Two contestants locked in a stalemate in a radio station contest have agreed to end it after more than seven months spent living 24/7 in the station’s giveaway truck parked inside a local shopping mall. The Madison, Wisconsin radio station called an end to the contest after concerns over personal hygiene were expressed, and due to the pregnancy of one of the contestants.

Tommy Kempfer, 26, and Lisa Thompson, 40, spent over half a year living in the brand-new truck, competing to take home the prize valued at more than $30,000. But too much time together in such close quarters proved too much for the contestants’ primal urges, resulting in Lisa’s pregnancy.

“It was May, and all the other contestants except for Tommy and I had given up,” said a slightly embarrassed Thompson. “Just the two of us in there with nothing else to do, no spectators around, and well, nature just took its course late one evening. We spent many more nights rockin’ that truck.”

“Neither of us had taken a bath since we went in that truck back in April,” said Kempfer. “I know it was kinda gross and all, but one night I said to myself, ‘hey, I’d hit that MILF.’ And we kept hookin’ up after that. Just because we were competitors didn’t mean we couldn’t get a little action while were cooped up in there. Trying to make the best of the situation.”

By July, Lisa realized she was pregnant when she found herself sticking her head out the truck’s window to throw up almost every morning. “I thought to my self I might be giving birth in here if this thing doesn’t end,” said Thompson.

Radio station officials decided to end the contest after local health authorities expressed concern over the deteriorating sanitary conditions inside the giveaway truck. With no sign of either contestant backing down, the station offered each contestant a wad of cash, coupons for free pizza, a year’s worth of oil changes, and a crib and baby clothes for Thompson.

As for the truck, the station is trying to find a buyer. “We’ll have to knock a few thousand off, since the thing smells like a dumpster inside,” said Mike Marquez, WMAD-FM station manager. “Maybe next year we’ll give away a motorcycle instead.”

Rufus Lee McAffee wasn’t prepared for the really bad day he was about to have last Tuesday. Like a verse from the famous 1970s country song, You Never Even Called Me By My Name by David Allan Coe, McAffee would suffer the exact same string of unfortunate events.

McAffee’s tragic day began as he was driving his beat up Dodge Ram truck to the bus station next door to the Cabell County courthouse in Huntington, West Virginia, to pick up his mother, Mary Ellen (right). The elder McAffee had just finished her 30-day sentence for drunken disorderly conduct and was being released that day. However, Rufus McAffee had been drinking heavily that morning, and became disoriented on the way into town. The fact that it was pouring rain didn’t help. Rufus was running more than two hours late.

Meanwhile, Mary Ellen was released from jail and waited impatiently in the lobby of the bus depot. After waiting more than an hour, with her son nowhere in sight, Mary Ellen left the station and started to walk down the highway in hopes of hitching a ride home. The poor woman never made it more than a few blocks. The events that followed from that point become a bit sketchy.

Authorities believe that while walking along the rain-drenched shoulder of the blacktop road, Mary Ellen McAffee stepped onto the railroad crossing without paying attention to the signals. She was immediately struck by a high-speed Burlington Northern train carrying 75 hopper cars full of coal. Neither Mary Ellen nor the BN conductor saw it coming, due to the poor visibility that day. Mary Ellen McAffee was killed instantly.

Rufus McAffee was devastated at hearing the news. “I fucked up and lost Mama,” sobbed McAffee. “If only I was on time…if only I was there for her…Mama would still be alive. But I was drunk the day she got out of prison, and before I could get to the station in my pickup truck, she got run over by that damned ol’ train.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do without her,” added McAffee, as he was led off in handcuffs after being arrested on the other side of town for driving under the influence. “Now she won’t be there to pick me up when I get out of jail.”

Sheriff’s deputy Riley Marshall noted the striking similarities between the events that day and the lyrics of the song, while he was helping investigators piece together clues at the accident site. “I have that David Allan Coe album on cassette,” said the deputy, hands shaking slightly as he surveyed the carnage. “That song used to be one of my favorites. But I don’t reckon I’ll be listening to that anymore.”

Railroad and NTSB officials are still investigating the accident, but do not believe the train conductor was at fault.

