ASA scientists were stunned and slightly nauseous this week to find the face of US Senator Ted Kennedy unexpectedly present in the most recent feeds from their Spirit rover, one of NASA’s two remote-controlled toys currently canvassing the Martian surface. Once they’d recovered from the pain and confusion of seeing the senator’s visage cruelly larger-than-life on the big screen, however, speculation erupted among engineers as to what this means about the red planet’s mysterious history.

“This is huge,� explained mission commander Emeril Welch. “Bigger than Ted Kennedy even, if you can imagine that. This is incontrovertible evidence of life on Mars, and booze.�

Once only a controversial theory, this latest evidence all but proves that Mars once contained enough booze and loose women to support the Massachusetts senator. The news is sweet vindication for the few fringe scientists who have argued for years that the red planet once played host to representative democracy, and floozies.

“Ted Kennedy might have been able to get by on Mars without water, but no way is this a dry planet in the alcohol sense,� stated Welch. “We think it’s only a matter of time before one of the rovers uncovers evidence of shot glasses and used condoms.�

The discovery is a boon for scientists of all stripes, who had previously been embarrassingly excited about finding trace evidence of long-gone water inside rocks on the Martian surface. This latest finding confirms that Mars once contained not only various forms of water and club soda, but also a virtual minibar of alcoholic concoctions.

Preliminary drilling in Kennedy’s face has uncovered evidence of whiskey, vodka and scotch, with various crags in the face showing evidence of large quantities of rum once existing on the Martian surface. Such discoveries represent a quantum leap for NASA scientists, who have gone from scouring the Martian surface for faint evidence of microbes to speculating about the Martian bar scene in mere days.

How Kennedy got to Mars, or perhaps came to Earth from Mars, is another question entirely, and one scientists will explore after they’ve answered the burning question of whether or not a Martian could get drunk off the dust from Kennedy’s face. Conspiracy theories have already surfaced suggesting some kind of drunken shuttle mishap, covered up jointly by NASA and the Massachusetts senator. These theories have put a new spin on the original controversial “face� on Mars, first spotted by the Viking Orbiter 1 in 1976 and now thought to possibly be the visage of Kennedy’s female shuttle companion, presumably killed in the crash and later denied by the Kennedy family and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

These latest discoveries have put on hold cash-strapped NASA’s plans to charge $5 a minute for web surfers to drive the Mars rover from their home computers, using keyboard commands or supported peripheral joysticks. This would seemingly put an end to heated online debate over whether the rover would accept quarters or would require special tokens. Early indications are that the online community is “pretty bummed� at the prospect of missing out on killer games of “Tank Battle� between the rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

n a setback for complete bitches everywhere, Martha Stewart was convicted of four criminal charges by a jury of twelve of her peers, only much poorer. A deleted phone message and testimony from a "friend" of Stewart put the nails in her defense's coffin and doomed the austere homemaker and queen bitch to almost certain prison time.

With no television cameras in the courtroom, the prosecution spent less time on their hair and suits and focused on building a concrete case against Stewart, who was found guilty for trading her shares of ImClone based on an improper stock tip and attempting to cover up evidence of the illegal action. Stewart's defense claimed the ImClone stock was sold because Stewart had meant to buy stock in the Raelian company that made the clone baby, but got the name wrong. The defense claimed Stewart believed ImClone, a pharmaceutical company working on a cure for cancer, was "sure as shit not going to show profit."

Though Stewart has yet to be sentenced, with the severity of the crime, a term in a minimum-security prison is most likely. Stock in her own company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, dropped 25% in value when her conviction was made public. Stewart didn't do anything to help her sentencing hearing when she dumped all shares shortly before the announcement.

Stewart met the court proceedings with confidence, even showing up the first day of the trial with a $12,000 handbag in tow, prompting members of the jury to murmur, "Jesus, you believe this bitch?" As she was found guilty on all counts, courtroom witnesses described Stewart as "surprised, with an underlying current of bitchy just below the surface."

Since the end of the trial Stewart has professed her innocence and vowed to appeal the case until she is exonerated. She didn't stand on the steps of the courthouse frantically smacking her lawyers about the face and pushing them down the steps, hair frazzled and face manic like a comic Cruella DeVille, but wouldn't it have been great if she had?

Judge Miriam Cederbaum instructed the jury Stewart was subject to guilty or not guilty findings based only on the evidence, and not on the obscure "what a bitch" clause the prosecution proposed, which was originally founded to justify temporary insanity in spousal murder cases. The jury deliberated seven hours before returning, and according to juror Shelby Thucker, they were very conscious of the media attention their verdict would be given.

