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  • Good afternoon everyone. We are on location in Detroit, Michigan to kick off our latest project. But before we start out, I need to explain to our viewers at home why this is going to be one of the most unique projects ever attempted. Our broadcast affiliate, just like any other television network, is required to comply with FCC regulations to incorporate anti-drug messages into the station’s programming. While most channels simply agree to run a certain number of approved commercials every month, the Public Broadcasting Service doesn’t have traditional commercial breaks. After countless meetings with lawyers on both sides, an agreement was made to produce a special anti-drug episode of our home improvement series. To make this project even more special, we have assembled an All-Star PBS team. In addition to my usual crew, Dean Johnson and Robin Hartyl put their “Hometime” plans on hold and flew in from Minnesota. Norm Abrams is ready to help out in the New Yankee Workshop. My name is Steve Thomas, and welcome to “This Old Crack House.”

    Steve: I’m standing in front of our next project– a crack house in Detroit, Michigan. Just looking around here, Tom, I see a lot of unique challenges.

    Tom: Right you are, Steve. First of all, this is going to be a scheduling nightmare. While we usually put in a lot of long nights to get a project like this finished on time, we saw the condition of the neighborhood, and the entire crew agreed to stop work at dusk each day and high-tail it back to the Holiday Inn.

    Steve: And that’s thirty-seven miles away!

    Tom: Yes, it is, but we feel it’s a necessary precaution.

    Steve: Now the situation with our homeowner is quite unique. Grace Smith is an eighty-five year old retired school teacher. It turns out that the crack heads broke into her house when she was visiting her grandchildren in the suburbs. Now she is too ashamed to tell anyone, so she just spends most of her time in a dilapidated garage at the back of the property. We will be taking with Grace a little later, but first, Tom, what is the condition of the house?

    Tom: Well Steve, I hate to tell you this, but the situation doesn’t look too good. I went down into the basement to see what was going on, and it wasn’t pretty. First of all, I discovered what I believe to be a decomposing body near the hot water heater. And, more importantly, the crawl space lacks adequate ventilation. Over time, this has caused the floor joists to rot. Before we do anything on the main floor, we are going to have to reinforce the sub floor.

    Steve: And what about the body?

    Tom: Well, it doesn’t pose any structural issues, so I think we will be better off leaving it alone. Maybe, if the budget allows, we could cover it up with some scrap plastic to keep the rodents away.

    Steve: Tom, you know as well as I do that on a project like this, we always seem to run into these kinds of issues. But let’s take a moment right now to see what Norm Abrams has got going for us in his workshop.

    Norm: Thanks Steve. I’m sorry I couldn’t be out there to see all that urban decay personally. I did get some measurements of the crack house and I have acquired the materials for a new carpentry project. But before we start any work, we need to take a minute to talk about safety. Remember to always use protective eyewear when operating power tools. Also, each project has its own unique hazards. For example, we are reminding everyone to wear steel-toed boots with a thick rubber sole at all times. We don’t want to start working only to have someone accidentally step on a syringe filled with leftover heroin and traces of possibly HIV infected blood. Just to be on the safe side, we have also made the entire landscaping crew promise, in writing, not to engage in unprotected sex with any of the crack whores in the house.

    Now for the project itself– after seeing footage of the crack house, one of the first things that I noticed was the horrible condition of the methamphetamine lab. Half-empty bottles of cough syrup were on the floor, and the main work area lacked proper ventilation. I’ve designed a nice mahogany work center that will really help the occupants of the house. It contains plenty of storage for raw materials, and I’ve used a special crown molding that gives the piece a very elegant appearance. Anyone using this area will now be able to manufacture large quantities of illegal narcotics while at the same time reducing the risk of blowing themselves up in the process. If you would like to build a meth lab in your house, a set of measured drawings is available on our website.

    Steve: We will check back with you later Norm. Next we have our friends Dean and Robin from “Hometime” who are working in the bathroom.

    Dean: Hello, I’m Dean Johnson…

    Robin: And I’m Robin Harytl. Dean and I have been working together for so long that we can even….

    Dean: …finish each other’s sentences. Well, that was just a little bit of a humorous exchange we have been working on to introduce ourselves. Just to use at parties and what not, if we ever get invited to one.

    Robin: We are really excited to be here. Now normally we only tape our shows in affluent suburbs of Minneapolis, so this was a quite a change for us. To help add a little class to this crack house, Dean and I are brainstorming ideas for fixing up the bathroom.

