n the wake of the catastrophic flooding that hit New Atlantis/New Orleans this week following Hurricane Katrina, tens of thousands of refugees have been evacuated from their submerged homes and treated to an exciting whirlwind tour of America’s domed sporting facilities.

“Don’t worry, the government will take care of you all,� explained President Bush, who drastically cut funding for levee upgrades in order to pay for a war in Iraq, so terrorists wouldn’t be able to destroy a major American city like New Orleans. “We’re sending water wings and crossword puzzle books on the double.�

Upon being plucked from their rooftops and attics after breeched levees on Lake Pontchartrain submerged the city in up to twenty feet of water, thousands of New Orleans residents were transported to the Superdome, home of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints, for emergency lodging, beer, and giant cheese-filled pretzels.

“I really appreciated that they opened the Superdome to us,� expressed flooding victim LaTrevor Wynn. “But I gotta say they gouged the fuck out of us for boat parking at the stadium. I was saying we should park a few blocks away and swim to the stadium, but there was some guy in a wheel chair who wanted us to just pony up the money. I guess he was rich or something.�

Good spirits quickly turned foul, however, when the stadium’s power and sewage systems both failed, and they ran out of souvenir air horns. Before long, deteriorating conditions and asshole Saints fans forced the evacuation of the Superdome, which by then smelled strongly of poor people.

Refugees from the Superdome, which is now almost completely under water, were moved by bus to the Astrodome in Houston, formerly home to over 30 years of bad baseball courtesy of the National League’s Houson Astros, as well as the catastrophic 1992 Republican National Convention that offered America one last chance to listen to Ronald Reagan flapping his cheek meat.

Relief efforts at the Astrodome were short-lived however, as over 100 refugees suffered knee injuries from the stadium’s unforgiving Astroturf playing surface. Several reported serious cases of rugburn as well.

Re-refugees from the Astrodome were then bussed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where a disappointing summer performance by the local Twins has left plenty of empty seats in the Metrodome.

“This place blows,� complained disaster victim and dome expert Marvin Milk. “It has all the ambiance of a bus station and the hot dogs are gross.�

Fellow refugees agreed about the hot dogs, but gave high marks to the stadium’s nacho hats, a popular refugee staple. Problems arose at the Metrodome, however, after some disenfranchised dickcheese left the stadium’s back door open, allowing all the air to escape and collapsing the dome’s pressurized roof. Some blame the mishap on the Metrodome’s short-sighted no-smoking policy.

The remaining refugees who didn’t take to wading through Minneapolis’ many metropolitan lakes out of sheer habit were shipped to either the Skydome in Toronto, Canada, or the Tacomadome in Tacoma, Washington.

“Man, this sucks. I knew we were going to get the Tacomadome,� bitched flooding victim Marcy Flobere of New Orleans.

A few lucky victims were bussed instead to Tropicana Field in St. Petersberg, Florida, which has a part time gig as the home of baseball’s Tampa Bay Devil Rays in-between housing refugees from the region’s monthly hurricane disasters.

Tropicana Field has not been without its share of problems, however, ranging from occasional hurricane damage to the roof and overcrowded bathrooms to the stinky, lousy baseball taking place on-field.

“This has been a disaster. I’ve had to watch four Devil Rays’ games this week,� groused Tropicana Field refugee Homer Angus. “This is worse than the hurricane.�

Government officials have assured the tired, huddled masses that they will be allowed to return to their homes in New Orleans as soon as disaster-relief workers can find the city.

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This week's Nedmiller Column is excerpted from "Spastic Diaper: The Ned Nedmiller Story" by Rolando Burf. Continued from last week.

And it might still be that way today if it weren't for one Nedriff Nipplebelt Nedmiller. When Ned heard of the buffalo problem, he locked himself in his laboratory, pronouncing that he would not appear again until he had the solution. Neighbors wondered at the strange noises coming from Ned's lab at all hours of the day and night: the singing of saws, the burping of crows and the vague smell of a swimming pool on fire. Someone called for a constable when a rumor circulated that Ned was melting down school children into paraffin wax, but just as the fuzz was about to knock on Ned's door, the man himself flung open his doors and announced to the world that their problems were over.

The device that Ned presented to the world looked like a cross between a smallish piano and a largish dentistry utensil, on wheels. It had a crank on one side and a flared cone on the other. And on top there was a mannequin head wearing a hat. On the side, hand-lettered in on it's black surface in black paint (or so he told the people), it said "Ned Nedmiller's Framjambulous Laughing Machine".

Refusing the spectators' pleas for a demonstration, Ned hopped aboard the Laughing Machine and rode it west, toward the Plains. It was a four-week journey, but thanks to the help of a flock of pelicans, and Ned's invention of a land-sail, it only took him a month and a half. He arrived to find the Chinamen, sitting about and scratching their heads, as a stoic buffalo stood, motionless, at the eastern termination of the Walking Rail.

Without saying a word, Ned positioned his Laughing Machine in front of the buffalo, wet his thumb to check wind direction, and gave the crank a furious crank. Laughter of every size and denomination, every type and at all points along the spectrum of sanity, poured forth from the laughing machine's cone. Chortles, titters, guffaws and even silent shaking filled the air. Three times the laughter produced by a fart in Congress spilled out of the Laughing Machine. Laughter so contagious that all of the Chinamen began to laugh along, and those who had yet to drop their tools and daydream now dropped their tools and doubled over in laughter.

