Borrowing a page from the annual Burning Man Festival held in Nevada around every Labor Day, YouTube and its parent company Google, Inc., are sponsoring a one-time only “TubeMan” festival, to be held Memorial Day weekend on a desert plateau near St. George, Utah. The three-day festival will center around the construction of a massive pyramid stacked with old analog television sets, recently made obsolete by the switch to digital broadcasting in the U.S. At the end of the three day event, Google promoters plan to detonate the pile of TVs with large charge of high explosives while intoxicated festival-goers safely watch from behind barriers. After the demolition, bulldozers will scoop up the debris and load it onto awaiting rail cars to be shipped to a recycling center in India.

Google is asking consumers throughout the U.S. to drop off their unwanted CRT televisions and computer monitors at designated recycling centers set up in the empty parking lots of shuttered Circuit City stores. Former Circuit City employees have volunteered to help load the sets onto semi trucks for transport to the TubeMan site.

It’s going to be a blast.

“Thousands of tons of fragile cathode ray tubes being detonated with a truckload of high explosives…how cool is that?”, exclaimed Google co-founder Sergey Brin, his eyes ablaze with excitement. “We’ve created a dedicated, real-time video feed, called Google Blast - in beta of course. Those who can’t make it to Utah can follow the construction and demolition live on their PCs or mobile devices. You can even set up a Google Alert to notify you when we’re about to set something off.”

Google execs are quick to assuage any safety fears associated with the demolition event.

“What could possibly go wrong?,” assured Warren Chang, Director of Field Promotions and Entertainment for Google. “We have a small army of Stanford physics grads working on this project. We’ve got it under control.”

A deadly Brazilian Wandering Spider was found in a bunch of bananas at a Whole Foods store in Tulsa. Considered one of the world’s most venomous spiders (only the Borneo Barking Spider is more deadly), the pesky critter was caught by a store employee before it had the opportunity to demonstrate its toxic capabilities. The venom of this arachnid is usually fatal, but it has the unique side-effect of causing massive erections in male victims, making E.R. diagnoses much easier. (We know what you’re thinking…stick with the little blue pills, OK?) The downside is that the antidote is usually not stocked in the U.S., and certainly not in Oklahoma. But at least a fella can die happy.

Scientists have developed a laser mosquito-zapper. The laser bug-killers were developed at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories as a weapon to help combat the spread of malaria. But it will only be a matter of time before they show up at your local Wal-Mart. We can’t wait to start seeing these devices hanging from the porches of yokels everywhere. (Warning: do not look at laser with remaining eye.)

More animal news: A bat stows away on space shuttle flight. A large brown fruit bat was seen hanging upside down on the side of the spacecraft before its launch Wednesday. Then moments before the astronauts closed the pod-bay doors, the errant bat flew inside the shuttle cabin, remaining unnoticed until the craft reached orbit. The stowaway bat, dubbed “Vince,” became a minor celebrity as the giddy shuttle crew spent several hours observing the bat’s flight behavior in zero-gravity. The crew expects to return to earth with Vince unharmed, much to the relief of animal-rights groups everywhere.

This week’s edition of NFTS was compiled by Norm, with no excuses offered for the content therein. As usual, you’re on your own.

The vernal equinox occurs this year at 11:44 UTC (6:44AM CDT), March 20, signaling the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere. Not that it feels like it around here, as it’s still cold and grey outside AITS headquarters. Maynard hasn’t tried to start the company truck parked out back, where it has been sitting since November. We’re betting that it won’t start. The upside is that most of the snow has melted.

But we’ll get in the spring spirit anyway. A cold Bud would help.

Members of a Utah-based polygamist sect have decided to confront negative public opinion head-on: by canvassing door to door in cities across the U.S. in an effort to help “educate” the public about the religion and possibly recruit new members. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) sect is still reeling from the public backlash it received after the prosecution of its leader, Warren Jeffs. Jeffs was convicted in 2007 of a spate of charges, including two counts of rape, and is now serving time in a Utah prison. FLDS leaders are trying to polish up the group’s image.

