resident George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were shocked into jovial amiability Saturday when their reception of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize was interrupted by the revelation they had been "punk'd" by Ashton Kutcher and his gang of M-TV pranksters.

Punk'd, a modern-day celebrity-on-celebrity Candid Camera or the poor-man's Totally Hidden Video, features That '70s Show star Kutcher and other modern pop culture icons giving another fellow celebrity a good-natured razzing. The staged Nobel Peace Prize ceremony ended Saturday when Kutcher jumped out from nearby curtains to reveal Bush and Blair to be the latest superstars added to the Punk'd roster.

Blair was reportedly surprised, confused, and slightly disappointed to find out the Nobel Peace Prize was only a spirited gag. Bush was simply confused, and after several more minutes and an explanation that the show was much like the WB's Jamie Kennedy Experiment did he exhibit vague comprehending. Bush apparently did recognize Kutcher from Dude, Where's My Car? immediately, but merely thought he had shown up to support the president's reward.

"You should have seen your face!" Kutcher yelled when he leapt from behind the curtain, to which Bush responded, "It's Dude!"

The elaborate hoax began Thursday when Norwegian parliamentarian Jan Simonsen nominated the Iraq coalition pair for the Nobel Peace Prize. The entire world was surprised by the suggestion, given the history of traditionally awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to those who work to prevent war rather than lead into it, but once the nominating committee was let in on the joke by Punk'd co-star Dax Shepard, they agreed to go along with the gag.

"Frankly, it did surprise me," Blair said late Saturday, after the joke was revealed. "I understand the Nobel Prize nominations end around February 1^st, and the ceremonies are usually held in October rather than the Saturday after a nomination. Not to mention the fact we, the president and I, started a war entirely for political purposes without a shred of evidence. That didn't seem to be a normal Peace Prize prerequisite."

Kutcher, a fellow Tool fan, was brought in on the presidential prank by Bush daughters Jenna and Barbara, with a little help by former Vice-President Al Gore. He thought it only fair after the "punking" George W. and Jeb gave him in the 2000 election, with a little help from Katharine Harris.

"One good turn deserves another, Dubya—you been Punk'd, sucker!" said a possibly inebriated Gore via phone Saturday.

A solemn Bush, described by aids as a little sour but in general good spirits, interrupted network broadcasts Sunday night to apprise the country of the situation.

"Yes, America, the stories you have heard are true. I have been Punk'd by M-TV. The award I received was not a Nobel Peace Prize after all, but a leftover M-TV Movie Award never collected by Chris Tucker for the Best On-Screen Duo Category. The man awarding me the award was not the head of the Nobel Institute Director Geir Lundestad, but a young man Lance Bass of some singing group. As always, this administration accepts minor setbacks and tries to move on. In fact, I have since formed a committee to find out if these reports of weapons of mass destruction as yet unfound in Iraq might be part of some Osama bin Laden-hosted Al-Jazeera practical joke program."

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I'm happy to inform everyone following my adventures I have made some headway in my efforts to redesign how the commune is managed. Red Bagel finally agreed to cut some of the office fat and fire three employees whose jobs are redundant. Of course, the catch was I had to be two of the employees—I'm not even sure how the physics of that works out, it would apparently at least involve him firing me twice. Needless to say, I put off accepting that deal until I can reach some sort of agreement with him in which other redundant employees are fired and I'm allowed to retain my position. But still, it's progress.

Don't let this leave you with the impression I like firing people. It's the least favorite part of my job, or it would be, if I was allowed to do it. I suppose it might rank in the bottom 5, actually, maybe between cleaning Bagel's birdcage and plucking the feathers off Bagel's bird. It would easily be one of the four or five least enjoyable parts of my job description, if they'd let me do it as I've been asking for years.

I've fired people before, of course. At my old website, poopoftheday.com, I unfortunately had let my mother go when it became apparent the website wasn't making enough money to support more than one employee, or even one, and although she wasn't technically being paid for her services, it sent a clear message to potential future stockholders we were serious about making major changes. Mom was quite upset, and refused to give me a ride to work after that, but it takes a strong stomach to run a tight ship. And hard abs.

