TMC NewsBreak – NewsBreak Archives

New Info Released in Diana Crash (3/2/98)

Investigators in France unearthed the most startling revelation yet regarding the death last year of Princess Diana. During the month of February, 1998, less than .05% of all world news coverage dealt with the fatal car crash, and its aftermath, in any way, shape or form.

To ensure that this trend will not continue into March, details of the princess’ will and new recollections of the crash’s sole survivor have come to light.

On the bequeathing front, the world was stunned to learn that Diana had left pretty much everything she owned to her children. Millions of royalty-crazed Americans rushed to change their wills to match Diana’s, only to find they were already planning to do the same. A few misguided souls are now leaving all their possessions to a pair of teenage princes, but legal experts expect that to be sorted out in a matter of months.

The sole survivor of the crash, bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, is quoted as claiming to now remember a female voice calling out “Dodi” after the crash, flashbulbs going off all around the car, and Madonna having sex with him right before the crash.

Former prime minister John Major, one of the guardians of Diana’s sons, said the young princes “would like their mother’s memory respected and not distorted with wild rumor and tasteless and tacky activities.” The world’s major media organizations, however, responded with a tersely typed “Nyah nyah, too late.”

EDITORIAL: Pam and Tommy and Freaks Like You (2/26/98

Pam and Tommy are getting married. Pam and Tommy are breaking up. Pam and Tommy are back together and having a baby. Pam and Tommy are taping their sex and the tapes out and you can buy the tape and you can pay to watch the tape over the Internet. Tommy hit Pam. Pam and Tommy are getting a divorce.

Let it be known that the NewsBreak editorial staff supports and accepts all differing opinions. That said . . . what the hell is wrong with you people? Why do you care?

I mean, first, there’s Tommy Lee. He’s a member of Motley Crue, a hair-metal band twenty years past its “prime”, and its “prime” sucked too. I mean, if Tommy’s the standard by which we judge celebrity, how come E! isn’t following the members of Quiet Riot around? Why isn’t my E-Mail inbasket being flooded with spam hawking the sex tapes of the various members of Cinderella, Ratt, and Dee Snyder? Tommy friggin Lee? He’s barely a false echo on the cultural radar, and I can’t get away from his name.

And Pamela. Oh, dear, sweet, bionic Pamela. I realize that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but anyone who thinks Queen Miss Freaky Eyebrows champion 1987-1998 inclusive is attractive is a seriously messed up beholder. Seek help. Now. And, what, exactly, has the soon to be once again Miss Anderson (nee Mrs. Lee) actually done to warrant being mentioned on the national news? She made it onto Baywatch, which proves that . . . she has breasts. Which we knew. And, of course, Barb Wire, the movie whose sole benefit to society was that it prevented any further movies starring Pamela. This, in the industry, is known as the “Leonard Part VI” effect.

I’m still amazed at the fact that Pam made it past the high standards of the Baywatch casting department. It’s too bad we couldn’t prove the continued existance of the casting couch, since, if she -had- slept with Hasslehoff to get the part, it’d be the one shining moment of pure bravery in an otherwise lackluster life.

To summarize the summary of the summary: If you stop looking at them, maybe they’ll go away.

NewsBreak Author Tapped Out! (2/26/98)

In a startling development, after just one week, the author of the wildly popular “TMC NewsBreak” series of daily fake news items, is stuck for an idea.

“It’s not my fault,” explained the writer, as he sobbed openly in front of this reporter. “Nothing interesting HAPPENED yesterday!”

However, our investigators, after painstaking research, have noticed several events that DID take place yesterday, all of which could be ample fodder for a real writer. These items include the antics at the Grammys, the Tommy and Pamela Anderson court brouhaha, and, while tasteless, the passing of standup comic Henny Youngman.

After going through the writer’s trash, all in the name of the people’s right to know, our crack team of TMC StoryBreakers uncovered a cellophane wrapper and a Target reciept for “Gex: Enter The Gecko”. We can only assume from this that a late night of videogaming has left the writer bleary and desperate.

“What worries me most,” said a concerned source close to the writer, “is that after only a week, he’s resorting to the self-referential non-item item. That’s not a well you can go to often, and seeing him use it this early, well, it’s just sad.”

There will be no further updates to this story as it fails to develop.

Blame Shifted in MS Anti-Trust Case (2/25/98)

Federal investigators looking into charges that Microsoft is an evil, oversized, monopolistic corporation bent on destroying any and all competitors in its mad rush to power and global domination looked away from the Seattle company for the first time today.

“Sure, Microsoft is evil. Everyone knows that,” said the lead investigator. “But is it really their fault? We may have found the true conspirators in the Microsoft empire.”

He indicated that the panel would soon be taking a look at end users who, between 1985 and 1993, chose Microsoft Windows and IBM-compatibles as their computing system.

“If anyone’s to blame for Microsoft’s dominance, it’s them,” he explained. “You know, the ones who bought $2,000 computer systems so that they could catalog their recipes. The people who bought computers because ‘they thought they needed one’. The people who wanted to take work home. Nobody should want to take their work home with them. We think they’re the ones that are really to blame.”

In the mid 1980’s, many people bought IBM-compatible personal computers so they could run the leading spreadsheet package at the time, Lotus 1-2-3, despite the fact that studies have shown that 99% of all spreadsheet functions performed in the home can be performed easier with a solar calculator and a notepad. If Windows 95 bootup times are taken into account, the SC-N method, as it’s known, also takes 60% less time.

Since then, an increasingly uninformed population has purchased Windows-based PC’s in droves, ignoring other options until those options became less and less viable.

