-up. I can't tell you how surprising and unsettling this has been to me.
I have never enjoyed recorded music, hence the live band I keep on staff at the commune offices to play my favorite tunes whenever I beckon. Some complain they interfere with the work of the staff, but when Nacutchacokov wants to pay all the bills maybe I'll start taking his big fat advice, until then I run things my way. But I stray like a wife longing for sexual satisfaction from the topic.
CDs and records are basically interchangeable—what does this mean to you? If you're like other Americans and have spent countless dinero replacing your LP collection with squat cassette tapes, then replacing those with CDs, you've been screwed. Screwed hard! "Ouch,...
º Last Column: The Police Are Racial Profiling Rich White People
º more columns
it's overtones, there's some kind of tone problem, of that much I'm sure. Maybe I wouldn't be right in referring to it as an "article" when it's more of a "ranting letter," but it's very chilling to realize.
The writer of this letter, Earl Chico of "Behind the Walgreens" (as the letter signed), suggests that CDs are nothing more than tiny records. I hadn't thought much of it before, but once this was brought to my attention I rifled through Ramrod Hurley's CD collection and studied each Enya and John Tesh offering closely. By God, Chico's right! They are tiny, circular, there's a hole through the middle, they're flat, and they're played through an expensive piece of stereo machinery you can purchase for high mark-up. I can't tell you how surprising and unsettling this has been to me.
I have never enjoyed recorded music, hence the live band I keep on staff at the commune offices to play my favorite tunes whenever I beckon. Some complain they interfere with the work of the staff, but when Nacutchacokov wants to pay all the bills maybe I'll start taking his big fat advice, until then I run things my way. But I stray like a wife longing for sexual satisfaction from the topic.
CDs and records are basically interchangeable—what does this mean to you? If you're like other Americans and have spent countless dinero replacing your LP collection with squat cassette tapes, then replacing those with CDs, you've been screwed. Screwed hard! "Ouch, quit screwing me!" I say to the recording industry. Not me, of course, given my distaste for recorded music I've mentioned, but you, they're screwing you. Still doing it.
The fact is "digital" technology is no more real than the time machine. Sure, it's a nice fantasy we've come up with, but until scientists conquer the quantum field theorem we're not going to have real digital technology. I could explain that further but I'm afraid it would take up several thousand columns and I don't plan on living that long. Suffice to say all we're using now is the height of analog technology.
From my research into this, which has included asking several session bass players and drum programmers, CD making merely involves recording vinyl LPs at full size and then shrinking them to CD size. The most expense involved, compared to the making of an LP, is not the shrink ray technology, which is fairly easy and inexpensive, but in painting the LPs with silver reflective paint.
Why all the trouble? It takes no elaborate imagination to explain that, readers. Money, pure, green and sexy. Why would anybody buy a 30-year-old Dylan record they kept in pristine condition if the technology never changed? With all this talk of "digital technology" and "re-mastering" and such they can sell you a copy of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band six or seven times over. Why "CD" itself stands not for "compact disc," it's all an insider joke. "Collectin' Dinero," readers, that's the truth.
It's not over yet. It'll never be over. The next logical step is selling you "Super CDs," which will again just be analog LPs in shrunken CD form they've enlarged to a giant size with Expando Ray technology, which is what they're working on now. Shrinking things is easy—restoring them to full size, aye, there's the rub, to quote Shakespeare, or Lil Duncan.
So while America continues its love affair with throwing their money down the toilet on recorded music, I clap my hands and the commune office band plays "Purple Rain" while I sit back, laugh, and point my proverbial finger. Which is basically my regular finger. Ha. º Last Column: The Police Are Racial Profiling Rich White Peopleº more columns
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|  October 14, 2002
Mouse in My HouseThe mouse in my house
has the run of the land.
He pees in my porridge
and he shits in my hand
while I lie sleeping,
naively unaware
that the mouse in my house
is nibbling on my hair.
And eating my breadcrumbs!
And drinking my pop!
I have asked him nicely,
politely to stop.
But did this dissuade him,
persuade him to cease?
He just ate my cold pizza,
every last doughy piece.
And as if to taunt me
he loves to play
and roll in my bed sheets
while I am away.
