ans of the unskippable clutter clogging the front end of most commercial DVD releases received great news this week with the announcement that all major movie studios will begin releasing films in the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats later this year, allowing studios to pack even more commercials, trailers, multi-language legal disclaimers and FBI warnings onto their future releases.

The new formats were developed by a consortium of consumer-electronics giants in response to studio complaints that current DVD technology only allowed studios to force the purchasers of their DVDs to sit through about twenty minutes of unwanted content before getting to the main feature. HD-DVD will feature a 30GB capacity, enough for fifty trailers showing coming attractions, seven FBI warnings, twenty-seven commercials for other DVD releases and Pillsbury crescent rolls, and “The views and commentary reflected on this disc do not reflect…� disclaimers in forty-seven languages. The rival Blu-Ray format, developed by Sony, is expected to nearly double that content, leaving the actual main feature as a virtual afterthought printed on the biodegradable glue between disc layers.

“These new formats are a godsend for our industry,� explained Paramount Pictures head Sherry Lansing. “Last year we had to cut ten minutes out of Top Gun just so it would fit on the DVD between the trailers we wanted to include for our seventeen most exciting upcoming releases. This time next year, our biggest problem is going to be finding a way to make sure consumers aren’t napping through the two hours of product placements and trailers we’ll be able to fit before the movie. We’re already working on a feature that will crank up the television’s volume for the trailers, in such a way that you won’t be able to turn it back down.�

Other studios are said to be working on similar DVD technologies that would insert commercial breaks into DVD movies, add CGI product placements to films according to real-time sales figures, and one that would go so far as to turn on a consumer’s television at pre-programmed times and play time-sensitive advertisements from the DVD.

Though the movie studios are understandably excited about these technological advancements, consumer advocates question why consumers would shell out big bucks to replace their relatively new DVD players with an even more abusive technology. But Hollywood studios remain unconcerned.

“Well, they bought DVD players, didn’t they?� asks Twentieth Century Fox head Hutch Parker. “Damn did they buy DVD players. I mean, with VCRs, you could just fast-forward past all the crap at the beginning, or just never rewind the tape that far. People obviously prefer being made to watch this stuff, so we’re adding more. After all, adding commercials before the half-hour of trailers we show in the movie theaters sure hasn’t kept people from shelling out $10 at the movies, right?�

“They’ll buy them,� agreed Lansing. “We’re going to say the new Blu-Ray shit has twice the ignots or something, make something up. ‘High Definition,’ whatever that means. ‘Crystal-clear picture and bone-rattling sound,’ that sounds good, right? We’ll say they make the old DVDs we were hyping last week look like burnt turd, and those geeks will eat it up.�

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"May old acquaintances be forgot, and their money remain all mine."

My favorite holiday is coming up quick: New Year's Day! I like that they put it at the end of every year, so I know right when it is.

Some people say they love Thanksgiving, but I say, what for? I can eat turkey and fall into a coma sleep any time of the year, thanks to my extra-sensitive allergies. When can you go out and totally shit-faced drunk? Not every day.

As for Christmas, I say, phooey! Which is little kiddish for "Fuck this, fat man!" I never got one thing in my life for Christmas that I wanted, except maybe the year I wished my dad would get off my back and he disappeared forever. No telling what happened there. Needless to say, I tried to make my Christmas wishes as detailed as possible after that.

No, New Year's is the time for me. There's the refreshing feeling, as all old mistakes and the old news gives way to the newness, a blank canvas is set up for the next year. It's like a big douche for the entire world. I wonder, if you were actually doing it, where you would stick a douche to do the whole world? I've heard the asshole of the world was Texas, but that might have just been what that guy from Arkansas was saying when he was mad after those Texans kicked our asses. I should probably find a globe. The whole thing is starting to turn me on, in a weird way.

Sometimes if you go out on St. Patrick's Day, my other favorite holiday, they give you little green hats. For fucking free! I usually slip out the back so I don't have to return it when I leave at night. Or the next three or four days, whenever. But it's totally sharp, you can wear it to high-class social parties and stuff. I assume. One day I might know. Either way it's funny just to put it on and stand in front of the mirror and pretend kids are after your cereal and you have to destroy them with magic powers. I tried to pitch that show to a network guy years ago, but he claimed it was already in development.

