This has been a fad as of late that has been so obscenely popular it has become very difficult to ignore. This sensation is known simply as “Money.” Or as the cool kids call it “Mon-nay” and by cool kids we of course mean middle age adults who have never owned nor stood near a kid. But it is time to get to the bottom of this trend once and for all. To do so we are asking Billionaire McMillionaire why he felt the need to go from having millions of dollars (His form of money of choice) to billions of them.

When asked, “Why collect so many of these ‘dollars?’” he replied, “One of the reasons people seek large quantities of money is so they never have to worry about financial issues, or have to ask ‘can I afford that?’” Upon it being suggested that maybe this was his reason for doing so he continued by stating, “Oh goodness no. Billionaires find plenty of things to worry about. But knowing why that isn’t a good reason takes us one step closer to what the real reason to be a billionaire is. Revenge!”

A brief psychological analysis showed that despite the frightening stare he started giving and the way he dramatically stabbed his lunch with a fork, he likely wouldn’t kill anyone for at least twenty minutes. Afterward he clarified, “Revenge against the trees. Why else would America shred them up into tiny like slips of paper and then slap a presidents face on them if not to say, ‘Damn America owned that tree!’ It’d be like tattooing an American Flag on Bin Laden’s forehead. While I appreciate this ritual of showing our hatred for trees, it isn’t enough. So I hoard as many shards as I can so that more have to printed.”

Mr. McMillionaire was asked if he perhaps actually had some alternate motive for wanting the money such as, being able to advance the charities he values most, being able to fund other causes such as medical or scientific research, or even to be able to leave the money for generations to come after. He responded with the following, “No, none of those are the real reason anyone wants billions of dollars. There will always be plenty of billionaires to fund the charities they think are important; does anyone really think they are doing the world a favor by putting some other would be billionaire out of business just so that there specific charity or research wins out in the end? And who wants to spoil a whole line of future generations? The truth is tree huggers have been right all along. Science discovered quite some time ago that trees do feel pain, and that makes their destruction and humiliation all the more glorious, for they deserve it.”

When prompted what trees could possibly do to deserve this Billionaire had this to say, “Once there was this lovely tree near our property. But the news told of a vicious storm that was coming through that night. Sure enough a big storm with fierce gusts occurred that night that kept tugging on that tree until eventually it happened.”

“The tree uprooted and landed on our neighbors house. He wouldn’t shut up about that tree or the damage it did to his house for years to come. He was the only person there I could stand and that stupid tree made him completely intolerable.” 

Our interview went on to reveal that he didn’t think it was discrimination to hate all trees because of what one tree did because, “Discrimination? We’re talking about trees here. What are ya, some kind of hippie?” While it is as of yet unclear whether this is the same reason the money sensation remains popular with many people of various age groups, the motivations of this one money lover hopefully provide some insight. In closing we asked Mr. McMillionaire if he thought this trend was here to stay and he remarked, “There can be only one fad as gripping as this at a time, and well, did I ever tell you about the time I kicked an ant mound as a child?”

In a historical moment congress passed a bill that instead of adding an amendment to the constitution, it would amend an already existing amendment. A senator who either didn’t wish to be identified or whose name I’ve already forgotten, I forget which, had this to say on the matter, “A recent study has revealed that the average American can only remember one amendment. A tertiary finding of this study was that citizens who liked guns could remember one more amendment than the average American. While this alternate finding is indeed baffling, it is the former that really influenced our decision. Besides, by altering the amendment in question instead of adding a new one, suddenly millions of people who made themselves look like idiots when falsely claiming to have their first amendment rights violated will retroactively be made correct.”

I couldn’t even finishing saying that of course this wouldn’t be an issue since the government would never willing violate our rights, and laughing awkwardly when he interrupted, “That’s a big commitment! They’re over twenty of the darn things after all! However, this gesture shows that we are willing to compromise and make it easier for the average citizen to know which of his rights has been violated, when one of them has. This makes it convenient for people to post about how they’ve been wronged on their Twitter accounts. People don’t have time to spell out some long name any more. They need a number, not unlike when they are at McDonald’s. They don’t have time to remember they want a double bacon whopper with cheese. They remember they want a C5.”