“It’s not like we’re out in the jungle drinking Kool-Aid or anything,” said Wendell Nielsen, heir apparent to the sect’s leadership position previously held by Jeffs. “People on the outside think we’re nutty, but we are here to explain to them that we’re just ordinary guys - ordinary guys with lots of wives less than one third our age, he he. We’re regular folk too, doing what comes natural.”

But the FLDS’ marketing strategy has raised some eyebrows - and some fears - in this middle class suburban neighborhood.

“We just chased a couple of their members off the playground at the junior high school down the street.” said local resident Kathleen Brennan. “I have a 12-year old daughter in that school, and the thought of those creepy, middle-aged men chatting her up just makes my skin crawl. I know what they’re after. Now they’re sending text messages to kids around here. Eeewwww!”

When asked why the sect chose to knock on doors and visit schools, Nielsen replied matter-of-factly: “That’s where the girls are…and some real nice ones too! We hope our message is getting through to them.”

HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY FROM ALL YOUR INEBRIATED FRIENDS AT ALLIGATORS IN THE SEWER!

This is the holiday commemorating when St. Patrick saw his shadow, bringing an end to winter and making all the snakes go away and…oh, never mind. Pass that bottle this way…

Norm bought us a case of Bud and a bottle of green food coloring so we could give our beers that same disgusting green hue that every shithole tavern in town gives their swill this time of year. Cheap bastard couldn’t even spring for Guinness. But this will do.

Hoist a cheer to the Irish (or whomever is sitting next to you at the pub). Have a good time, and don’t call us if you end up in the drunk tank.

A diminutive Illinois man thought that robbing the local bank would be the answer to all of his financial troubles. Just one problem: he used a plastic toy gun to pull off the heist.

Employees at the First National River Rat’s Bank in the quiet Mississippi River community of Quincy, Illinois, were amused when 22 year-old Lance Brinsky showed up at a teller window holding an empty McDonald’s bag and brandishing his bright yellow Space Cadet Laser Ray Gun.

“Fill up this bag or I’ll pop a cap in your ass,” demanded the scruffy, four-foot-two Brinsky as he pointed the phony gun at Angela Carlson, the teller on duty that day.

Carlson, trying her best to keep from giggling, told the pint-sized robber to have a seat in the lobby and she would be right back with some cash. Carlson walked into the employee break room and grabbed a handful of “money” from the Monopoly game sitting on the table, stuffing it into the grease-stained paper bag.

She then handed the fake loot to the fake robber, just as four real police officers arrived to put Brinsky in real handcuffs.

“Everybody in town knows Lance…he’s the local weirdo,” said one of the police officers at the scene. “That little shit’s always doing something stupid. Last summer he was throwing rocks at cars along Main Street. Something wrong with that boy.”

“Dude, maybe you can buy the Pennsylvania Railroad with all that cash!,” shouted Carlson as the room erupted in laughter while Brinsky was being led out the door to an awaiting patrol car.

Brinsky’s attempts to post bail later that day with the Monopoly money proved equally unsuccessful.

The FCC and deputies in Orange County, Florida, shut down a pirate radio station that was broadcasting information about where to find drugs and prostitutes. The illicit station, dubbed “Street Heat,” transmitted the drug info along with a mix of weather, news, lifestyles features and smooth jazz. Armed deputies stormed the transmitter location after FCC engineers pinpointed its location. Interestingly, the station had placed third in the winter Arbitron ratings sweep of the Orlando metropolitan area, with a 12.2% audience share of adults 18-54.

International Space Station pelted with Russian space debris. Astronauts aboard the station had a few tense moments Thursday when a small piece of debris glanced off the craft’s hull. The object, believed to be either a metal washer or a twist-off bottle cap, deflected harmlessly after striking the station. Flight controllers in Houston jumped out of their seats after hearing the startling “Oh fuck, what was that?” reaction shouted over the radio by one of the astronauts aboard. Remote cameras later showed that the collision caused no serious damage, leaving only a small dent in the sheet metal exterior.

