Magna Doodle drawing determined to have been done by Michelangelo himself may be worth between $12 million and a kajillion dollars, according to students at Art Lowenstein's School of Art Appraisal in Hoboken, NJ. The doodle was unearthed among assorted art-related toys from the Renaissance period in what used to be a child's rumpus room, according to officials at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. The unsigned doodle is of a half-man, half-bear — some call it a Manimal — standing on a three-dimensional see-through box, beneath a sky filled with different-sized eyes and concentric triangles, according to officials. The Manimal has a river of snakes flowing somehow magically out of his armpit, and the single word "Gwyneth" is scrawled mysteriously near the border between several squiggles. Experts place the time of the doodling in the mid-1500s, making it one of the oldest Magna Doodlings on record.

The Magna Doodle was plucked from a chest of toys in the museum's coatroom, formerly a child's rumpus room when the museum was home to a family of Austrian squatters in the late 1800's. Such a discovery is considered to be "a fucking mind-blower," Cooper-Hewitt Director Paul Thompson said in a telephone interview. "I didn't even know they made those things back then."

The Magna Doodle was found in a chest of toys that also included a Magnetic Wonder Whiskers toy that may have belonged to Michelangelo, and an unidentified drawing toy that involved using a solid plastic pencil to draw on a sheet of static cling film that was erased when you peeled the sheet away from the backing, Thompson said.

The museum, part of the Washington-based Smithsonian Institution, purchased the Magna Doodle within a group of five magnetic art toys in 1842, for $1. The purchase was ridiculed by some at the time, but honored as it fulfilled the wishes of then-Director Hyram McWinter, who often said "If it's artsy, I want it." By often we mean like every five minutes, it drove people crazy.

Museum scholars guessed the work might have been done by a 16th century magnetic artist Benny del Bacon, who often fobbed off his doodles on the art community of that day as "pre-surrealist deconstructionalism." Somehow it got into the wrong box and was almost sold at a museum garage sale, only to be saved by a demanding child who lived in the Cooper-Hewitt at the time.

"It's the old cliche: Renaissance master doodles a masterpiece on a child's magnetic toy, museum buys it on accident and almost sells it for nothing before snotty little Austrian kid steals it off the nickel table and hides it in his toy chest for 100 years," Thompson said.

It was first identified as a Michelangelo in April by Sir Clifford Buford, director of the National Galleries of Scotland or something, during an unauthorized surprise inspection of the Cooper-Hewitt. Buford, an Italian Renaissance scholar and air hockey freak, was rummaging around the coatroom of the design museum looking for a nice umbrella when he came across a toy chest simply labeled "Piss Off." One particular toy inside the chest caught his eye. 'My Crap, this is a Michelangelo!"' he exclaimed, not anticipating being quoted later.

While the experts agree on the artist, there is no agreement on how the doodle fits into the larger body of Michelangelo's work.

The Manimal's genitalia is only inferred, but the doodle clearly shows where they should go, said Sarah Lawrence, the museum's expert on the Italian Renaissance magnet-based arts. However, a cat doodled in the background features an alarmingly oversized penis, raising questions about Michelangelo's state of mind at the time of the doodling.

"You recognize a Michelangelo as you recognize a friend," Buford said by courier fox from Florence. "If you're familiar with a friend, and you're walking down the street, you wave to them. They may wave back, or they may duck into a shop to avoid being seen with you on the street. I rather think Michelangelo's doodle waved back. Either that, or these things here are ass cheeks; probably this Gwyneth person's. Though I'd always heard he was gay."

The Magna Doodle will go on display at the Cooper-Hewitt museum in about a year, next to a wild scratch-paper doodle Picasso did while on the phone with his mother, Thompson said.

resident Bush stated Sunday that he wished everyone was into Tool as much as he is. Though he did not name names, the president implied everyone surrounding him, from his wife Laura Bush to Secretary of State Colin Powell, did not enjoy the hard rock band on the same level he does.

"I mean, they 'like' Tool and all," stated the president, "but it's just not the same. They like Tool like they won't turn them off if they're on the radio or something. I like Tool like I want to put in the CD and jam, you know, to sing along to all the songs, even the ones most people don't know. I know all their albums and who played on each song by heart. Nobody I know likes Tool like that, nobody."

Attorney General John Ashcroft confirmed the president's feelings.

"Tool's not bad, I'm not saying that. It's just… I don't know, I'm not into it at all, really. Not too hard for me or nothing, I don't think, I just prefer other kinds of stuff. If I want to listen to something heavy I usually go for Rammstein or stuff like that. Most of the time I just listen to Creed. I like Creed and nobody around here does. You don't see me flipping out and whining about it."

The president, a reported Tool fan since his days as Governor of Texas when the band released Aenima, has tried since then to get everybody into Tool, from South African president Nelson Mandella to his daughters.

"Bar's into that really gay new country and Jenna just likes Jimmy Buffett. I swear, I don't know whose kids they are, but they didn't get that from me," said the president.

Unable to share his love for the band with surrounding friends, family members, and staff, the president has turned to Tool message boards and chat rooms, where his login name is usually Prisonsex2000.

"This guy the other day wouldn't shut up about 'Sober,' like it's their best song ever and, man, it was just so clear this guy was a newbie. Me and the other fans at toolbox.com were just all straight-faced, like, 'Yeah, man, that's sure 'nuff it!' I mean, don't get me wrong, 'Sober' kicks ass, no one will say it doesn't, but no one who's a Tool fan needs to be told that, right?"