In fact, between you and me, I fired quite a few people during my tenure running the commune last year, and only had yet to inform them they were let go. Editor Bagel, in his infinite exact opposite of wisdom, saw fit to retain those employees to keep doing whatever the hell it is they do here, but that would have been far different if I had the paper to print those memos firing them all. It wasn't easy for me, from any angle, as mom was quite dismayed to find out I didn't have the opening to hire her on after all. I had planned a real swift and brutal housecleaning here at the commune, for the good of the company, and like mom is quick to remind, I never clean anything. But some day, I'm sure, all the anchors holding the commune down will be severed and we'll be free to sail free.

You might be wondering, what does it take to make a good boss? I assure you, it is not, as Mr. Bagel believes, "deep pockets and an occasional bare-assed paddlin'." Not that I would mind having either. No, the secret to good management of a staff is trust. I repeat, in italics, trust. Once you have your employees' trust you can do whatever you want to them and they'll never see it coming. Of course, plotting out their firings years ahead of time and claiming it was a necessity caused by the current market is the easy part. Getting there trust—how in the world does a boss do that? Being infinitely smarter and correcting their mispronunciations of simple words isn't the way.

If I had to follow Red Bagel's example, apparently dressing like a riverboat gambler and calling all your employees "suh," regardless of their sex, is the way to success. Spending more time chasing pigeons in the park with a cane made of human bone rather than in the office, this must be one way of earning employee loyalty. Or it could be as simple as picking the smartest member of your staff and subjugating him to the most humiliating meetings and stick him in the most demeaning position available. Who knows, perhaps it's all these things.

Of course, who really needs the commune? According to the letter from FCC Chairman Michael Powell, nobody. And I have to agree. Maybe it's time I gave up on turning the commune into my alternative news website ideal, and concentrated on spreading my wings and soaring to new heights. Of course, I have the feeling I'd get swatted down by Bagel's bone cane if I tried.

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I'm not that big a fan of talking. I don't know what the big deal is. It seems like it's basically impossible to find a girl to date who isn't constantly nagging you about that. "What do you want to eat? What are you thinking about? Why did you put my dog in that Ziplock bag?" I swear, if I wanted to be interviewed I'd show up at the airport with lit fuses sticking out of my shoes. I'm just trying to live my life here, not run around in some kind of non-stop monologue nightmare.

It's not just girls, either, there's all kinds of social situations where people just won't let you shut up. You go into a restaurant, and right away, somebody's asking you what you want. And even if you point politely at the menu they still won't leave you alone, they've got to ask for some kind of verbal confirmation. What are you, retarded? I pointed at the duck nuggets, didn't I? You think I'm the kind of person who silently points at food he doesn't want? Think again.

That's why I started eating at fast food places exclusively. It's way easier to gesture your way through a meal there since they've usually got the menu in big pictures over the cash registers. But some of those geniuses have a hard time following an imaginary line from your fingertip to the menu, everything's all "Oh, you want Big Mac?" Even at the Chinese place, weird as shit. And you wouldn't believe the trouble you can get into if you decide to make it easy for them and just reach over to press the cash register buttons yourself. It's like they think you need a degree in nuclear physics to run the thing. I've seen them press the "Slow Loris" button enough times, I know where it is. If you want to have a one-sided argument with me about it, I guess that's just your prerogative.

Nobody's worse about the "no talking" thing that people who call on the phone. Jesus. I don't know where these people come from. If you're going to contact me over a non-visual medium, at least have the courtesy to learn your Morse code, people. I'm willing to meet you half-way in the auditory department, and you're just shitting all over my diplomacy with your "Hello? HELLO?? Is there anybody there? I don't know, it's just this weird tapping noise. I think my phone's fucked up."

As you can imagine, I flunked speech class in college. I thought I could Pictionary my way through it, but my professor was a hard-ass about the talking part. And the rest of the class were horrible guessers anyway. A cow? If you people can't tell the difference between a horse and a cow, remind me never to accept a barbecue invitation over at any of your houses, all right? That was a hard year, both semesters. Eventually I got the requirement waived after arguing (in pictures) that speech class was an illogical requirement for a culinary arts degree.

Of course, that was before I discovered the cruel reality of the world, that nobody wants to hire a chef who doesn't talk. Talk about your discrimination, you're lucky if you can even get past the first interview.

I don't even want to get into the time I was asked to speak at my dad's funeral. There are still a lot of family members who haven't forgiven me for that Mexican standoff or the way the funeral home closed with all of us still in there. I've had half a mind to tell them all off, but they're even worse at Pictionary than my college class was.

But I've said too much already.

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