Although the show will not include any death or violence, it will otherwise follow the model of the competition described Suzanne Collins’ breakout YA series. The winner of the show will be awarded a house and a lifetime supply of Totino’s-brand pizzas and pizza pockets.

“The nation will be divided into 12 districts,” announced Lionsgate head of marketing Tom Pallen. “Anyone from the age of 12 to 18 may enter the lottery, and two tributes–one male, one female–will be randomly selected from each district.”

“No one may volunteer as tribute for the Totino’s Party Pizza Hunger Games,” he clarified.

Much to the disappointment of fans of the trilogy, contestants will eliminate each other using laser- and paint-based weapons in addition to flag-football ribbons. To space out the length of the Totino’s Party Pizza Hunger Games, which YA experts estimate would be over in about 30 minutes, only the first person taken out each day will be eliminated from the competition.

“Child labor laws forbid anyone under 18 from working more a few hours each day,” said Pallen. “If no one has been dispatched within 4 hours each day, all contestants live another day. Thus each episode will not necessarily end with an elimination.”

The daily break will also give contestants time to give the confessionals that are common on reality TV shows like Survivor and Top Chef, as well as form alliances and friendships that will inevitably be broken.

Pallen noted that the concept of sponsorships as described by Collins would remain largely the same. Fans of the contestants may contribute $1 each for different types of gear to support the tributes, with the gear getting more expensive as the games continue. “Early on, a Dasani water may cost $500, meaning that 500 individuals must support that tribute,” said Pallen. “But if that contestant survives until the final few days of the competition, that same bottle of water might cost $20,000.”

Pallen reiterated that when he uses words like “survive,” he does not mean them literally, causing the reporters to boo repeatedly.

Some other details from the press conference:

• Contestants will be provided with tents and cots in which to sleep based on their location when the games end each day. They must start from that position when the games begin the following day.
• The location of the Games has not yet been revealed by gamekeeper Wes Bentley, who is most known for playing the person attached to Seneca Crane’s beard in the movie adaptation of The Hunger Games. 
• The pomp and circumstance surrounding the beginning of the Totino’s Party Pizza Hunger Games will take place much as it does in the books, with tributes training and trying to win the hearts of America before they enter the arena.
• Any tribute that commits an actual act of violence in the Games will be arrested and tried in the court of law as a minor.
• To encourage some semblance of teamwork, the show will use the revised rules implemented in Collins’ first novel such that if two tributes from the same district are the last two contestants standing, they both win.
• Lionsgate will follow the 1st Annual Totino’s Party Pizza Hunger Games with the 1st Annual Adult Hunger Games in the spring, geared towards the majority of people who read the books (college students, stay-at-home moms, and people who started reading Harry Potter when they were Harry’s age).

“May the odds ever be in your favor,” Pallen said, before yelling in a shrill voice, “Primrose Everdeen!”

Walter’s on the left (new cat), and Biddy’s on the right. Walter weighs about half of what Biddy weighs (although Biddy has lost 3 pounds since I got him Walter as an exercise buddy).

"Yo."

"You awake?"

"Hunger Games attack! I'm Catniss!"

"Dude, it's 'Katniss.' She's not a cat."

"Catniss will eat your face! She can feel the hunger of the games!"

"Have you even read the book?"

"I'm waiting for the movie! No spoilers!"

This is our story.

It was a Friday like any other at work. My building was a bustling hub of students and staff. People discussed weekend plans and admired the sunny weather.

We were so young. So innocent. So naive.

I settled into my desk chair after lunch and was checking some finances when I noticed that my e-mail wasn’t loading. I refreshed the page. Nothing. I tried to open Google and Facebook. No luck.

Internet was down.

Time slowed to a crawl, but I was confident that Internet would return. It always had in the past.

But this was not the past. This was the present. And you know what they say about the present: It is a gift. A gift of no Internet that isn’t a gift at all, but rather hell on earth.

It wasn’t until we called Charter Cable that we knew that this would be our final day. There was an Internet outage in the area, and they didn’t know when it would be fixed.

We were doomed.

However, as the Director of Operations, it’s my job to keep a level head. I walked through the halls, telling coworkers that the Internet was temporarily down and would be back up soon.

Then I boarded the windows and doors. I cut the phone lines and smashed the circuit breakers. If we were to survive this crisis, we would have to do it alone.

