From his perch atop a tree near a large lake, “Ralph” a mature Bald Eagle proudly showed off his new hair weave.

“Yeah, It looks great doesn’t it?  All my friends were skeptical and kept telling me ‘Don’t do it.  You look fine.  You look distinguished.’  But I say, hey, if it’s going to make you feel better go ahead and do it.  And let me tell you – the female eagles really dig me now.  I’m the stud of the neighborhood.”

Indeed he did look strikingly different from the image of Bald Eagles one sees in National Geographic specials.  Instead of the white top he now sports a long flowing mane of dark hair that partially covers his eyes.

“Do you like it?  It makes me look swarthy and mysterious” he said.

I asked him why he felt compelled to get the hair weave.

“I was trying to impress a woman” he confessed meekly.  “But that’s not the only reason.  I was competing with younger birds in the neighborhood.  I had to make myself relevant.  A good resume only goes so far.  Everyone judges you by looks.  It’s not fair but that’s how it is.”

I followed up with a question about side effects and if there is anything that he thought would be different.

“Well, I imagined myself soaring majestically through the air on thermal convection currents, my long flowing mane waving in the breeze.  But unfortunately the weave means I am no longer aerodynamic.  I tried flying but fell straight to the ground and landed flat on my face. It was like I was doing an impression of Roger Clemen’s credibility.  And they don’t tell you in the brochure that you have to go in every month and get your weave tightened.  I didn’t know that at first.  After 2 months my weave was hanging off my head at a 45 degree angle.  I had to put on a hat to cover it up.”

I asked him what he told people.

“I just told everybody I was Justin Timberlake.  So I eventually went in for the weave-tightening.  Damn those are expensive.  I have to do this every month for the rest of my life?  And it’s painful too.  Between the bleeding and the needles…….I tell you.  But I guess it’s worth it.”

Any other problems that you have noticed?

“Well, now with my dark hair everyone thinks I’m Italian.  The FBI is watching me.  I was handed a subpoena the other day.  What the hell is the RICO Act?  People keep giving me money to hand to someone named Don Corleone.  For the last time.  I am not Italian.  I am a bird!”

As I was about to leave I couldn’t resist telling him that he could have avoided all of this.  The word “Bald” in Bald Eagle is short for “piebald” and refers to the white head and tail feathers that contrast with the rest of the body.

“What?  Crap!  I signed a contract.  I have to keep this damn weave for 2 years.  Well, contract or no contract it’s coming off!”

As I left him he was furiously attacking the weave with his beak, trying to rip it off.  He must have been successful because as I left the woods I heard him cry, “Damn that stings.  Will someone get me a couple Band-Aids?”

(1384)

In shocking news today the beloved Geico gecko, long know for his advocacy of car insurance, was captured and sadistically, ritually tortured before finally being killed by a house cat.

Sources say that around 2:25 this afternoon as he was driving his car the gecko stopped and rang the doorbell of Mrs. Wanda Simmons, 75, a local widow who is known to harbor a feline killing machine called “Mr. Peebles”.  The gecko waved at curious neighbors and said “I want to talk about car insurance”.

As the door opened the gecko introduced himself to Mrs. Simmons and proceeded to expound on the many benefits of owning a particular brand of car insurance.  Suddenly Mr. Peebles emerged from the bushes, meowed menacingly at the gecko and with a quick swipe of his paw grabbed him and placed him in his mouth.  Neighbors gasped in horror as one of the gecko’s tiny arms hung outside. Witnesses say it appeared as if he was trying to punch Mr. Peebles in an attempt to distract the cat and have the killing machine release him.

Mrs. Simmons grabbed her cat by the scruff of the neck and said “Bad Mr. Peebles!”.  Mr. Peebles spit out the gecko and it seemed that the crisis had passed.  This hope proved premature.  After admonishing her cat to “play nice with the lovely gecko” Mrs. Simmons turned and walked back into the house and shut the door before the Geico Spokesperson had a chance to follow her in.  “I don’t know why she did that.  She’s very old. Perhaps she simply forgot about him” said a neighbor.  Whatever her reasons, it was too late for the gecko.  He turned and faced his tormentor, fear frozen on his face.  He attempted to make a quick dash to his car but was soon captured.  Mr. Peebles grabbed him again and placed him in his mouth, then took a leisurely stroll around the front yard.  He then spit him out and pawed him for awhile.  “That sadistic killer was toying with him” declared another neighbor.

The gecko, stunned, injured but still alive lay on the ground moaning.  Mr. Peebles stared intently at his prey.  Then he sprung into action, grabbed him and tore into the unfortunate gecko with his sharp teeth.  Neighbors looked on in horror as the gecko screamed “He’s eating me alive. Will someone help me?  I can feel my flesh being torn off my body”.

Then with one final bite Mr. Peebles tore the gecko in two.  He ate half of him before appearing to become bored, licking himself for several minutes and strolling away.

Police were called and immediately started searching the neighborhood for the brutal killer.   “We located Mr. Peebles sitting on top of a tool shed in the back yard.  He was sunning himself and appeared untroubled by his crime” said Officer Brophy.  “I approached with extreme caution hoping to apprehend the suspect.  He spotted me, hissed and attempted to flee when I maced him.  This temporarily disabled him.  I then placed cat handcuffs upon him and read him his rights.”