He loves to go dipping
in my marinara sauce
and to leave marinara footprints
up, down and across,
and on up the stairs
to the top of my bedspread
where I sleep unawares.
He ate all my baloney!
Now this is no joke.
And he twice left the tops off
my toothpaste and Coke.
One went quite flat,
and the other went hard.
And this mouse in my house
left his bike in my yard!
It's not like it would kill him
to put the toilet seat down,
or wipe the mud off his feet
when he's been mousing around town.
There's just no reason he can't
put his playing cards away
or clean up his jigsaw puzzles
at the end of the day.
Or close the front door
when he's gone out to play.
Or whisper more quietly
when he kneels down to pray.
But...
º Last Column: The Boy From Demon's Bay
º more columns
The mouse in my house
has the run of the land.
He pees in my porridge
and he shits in my hand
while I lie sleeping,
naively unaware
that the mouse in my house
is nibbling on my hair.
And eating my breadcrumbs!
And drinking my pop!
I have asked him nicely,
politely to stop.
But did this dissuade him,
persuade him to cease?
He just ate my cold pizza,
every last doughy piece.
And as if to taunt me
he loves to play
and roll in my bed sheets
while I am away.
He loves to go dipping
in my marinara sauce
and to leave marinara footprints
up, down and across,
and on up the stairs
to the top of my bedspread
where I sleep unawares.
He ate all my baloney!
Now this is no joke.
And he twice left the tops off
my toothpaste and Coke.
One went quite flat,
and the other went hard.
And this mouse in my house
left his bike in my yard!
It's not like it would kill him
to put the toilet seat down,
or wipe the mud off his feet
when he's been mousing around town.
There's just no reason he can't
put his playing cards away
or clean up his jigsaw puzzles
at the end of the day.
Or close the front door
when he's gone out to play.
Or whisper more quietly
when he kneels down to pray.
But the one mousey caper
I just cannot forgive
is when he got my sister pregnant.
I hope you like d-Con, mouse. º Last Column: The Boy From Demon's Bayº more columns
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Quote of the Day“Get out of my way, you're crapping up my genius, dumbnuts.”
-Ayn RandyFortune 500 CookieAll of those great things we said were going to happen to you last week? Yeah, sorry, we had you mixed up with your brother. You're fucked. Try parking your car at the far end of the lot and walking this week: everyone finds the way you jiggle when you walk highly amusing. Your friends and the packaging aren't lying: that's not toothpaste. Did you really think you were going to get away with naming your son Pringles? This week's lucky ass creams: Vaseline Intensive Hair, Ditch the Itch Ultra, Smooth Movers Hibiscus Scent, Baby's Ass in a Bottle, Johnson & Johnson No More Flaming Mass of Ground Hamburger Hemorrhoid Salve.
Try again later.Top 10 Deciding Issues for the Election| 1. | Germany's been getting cocky lately | | 2. | Always vote for the guy who wins | | 3. | President should be able to take a punch | | 4. | Do I look fat in these jeans? | | 5. | Search Iraq for WMD, OMD, and REM | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Roland McShyster 1/1/2001 Good to see you, America! How have you been? Come to think of it, where have you been? If I had to judge by my recent trips to see such blockbusters as Lost Souls and Battlefield: Earth, I'd think moviegoers had gone on strike or something! Let's see a little hussle out there, folks! They can't keep bringing us the magic if we're just going to sit at home watching "Sex in the Cindy" or MASH, now can they?
In Theaters Now:
Almost Fabulous
The hit British TV show hits the big screen with this story of an aspiring young SNL writer who follows Chris Farley on a cross-country expedition. Along the way he learns the true meaning of love, and also how to fall down a lot. Meanwhile, his mom...
Good to see you, America! How have you been? Come to think of it, where have you been? If I had to judge by my recent trips to see such blockbusters as Lost Souls and Battlefield: Earth, I'd think moviegoers had gone on strike or something! Let's see a little hussle out there, folks! They can't keep bringing us the magic if we're just going to sit at home watching "Sex in the Cindy" or MASH, now can they?
