Mysterious Jokes

From the Washington Post Invitational contest, which calls them Merge-Matic Books: Readers were asked to combine the works of two authors, and to provide a suitable blurb.

Second Runner-Up: Machiavelli's The Little Prince. Antoine de Saint-Exupery's classic children's tale as presented by Machiavelli. The whimsy of human nature is embodied in many delightful and intriguing characters, all of whom are executed.

First Runner-Up: Green Eggs and Hamlet Would you kill him in his bed? Thrust a dagger through his head? I would not, could not, kill the King. I could not do that evil thing. I would not wed this girl, you see. Now get her to a nunnery.

And the Winner: Fahrenheit 451 of the Vanities. An' 80s yuppie is denied books. He does not object, or even notice.

Honorable Mentions:

Where's Walden? Alas, the challenge of locating Henry David Thoreau in each richly-detailed drawing loses its appeal when it quickly becomes clear that he is more...

Two drunk, Santa and Banta, were walking along a dirt road one day when they came upon a pile of some brown stuff on the ground.
"Is that shit, Banta?" Santa said.
"I don`t really know." Responded Banta as he bent over, "it smells like shit."
Santa leaned in and dipped his finger into the mysterious pile. "It feels like shit!"
Banta too dipped his finger into the mysterious pile and without hesitation shoved the finger in his mouth. "Sure tastes like shit, buddy! I think it`s definitely shit."
"Hooooeee!" Responded Santa, "Good thing we didn’t step in it!"

Authorities were investigating the source of a mysterious gas-like odor Monday that stretched across a large part of Manhattan."The smell was very strong. It was very scary," said Yolanda Van Gemd, an administrator at ASA, a business school near the Empire State Building that was evacuated as a precaution.
In August, seven people were treated at hospitals after a gaseous smell in the boroughs of Queens and Staten Island.
In December, five people were killed and thirty eight people suffered irreparable damage after a foul and mysterious odor encompassed L.A. county emanating from a club that was attended by young celebrities. Coincidentally this was the night Britney Spears was photographed with no underwear on.
"The smell was very strong. It was very scary," said Fred Martin, a homeless guy who was burning tires a few miles away from the club.

The BBC Gaza correspondent is sitting in her air conditioned hotel in the Gaza strip, sipping iced tea when her mobile phone begins to ring. She picks up the phone and hears a mysterious voice say, " comrade this is the ruling council of the military wing of Hamas and I would like to inform you that those Israeli pigs have just massacred hundreds of Palastinian women and children. "
The BBC correspondent then asks the mysterious stranger on the phone where and when this had happened but was just given the address of the small provincial hospital just inside the Israeli border where he claimed hundreds of surviving casualties had been taken earlier and informed her that all her expenses would be covered as usual.
Armed with this information she realises that she can finally prove to the world just how evil these Israeli, American Jewish lobby supported pigs really are. So she makes her way as quickly as possible across the border into Israel and to the more...

1. The Enterprise encounters a mysterious energy field, and they've seen it many times before.
2. The Enterprise successfully ferries an alien VIP from one place to another without incident.
3. The Enterprise visits a remote outpost of scientists and they are all OK.
4. Picard, Riker, and Data visit the Holodeck and it works perfectly.
5. Captain Picard has to make a difficult decision about a less advanced people, but the Prime Directive makes it easy.
6. A power surge on the bridge is correctly diagnosed as a faulty capacitor by a well-trained engineering staff using common diagnostic equipment.
7. The officers of the Enterprise encounter a new lifeform, which later turns out to be a common, well-known lifeform who was wearing a funny mask as a joke.
8. A major emergency happens near the Enterprise, but fortunately some other ships in the area are able to deal with it.
9. The Enterprise kicks in warp speed and hits a large planet coming from the right more...