All Entries in the "Soft News" Category
Unemployment drops to -3.5%
(Warshington Dec 30, 2016) Good news hit the wires this morning as the latest federal statistics indicate the unemployment rate to be well below zero. Although no one in authority could explain this startling development most have taken credit for the improvement.
“Right now we have about a 3.5% edge when it comes to the employment picture,” said Senator Oral Noise (Unitarian-CA). “We don’t know what the future holds, but for right now things are certainly looking up.”
Economists remain cynical over methods used by the feds to determine this status.
“We think there are a lot of people out there holding down two, maybe three minimum wage positions,” said one financial expert. “Unfortunately that doesn’t mean they aren’t living on the street or in their cars.”
Members of Congress, away on Christmas recess, were quick to accept the credit for this shift. Many feel the statistics indicate that they are doing a good job on the domestic scene.
“It’s all quite clear to me that our policies are working,” added Noise. “It just goes to prove that millionaires can be responsive to the needs of the peasantry.”
Leading mathematicians, however, remain baffled as to how the government arrived at these numbers.
-Mel Toole
My Christmas present arrived last August
Declan Martin Haley getting into the Yuletide flow with a friend on his first Christmas – photo by Michelle Haley
Christmas Eve Blowout Feared
Downtown Colona December 24, 2016
Rogue elements of the Short Angels, an elfin sleigh gang have pledged to go ahead with a decadent rendezvous slated for Christmas Eve it was reported this morning. The elves, normally engaged in Santa-assist duties this time of the year, are apparently blowing off legendary responsibilities in favor of the bash.
“We know how these little pixies get when they get into the drink,” flexed Tim Finnegan, a Log Hill resident who is primed for trouble. “Last year they held up traffic and started bonfires all over town. What happened to the charming little sprites who used to roast chestnuts over an open fire and all that?”
Last year motorists where constantly harassed along Highway 550 as the evil brownies sought funding for their sinful display. Several drivers were forced out of their cars and into the cold December night by the foul smelling elves.
Sleigh gangs from the North Pole and Canada are expected to descend on the peaceful burg on about December 22 with the revelry screeching into the new year. Looting is expected.
“New Year’s Eve would be a good time to stay away from the downtown strip,” said the rifle wielding local. “That’s when we plan to match muscle for muscle. We’ve had enough of their crap.”
– Big Tinnie
SANTA TO DO BIC SHAVING COMMERCIAL
(North Pole) Santa Claus has agreed to appear in a series of television advertisements on behalf of BIC Corporation, makers of plastic, disposable razors.
Filming will begin after the Christmas holidays.
“We couldn’t think of a more famous beard than that matted, white mop that Santa displays on his cheeks and chin,” said a representative from BIC. “Sure, it would have been more effective to have him shave in November and do his thing without the beard but we don’t want to disappoint his younger clientele.”
According to the famous elf, his wife wanted him to shave last year but he refused. It was not clear whether financial considerations changed his mind or whether he just got sick of looking at all that hair in the mirror every morning.
“It’s no big deal,” said the BIC spokesman. “He’ll grow the thing back by March.”
The last time Santa shaved was way back in 1968 when he was concerned with being mistaken for a hippie. It was that same year that he was detained at the border until authorities could determine that he was who he claimed to be.
“It was an embarrassing situation for all of us,” remembers a border guard who questioned the elf back then. “The guy attempts to sneak across the border, then he insists he’s Santa Claus. What would you think? He has no paperwork, no identification, no visa. If it were not for that red suit and the reindeer we might never have made a positive identification.”
Groppo the Elf
New Craze on Left Coast: Food Pornography
(El Lay — Eats Beat — December 7, 2016)
Connecting food to sexuality is certainly nothing new although the secondary phases of naughty grub are sure to unclog those arteries. Sensual foodies here in Southern California have gone beyond the traditional impish elf or wayward nymph, blending fantasies like whipped cream and chains with champagne, caviar and even pineapple upside down cake.
