Man's dreams fall into lap

Jay Kenny, A Roanoke man, sat in his favorite comfortable chair Thursday, thinking the world would just pass him by as it has done for the last five years. That is, until a book deal and a Sports Illustrated contract fell into his lap from the ventilation system overhead.

American author Jay Kenny making headway toward goals

"I was just staring out the window thinking, 'Gosh, the world sure does change as fast as the second hand counts a minute nowadays.' But I remember noticing that my back lawn and the bushes and trees always look the same," said Mr. Kenny, retail employee.

Jay went on to express his renewed attitude toward life, and lack of certainty around what he will do next. "Now that I can be the writer I always dreamed of bein', I just don't know what I'll write about! Sports? Politics? Social trends, the government? War and peace; it's all out there for me," he said with a grin.

Jay Kenny said he'd already grown accustomed to day-to-day life without ambition. "Paper hits the door every mornin'. The songbird sings my favorite tunes," he said. He went on to describe how he'd come to delude himself into believing a life without any distinction whatsoever does not evacuate the happiness from his soul, but in fact brings him a form of satisfaction. "Things here are just how I want them to be. Pretty much all the time. Grass stays cut. Neighbors are friendly. Known them about fifteen years now. What little money I get pays the gas bill, heating, lights, health insurance, life insurance, car insurance, homeowner's insurance, water. With what's left I buy food. Sometimes I have enough left and I'll even buy myself a big old steak dinner. Me and Gus," he said, pointing to his dog. "I guess I might just write about that."

Mr. Kenny said he would not investigate the duct-work of his home, telling reporters the weight of the curiosity around what caused his dreams to come true by simply neglecting to actively pursue them can be remedied with a good Marlboro cigarette and a shot of whiskey. "I don't like to ask no questions," he said. "Something told me I'd be a big novelist one day and people would want to know what I've got to say about things. I just believed in myself. And that's probably how I was able to keep my routine of television, forty hours at Staples, and shopping at Kroger. I knew it'd all pay off eventually." And it did.

Local man repairs relationship, loses penis

Roanoke, Va.--A Roanoke man savagely mutilated himself Friday while trying to prove to his ex-wife he was "still man enough to sexual role-play and use a skill saw naked." Sources say he was attempting to sacrifice the family housecat to the love gods when things suddenly appeared very wrong.

Tina Shrubman, a 46 year old "homemaker" described the scene to police and reporters a "bloodbath, not in the sexual way, but almost," as the man's dismembered tool flopped around like a suffocating fish on the counter-top in her Martha Stewart-influenced kitchen. Lustily, Shrubman bit her lower lip.

Lieutenant Leroy Jackson, who is not supposed to disclose any details around an ongoing investigation, revealed to reporters, "Cletus Ragburn, waited for Ms. Shrubman's return in her living room, naked, prepared to operate a table saw mounted on two sawhorses. Confused, she instinctively pepper-sprayed him, causing his thumb to react, triggering the power saw to spin out of control and fall to the floor, castrating him in the process."

When asked where the pet would be sent for treatment, Jackson replied, "I am not at liberty to divulge that information."

Joe Diamond, attorney for Ragburn's johnson revealed that the member was seeking severance pay, a full health insurance package and a guaranteed nine-to-five stroke job.

Roanoke Valley under fire

Virginia, U.S.--The local human plantation of Roanoke, Virginia is at the brink of destruction.

There is a major reason to believe, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that waves of mountain lions did descend on the people of the Roanoke Valley in the great retaking of the cherished homeland. Sources say it is the largest incident on record of the overtaking of an American city by the surrounding wildlife.

A peace treaty is being worked out with the animals, but no inside sources have yet indicated any premonitions around the terms of the agreement. Anonymous sources report that Roanoke mayor David Bowers, best known for having sold the town to Wal-Mart out of gambling desperation, denies any involvement with unpaid, lion-related debts, saying, "I wouldn't make a wager with those penniless rubes. They only want your flesh anyway."

Field analysts say the animals have taken to gathering in the Roanoke Civic Center where humans are hunted for entertainment following a sold-out Toby Keith concert.

Jim Fixx, our reporter on the scene, identified twelve positive kills before he himself was eaten alive by a ravenous pair of adult hill cats.

Town spokesperson Lightfoot Steifewagen recalled a feeling of terror, when on her evening run to Wally World was pulled over by lions and questioned. "They wanted to know where I was going," she said. "They asked where I came from. Like it's any of their business!"