    Dean: There are two things that really jumped out at us when we entered the bathroom. And, no, that doesn’t include the crack head hiding behind the door who tried to steal our video camera equipment. First of all, we thought someone started their own project when we saw some rather large holes in the drywall by the toilet.

    Robin: But then we realized someone just cut out the copper pipes and, we think, traded them for crack. The other feature is a message left by one of the home’s occupants in some kind of permanent marker. It says, “Yo yo yo… Mary Katherine is my crack hoe. Anyone who touches her gets their house privileges revoked and a healthy ass whooping by me. — Anthony.”

    Dean: We did think about painting over the note, but in the end we decided it gave the area more character if we just left it alone. Also, right as we were considering our options, the original author, Anthony, came into the bathroom and suggested, using gestures with his favorite baseball bat, that we not alter his message in any way whatsoever.

    Robin: As far as the missing pipes, we decided to do something to keep this problem from coming back sometime in the future. Instead of repairing the damage, we have decided to remove the toilet, and cut out a small hole in the floor. This will allow the urine and feces to drop directly down into the crawlspace, and onto what appears, from up here, to be a dead body of some sort.

    Dean: Now normally this would be against the building code, but given the unique situation of this house, we decided to take certain liberties with the new design.

    Steve: Well, that’s all the time we have for today. In our next episode we will see what happens when Tom Silva accidentally drops acid and the schedule gets pushed back due to a surprise police raid. So keep watching as we work to put the crack back in This Old Crack House.

  • The National Institute of Health released a report stating that while American children are becoming more obese, they are less likely to become pregnant or engage in violent activity. One of the researchers concluded, “If you want to keep your son out of school-yard fights and your daughter from getting knocked up, make sure they watch plenty of television and consume large quantities of junk food on a daily basis.”

  • An unidentified British financier recently spent $40 million for an apartment space facing Central Park in New York City. After the deal was finalized, the landlord warned the new tenant, “No loud music, no drugs, or I get you arrested and someone else gets your apartment.”

  • An unidentified British financier recently spent $40 million for an apartment space facing Central Park in New York City. After the deal was finalized, the landlord warned the new tenant, “No loud music, no drugs, or I get you arrested and someone else gets your apartment.”

  • President Bush recently declared that rebuilding Iraq will be a “massive and long-term undertaking.” The White House Press Secretary elaborated, “To put this in perspective, it is way more important than rebuilding our nation’s economy, but slightly less important than rebuilding the President’s re-election war chest.”

  • Pop singer Rachel Farris and her independent record label are embedding mini-CDs in the lids of 4.8 million soft drink cups to be distributed at movie theaters and amusement parks. One music executive, who asked to remain anonymous, commented on this unique promotion, “As an industry, we want to send the message that we can give away millions of digitally stored copies of popular music, but if anyone else tries it, we will sue the pants off them.”

  • In an effort to reduce obesity in the United States, Kraft Foods Inc, the nation’s largest food manufacturer, has announced plans to evaluate portion sizes and the nutritional content of all its products. A spokesperson for Kraft explained, “In the future, a bag of, say, Oreo cookies will be exactly the same size as before, but it will be considered 8000 individual servings.”

  • Hundreds of mourners passed through South Carolina’s Statehouse to pay their final respects to Strom Thurmond. Many people brought flowers and other items to leave by the coffin in a make-shift memorial. Trent Lott put all his future political ambitions down and quickly left the building.

  • A recently completed study in the United Kingdom discovered a link between alcohol consumption and rectal cancer. The research team found people who consume more than fourteen drinks a week are three times more likely than non-drinkers to develop the disease. The report came with the following warning, “if you go out to your local pub on a Friday night, drink fourteen shots of tequila, pass out, and wake up in a strange bed with one or more unknown male partners and a sore behind, you might have rectal cancer.”

  • The U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a Texas “homosexual conduct” law which imposes a $500 fine for same-sex couples who engage in oral and anal sex. When asked about President Bush’s views on the matter, soon-to-be ex-White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer commented, “The President is actually quite pleased with this decision. Now nobody on Capitol Hill can complain after the next election when all those Democrats in Congress take it up the ass.”

  • While being completely organized has never been one of my strong points, I have yet to forget my girlfriend Kristin’s birthday. One reason for my impressive track record in this area is the fact that we have only been dating for a year and a half. The other, and by far more relevant factor is the consistent effort on Kristin’s part to make sure I remember. After twenty-three casual verbal reminders, three email messages, and one formal printed birthday “wish list,” Kristin did everything humanly possible to ensure that May 27, 1976 was a day not to be forgotten. And don’t even get me started on the “Countdown to My Birthday” lighted, animated marquee sign she constructed (at, I’m sure, considerable expense) in the living room.