Karma Sutra take note. Murals and billboards offer delicious cuisine with a sexual overtone: If you eat this…Depictions of naked persons in Jell-O molds are passé when one considers to options open by combining simple erotic play with the diversions of the surreal. Dreams about chocolate cake. Dreams about that attractive man or woman at the grocery. Dreams about many chocolate cakes and that attractive person in bed?
Peeks through these doors, inadvertently left open in a rush to the boudoir or the kitchen table. A tenderloin bed of passion. The throes of bondage, airbrushed and served aflame on skewers over wild rice. That second helping of shimmering gelatin. A salmon on ice. Broiled zucchini in its kinky, phallic state. Vodka martinis striped down to pure buff.
These are the images that leading chefs don’t want you to see.
Just last night at Sarah Finn’s Cafe (in the hills of Oakland) diners marveled at the nightly specials. Seafood displaying brash, slutty behavior, served in a sea of tepid and provocative hollandaise sauce, dripping with low fat yet corporeal glamour, doting on the asparagus spears.
(If this amorous appetizer did not arouse the desire of those already in their seats, the dancing caramelized sweet grass did the trick. Seedy, semi-literate, food bloggers recorded their own particular perversions all over the bathroom walls).
Now the debauchery threatens to spill out into the streets of Los Angeles. Decadent Serrano hams in the window, cleavage evident, enticing the passerby, cobblestoned on the aromas, stairways up to Never Mind land in the upstairs hideaways…al fresco or under the sheets?
“It’s all the way it looks on the plate,” said one chef wearing no more than his mother gave him. Mashed or whipped? Succotash on the first date? Look at them poke chops! Pardon me but with another glass of wine your cherished rice pilaf may be in a compromised position. And then there is the food sculpture. Young and innocent rhubarb bore for all to see, indecent cutlets, racy rye muffins, beaten eggs, twice baked…More later as we find more adjectives.
– Melvin Toolini
“Why then are we soft in the middle when the rest of our lives are so hard?” – Paul Simon
Faithful Encouraged to Shed Pounds Come Judgment Day
(Celestial Acres Special from Vacant Lot Magazine November 29, 2016)
The Good Folk, an inordinate number of whom are obese, are reminded that it might improve their eternal status to drop a few pounds before meeting their maker. Saying that these creatures are more likely to be hit by lightning or a meteor than their thinner compatriots.
In an emotional sermon the often flamboyant Rev. Phil Pharisee told his congregation that “your bodies are Temples of the Holy Spirit and that the heavenly hosts would not look too kindly on abuse of this kind. The preacher stopped short of saying there is no room in heaven for the chubby, as he has in previous outbursts.
“Jesus was skinny and so were his apostles,” said Pharisee. “They ate loaves and fishes, not fast food. They took care of their bodies according to the teachings of the Old Testament and adapted their regimen to the New Testament. Many of you have trouble getting out of your cars and can barely fit through the doors of this strip mall cathedral,” he bellowed. “I don’t care if you are the best Christian on earth! I don’t care if you pray all day! I don’t care that you rebuke Satan! The Pearly Gates are only so wide.”
Pharisee, who weighs in at a little over 112 pounds, has been particularly critical of his portly brethren since opening his devotional hallway in the Paradise Mall on the outskirts of town. He is best known for his popular television program Baptist Bartender that continues to run in the South and Midwest. His best-selling book The Missionary Position on UFOs has sold millions of copies.
Spiritual competitors say Pharisee is a charlatan who is only in the religion business for the money. An unresolved lawsuit brought by Angel Hair Trailer Park (the site of his last church) asserts that he left unpaid utility bills and holes in the bathroom walls. According to a prosecuting attorney here Pharisee left a trail of bad debts saying that The Lord would pay his creditors when he returns for the Rapture or Second Coming.
“That’s going to be one hell of a party,” he snickered, which will separate the true believers from the charlatans.”
– Pepper Salte
