Fred Leo

AUDIO: Sound design count in:

OPEN: QUAD SCREEN WITH DIGITAL CLOCK
BOX 1: A cookbook partially obscured by a dishrag
BOX 2: Cooking oil in a Dutch oven
BOX 3: A bag of shrimp, quick zoom on sell by date
BOX 4: A beautiful WOMAN, dressed for a date, driving
INT. JACK’S KITCHEN — EVENING
JACK frantically searches for something in the midst of desperate meal preparation. Ingredients are on the counters, cabinet doors open.
JACK: DAMMIT!
CU: Five-second contractual hold on Cisco Networks Recipe Database and video phone. Jack dials, he hears the phone chirping, but no one picks up. He looks at his watch.
JACK: Pick up!
CU: JACK’S DAUGHTER KIM appears on the video phone.
KIM: Dad?
JACK: Thank, God. You’re there.
KIM: What’s wrong? Am I in trouble? I told you not to call unless someone’s trying to assassinate me.
JACK: No, no, honey. You’re fine, but I need your help. I’m cooking.
KIM: Cooking? Do you have a date?
JACK: No, yes. I’ll explain later! Right now I need your help. It’s the gumbo.
KIM: Oh, Dad, not shrimp gumbo. That shrimp’s past the sell by date!
JACK: There’s still time! But I can’t find the Joy of Cooking! I need you to talk me through it.
KIM: Have you looked in your cloaking satchel?
JACK: It’s gone dark. I can’t find it.
KIM: Try to think of the last time you saw it. Did you bring it with you when you shot that East European bioterrorist in the knees?
JACK: No, no. I saw it somewhere, but, but there’s no time, Kim. I need gumbo, and I need it now! She’s on her way!
KIM: Okay, okay! (a beat) Chicken and shrimp gumbo-laya or…
JACK: Dammit! Not gumbo-laya, shrimp and vegetable gumbo!
KIM: All right! Now listen to me. Heat a Dutch oven with two tablespoons of oil, then sautee a cup each of chopped onions and bell peppers, half a cup of chopped celery and a clove of garlic.
JACK: Copy that.
(PHONE CHIRPS)
JACK: Standby, Kim.
KIM: Copy that.
CUT TO WOMAN, INT. CAR, ON PHONE:
OS: Bauer.
WOMAN: Jack? Hey, I might be there a little early. I hope you don’t think I’m too anxious.
JACK: No, no. I’m looking forward to a nice quiet evening.
WOMAN: Good. You need to unwind. No shop talk. No interrogations, no disarming weapons of mass destruction, okay?
JACK: I promise.
WOMAN: Okay, I’m at the corner of Sepulveda and Bob Saget Boulevard, so I should be there soon.
JACK looks at his watch, then the Dutch Oven. He punches the CISCO SYSTEM to a local map tracking her vehicle.
JACK: Hey, as long as you’re early, why don’t you pick up a bottle of wine. There’s a package store a few blocks south. That would put you here between 19-47 and 19-53 hours.
WOMAN: What? I already have wine. I think ahead.
JACK: DAMMIT!
WOMAN: Jack, is something wrong?
JACK: Sorry I said, Saget.. Just some bad memories.
WOMAN: Well, we’ll make some new memories soon enough. See you in a little bit.
JACK: Okay.
JACK punches KIM back in.
KIM: I heard that. Dad, we have to move fast. Have you deveined?
JACK: There’s no time. She’s almost here!
KIM: You have to devein! If you don’t, it’s not gumbo!
Jack pulls out his knife and stares down the expiring shrimp. He wipes the blade with the dishrag, revealing the Joy of Cooking.
AUDIO: Sound design count out.
QUAD SCREEN WITH DIGITAL CLOCK.
BOX 1: WOMAN drives past a package store. Bob Saget stands on a corner watching menacingly as she passes by.
BOX 2: Dutch oven
BOX 3: A bag of shrimp, wilting on the counter
BOX 4: Cloaking satchel in invisible mode

