m-mmm! Sweet thing, the ratings turned upside down on the Olympic Games from Athens this week, when the IOC voted on new rules allowing contenders to compete nude. It bolstered a flabby start to the Olympics for NBC, and turned the games into a ratings giant as the week went on.

Upon seeing the dry audience response to the Athens games, NBC petitioned the committee for nude competition, anything to pull the crashing Olympics out of the fire. IOC President Jimmy Goldstein approved the decision right away.

"Now it's just like olden times," said Goldstein, straightening his thin tie. "Way back when, the Greeks used to do it nude. Hell, they did everything nude. Which is why I like the Greeks. But now the Olympics is finally the way it was always meant to be. Bare-ass naked."

Some Olympians were quick to reproach the decision, especially the chubby Eastern European weightlifters, but most came around for a shot at winning the much-sought Olympic gold. NBC has continued showing the Games, much to the chargin of the FCC, with the charge that the human body is a beautiful thing. Still, the Games have been shown on a five-minute delay, so that censors can blur or edit out anything that really, really isn't a beautiful thing. The network has already taken the liberty with such events as Olympic wrestling, when hairy German Gustav Werner pinned oily Italian Antonio DiScuza around his sweaty lower body.

"Sure, you get a little bored watching something like archery or sailing," said Pinewood, Minnesota Olympic viewer Sally Nedhurst, "and the shot put made me laugh until I was sick. But if you think I'm going to miss one minute of the swimming or gymnastics, you're out of your mind!"

Indeed the gymnastics, always a highlight of the games, were a ratings powerhouse for NBC. The network received record ratings as American Paul Gilbert executed a beautiful dismount to take the gold, and uneven parallel bars favorite on the Chinese team Hong-Chu Xy eliminated himself with a misfire that resulted in severe testicular damage when he banged the bar unexpectedly. Slow-motion clips of the tragedy were available, but no men at the network could bring themselves to air it.

It hasn't been all gold for the Americans, though, as 100-meter runner Isaac "Chubby" Walker was disqualified for living up to his namesake during the track and field event. It's also been a disappointing year for the American basketball "Dream Team," who seem particularly impressive every time they take the court, but find themselves limited in their dunking ability without the use of protective cups.

Conversely, it was a good year for the Brazilian women's softball team, who came from behind to bounce, bob, and claw their way up to the top ranks in the sport. In addition to winning the gold in the event, they've all also been romantically linked to Colin Farrell following their rise to stardom.

The IOC will benefit from America's favorable response to the nude Olympics as well, since the network has promised in advance to split revenue from a DVD release of the Olympic games, as well as a separate release, tentatively titled: "The Olympics: Too Hot for Primetime."

arents’ groups and otologists alike are up in arms over Nokia’s latest entry into the increasingly cutthroat cell phone market, the Nokia BLADE, an innovative new cell-phone/pocket knife combination that offers users with limited pocket space the best of both gadgets in one sleek package.

“We think the BLADE will be a hit with consumers who are tired of carrying a cell phone and a big, bulky knife everywhere they go,� explained Nokia spokesperson Dalton Hughes. “Or also with people who are sick of having to switch hands to go between talking and cutting tasks.�

“This phone is da bomb!� gushed teen Roger Salmong, bleeding profusely from the ear. “When I’m not hollering with my homies, I can cut shit!�

In spite of a generally positive reaction among consumers, the new phone has raised the ire of parents’ groups who had a hard enough time getting their kids off the phone for family time even before it became a handy cutting implement.

“I thought it was hard to keep Stacey from bringing her cell phone to the dinner table before,� lamented housewife Greta Thomas. “But now she says she needs it to cut her pork chops. What do you say to that?�

Otologists, or “ear doctors� to the unwashed masses, also take issue with the new phone, citing a sharp spike in the rate of ear contusions being reported in hospital emergency rooms since the phone’s release last month.

