RAMONA — Nestled between Gravel City and Jim’s Fertilizer in Ramona’s trendy Uptown District, Raul’s BBQ isn’t your average hole-in-the-wall rib joint. The restaurant has mastered a unique presentation concept that continues to attract visitors from all over the country.

When Raul’s opened in 2006, it was instantly deemed the official restaurant of vegetable rights activists — those who refuse to eat vegetables for personal or religious reasons.

All of the entrees on the menu are cleverly named after vegetables, but patrons can rest assure that every dish is made from 100% meat ingredients.

The slim jim stem on the 'carrot' is an example of the attention to detail that goes into every dish.

“Our most popular dish is the ‘carrot,’ which is actually made of top grade sirloin steak. We use orange food coloring and artificial carrot flavoring to simulate the look and taste of a real carrot,” said Raul Delvechi, owner of Raul’s BBQ.

Many customers of Raul’s have gone their entire life without eating vegetables. Customers like 26-year-old Clyde McDowell, who sat down last Thursday to enjoy a ‘broccoli’ dish, which is really pork loin and lamb foot.

“I know that I’m not actually eating broccoli, but the look and taste is so convincing that I still feel a bit guilty,” said McDowell.

McDowell has been a long time member of the organization People for the Equal Rights of Vegetables, more commonly known as PERV. Members of PERV believe that pulling vegetables out of their natural habitat, the ground, is an inhumane and barbaric practice.

“I began solely eating meat after watching a food documentary that actually showed the gruesome process of uprooting a potato,” said McDowell. The image of its roots dangling, covered in dirt still haunts my mind.”

“If vegetables could talk, we’d all be eating meat,” added McDowell. “Plus, with all the spinach and tomato salmonella outbreaks being reported in the news these days, it just goes to show you that vegetables are being abused on farms to the point where they’re unhealthy.”

Some criticize the aggressive tactics that vegetable rights activists use to draw attention their cause. A recent story which made headlines on the national news circuit shows a group PERV members chanting the phrases “lettuce end the suffering” and “beets is murder” at an Ohio vegetable harvest. One radical member actually doused a tomato farmer with a can of V8 juice before being arrested by police.

Today the USPS released a new series of limited edition commemorative stamps featuring girls with lower back tattoos.

In anticipation of the release, this morning hundreds of stamp enthusiasts formed a line outside a local Postal Annex so they could be the first to own the stamps which celebrate delusional women who think they’ll be in their 20s forever.

“Purchasing these first class stamps is a great way to honor fifth class women,” said Don Matthews, manager of the La Mesa Postal Annex.

“The stamps, unlike the women on them, are safe to lick. You can’t get Hepatitis from a stamp,” chuckled Matthews.

Most historians agree that the tramp stamp was originally discovered by accident in 1984 when a sweaty prostitute named Nicole Laurence woke up naked on top of a pile of newspapers and noticed the ink had rubbed off on her back.

Laurence described the experience in detail on a recent History Channel documentary about the origin of the tramp stamp.

“That morning when I collected my $40 on the dresser, I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed the words ‘Reagan beats Mondale In Landslide Victory’ were printed right above my ass,” said Laurence. “At that very moment, I knew I had discovered something special,” she added.

The USPS also noted that these stamps are the first of a two part series. The follow up stamp series will feature single mothers in their 30s visiting a laser clinic to have their tramp stamps removed.

DOWNTOWN — Today two local entrepreneurs announced plans to launch a new matchmaking website dedicated to helping single women age 30 and above find the perfect cat.

The site, aptly named MeowMate.com, hopes to attract business from lonely women who’ve given up on finding a human mate on dating sites like eHarmony.com and Match.com.

MeowMate.com co-founder Larry Williamson explained, “MeowMate.com goes above and beyond to ensure that each registered woman will end up with a cat that completes them.”

Subscribers will receive a daily email featuring a mate they are compatible with.

Williamson went on to say that every cat profiled on the MeowMate.com will be rated on 29 dimensions of compatibility by a team of animal psychologists.

“There has to be chemistry between a lonely woman and her cat or the relationship will never work,” said Williamson.

To emphasize his point, Williamson noted that every day hundreds of cats are dropped off at the Escondido Animal Rescue Center by women who claim to have ‘irreconcilable differences’ with their felines.

In California the separation rate between women and their cats recently hit an all-time high of 60%, which is one of the main reasons why Williamson decided to create the website.

Newly single abandoned cat is just happy to be free of drama.

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” said Williamson.  “The relationship between a woman and her cat is extremely complex and can easily end if either the cat or woman exhibits bad behavior. It’s not effortless like a man-woman relationship,” he added.

Television ads for MeowMate.com, which ran last Friday and Saturday night in between reruns of Xena Warrior Princess, are already grabbing the attention of many sad old local women.  For example 31-year-old Linda Collins said she became hopeful that she would find her “soulmate” after seeing the ad.

“All this time I’ve been trying to date guys to find happiness … I now realize I’ve been focusing on the wrong species,” said Collins.