Once, selling yourself was a monopoly for hookers and politicians, but today, with the democratization of whoring, everyone’s a brand. Here’s how to start acting like one:
Line extension — The key here is not be all things to all people, but to take up shelf space. By nurturing the multiple personalities within, it’s entirely possible to seize ubiquity in any niche you like, and even invent some of your own. One of my unique-selling-myself propositions, for instance, is that I am able to pull particles of my subconscious from my untrimmed sideburn hair. By mentioning this skill I am able to end unfruitful conversations in an instant, a “superpower” many prospective employers are likely to crave.
Your body, your out-of-home media — Your physical being is nothing but a vessel. No, not for your “soul,” but for your media. What do your clothes say about you? Your handshake? Your car? Who cares? Such cues are far too subtle. Consider having a snipe or starburst tattooed on your forehead. Make sure it “pops.”
Be new and improved — The best way to be a better you is to be more positive. Just say “yes.” If a coworker asks, “Is my ass too big in these pants?” answer “Oh, yes, gigantic. It could be annexed by local government.”
Friends are your target — and your audience, your brand ambassadors, your street advocates. It’s important to manage every touch point. Invite them to join your loyalty program and reward them with bonus doses of you. Follow up all friend-engagement incidents with a personal request to have them fill out a survey asking “How am I doing as your friend?”
Sponsor an event — It doesn’t matter what — Left Turns Only Day, Value-Menu Appreciation Day, The Dust Bunny Rodeo. The key is to have your brand all over the event. People love commercialization!

Once you adjust how you think of yourself in marketing terms, you’re sure to come up with other new and exciting strategies. And that’s how you build a brand new brand you!™ (Note: I would like to reassure readers that there was a poll here, and it actually had responses before one of my many blog adventures erased them.

Journalistic cross-pollination seemed like a promising and noble idea, but after three weeks, the staffs of Better Homes and Gardens and Cosmopolitan magazines are backing away from the exchange experiment that brought nothing but rancor and confusion to both publications.

Despite sensational headlines such as ” Sexy, sexy Linoleum!” and “How to make him beg for more — pie!” staff members from such divergent magazine cultures were unable to coexist and realize the publishers’ grand vision to “bridge the gap between wild and domestic.”

Ultimately the respective readerships lost focus, which is evident from the shifting tones of the advice columns. From Cosmo’s “Ask the Sexy Slut” advice column:

Q: Dear Slut — My boyfriends are coming home on leave, but they’ve found out about another battalion I’m dating. I really don’t want to give up either. How can I keep them from assaulting each other?

A: Invite both battalions over and explain it doesn’t have to be either/or. Most military men prefer not to engage in deadly force with members of the same service branch, so you’re in control. First, bake the home battalion an Apple Brown Betty. You will need:

• 800 eggs
• 1400 Golden Bozo Delicious apples
• 1/2 ton of brown sugar
• 400 pounds of Crisco
• an industrial oven

(See our article “Coupon Madness!” for tips on smart grocery shopping) After serving the first battalion their Apple Brown Betty, taking care while doing so to lean over and flash your Great Divide, go have dirty sexy sex with the returning battalion. Alternate battalions each night. As always, before deployment hand-knit each soldier a colorful grenade snuggle.

The Better Homes and Gardens advice column also confused the core readership with pieces like:

Q: I don’t have the money to hire a decorator, and I have no sense of color coordination. What are some fundamentals for the clueless?

A: You’re in luck here. Just remember this simple rule: Nothing clashes with handcuffs and lingerie, and if your lover claimed it did, and he is male, he’s gay. Your biggest challenge will be in your collection of sex toys, which probably represents most colors available in the web-safe HTML palette. Here your decorating solution is only two words: throw pillows. You will want throw pillows in every room where you have sex, which should include that attic and crawl space. Also, the back yard. Carry a coordinating throw pillow with you for dangerous sexy sex in a taxi, elevator or airport rest room!

Tensions also flared in the office.