Attorneys for the swarm of mountain lions have stated the occupation is officially a peace-keeping mission intended only to affect a very precise few people who took part in the alleged attempt to overthrow the laws of nature. But he added, "No one is directly at fault for the decline of the mountain lion's land, but because all have systematically taken part in the mass rape of it as every nut and every cog is needed to turn the gears of Humanity - the Great Fucking Machine." It is a principal moment in interspecial relations in which a beast, with an attorney's help has leveled the playing field with man.

So far, the verdict is split. If no verdict is reached after a second round of hearings Tuesday, the Roanoke County vs. Mob of lions trial could move on to the Virginia Supreme Court, where experts say the level of clusterfuck is expected to be a critical mass situation. Commander Von Hertenweiner, lead gang-rapist of the lion's crack legal team on the case, said, "I foresee a dimension of politics so unexplored that NASA scientists and mathematicians have been placed on temporary standby, awaiting transmissions from the top." Judge Joe Mathis, who is expected to rule on the case, said "Next week's hearings should go as smoothly as an abortion case, or a sudden lion attack." He concluded, "If things get too hairy, I will back someone into a corner and hold them in contempt of court after they lash out at me with rage." The press room then let out a chuckle, quit their jobs, and went home to 'blog about it.

In other news, rising again to defend the Glory of Mankind, as he has done countless times before and forever will do into perpetuity, Winston Churchill had this to say:

Internet Relay Call fails again

Roanoke, Va.--The popularly abused text-to-voice communications system AT&T designed to allow deaf or mute people to talk via telephone has scandalously resurfaced. People who are either too poor or too lazy to keep up with a monthly phone bill also find the sit-on-your-ass-and-type convenience appealing. However, the internet took a turn for the worst today when Internet Relay Call failed as a person with functional vocal chords and eardrums attempted to place a call to a local friend, who was aware of the caller's ability to speak and hear.

"The conversation began very rudely," the call's recipient explained. "First, I say hello, like I always do, and some jerk-off interrupts me asking if I know how to use his service. This isn't like rocket science, or trying to pay a U-Scan machine at Wal-Mart. This is Internet Relay Call. Every educated heap of flesh this side of Hell knows how to use Relay Call. Anyway, he [the jackass at the phone company] kept talking and talking, so I said 'yes, I understand' to get him to shut up. He said nothing after that, and he wouldn't even answer me when I tried to talk to him. I asked him, 'what now?' He just kept saying, 'sir, we can't be having this conversation; please say 'go ahead'." Astoundingly, the recipient said he repeated "go ahead" several times with no results until finally the communication collapsed and the recipient was forced to hang up, frustrated and humiliated. "I don't know why he won't just get a regular phone like everyone else."

Due to abuse of both the free online service and its relay assistants, AT&T's Internet Relay Calling will be permanently shutting down within the next nine days.

Black hole unlocks quantum secret to cosmos, accretes Earth

This evening, a black hole instantly spawned inside our solar system. The event occurred so suddenly that scientists have not been able to determine its preconditions, but more presently, they are concerned with how humanity will go about tackling this catastrophic phenomenon of rapidly-impending doom.

Two brave Elf Waxtronauts

Commented Stan Stientenblauer, the Pentagon's leading astrophysicist and top scientist on the case reported to the press moments ago that, "It's dangerous to the Earth. It is also dangerous to humanity and her precious, precious domination over all of Mother Nature. Our clocks are beginning to speed up but our perception of time is slowing down. Tomorrow's traffic report is not looking good. And you can forget about Monday."

This small Virginia town is writhing in turmoil. To escape the confusion of what is shaping up to be True Armageddon, Roanoke citizens have taken to their televisions, watching emergency reruns of Frasier, Lost, and 24. Some have ordered pizzas. Some are on a savage looting spree Downtown. Other citizens, like Leesa Brenner, a Roanoke Junior High School teacher told E.W. Times reporters from her front porch, "I Just want to put this whole mess behind us." Her ex-husband but live-in boyfriend, carpenter Steve Crowe, threw his hand up to the sky, and announced, "It's time to get on with life."

The couple would not agree to any further questioning and went back into their home, where Maury could be overheard declaring someone the father of an unwanted child. Overhead, the black hole can be seen clearly in the evening daylight. Streaming sheets of rearranged matter clouds together perfectly from all directions into the vacuum of the all-consuming abyss, and growing exponentially. Doctor Raymond Sexjoy has warned of a highly-inevitable spaghettification due to set in within twenty-five minutes, pursuant to our crossing of the event horizon, due to take place just moments after the upcoming opening credits to The Simpsons. Commenting on humanity's ability to control the crisis, Sexjoy said, "Oh heavens no. We're all fucked," as he lit a cigarette, and twisted morbidly out of proportion until he exploded apart into a stream of atoms.