There was a long awkward pause before I finally managed to ask what the proposed change was. “Well most of the bill was about other things like the size, shape, and color that soda containers are permitted to be, but the part of interest was adding the words ‘The 1st Amendment heartily endorses being a jerk, and no consequences shall ever come of it,’ to said amendment. Finally your neighbor who secretly hates you for letting your dog poop on his lawn, can yell at you for half an hour without losing you as a friend on Facebook. Youtube commenters can call the poster of a video of kittens more despicable then Hitler without having his comment down-voted. For some reason people seem to be under the distinct impression that this is what the first amendment already said, and so we’re giving the people what they want.”

I put an end quote there preemptively in hopes that he was done talking. I turned out to be wrong as he then continued, “When this bill was first being proposed there was some controversy over how the addition to the amendment should be worded. Some feared that by using the word jerk, people who escalated their idiocy to the level of douche bag or asshole might feel left out. We ultimately settled on the word jerk though when an expert historian pointed out that the term was more consistent with the wording of the constitution  and was less likely to cause the updated constitution to be accused of being ‘photoshopped.’

When asked what he thinks gave people the impression that the first amendment already said this, random senator concluded with, “Back in the sixties we probably would have thought they were psychics. Thankfully we live in an enlightened age were we know how illogical that is. They’re probably time travelers who just got confused.”

A person in a suit who was within three miles of the white house, who therefore must have been the president, had this to say about the matter, “For a long time anyone who would mention something about being watched by the government was deemed to be insane. This is not of course because this isn’t true. Rather it is so obvious, there is no need to point it out. Unfortunately, there has been a sharp decline in terrorism, or just generally doing anything interesting lately. That being the case, government agents are now having to pinch themselves to stay awake, as they watch people post pictures of their cat, blog about the stupid cashier who was completely unaware of the by one get one free sale, and google random words in hopes of remembering how to form a coherent sentence. This has lead to an all time high of demanded salary for monitoring positions, making spying on people no longer economically feasible.”

When presented with the question, “Do you believe this means the government will stop spying on people?,” he responded by saying, “And risk losing all of that black mail material? Are you crazy? That is far more economically impossible. No, in times of need it is the responsibility of the people to help their government. What we are asking of our citizens is not unlike the draft in that way, but it is so much more convenient. Just be thankful the testing caught snags in former iterations of the plan that weren’t as convenient. For example, the levels of trained ninjas among the populace is far lower than we originally anticipated, so our initial plan of having people spy on their neighbors did not work out as well as we had hopped. Our secondary plan of asking the local gossipers showed promise, but failed to divulge the level of detail that only twenty-four hour surveillance can. Thus we are asking for something brilliant in its simplicity. People should spy on themselves.”

The president refused to comment any further, when someone else vaguely important looking showed up and contributed this to the dialog, “People are making this out to be more difficult than it is. Simply send videos of you committing terrorism to terrorismatwork@totallylegit.gov, videos of you doing embarrassing and stupid things to thanksfortheblackmail@alsototallylegit.gov, and videos of everything else you have ever done to thisisanemailaddress@anemailprovider.gov. Recently there have been many people asking if they commit a stupid act of terrorism whether it should be sent to the first or second email address. The answer is both. Further, there has been much debate about how to determine if an act is stupid or embarrassing, but this too has a simple solution. Merely post the video on Youtube, and if no one likes the video, or a majority of those who do leave comments that even a comatose chihuahua would deny any connection to, then it qualifies as a stupid or embarrassing act. What I truly find baffling is if people were puzzled that this was how to determine if an act qualified as stupid or embarrassing, what did they think Youtube was for exactly?”

When it was suggested that these seemed like legitimate questions he responded by saying, “Yes, of course they seem so at first glance, but as I have demonstrated they have easy answers, and these answers aren’t new. The real problem is people are trying to make the simple act of spying on themselves ‘complicated’ or ‘invasive.’ People don’t handle change well, and just want to be spied on the good ole fashion way, and I can’t say I blame them. Never before did I realize how much effort the government went through, just to know every detail of my life, until I tried to install a camera on my ceiling. Then, when I went back to try to classify the footage, I saw nothing but wall the whole time. Now I have no idea what I was doing last Thursday. It’s a hard job, but somebody has to do it.”

In conclusion, it is worth pointing out that the government is giving out free digital cameras to make this transition as smooth as possible. However by “giving out for free,” they of course mean you have to buy your own, but they are, “totally good for it bro.”