    Last year I made Kristin a website that anyone in the Internet-free world can go visit at Krisser.com. The site contains a collection of her writing along with various photographs of places she has visited over the years. While the website probably isn’t going to cure cancer or get any new Democrats elected to congress in 2004, it’s a fun place to poke around from time to time. Kristin really enjoys having her own website, despite the constant disagreement with the web design team (that would be me) about the image on the main page showing her in a moderately low-cut t-shirt. But, she does admit that it is better than a picture of me showing too much cleavage.

    This year I decided to take a less traditional approach to Kristin’s birthday. While I could have simply gotten her something off her birthday list, I wanted to surprise her with something else. As I drove to the local Wal-Mart I used a highly specialized process of meditation specifically designed to make me think like Kristin. When I arrived at the store I was a five-foot-two, red-headed, nine-fingered woman. Fortunately, nobody else in the store was aware of my transformation.

    After about twenty minutes of shopping, I decided on a set of steak knives, and a headset for her cell phone. As I was heading towards the checkout area, a motorized bubble making machine caught my eye. Not literally, thankfully. It basically consists of a series of plastic loops that get immersed in bubble solution and then move in front of a small fan. It looked like fun and was consistent with my birthday shopping mission. I picked it up, paid for everything, and went home to wrap Kristin’s presents.

    I swear I didn’t know it at the time, but one of these seemingly innocent gifts might very well be [NOTE TO READER: prepare for sudden topic change.] TURNING MY GIRLFRIEND INTO AN ECSTACY ADDICT!

    A few days after Kristin’s birthday, I saw an anti-drug advertisement on the television. It turns out that blowing soap bubbles is a common activity for people high on ecstasy, also known on the street as “E.” Or is it “X”? Well, the word ecstasy doesn’t even contain the letter X, so now I’m not quite sure. And why do the letters “CS” make an “X” sound?

    Putting my annoyances of the English language aside for the moment, the commercial displayed half a dozen other types of ecstasy paraphernalia. After letting the facts digest for a few moments, I called Kristin at her office to address the issue. Here is the gist of the conversation:

    Her: Thank you for calling, how may I help you?

    Me: The game is over, Madame Lovejoy. I know you are hopped up on E!

    Her: Huh? Is that you, Omar? This is Tiffany. Do you want me to get Kristin for you?

    Me: Oops, um, yeah. Thanks.

    Kristin: What’s up? I was in the back room catching up on some filing.

    Me: So are you an ecstasy addict?

    Kristin: Uh, no. Why would you think something like that?

    Me: I found out people who get high on it like soap bubbles—and you have a soap bubble machine.

    Kristin: Well, honey, you bought it for me as a birthday present. It wasn’t even on my wish list.

    Me: STOP TRYING TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT! And what about those angel wings? That is another sign.

    Kristin: I don’t own any angel wings. Maybe you are the one on drugs here, Omar.

    Me: What, are you going to pretend I don’t spend time carefully examining every image of that Victoria’s Secret catalog you get every few weeks? Every issue has women in various states of undress wearing angel wings.

    Kristin: You are driving me nuts.

    Me: And the television commercial told me that small stuffed animals are another sign. You can’t deny that you have a large basket of them on the living room floor.

    Kristin: HELLO! Those are for the dog. You love watching her play with all the squeaky toys.

    Me: Things are worse than I thought. Now you are giving your dog drugs? Have you no sense of right and wrong?

    Click.

    Me: Hello? I can’t hear you. Must be some problem with the phone line…

    Well, that phone call didn’t seem to resolve anything. Kristin is still denying being an ecstasy junkie, and this whole episode has put a bit of a strain on our relationship. While I’m not really sure if I learned anything here, I have decided that next year I’m going to just pick something from Kristin’s birthday wish list. And I might even consider buying her one of those silly, girly DVDs she is always talking about starring some silly, girly actor like Hugh Grant and/or Colin Firth. If that isn’t a sign of true love, I’m not sure what is.

  • Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent a memo out to all his employees critical of open source software and the companies who support it. “Complicating the situation are companies, like IBM, whose support of Linux has added an illusion of support and accountability.” The memo went on to say, “This, obviously, is in direct conflict with Microsoft’s illusion of support and accountability.”