The economy is in the tank, unemployment is inching upward, the domestic auto industry is circling the drain, businesses are cutting costs, and consumer confidence is at its lowest point in decades.

Retail analysts have predicted a lackluster holiday shopping season, and merchants are bracing for what they believe will be their worst Xmas sales year ever.

But you’d never know it by the looks of this festive, day-after-Thanksgiving Black Friday crowd, assembled outside a Circuit City store that will likely be tits-up in a few weeks. All awaiting the opening at 6:00 AM, patiently anticipating some slashed-to-the-bone closeout bargains, like a Wii, a flat-panel TV, or perhaps a new iPhone 3G.

Like vultures. Let the feeding frenzy begin.

Due to its rapidly decaying orbit, the tool kit lost last week by astronauts working on the International Space Station is expected to reenter the earth’s atmosphere, and likely disintegrate harmlessly miles above the earth.

NASA officials do not know the tool bag’s exact trajectory, nor to they have an accurate prediction of when or where the kit will come down, stating in a press release that it will probably reenter “within a few days…give or take a bit.”

The $100,000 tool kit was lost in space when an astronaut engaged in EVA (extra-vehicular activity) accidentally let go of it while cleaning windows outside the space station. The bag contains several key tools, including screwdrivers (both phillips and slot), set of metric socket wrenches and ratchet, squeegee, flashlight, a Dremel tool, and a $50 Home Depot gift card.

While NASA scientists insist that the bag and its contents will burn up high above the earth, others are taking precautions.

“It might be prudent to stay inside for a few days until this issue clears up,” warned Herman Kreitzer, a mathematics and aeronautical engineering professor at M.I.T. “If you must venture out, you might want to wear a helmet or something, just in case. You really don’t want to have a flaming hot wrench coming down on your head at 17,000 miles per hour. That could ruin your day.”

Have a safe and sane T-Giving, from our fambly to yours.

The Alligators In The Sewer staff and a few other oddballs who just wandered in for some free turkey. 

Edward Strouse had all the trappings of the good life: seven-figure job as marketing V.P. for a major telecommunications company, sprawling mansion in a gated exurban community, expensive sports cars, extravagant cocktail parties and beautiful women. Then one day he walked away from all of that for a $27,000 a year job driving a zamboni at the community ice arena in Trenton, N.J.

“It’s just you…and the ice. It’s an amazing feeling,” gushed the enthusiastic Strouse. “It’s been a life-long dream for me to do this and I finally took charge of my life to pursue that dream. I left my old world behind and never looked back.”

Waxing philosophical, Strouse sees the job as a sort of metaphor for life: that no matter how crazy things get in this world, there is a way to smooth over the bumps and make it like new again. “This job has a genuine therapeutic effect,” added Strouse. “It scrapes off the worn patina of the day and yields a nice shiny smooth luster. It invigorates the soul. You really should try it some time.”

Facilities manager Dave Gorman just shakes his head and smiles. ”The guy’s kind of a kook, ya’ know, with all this Zen crap he’s got going, says Gorman. ”Acts kinda fruity if you ask me. But he’s one hell of a worker. That ice is always like a mirror when he’s on the ‘boni. He really loves his job. You should see him out there on the ice, grinning like the Cheshire Cat as he’s tooling around on that machine. And the figure skaters and youth hockey players love him. He’s like a rock star to them.”

Following a dream like that doesn’t come without a price. Reducing his income by a factor of one hundred has dramatically changed Strouse’s lifestyle. Unable to keep making the astronomical payments, he has had to sell his lavish house and cars, and now rents a small apartment a few miles from the arena. Instead of driving his BMW or turbo Porsche to work, he takes the bus. But Strouse couldn’t be more content.

“I don’t care about all those material things anymore,” said Strouse. “I have found paradise on the ice.”

We caught up with Andy Rooney, the cranky editorialist from CBS’ “60 Minutes.” Andy had just received a new electronic gadget in the mail. It was a large cellphone with a rotary dial, sent in by a generous viewer who works for a major electronics importer. Here is Rooney’s reaction to his latest gift:

I hate cellphones. They’re tiny, the buttons are too tiny, and there are too many confusing things to think about when operating them. They’re easy to misplace or lose. And who cares about all those new-fangled features? I’ll never send an email or take any pictures. I just want to make phone calls. Isn’t that what a telephone is intended for? I don’t care much for those other things.

