m-mmm! Sweet thing, the ratings turned upside down on the Olympic Games from Athens this week, when the IOC voted on new rules allowing contenders to compete nude. It bolstered a flabby start to the Olympics for NBC, and turned the games into a ratings giant as the week went on.

Upon seeing the dry audience response to the Athens games, NBC petitioned the committee for nude competition, anything to pull the crashing Olympics out of the fire. IOC President Jimmy Goldstein approved the decision right away.

"Now it's just like olden times," said Goldstein, straightening his thin tie. "Way back when, the Greeks used to do it nude. Hell, they did everything nude. Which is why I like the Greeks. But now the Olympics is finally the way it was always meant to be. Bare-ass naked."

Some Olympians were quick to reproach the decision, especially the chubby Eastern European weightlifters, but most came around for a shot at winning the much-sought Olympic gold. NBC has continued showing the Games, much to the chargin of the FCC, with the charge that the human body is a beautiful thing. Still, the Games have been shown on a five-minute delay, so that censors can blur or edit out anything that really, really isn't a beautiful thing. The network has already taken the liberty with such events as Olympic wrestling, when hairy German Gustav Werner pinned oily Italian Antonio DiScuza around his sweaty lower body.

"Sure, you get a little bored watching something like archery or sailing," said Pinewood, Minnesota Olympic viewer Sally Nedhurst, "and the shot put made me laugh until I was sick. But if you think I'm going to miss one minute of the swimming or gymnastics, you're out of your mind!"

Indeed the gymnastics, always a highlight of the games, were a ratings powerhouse for NBC. The network received record ratings as American Paul Gilbert executed a beautiful dismount to take the gold, and uneven parallel bars favorite on the Chinese team Hong-Chu Xy eliminated himself with a misfire that resulted in severe testicular damage when he banged the bar unexpectedly. Slow-motion clips of the tragedy were available, but no men at the network could bring themselves to air it.

It hasn't been all gold for the Americans, though, as 100-meter runner Isaac "Chubby" Walker was disqualified for living up to his namesake during the track and field event. It's also been a disappointing year for the American basketball "Dream Team," who seem particularly impressive every time they take the court, but find themselves limited in their dunking ability without the use of protective cups.

Conversely, it was a good year for the Brazilian women's softball team, who came from behind to bounce, bob, and claw their way up to the top ranks in the sport. In addition to winning the gold in the event, they've all also been romantically linked to Colin Farrell following their rise to stardom.

The IOC will benefit from America's favorable response to the nude Olympics as well, since the network has promised in advance to split revenue from a DVD release of the Olympic games, as well as a separate release, tentatively titled: "The Olympics: Too Hot for Primetime."

arents’ groups and otologists alike are up in arms over Nokia’s latest entry into the increasingly cutthroat cell phone market, the Nokia BLADE, an innovative new cell-phone/pocket knife combination that offers users with limited pocket space the best of both gadgets in one sleek package.

“We think the BLADE will be a hit with consumers who are tired of carrying a cell phone and a big, bulky knife everywhere they go,� explained Nokia spokesperson Dalton Hughes. “Or also with people who are sick of having to switch hands to go between talking and cutting tasks.�

“This phone is da bomb!� gushed teen Roger Salmong, bleeding profusely from the ear. “When I’m not hollering with my homies, I can cut shit!�

In spite of a generally positive reaction among consumers, the new phone has raised the ire of parents’ groups who had a hard enough time getting their kids off the phone for family time even before it became a handy cutting implement.

“I thought it was hard to keep Stacey from bringing her cell phone to the dinner table before,� lamented housewife Greta Thomas. “But now she says she needs it to cut her pork chops. What do you say to that?�

Otologists, or “ear doctors� to the unwashed masses, also take issue with the new phone, citing a sharp spike in the rate of ear contusions being reported in hospital emergency rooms since the phone’s release last month.

“It really is a serious problem,� explained a bashful Dr. Dennis Loham, sporting a large white bandage covering his left ear. “You think you’d have to be stupid to forget to retract the phone’s folding blade before trying to take an incoming call, but it really is easy to space out on it. In my office alone, we’ve seen—hold on, I have to take this. Hel—oh sweet fucking Jesus, not again!�

The rise of multipurpose phones in recent years has concerned parents nationwide to varying degrees, having a large impact on concerned parents, yet hardly any at all on alcoholics or other individuals who give less than a shit about their children. For concerned parents, however, the thought of their children carrying a telephone, web browser, video game console, digital camera, personal data organizer and MP3 player around in their pockets has unsettling ramifications. Some even remained concerned after the commune explained that all of these functionalities were packed into a single small cell phone, not a large assortment of bulky devices likely to damage a child’s expensive church slacks. Others needed an explanation of what an MP3 was, or wanted to know if their phone at home could take pictures.

