oting the success that Subway Sandwiches has enjoyed with advertising spokesman Jared Fogel, McDonald's announced today that they are looking for a similar type of person to head up a new advertising campaign for them that is still in the works. Applicants for the position are expected to be pale, blotchy, still somewhat soft around the middle, and most desirably, should have undergone a radical weight loss in the last year or so.

"We're ditching the old tired-ass icons Ronald McDonald and Hamburglar and Grimace," said corporate spokesman Andy Lard. "Instead, we're looking for someone who was recently a big fatty, you know, a real tubbo. I mean just a gigantic container of goo. Someone that lost like three or four hundred pounds through an exclusive diet of Big Macs and fries and hot apple pies. We're looking for someone who can hold up a pair of pants big enough to stuff three sumo wrestlers and Anna Nicole Smith inside, but who is now comparatively slim."

Lard went on to say that the person they had in mind should also have "pasty white, preferably kind of blotchy skin, be extremely androgynous, and should still be porky enough as to be non-threatening to our commercial audience. We're looking for a soft, bland kind of non-descript guy, but one who has a real presence, you know what I mean?"

"We want someone who represents the average American who sits on his couch watching TV most of the week and all weekend, except for when he goes to McDonald's, of course, and has that kind of glazed look. We don't want anybody overly bright or too outspoken, just somebody nice and comfy-looking, somebody our customers can identify with. A recent lobotomy would be a definite plus."

Asked how the search was going, Lard admitted that they had not had much luck in the few weeks since it began.

"It's too bad we didn't snap that Jared guy up first," he complained. "He's really the ideal person for what we're looking for. Still, there must be others out there like him. And we're going to keep looking until we find him."

McDonald's shares lost money this past quarter for the first time ever, but Lard discounted the notion that the lack of an adequate spokesman was the reason.

"That may have played a small part in it, you know, us not having a big one-time fat-ass whale waving his drawers around on national TV and telling everyone how he lost weight eating McDonald's food; but the main reason is probably because people are finally wising up to how evil our corporation is, what with Satan holding the board chairman position and all, how nutritionally bankrupt our food is, and how our grand plan is to ultimately poison most of the Third World with our hamburgers. Uh... this is off the record, right?"

Lard then excused himself and said he had a luncheon meeting to discuss using a heavily-sedated Rosie O'Donnell in drag as the New Jared. He mentioned that the meeting would be at Fresh Choice, just around the corner from McDonald's corporate headquarters. Asked why the luncheon meeting wasn't catered with McDonald's food, Lard responded simply, "What, are you fuckin' kidding me? Nobody in their right mind would eat that crap."

an took a collective step backward, arms behind the back, whistling, and rolling eyes when the space shuttle Columbia exploded over Texas two weeks ago. Texans, used to loud unexpected explosions, were slow to realize exactly what had happened, but some analysts are now saying it was the “fuck you� heard ‘round the world.

“Man was never meant to fly,� said shuttle analysts Thursday. “It’s clear the kind of damage that caused the shuttle’s destruction, coupled with all the obvious other signs, that we’ve overstepped our bounds greatly. I suggest we all get used to walking.�

Though the reaction may seem extreme, even for space nerds, others are saying duh—it’s about time we’ve realized it.

Biblical doomsayer and Reader’s Digest editor James Bartle: “It’s taken too long to get this message, folks. All the plane crashes, not to mention the daily hot air balloon disasters that don’t even make the news—hasn’t it been made clear yet? Man was not meant to fly. Even the Wright Brothers plane didn’t fly more than a few seconds. People will say trial-and-error, necessary experimentation, blah, blah, blah. The truth is, we were shaking the apple tree that wasn’t meant to be shaked.â€�

But not only religious weirdoes are preaching this gospel now. In the wake of the loss of the shuttle and seven astronauts, people are reconsidering the 1986 Challenger disaster, which also cost the lives of seven astronauts, and even 2001’s use of aircraft by Allah to smite American capitalists.

“Nobody wanted to believe in the space program more than me,� said NASA helmsman and space aficionado Shansy Miller. “But the loss of countless craft and lives in the space program has finally become too much to ignore. How many times have we lost good people over the course of these fifty years in our vain attempts to exceed our limitations? Ten? Twenty or more? I think it was three, actually, but you get what I’m saying. It isn’t to be.�

Despite the innovations in technology and the potential offered by space travel, many are saying this is the final straw. Man has tried for far too long to explore space and has only gotten so far as the moon, or Mars, if you count unmanned probes, which no one cares about. It’s time to call it quits.

“We had a good run,� according to former astronaut and space cowboy Maurice Graham. “We been up into space, we planted a flag on the moon. I don’t see any point in doing anything more. All we’re doing is putting good multi-ethnic men and woman at risk and providing years of dead astronaut jokes for playground kids.�

“There will be no further shuttles in the foreseeable future,� said a faceless NASA drone, possibly an android. “I hope we didn’t leave anything valuable on the space station because we’re not going back there for a while. Watch out for Predators when we do. That’s all I’m saying.�

Currently, the president will be hearing arguments to ground all earth-traveling aircraft such as commercial jets and military planes, but there is no decision expected until at least after Iraq has been thoroughly carpet-bombed.

"My body is like a well-oiled machine—both are really oily."

I joined a gym yesterday. I didn't know it could be court-ordered to join a gym. I suppose if nothing else it's a good warning to everyone else not to snack on pork rinds during court proceedings, but in my defense, it's not like it was a murder trial or nothing. Just manslaughter.

The gym's not so bad, really, if you know where to look. Only suckers stop at the machines with the pully slinky things or those machines where you run and never go anywhere. There was some comedian who said I don't run unless I'm being chased, but I think he was just pissed off at me for eating pork rinds while he was trying to do his act.

Gyms have hot tubs and showers and all sorts of cool things. The showers have hot water, but you have to shower with all these guys who are probably gay. They were watching me the whole time I showered. Only one of them said anything, some security guy who came up to me afterwards and said you can't take firearms into the shower, there was some law against concealed weapons in the club. I told him it was in a holster but there was no way to conceal anything while taking a shower. He didn't think it was funny and I'm on warning at the club.

I tried losing weight hundreds of times before, but I always gain it back when I start breathing again. You can try to keep it sucked in all day, but I'm telling you it doesn't work. You just turn blue and pass out, which is another thing that pisses off judges and stand-up comedians.

One time I bought one of those electric machines you hook up to your body and lose weight with electricity. I tried it on everything, and I mean everything, but I never lost any weight. Well, it made my balls shrink up to the size of peanut M&Ms but that's not the kind of thing you can brag about.

What they need is some kind of bulimia machine or something. Those bulimics lose shitloads of weight. I'm not talking a big Willy Wonka kind of contraption, just some kind of box where you spit the food after chewing all the flavor out of it. Take a chicken wing, munch on it until the flavor's gone, then spit it into the box, maybe even throw the bone in. Man, if it turned the spitty crap back into food, you'd have a million-dollar idea. But all the food lobbies would be pissed.

That reminds me, I'm out of pork rinds.

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