Thomas sat on the bench and played with the little box, opening and closing it over and over, tilting it so the light from the streetlamp caught the tiny treasure inside at various, glittering angles.
James pulled up and honked.
"Thanks," said Thomas as he slid into the shotgun seat, the box still in his hand.
"No problem," said James. "What's that?"
Thomas sighed.
"It's everything up until now," he said. "Let's get some poutine."

Gas prices continue to drop. Great, right? WRONG. It's a harbinger of global economic collapse, all because you suspected you might deserve to be happy. Thanks, you.

Long before anybody has confirmed anything, a new CNN poll shows Jeb Bush blowing the doors off the competition among potential Republican presidential candidates. Seriously, no possible nominee has posted numbers like this ever, except Ronald Reagan's reanimated corpse every year since 2004.

The Justice Department has apparently been letting various Tampa Bay defense attorneys know it's looking over some old cases from the late ’80s. The legalese involved in these various letters is pretty dense, but seems in every case to boil down to something along the lines of, "The FBI may have fucked up and railroaded your client. Stay tuned!"

Among the new laws relevant to Tampa Bay residents taking effect on Jan. 1 are an increased minimum wage, stricter booster seat and child seat requirements, a mandate for longer-lasting non-removable batteries in smoke detectors, and immediate vaporization via space lasers of all idiots who willfully try to evade the police by driving any vehicle in the wrong direction on any road, interstate or entrance ramp. IMMEDIATE. VAPORIZATION. VIA SPACE LASERS.

This article appears in Dec 25-31, 2014.