John Doe of the CIA had the following to say about this position, “One would think the key to the element of surprise would be surprise, but some of our more recent findings contradict this intuition. It turns out that if we tell them exactly what we’re going to do, and make it seem like the sort of warning a five year old would make, on average, the areas we need to go will be less guarded and less secure then when if we give no notice. There are a couple of reasons why this might be the case. One is baby paranoia syndrome. This syndrome is a recent discovery which is believed to be responsible for movies like Baby Geniuses. Why else would anyone produce crap like that? That aside, it is believed that baby paranoia syndrome can extend to kids as old as seven years old, though its hard to say for sure, as psychological disorders of this nature can usually only be observed in the effect they have on crappy 90’s movies. So basically, the position we are looking to hire is for someone who can convincingly draw like a five year old.” 

The person who was discussing this position, then apologized and left through a ceiling tile. Thankfully another CIA agent also named John Doe entered the room and proceeding to give the following details about the position, “We have found that the average five year old actually draws as well as the average seven year old and consequently cause our warnings to look entirely too credible. Sadly any one younger has the problem of not being able to convey our warnings effectively. Once a group thought the Central Pregnancy Organization was stopping by, and consequently there were a lot of half-crazed pregnant women right where we wanted to go. By the end of the day, our agents had forgotten all about the mission and were down at the grocery store purchasing pickles, peaches, peanut butter, ice cream, and lint rollers. We’re not really sure what that last one was for but we where afraid to ask. In short, the only way too get a convincing five year old who can still get our message across is a manchild. We have tried people who aren’t manchildren in the past, however even when writing and drawing with their tongue their depictions were just too good.”

When questioned about whether or not this manchild would have any other duties he had this to say, “Well they would be responsible for not doing a lot of things, which for a manchild is basically the same thing. For example one of their many responsibilities would be not picking up one of our guns and accidentally shooting yourself in the knee… not that we were ever irresponsible enough too let something like that happen. Responsibilities would also include, being careful how you use staples, not bleeding on our carpet, not leaving Cheetos stains on classified documents, and not screaming ‘Ah! I’m blind!’ when indeed you are not blind. Requirements include never having had a job, still living with your parents, not having dated for at least five years, and being at least 35 years old. Having chili or equivalent stains on all clothes you own is preferred but required.”

However, no one would stay to talk for more then fifteen minutes at a time, as the CIA is undoubtedly a very busy place. Throughout the day several people all named John Doe including one girl, spoke about this position. From what I could gather, they host a test which basically just putting one in a room alone with a photo copier for an hour and seeing if they can resist the temptation to photo copy their butt repeatedly, and they hire based on butt scans per minute. While they claim there last employee was at roughly 43 butts/minute they say they are looking for something more in the 50-60 range. The remainder of the interview process is said too contain similar tests. Whether or not anyone can make it through the demanding and grueling interview process remains to be seen.

 Due to recent economic developments, there has been much talk among the GOP about returning to the gold standard. However most of the GOP that had been backing this standard, have now switched over to what is believed to be an even more reliable standard. The GOP has recently proposed that every dollar be backed up by the US government with 1/2 pound of duct tape.

“We had originally believed that gold would continue to increase in value,” commented economist Jeff Greene, “like it had done for the last several years, however we have since realized this is stupid. While we do not underestimate the ability for shiny objects to distract three-year-olds and politicians alike, we had failed to account for the shinyness-lowers-your-IQ effect. Everyone can agree that Washington is screwed up, and we now have reason to believe this is because once intelligent people have spent so much time staring into their shiny gold watches, that they are now the intellectual equivalent of three year olds. This will likely cause the value of gold to fall tremendously, or else it will cause its value to skyrocket, and IQs to lower to a level where the American people can do little more than drool on themselves. But if that’s the case we are all screwed anyway, so it’s probably just better to assume the former is the more likely scenario.”

When asked to comment on what evidence there was of the Shinyness-lowers-your-IQ effect, he had this to say, “We actually did a double-blind study in which we counted the number of times in a day politicians would say phrases like ‘ooh shiney!’ By the end of the experiment the conductors of it became so stupid that they became convinced that two layers of blind-fold were needed to conduct the study properly. When asked simple questions like what data they had collected, they gave replies that had nothing to do with the question asked, and in general they began acting just like the politicians. We concluded that the shinyness-lowers-your-IQ effect was for worse than we feared.”