The buffalo first looked at Ned (who nodded) in a confused fashion for a moment before it began to laugh. For those who have never heard a buffalo laugh, I suggest climbing inside an industrial textiles washing machine, starting up the cycle, and then letting loose the warthogs you've been hiding in your pants. Then you'll have bigger fish to fry than wondering what a buffalo sounds like when it laughs.

The buffalo laughed and laughed until finally it collapsed onto it's side and shook with buffalo laughter. Ned promptly shut off his laughing machine and when the Chinamen had recovered, they went about their merry task, building their Walking Rail all the way to New England. Ned accompanied them the rest of the way, providing laughing machine support whenever they came across buffalo, brown bears or hillbillies.

When they finally arrived in New York, Ned and the Chinamen were given a tickertape parade, and a recording contract with Capitol Records. In a show of gratitude, the Mayor of New York gave them all complimentary tickets for the maiden voyage of the first luxury liner built entirely by the blind, the Titanic.

The problem was, the Titanic was sailing to New York, not from it, so Ned and the Chinamen quickly hitched a ride on a grand blimp called the "Hindenberg 2: NO SMOKING" all the way over to England, where they were just in time to ride the Titanic back to New York.

Ned and the Titanic were like peas in a pod, and he entertained the guests and crew day and night with his inflatable pacemaker and a metal box that he claimed to contain Spain. He was voted "Best Grandmother" on the Titanic and was given a commemorative kick in the head. Unfortunately, these blissful days were not to last.

Out of nowhere the "biggest skeeter this side of the Rio Grande" latched onto the ship and started "jimmyin' open the fuselage with his tremendous skeeter-beak". Ned knew that time was short and heroism was in high demand, so he leapt into the fray with only a freakishly large Q-tip and a loincloth on his side. When all was said and done, "them skeeter" had been swabbed into submission and nine months later Ned would unexpectedly give birth to a small Laotian boy named Ring-rong, who would go to work in the diamond mines, and was years later buried under a landslide of engagement rings. Unfortunately for all aboard though, at that moment some joker pulled the plug on the Atlantic and "them Titanic" went down the drain, never to be seen again. Ned survived only by holing up in the belly of a whale named Tim, who later washed up on the shores of Costa Rica, proving his long-standing claim that he was allergic to Danes.

Over a hundred years later, the Walking Rails are still the mode of trans-continental transport preferred by most 10 year-old runaways. None of this would be possible without Nedrum Nightynight Nedmiller, and it's truly time that the city of Pasadena, California erects a gigantic knee brace in his name.

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I've spent more than a few years climbing the corporate ladder, ladies and gentleproles. Not meaning I'm no good at it. It's common to spend 16 years to reach an Office Manager position at a low-traffic website. I believe I still am Office Manager, I have to check with Monsieur Bagel about that. He was a little pissed about the whole "re-imagining" of the commune thing I did in his absence—not quite ready to accept my vision yet.

There. We've established my superiority as a ladder-climber. Now let's talk turkey: Resume. That's French, if you don't know. A lot of you probably believe "resume" is an option when you pause your Tony Hawk video game. See? Funny and upwardly-mobile. They don't call me "prize pig" around here for nothing.

Some people will tell you a resume is where you tell potential employers exactly what you're capable of and any possible limitations that might interfere with your job. We call these people the unemployed. I've known a handful of people over the years who have told the truth on their resumes, and admitted they don't have all the necessary skills for certain jobs—I usually give them cans of clam chowder or split pea soup when they come nosing around my door around the holidays. Here's a simple equation: Truth = no job. See if you can work that mathematical formula out, Einstein.

I'm not telling you to lie. Bend the truth. Stretch the truth. Break the truth off in half against a hard surface like a Kit Kat bar. Exaggerate. You know the old saying: An exaggeration is a lie they have yet to catch you in. That's what an old white collar criminal friend of mine said once during a visit, and I still hold it to be true.

This has never been more important in the age of computers. After all, who can figure them out? No one. Which is to say me and a small handful of other people. In truth, when you strip away the ominous looking monitor and daunting color schemes of Windows XP, computers aren't really so bad. But, and here's the important part: They scare the shit out of monied people. People who can manage accounts by the barrelful and measure interest rates in their head soil their underpants and hurl themselves out of a window when confront with an intimidating DOS prompt. Consequently, a modicum of computer talent (which I have in spades) makes them think you're Jesus 2.0.

Basically, if you can open a spreadsheet, they'll hire you as their IT lord and savior. Take me, for instance. I was catering a lunch at the commune when Bagel's Windows recycle bin filled up and he demanded I fix it—part of my job, taking out the trash. I did so and Bagel has yet to shut his gape-mouthed jaw. I was hired on as computer consultant, then moved into reporting when I convinced him to hire a guy who could change the screensaver to replace me. In this case, no resume required. But my point is solid. If I had a resume, I would have mentioned my experience in Sims, Civilization, and Quake 2. I know those are games, but dollars to donuts your future sucker-employer doesn't.

Once you're hired you can write your own ticket. I'm not sure what's happening on the outside, but if everything is like the commune offices I believe it's a federal law you can no longer fire people. There must be a Statue of Bagel on our front stoop, with a plaque reading, "Give me your shitheads, your slack-offs, your inbred mentally deficient yearning to rake in a cool $200 a week, and I'll put them on staff immediately without a probationary period and give them lifetime job security."

No wonder everyone else hates me. It's like having Michael Jordan playing for the Generals.

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