“I brought in my invention, an anti-static dust ruffle, to share with the girls,” said Better Homes and Gardens veteran staffer Marge Tutsile. “When I went to the break room to snack on my homemade, low-fat yogurt ball trail mix with its cavalcade of taste sensations, some Cosmo bitch made garter belts of my dust ruffle! So I stole her little black dress and made a silverware ties from it.”

Even the ensuing catfight between the two staffs was unsatisfying, said security watchman Darellus Jackson, who watched the event on closed-circuit television. “Some cute baskets were overturned, some iPods thrown, but, damned, the Homes and Gardens bitches outweighed the Cosmo girls two-to-one. It was over real quick. And let me just say, when women in make-up cry, nobody wins.”

Yesterday a stealth drone intercepted a bits of data from an Al Qaeda summit, apparently of Osama and his PR and research staff.

TEAM LEADER: Sheik, please make yourself comfortable. Can I get you a fresh dialysis stent, praise be upon it?

OSAMA: Praise be upon a stent?
(a beat)

TEAM LEADER: Oh, dear. That was all wrong, wasn’t it? Shall I behead myself?

OSAMA: (chuckling) Please, please. Of course not! Do you think I’m some kind of monster? I’ll have a toady behead you after the presentation.

TOADY: (excitedly) That is so wild! I had a dream just last night that I was asked to behead an infidel in our midst! It must be a sign of Allah’s will, peace be upon him.

(Osama smiles beatifically, and gestures to the Team Leader to continue.)

TEAM LEADER: Great, I’ll be brief then. The virgins get pouty when you make them wait (chuckles.) Now, as you know, we leaked a number of horrifying news nuggets last week. There was the news of our evil plan to destroy the economy with a cyber attack on the Great Satan’s financial institutions.

OSAMA: Yes, I bet that had them peeing into their Florsheim’s.

TEAM LEADER: Meanwhile we continued the usual bombings in Baghdad and uplinked video to Al Jazeera.

OSAMA: How’s that thing about getting Al Jazeera into the Great Satan’s cable system coming?

TEAM LEADER: We’ll get to that in a minute.

OSAMA: Sorry, sorry, go on.

TEAM LEADER: Meanwhile our cranky Imams continued their assault on profiling, making America feel guilty for not celebrating diversity.

OSAMA: Fantastic. Fine soldiers of Allah, those Imams. If Al Jaz were crankin’ in the U.S., we’d have a two-hour special on that every day.

TEAM LEADER: Yes, the dogs would feel so guilty they’d probably send our Imams a Christmas ham in apology. (Osama laughs, then winces. The Toady rushes to comfort him.) Sorry. Continuing then, we now have a U.S. representative insisting he be sworn in on the Koran.

OSAMA: Fan-freakin-tastic!

TOADY: Could we rig up another of those desecrated used Koran incidents? That would really give it some legs.

OSAMA: I just love that, really.

TOADY: Thank you, Sheik. I’m always trying to think outside the cave.

OSAMA: This all sounds excellent, Allah is great!

TEAM LEADER: Now, the Al Jazeera thing. You would think America would jump at the chance to combine its love for violence with reality TV. I mean, all the research points there. But, I’m beginning to think otherwise. Not only is Al Jaz getting no U.S. traction, but Americans seem to have shrugged off all elements of our recent PR push in favor of a more compelling story.

OSAMA: More compelling than the destruction of their economy? Unpredictable random violence, the rattling of Judeo-Christian values? What trumps that?

TEAM LEADER: Britney Spears not wearing underwear, Sheik. Please review my graphic of Technorati searches.

(a long beat)

(SFX: a distant goat, some ululating)

OSAMA: I don’t know how to attack that problem.

TOADY: We could have Zawahiri do his next video without any underwear.

TEAM LEADER: Well, that would be an attention-getter, especially if he shaved his goods, but I feel it would distract from the automatic weapon we always lean against the wall at the shoots.

OSAMA: True, we have a lot of equity in the weapon. It’s not a brand standard for nothing.

TEAM LEADER: Want me to set that up?