"We were all extra careful to argue both sides of the case, to make sure our decision wasn't based on anything but evidence," said Thucker, via phone interview. "The men in the jury were quick to call her a bitch, while most of the women found her to be a very successful self-made woman. Finally, we came to the conclusion we were both right. I know lots of people consider powerful women to be bitches, and that's not fair. But Martha Stewart… don't you get the feeling she could be penniless and still be the world's biggest, poorest bitch?"

Clearly, Stewart could be idolized by young upwardly-mobile women everywhere for her shrew business sense and formidable demeanor. For those who find bitchiness a virtue, she was a true beacon in the business world. Even her ethical behavior in making more money and protecting her interests can be respected by aspiring self-made women. However, she got caught, which should be enough to lose all of our respect.

Stewart would not return calls placed to her attorneys by the commune—the bitch.

T'was the night before Christmas, and all through Bricks Manor, not a creature was sleeping, because my neighbor's house was all the fuck on fire. I shit you not, communauts, this was one bizarre-smelling Christmas. I barely saved the fireworks I keep buried in my lawn, and Foghat took a big black Christmas shit after gorging himself on some kind of half-melted attic insulation. This Christmas wasn't lacking Santa, just sanity.

As the most plausible recorded version of that night's events goes, Omar Bricks had just settled down for a long winter's nap with his trusty basset hound Foghat at the foot of the bed, watching for gremlins, when from out by the lawn there arose such a clatter, I jumped up and screamed "What the fuck??" like a pissed-off ninja. Away to the window I flew like The Flash, not as fast but just as naked. Or was that The Streak? One of those guys. And anyway, yeah, the new house they'd just finished building on Dale's old lot was way the hell on fire.

For a second, brave thoughts of dashing in heroically and getting all my shit out of there whizzed through my brain, like a half-remembered action movie. Then I realized the flames were like forty feet high and that camping gear was borrowed anyway. Sure, I'd left some boxes of crackers and shit in there too, but they were probably all brown on one side due to the raging inferno that was lighting up the neighborhood like the Griswalds' Christmas decorations. And in all likelihood, eventually I would get more crackers.

So instead, Foghat and I broke out the lawn chairs and took in the show while those fire department nuts went all Texas Chainsaw Massacre on the roof and shot us dirty looks for not sharing our toasted marshmallows. I think we had the entire fire department for three counties out there by the end of it, those guys get on their walkie-talkies and word gets out like it's a high school kegger. Most of them were just standing on the front lawn, trying to piss out the fire with recycled lite beer, so in all likelihood those guys actually had come from a high school kegger. But just the same, some of those guys were handy with a disposable camera, meaning Foghat and I did get some killer keepsake shots posing in front of the inferno plus some action shots of us dragging drunk-assed firemen away from the blaze like we were David Bowie-sized heroes.

So all in all, it was a good time and not a bad way to spend your Christmas Eve. That is, until the next morning, when I start getting calls from some crackpot arson inspector because the wiseass finally found my missing camping stove in the smoking wreckage. What a dickhead. Like I'm going to burn down an entire house just so I can collect the insurance settlement on a shitty Coleman propane stove. That dude must've got his arson license out of a box of Honey Smacks.

Tragic as my losses in the inferno may have been, I did have the satisfaction of being proved right in the public arena. That'll teach Martha Stewart to try and tell me you can't slow cook s'mores by setting a crock pot on fire. Once those arson vultures had dug out what was left of my crock and we cracked it open like a dinosaur egg, Foghat and I chowed down on the best s'mores this side of Valhalla. Shank that, Dragon Lady.

And truth be told, I had been a little sad after they finished building that house so fast, taking away my personal playground and cash cow, or as I came to call it, The Money Pit. No more guided tours or selling rolls of fiberglass insulation to tourists as souvenirs, no more crashing through unfinished walls like the Kool-Aid guy to the glee of neighborhood kids, and no more re-living the nail gun scene from Lethal Weapon with Foghat at two in the morning. Talk about your cold shower letdowns.

But now, by the grace of God, or at least the God of crock-pot fires anyway, I'll get to live it all again like some kind of glorious re-run. 2005 already looks like it's going to be an Omar Bricks kind of year. And regardless of what those contractors have been saying, I give them lousy odds at keeping the mysteriously destructive "neighborhood vigilante" out of the construction site this second time around. The trick is that you don't have to break into a house if you can fool the construction guys into building it around you after you're already inside.

Bricks out.

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