time the Space Shuttle lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California and has to be "piggy-backed" to Cape Canaveral on a 747, the 747 will be filled with a casino junket to Branson, Missouri to help defer the million dollar cost of  transport.

A tool bag drifted away from astronauts aboard the international space station on Tuesday.

It’s said to be the largest tool bag ever lost in space,

but Richard Branson is still taking billionaires up on Virgin Galactic so keep your fingers crossed.

GUIDANCE COUNSELORS FIGHT "WANKSTER" IMAGE BY "GHOST-RIDING THE WHIP"

NEEDHAM, Massachusetts.  Bob Branson has been a high school guidance counselor for nearly twenty years, but a comment by a member of the class of 2006 last spring made him rethink his approach.

"You kids can do anything you set your minds to, assuming you actually have minds."

"I was talking to kid who hadn't applied to college, and I asked him why," Branson says in his cluttered office.  "He rolled his eyes and said 'Why go to college if I'm just gonna end up as a tool like you?'.  I knew then that I wasn't getting across to some of the kids who need help the most."

"College?  Why bother?"

So Branson and colleagues at other high schools in the suburbs west of Boston formed an ad hoc group to reach out to marginal students on their own terms.  They take their cars--"whips" in hip-hop slang--out on Saturday night and participate in high-risk "ghost-riding" sessions in which they stand or even dance on their vehicles as they roll at slow speeds down deserted streets.

Ghost-riding the whip.

"It's been a real breakthrough," says Brad Hairston, assistant guidance counselor at Newton West High School.  "From Monday to Friday we're drumming the message of work and study into these kids' heads, then on weekends we show them we're just as stupid as they are."

"Ghost-riding" has been cited as the cause of several serious and even fatal accidents, leading police to form night patrols in isolated areas to discourage the fad.  "I don't know why the guidance counselors would want to undermine our efforts to keep our roads and children safe," says Needham Chief of Police Edward O'Herlihy.  "On the other hand, I suppose if any of those guys was really smart he wouldn't have ended up as guidance counselor."

The use of dorky helmets deters teens from ghost-riding.

Branson takes exception to the police chief's criticism, saying the presence of adult supervision insures that the teens will behave responsibly.  "We insist that they wear helmets when riding," he says, "so that when they crack their heads on the concrete it doesn't leave a sticky mess."

Mattress racing:  The safe alternative.

O'Herlihy says he will sponsor a youth basketball league and other activities to create alternatives to the fast-growing but stupid pastime of ghost-riding, including one he thinks may eventually become as popular.  "Mattress-racing gives you the same low-speed thrills," he says, "with a softer ride and an upper-body workout for the 'mules' who lug the mattress."

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman

I recently read a list of grievances and gripes written by someone in a band, directed at the audience members that came to see his band. The list included offenses such as requesting cover songs at inappropriate times, spilling beer on equipment and accidentally knocking over the mike stand when running across the stage. After eleven years of being an audience member during live shows, I thought it would appropriate to turn the tables and point the accusatory barrel of castigation back at the bands. Here are five things that bands do to piss me off.

5. Saying "Keep drinking, we'll sound better" in the middle of your set - I can't even begin to count how many bands who think they’re being witty and clever when they mutter this line in response to an apathetic crowd that's only there for the free hot wings between 5:45 and 6:15 PM. Just in case you're wondering, no, it's not funny. If I wanted to hear dead-horse-beaten jokes that stopped being funny in 1992, I'd go rent a Wayans brothers flick.

4. Saying "It's great to be here!" when you're playing in a shitty town - Don't insult my intelligence by pretending that I live in a great town. No, it's not great to be in Lincoln, Nebraska, Branson, Missouri, or Fairview Heights, Illinois. If you can't think of anything original or enlightening to say, just go straight into the next song or take a swig of water before going straight into the next song. I came to watch your band to distract myself from the fact that I live in a wretched shithole full of religious fundamentalists, ugly women and dead-end jobs. Please don’t remind me.

3. The Ironic/Hilarious/Unexpected-yet-totally-expected pop-song cover - After your fifth or sixth Jager bomb, I'm sure it seems like a genius idea to play a "punked-out" cover of a song by Ace of Base, Hanson, Vanilla Ice, the Spice Girls or some other reprehensibly talentless corporate pop act whose expiration date passed long ago, and who will be holding their reunion concert in a bowling alley in Kentucky. It wasn't funny or amusing the first time someone played that song, and it's not funny now, nor is it amusing, clever or respectable. Stop. Just stop.