After fashioning the requisite loincloth from the leather husk of my desk chair, I swept through the halls, my work-appropriate outfit flapping in my wake. I  called coworkers to convene in the common area. When all had gathered, I drew a line on the floor with a Sharpie.

“You’re either with me or you’re against me,” I said. “Cross this line and survive. Stay where you are and never have Internet again.”

No one moved.

I turned and dashed away, my loincloth dancing in the wind. I left a false trail as I ran, marking my scent on doorframes and computer monitors, lest the Others track me down. Then I vanished into the basement, baring the door behind me.

It was there that I dug. The only way to freedom was down, deep down into the earth where the Internet is kept. It was there, a good 20 feet under the ground, that I was joined by Moley and Wormy. I affixed to them tiny loincloths, and the Order of the Loin was born.

We didn’t have much, us three, but we had each other. As the days blended into the nights, we formed a kinship, a brotherhood. Moley was the prankster of the group, always guiding us into badger nests and gnawing into electric wires. Wormy was the scholar–he could recite nearly any geology-related book from memory. We kept each other warm at night, me the small spoon, Moley in the middle, and Wormy in the back.

We were brothers, and I would do anything for them. Never would I let harm befall them.

Thus it was a pity that I needed Moley’s skin and Wormy’s body to write this message. I will remember them fondly.

If you find this message, please post it on my blog. That is, if the Internet is back up. The world needs to know our story.

For more True Tales of Survival, click here and scroll down.

Ever since Ted Danson gathered a lovable group of misfits at his tavern, every successful (and unsuccessful) sitcom has featured The Hangout.  Be it Monk’s, Central Perk, McLaren’s – wherever.  Every modern sitcom has a place where everybody know’s your name, where the protagonists can meet at 2 PM on a weekday, air their thoughts on the problems of the day and chat with the strangely eloquent staff.

My life is no different.  Instead of a bar, however, I have the gym.  And instead of friends, I have Gym People.

Now, anyone who goes to the gym with any regularity knows what I’m talking about.  I don’t know these people.  I don’t lift with these people.  I don’t even talk to them.  For all I know, they are there all day, just waiting for my arrival.  But they are my friends.  In an uncertain world, I know I can count on the Bicep Men to seek attention by grunting loudly.

I know the Really Strong Guys (who are never cut) will be in the corner, standing beside – but never lifting  – a bar they have filled to the edges with 45-pound plates.  I know the Tan Girl will be on the treadmill right beside the door, and I know the Dumpy Guy (who stays dumpy despite working out every day) will do sit ups until he sees the treadmill beside her open up.  But he won’t say anything, despite me sending him happy thoughts.  No one will be happier than me when the Dumpy Guy makes his move.

I enjoy seeing The Guy with the Magnets on his Neck and The Girl in Black.  Popeye and The Professor are always a welcome sight.  The Stretching Girls seem so nice.  I love my Gym Friends.   Except one…

BETTER BRAD.

Better Brad is, without a doubt, my greatest nemesis in life.  No matter when I show up, he’s there, with color coordinated clothes and a full head of hair.  He looks like me, but tanner, more muscular and without an oddly flat right side of his face.  He does my workout, but with more weight.  He gets on the bike beside me and pedals faster.  He does leg lifts while I do sit ups.  He claps in between his pushups.  He never sweats.  He is Better Brad.

Around 6 months ago, I went to get a smoothie after working out.  Who pulls up beside my minivan?  Better Brad, in a sports car.  We walk in.  I ordered a medium Angel Food.  Better Brad ordered a large.  It was on that day I decided some way, somehow, I was going to defeat Better Brad.

My first attempt to do so began with me lifting 135 pounds over my head and ended in the hospital.  The second ended with me lying in bed, unable to move after losing a stationary bike race.  So my quest to become Best Brad is on hold.  I need some help.  Maybe the Really Strong Guys can help me.

So, am I crazy?  Does anyone else have friends like these that you don’t actually know?

By the time you get back from the crowded, dirty restroom, the home team has hit several grand slams and your girlfriend is making out with the beer man on the Kiss Cam.

Happens every time, right?

