A new book suggests A-Rod used steroids as a teenager. The main signs were his acne and mood swings.
 

"WHEN LIBRARIANS ATTACK!" VIDEO ENJOYING BRISK SALES

HOLLYWOOD, California. With DVD sales flat as more consumers download pirated versions of films from the internet, the entertainment industry has one surprise success on its hands--a collection of security camera videos of librarians attacking patrons in high school reading rooms.

"You think it's funny to dog-ear pages, don't you?"

"Being a librarian is a very frustrating, low-paying job," says producer Toby Hudspeth, whose film bypassed theatrical release with a "direct-to-video" marketing strategy. "It's immensely entertaining to watch these strait-laced types go after somebody like a shark after chum."

"I would hate to have to hit you so hard you bled on one of my precious books."

Miss Elizabeth Jane Grey, a junior high school librarian in a small town in Arkansas, is captured on tape berating a freshman honor roll student for using a highlighter on a copy of Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage". "A book is your friend," she is heard screaming on the grainy videotape. "You wouldn't use a highlighter on a friend--don't use one on a book!"

"Excuse me, I need to go wring a kid's neck."

The student is reduced to tears and in footage shot a week later has broken out in acne, rendering him reluctant to ask Mary Beth Ohlrich, a stunning blonde cheerleader, to the school's annual "Spring Fling!" dance.

Cocktail hour at a librarians convention:  "So which do you prefer--Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal?"

The American Librarian's Association issued a press release declaring the film's "subtext of sexual repression" to be a "parody of a burlesque of a farce." "Most of our members are married, some of them happily," said ALA spokeswoman Judith Gaines. "Or have been at one time or another."

"Two days late?  That will be four cents--no checks or credit cards accepted."

Education administrators say the breakdown in student decorum is leading to more frequent and more violent librarian-on-student attacks in school libraries. "It used to be that 'Shhh' meant 'Shhh'," said Earl Bucholz, Assistant Principal at Smith-Cotton High School in Sedalia, Missouri. Now, it's more like 'Time to think about being quiet as soon as I feel like it, you old biddy.'"

"These books are on double bat-secret reserve--you can't check them out."

Fish and game wardens say librarians are unlikely to attack unless provoked, although they may view late returns of books as a threat. "If your book is overdue you should approach librarians with caution, holding the volume out at arm's length with your hands palm down to show that you are not an aggressor," says Billy Ray Lyman of the Missouri Department of Wildlife.  "And don't show fear--librarians can sense when you don't have the two cents a day fine, and they will go for the jugular."

Copyright 2006, Con Chapman

The Panama Canal is scheduled to double it's width. They will add another 108' wide lock.

However, it still won't be wide enough to dump in all of Manny Noriega's acne creams.

According to a new study the powerful acne drug Accutane may cause birth defects.  Representatives of the drug are downplaying the results saying, “most people with fabulous skin are a little retarded anyway”

MARINERS ADOPT "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT" AS ANTHEM

SEATTLE, Washington.  Bowing to pressure from its Left Coast, slacker dude fan base, the Seattle Mariners today announced that the Nirvana song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" will replace "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the anthem played before the team's home games at Safeco Field.

"We're in the entertainment business, and Francis Scott Key peaked on the Billboard Jingoistic Singles Chart around 1950," said M's general manager Bill Bavasi.  "Frankly, the Star-Spangled Banner is not depressing enough for Seattlians, or Seattlites, or whatever you call them."

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the first track and first single from Nirvana's 1991 debut album "Nevermind", and is generally credited with bringing the musical genre known as "grunge" to the attention of the world beyond Seattle.  Rolling Stone Magazine ranks "Teen Spirit" ninth on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences places it ahead of Herman Melville's "Moby Dick", Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" and "The New Hollywood Squares" as a cultural achievement.

Conservative groups were quick to criticize the shift as more evidence of the decline of patriotism in liberal "blue" states such as Washington.  "This is just more evidence, in case anybody needed it, that espresso drinks are poisoning the minds of America's youth," said Wendy Davis, President of Concerned Women for America.  Seattle is the headquarters of Starbucks and Seattle's Best Coffee, and leads the nation in the consumption of lattes and cappucinos.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said he would take no action against the team for the time being.  "Most of the day-to-day problems I face running major league baseball are like teenage acne," he said in response to a reporter's question.  "Ignore them and eventually they go away."

Selig said if the Mariners' experiment is a success, he would consider using the 1953 Patti Page hit "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?" as part of opening ceremonies at Miller Park before Brewers' games.  "That's my all-time favorite," he said with a wistful smile.

Mariners fans, historically a free-thinking, non-conformist group, were generally in favor of the change.  "Ten years ago everybody's cell phone sounded the same," said Evan Martin, a graduate student at the University of Washington.  "Now everybody's got their own ring tone, so why shouldn't we all have different anthems?"

When it was pointed out that an anthem is intended to bind Americans together as a nation of states under a federal government headquartered in Washington, D.C., Martin was unfazed.  "Dude, you're wrong.  That is like a totally different Washington."

Copyright 2006, Con Chapman