A nice viewer sent in this rotary-dial cellphone. People send me all kinds of electronic gizmos, most of which are still sitting in the cardboard boxes they were mailed in. I don’t care much for electronic gizmos. But this device is different. It’s something I can understand and looks like the phones I grew up using. It has a big lighted dial, handy belt clip, and a cord that lets me plug it into a wall jack so I can make calls from a hotel. It runs on AA alkaline batteries that I can buy from Radio Shack. Can your fancy multimedia, email and text-messaging video camera phone do that? I didn’t think so.

I see that my new phone is made in China. I don’t care much for the Chinese. They’re always busy making things smaller, faster, more complicated, with instruction manuals that come in every language but English. You’d think they’d want us Americans to read them, but I guess they don’t. But I give those fellows credit here. They finally came up with something practical that a guy like me can use.

I decided to give this new phone a try. I was walking along a street in mid-town Manhattan yesterday morning, and made a few calls. I noticed that people were staring at me. I don’t care much what people think of me when I’m in public.

I like my new portable phone. It does what a telephone is supposed to do. My bosses at CBS tell me I’m not supposed to do product endorsements like this. I don’t care much what my bosses think. I’ll think I’ll keep this nifty gift.

After years of evading puzzled authorities and terrified locals, the so-called “Butt Bandit” of Valentine, Nebraska, has been apprehended by local authorities, ending his three-year terror campaign. Residents of the tiny northwest Nebraska farming community are now breathing a sigh of relief. The 35-year-old man, whose name has not yet been released, had committed a long string of crimes, in which he greased up his bare buttocks and pressed them onto windows and other surfaces around the town, leaving (of course) butt-shaped marks.

It was a quiet town - soon shattered.

In a community long known for its unassuming midwestern friendliness and openness to strangers, local residents had taken to locking and bolting their doors, drawing their shades, and keeping lots of guns and ammunition on hand in case the miscreant decided to take out his frustration in other ways. Strangers were viewed with suspicion and contempt, neighbors accused other neighbors, fights sometimes broke out. The vandalism spree has had the locals living in constant state of fear. Local restaurants and bars suffered huge losses as townsfolk avoided going out in public after dark.

Caught with his pants down.

However, the bandit’s penchant for butt-printing got the best of him last Wednesday, when he pressed his cheeks against a cold metal grain bin during a night when the temps hovered in the low teens. Apparently, he hadn’t applied enough of his trademark axle grease, resulting in his buns being instantly bonded to the cold metal surface. It didn’t take long for authorities to spot the man stuck in this uncomfortable position, and with the help of a couple hair dryers, they were able to free him. The bandit was promptly arrested and charged with vandalism and public indecency. Locals were jubilant at hearing the news.

Local reaction to the arrest.

“I am so relieved the police finally caught this wacko,” said Verlyn Bloom, owner of the feed mill in Valentine. “Who knows what his real motives were. He could be a terrorist. I just wish he would’ve pushed his hairy ass up on my window. By the grace of God, it’d be peppered with glass shards and buckshot!”

“A greasy cheek here, another cheek there…it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt,” said Mattie Bloom, Verlyn’s daughter-in-law and owner of the local floral shop. “First it’s butt prints on windows, then on to other things like genitals. That’s how the hard-core criminals start out, y’know. Who knows what it could’ve escalated to?  I don’t want to think about the possibilities.”

Sheriff deputy Alan Fritzmeier chimed in, saying, “this is not normal behavior here in Valentine.”

No idea where this behavior would be considered normal, but we digress…

Reasons to be cheerful.

Other locals are taking the whole thing in stride. “I would like to think people would view our fine community as being more than just the home of some warped individual,” said Herb Freitag, mayor of Valentine. “But I guess we’ll take whatever publicity we can get. He really left an impression on the town.” “And I’d like to congratulate our fine men and women of law enforcement for some crack police work,” the mayor added wryly.

Publicity indeed. The Valentine Chamber of Commerce is already drawing up plans for an annual festival to cash in on the undue attention. Preparations are in the works for a “Rump Rider Days” event each June, featuring rodeos, street dance, parades, and crowning of the local “Rump Queen.”