Couple buys used couch from thrift store, gets free cat as bonus. A Spokane, Washington, couple purchased the $27 couch from a local Value Village store, which was having its annual “Easter Egg” promotion. The thrift store teamed up with Spokanimal, a local shelter, to give customers a free “surprise pet” hidden inside each piece of used furniture. “What a nice touch,” gushed Vickie Mendenhall as she let the claustrophobic tabby out of its hiding place deep inside the couch. “This is more fun than hunting for coins and Cheetos under the cushions! Chris and I are going back tomorrow for a hide-a-bed and love seat. Two more cats will be nice to have around here.”

This week’s edition of NFTS was compiled by Gordy, after losing another stupid bet with Maynard.

A brief, early morning interruption in Google’s Gmail service yesterday sparked a domino effect that ultimately resulted in a plunge in the stock market later that day.

Google’s email servers were momentarily knocked off by an apparent glitch around 2:00 A.M. Tuesday, and engineers at the Mountain View, CA headquarters were able to quickly revive the system. But the effects of the outage rippled around the world, causing fear and uncertainty throughout the financial community.

“We rely heavily on Gmail. it’s the core communications tool for a large segment of the banking and finance sectors,” stated Randall Wong, an analyst with Smith Barney. “That email platform is so stable that when it does crash, people freak out on Wall Street. It’s sort of a bellwether.”

Indeed, investors quickly became skittish over news of the short email outage. With the stock market in a chronic state of freefall, it doesn’t take much to knock the markets down another peg. The Dow dropped nearly 500 points at the end of trading Tuesday, with the NASDAQ taking a 75 point hit.

“Luckily no one dove out any windows on The Street yesterday,” said Wong. “But who knows what tomorrow will bring. Let’s just hope Twitter doesn’t hiccup or we’re all toast.”

In a strange twist that illustrates the vast reach of his alleged ponzi scheme activities, accused investment broker Bernie Madoff has been unable to find an attorney who doesn’t already have some ties to his investment scams. After the revelation last week that Madoff’s court-appointed defense counsel has voluntarily withdrawn from the case due to the attorney’s prior investments with Madoff, it was discovered that there are no criminal defense attorneys in New York without some conflict of interest issues.

Accused of swindling thousands of investors out of over 50 billion dollars, Madoff may have unwittingly sabotaged his own defense by doing business the past several years with virtually every member of the New York Bar. Court officials have canvassed the entire roster of defense attorneys licensed to practice in the state, only to discover that not a single one hasn’t rubbed elbows with the defendant at some time. Ignoring the judge’s advice to seek an out-of-state attorney, Madoff has opted instead to represent himself in the case.

“I’ve got lawyer clients everywhere, dammit,” said Madoff in a rare interview from his cell in Manhattan. “I doubt I can find any attorney with whom I haven’t done business or had cocktails, or mailed a prospectus to. Looks like I’m going to have to go this one alone.”

It might prove to be a non-issue anyway, as Madoff is considering making a plea agreement soon.

“Cover me, I’m going in!,” quipped Madoff to the press this morning as he was being led into the federal courthouse.

Late winter visitors to Yellowstone National Park were baffled yesterday when Old Faithful failed to erupt at one of its expected times. The geyser, which sends up a massive column of superheated geothermal water approximately every 90 minutes, missed its predicted eruption at 9:45 A.M.

Tourists at the site looked at each other in stunned bewilderment while park officials tried desperately to explain the anomaly. Some visitors made the best of the situation by joking about the fizzled event.

“Maybe someone should toss a bottle of Viagra down there,” joked one man, while his wife covered her face in embarrassment.

Others were more vocal about their disappointment and frustration.