OSAMA: Yes, we’ll postpone your beheading until the next sweeps. In the meantime, see if you can dig up some Polonius.

TEAM LEADER: You mean polonium?

OSAMA: Goddamn my Western education!

TOADY: Yes, goddamn your Western education, Sheik!

OSAMA: Behead the toady.
(SFX: distant goat)

Rank and file terrorists are threatening to strike unless their demands for improved working conditions are met, rancorous, though nervous terrorist union members said.

“We were promised 72 black eyed virgins,” complained a terrorist Akbar Wilson, who cannot recall his actual name. “Yes, they are virgins, but one look at them explains why. Surely this is not heaven.”

In a statement released though the Al Jazeera network, terrorist spokesperson Ahkmed Mazri defended the bag-ugly virgin policy, noting that the unattractiveness guarantees the virgins will remain as such for all eternity. “This way we don’t have to constantly restock the afterlife with attractive virgins,” he claimed.

Currently both sides are intransigent. If terrorist management refuses to upgrade the afterlife virgins, fanatics such as Wilson threaten to reduce the scale of their terrorist targets. “Instead of mass destruction and disruption, we will embarrass the jihad with halfhearted attacks on household appliances and perhaps the occasional toll plaza,” said Wilson.”This could all be avoided if management would come to the bargaining table.”

That is unlikely. Says Mazri. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists. Period.”

The terrorist workforce is also demanding streamlined martyrdom procedures and more employee friendly working conditions. Though terrorists are instructed to strap bombs to themselves and explode amidst infidels, the terrorist employee manual maintains that martyrdom is achieved even if an infidel is not injured.

“We’d be happier terrorists if we could just stay home and blow ourselves up. The commutes on these suicide missions are deadly.” said disgruntled terrorist Mohamed Osso Guizant. “People work from home all the time these days. Come on, this is the fifteenth century, isn’t it?

Added Wilson hastily, “But all this is moot without better virgins. That’s the key issue. With better virgins we could bend on the other stuff.”

When asked of the controversy, the bag-ugly virgins merely smiled coyly and resumed shaving.
(This is satire)

Dear Hack Suit:

I am an account supervisor who has eaten at all the best restaurants in town. But behind my back, the creatives are always calling me a bag carrier. I am insulted by this talk and wonder, should I buy a new bag or just stop carrying one altogether?

Well-Suited

Dear Well-Suited:

Please, step into my office. That’s close enough. Actually this isn’t technically “my office” yet. It belonged to the Manager of Account Services until yesterday, when he defenestrated himself in a fatal fashion, as I’ve told investigators repeatedly under unusually bright lights. It’s a tragedy, really; we’ve lost a source of vision and clarity, and it won’t be easy for our organization to replace such a unique and important window. Yet even in these darkest of days, we can take solace in the fact that his landing destroyed only his own car.

You are concerned that creatives call you a “bag carrier,” and let me say that I am, too — deeply concerned. If you were doing your job, they would be calling you a laundry list of insulting names, and they would do so to your face, at which point you would snicker wickedly, then abruptly adopt an expression of intense menace before turning on your heels with a flourish of your black cape, a weapon whose hem is adorned with razor blades — nuclear razor blades. Also, they’re rusty. God help me, I do love a good cape flourish. Even the most uninspired creative types can churn out some memorable insults when properly motivated. Just last week I was called: Shit Sherpa, Weasel Wonka, Briefboy, Hagar the Hollow, Golf Spaniel, Jello in Wingtips, and Machiasmelli.

You need to seize supremacy in the relationship, Well-Suited, and yes, we can start with the bag. Get a bigger bag, a much bigger bag, one large enough for you to lounge in comfortably with all your presentation materials and a mini bar. Then insist that if your creative teams want their brilliant ideas to reach the client, they must carry the bag to the meetings, and with minimal jostling. Once you’re in the habit of taking control, it will be easy for you to walk into your supervisor’s office one day and throw him out the window. By the way, this conversation never happened, which goes without saying — as it must, I suppose, by definition. Anyway, just nod. Very well.