Ted Ward, Geico Vice President of Marketing, when informed of the gecko’s death released a statement that said “We at Geico are saddened and shocked by the brutal, violent death of our spokesperson.  He was a gentle soul who only wanted to sell affordable car insurance.  He felt by doing this he was helping improve the lives of working people”.

Geico plans to memorialize the fallen gecko by lowering insurance rates for first time car owners.  “He would have wanted it that way” said Ward.

(600)

A recent study of children raised on Mars has come to the conclusion that it is no place to raise a kid.   The isolated conditions, cold climate and lack of creature comforts have lead to an astonishing juvenile delinquency rate.  Studies have found that 45% of children from Mars go on to commit robbery, rape or murder.  Of those committing murder or other violent crimes a shocking 73% went on to play in the NFL.  The other 27% either died at hands of Martian Warlords or ended up as Principals in inner city schools.

“It’s no wonder Earthlings have such a bad reputation on Mars” declared Marvin the Martian.  “This used to be a good neighborhood until the humans moved in.”

With a median temperature of 32 degrees fahrenheit during summer and minus 100 degrees during winter children often have no opportunity for healthy social interaction.  Most of their time is spent indoors complaining about how Mars is “cold as hell” and watching reruns of American Idol.  There is little adult supervision of children on Mars as the parents are often busy 5 days a week flying rockets.  As a result youth gangs are rampant.  The most notorious  gang, “The Humans” would attack native martians with baseball bats.  At first, the martians thought this was an Earth greeting  and would volunteer to be bashed.  “We thought we were being good neighbors” says one martian.  “How were we to know they were just a–holes”.  A rival gang to “The Humans”, the “Predator Catchers” would attack martians by posing as 13 year old girls and offering iced tea and cookies.  Still another gang, “The Ralph Kramdens” would terrorize martians by threatening to beat them senseless and send them “straight to the moon.”  “The Putins” would stab martians with umbrellas laced with poison and “The Contractors” would offer to fix the computers of martians but then transfer their calls to a help desk in India.

Many martians, fed up with the violence but morally opposed to retribution would hire mercenaries to attack the humans.  One such notorious mercenary, Duck Dodgers promised to destroy the humans with his famous disintegration gun, telling his employers that when his “gun disintegrates, boy it disintregrates!”  Mr. Dodgers proved unsuccessful and later moved on to fight teen gangs on Jupiter.

However, hope may be on the way for the human youth on Mars.  A stimulus package was approved in the Senate that promises to create thousands of “green” jobs on the red planet.  Martians may soon have to get used to the sight of windmill farms manned by former gang members.  “I guess that’s better than being beaten with a baseball bat” said one martian.

(196)

People heard the screams before they saw him.   A cry of “My ass.  I’ve burned my ass off” filled the air.  Then when they looked up people saw Air Force test pilot Captain Jake Brown plummet to the ground still attached to a new prototype jet pack.  A jet pack that had unfortunately not performed as expected, burning off Brown’s posterior, complete with his prized Frank Zappa tattoo.

“Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be a test pilot” Brown said from his hospital bed.  “And when the Air Force asked me to test out their new jet pack I was thrilled.”  It was a thrill that would not last long.  After lifting off and rising to 100 feet Brown felt a sharp burning sensation from his backside.  “I thought it was the chicken quesadilla I had for lunch but I soon realized the angle of my ascent was causing the rocket fuel from the jet pack to burn into my skin.” Brown tried to make adjustments to no avail as his flesh continued to burn.  First responders were horrified by what they saw.  “His ass was burned right off. Nothing but scar tissue and bone.  It looked like Michael Jackson’s face.”

Brown was rushed to the hospital but efforts to save his backside were unsuccessful. He now faced life permanently unable to sit down.  Brown found himself ostracized.  Former colleagues called him “Assless Jake” behind his back and the sight of Brown painfully hobbling down the street with his walker became common.

“How’d you like to not be able to sit down ever?  I tried once but kept sliding off the chair.  I have to sleep on my stomach.  When I take a shower I have to cover what used to be my butt so it doesn’t get wet.”

That was until the Air Force decided to try new experimental ass replacement surgery.  “We found a donor who had recently died and transplanted his butt onto Captain Brown” says Dr. Albert Reilly who performed the surgery.  “There were plenty of surgeries he had to undergo.  At first the transplanted posterior would hang down to his ankles but we were successful in tightening that up. He now has the ass of a swedish soccer player.  We also had to transplant nerve endings to give sensation to the area.  We had nurses take turns spanking him every night.  Brown said this helped him considerably.”

Brown’s  new transplanted posterior has been the talk of the medical world.  His butt has already been shown to Vice President Biden who called it “The most magnificent thing I have seen since I was hunting with Ernest Hemingway in Africa.”  Plans are afoot to put Brown on tour, showing off his new body part on television, with the ladies from “The View” being the first stop.

From the tribal region on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, Osama Bin Laden declared in a taped statement that the transplanted body part is “An example of the infidel at his most ungodly.  Granted, it does look great. Much better than the goats around here, but I must not think about it!  This is an infidel trick!”

(293)