Micro
soft may not be entirely off the hook, however. Sources say that prosecutors are loo
king at laws designed to protect the exploitation of the weak and the stupid, to see if some kind of class action case can be made against the company.

Agreement Reached on Iraq (2/24/98)

The world breathed a sigh of relief today as a tentative agreement was reached with Iraq, averting a military attack by United States forces.

The agreement was reached by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and includes 4 major points:

• The United States will hold off on military action for at least two weeks.
• Saddam Hussein will remain in power indefinitely.
• Saddam Hussein will behave in a generally threatening manner three months from now, seven months from now, and at least three times during 1999.
• In the event of a major domestic policy failure, Saddam Hussein will immediately reject all UN Resolutions regarding Iraq.

President Clinton hailed the new accord.

“The United States has spent a great deal of time, manpower, and resources ensuring that the world would have at least one completely unredeemable villain left. I’m glad Mr. Hussein saw the light, and chose not to throw away those years of work by provoking us into actually solving the Iraqi problem,” he said at a press conference yesterday.

Despite the agreement, U.S. forces continue to pour into the Middle East. “We have to keep moving stuff around, you know, keep looking busy and all that. We’ve had the local news lobby on our asses for months now, begging for some “local boys go off to war” footage they can use during the lulls between the openings of various ‘Disney on Ice’ shows,” said Defense Department spokesman John Small Berries this morning.

Olympic Wrapup (2/23/98)

Bowing to intense peer pressure from every other media outlet known to man, TMC NewsBreak presents Nagano ’98, our Olympic wrapup.

The Olympics are over. They started, oh, must have been about two, two and a half weeks ago. Yeah, that’s right, because some of the other folks in the D&D campaign were talking about the sumo wrestlers in the opening ceremonies. So, anyway… Winter Olympics. There was some snow there, and some skiing, and skating, and luge, and that goofy looking thing with the brooms. And Americans won medals after years of sacrifice and personal tragedy. Probably.

Oh, and they were in Japan.

OK, so I didn’t watch the friggin’ Olympics. Who cares, anyway? I was off doing more important things, like playing Quake, seeing Spice World, and buying Voltron toys. I didn’t have time to watch a bunch of anorexic 16 year olds slide around and spin in slow motion while Scott Hamilton did voiceovers about their incredible struggle. I don’t even know what a “Peekaboo Street” is, or why anyone should care. The only vaguely interesting thing about the whole sorry affair is the total lack of outrage at the “women’s hockey team”. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a women’s hockey team, but if I understand this correctly, the women’s hockey team is in ADDITION to all the men’s hockey teams. We don’t need more hockey teams! Have all the women’s teams you want, but for every one you make, you’ll have to kill off one of the men’s teams. I’m fine with that.

Luge. Bah.

Netcom To Get The Chair (2/20/98)

In what some are calling “brutal scare tactics”, a group of Usenet news administrators have threatened to kill everyone associated with the Netcom online service on Friday. Netcom received the pronouncement of the so-called “Usenet Death Penalty” last week, and ever since then, law enforcement officials have been desperately searching for a way to prevent thousands upon thousands of Netcom users from meeting an untimely death.

The “UDP”, as those in the know refer to the Usenet Death Penalty, is considered the last line of defense against the dreaded practice of “Usenet Spam”, in which individuals with items for sale interrupt vital conversations about Captain Janeway, Quake II, and panties.

While death may seem to be an extreme punishment for “spamming”, as the technoliteratielite call it, those behind the planned mass murder claim their actions are justified.

“The fact of the matter is, after about the hundredth pyramid scheme or ‘hot chat’ ad, surveys have shown that 89% of all Usenet readers are mentally and physically capable of murder,” said one news admin, who refused to be identified on the grounds that we here at TMC NewsBreak frown on making up goofy names.

Law enforcement officials said there is still time for Netcom to avoid the death penalty by changing its policies. Most Netcom users, though they fear for their lives, are hesitant to switch to another ISP. In the words of one such user, “Well, all the ISP’s have 20 buck setup fees now, and anyway, I don’t want my E-Mail address to change.”

Variety Hates Elmo! (2/19/98)

Trade paper and paragon of grammar, Variety, recently gave an incredibly scathing review to “Elmopalooza!”, fueling speculation amongst industry insiders that the ongoing feud between Elmo and the Hollywood power structure would not be ending anytime soon.

“Elmopalooza!”, an hour-long special featuring music videos of various Sesame Street songs, was described by Variety as “woeful”, “unfunny”, and “insistently lighthearted”. Elmo, on the other hand, proved himself to be the more well-read entity when he called the Variety staff “a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes.”

While this latest go-round, much like the Spago incident and the unfortunate brawl backstage at the Clio Awards, will undoubtedly spawn hundreds of column-inches of coverage, the question foremost in everyone’s mind is, “Why?” Why can’t these two industry giants get along?

The roots of the dispute stretch back years. Elmo was understandably miffed when Variety ripped off his whole “learning to rhyme” schtick for a series of increasingly incomprehensible front page headlines. Variety, for its part, still has lingering bitterness over the market failure of its “Tickle Me” edition, which predated the now infamous Elmo doll by several years.

“Elmopalooza” guest star and erstwhile host Jon Stewart could not be reached for comment, as he was busy working on whatever talk show he’s hosting that hasn’t been cancelled yet.

Whatever the true causes of this rift, we here at TMC NewsBreak hope it can be resolved soon. If there is anyone on this planet who could benefit from remedial doses of Sesame Street, it’s the writing staff at Variety. Can’t we all just get along?

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