Dear Hack: I had to spit out some promo copy today in which we promised readers a certain item as a “bonus.” The suit made me change it to “free bonus.” Next the account supervisor changed it to “FREE bonus.” and finally someone changed it to “FREE BONUS GIFT!” People insist on tampering with my art. How can I cope?
– Dispirited in Des Moines

Dear Dispirited: Absinthe. I’m not clear on exactly what it is, but I’ve been drinking it since 1926 and haven’t blinked since.

Dear Hack: I’ve been assigned to write yet another Easter coupon ad for our beverage client. That’s three years I’ve been churning out this garbage and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever get to work on another account.

– Rutbound

Dear Rutbound: No doubt you’ve been spewing stuff related to family and friends or stocking up or some crap. Why not focus on the holiday? Something like this.

HEAD: Roll away the stone and SAVE!
COPY: Nothing works up a thirst like marking a gruesome, torturous crucifixion and subsequent resurrection, so be sure to use our coupon and save when you stock up on…blah, blah, blah.

A new account is sure to come your way.

Dear Hack: Why won’t anyone let art directors do radio?
– Pierced in the Big Apple

Dear Pierced: Art directors would “design” radio spots using dead air as white space. They would make voice talent whisper through delay effects and hi band eq filters and insist on haunting music from some obscure dead Czeck midi composer. Now be gone. It is the green hour and I am late for my hallucinations.

I had all good intentions of spewing something about the loss of credibility in culture, largely at the hands of bias, commerce and advertising; about how search engines were once a possible source of objectivity until search engine optimization; about how friends were once trusted sources of information until word-of-mouth advertising cast a bit of theoretical doubt on even everyday chatter; about the message of art seeming suspect in the age of product placement. But good intentions are expendable when Squirrel Wars have been declared.

A Honda-class squirrel has returned to the attic over my kitchen/laundry area. Admittedly, I’m assuming it’s a squirrel. It could be a very large rat, in keeping with our holiday tradition of rat invasion due to colder weather and nearby demolition of older homes, but it would have to be a very hyper rat. From my rodent experience, which includes a dead rat falling on my head when I opened the attic stairs and trapping a rat in what instantly became a disposable pot, and much listening to rodent scurryings, I’m nearly certain this is a squirrel, especially since last year I saw one in the same area.

Initial hostilities today were mostly a matter of posturing. I blared a sports talk radio show at the suspected hideout. However, the wife unit found this obnoxious, so I turned off the radio. Three hours later, the squirrels were back in full taunt — doing the lambada (or worse) over my laundry.

Following time tested advice from tradespeople I invested in some mothballs, choosing the “old fashion” mothballs because apparently no one’s made any “new fangled” mothballs. Despite the mention on the box that they should not be used for chasing off squirrels, I devised a strategy of inserting the mothballs into their quarters by building what I’ve just now decided to call a stink stick. Maybe I’d just better call it the applicator. As you can see from the photo, the applicator consists of a sock filled with mothballs which is wired through a hole in a piece of stray oak toe moulding. This is why, if you have toe moulding, you should never actually install it. You’ll get squirrels. (Dedicated readers of this blog will realize from the picture that the 1991 Trooper immortalized here was enlisted as a weapon assembly area.)

The applicator was introduced into the theater of war in a night time operation, thus securing the element of surprise, as recommended by Sun Tzu. And now our offensive material is located directly in their path of entry and exit. Since installation an hour ago I’ve not heard a peep from them. No doubt they are huddled in a temporary headquarters plotting their response, fully aware that, as I proved last year, I’m not above the nuclear option — the pellet rifle.

UPDATE: An Aussie friend has written to express doubt about achieving ultimate victory through mothballs. This blog is open to suggestions for squirrel eradication pending further research at county extension services. Meanwhile, I’m going to have to take a reciprocal saw to a portion of unexposed roof decking in the attic area to achieve more direct access to Squirrel HQ. Logistics is preparing the Ryobi cordless saw with fresh batteries.