More as this develops into Hawking radiation.

Virtual War Crosses Into Reality

Today, Call of Duty 4 took a tragic and deadly turn for the worse after SmokeyMcBong420 and PwnasaurusDeth traded insults over their PlayStation 3 headsets. Several eyewitnesses have independently confirmed that Pwnasaurus claimed to have lost a match due only to lag, irritating SmokeyMcBong and forcing him to challenge Pwnasaurus to a real life duel. Tragically, Pwnasaurus revealed his address to Smokey, who turned out to live within one mile of his house. Pwnasaurus had nothing but a double-barrel shotgun to protect himself, and fought conservatively-remaining under cover until Smokey approached his range. Smokey, an avid Sniper in Call of Duty, armed himself with a scoped .22 caliber rifle, and scanned the street for Pwnasaurus from his roof. Pwnasaurus took 5 rounds to the head, none of which had the power to penetrate his skull. Despite his wounds, Pwnasaurus skillfully snuck behind yards and fences until he had fully flanked Pwnasaurus. With surprise and massive underestimation of his 12 gauge's effective range, Pwnasaurus was able to blow the entire neck and head off of Smokey with the first blast, and both his legs with the second. Shortly thereafter, Pwnasaurus died of blood loss from his head wounds. Neither were able to respawn, but both scored +10, resulting in a tie game.

Hold yourself hostage

It's as easy as BCC: Barricade, Concoct, Communicate.

Barricade:

Pile all of your furniture up against your front and back doors, along with any other additional entrances to your soon to be Alamo. Bust apart whatever furniture is left and cover the windows with spare wood and upholstery. Pile all scraps in the middle of your main staging area. This is where you may have to die, so if you die among the trash, you can be scooped up along with everything else for easy delivery to the nearest landfill.

Concoct:

This is where you contrive your plans to hold yourself hostage. It is also the execution phase, so moving on, you come to realize holding yourself hostage is a really bad idea because basically you're just threatening the police to kill yourself and there is really no ransom to be had at all, so you're going to have to pretend like someone else is in the house with you.

Communicate:

Call the police. Tell them you have been held hostage by an enormous man named Manuell Elberto Gero, and he wants forty five hundred thousand dollars in exchange for your safe return to your now destroyed home which you are already in. Manuell doesn't know English that well, but he is trying his hardest anyway and the police are convinced that he will either get his money or kill you trying. Should they drop a duffel bag full of currency into your ventilation system, you're free to hide the money in an unplanned yet highly convenient hiding place that the police, for whatever reason, will fail to search when going through your home trying to find evidence of Manuell's escape route. Should they attempt to intrude on your beautifully orchestrated scheme to defraud taxpayers of next year's new project budget to bulldoze a park, you'll be forced to set fire to the scraps and tinder you have thrown into the middle of your living room floor. Should your scrap pile not make a large enough pyre to set fire to the ceilings, you'll be forced to kill yourself by whatever means most immediately snuff your life force before the S.W.A.T. team comes around the last corner to see you naked and alone on the telephone. This way, they will not know that Manuell was but a figment of your imagination created as a ruse to stiff some dimwits out of a few thousand dollars at the expense of your freedom, dignity and even your life.

Don't live a sham. Know the truth, with EvoCam

Since the dawn of time, paranoid delusional people have been denied the opportunity to dodge reality and dive into the upward-spiraling colossus of a self-feeding reward system of worry. But now we can, with EvoCam.

Combining the award-winning prestige of the highly adaptive miniature video camera with the competence of your common desktop or laptop computer, EvoCam facilitates the most sophisticated and most customizable round-the-clock video surveillance lockdown mankind has seen since the inception of Wal-Mart.

Suspicious of your roommates sneaking in while you're away? Just switch on the EvoCam as you're heading out the door! Or better yet, leave it on all day!

Watch footage of yourself playing computer games, or watching a movie. Re-live past experiences!

Ladies, want to catch your man masturbating to porn on the internet when he could be fucking you instead?

Schizophrenics, do you want to prove that all those people talking to you are really there?

Get registered with EvoCam online and have your video footage sent first to an underground EvoCam headquarters where it is reviewed, filtered, condensed, archived, unarchived, and then rearchived again in a form of encryption so advanced that even EvoCam scientists can't undo what's been done! Then, it will be emailed to you in ten separate pieces, which you can then plug into a separate downloadable add-on program attachment to have them reunscrambled and mailed to you within 6-8 weeks. All the while you can stew and perculate, let the paranoia fester until it is sparking grease onto your inner chest cavity. This is how you know EvoCam is working.