“It really is a serious problem,� explained a bashful Dr. Dennis Loham, sporting a large white bandage covering his left ear. “You think you’d have to be stupid to forget to retract the phone’s folding blade before trying to take an incoming call, but it really is easy to space out on it. In my office alone, we’ve seen—hold on, I have to take this. Hel—oh sweet fucking Jesus, not again!�

The rise of multipurpose phones in recent years has concerned parents nationwide to varying degrees, having a large impact on concerned parents, yet hardly any at all on alcoholics or other individuals who give less than a shit about their children. For concerned parents, however, the thought of their children carrying a telephone, web browser, video game console, digital camera, personal data organizer and MP3 player around in their pockets has unsettling ramifications. Some even remained concerned after the commune explained that all of these functionalities were packed into a single small cell phone, not a large assortment of bulky devices likely to damage a child’s expensive church slacks. Others needed an explanation of what an MP3 was, or wanted to know if their phone at home could take pictures.

The small handful of parents who understand both the technology and its ramifications share concerns about giving children and teens unsupervised access to the Internet, violent video games, or scary futuristic Herbie Hancock music via their cell phones. Now that a sharp, ridged blade has been added to their list of concerns, many parents are considering drastic measures. The most appealing of these involves sending their children to military school, where they’ll at least learn to handle a knife/phone, and will stop carving “FART� into the banister out in the hallway.

The Nokia BLADE retails for $149 and is available in blood-masking red, surgical silver and camouflage.

I'm learning all kinds of shit you can't even imagine. This is the kind of stuff you don't learn in school, folks. It's screenwriting school.

The last time I talked to you I told you about trying to write a screenplay, right? And how it was going so great, right? Well, turns out I hit some major block after I finished the title page. Just couldn't think of what the script needed to really get rolling, like the characters or what it was going to be about. Fortunately, I saw that Nancy Melville, one of Hollywood's greatest costume designers, was teaching a screenwriting course out here in Los Angeles. That's where I live! It's practically down the street! Out of Nancy's apartment, even. You can bet I jumped at the chance.

I've picked up inside dirt on the movie business that I never would have believed. Did you know it's considered unprofessional to handwrite your scripts? I thought it made mine look classier, but whatever. Gotta play ball, as they say. So I got me a laptop, hopefully my sister won't miss it until I'm done, and now I'm heavy at work on my screenplay.

Nancy gave us all sorts of shortcuts on what to do when you can't think of what you want your movie to be about. One thing a lot of screenwriters do is take an old movie, change the names of the characters, and give it some modern gimmick to make it different from the old film. And if you want, you don't even need the gimmick. Nancy says Hollywood doesn't even really care. Seems like they make all their movies this way, judging by a look at the latest releases. That makes it so much easier to write. I'm good at lying, but fiction is something else entirely.

The movie I decided to remake is Jaws. Nancy said I'm a natural at this business, because I took a movie that was really popular and I'm remaking it. I said I thought it was about time for a new shark movie, because people have been getting cocky lately and I think the sharks are starting to notice. It's just a matter of time before they start really fucking people up, just for laughs. But Nancy suggested I make it something else, since if I make it a shark everybody will know I'm ripping off Jaws. With a good remake, says Nancy, only critics and people of average intelligence will know I'm ripping off Jaws, because I used some subtlety. And that's what I'm going for.

That got me thinking: What's scarier than a shark? If you said two sharks, that's pretty funny. But you're not helping. No, I decided on a bear. Because if you think about it, bears are even worse. They look so cute, like you can go up and play with them. That's nature's way of suckering in people to eat, and Darwin called it natural selection, because he thought that was funny. So that's what I wanted, this cute bear that everyone thinks is so cuddly, but then he swipes with his claws and shit and it's good-night, Irene.

Well, it went through a real fucked-up part where I was totally blocked, trying to come up with what a bear would be doing underwater all the time. Then I just said it was part of a government science experiment and a billionaire corporation is involved. That explains it all. And, of course, I had to give the bear a scuba tank, a mask, and some flippers, because having this bear swim underwater for too long without all that stuff just wouldn't be realistic. But other than that, I can totally "borrow from the outline" in Jaws, as Nancy says, real sly for a complete stealing of that movie. I have a town sheriff in my movie, which I'm thinking will be played by Conan O'Brien, so I'm just calling him "Conan" in the script. Anyway, it's really rolling. I've got maybe five scenes done, including this really cool prologue where the bear fights a dolphin in the secret government lab. Just to set up how much of a bad-ass the bear is. If I keep this up I might even give up acting for screenwriting. It's a lot easier at least.

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