In Theaters Now:
Almost Fabulous
The hit British TV show hits the big screen with this story of an aspiring young SNL writer who follows Chris Farley on a cross-country expedition. Along the way he learns the true meaning of love, and also how to fall down a lot. Meanwhile, his mom and her best friend do a lot of coke and go skiing. Trust me, it's funny in an "English" kind of way.
Beboozled
Spike Lee finally goes the Eddie Murphy route and and becomes a white man (with some help from special effects magician Jim Bakker) who says some funny things in Spanish. Martin Lawrence is a stitch as the sexy she-devil who tricks Lee into trading his soul for the key to Bill Cosby's vault of "Our Gang" episodes. This is a probing social critique about how hard it is to be a black person wearing a rubber white person suit in America today.
The Legend of Bagger Vance
Tom Cruise and Adam Curry star in this inspiring tale of the grocery store bagger who rose above his humble aisle-mopping beginnings to dethrone his nemesis as the quickest bread-loaf masher in three counties. The rumor mill has it that Cruise really became a meth fiend to add authenticity to Vance's pre-shift crank sessions in the front seat of his Camaro.
Requiem for a Dreamcast
Toy Story and The Brave Little Toaster meet in this kid pleaser about a young boy's obsolete video game systems coping with the threat of a new Playstation 2 in their bedroom. When the chips are down, these clunkers prove that what they lack in vector units and rastar conversion they more than make up for in heart, gumption, semi-functional light guns and somewhat dangerous cords that were chewed by the dog. By the end, little Billy comes to realize that newer isn't always better, and that old Genesis is still good for propping open the back door when his dog doesn't come home one night.
The Watcher
This harrowing tale of weight loss mixes Atom Egoyan's confrontational style with Mike Meyers' taste for the macabre. The result is as gripping as it is placid. A must-see for anyone who's ever made their weight-loss shake with Chunky Monkey and a Skor bar, this pot-boiler's got it's Oscar shoes on!
Now on Video:
Committed
Can Heather Graham (with chest midgets in tow) keep this bickering Irish pub band together and pull them back from the brink of disintigration on the eve of their greatest success? Nope.
Drowning Boner
Looking to escape the pressures of superstardom, former "Growing Pains" star Andrew Koenig moves to the small town of Small Hampton, New Hampshire and starts a lawn care service called "Stabone's Stones". His welcome wears thin, however, after the locals tire of his continual public outbursts of "Don't you REMEMBER me? I'm Boner!" and eventually one of them does him in via a suspicious turnstile "accident". Always compelling, whether he's playing the imposing Godfather in "The Godfather" or the mob's psychotic muscle midget in "Goodfellas", Danny DeVito is gripping as the local sheriff grasping at straws to unravel this mystery.
Reindeer Games
Aiming to be the Grinch Who Stole Christmas Box-Office from the upcoming James Cagney vehicle "The Grinch", this Christmastime treat features red-hot comedian Howie Mandel (and a team of Silicon Valley effects technicians) as everyone's favorite red-nosed reindeer, Rudy! This time though, Rudy's story has a 90's twist, and some cursing! Will this effort continue Mandel's can't-miss streak even further? In a word: Maybe. Co-starring Charlize Theron as Ashley Judd.
Snow Day
Don't call it a comeback, because this Canadian reggae-rapping teen sensation has been here for years. Now Snow's ready to inform us in his big-screen debut, and your mother has most definitely been given word. When aliens from deep space invade earth and smoke the president in a giant doobie, it's up to our hero to confound them with his indecypherable rhymes and crush them under truck-loads of bargain-bin copies of his debut CD, "12 Inches of Snow". Not since Brian Bosworth has a newcomer lit up the screen quite like this.
Terms of Engagement
Never before has a film been a more perfect hybrid of two winning formulas than this meld of Father of the Bride and Terms of Endearment. Steve Allen reprises his role here hilariously as the nervous father presiding over his gay son's first wedding. Tommy Anderson-Lee and Samuel Taylor Coleridge upstage the screen as the interracial gay couple who just can't seem to decide on a china pattern, with touching results.
Join us again next month when we take a look at the cultural wonders awaiting us behind the iron curtain, with Russian classics such as ÃøÞ¿ and ߶ðœ©! Keep an eye open for more exciting foreign releases like "Rugrats in Paris" and "Little Nicky", too! Bon Voyage, Amigos!   |