UPDATE #2:
We’ve not heard any enemy activity at our point of attack, but there is evidence of a flanking maneuver (though I’d like to think of it as a retreat) because the wife unit reports scurrying above the bedroom, roughly 25 feet from the laundry/kitchen area. An outdoor patrol with the pellet rifle yielded no targets. Centcom is considering several options, including dispersal of mothball fumes by way of the bathroom exhaust fan.

UPDATE #3:
Hostilities have escalated dramatically due to an engagement at approximately 1500 hours today. Upon hearing scurrying above the bedroom quarters, I reconnoitered via a closet scuttle hatch. Hoping to frighten the enemy into retreat or perhaps encourage an epileptic seizure, I raised that hatch enough to insert the head of a work light, which I flashed in a random pattern, if there can be such a thing. Scratch that. I flashed the light randomly. Within 10 seconds a very large squirrel raced roughly 18 feet from its previous position and attempted to either jump from the attic or attack my head. Due to rapid realignment of the scuttle hatch, the squirrel’s offensive was repelled and the proper functioning of my adrenal glands was confirmed.

Further research led to emergency procurement via the nearest home improvement logistical distribution center of a model 1025 trap. Time will tell if this unit is too small for enemy, but it has been baited and deployed in the area of the most recent engagement.

Removal of the stink stick has failed due to snagging of the sock module on a recessed piece of structure. The laundry area now smells like a thousand gramma armoires. Further removal efforts will commence by 0900 hours. We retire now to the mess hall for a proprietary dish known to our unit as “El Guapo.”

UPDATE #4:
1300 hours — It’s quiet. Yes, too quiet.
!330 hours: — The enemy has expanded its theater of operations to include the entire attic area as I now hear activity directly above me in the enclosed porch that is Freelancefred Centcom. We immediately procured at a secondary home improvement distribution center a larger model 1030 trap, baited it with Jif peanut butter and fresh pecan nut meat, and positioned the capture mechanism next to the chimney in the area of most recent activity. Scurryings can still be heard in the area, though it sounds more subdued. Our unit will now undertake target practice, after which we’ll file further dispatches, including a map of the battelfield. Sock module removal has been postponed due to weather and reprioritization.

1700 hours: — Target practice with the 66 Powermaster indicated a need for sight calibration as shooting skewed right. Adjustments to the sighting mechanism as well as learned shooter aiming bias resulted in acceptable hits on target. The 66 Powermaster remains loaded with safety on, though its ultimate use in battle remains a last resort — or maybe a second to last resort. A break in the weather allowed us to reinitiate sock module removal procedures. Thanks to some creative field modifications of the stink stick and resourceful development of new techniques the sock module was removed successfully and disposed of appropriately.

Inspection of the known point of entry revealed a natural structural opening made larger by apparent gnawing by the enemy. We deployed into the hole a fine steel wool, or at least a pretty nice steel wool. This psyops tactic is meant to allow the enemy to remove the obstacle with some effort, thus confirming that the point of entry is still in use, while causing maximum annoyance and discomfort resulting from gnawing on steel wool. In this way we hope to wear down the enemy, or at a mimumum, his teeth, thus encouraging his retreat.

UPDATE#5:
–1/3/06 At roughly 1400 hours we heard the enemy above the dining and living area. Please use the above map with your own modifications for these most recent movements until cartography can be notified. The pretty nice steel wool was removed from the known point of entry. Curiously it felt wet on the side facing inside the structure. On deeper consideration of this intelligence we’ve concluded, “Ewwww.” Now that the enemy has an escape route we will patrol the area tomorrow, and if it can be verified that the enemy is the the field rather than the attic, we might deploy permanent barrier materials. Failing that, backup weapon systems in the form of Victor rat traps have been secured and await deployment.