“Old Faithful, my ass! We came a long way and paid good money to get into this damn park,” complained a roly-poly man from New Jersey with a bad comb-over. “I feel gypped. I think we should get a refund.”

“It’s an omen, the calm before the storm,” hissed an elderly woman from Kansas. “It’s a sure sign of the End of Times. Humanity has sinned and God’s wrath will come down upon us all in a searing cauldron of volcanic furor! Our flesh will melt from our bones and the skies will turn black! Prepare for the apocalypse!!!”

Geologists at the park attempted to come up with an explanation while two park rangers tried their best to calm the increasingly-agitated Kansas woman, who started speaking in tongues, then fainted.

Finally, word came that the geyser temporarily lost its water pressure due to a careless backhoe operator digging nearby. Maintenance worker Enrique Cruz was excavating camp latrines about a mile away when his machine dug in too deep, striking an underground aquifer which resulted in a pressure drop at the geyser.

Crews were able to quickly cap the damaged aquifer with sand bags, and Old Faithful resumed its normal operations after missing only one eruption. Cruz walked away from his machine with only minor burns.

President Obama causes a minor stir when he is seen sipping a cold one at a Chicago Bulls game. Despite the President’s penchant for an occasional beer, Rush Limbaugh still insists that Obama is a Muslim.

D.C. bus driver makes an unannounced stop to get out and punch McGruff the Crime Dog, then drives off. McGruff was handing out brochures to a group of schoolchildren when the incident occurred. The assailant, transit driver Shawn Brim, soon realized he bit off more than he could chew when a flash mob of several dozen people dressed in Darth Vader costumes happened to be waiting for the bus just a half block down the street. Having witnessed the altercation, the mob boarded Brim’s bus and proceeded to pummel him, then threw him onto the sidewalk and commandeered the bus to a brewpub in Arlington. A few moments later, McGruff showed up at the corner to cite Brim for assault and disturbing the peace, then peed on his leg.

The World Court has issued an arrest warrant against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes. This edict probably has the dictator rolling on the floor in stitches over the specter of him being hauled off by a bunch of Eurotrash in powder-blue berets. But word has it that Dog the Bounty Hunter was seen boarding a flight to Khartoum. Stay tuned…

A 200-foot wide asteroid made a dangerously close call with earth last week, coming within 40,000 miles (a razor-thin margin in astronomical terms). The space rock, roughly the size of a small office building and traveling at over 20 times the speed of a rifle bullet, will continue to edge closer to earth with each yearly pass, due to the earth’s gravitational pull. Astronomers believe the asteroid will eventually be sucked in by earth and likely impact “within a few years or so.” While not large enough to cause a doomsday scenario, the impending collision could wipe out a large city or create a massive tsunami. On the other hand, it could harmlessly burn up in the earth’s atmosphere. NASA scientists insist that we not worry about it, as there’s nothing we can do about it anyway.

Utah takes the title of online porn capital of the U.S., according to a recent survey. Harvard researcher Ben Edelman determined that the heavily-Mormon state had the highest proportion of paid subscribers of pornography - about 5.47 people for every 1000 broadband subscribers. One can almost hear the fapping sound when driving through Salt Lake City.

This week’s edition of NFTS was compiled by Norm, after downing more than just a few cold Budweisers.

Volunteers at a Bakersfield, CA, animal shelter were perplexed by the inordinate number of malformed puppies and kittens born the past few years at the facility. Their fears were confirmed after a California testing company revealed that the Paws ‘n Claws animal shelter is contaminated with radioactive radon gas - at concentrations over 30 times the safe limit. Radon is colorless, odorless, and can seep from the ground into buildings undetected.

“We wondered why we ended up with so many odd-looking offspring born to dogs and cats here,” said Tammy Gaines, director of the non-profit shelter. After ruling out contaminated food and water the shelter was tested for pollutants. “Wouldn’t ya’ know. The place is full of radon.”