He refused to give further comment, but another economist Kyle Brinley gave his own thoughts on why duct tape has been pushed by the GOP as the new standard, “Honestly we’ve known since the 90’s that duct tape is one of the must useful commodities. It is speculated that some CIA agents may have known as early as 85. There are just so many annoying people in the world, that while duct tape may only provide a temporary solution, at least it can give an estimated seven seconds of peace.” When asked whether or not duct-tape would face the same problem as gold due too its shinyness he would only state that he was certain duct tape would continue to increase in value.

Several engineers who claim to use duct tape frequently in their daily lives contested that duct tape is “a different kind of shiny.” and that it likely reduces IQ much more slowly then gold if at all. One engineer Scott Hammond had the following to say on why he was confident duct tape would only continue to increase in value, “When someone comes up to you with a big honking plane and says fix it by tomorrow, what do you think we use? The next time you land safely just know duct-tape saved your life. In fact, there probably ain’t a day that goes by were you rely on the stuff and don’t even know it. Don’t even get me started on how many uses duct tape has for home support beams.”

However there is much opposition regarding the duct tape movement, with critic’s citing that no one is sure where the stuff comes from. Many seem to believe while companies give it the guise of coming from a factory, it likely either comes from another dimension or the future. “How can we be sure that our duct tape supply won’t run out tomorrow?” asked one person who wished to remain anonymous. Opponents further claim that we likely won’t be able to replicate the technology of duct tape and begin producing it for ourselves for at least another century, with some even theorizing that the technology can’t be replicated, because it is what our skin will be made of, once we have become the most evolved species this planet can create. Regardless of whether the supporters of this standard, or its opponents are right, we know that the GOP has the means to shut them up.

40 year old Billy Winston, recently broke the old record for duration of saying nothing that interests anyone of 3 weeks, with his record of 17 years by accidentally saying “cake taste good” which caught the attention of at least one rat in the room. Apparently, the record stipulates that one most say at least 30,000 words a day to qualify, which no one is disputing. Employees of Guinness are currently investigating whether or not talking about mahjong for three straight years counts as a violation of the rules however. When talking to an employee of Guinness, Steve Startel, about why this was such an unusual event had the following to say, “Usually people who try for this record after a couple of days, will either accidentally say something interesting, or will get so tired of saying boring things, and they subconsciously make the decision to say something interesting.

Reporters questioned Billy Winston about his achievement however, one of them went into a coma and the other has been unable to say anything intelligible for the last twenty four hours, both for reasons unknown. Consequently several other reporters have been hesitant to talk with Billy, so no comment by Billy is ready for publication.

Psychologist Peter Grim was able to give his professional input on the situation, “Honestly this person’s very existence defies everything we know about modern psychology. We estimate that his likelihood of being murdered during his nonstop spew of nonsense was about 95% with the probability of suicide by the spewer and all within a mile radius of him being still higher. If he had any fear of death at all, this shouldn’t be possible. If nothing else, his brain should have started shutting down sending him into a coma in an attempt to save himself. We believe he may have a mental disorder, or perhaps all of them. We don’t really know what having all these disorders at once would look like, but we believe it would look something like Billy. Well either that or someone who has multiple personalities who all think they are dolphins and have a strange attraction to puppies, but we’re pretty sure the Billy scenario is more likely.”

Numerous computer experts agreed that computers just putting together random words or phrases only managed to remain boring for five hours, and that other programs that people had spent years designing to be boring had only managed to bore people on average for about six days, and at longest for four weeks. Even programs that just repeated some of the most boring phrases over and over managed to mysteriously become interesting to most people after nineteen hours.

When talking with those who knew Billy best we discovered that he was often surrounded by very drunk people, yet even to people who were fascinated by their own limbs he remained vigilant in saying things, that none of them cared about. Truly this is a spectacular accomplishment for mankind, but what does it mean for you and for me? Some theorize this will revolutionize science, as there may well be chemicals in Billy’s brain that exist nowhere else on earth. Whereas some stoners down the street believe that he may revolutionize drug use, as whatever allows hims to find himself interesting enough to keep talking must be “one of the best scores ever.” Whether it is scientist or stoners who will win out in the end when Billy’s long awaited autopsy is performed is uncertain, but one thing we do know is that it will further advance all of humanity.