Williamson warns potential subscribers that the site does not have a 100% guarantee because, as he explained, “We want to be realistic.  Some women are so unfit for society that we don’t even think they should be with a cat.  We will refer these select few to our sister-website, LizardMate.com.”

A satisfied customer enjoys his $19 room at the Rancho Bernardo Inn.

RANCHO BERNARDO — This past summer the Rancho Bernardo Inn offered discount rooms for as little as $19 a night to those willing to sacrifice necessities such as air conditioning, electricity, toilet paper, and a bed.

The promotion, known as the ‘survivor package,’ caught the attention of major news organizations and the Rancho Bernardo Inn instantly achieved nation-wide recognition.

Now the hotel is pushing the envelope once again by bringing back the promotion, this time with several new options.

“We’re excited to offer a new, more challenging, survivor package … the previous promotion was apparently too easy since everyone survived,” laughed Rancho Bernardo Inn owner Frank Gibbons.

No incidents or medical emergencies occurred during the promotion, even though guests voluntarily made sacrifices like depriving themselves of air conditioning in 100-degree weather to save $60.

“We want to see just how low senior citizens will go to save a few dollars on a room,” said Gibbons.

The survivor package now includes rooms for $14, which will have several deadly king cobras placed in random areas.  There will also be rooms for $9, which contain a laser shooting robot programmed to seek and destroy the guest at exactly midnight.  Also, these rooms will all have plasma televisions, which will be placed in the bathtubs.   The mini-fridges will be stocked with lunch specials from Pick Up Stix and Pei Wei, and there will be no phone to call poison control.

“We’ve already had several people call in and make reservations,” said Gibbons.  “This is going to be really entertaining.”

“Watching old people do crazy things to save money is like watching ants crawl into a bait trap … they can’t resist the temptation even though it’s deadly,” chuckled Gibbons.

The second survivor package appears to be more challenging

SD Headliner secures prime commercial real estate in Mira Mesa

MIRA MESA — Today SD Headliner announced that it has successfully emerged from Chapter 11 Bankruptcy as a newly private company, thus eliminating approximately $25 million in debt.

This summer the company was forced to transition from its historic 32-story downtown skyrise to a 300-square-foot office space in Mira Mesa. The new office is nestled in between Pho Ca Yu and Pho Ca Yu Express — two popular eateries which Zagat has ranked as Mira Mesa’s 53rd and 56th best Vietnamese restaurants.

“I feel good about the reorg,” said newly appointed CEO Dan Winston.  “I’m confident that we can still produce high quality news articles despite the fact that we fired 96% of our work force.”

Winston went on to state that the company was supposed to begin publishing new articles on September 1st, but the Time Warner Cable guy never showed up to install internet service.

“We’ve been leeching WiFi from Pho Ca Yu Express this past week,” said Winston. “To make matters worse their router keeps resetting, making it extremely difficult to post new content.”

Disgruntled Union Tribune Employee

SD Headliner is just one of several major San Diego news sources to make sacrifices in order to withstand the current recession.  The North County Times was recently forced to sell their office building and relocate to less-desirable South County to cut costs. Union Tribune employees recently took a drastic pay cut, and many of their disgruntled employees are now living in abandoned newspaper dispensers.

SD Headliner headquarters

DOWNTOWN — Today SD Headliner — the official fake newspaper of San Diego — announced it will be filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy due to “rough economic conditions.”

The announcement came after the company revealed that their quarterly profit for ad revenue sank to $7.53.

As a result of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company will be forced to fire 120 journalists and 40 photographers.

“It’s a tough time for the company,” said CEO George Mandelbaum. “To make matters even worse, our 30-day trial of Photoshop expired, so we may have to start using Microsoft Paint.”

The company is hoping for a federal bailout to avoid losing their famous 32-story skyrise building, which has been considered a Gaslamp landmark since it was built in 1932.

While the company goes through its restructuring process, no new stories will be posted to the website, and print editions will no longer be delivered to households.  However, a new forum has been created for fans to connect with each other during the company’s downtime.

CLAIREMONT — Yesterday Yogurt World — one of the most powerful and feared corporations in San Diego — took an aggressive step toward its plan to wipe out all ice-cream shops in San Diego by firing a yogurt filled rocket at the last remaining Cold Stone in the county.

Fortunately Tofu House (a completely neutral party) played peace keeper by shooting down the rocket in mid-air with a laser beam before it could reach Cold Stone.  The rocket was reportedly filled with three tons of Yogurt World’s patented Mango Passion Tart, which is enough yogurt to turn Cold Stone into a pile of delicious rubble.

“This isn’t the first time they’ve tried something like this,” said Tofu House owner Billy Lee. “As a neighbor of Yogurt World, I’m subjected to listening to the owner’s daily tyrannical rants, claiming yogurt is the only ‘pure dessert’ and inferior milk-based frozen treats must be destroyed.”

This morning all television programs on broadcast networks were interrupted by a special message from San Diego Mayor Clyde Baker, who used the air time to express his concern regarding the attempted attack. Baker delivered a heartfelt speech in which he envisioned a future San Diego where ice-cream and yogurt shops could maintain a non-violent coexistence side-by-side within the same corner plaza.