No rest for the police.

Now that the Butt Bandit is behind bars, police now have a new series of puzzling, possibly related, crimes to direct their attention to. Apparently, someone has been spray painting graffiti on the town’s welcome signs along the highway. The message “Free the Butt Bandit!” has shown up on numerous billboards just outside of town. Police are investigating, but have no clues yet.

UPDATE 12/08/08: Nebraska Butt-Bandit sentenced.

Decimated by decades of health statistics, changing consumer tastes and bad publicity, a trade group representing the fried food industry is fighting back with a nationwide advertising campaign.

The Deep Fried Food Marketing Association (DeFFMAn), headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, is creating a series of ads touting the benefits of eating dishes like fried chicken and shrimp, pork rinds, fritters, fish sticks, and glazed doughnuts. The group maintains that negative publicity over the years has been “statistically skewed” and “grossly unfair” to a group of foods it says are “so deeply ingrained in the American culture.”

“These tasty and nutritious fried dishes are not as unhealthy as some of those left-coast granola-crunchers would make them out to be,” argued Richard “Red” Hoskins (right), spokesman for the group. “Most of the so-called ‘medical evidence’ you read disparaging fried cuisine is nothing more than blatant lies and distortions, funded and propagated by our competitors in other food industries. It’s pure hogwash, an affront to our proud heritage here in the South.”

“Hell, even Kentucky Fried Chicken had to wuss out and change its name to ‘KFC’ a few years back to avoid the public stigma associated with fried cooking. It’s a damn crying shame,” said Hoskins, lighting a Marlboro after finishing his 6-piece chicken dinner. “But we’re gonna fix that!”

The trade group has launched ads on television, newspapers and the Internet, using slogans like “Fried food…it’s really OK after all!” and “Deep fried - it ain’t gonna kill ya!”

Eschewing the usual NASCAR and country music crowds that already embrace the foods, DeFFMAn is instead targeting its ads to people who normally wouldn’t consider eating such fare. The group has purchased advertising space in more high-brow publications, such as the New Yorker, and various fine-dining and wine aficionado magazines, and has sponsored numerous cooking shows on PBS.

The public response has been mixed so far, what with consumers’ deeply-ingrained perceptions of fried food. But Hoskins has high hopes of turning that around.

“We’re getting the word out that the good cooking you grew up on really is good for you.” added Hoskins. “Mama knows best, right?”

It’s been less than 2 decades since the fall of communism, and apparently some people in Lithuania miss it already. To fill this void, a few clever people in Vilnius have created a theme park in an old Soviet bunker to help people relive those halcyon cold war days under Stalin and Khrushchev. They even hired former KGB and Red Army members just to add authenticity to the experience. The cost of visiting the Isgyvenimo Drama: only 120 LTL (about $220). Tickets available at Ticketmaster or at the door. Set the Wayback Machine to 1984.

Listmania: Top 20 ways to know you’re back in the USSR:

20. Spies are everywhere. Even your neighbors. Maybe a few family members too.

19. You find yourself standing in long lines just to see Lenin’s glow-in-the-dark corpse.

18. You’re crammed into a tiny studio apartment with 4 generations of relatives.

17. An odd little man in a uniform and funny hat keeps shouting, “your papers are not in order!” Or, “Ve haf plan for geeting moose and squirrel!”

16. You’re standing in long lines again. This time at a grocery store with 6 loaves of stale bread on the shelves.

15. Your meals invariably feature some kind of root vegetable.

14. You are asked to participate in KGB roundup of “dissidents.”

13. You go on a three-day vodka binge. Then the weekend comes.

12. You have to choose whether to become a neurosurgeon or a factory worker. You choose factory worker because the pay is better.

11. You start thinking that ugly Stalinist architecture isn’t so ugly after all.

10. You spend hours playing fun video games, like “Shoot down the Korean airliner.”

9. You notice guards walking around with East German shepherds.

8. You never miss the May Day parade.

7. Siberian gulags…snow!

6. You swear you just saw some kooky leader banging his shoe on his desk in protest.

5. The walls of buildings in your neighborhood are adorned with bright red socialist banners showing muscular guys swinging hammers and stout women driving tractors.