Steve Everett was exercising his right to use a flamethrower in his living room, when thirty minutes in he noticed his curtains were on fire. “It is a sad world we live in, when you can’t even use a flamethrower in your own home without something going awry.” said Steve.

Fire marshal Victor Cresslon believes that the fire was started by a defect in the product that when exposed to the strain of it spewing out fire, caused it to unexpectedly spew out fire. He went on to state the following, “When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense actually. Fire has a way of causing fire. I’m surprised the makers of this product didn’t see this flaw and install more safety features.”

The producers of our product who wished to remain anonymous had the following to say, “Honestly, we are shocked that our product caught fire. The fire expert we spoke with never mentioned anything about fire having any similarity to fire. But to be fair, the consumer was using our product in a way we never imagined… to create fire. So even if we knew the connection between fire and fire we couldn’t possibly have known our product would be used in this way.” I asked him what the intended use of their product is to which he said, “Our product is meant to be used as a toy, helping you pretend you have a flamethrower, but we had the ingenious realization that nothing makes a more realistic toy then an actual functional flamethrower. Who could have guessed that just because it was a flamethrower someone would actually use it like a flamethrower.”

I asked him the natural question, “Surely you must have known that it was just a matter of time before someone would shoot streaming hot jets of fire out of your product.”

He promptly replied with, “Well we did actually advertise the fire functionality as a bonus feature, but we just figured people would use it to kill ants, create flaming ice cream, or just to show off to their friends, but not to burn down their own house.” The company declined further questions but it was clear they were trying to cover up the giant defect in their product.

When Steve was asked if he would press charges he said he was unsure because, “The huge flames did look really friggin cool after all.” He further commented, “If I had another house I would probably do the same thing again.” However in response to what the company statement he had the following to say, “I never would have guessed that the “This is a toy.” meant that it was actually meant to be used as a toy. Who knew that the warning to, “Not go on a flaming rampage in your own living room.” was meant to be taken seriously. Personally I think they should get rid of these more complicated warning messages and be forced to put a simpler warning on it that states, fire may cause fire. One thing is for sure I am not returning to them with my future flame thrower needs.” I think it is safe to say that many disgruntled customers will turn to other companies where they can use there flame throwers in their living rooms again without fear.

When asked how they expect consumers to believe this ludicrous claim someone important had the following to say, “Because they are stupid. Wait did the interview start already? You didn’t write that down did you?”

After reassuring them that that comment would not go on the record (seriously who even owns records anymore?), they continued to comment on this matter saying, “The main selling point of our product is, not only will you loose the weight, but you won’t notice any changes in your life. So if you can’t tell a difference that is just a sign that we are doing our job that much better.”

“But shouldn’t they at least notice they are loosing weight?” I asked them.

They then replied, “No because we are just that good. Not only will you become skinny you won’t even remember that you were ever fat or that you used our product, because who really wants to remember being so desperate they turned to random weight loss products that everyone knows are just scams. Take Tom Cruise for example. Our product was so effective for him, not only does he not remember him being fat, but neither does anyone else. To even further prove my point I have a quote by Tom Cruise in which he says ‘I have never even heard of FatBeGone3.’”

After insisting that he was a moron he referred us to customer testimonies which had the following to say, “Because of their product I thought about loosing 8 pounds.”, “While using FatBeGone3 I almost didn’t invent the donut pizza which is delicious by the way.”, “I think I might have been fatter once, but that may have been in a past life.”, “I may have gained 30 pounds while on FatBeGone3 but the universe tells me I would have gained 35 without it.”, “If their product didn’t work would they really lie about it? Honestly so many other businesses are trying this whole ‘lying’ thing that it would be just too predictable. They would have to be stupid to try that.”, “I feel like a moron for buying their product but I usually feel like a moron so you probably won’t.”, “Their product killed my pet squid, but I’m pretty sure the label says not to do that, so you know you can trust these people.”, “Hey these people let me have a quote… Have you had any of those other companies let you have a quote? Just sayin…”

When I asked for closing comments he had the following to say, “Honestly if a product seems effective it’s probably just corporate tricks messing with your head, but when a product doesn’t seem to be doing anything you know this isn’t the case.”