New planet found orbiting Oprah Winfrey

Stunned NASA scientists have found what they believe is the solar system’s 10th planet orbiting chat show queen Oprah Winfrey.

If confirmed, the new planet would become the solar system’s most distant object, but the scientific community has already given it a name - Steakfry.

Astronomers first detected the object’s strange elliptical orbit while carrying out a routine scan of the stars with the Spitzer Space Telescope. The discovery sparked a frenzy of activity among the space research community, and this later turned to disbelief when it became clear that the planet was glued to its orbit by the gravitational pull of Oprah Winfrey.

Winfrey’s ongoing battle of the bulge has captivated her millions of ardent fans and has served as an inspiration to millions of dieters. But sources close to the chunky chat show diva revealed how a recent vacation to the Bahamas led to a series of high-fat indulgences. Although Winfrey privately confessed that she’d put on a few pounds, she was staggered to learn that her recent weight gain was enough to attract an 8 billion square mile circular mass of rock and ice.

Dr. Jens Lehman, who made the discovery, said: “Astronomers spend their whole careers dreaming about finding a new planet. But to find one orbiting one of the most successful women in entertainment history, is just beyond my wildest dreams. All I need now is to find Ricki Lake’s black hole and I can retire, knowing that my work is done.

“When I first saw the object, I noticed it was circling in an unusual, almost erratic pattern. Then, after further research, I realized that every time Oprah Winfrey moved around, the location of Steakfry changed. The further she moved, the more radical the change.”

Lehman’s delight grew to concern when Winfrey jetted off for a book tour of France.

He said: “When she decided to fly to France, she almost sparked a cataclysmic disaster in our solar system because this new planet was thrown so far off orbit. From a scientific point of view, I’d like to contain her to her bedroom so that she can’t spark an unwitting Armageddon.”

Physicists have been speculating about how the “Winfrey Effect” could impact the universe, and the news isn’t all good. Some believe that should Winfrey allow her weight to balloon out of control, her gravitational pull could grow and she may attract a larger planet such as Jupiter. The impact of an event on this scale could spell disaster for earth.

Andrew Eggert, Professor of Physics at Buffalo University, said: “We should forget about the campaign to end obesity amongst our kids…..instead we should be more concerned with Oprah’s eating habits. I would urge all her fans to write in to her talk show and encourage her to keep on the fruit and vegetables, because if she lets herself go we’re all doomed.

“Having one planet orbiting the human waist is not such a big deal, but if we’re not careful she could become a serious celestial player. Just stop and think for a moment what would happen if she gained 50lbs and started to attract Saturn or Jupiter. This could misalign all the planets and would almost certainly spell the end of life on earth.”

In the worst case scenario, scientists fear that Winfrey could grow powerful enough to attract the sun. But the consensus is that this is an extreme scenario, and would depend on an increase in weight of approximately 100lbs.

Last night Winfrey’s friends rallied around her and offered a dramatic show of support. Dr. Phil agreed to co-host a special edition of her chat show titled: “Is that a moon orbiting my daughter, or just her double chin?” and said he would have a series of one-on-one sessions with Oprah to discuss this unprecedented crisis.

Nuclear Powered Blog

As someone who works in the Internet industry, I'm often asked to prove how popular new technologies are in order to separate hype from reality. From podcasts to video on cell phones, there are endless research papers out there that tell us in the most deathly-dull ways possible what kind of penetration certain technologies enjoy.

But now I realize that this is all pointless. From now on, I have a new indicator that tells me whether a technology has "made it" or not. So without further ado, please allow me to introduce the President of Iran, Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

This week, Mr. Ahmadinejad launched his own blog. His first posting dealt with several light-hearted subjects, including Iran's Islamic Revolution and the country's war with Iraq. Future postings will no doubt include hilarious anecdotes such as how to sell missiles on the black market, and how to build your own nuclear reactor at home.

But as an Internet professional, this is good news for me. Because if anybody asks me if Blogs are now a "mature" technology, or are part of the "online mainstream", I don't need to spend seven hours arseing around to find statistics to prove this point. Instead, my reply can be "The President of Iran has got one. End of story."