4. You look forward to watching reruns of 1980s propaganda films featuring scary Ronald Reagan character with subtitles.

3. All-you-can-eat borscht!

2. You have to pull up stakes and move because a nearby nuclear reactor just went into meltdown.

1. You collect souvenir Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev bobblehead dolls at the state-owned gift shop.

After facing immense public criticism for the lavish lifestyles enjoyed by American auto executives, Rick Wagoner, Chairman and CEO of General Motors Corp., has publicly announced that he and his family will set an example of frugality and buy all their groceries at local Aldi stores for one year. Wagoner’s personal executive assistant stated yesterday that it was an empathetic move on the part of Wagoner to “be more like the regular people.” Shortly after the announcement, the assistant, whose name was not revealed, was immediately pink-slipped as further proof of Wagoner’s cost-cutting dedication.

“I’m gonna show those people on Capitol Hill that I too can sacrifice and tighten my belt,” said the beaming Wagoner at a press conference later that day.

Scrutiny by Congress and taxpayers.

Company brass at the Big Three automakers ruffled some feathers over private jet usage in the face of massive corporate losses. Execs from all 3 companies even flew in their private jets to Washington to appear before Congress with their hats in hand begging for government bailout money. Response by lawmakers and taxpayers alike was swift and harsh, with many questioning the executives’ grasp of economic reality.

Reeling from the criticism, Wagoner now cuts back, flying coach on Northwest Airlines. “There’s not much legroom in those flying cattle cars and the seats are narrow. But my ass fits fine in those seats now, after a few Senators chewed half if it off,” joked Wagoner. “But we all must sacrifice, and I’m doing my part,” added Wagoner in a more serious tone. “Hell, I even gave all my frequent flier miles to some guy in the company lunchroom today. I said ‘go take your family to Disney World, son.’”

An Aldi adjustment for the whole family.

Having now sworn off fancy home catering and high-end grocery stores, the Wagoner family is doing their best to adjust to shopping the down-scale grocer. Wagoner’s wife Kathy and children were hit with a bit of culture shock during the first visit to the store. Since there is no Aldi in their posh suburban neighborhood, they must drive the family Lexus (!) 18 miles into a rather unsavory neighborhood in Detroit. But the Wagoners take it all in stride. And they find bargains too.

“This place is great!,” exclaimed Kathy Wagoner. “We can get a gallon of milk for under 3 bucks! The kids love Aldi’s microwave pizza, and it’s less than a dollar for a nutritional after-school snack. It’s amazing how much we can save! And it’s fun watching the creepy people who shop here.”

After the news conference ended a few hangers-on from the media quizzed Wagoner about his wife’s Lexus. Wagoner said they might “trade down” to a Corolla or Civic. When questioned further as to why they don’t drive a GM car, Wagoner replied, “What, are you kidding? I just work there. You don’t expect us to actually drive those boat-anchors we make! Nobody in their right mind would. What do you think got us into this mess to begin with? …Oh shit, you’re not going to print that, are you?”

Setting an example for others.

Wagoner is serious about living more frugally, and encouraging others to do likewise. “I’m not gonna be like those decadent UAW guys, who order stuff from Wolferman’s, Harry & David, or Godiva chocolates. I have to set an example for the people who really are struggling in this economy. Besides, if they spend a little less on food, maybe they can buy more of our cheap cars and trucks. It’s my hope anyway, ’cause those board members have been giving me the evil eye lately, and if things don’t pick up around here, I might be the next guy out of a job in this place.”

Still, Wagoner remains hopeful for an eleventh-hour miracle by lawmakers. “Maybe if I show them I can conserve at the personal level, they will fork over the twenty five billion I just spent the past day groveling for,” said a tired Wagoner as he was leaving the press conference to catch his bus home.

ABC’s hit reality show Extreme Makeover Home Edition has helped over 100 worthy families across the United States by rebuilding homes. The show has provided new digs for people of all stripes: firefighters, returning Iraq veterans, adoptive parents, people with disabilities, and more.