The small handful of parents who understand both the technology and its ramifications share concerns about giving children and teens unsupervised access to the Internet, violent video games, or scary futuristic Herbie Hancock music via their cell phones. Now that a sharp, ridged blade has been added to their list of concerns, many parents are considering drastic measures. The most appealing of these involves sending their children to military school, where they’ll at least learn to handle a knife/phone, and will stop carving “FART� into the banister out in the hallway.

The Nokia BLADE retails for $149 and is available in blood-masking red, surgical silver and camouflage.

Few popular hand gestures have as varied a meaning around the globe as the ubiquitous "thumbs-up" gesture, a poorly-named motion since it rarely, except in the case of huge assholes, is performed with both thumbs. But while the dual thumbs-up means "I'm a cock" in nearly every corner of the globe, the single-thumbed variety can mean anything from "I've recovered from my head injury" to "I think this would fit up your ass." Knowing the differences in local translation can save one not only from social embarrassment, but massive anal trauma as well.

Most modern historians place the gesture's origin in Roman times, when coliseum crowds would determine a fallen gladiator's fate by giving either a thumbs-up ("Fuck 'em!") or a thumbs-down ("Kill the shit out of him!"). The gladiator would die either way, but people in those days liked to feel like they had some say in things, whether they actually did or not. The only way the gladiator could actually be spared would be if the Caesar gave the dreaded "He's kind of cute!" hand-waggle, in which case the gladiator's wounds would be treated and he'd be dressed in a muscle shirt for the pleasure of the Caesar.

Art historians and the strange souls who have dedicated their academic lives to the study of hand gestures often argue and get into bar brawls over the meaning of the Roman thumbs–up/down gestures, some believing that thumbs-down meant "swords down" and others arguing that it meant "you're a dick." Confusing the matter further are the various gladiatorial paintings from the era, which depict Caesars sparing injured gladiators via both the thumbs-up and the thumbs-down, and one rare instance of a Caesar giving the coliseum crowd the finger. Historians say this incident was triggered by the Caesar's chariot being dinged in the coliseum parking lot the day before. Most believe that a gladiator was commonly spared with the thumbs-down gesture, and the one outstanding painting indicating the opposite was the result of a lazy French painter who just couldn't paint the thumbs-down without it looking weird.

All of this is hardly relevant, however, since the thumbs-up had already been in use for centuries, dating back to prehistoric times, when those cavemen who were slight of build used the gesture instinctively in an attempt to hitch a ride on the backs of larger cavemen. Modern hitchhiking has changed little, though due to advances in transportation technology, modern man has less time to yell insults after being turned down for a ride.

During Medieval times, Europeans would seal transactions by licking thumbs and pressing them together, fist-to-fist, a tradition they learned from Oriental traders who were only fucking with them. Nevertheless, this bogus Oriental custom survived for hundred of years in Europe, until people began to realize it was greatly facilitating the spread of the plague, and nobody could come up with a way to make thumb condoms that didn't unpleasantly reduce sensation.

Eventually, the thumbs-up gesture came to be used by American pilots in WWII to communicate with the ground crew since they were covered in so much Darth Vader bullshit that their thumb was about the only body part that could still move. This was in stark contrast to WWI pilots, who didn't even wear helmets, and were only issued two pieces of safety equipment: a book on birds and a bible.

The WWII pilots would give the thumbs-up to the ground crew when they were ready to take off, meaning "Everything's cool." This is what the ground crew chumps thought anyway, the inside joke among the pilots was that the gesture actually meant "I stuck this thumb up your girlfriend's ass last night." Thankfully for inter-Air Force harmony, none of the ground crew guys ever found out about this or the "You're an a-s-s-hole/OK" dual-purpose hand gesture either.

The ground crew guys, however, were about the only ones not in on the joke, and as the gesture spread around the globe wherever the pilots traveled, coming to mean "Up your ass" all around the world. Thanks to the uptight 1950's, Americans never caught on to the double-meaning, and continued to use the gesture to mean "Super." One notable exception was actor Henry Winkler, whose father had been a WWII pilot and who used his inside knowledge to give a counterculture edge to his character of Fonzie on the 70's sitcom Happy Days. Whenever Fonzie would give someone the thumbs-up and sneer "Heeeey, sit on it!" Air Force pilots and stoners everywhere had a good laugh at the expense of mainstream America.

Today the gesture is as popular as ever among Americans and foreigners wanting to secretly insult Americans. Though in all likelihood having your thumb stuck up someone else's ass would be even more unpleasant for you than it was for them, the thumbs-up gesture goes down next to "Go fuck yourself!" in the annals of nonsensical insults that still pack a punch.

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