Now i'm not a PR expert by any means, but surely this is something that promotions experts should be exploiting. If you want to prove that your product has "made it", don't dick around sending free samples to Paris Hilton or asking Lyndsay Lohan to promote it, send it over to our man Mahmoud. Because if he's seen out in public with a day-glo chameleon skin iPod case, or a high-octane carbonated energy drink, people are going to sit up and think "Well if the President of Iran's got it, it MUST be popular."

In fact people would start to be feel inadequate. Imagine finding out that the President of Iran has got something that you don't. You'd feel compelled to go and buy whatever product he's sporting, just to keep up. That's part of the reason why I started this blog - I mean, how can i sit here and idly do nothing while the Presdient of one of the most oppressive regimes in the world is fooling around with Blogger?

So that's my plan for the rest of the week. I'm going to write to the North Korean Embbassy to try and persuade Kim Jong Il to launch a video podcast, and then approach Libya's Colonel Gadaffi to open a Myspace account. If that happens, the online research industry will be finished and I can spend all of my time writing this nonsesne rather than reading the nonsense contained in endless industry reports and papers.

Senior citizen realizes good old days weren't actually that good

Move Along Please EXCLUSIVE

An elderly woman from Des Moines has finally let go of a 50 year delusion by admitting that the good old days weren't really as good as she thought.

For the last half century Doris Gribble, 92, has consistently told friends and family that life "isn't like it used to be". The outspoken old-timer insisted that from crime rates to public transport, life was better in every conceivable area more than fifty years ago, when compared to life today.

But it wasn't until Doris suffered a massive heart attack just three weeks ago, that her Alzheimer's-ridden logic was finally proved to be nothing more than a crock of delusional horse shit.

Speaking from her luxurious, centrally heated hospital room, a frail Doris said: "Ooooo, the people are so nice here. This nice young Indian doctor told me that he'd had to bypass something in my heart. Apparently he was able to make a hole the size of a dime in my chest, and then fix the problem. He told me that if this had happened 15 years ago I wouldn't have stood a chance of surviving and that death would have been a certainty. And that's when I started to think."

After the ravages of the general anesthetic slowly started to wear off, the frail-hearted senior spent some time reflecting on days gone by. And as she carefully followed the dancing bright lights of the EKG machine that was helping keep her alive, she was hit with an astounding revelation that the past was pretty crappy.

"Suddenly I realized that life today is actually rather wonderful, and the good old days were horrific. The last time I was in hospital was in 1948, when I needed to have my tonsils removed. The doctor I had was a drunken pervert called Igor, and his idea of anesthetic was to give me three double brandies. The whole visit was simply awful and after I left the hospital, I got an infection, which they attempted to cure by injecting my throat with steroids. That just made things worse, and as a result my whole upper torso was paralyzed for over a year and I had to breathe through a balsa wood pea shooter."

As Doris embarked on a nightmarish journey down memory lane, she was forced to confront a number of sickening realities including:

- Narrowly dodging death from influenza in 1918 due to the lack of available antibiotics
- Having her house destroyed by a stray German bomb in 1943, and having to live on the streets for a six month period. With no home and job, she became addicted to drugs and was forced to turn to prostitution.
- Being mugged nine times in one year during the 1960s, and having her life savings stolen by a smooth talking conman in 1972

Doris continued: "I'd always thought the past was so great and that modern life was terrible. But the harsh reality is that for the first thirty years of my life I was either in poverty, a victim of crime, or trapped in an abusive marriage. It wasn't until the early 1990s that things really started to improve. Now I'm sitting here in this glamorous hospital room and I couldn't be happier. Thank God that I've finally been able to remove my senile rose-tinted glasses and understand that the past was actually a living hell."

Get Obliterated To Avoid Getting Obliterated

If anybody plans to fly in the near future, don't bother. Instead, save the effort by doing the following:

1. Withdraw 700 dollars from the bank and run it through a paper shredder

2. Gather all your best clothes, pack them in a case, throw the case down a well and resign yourself to the fact that you'll never see them again.

