August 1 and August 2

August awoke, beside himself. Literally.

In the night, something happened such that he was divided into two identical selves.

August leapt from the bed, panicked that someone wandered into his room and fell asleep next to him in bed.

August woke in fright when the bed suddenly shook from someone leaping out of it.  He startled across the bed thinking half-asleep that someone wandered into his room and fell asleep next to him in bed.

August standing gaped wide-eyed at a wide-eyed, gaping August in bed.

"Who the hell are you?" they accused. And then bam—the moment they both were completely freed of sleep, they recognised themselves. Their eyes actually grew wider. It was a long, long time before they finally chimed:

"You're me."

Slowly, August the first looked around, searching for signs in the room of some weird trauma in the night, not knowing what signs weird trauma would leave. August the second joined him. When the room seemed in order they moved onto inspecting themselves. No cuts or bruises. Then a very black thought: Were they mad? They didn't think so. They felt fine.

"Well, I'm me," they said.

"So am I."

But in the end, he wasn't himself when he killed him.

Crack is back!

I have graduated to crack. So you weren't at my graduation and I was pretty disappointed at that. I wore one of those black square mortarboard hats and smoked a crack pipe in front of my whole job department. Or something like that. I was pretty out of it.

Business news

Folger's Coffee has expanded its business into broadcasting, and to promote the new radio station the company has distributed thousands of cardboard radios to Columbian peasants. Reception from Marxist rebels has been muted, but once peasants removed their hands from the radio speakers reception was reported to be clear.

The new radio station has been met with skepticism by the Spanish-speaking population, who view it as a propagandist effort to promote the views of Janet Folger, who is not affiliated with the company. Folger's in turn has assuaged their concerns by packing the radios with cocaine and flying them into Barbados in crates.

Recipe for milk and cookies

Take one cup of milk and one cookie.
Place in a baking tray and preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place milk in oven for 30 minutes.
Take cookie and put on a local bus for at least 3 transfer zones.
Return home and wait for milk to be done in the oven.
Remove milk from oven—careful, it is hot—and splash directly in face.
Wipe off excess milk and skin. Sit down and enjoy.

Mmmm, mmm, good.

-- Spleeno

The Mysterious McMuffin

His name was Mr McMuffin. He ate children. If you're not careful, he'll eat you. Now listen. Mr McMuffin had a limp, which he named Albert. McMuffin and Albert would go on late night walks through the town after the streetlamps had been extinguished. "Where are we going?" McMuffin would ask. Albert would never answer.

One day, a parcel arrived from Mr McMuffin's great aunt Elda. "Albert!" McMuffin called. "Something in the post for you." Albert never replied, and the package went unopened.

When Elda died, McMuffin was dumbstruck to learn she had willed him to someone named Silas Muck. McMuffin begrudgingly packed his bags and hailed a passing dray. He and Albert climbed aboard.

"I'm Silas Muck's," he said to the driver, who looked at him. The driver cracked the whip and the dray clopped off into the night, carrying the mysterious Mr McMuffin away to a new home.

Today's weather

Hot on the heels of the weekend's torrential rain, Sydney sweltered yesterday in one of the hottest March days on record. In a quirky one for the record books, the inner-city recorded its second-highest March temperature, with the mercury peaking at 39.3 degrees, beaten only by 39.8 degrees recorded on the same day in 1983, a Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said. "The unseasonable heat was caused by a telephone call from Kyle Sommi. He expressed a particular interest in the weather, and compared it with the Vancouver cold." Kyle was in the news recently when Australia collectively wondered if he would visit, the first hive behaviour observed in humankind.

New book

"I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho' not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull: He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother."

What do you think so far? I call it "Robinson Crusoe," and I feel it is destined to become a classic. It's about a man who loses his job and is stranded inside his apartment, and he does nothing but drink Guinness. Or else he gets shipwrecked, I haven't decided.