This newspaper is the only major San Diego media publication that managed to obtain the actual surveillance footage of the attempted rocket attack. Though the tape is supposed remain under lock and key (to prevent mass hysteria), I felt it was my obligation as a journalist to upload the footage to YouTube.  Please watch the video with caution, as it is quite disturbing.

Many politicians are saying this incident will likely set back yogurt-icecream relations 50 years.

Matt Walker doing what he does best

POWAY — It’s been six weeks since 27-year-old Matt Walker was laid off from his job working as a video game tester for Sony, and after five years of devoting his life to the company, he’s somehow managing to cope with being unemployed.

“I pretty much do the same thing at home as I did at work all day,” said Walker.  “When I first interviewed to be a game tester, I thought it was a volunteer position. I was stoked when they told me I’d get a salary.”

Since being laid off Walker has been playing games at home from 9am-11pm, and reminisces about his working days when he would play games in his cubicle from 9am-5pm, then come home and play more games from 5:30pm-11pm.

“I’m actually pretty bummed that I didn’t get to finish playing the first-person shooter I was testing,” said Walker.  “Being able to play a PS3 at work was a great perk of my job,” he added.  “I couldn’t afford to buy one with a game tester’s salary, which is why I mostly play my NES all day.”

Being stuck at home with old, pre-2000 game consoles was enough to motivate Walker to write a letter to Sony, explaining that he’s willing to return to his old position without compensation.

“Plus, my mom is starting to nag,” said Walker.  “I hope they take me back because I really need to get out of the house.”

Matt's experience

While Walker waits for a response from Sony, he says he’ll continue to beef up the experience section of his resume by playing games in his room.

“I don’t like the term ‘unemployed,’ which is why I’m temporarily calling myself a non-profit-self-employed game tester,” said Walker.

MIRA MESA — Today Barnes and Noble unveiled an aggressive plan to sell books to customers who shamelessly spend hours reading them free.

The announcement came a day after the company reported a dismal quarterly profit of $17 — citing the fact that “no one actually buys stuff.”

A typical Barnes and Noble customer

Barnes and Noble CEO Jeff Douglass explained, “We realize that the majority of people treat our store like a library, so we’re taking corrective action to remedy the situation.”

“We’re going to put an end to the days where people could sit and read books for hours until they fall asleep,” he added.

Douglass said that all Barnes and Noble stores will be required enforce a new system designed to sell books to customers who would normally walk out of the store empty handed.

“Starting next month, we’ll be hiring book bouncers to closely monitor the book reading activities of all 271 of our stores.”

The book bouncers will follow several strict rules to ensure ‘customers’ aren’t abusing their reading privileges.

Douglass explained, “If a book bouncer sees someone reading a book for longer than 20 minutes, they will tell the person to either buy the book or leave. If the person refuses to cooperate, they will be forcefully ejected from the store.”

“Also, if a shopper takes 10 books on the same subject to a table, then just briefly thumbs through them and leaves a mess, a book bouncer will punch the shopper in the face,” exclaimed Douglass as shareholders applauded.

These aggressive steps are projected to turn the struggling retailer around by the third quarter of 2009.

Douglass concluded by saying, “Last but not least, if the book bouncers see you pull out your iPhone, and purchase the book you’ve been reading in our store for 30 minutes on amazon.com, they will follow you to your car and beat the shit out of you.”

Man caught buying books on Amazon.com with iPhone inside Barnes and Noble

LA JOLLA — In the midst of the worst economic recession we’ve seen in decades, it’s always uplifting to hear about positive success stories that reinforce the possibility of achieving the American Dream.

One local man, 49-year-old Bill Foley, recently discovered his niche in the business world when he opened Salon Del Sol, the nation’s first outdoor tanning salon.

“I wanted to offer San Diegans a natural, organic alternative to indoor tanning salons,” said Foley.

Foley is considered a modern-day genius by many for pioneering the concept of using the sun as a means of tanning. He claims outdoor tanning will give his clients the same beautiful bronze skin tone as tanning beds without the harmful side effects.  Artificial tanning from indoor tanning beds overexposes people to harmful UV rays which can lead to cancer, make skin age and wrinkle faster, mutate DNA, weaken the immune system, and cause impotence. ^[source]

Clients can enjoy one hour of outdoor tanning at Salon Del Sol for $30.  They also have a 50% off rainy day special.  The salon is located directly on the sands of La Jolla Shores State Beach.

“We like to pamper our clients by offering a variety of beach towels and scented lotions,” said Foley.

Salon Del Sol also offers additional premium services such as a relaxing bath in a tub of ocean water, seagull watching, and listening to a “Sounds of the Ocean” CD while you tan.

“I’m used to normally spending $20 a week on indoor tanning. Sure Salon Del Sol is a little more expensive, but I’m willing to splurge since the treatment here is organic,” said one client.

In recent weeks, interest in Salon Del Sol has become so great that they’ve actually had to turn people away because there simply wasn’t enough room in the salon for them to lie down.

One couple explained, “We drove all the way from Temecula for a tanning session at Salon Del Sol.  We were turned away so we had to settle for an indoor tanning salon.”