LUDIC LOG

COPYWRITER RUNNING OUT OF ADJECTIVES

NEW YORK, NY -- Bill Carlson, a copywriter for the Madison Avenue advertising firm of Shelton, Leigh & Palmer, is beginning to run low on adjectives for the Ore-Ida campaign to which he has been assigned. "I've used golden, crispy, delicious, tantalizing, buttery, flaky, delightful, and perfect," Carlson confesses. "When there was a line expansion to the product, I used golden-brown, crunchy, fantastic, taste-tempting, flavorful, tender, and juicy, even though I don't think they're actually juicy. With the deadline approaching, I think I even used outstanding twice, but no one noticed." A new revision to the copy is due, and Carlson has resorted to the thesaurus and come up with gilt-edged, meritorious, propitious, ambrosial and thuriferous. "I don't know what they want from me," admits a frustrated Carlson. "It's just a bunch of goddamn potatoes."

WOMAN EXCHANGES INSUFFICIENTLY ALARMIST MEDICAL GUIDEBOOK

EDINA, MN -- Annoyed by the calm, level-headed tone of her recently-purchased copy of Everyday Health for Every Family, Edina homemaker Charlene Filibert returned it to her local Barnes & Noble in hopes of exchanging it for something more alarmist. "That book doesn't know what it's talking about," said Filibert, indignantly referring to Everyday Health. "It said that this rash on my wrist was probably an allergic reaction to fabric, and didn't say anything at all about terrorist biochemical attacks. And how do they know that (three-year-old daughter) Dierdre's cough is 'probably nothing to worry about'? I'm not going to just 'wait it out' to see if it's throat cancer." Mrs. Filibert hopes to find a book that is more in line with her hysterical hypochondria, or, failing that, to consult the internet. "I don't pay $125 a week for vitamins to have some book tell me that a normal mixed diet provides all the nutrients I need," she added.

HIGH STANDARDS MAINTAINED FOR IMAGINARY READERSHIP

MESA, AZ -- Todd Jones, proprietory of the web log toddsterrarium.com, maintains high artistic standards for his personal website, despite the fact that its audience is largely non-existent. "I have to bring a certain level of quality to Todd's Terrarium," says Jones, who has been operating the site since August of 2003. "Whether it's links, or funny graphics I found on other sites, or just stories about my day-to-day life, I have to keep it real and make it interesting, because my regular readers have high expectations." In fact, the referral log on his site reveals and average of less than thirteen hits a day, the majority of which are people searching for information on actual terrariums, or looking for statistics on a Major League Baseball pitcher also named Todd Jones. The remaider of the hits are from Jones himself. "I can't let my readers down," says Jones of his purely theoretical fans.

RUMSFELD NOW JUST THREATENING COUNTRIES AT RANDOM

WASHINGTON, DC -- Defense Department insiders suspect that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is naming possible future locations of American military intervention more or less at random. "Okay, Afghanistan and Iraq were obvious," said a source who declined to be named. "And Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, those places are trouble. North Korea and the Phillipines don't really fit the mold, but you could definitely make an argument for possible intervention there. Even Panama and Colombia, U guess, with the drug trade and all. But last week at one of the executive planning meetings, he was talking about sending advisors to Sweden. We all thought he was joking, but he had a whole Power-Point presentation." At a recent press conference, Rumsfeld briefly discussed the feasibility of containment in Micronesia, and spoke of using U.S. military power to protect American interests in Thailand. "Oh, yeah, Thailand, that's a big one these days," said another unnamed source. "That and Monaco, which I know he just pulled out of his ass."