But the show’s producers were not prepared for the video plea they were to receive from one Myrna Jenkins of Quincy, Illinois. Jenkins, 87, shared her dilapidated 100 year old farm house with 215 cats that she had acquired over the past several years. She could barely walk across a room without stepping on a half dozen of them. The conditions inside were deplorable. Cat urine and feces were everywhere, makeshift litter boxes were strewn about, and the only way Jenkins could feed the cats was to scatter 25 pounds of cat chow across the floor each day.

Ty Pennington, star of Extreme Makeover, was visibly moved by Jenkins’ plight. “This remarkable woman has been taking in strays for years, giving them a better life,” said Pennington. “But her house is in real need of repair. We have to help this lady and her feline family before it’s too late.”

Bellowing into his trademark bullhorn, Pennington stoked up his cohorts on the bus: “Whaddaya say everybody…let’s do it!”

The next day, Pennington and his crew pulled up in front of Jenkins’ house. Bullhorn in hand, Pennington let out a jarring wake up call. “Good morning, Myrna Jenkins!!!”

The door burst open, and Jenkins emerged, cradling a double-barrel shotgun in her arms. “What the hell do you people want? I told you I ain’t movin,’ now go on outta here! Get off my property! And get that goddamn bus off my lawn!”

After several minutes of explaining by the production crew, Jenkins realized who was at her porch and her paranoia suddenly switched to joy. “Oh, I’m so sorry, young man. My temper just goes from hot to cold, sometimes” Jenkins admitted sheepishly. “I’ve gotta get back on my meds one of these days! Anyhoo, I just hope you can help out me and the kitties. They’re all I’ve got since my dear Edwin passed on back in ‘89.”

“Were going to give you and your clowder of cats a better home,” assured Pennington. “So pack your bags, you’re going to the Cat Fancier’s Cat Show in Shreveport, Louisiana!!! And your cats…they’re going to Sears! The pet department there will fix them up with shots, worm pills and flea and tick collars.”

“Why don’t you c’mon in and meet my kitties,” Jenkins coaxed Pennington.

“Uh…I’m sure they’re a nice bunch of critters, but believe me, I’ll just take your word for it and stay right out here,” replied Pennington. “Hey look! Here comes your ride! Time for you to go…see ya’ in a week!”

Immediately after Jenkins left in the big black limousine, and her cats were removed by the Adams County hazmat team and taken away in several vans, Pennington and his crew brought down the old house. With 30 pounds of dynamite.

All that remained was a smoldering crater littered with splinters of wood from the blast. Men in bright yellow biohazard suits and respirators proceeded to spray down the area with disinfectant and insecticide. A few hours later, bulldozers had covered the site with dirt and the construction began.

Within a few days, a structure emerged on the site. Designers from the show incorporated various cat-friendly features into the house, including rooms filled with carpet-covered “cat-trees,” several dozen scratching posts, and a huge, 12 by 12 foot indoor litter box room equipped with a robotic self-cleaning scoop. All the floors in the house were lined with a waterproof neoprene sheeting, to keep the inevitable urine from seeping into the floor. There was even a fenced-in patio out back, with a big catnip garden for the cats to lounge in.

Seven days after leaving, the black limo triumphantly returned with Jenkins and her ABC entourage. Almost a dozen onlookers from the area were in the yard for the big television event. Humane Society volunteers were busy ferrying the cats out of the vans and back into their new home. Purina  donated a truckload of cat chow. The local police chief even showed up for the unveiling, ready to tear up the 15 or so health department complaints and condemnation order filed against Jenkins, as a gesture of goodwill.

Then the moment came. Through his bullhorn, Pennington shouted his call to arms: “Move that bus!” The bus rolled forward and three cats bolted out from under it, just in the nick of time.

“Oh, it’s a godsend…it’s so wonderful!” exclaimed the exuberant Jenkins upon eyeing her new home for the very first time. “How can I show my gratitude?”

“Umm…well…you can start by not bringing home any more fucking cats,” muttered Pennington, not realizing he was still on-camera. “Uh, yo, better edit that part out, boys, he he!”

The crew proceeded to show Jenkins around the new house, with lots of tears of joy, and lots of cats scurrying about the place. Cat heaven, indeed.

The new episode, renamed Extreme Makeover, Cathouse Edition, is scheduled to air the last week before Christmas. Check your local listings for times.