UPDATE #6:

Because enemy forces do not respect borders and routinely support the insurgency with supply convoys via gutter or tree from our backyard wilderness area, the field of operations was expanded yesterday to encompass our legal property as a sovereign household. From a sniping position in allied sleeping quarters, our forces reduced the enemy by one. The body was interred in a side yard location where it would not be subject to instinctual exhumation by the K-9 unit. Though no confirmed attic scurryings have been noted since the engagement, Centcom operations has not issued a cessation of hostilities. Defensive measures, including the pretty nice steel wool will be modified with a secondary barrier of hardware cloth at the known point of entry and both capture units will remain in place for several days. If no further evidence of the enemy is noted, we will look for the receipts and consider returning the capture units to their respective home improvement logistical warehouse distribution centers. Then the alert level may be reduced from Gwen Stefani lipstick red to red beans and rice.

– Jan 6. No further evidence of enemy activity. Alert level remains unchanged.

– Jan 7. No reports of enemy activity. If conditions hold until tomorrow Centcom will reduce the threat level to George Hamilton Bronze and suspend updates.

– Jan 9. Centcom has reduced the threat level to George Hamilton Bronze. The 1025 and 1030 capture units will remain in field and not returned to their respective home improvement logistical warehouse distribution centers because the Wife Unit disposed of the packaging materials. Clearly this indicates a failure in communications along the chain of command which will be corrected and reinforced in training.

UPDATE #7:

January 16 — A casual glance outside Centcom revealed a potential enemy scout consuming a nut-ready-to-eat (NRE) while perched atop a household structure not 15 feet from the final resting place of his fellow insurgent. The photograph has been fowarded to Intelligence where it will be cataloged with advanced facial recognition software and analyzed for clues as to enemy condition.

The alert level remains at George Hamilton Bronze. Our orders are to engage in deadly force only during active infestation of our structure or destruction of allied property.

ATLANTA — In a strategy to rid the planet of parched throats and thirstiness “in all its evil forms,” The Coca-Cola Company today unveiled its newest secret weapon — the KOC-5000 laser-guided refreshment munition.

Nicknamed “the Effervescer,” the high-tech refreshment weapon promises to “vanquish thirst with a tsunami of real cola taste,” according to Coke spokesman Tamara Baktras.

Developed under a joint project with Northrop-Grumman and Raytheon, the Effervescer recently completed secret trials in Carbondale, IL, where it successfully reduced thirst below measurable levels.

“Until now, people have had to consciously monitor their thirsts,” explained Baktras. “When it reached an unacceptable threshhold they would then have to intiate a personal refreshment strategy. The Effervescer eliminates such clumsy manual protocol with automatic, preemptive cola refreshment. It’s just that simple.”

Technology to the rescue
According to Coca-Cola engineers, the Effervescer is an “amalgam of cross-discipline, cutting edge technologies coalescing in a global beverage solution.” Onboard sensors monitor glottal humidity within the target in real time and combine the results with other data, such as saliva production, to determine a target’s thirst threshhold.

When an alert is triggered, the target is “painted” by trained refreshment specialists in the field. Next, GPS coordinates are sent to the nearest Effervescer, which then satisifes the target with a molecularized and accelerated plasma of crisp, cold Coca-Cola. “Our mission has always been to have Coca-Cola within arm’s reach of desire,” said a secret company mascot. “With the Effervescer we�ve really eliminated the need for arms at all.”

Still a few bugs
A date for the official deployment of the remotely piloted refreshment munition will not be announced until project engineers at Coke, Northrop and Raytheon fine-tune the system.

The field tests in Carbondale included cases of collateral refreshment damage in which some targets, most notably pets and domestic livestock, were refreshed erroneously.

Also, engineers and programmers are still tweaking the commerce module, which will bill each target per refreshment episode.
(this is satire)

Scholars have long debated the purpose of various stone circles, with definitive conclusion escaping the greatest minds. Though the Swinside Stone Circle still holds deep mysteries, this one from Hampshire over the Clots of Devonsham reveals comprehensible and mundane purpose, one that is apparent after sitting out in the desert with a Ouiga board, blitzed on Peyote like the soft rock group The Eagles. Then it all becomes clear. What we have is a Neolithic broadcast schedule for media placement professionals.