Graverobbing: Not All Fun 'N' Games

So you’ve found yourself in dire financial straits, eh? We told you not to buy all that pricey hobo art, but you didn't listen. And now it seems that every day is slightly worse than the day before. As you shuffle across the kitchen floor that is littered with empty cat food cans (you don’t have a cat), you start to think back on all the people who directly contributed to this situation. Your parents for never teaching you the value of a dollar, your boss for not existing, and all of Europe for letting you backpack across it for a year instead of going to college. Your mailbox is piling up with bills and you have no money to pay them. Actually the bank repossessed your mailbox, so now they're just sort of piling up in your lawn to form an actual mountain of debt. You’ve reached the end of your rope…literally. You're thinking that death may be the only escape from this financial nightmare. But the bank took all of your rope, so you've resorted to hanging yourself by stapling tube socks together. As you step up onto a chair...what's that? The bank took your furniture too? Jesus Christ man, you really are poor. Maybe you should go through with this. Well, as you stand on your tippy toes in the center of your garage, your little eye spies something that could potentially solve everything. A lone shovel. You realize that you are an American and that you have pastimes and good old fashioned wholesome values to fall back on. This is the land of opportunity, god dammit! This great land is dangling its liberty-filled gonads in front of your face every single day. All you need to do is reach out and grab a handful of American Dream. Hot dogs, baseball, little cubes of frozen water that keep your liquid water cold, and of course, graverobbing.

That's it! You'll dig up corpses. You rightfully feel stupid for not thinking of it before. So you take a firm grasp of your shovel and head out the door, ready to get ankle deep in some post-humous mush. BUT WAIT! Graverobbing is far from being that simple. The media has glamorized grave robbing for years, but the truth is much less appealing. It's not all ancient artifacts, fighting mummies, and rock 'n' roll. It's dirty, thankless, backbreaking labor that is not meant for the faint of heart. So before you get out there and scam some stiffs, let us try to debunk some of the myths that surround this less than savory career. After we're through, you might decide that the sock-noose option is a better idea.


And if that doesn't work, you could probably kill yourself with this. This is no time to be picky.

Galactic Skin Shortage Hits Home

Skin. Soft, sensitive, and the most supple shade of pink. It’s truly a beautiful thing…well, sometimes. Sometimes it’s nothing but an ass-fugly sheet of meat stretched thinly across a lumpy, misshapen body; riddled with erupting boils, scorching rashes, and hair in all the wrong places. But whether you have the skin of a newborn baby or a wildebeest with an acne problem and dry elbows, it is still highly valuable. You might be wondering, “But who would want MY skin?” Good question considering what you do with that flesh rag you call skin in your free time. Is it the Melanoma Men from Mars? Nope. The Eczema People of Ethiopia? Not a chance. There is an intergalactic race out there that craves your skin like you crave someone to dress you up in a toga and call you Caesar…that’s right, we read your diary.

THE SKINLESS ASTRO GOONS FROM SECTOR FIVE! These heinous hide hunters have been roaming the galaxy for as long as skin has existed, so about a dozen or so years. Their home planet is in, you guessed it, Sector Five. Sector 5 is located in between Sectors 4 and 6, but is farther away than Sector 8 (a.k.a. really god damn fucking far away). Just imagine if you took a pebble or a small rodent of some sort, wound up, and chucked it, just like REALLY threw it with all your might towards Sector 5. It would actually be farther away than before you threw it. In Sector 5, the weather forecast makes the Lava Planet in the Galaxy of Humidity look like a beach resort in Boca. They have 30 suns and their days last the length of ten moons, but they don’t have any moons. Their environment is so harsh that their skin melts right off like butter on toast, revealing a bloody pile of space monster…much like toast does when it reveals its true form. So they have scoured the universe searching for skin suitable of their home planet. Rather than moving to any of the infinite amount of other, perfectly livable galaxies, they’ve decided to tear across the cosmos and leave more skinned knees in their wake than a multiple amputee rollerblading tournament.