Now, wait for it. Did you hear that pop? That's EvoCam inside your head, recording itself through your eyes as it records you. It even knows you just read this sentence! This is so you can be absolutely sure, without one per cent of a doubt, that it is indeed YOUR EvoCam recording you, and not that of a strange elite hacker for delta Geplin 7 beaming images of you and your forbidden loved ones and your secrets back to his porndorm at your local engineering university.

Help EvoCam become you.
Become EvoCam today!

Reporters Fired Worldwide

Elf Wax Tech Watch is a new segment in which technological trends are examined in depth. Today's article is how "virtual literacy" relates to the now dead newspaper industry.

Technological change has widely shut down newspapers for the past decade, and today the last paid reporter has punched his clock for the last time. Nobody has reported a word on the issue, but the blogosphere is rampant with rumors and speculation of what actually has just happened. Among most bloggers, the consensus is that youTube is far more effective at spreading news than text. Stupidly, this statement was made on textual blogs, which are next in line after newspapers for total extinction.

The pseudo-literacy of youTubers is obvious in a quick scan of any video's comments. Has literacy, like the watch, been replaced by new devices? Sure, no one carries pointless watches, because cell phones keep the time and do other things too. They record what happens, transfer it around the place, and with a camera it takes the least of human effort. YouTube might be the newest kind of literacy, because who needs writing when there's a video of what just happened? Skip the explanation, no time for that in the modern world. Let's see the police brutality caught on tape.

At some point, the only vestiges of literacy will be txt spk, an abbreviated form of English almost without vowels. In future high schools, students will read Moby Dick on their cell phones in a summarized and abbreviated form. Rather than writing a book report, they will youTube their reflections and leave their classmates taunting and barely-intelligible cmnts.

Their will be one glorious moment in our future where humans no longer have to communicate for themselves and computers will automatically perform all necessary communications so as not to burden the puny human brain. Computers are already set to do all the heavy-lifting for society, soon they'll do the communicating, so now it's just time to teach them to flip burgers and cut hair.

A message from Alpha Centauri

Following a recent governmental lapse in Truth, a scrambled message has been intercepted and somewhat decoded. The communication details an alien overthrow of humanity. Elf Wax analysts were able to decipher certain parts of speech and published them. The translation, in its original form follows:

I am from Alpha Centauri, a star of dead rocks.
I am from another dimension. Another time.
You have lived too long. Your bad vibrations are polluting our air waves.
It's time now. It's time to burn. We'll burn you and your sons' sons. And then we'll burn up the sun.
With hungry eyes, we're looking at you lucky few.

The more you know

"It is so bad when someone pulls out a chainsaw during a coke deal."

This has been a message from James Galloway, guest reporter and Director of Stock Exchange Finance Reporting Values for Lebal Drocer, Elf Wax Times and Global Indexing Averaging Firms.

Report: Dan K. Back in Town

YOURTOWN, US--After a recent independent investigation, it has come to our attention here at the Times that Dan K., a known pal to many locals, has indeed returned to the area.

For the past several months, Dan K.(whose last name is unknown but certainly begins with 'K') has been missing from the vicinity, leaving friends to consider social alternatives. Although no details are known of his mysterious departure, local residents are no doubt thrilled, and rightfully so, to learn of K.'s safe return.

Friend of the EW Times (and, of course, Dan. K), Travis Parcha, 23, had nothing but kind words to offer. "It's [nice to him see doing] pretty good stuff [with his life]." Parcha then commented on the character of Mr. K. "[He's] not seedy at all."

Parcha, seen here, the last time he enjoyed quality time with Dan K.

Acquaintances agree that Dan should be around town for at least a few months, if not longer. In the event that he disappears again unexpectedly, Yourtown citizens can rest easy, knowing that they can always consort with Sherman Wag, a distant cousin of K. who's really only fun to hang out with in large doses.

Gaia Economy in Shambles

Gaia Online has suffered extreme hyperinflation in the past weeks, as the value of gold plummeted. The crux of Gaia's economy is a steady flow of art-themed posting. Poetry, photography, and art of all kind and quality are equally rewarded. Through time, however, the quality of this art has completely degenerated beyond the point of recognition. For a minor amount of gold, a fraction of a fraction of what one needs to 'buy' accessories for their avatar, one user may copy-paste a Wikipedia article into the "non-fiction" category, or perhaps write a paragraph about their abusive families. Webcam photos of things in people's computer rooms are also a major source of Gaia's artwork.