“These weren’t your garden variety dogs with mismatched eyes, or 6-toed cats, added Gaines. “Some of these little fellas are really spooky looking…that genetics stuff we learned in science class really is true! I sure hope my kids don’t turn out looking like any of those.”

“That’s one butt-ugly cat,” commented a shelter visitor as his 5 year-old daughter started shrieking in horror. “Great. Now my kid’s gonna have nightmares. They could’ve warned us when we walked in here.”

Paws ‘n Claws has decided to keep the scary-looking animals as mascots, since no one was willing to adopt them.

“They’re still God’s little creatures,” said Gaines, as she walked toward the cages with a bucket of dog food. “Even if they did come from a future Superfund site!”

“Keep Portland weird.” That’s the slogan found on bumper stickers and signs all around Portland, Oregon. And the city of 600,000 lives up to it as well, offering a richly bohemian lifestyle, bristling with coffeehouses, bookstores, sidewalk artists, nightclubs, and other features of a progressive, free-thinking society. The city is renowned for its environmental focus; indeed, it is referred to as the “greenest city in the U.S.”

But venture much beyond the city limits and you will find a near polar opposite in attitudes. In a state comprised mostly of ranches, logging camps and fruit tree orchards, many rural residents cringe at the thought of what goes on in the state’s largest city, and fears its expansion. One need not travel far to witness the scorn directed toward the city.

“Just a bunch of granola-crunching, Birkenstock-wearing libtards,” griped Sam Farston, a cattle rancher in Baker City, some 300 miles east of Portland, near the Idaho border. “Me and the little woman went there for a weekend trip a few years ago. We saw a nekkid bicyclist going down the street!  In broad daylight! Can you believe that? We couldn’t get out of that town fast enough.”

Oregon state tourism officials take an equally dim view of the metropolis. “We want our visitors to see Mount Hood and Crater Lake,” said Melissa Barnes, assistant director for visitor services. “Walk on our seashores, go fishing or camping. Enjoy our good clean lifestyle out here. But if we send them to Portland, they’ll get some crazy ideas about our state. They’ll tell all their friends back home what a bunch of weirdos we are. Then we all get tarred with that bad image.”

“I don’t even want to tell you some of the strange stuff we saw in that town,” said Farston’s wife, Liz. “People dressed in funny clothes, spending their time in cafes that serve strange-looking foreign food. And those odd little Prius cars they drive. And don’t even get me started on all the potheads. Scary place, I’m telling you, a cesspool of moral decay.”

In the minds of those in Baker City, a dusty ranching and logging community on the far east end of the state, Portland could just as well be on the other end of the earth. Very few of the residents of this remote village have ever ventured west to the city. And they’re fine with that.

“I can handle Boise,” added Sam Farston, as he spit a wad of tobacco on the ground. “We go there to shop at the new Super Wal-Mart. But Portland is a bit off the charts for regular folk like us. Maybe we can hand over that town to Washington. They might find some use for it.”

Irish airline Ryanair has announced its proposal to begin charging passengers to use in-flight toilets. Michael O’Leary, president of the cut-rate airline, believes this move will help keep the cost of tickets down, while generating a little extra revenue. Passengers would be required to drop a British pound coin into a slot in the door to gain entrance to the loo. Coin-operated machines will also dispense toilet paper and hand soap.

When asked if Ryanair had plans to monetize other services onboard their flights, O’Leary nonchalantly replied that anything inside an airplane is fair game.

“We’re installing coin-operated devices on the emergency flotation pads and drop-down oxygen masks too,” said O’Leary. “Everybody who flies carries a pocketful of change, right? If they didn’t before they will now. What’s a few quid if you don’t want to piss your trousers…or suffocate, or drown?”

Ryanair hopes the move will generate over a million pounds ($2 million) extra revenue from its cattle-class passengers. The airline expects a surge in toilet revenues on its “happy hour” flights that feature 2-for-1 glasses of warm, watered-down ale.

No word yet if competing airlines will follow suit.