Just before the elections, we had a few yuks when a Montreal radio DJ punk’d Sarah Palin (remember her?) with a gag phone interview, posing as French President Nicholas Sarkozy. While that brilliant hoax kept us in stitches for quite a while at AITS, that feat pales in comparison to the body of work by Joey Skaggs.

Skaggs, a longtime New York artist, has led a 40-plus year career of pulling off various stunts, hoaxes and media pranks - all in the name of political or social satire. He has fooled the best of them: Entertainment Tonight, To Tell The Truth, Geraldo, and other media entities that should’ve known better.  And he’s still at it today.

Skaggs created a cathouse for dogs, a celebrity sperm bank, promoted a bogus lottery for the renaming rights to the Brooklyn Bridge, and advertised cure-all cockroach vitamins. He tied a 50-foot bra across the front of the U.S. Treasury Building, appeared on the media as various fictitious characters and has suckered people with urban legends long before that started happening on the Internet. People all over the world have fallen for his schtick, hook, line and sinker.

Skaggs is a little bit of P.T. Barnum, Borat, Orson Welles, and the Blarney Stone all rolled into one.

All of us at Alligators In The Sewer would like to dedicate this post to Joey Skaggs, and bow to the master. We stand in awe of your evil comedic genius, sir.

Enough is enough. The crew here at AITS headquarters decided we weren’t willing to take second seat anymore. We all had a little heart-to-heart with Norm, and told him if he was going to stash beer in this place, he needs to share the love. Don’t bogart the Bud. A workers’ rebellion, it would be, if we didn’t get a few creature comforts around here.

Amazingly, Norm was receptive to our plight. No yelling, no rants, no name-calling, no objects thrown. “I can’t be a dickwad…all the time,” Norm admitted. “I guess you all earned a little diversion in this rathole where we toil every day.” Norm decided that the Alligators in the Sewer newsroom needed a refrigerator. It’s a quality of life issue, after all. We were stunned. That was soooo incredibly easy, and Norm didn’t raise a single objection. Such generosity from The Big Guy lately. First a Halloween party, now this. To what do we owe this extreme pleasure?

Norm informed us that if we purchased a fridge, he’d stock it with Budweiser. Cold Bud for a change! If we wanted anything else on hand, we would have to buy it ourselves. Like a few microbrews for really special occasions. We have finally arrived.

We scoured the classifieds on Craigslist, looking for a cheap refrigerator. We did one better than that. We found a free one. Just one catch: they said we would have to haul it out of their building ourselves. Bring lots of help.

The next day, we all drove to the location in the AITS utility truck during our lunch break. Norm and Maynard even came along to help. It wasn’t the nicest neighborhood. But then again, AITS HQ isn’t exactly in a posh neighborhood either.

We discovered that the fridge is on the fifth floor of an old apartment building and the only way to get it down is to carry it down the fire escape. Good times. It was like Laurel & Hardy hauling that piano, only down. But we made it down all 5 flights without getting hurt and had the refrigerator on terra firma and loaded up before we knew it. Which only made us thirsty…

On the way back to HQ we stopped at one of our favorite liquor stores (we have many). Can’t have an empty fridge, can we?  The refrigerator is now in its final resting place along the side wall of the newsroom, plugged in and well-stocked with various liquid refreshments. It’s enough to make our kinda-sucky job a bit more tolerable.

With more than 40,000 uncounted votes in Alaska’s still-contested Senate race between incumbent Ted “series of tubes” Stevens and his challenger Mark Begich, election officials are using whatever means necessary to get the remaining ballots tallied. But in a sparsely-populated state covering over 500,000 square miles of mountains and tundra, just bringing them to in to be counted is a daunting task.

State election officials have been scrambling to resolve the open issue and have put out a call for volunteers around the state to help bring in the unrecorded ballot forms. The people of Alaska have stepped up and are helping in the ballot retrieval chore, volunteering to pick up and deliver ballots using whatever means necessary, including bush planes, logging trucks, and snowmobiles.

But the most common way to haul anything in these parts requires the use of sled dog teams. Civic-minded dog-team mushers from around the state have been hauling sacks full of ballots across mountain valleys, frozen rivers and wind-swept tundra, heading toward the capitol in Juneau. Along the snow-covered trails throughout the state one can often hear the sounds of barking huskies, pulling their election cargo across the frozen white wasteland.