3. Stand in a room with no obvious exits for 7 hours, with only the faint aroma of partially-cooked hot dogs for company.

4. Ask a random stranger to insert his/her hand into each one of your body cavities (this one isn't for the faint hearted)

Air travel is becoming more complicated than space flight. The reason is that we're being brainwashed into believing that life should be free of risk. Notions like that are destroying the fabric of this country. Actually, they're not - I just felt like being overly dramatic.

Stepping out of our front door elevates the risk we face by ten million per cent. We're always hearing about how the world is under threat from the Neo-Cons, but as danerous as THEY are, I think we should be more concerned about the Hypo-Cons - i.e. Hypochondriacs. These people who fear illness and death also fear risk. So, in essence, they fear life itself. Try living in Beirut for three days....then you'll know what REAL fear really is.

But there is one upside to the airport chaos. The ban on liquids gives rise to a potentially exciting new drinking game. I'm thinking of patenting this, but i'm too stupid to figure out how - so here are the rules:

1. Each player calls at the duty free shop upon arrival at the airport and buys a pre-defined quantity of lethally strong liquor

2. Each player joins the security line.

3. Since all liquids are now banned, the surly security guard will inevitably challenge each player to either discard of the liquor, or drink it before boarding.

4. Each player then downs as much liquor as possible in as much time as it takes to piss off the 87 mile line of people behind them.

It's really a great game, because people will be getting obliterated to help prevent the rest of the plane from getting obliterated.

Now that's what I call having a social conscience.

The Art Of Writing

Somebody once told me I should write a book.

That same person also thought Murder She Wrote was a real-life fly-on-the-wall documentary and believed that Elton John was a "rocker".

I actually thought that Murder She Wrote would make a great reality show. All we need to do is find some ageing crime author, dip her head in a trough-like bath of auburn perma-color, and then hook her up with a couple of detectives. If you think about it, the police don't have a great track record of catching criminals so why not let novelists have a crack at solving the case?

If i was planning to commit a crime, i'd quite enjoy being interrogated by Stephen King or John Grisham. "Yes Mr. King, I was told to steal the 40 year old bottle of single malt from Ali's Discount Liquor Mart by a half-human half spider demonic creature that was dressed as a clown. And he growled at me from under the drain."

Let's pause for a second. Police forces have been known to let THIS WOMAN loose on murder investigations. What makes law enforcement think that psychics are any more qualified to catch killers than people who spend their entire lives researching criminals for the novels they write. Ahh, i'm not going to dwell on this one. Humans love to put faith before facts. I'll return to this subject when I actually discover that I have something interesting to say on it, which may be a long time coming.

And don't get me started on Elton John. He should be banned from entering civilized life just on the basis that he subjected the world to candle in the wind for endless painful months after Diana's death. Forget the royal family, I was in mourning for the producers of the music compilations that were obliged to include that track based on its temple-squeezing popularity.
"Hey Kids, come and buy Now That's What I Call Music 78. The first track is a dreary piano ballad about some dead princess that a bloke with a hair weave wrote. Excellent!"


But enough of that. This person that told me I should write a book had only the very best of intentions at heart. The suggestion was based on my apparent writing skills, and i was flattered by the praise. But I quickly realized that i'm never going to write a book because i'm lazier than a mating panda. So this is the next best thing. I can kid myself that I'm doing something creative, then i can kid myself further that people are actually going to be interested in what i'm writing, and then when I see the endless stream of 0 comments under each posting I can convince myself that it's only a matter of time before my blog explodes into the public consciousness.

Some call it vanity publishing. Vanity publishing?? To me it's like The Elephant Man sending his picture into America's Top Model. We do stuff because we can, not because we should. That's the price we pay for freedom, being subjected to other people's mediocre output simply because we've given them the freedom, and the means to express themselves.

Don't miss tomorrow, where I recount a vaguely un-interesting tale of a how a close friend of mine did something not that exciting. And there's a cat involved. I can sense you all moistening as i type.