Real Estate Agent Sued For Selling "Fake Estate"

Russell Tosso’s ads can be seen on buses, blimps, and underneath the tremendous asses of public bench sitters. His catchy tagline “Russell Tosso Sells Homes” can be heard chiming from every television set and radio across the country. He has smashed virtually every sales record and even sold his own home and left him and his family out on the street…just because he could. He sells houses so quickly that they are left feeling cheap, used, and violated like a filthy prostitute that you live in. But like every great fable dealing with a man who is really good at selling houses, he must have his downfall. Mr. Tosso has been summoned to court for the most disgraceful offense in the real estate world…selling fake estate. Fake estate is nothing more than…well, nothing. Gaping, absent holes in reality. Sections of the universe that were forgotten. These pockets of nonexistence are scattered across the globe and have been a homebuyer’s worst nightmare since they were first discovered. Russell’s coworkers, friends, and family were all shocked to hear these reputation destroying allegations brought against him. Russell has publicly made it known that he does not intend on pleading guilty and that he would “never stoop that low”. Russell went on to say “Have you seen my numbers? They are outstanding. Just last week I sold a multi million dollar home to an unemployed vagrant and the home wasn’t even on the market. I’ve sold property to babies for god’s sake!” Others did not share this optimistic viewpoint. Fellow salesman, Bob Cohnfield, said “In the past few months, we’ve really seen Russell start to slip. He ran out of things to sell, plain and simple. He started trying to sell trees to birds, caves to bears, that sort of thing. He rented out some of his desk space to an Armenian couple. It was really tragic. Everyone knows about fake estate, but no one ever really considers that as an option. It’s a slippery slope and once you start down that path, you don’t come back. It’s like heroin…or Glee.” Families affected by their purchasing of fake estate will be reimbursed for all of their inconvenience once they can be fished out of whatever alternate universe they have fallen into.

Police Recover Invisible Man's Body...they think

For several months now, an extensive investigation has been carried out in the disappearance of Dr. Mr. Professor Alexander Spample. Spample graduated from LeCroix University with a Doctorate in Biomedichemistrology in 1983. Since then he has pranced around the science community, mixing mixtures and shaking beakers. His most famous work came in 2000 when he earned the Nobel Peace Prize for creating a potent new form of cotton candy. This cotton candy was used in the building of stealth bombers and would encase pilots in a pillowy soft cocoon in case of high speed collisions with other planes, mountains, eagles, etc. Also, it came in other flavors besides Pink and Blue. For the past 10 years, he has become increasingly distant from the science world and spent his time working for pharmaceutical companies manufacturing top of the line drugs (male enhancement/child vitamins) all while working on his top secret project…invisibility. After many failed attempts that resulted in a sudden spike of skinless fetish websites, he succeeded in 2009 by making himself transparent, translucent, and all around balls-ass scary to everyone around him. The world got up in arms as he traipsed around doing all the naked things we wish we could do while naked…he’s always naked. Countless accounts of mysterious voices and even more mysterious dongs swamped police departments everywhere. An eyewitness to one of Spample’s exploits said, “My wife and I, we were sitting on my porch. All of a sudden, we see this floatin’ pair of underwear on the horizon. We didn’t quite know what to make of it. Then, we see them underwear just sort of drop to the ground. And that’s when I knew...I had a naked invisible man on my property.” The military has wept at all of the lost opportunities for warfare. General Nathan S. Pud came right out and said “That boy could be savin’ his country, but instead he’s playin’ with his junk in public. He could be a god damn American Hero…” After a few short months, he seemed to fall off of the grid entirely. Search parties were sent out in an effort to locate him, but this has proved to be quite the difficult task. They have equipped themselves with state of the art pool noodles and are waving them around as we speak, in hopes of colliding with the missing professor. An interesting turn was thrown into the case last week when authorities announced they were “almost positive they found the body of Spample”. The officer on duty who found the body said “It was like any other day on the force. I was walking on the beach, eating an ice cream cone, when suddenly I tripped over something. I turned to see what made me stumble and there was nothing there! After a few hours of intense investigation, I was like…70% sure that it was him. Maybe 60%. I mean, he is invisible after all, so I guess I can’t be sure, but…I’m pretty sure.” Does the body belong to Spample, another invisible man, or was it a plastic bag that brushed by the officer’s foot? These questions have struck fear into communities and people have begun arming themselves for the inevitable war that is soon to come between Invisible and Visible men everywhere.

