America stunned as NASA discovers world inhabited

BOSTON, USA — Americans were astounded this week to discover NASA images revealed the existence of intelligent life beyond the US borders of the known world.

The space agency released images on Monday which showed several enormous land masses beyond the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The continents were initially thought to be "lens glare," said Hank Washington, an analyst at the University of Massachusetts' Centre for Extra-American Studies who examined the images, but a closer inspection proved otherwise. An investigation followed.

"We were aware of Canada and Mexico, of course," said Washington, "because of NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement] establishing them in 1994."

"But we were amazed to uncover other satellite nations, with not only entire populations but their own versions of government, language, and American Idol."

A subsequent investigation found intriguing details of these non-American countries.

"One place doesn't use dollars, but an exotic currency called 'Thai Baht'," Washington laughed. "But we haven't been able to verify that. It does sound like it might be a joke. The same source said this society didn't even use a president, but instead had something called a Prime Monster."

Previous reporting from major media outlets had only hinted at the existence of alien societies, with newspapers such as USA Today devoting a mere half page to the subject in a minor section glibly called "World."

Many Americans regard such stories as conspiracies and hoaxes.

"I remember the Weekly World News headlines," said Joan Feldman, a New York barista and "citizen of the United Nations capital."

"There were stories about Bigfoot and invading space ships and all sorts of stupid crap," she said. "I think the media expects us to believe anything. Like, once they said this giant tidal wave wiped out a quarter of a million people the day after Christmas. Well, I never saw that, and all the stores were still open for the Boxing Day sales."

The locations of two previously known countries, France and Italy, were finally pinned down in one of the newly-discovered continents, called Europe.

Another continent, Africa, dwarfed Europe in size, but there was nothing of American interest there.

—IAP

Doppelganger

A lady approached me in the cafe as I was writing and sipping coffee.

"Hello," she said. "Are you James?"

"Yes," I said. "Nice to meet you!"

My name is not James.

She sat down and rattled off anecdotes of professional sound and lighting troubles, and I nodded and laughed and said "yes" a lot. Finally she said to me: "Do you have any ideas?"

"No, I'm sorry," I said. "I'm not James."

Silence. Long, perplexed look, wheels turning. She coughed the first syllable of a laugh and then returned to the turning wheels before proffering a tentative: "but... you said your name was James."

"I thought it was," I said, and I got up and paid my bill.

Gunkie

by William S. Burroughs

Warped tales of Gumby and his pony pal Pokie.

The Fiend

Harold hid himself away like a hermit.  He smoked pot, dreamed of a hair transplant, and masturbated to online porn.  In the day he was a banker.  A smart banker.  A good banker.  Smart suit, good hair.  But at night he was a masturbator and a dope fiend.  And nobody knew.

Until something happened which would change his life forever.

He died.

And they all looked at his browser history.

The Tall Tale Heart

Discredited Poe work.

House of Saud and Fog

by Andre Dubus III

When King Abdullah is ousted from the Saudi throne, he moves to San Francisco and opens a bar in the closed down Fogg 'n' Sudds, the ownership of which is disputed by the deceased owner's alcoholic daughter. Everybody dies.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hype

by Robert Louis Stevenson

The horrifying tale of respected doctor Henry Jekyll who, after accepting a role in a marketing firm, transforms into the hideous, duplicitous corporate shill, Edward Hype.

Bigger than Hooligan

Dear Hotshot.

Woopie ding.  So you're a big rock'n'roll star now.  Drink champagne in limousines with Vince Neil as your chauffeur.  Forget about your grassroots fans who were there when you were sick in bed.  Change your name to The No-Goodniks.  Buy shares in Procter & Gamble.  Eat lead.  Set fire.  Solve ancient riddles.  One day you'll discover in the bottom of an old drawer the faded remains of dignity once upheld by longshoremen.  Then you'll know how much you've sold out, man.

Get fucked.

Donny Most

Word.

It used to be that a word wasn't a word unless it had three letters in it. "Unless it had three letters in it" is a word-count of four. Then Microsoft Word came along and counted words such as "it," "to," "be," "in," and "a" as words.

At this point journalists and sub-editors came to blows in newsrooms the world over, and editorial departments fell into chaos in the War of the Word Count.

Battle by the Scrivener

by Herman Melville

This proofreader would prefer not to, and is prepared to back it up!

Danny the Champion of the Wold

by Roald Dahl

Young Danny devises a scheme to poach every last one of Victor Hazell's pheasants, and sells Hazell's Wood to a logging company.

SANDRA 5000

My favourite prank I played at university was when I was on the Student Council.  The Council was angry with its full-time administration staff over an organisation consultant whom we felt was contracted without justification or approval.

We skirmished with a minority faction on the right who supported the staff, but we were at diplomatic war with the consultant herself.  Her name was Sandra, and the most memorable moment of her for us was her pounding on the table at a meeting and shouting: "Why won't you just submit?!"

The upcoming Student Union's Annual General Meeting would vote on the disputed contract.  It was scheduled for the same day as the release of "Star Trek: First Contact," about Picard and crew's encounter with the Borg Collective.  I drafted a poster and we hung copies all over campus:

SUBMIT!
   to the
Annual General Meeting
November 22 1996
Death is irrelevant!
Resistance is futile!
Assimilate!

The right faction was furious when they noticed that the poster, read vertically, spelled "SANDRA."

Hope, BC

We are surprised by the tenacity of hope, and when we try to kill it we overdo it.

A Clockwork Orang

Obscure edition of Anthony Burgess' masterpiece in the original Bahasa.

Canada Provokes Condemnation

OTTAWA—An organisation of militant proofreaders marched through the streets of the capital of Canada today.  The Spelling Inconsistency Counsel (sic) called for a general strike for the failure of the Canadian government to standardise the spelling of the word "standardize."

They were received at the Parliament building by the Borg-collective of spellcheckers. "Resistance is futile," said the collective, the body which currently controls government. "Prepare to be assimilated."

Act II

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the middle of the blog. This blog began some years ago, and it will go on for some years to come. There will be a middle, and we've just encountered it. You may feel some slight turbulence. The middle will continue until the beginning of the end, which is still some time away, so please sit back and enjoy the rest of your visit. I will keep you notified.

Fear & Lathing in Las Vegas

by Hunter S. Thompson

A guide to the ins and outs of making a living as a carpentry contractor to the Mafia.

Sea & the City

Ernest Hemingway's Old Man makes a reappearance as a fish out of water on the New York dating scene.

Sydneyside

At six in the morning the early air on my harbour-side Sydney street is riven with the squall of cockatoos. At half-seven leaf blowers wail and infuriate. At half-eight the helicopters drown them out.

In Summer the thump of party boats is amplified by the harbour glass-flatness. In Winter it all goes quiet. And in Spring the street's honour guard of jacarandas cracks into lilac like fireworks.

Housework

I rearranged the house today. I put the bathroom between the two bedrooms instead of at the end of the hall. It was a great idea in principle—the plan serves both bedrooms much better—but in practice it was a nightmare. All the pipes broke and flooded the apartment, and now I'm busting to take a piss.