They should give you free stuff on New Year's Eve. It would be the best holiday ever, hands down, because all Christmas has over anyone is they give you stuff for free. Easter tried to cop, giving out eggs. Yeah, thanks. Like I can't get eggs. Nobody likes hard-boiled eggs, man, that's why the rabbit gives them away. Tons of people turn down hard-boiled eggs for breakfast, they start to pile up. Maybe that's a Bible story and I just don't know the significance. Jesus got pelted with hard-boiled eggs by the Greeks or whoever and turned them all chocolate and had the last laugh. "Now who's the asshole?" That's probably something Jesus would say.

Free food doesn't make for much of a holiday, though. If you hang out at the right shelters they give you free food on every holiday, but you got to be faster than some of these frostbitten bums to get it. And they have free beer nuts and pretzels at a lot of bars on New Year's. They hand out condoms, but I don't need gag gifts. Hey, fuck you, I know I'm not getting laid tonight. Why do I have to have that thing staring at me in the morning when I wake up on the curb out front? Adding insult to injury. Occasionally injury to injury, too, if you try to put those things on while a cop is watching you. I was just testing to see if it glowed or anything, officer. Chill out.

And Happy New Year.

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Here's a phrase I've never said before: Good work, police. It goes against everything I stand for at heart and everything the stoner counter-culture who makes up our fanbase believes, but in this particular case, the five-O did their jobs well in apprehending Malvo and Muhammad, the famous snipers of last year. Some have called them the East Coast Killers, but myself, finding it distasteful to so lightly treat the subject of murderers, prefer to call them the Deathmasque.

But I package that compliment with a chiding, for no extra charge. For the snipers, whatever you call them, have only been two-thirds apprehended.

Gasp, if you're inclined. Then close your mouth before the flies take up residence. Bagel shits you not, Americans. A third sniper is out their running around loose, or possibly ambling, I make no bold statement concerning his walking speed. But this third sniper is free still, and if you need any more proof, check out the recent shootings in Ohio. Police may say they're unrelated shootings, but what have the police ever done for us, besides catching the first two snipers?

Who is this sniper? Do I look like the cops to you? Not my job to wildly speculate on the identities of snipers, folks, only to wildly accuse them of being larger in number than they've previously indicated.

I suppose you want to know my source, source-nosers. You would think after all this time I have more than earned your trust. After all, I've delivered pretty amazing information over the years—information so amazing, would I were to hear it for the first time, I certainly would be too agape to ask for proof. But I understand your need for verification—we live in a hard world that demands facts rather than rhetoric.

And this source, if I am at liberty to say, is among the most reliable I've ever consulted. I was reluctant to believe such an outrageous tale as the three-gunman theory, but my source revealed to me such conclusive evidence I could not refute it. Trajectories, shell plating, sight lines—all such confusing forensic jargon I had no choice but believe. One-hundred and ten percent proof two people could not have, under any normal human circumstances, committed those crimes alone.

Not to belabor the point, but when I think about it a little more, I really have earned a little more credit than you're giving me. I announce to you some of the most amazing conspiracy news of our fresh young century and all you want to hear is names, names, names—of sources, sources, sources. Thanks for the credit, he sarcastically remarked. But I think I've made my point.

Anyone examining the current talk of insanity pleas in the Malvo trial, or studying the Muhammad trial transcripts carefully can see (and it doesn't take my pointing out) there is subtle reference to a third individual. The question is: Who is this third individual, and why have the Malvo-Muhammad duo and their lawyers kept silent about it until now?

You know, what does a source really prove? Oh, someone else knows about this information as well. But what does that matter to you, Mr. and Mrs. Middle America, you wouldn't know some D.C.-area librarian from a Hoboken mental patient. A big-time Washington-area insider could mean complete legitimacy to those in the know, but if you don't know him, I could totally make up a name and you wouldn't be able to tell. It just pisses me off. You should know I wouldn't bring you a third-rate source. All this time, all these endless column inches—for what? I could've been writing about the time I diddled that girl from Subway. It certainly wouldn't lessen my credibility, would it? Shams.

Let's suppose, on this one occasion, I might have neglected to get the name and occupation of my source. Roughly translated, forgot to check my facts. Would that kill an otherwise spotless record? I think not. What do you think? Hypothetically. Of course it wouldn't.

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