Late Night T.V. Host Reveals Cult Scheme, Ratings Soar

Let us paint a picture for you. You are lying in bed, satisfied, having just proved that you CAN recite every line of Robocop 1 and 2. You are about to shut your eyes and drift off to a fanastimagical dreamland where you have no bills to pay, no dead end job, no crippling loneliness, no deep rooted abandonment/commitment issues, no patchy facial hair or receding hair line, no ingrown toenail that the podiatrist has operated on several times, but has not improved at all and in fact your toe has caved in on itself and earned you the new nickname “9 Toe Joe”…but we digress. And right as you are about to shut off your TV, something catches your eye. You have never ventured onto this channel before, but you couldn’t resist the double feature of robotic justice and now you are going to pay the price, you damned fool. A lone man sitting at a desk appears on screen. He is wearing a tweed jacket and you can see it in his eyes that he is not wearing anything below that. He begins to talk, but you hear nothing, as all of your attention has fleeted to the plastic bamboo plant in the corner. It sits quietly, mocking you as it casts thick, crisp shadows against the backdrop from the harsh stage lighting. For the next few hours, you are prisoner of this man unbeknownst to you. Late into the afternoon, you snap out of a comatose-like state. You scrape the inches of crust from the corners of your mouth and continue on your way. Voices circle your mind and urge you to steal, to kill, to buy name brand cereals. You can’t resist the temptation to take a pilgrimage to the abandoned summer camp two towns over. What happens in the next few weeks is all a blur of matching robes, suicide pacts, and cyanide laced, grape flavored Kool-Aid. If this scene sounds at all familiar, you have been brainwashed by late night television. Don’t feel bad, you aren’t the only one. Grown adults everywhere have fallen victim to Late Nights with Hubert Hastings. The FCC has been unable to find any breach of contract in how Hubert spends his time on air. Also, police have found no evidence to convict him for any crime whatsoever. In fact, we can’t seem to find a single person who hasn’t been turned into a mindless drone, sooo we guess there’s nothing any of us can do. We suppose that we will see you at the mandatory picnic for all members next week

Amusement Park Construction Comes To A Screeching Halt

For the past decade and a half, The Dingaling Bros. have captivated audiences everywhere with their three ring circus extravaganza. Whether it be the Man with the Hairiest Colon or the Women with the Least Womanly Features, there is surely something to please, dazzle, satisfy, or absolutely god damn disgust you at their festival of fun. As you may or may not know, Jeeber and Jober Dingaling have decided to expand their wacky empire of shenanigans with a full blow, jolly jiggling theme park…IN EGYPT! That’s right, nothing says “family fun” like the sweltering heat of the Sahara Desert that will singe your short and curlies like the wicks of candles atop a birthday cake on the surface of the sun. Once you get past the dream-raping horrors of snakes, scorpions, and scarabs, it’s actually quite pleasant. Unfortunately, construction has come to a dead stop on this project for the 5th time since November. What is the cause of this setback? Why an ancient curse of course! While laying the brickwork for the bumper car arena, one careless worker accidentally cracked open the tomb of a ruthless pharaoh, Ramses Boojamsies IV, whose accomplishments are working slaves to death, undoing thousands of years of progress on the pyramids by attempting to make them spheres, and melting more Nazi faces than Indiana Jones during a solar flare. The workers fled as dog-faced men and man-faced dogs (all with spears and intimidating abs) came bursting out of the sand. Workers made their strike official when a swarm of locust blocked out the sun, a pestilence cloud of disease ravaged nearby towns, and also the lunch truck ran out of chicken fried steak. The supervisor on the job discussed the possibility of outsourcing the project to an independent contractor. “There is an abundance of mummies at our disposal. Those preserved corpses are workhorses that will labor 24/7 for exchange for their worldly belongings that we have rightfully repossessed. The only problem is that in that hot sun, they go bad like full diapers on Bourbon Street, but for the time being we’d be silly not to exploit their decomposing asses…hold on, don’t write any of that down,” he said. The Dingaling Bros. remain optimistic about the future of their amusement park. They even opened it up to a small group from St. Mary’s Children’s Hospital to test out a few of the rides…there were no survivors.

