The Week in Review

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 22: Cha-ching! That's the sound of the FCC pushing the subtotal button on its quaint, old-timey metaphorical cash register after calculating the value of Janet Jackson's right tit--a grand total of $550,000. That's the FCC's record fine against CBS for Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction," the incident that will forever be known as the scandal that momentarily made the Super Bowl interesting, buoyed Janet Jackson's career for 0.03 seconds and, judging by his zonged-out cartoon eyeballs, caused boy genius Justin Timberlake to hatch a new theory on where chocolate milk comes from.

THURSDAY, SEPT. 23: Whoaaa! KEE-RUNCH (outlined with a little graphical comic book explosion)! That's the sound of former "Growing Pains" actress Tracey Gold driving home after Margarita Family Values Night. Gold was slapped with three felony DUI-related counts after she crashed her SUV in an accident in Moorpark. Fortunately, the angel-faced former child star wasn't hurt, shielded by the protective, fleshy bodies of her husband and three children. Hurray! (Macaulay Culkin, packed in the back among pillowcases filled with horse tranquilizers and a harem of unconscious midget hookers, was also unhurt and giggling.)

FRIDAY, SEPT. 24: Nothing inspires undie-mucking terror like turning to the swarthy man next to you on a United transatlantic flight and discovering--no, not that he's lighting the fuse on his Nike Air Xtreme Martyrs, but WORSE--he's pulling out a Cat Stevens Greatest Hits 8-track! The former singer, now a Muslim convert who goes by Yusuf Islam, lashed out Friday after his London-to-Washington flight was diverted because Islam was on a government watch-list. Fun fact: Cat Stevens was known for such '70s hits as "Wild World" and "Morning Has Broken." Er, how come he wasn't on a watch list for that shit?

SATURDAY, SEPT. 25: Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is waaaay beyond those tired party tricks like the ol' "separated thumb" and "quarter from child's ear"--why, he made almost 4,000 people disappear during his rule from 1973 to 1990. Smell the magic! The former dictator was questioned Saturday about his involvement in Operation Condor, an evil plan hatched by a host of South American countries to quash dissent by making outspoken citizens go bye-bye. But instead of using magic wands, they use--voila!--machine guns and shallow graves. (John Ashcroft has since applied for Pinochet's position.)

SUNDAY, SEPT. 26: The Runnin' Rebels: once the moniker referred to a championship basketball team, then a promising football team; now it best describes the shenanigans of the local chapter of Aye Tappa Kegga taking to the softball field naked on Unintentionally Homoerotic Beer Bong Streaking Night. UNLV football coach John Robinson called it quits Sunday, capping an explosive six-season career marked by UNLV football not-really-sucking-but-not-really-not-sucking either. Fortunately, UNLV will always have its solemn reputation as a serious academic institution to fall back on.

MONDAY, SEPT. 27: Jay Leno of "The Tonight Show"--that TV institution that turned the nation nightly into a giant water cooler abuzz with mild humor and tempered zany--is doing something just as unpredictable and kee-razy as the show itself: He's turning over the reins to Conan O'Brien sometime in 2009. "When I signed my new contract, I felt that the timing was right to plan for my successor, and there is no one more qualified than Conan. Plus, I promised [my wife] Mavis I would take her out for dinner before I turned 60," Leno said. Don't be bothered by that choking death rattle--that's just us keeling over from hilarity.

TUESDAY, SEPT. 28: Notice how hard it is to get decent cocaine lately? Totally. Is the War on Drugs working? Of course not. However, the U.S. Coast Guard seized more nasal Fun Dip than ever last year--240,518 pounds of cocaine worth $7.7 billion. The secret? Getting ships that are, like, faster than those of the drug smugglers. A simple idea really. Almost as simple as legalizing the stuff and putting the thugs out of business permanently. Just a thought!--ANDREW KIRALY