SlashNOT

Matthew writes: A somewhat bewildered George Lucas has announced that his fans have “officially taken this crap too far” with MP Jamie Reed’s recent inaugural speech to the House of Commons in which he announced that he was the first Jedi member of the body. Beginning in 2001, enough people in the UK have reported their religion as Jedi to make it the 4th largest religion in the country, surpassing Judaism. To date, more than 500,000 people around the world have officially declared their religion to be Jedi despite the fact that Mr. Lucas has not elucidated the core principles of the religion beyond the few mysterious statements to “use the force” and that the force emanates from alien microscopic life forms in the bloodstream.

In a statement on his website, the reclusive director wrote: “I am not your prophet. I haven’t invented a religion—I was just trying to put something a little spiritual into a futuristic space opera. It wasn’t really all that well thought out, as you all found out in Episode I.

“Please, don’t worship me. Don’t worship the Force. Stop trying to figure out the physics behind light sabers, and stop wearing the kooky robes around. They’re props, not fashion statements. I’m not okay with this anymore, and I damn sure don’t aspire to being martyred. And stop making fan films that violate my trademarks you thought thieves!“

Matthew writes: Sun Microsystems, which has seen four quarters of slumping sales and has a mere 4 billion in cash reserves, has announced that it is creating its first-ever laptop and leaving its warehouse doors open at night in an attempt to drive adoption of its platform.

A Sun spokesperson confirmed that they were also turning all the security cameras off, and that there were no night watchmen on duty. He also provided the corporate address and noted the presence of a U-Haul truck leasing facility a mere six miles down the road.

“This came out of a C-level brainstorming session we had on how to move boxes. Scott [McNealy] said ‘fuck it, let’s just let the unsold boxes get stolen. They’ll inevitably wind up in someone’s hands, and maybe, just maybe, that someone will write the next great Solaris application.”

Matthew writes: Scientists have successfully created zombie dogs in the laboratory, paving the way for future zombie experimentation.

Pittsburgh’s Safar Center for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique that can produce a fully functioning zombie dog in just three hours. Scientists claim that having an animal model for zombie research facilitates the development of technologies that could potentially turn zombies back into mortal humans, or perhaps develop techniques for stopping them using less drastic methods than decapitation. Scientists also expect to begin testing foods other than brains which might appease the zombie appetite, which could lead to the development of distraction foods that could be useful in a zombie attack.

The advantages of using dogs for zombie research are numerous. Firstly, by using smaller breeds, the zombie dogs are much more easily controlled than typical human zombies. Secondly, it’s ethically easier for scientists to dispatch a zombie dog when confronted with an uncontrolled situation, and there’s far less police paperwork involved when an animal zombie is dispatched.

Matthew writes: Researchers have discovered that a tiny region of the human brain consisting of just a single cell is responsible for recognizing Halle Berry in all humans.

“The Hallecampus, while small, is absolutely critical to the recognition of Halle Berry. Without it, we would have no ability to discern which Hollywood vixen is behind that leather catwoman outfit.”

Scientists discovered the Hallecampus while doing research into how the brain recognizes incredibly hot women. The same researchers had also uncovered the Anistocortext, but were unable to locate the Zeta-Jonesebellum.

Daan writes: In an unusual protest against archaic laws and bigotry, an extended family in Russia quit paying any of their bills for more than two years as they hunkered down in their Moscow apartment to weather their own passing. Appalled officials finally broke into the apartment to confiscate enough property to satisfy the debts accrued, and then evicted the family, subjected them to medical experiments, and buried them.

Morticia Strunk, spokesperson for advocacy group “To Each What He Needs”, used the occasion to deliver a forceful criticism of cultural insensitivity. “We have a situation here where an economically disadvantaged family has been completely destroyed by outdated laws. Those people simply were not capable of paying those bills. They should have been taken care of, not hounded by bill collectors and then plundered, trumpeted as freaks, and ripped asunder as a family.

I know many of you are thinking to yourself, ‘Why did they keep Grandma around after she started smelling?’ And then dad. And then mom. You are asking the wrong questions, the sort of questions your grandparents might have asked. The world is not so brutish anymore. We need to show more compassion for those of us who might be vitality-challenged. These callous laws requiring us to discard the dead, as if they were rubbish to be buried or burned, emotionally scar not only those deprived of their vitality, but their survivors as well, who find themselves senselessly torn from those they love. Personally I could not bear the thought of my partner telling me she would not sleep in the same bed anymore just because I had lost all vitality. Where would the commitment be in that? Love is forever.”

Russian officials refused to comment beyond, “The law’s the law.”

Charles writes: Hell has suddenly frozen over today, leaving normal operation at a complete standstill as imps, minor demons, and the souls of the damned attempt to cope with the sudden change in temperature. Lava flows have reportedly completely solidified, lakes of fire have frozen over, and brimstone has become merely stone. Baalzebub, spokesdaemon for Dark Lord Satan, has issued the following press release:

“Our evil scientists are studying the phenomenon closely, and report that the sudden shift in climate appears to be due to Apple’s announcement that it will be using Intel processors in its Macintosh computers.”

Hog farmers have also been beset by animals escaping their pens using wings that sprouted immediately from their backs. Angus Black, a pig farmer from Minneola Minnesota, had this to say:

“It’s the damndest thing you ever seen. Apple is going to be using Intel processors. What’s next?”

Mongooseman writes: Shock erupted yesterday as panicking Sony bosses decided to rename the forthcoming PS3 as the PS361. A spokesman said “With Microsoft moving to 360, we felt that we needed to emphasize our machine more; going to 361 helps us maintain that edge.”

More shock followed as stunned Microsoft executives held an emergency meeting and decided to shift the new Xbox even further. Bill Gates announcted that evening that the name has been changed to the Xbox 587.

Sony have been in talks and are expected to announce a quick shift to a new number later today; rumours say it is going to be around 786.

Matthew writes: ICANN today approved the new .xxx domain specifically designated for Internet Porn.

“With this move, we’re creating a partition on the Internet for purveyors of adult content who agree to abide by a voluntarily enforced code.”

“The code specifically states that models actually appear to be as claimed—i.e., hot, young, voluptuous, or whatever; that browser’s won’t be hijacked by numerous popup windows or taken to unexpected places; that the money shots won’t be blurred out in sample images, and that users won’t get trapped in link circles going from page to page.”

“With a TLD dedicated to porn, it will be trivial to make browser plugins that prevent your cache and history from getting “stained up” with content within the .xxx namespace without having to use tell-tale cache and history clearing.”

“We felt that the quality of online porn sites was too variable within the .com namespace, so we’ve decided to do something about it. The new .xxx TLD is all about quality. Oh yeah, and it’s easy to block content.”