Local Man Discovers Secret Society

Since the dawn of time, man has kept secrets from other men, but shared those secrets with certain men, but only if those men could recite some sort of secret word or perform a secret hand gesture in order to unlock the lips of the original man with the secrets in order to the hear the secrets he was keeping secretive in the first place. Last week, a secret came out that rocked the Society of Secret Societies to its very core. Jackson Crotch made the startling discovery about a secret society that was so secret, he didn’t even know he was a member. Not only was he a member, he was the founder and president of the club. “I don’t know how this happened. I don’t remember ever starting this club. I don’t think I’ve attended a single meeting. This whole thing is just very confusing,” said Crotch. Jackson’s revelation soon caused others to come out of the woodwork and admit to being official members of this enigmatic organization. Everyone from lawyers to judges, clowns to tomato farmers have come forth to reveal this club for what it is. One long time member explained that, “Well you see…the club is kind of like…Um, well we get together once in awhile and…uhhhh. Wait, maybe I’m not a member.” I guess we will never know when this society was started, how long it will last, and what exactly it is that they do.

Money Saving Guide For Ghouls

Early this morning, Monster and Munster Co.’s stocks plummeted a resounding 500 points, sending millions into a dire financial emergency. No business known to neither man nor monster has ever seen a plunge this bad. Stockholders have begun offering up cars, household appliances, and ever their souls in order to keep roofs over their heads. One man who sold his soul to the bank had this to say: “Yeah I sold my soul…so what? What is a soul anyway? Like…it’s just air or whatever. I’m not too worried about it…it’ll be fine.” This tragic economic downturn has been described by experts at “completely avoidable” and “a direct result of incompetence”.

We here at Strange Times have teamed up with industry professionals to compile a list of surefire, money saving lifestyle changes that are sure to keep a disaster of this caliber from ever befalling upon you:

1. DIET. No no no, you goof, this isn’t a weight loss article! Many people don’t know that the biggest expenditure in most households is food! That stuff you call sustenance, we call EXTRA BAGGAGE! Dump it all in the trash…all of it. We guarantee that you debt will wither away just as quickly as you do. Better yet, if you are going to get rid of every ounce of meat on your body, you might as well make a quick buck. There are plenty of street vendors who would be glad to perform a rudimentary surgery to remove that ponch of yours and you can auction it off to any number of eccentric city folks. If you are already in peak physical condition and have no fat to sell, try finding a fatty fatty boombalatty to harvest. Obesity is a growing epidemic that is not being cashed in on properly by 99% of most Americans. Be part of that other 1% and start chasing yourself some chubbies…with a machete. Now we understand that some of our readers are not willing or capable of cutting every last calorie from their daily routine, so our advice to you is to…

2. DOWNGRADE. In these tough economic times, no one can afford to sit upon their ivory towers, shoveling gold flakes into their raw and bleeding throat while laughing at the peons as they toil in the squalor below. Nope, not anymore. Not like in the good old days. We need to learn how to swallow our pride and maybe some cat food in order to send little Johnnies and Susies everywhere to college. Don’t cry over spilt milk, DRINK IT! Get down on your knees and lap up that moo juice because there is no way of knowing when that cash cow is going to come your way again. Instead of huffing and puffing your way to a mountain of bills with name brand cigarettes, roll your own! All ingredients from coffee grounds to rat poison can be found in your very own home….right under the sink…where kids have easy access to them. You think you’re above sleeping on a mattress that fell off a truck? Well you aren’t. Get off your high horse and embrace those discolorations and vibrant stains. It’s like sleeping on a rainbow…a urine, blood, and liquor soaked rainbow. If you are too accustomed to your current lifestyle and show no signs of ending your reign as Mr. Bigshot, then why don’t you try…

3. LEACHING. Become a money hungry parasite that grubs at other peoples’ wealth until the only thing that is left is an empty shell of what they once were. We heard that Jim next door makes more money than you. Also, he has a bigger house, prettier wife, and a slightly less raging infestation of pubic lice. Bet that makes you pretty mad huh? Well do something about it, cowboy. Next time he goes out of town, hold an estate sell on his property. That expensive leaf blower that he never let you borrow after that time he caught you making love to it? Sell it for 10 bucks! By the time he finds out what you’ve done, you will have bodyguards and butlers to protect you from any sort of repercussions. Not only can you leach off other humans, but you can continue to suckle on Mother Nature’s teet long into your retirement. Tired of wasting your time and effort bringing your used car batteries to the recycling facility? That’s time you could spend making some serious dough! Bury them deep in the ground and move on. Why pay for garbage disposal service when fire does the job quicker? But don’t just burn those plastic water bottles! Bring ‘em down the old, stagnant quarry and fill ‘em right back up again. During the summer, the neighborhood kids will pay big cashola for a refreshing beverage. Also, if you happen to drag up those missing bodies while your at it, CHA-CHING! Reward money!