2. Wearing D.A.R.E. shirts on stage - It's a joke? Oh, we get it. Considering how you're much older now and you probably enjoy the taste of Heineken, Marlboro Reds and an occasional joint, it's probably the most ironic (and hilarious) thing in the world that you choose to wear the ratty old anti-drug shirt that you were issued by Officer Abstemious back in fifth grade. I'm sure it was funny the first time someone did it back in 1996. If you want to be purposely ironic on stage, why not wear a shirt that says "Yes, I really am a 29-year-old dipshit who pretends he's still in high school, that's why I constantly crank out these contrived, melodramatic sappy ballads about crushing and romance. If you're a 16 year old girl with too much makeup, come find me after the show - The wine coolers are on me."

1. Having a hot female singer – Call it implicit sexism or call it seething contempt for shamelessly pandering to a market-proven success formula at the expense of insignificant things like credibility and integrity, but when I see a band fronted by a curvy female with long, flowing locks of shimmering hair, caked-on jet-black eyeliner and glossy lips, I automatically write the band off as an artistically-bereft piece of shit without hearing a single note. As soon as the four faceless male musicians with tribal tattoos, labret piercings and D.A.R.E. shirts tune up for the first chord of their set, I immediately close off my open mind and go play the coin-operated crane game in the farthest corner of the bar, because I’d rather lose all my money trying to get a Darth Vader wristwatch than be proven right once again – That the vast majority of idiots who control the lion’s share of our country’s disposable income will always overlook a crippling dearth of musical talent if the singer’s like, a total hottie.

ALIENS, TOWN OFFICIALS REACH ACCORD ON ABDUCTION ISSUE

ROSWELL, New Mexico. Floyd Knox is a long-time public servant in this town known for tales of alien encounters, but he's less enthusiastic about extraterrestrial activity than he used to be.

"Last month we had a big planning board meeting to go over a curb cut for a new McDonald's, and we couldn't get a quorum," he says. The problem? "Aliens had abducted three of our board members, including the town manager, and were doing all sorts of weird probes on them."

That meeting had to be cancelled, causing Knox to reschedule the hearing for a week when he had planned to be on vacation in Branson, Missouri. "I know we're supposed to be tolerant of other life forms, but dammit, I'd had enough."

So Knox and a few other local dignitaries asked for a sit-down with alien leaders to see if there wasn't some way they could work together. "We had a reverse 'take-me-to-your-leader' encounter with them," Knox says. "I don't want to stop their legitimate scientific research, but we have all kinds of community things we need to cover," he says.

The solution? Nevada Fish & Game officials are teaching aliens from the NGC 4414 spiral galaxy the same "catch and release" techniques they have used to maintain fish stocks in the state's lakes and ponds. "We are trying to teach aliens that human beings are a limited resource," says Warden Jim Hampy. "If they want to make sure that there are homo sapiens around for their children and grandchildren, they're going to have to become conservationists."

Alien males resisted the program at first, but they have now come to view gathering humans for observation as more of a sport than a job. "When I first heard about it, I was totally illit#xy% says Galactic Commander YX54 9292, lapsing into his native tongue to express himself in more colorful language than this reporter can sneak past his copy editor. "Now we view 'humaning' as a way to get away from our wives on weekends, and an excuse to spend money on goofy-looking gear."

Alien abductions in Nevada have accordingly declined as a result of the program, with few negative repercussions. "For the most part the aliens were taking people away to suck their bone marrow, which they consider a delicacy like shrimp cocktail," says Hampy. "We hooked them up with the State Department of Nutrition, who taught them how to make delicious snacks using Triscuit brand crackers and Kraft Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese."

There is one aspect of the evolution of abductions into a sport comparable to fishing that state officials are not permitted to teach, and that is how to hold one's liquor.

"Most of these guys had never even tasted light beer before," says Knox, as he looks down a row of aliens passed out after sharing a wine cooler. "They were so drunk they tried to eat my night crawlers."

Copyright 2006, Con Chapman

Hollywood is buzzing this morning about Mel Gibson's future.
Dinner theater in Branson? Or Hezbelloh leadership?