Tool has been instrumental in Bush's life since he discovered them as Governor of Texas. He even credits his decision to run for president because of his love for hard rock music, stating to several press groups in 1992 that America could do better than a Fleetwood Mac fan as president.

History has not been kind to the Trojans, inventors of the condom and quite possibly the stupidest people ever. Though they had an advanced culture that thrived for many thousands of years, the Trojans will always and forever be remembered as the people who were suckered by a gang of mercenary nutjobs hiding in a giant wooden horse.

Scam artists and traveling salesmen the world over knew of Troy, a town full of people so gullible that the best conmen stopped going there, as there was really no sport in it. The people of Troy had purchased several bridges in the lands of Mesopotassia and Outer Bulganium, neither of which actually existed. They bought into every diet and exercise fad that blew in on the wind, and most of the town was involved in a mutli-level marketing scam that involved paying people to wipe their own asses. Cedric the Stooped had sold the entire town invisible trousers that were cooler in the summertime, and most of the women in the town had purchased fat-burning crystals from Amaldine the Untrustworthy. The place was like a Scam artists' Disneyland, and many of them planned yearly vacations to Troy.

But the people of Troy were content to live their gullible little lives, and all was well for them until they screwed the pooch by inviting the Gods to a wedding between the king of Pthia, Peleus and Thetis, this crazy chick he knocked up at his brother's wake. History has shown us time and time again that when you bring the Gods into a situation, it always gets royally screwed up faster than you can say "man-eating serpents."

Anyway, somebody dropped the ball mailing out the invitations, and the goddess of promotional discounts, Eris, didn't get invited. Eris was about as high-strung as goddesses came in those days, and she shit a brick. Nobody was surprised, and they all rolled their eyes when Eris said some ominous shit and threw a golden apple on the table.

Nobody knew what in the world that was supposed to be about, and most of them ignored it, but Athena was drunk as a skunk and she grabbed the apple, declaring that it meant she was the hottest skank at the banquet. Aphrodite didn't believe in any of that voodoo, but she hated to see Athena happy, so she declared that she had seen the apple first. Zeus told everybody he wasn't going to touch that debate with a ten-foot finger of God, so he told the Trojan prince Paris to straighten the whole thing out while he went off to purge out the monster stack of flapjacks he'd put away at the banquet.

Right away Athena and Aphrodite were all over Paris, offering up everything they could think of, including every kind of nasty goddess sexual favor in the book. In the end he chose Aphrodite, who offered him the most beautiful mortal woman in the world. Right away, Athena was wishing she had bid higher than "my cousin Showanda." Aphrodite then gave Paris the hook-up with Helen of Troy, who Aphrodite knew from beauty school.

Paris traveled to Sparta and wooed Helen away from her husband, the Spartan king Menopause. She returned with Paris to Troy, which pissed off all of the Trojan girls who had sketches of Paris pinned up on their walls. Naturally, Menopause was pissed as well, since Paris had made off with both his wife and his best set of flatware. He got a hold of his brother Agamemnon, who had the much more intimidating name between the two of them, and sent Agamemnon with 1,000 ships filled with all his cousins and whatnot to go get Helen back and to stomp the fear of Greece into that wiseass Paris.

Though he had a pretty badass name, Agamemnon was still an idiot, and the Greek army spent ten years trying to get through the walls surrounding Troy. When their amazingly prolonged effort proved fruitless, finally the Greek soldier Sinon, who was tired of trying to run up the walls of Troy for ten years, suggested that they use the Trojans' weakness against them by building a giant wooden horse, hiding soldiers inside of it, and then leaving. Nobody knew what he was talking about, but it sounded like a good excuse to get the hell out of there and they could always blame Sinon if anyone asked them why they deserted.

The horse was built, and Agamemnon's best men hid inside while the rest of the army left town, leaving only Sinon behind to put on his puppy dog eyes. When the Trojans came out to find Sinon and the horse, he claimed to have been deserted by the army, who built the horse as an offering to Hobby, the God of big wooden horses. The Trojans walked around the horse and whistled to show their appreciation, kicking the wheels and standing around for a few hours. When they decided to bring it inside the city, the Trojan prophet Laocoon warned that it was a Greek subterfuge and banged on the side of the horse with his cane to illustrate that it was hollow. Instantly, giant sea serpents shot up out of the sea and devoured Laocoon and his sons, no fooling.

Deciding the matter settled, the Trojans wheeled the giant wooden horse through the gates of Troy, despite the occasional sneezing noises heard coming from inside and the guy who hopped out of the horse's ass while they were inspecting it and ran off into the woods to take a leak.

Like idiots, the Trojans partied all night to celebrate their victory and their cherry new wooden horse, and when they fell asleep the Greek soldiers hopped out of the horse, opened the gates of Troy and let in the Greek army, which had been hiding in the bushes the whole time. The people of Troy were screwed, figuratively and literally, as the Greeks had sex with everybody and took the most desirable women as their concubines, kind of like when AT&T bought out TCI a few years back.

Troy was destroyed, but the Trojans got the last laugh as the Greeks had been there so long they forgot the way back to Greece, and ended up wandering around in their ships until they ran out of food and were eaten by sea serpents. That is, the Trojans would have had the last laughs if they hadn't all been either killed in battle or stuck as sex slaves in bondage on the Greek ships when the sea serpents showed up. But you get the feeling like they appreciated that there was at least some sort of payback at the end.

These were pretty rough-and-tumble times, remember. It didn't really pay to be anything but a God or a sea serpent back then.

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