That concludes our list of failure-proof guidelines for you to be on your way to a wealthier lifestyle. Once again you will be able to use your stove fueled by panda bears and your toilet filled with crude oil. In a few short weeks you will be just like your heroes plastered on the cover of Fortune Magazine, but you will be too busy traveling the world in a balloon to ever read the article. Just remember that when other call your actions “sheer lunacy”, we call them your ticket to “pure luxury”.

4 Reasons Bigfoot Should Be Left The F*** Alone

Reasons why Bigfoot should be left the f*** alone
Every Tom, Dick and Harry has their own opinion on whether or not Sasquatch exists. This dispute has been raging on since the days where the last thing your scalp needed to worry about was dandruff. Some believe he was a protector or a guardian, whereas others believed that he was a sinister creature spawned from evil that would prowl the night air and feast on children’s screams. Others (morons) simply choose not to believe because of lack of scientific evidence. But regardless of where you stand on this issue, there is no denying the existence of the very real, very greasy, very depressed/ing…Bigfoot Hunters. This group has singlehandedly beaten out all of the competition for most deranged and pathetic hobby…or is it a job? If so, who pays them? On the other hand, who really cares? Now, we here at Strange Times are firm believers in Sasquatch, but we have no intention on ever catching him…and let us give you a few reasons why:

1. Bigfoot (or BF as he will further be known) is much stronger than us…and you…and everyone else. Have you seen the people who search for Bigfoot? A diet of cheese laden gas station cuisine and shattered dreams are not going to bulk you up enough to fight a 10 foot tall primate. BF will gut anyone who crosses his path like a surgeon who just got laid off, except he doesn’t know anything about surgery…and he doesn’t wash his hands. We hope they do find BF, just so he can rip them flabby limb from flabby limb.

2. Bigfoot is more dedicated to remaining uncaught than you are to catching him. Everyone can see the appeal of taking the wife and kids out for an afternoon Squatch-hunt, but you are simply wasting your time. BF’s entire life has been one giant struggle to remain unseen and free and what makes you think you are going to be the one to accidentally stumble across him? Chances are, when you’re out there having a grand ole time, he is lurking in some nearby brush…watching you…plotting your downfall.

3. Bigfoot needs no gadgets, gizmos, bells, or whistles to be a woodland mercenary. The fact is, if you just blew your children’s college funds on a high speed, night vision, infrared, 1000X zoom camera/waffle maker, you are in for a rude surprise. A rude, hairy, murderous, screeching with anger surprise. All of the toys in the world aren’t going to defend you against his god given weapon known as instinct. What you have to call tech support to learn how to use, he can do with twigs and mud. BF is like a Monkey MacGyver, except he has a lot more time on his hands and feels a lot less remorse for breaking your spine. Chances are when you’re staring into his cold, unforgiving eyes as he chokes the life out of your wriggling body, you aren’t going to be wondering about the return policy on your breathable, poly latex rain poncho.

4. Bigfoot is the only one who is a Bigfoot Expert. Cryptozoologist, Rare Species Specialist, and similar titles are just clever ways of saying Professional Virgin and Doctor of Being Lonely. So you just sat home with the flu and watched 17 hours of Monster Quest, Unsolved Mysteries, and Bigfeet: The Shoe Deal That Changed America and you think you are ready to take on Sas. You are painfully mistaken. That’s like fighting a Marine because you saw a movie with a boat in it once or wrestling in an underground, no holds barred cage match just because you own your own fluorescent leotard. By the way, have you noticed that at the end of every episode, they don’t catch BF? That isn’t a coincidence. It is scientific fact that if you take the same idiots, but put them on national television, they will continue to yield the same idiotic results.

So there you go folks. If you are still convinced that you are the ultimate game hunter, then we encourage you to follow your ambitions. After all, this world needs entertaining obituaries and the forest floor is begging to be fertilized by your entrails.