Because the value of artwork has bottomed out, Gaia has begun coercing its users into posting even more worthless art to boost the economy. The fact is, that if a computer program were to continuously pick photos from google images, apply an Andy Warhol filter, and post it on Gaia, only to randomly give away all the gold it made, this whole system might be streamlined. Why should human beings post worthless art, when computers are so much more efficient at it?

People like speshelshell22 could continue to comment "i love pop art it looks good," if they felt inclined, or this system could also be replaced by computer automation.

I will leave you with a poem from Gaia, written by xX_HyperSkittlez_Xx.

While it is not written directly about the state of art in Gaia, I think it's apt.

youre walkin' into town
then on your face there is a frown
its diarria

you try to poop it out
but you cant so you just pout
stupid diarria

no one knows how to spell it
so everyone just guesses it
diarria

you are in walmart
when you try and fart
uh oh
THERES A FREAKIN GLOB OF CRAP IN MY PANTS!!! WTF IS WRONG!!!!!! I FEEL ICKY

so you sweep it with a broom
when your in the bathroom
that diarria

you enter into a stall
then you give it your all
uuuurrrrrrrggggg

then you try to flush it down
but all it does is go around
diarria

Peace on Earth a reality after worldwide cooperation leads to groundbreaking legislation

Children of all ages lined up in front of their schools today only to learn that classes were canceled indefinitely.

A victory every man can taste

Professors of social sciences, military advisers to the President of the United States of America, leading geneticists, politicians and local leaders from every recognized country, island, village outpost and tribe in the civilized world have declared that knowledge and education are useless as world peace has been achieved through peace talks, treaties, agreements, ceasefires, nuclear disarmament, and the cessation of arms manufacturers across the globe. They have concluded that mandatory education as it exists now serves only the military-industrial complex, a device known for generations as the primary source of conflict, strife and natural injustice among the traditionally benign and peace-loving human population of Earth.

In the wake of an agreement on worldwide peace, arms manufacturers such as Smith and Wesson, Colt, and Remington have all been paid historically immense dividends as both recognition of their lifetimes of labor and quality craftsmanship and as thanks for agreeing to shut down their plants or for channeling their industrial strength on peace-serving ends.

The collective thousands of billions of dollars once spent annually through the global industry of war has fed the world five-fold by present calculations and so have all been funneled into the scientific research and manufacture of the Small Nuclear Thermal Rocket Engine, safely deployed once in space after a regular SRB takeoff has breached the Earth's mesosphere. The new nuclear thermal rockets will carry a manned spacecraft close enough to the speed of light through interstellar space that we will reach the neighboring star Proxima Centauri within the next four to five years. If given enough time to calculate a mission's success rate and produce its means, Earthlings can expect receiving the first top-down images of the atmospheres of Centauri's terrestrial planets (that's extra-solar to those of us who don't get to go just yet) by the year 2020.

In the meantime, every nation's resources, acreage of land, national crop, GDP, and transportation capacities are being factored and calculated by the world's leading independent scientists and mathematicians to ensure a fair global distribution of edible goods to and from all lands. This means bringing tastes and flavors unrecognizable to the Congolese people right into the center of their tribal feasting options. Unimaginable delicacies of East India meet Siberian hunters. Every last North Korean will be fed before December 31, 2009.

As if that weren't enough, the now-defunct schools and colleges are being turned into social networking sites at which people of all ages still have the option of attending to discuss ideas, philosophy, God and the Universe, mathematics, science, art, literature and music, but a new law forbids the charging of admission as the buildings are paid for by no one and upheld by everyone thereby making a cover charge contradictory as it would create an artificial class system not unlike the one left behind in which the rich would be given a right to live disproportionate to that of the other ninety five per cent (statistics are care of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) of a given population. Your money can and will still buy you nice TVs, an electric boat for retirement, pets and homes, but nobody will ever again have to pay for a fair and balanced perception of reality as we know it, as everyone plays an active role in its shaping up through socialization and direct democracy via up-and-coming internet voting software set up to register your direct, individual input on each and every issue set to pass across your congressman or senator's desktop. Also, people are no longer limited to just two choices on any given issue. New answers are nominated automatically at the stroke of your very own keyboard and added to the list for others to second, third, and so on. Votes are tallied nightly, weekly, monthly and annually, a system akin to Nintendo Wii's Everybody Votes channel.

People are expected now to go on into their new lives as easily as they have come into it; a safe, stable life in a utopia in which technology has brought every living man a say in government, locally, nationally, and internationally. Hunger is over, people love each other unconditionally and we can all explore space together, in peace, forever.

April fool's.