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.

Modern mysteries come in all shapes and sizes, from the five-toed horny gorilla to the location of the island where they breed reality show contestants. But some of the most vexing mysteries of all come in the blandest of blandishments. Sometimes they slip under our radar in plastic-windowed envelopes, without any kind of Unsolved Mysteries theme music alerting us to their mysterious presence.

The only thing harder to read than an epileptic doing sign language or Spanish scribbled on a men's room wall is the modern cell phone bill. We live in a society where experts can catch a killer based on the velocity at which the blood hit the beanie baby display case, but there doesn't seem to be a person on the planet who can tell you what the fruity hell is going on with your phone bill. We have scholars who can read hieroglyphics, cave drawings and the handwriting in hip-hop album liner notes, but even they throw up their hands in disgust when you ask them what a Cross-Promotional Technolocality fee is or why you're being charged for Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Removal. And this isn't only because you called them up at home in the middle of the night from a bar and they couldn't hear your question over the Phil Collins blaring in the background. They just don't know.

However, all that is unknown may not be unknowable. It may just be that no one has ever had the balls to rip the phony rubber Richard Nixon mask off the truth. And believe you me, there is truth behind the cowardly jargon that clogs your phone bill like Cher's decapitated head stuck in a toilet. Icky truth.

Phone bill jargon is all about telecommunications companies needing to give you a "deal" to get your business, but being genetically incapable of actually giving you a deal. If they actually managed to give you a bargain, their fat-cat golfing buddies would never let them hear the end of it, and might actually call into question whether they're really white or actually a member of some deceptively near-white-looking minority group. That, and they're greedy as fuck. So you can rule out not being bent over the barrel by the phone companies, that's just a fact of life.

However, everybody likes to feel like they're getting a bargain, so the phone companies developed a clever ploy to lower their rates while actually raising their rates. They gradually shifted more and more of their expenses into itemized fees and taxes that aren't included in your standard rate. So now your cell phone plan is only $40 a month instead of $60, but they're charging you $22 in made-up fees and official-sounding taxes on the back end of the bill. Washington capitulated because they liked the sound of the word and wanted to put "capitulating" on their résumés.

So now you open your cell phone bill and it's like you let a bunch of greedy leprechauns loose who are running around and grabbing whatever they can get their dirty little mitts on. There's one called the Federal Programs Cost Recovery Fee. This is to reimburse the phone companies for all the money they spent lobbying to get all of these fees and taxes okayed by the bureaucrats. Another is called the Universal Connectivity Fee, which is universal because everyone has to pay it, and it covers the cost of the phone company making sure everything is plugged in.

Telephone Number Pooling fees cover the cost of phone company employees picking out phone numbers that spell embarrassing words on the keypad when they're supposed to be working. Wireless Number Portability is a fee to offset the money phone companies are losing to cell phones, while the Audible Proximity fee is to offset the money cell phones are losing to people being in the same room and talking.

Enhanced 911 is a feature that plays a little animation of a guy getting carjacked next to a funny cartoon policeman sleeping in his cruiser with little Z's coming out of his head while you're waiting for 911 to connect you with a dispatcher. The Relay Service and Communication Devices Fund covers the cost of connecting calls to land-based phones, while the Telecommunications Relay Service Surcharge connects you to phones shaped like footballs and other novelty items.

The Universal Service Fund Surcharge is a fee paid to Universal Studios to recoup their losses from people who are talking on their cell phones so much they're not scared by the big jumping shark on the tram ride. The Federal Exercise Tax is meant to recoup the strain on the health care system caused by you talking on your cell phone instead of exercising.

The so-called State Regulatory Fee is also known at the Don Knotts Surcharge, which guarantees that you will never, ever, be telephoned by Don Knotts at any time. The FCC Access Charge covers lawsuits against the phone company brought by people who've had movies, meals, sporting events, urinations, wedding vows and evening commutes ruined by some idiot yakking on his cell phone.

Last but certainly not least, the Trans-Continental Deactivation fee is the charge for them to pull their dick out of your ass after they're done fucking you.

Likewise, you're taxed by the states, counties, cities, and special taxing districts you're calling to and from, and by Burt Shyman from Oak Grove, CT, who invented the dropped call. And you're also paying to not have your phone number listed in Serial Killer Magazine, and for the expenses incurred by the phone company while they're selling your phone number to every disabled reindeer charity, opinion survey group and credit card company in the nation.

The deeper you probe into this mystery, the murkier it becomes, kind of like Ronald Reagan's brain. Stare too long and you may come away cross-eyed, or sterile. One thing is clear, however: If it's not cell phone radiation giving us these brain tumors, it's the bills.

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