“It’s my patriotic responsibility as an Alaskan to help do this,” said a beaming Matt Rubideaux, a dogsled musher from Fairbanks. “Besides, it gets me  away from the little woman for a while, eh?”

While Stevens initially held a slight lead, it appears Begich is nudging ahead as more ballots are being counted. It may be a month or more before a clear winner is declared.

It seems like we’re always hearing of some religious icon appearing on an inanimate object. Christ in someone’s bowl of oatmeal or Virgin Mary on a hospital window.

Troy Eckonen ordered french toast at Mack’s Cafe in Pompano Beach, Florida. The toast he was served bore what appeared to be a bearded man resembling Jesus scorched onto its egg-encrusted surface. Knowing he had something potentially valuable on his hands, Eckonen took the toast home in a doggie bag and immediately put it up for sale on eBay.

As the “Jesus toast” phenomenon started to draw media attention, Eckonen received a phone call from Hector Ortiz, a cook at the cafe. Turns out Ortiz had unwittingly dropped his pack of cigarette rolling papers onto the griddle just before he placed the bread on it to be cooked. The 500-degree heat of the griddle seared an image of the Zig-Zag logo into the surface of the toast. Ortiz went on break later that day and saw the news of the discovery on TV. And since he was jonesin’ for some weed because his rolling papers were missing, he put two and two together. Sharp guy, that Ortiz.

Though disappointed at the food item’s lack of religious significance, Eckonen remains hopeful that his toast will still net a tidy sum. He changed the eBay description but kept it open for bids.

What initially drew offers from church leaders and other religiously-devout people has now started to attract head shop owners, old ’60s radicals and stoned rastafarians. Typical comments on Eckonen’s eBay page have shifted from “Praise the Lord, it’s a miracle!” to “Yo dude, I’ll give ya’ 65 bucks and my favorite Harley Davidson skull-head bong for that.”

So far, bids for the Zig Zag toast are approaching $150 and climbing.

“…And, mysteriously, the Mbaye brothers were never heard from again…”

After months of speculation over his apparent declining health, and even death rumors, Kim Jong-il (aka Kim Jong II) has now shocked and surprised the world by surfacing alive and healthy in Florida. The wily North Korean dictator was spotted for the first time by local media at Disney World in Orlando (right), enjoying the sights with his nephew.

When approached by reporters, Kim sheepishly confessed that he had been living incognito in the U.S. for several weeks already. “I needed to get out of Pyongyang,” admitted Kim. “It is such a dreary place, especially in late autumn when the cold winds begin to blow from the Yellow Sea. I just had to get away from that winter gloom.”

Kim had quietly left North Korea with a few of his closest advisers, secretly hopping aboard a Chinese freighter bound for a toy import company in Miami (left). From there, Kim and his posse rented a Hummer and headed north to Orlando, stopping at a few beaches and strip clubs along the way. “I’ve always wanted to see Disney World and Epcot Center,” added a giddy Kim Jong-il. “And I have a sister who lives in the area (right), and wanted to look her up.”

Kim and his entourage have been staying at a Days Inn at an undisclosed location in central Florida. “Please understand that we prefer a bit of privacy as we enjoy our warm winter here in your beautiful autonomous province of Florida,” said Kim. The dictator’s stay in Florida has been a boon to his health, as he appeared tanned and more fit while enjoying a couple cold ones and watching South Park in his hotel room (left).

Kim has kept himself busy during his stay, going  fishing in the Gulf of Mexico and visiting Kennedy Space Center by day, and hitting several of the area clubs at night.

When news reporters inquired as to who was back home running North Korea during Kim’s absence, Kim scoffed at any notion of him abdicating his power.

“I am not seeking exile in your country,” retorted a slightly defensive Kim Jong-il. “My nation is in very good hands and it will continue to be so upon my triumphant return. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will continue to be the glorious paragon of prosperity, political stability and world peace.”

Asked when he would return to his native country, Kim replied, “in the springtime, when the weather back home doesn’t suck so much. And of course, after I’ve spent a week or two in Daytona Beach enjoying some spring break action.”