No more, I say. Thanks to a new partnership with Depends-brand adult diapers, I’d like to introduce you to a new line of products for active young adults. Potential uses include (but are not limited to):

• Lord of the Rings marathons
• Dance clubs where you don’t want to lose your friends and spend the rest of the night shouting “I’m at the bar! Where are you?” into your phone
• Edward 40-Hands parties
• First dates
• Concerts

Although I’ve never used Depends, I’ve often thought about the advantages of never having to excuse yourself to go to the bathroom. When I’m out for dinner with friends or at a house party, I’m always concerned that I’ll miss the best part of the conversation if I go to the bathroom. I worry that I’ll spend the rest of the night trying to decipher some inside joke about peanut butter and Tiger Woods. Just last night I played nearly 3 hours of poker without leaving the table. I had to pee the entire time.

The obvious solution is that I need to install a toilet in my pants. Thanks to Depends, that will soon become a reality.

Depends for Young Adults will be fully customizable with logos from your favorite sports teams, celebrities, and movies. For you ladies, may I recommend Depends for Young Adults SPANX (for clubbing) and Depends for Young Adults Thongs (perfect for hiding panty lines or for wearing under bikinis on the beach).

What will you use your Depends for? (Yeah, that’s right–I’m going to try to make a conversation out of this crazy entry. I dare you to play my game.)

(Reminder: This is the last weekend to submit your entries for the Tournament of Awkwardness.)

1. An element of misdirection.
2. An element of confusion.
3. No hurt feelings or physical pain.
4. No major inconvenience.

Here’s an example of a good prank I pulled a few years ago. But read on, because here’s an example of a great prank pulled on me last week.

I walked out to my car on Friday evening to find a layer of ice coating the entire car, so I was scraping the passenger side of the car when I noticed a sticker adorning the passenger door. My first reaction was that someone had placed a permanent sticker on my car. But I quickly realized that it was a large magnet, not a sticker…and that it had my phone number on it. I snapped a photo.

It was then that a few realizations struck me, causing me to laugh so hard for the entire drive home:

1. I had been pranked.
2. I had no idea when I had been pranked–I could have been driving around for days with that magnet on my car.
3. I had potentially been driving around for days completely oblivious that I had a magnet on my car with my real phone number and the revelation that I loved cats.
4. No one had yet to call me to take me up on the offer.

Of course, I had to post it on Facebook immediately. Within a few hours, the photo had generated more than 30 likes and over 40 comments. A few of my favorites:

From Jesus F: “I saw the magnet on Thursday morning and thought you were doing it on purpose for a blog post. I had one of those “oh, Jamey…” moments. Then it was still there yesterday, so I thought it was for real. And I thought, “Oh, Jamey…” again.”

My response: “That makes this even more hilarious, the fact that you (and possibly other people who know me) saw the magnet and didn’t even think it was a prank.”

And this one (I think I’m sooo clever):

From Sarah E: “I’d have loved to hear the story of when some girl with a cute phone voice called and you had no clue why she was asking you to “care for her cat”…now THAT just might take the cake!”

My response: “Especially if she uses a different word for “cat.”"

In the end, it wasn’t until today that the prankster (my coworker, Linda) stepped forward. She was disappointed, as were many of the commenters, that I had discovered the magnet so early into the prank. I might consider putting it back on the car until I get a call or two, just for the story. We’ll see. What do you think?

Google Library Search, as it was originally called, was created to promote the “democratization of knowledge.” For years, workers scanned around the clock to compile a searchable database of every book ever printed.

But, as Google Books director Piers Tiplan said today in front of a massive crowd, “We simply ran out of published books.”

Google is confident that the news will be well received. Millions of closet writers will immediately become published authors when the eight novels they’ve stowed away in their bottom desk drawer are scanned and uploaded.

But Google is aware of the inconvenience of having personal documents signed, and they have taken extreme measures to minimize the intrusion. “Our next-generation Elphel 423 cameras scan at the rate of 1,500 pages an hour, so we’ll be in and out of your home before you know it,” said Tiplan.

“You can even save time by leaving your yearbooks, diaries, journals, and old letters in a box on your front porch,” he added.

Google Books’ text-recognition software has advanced to the point that it can recognize any handwriting in any language, claiming a 99.9% accuracy rate. Chief analyst Patricia Schwartzmann noted that corrections could be submitted to customer support. “If we mistakenly interpreted your diary entry to say, ‘I find myself thinking about the babysitter when I’m in bed with my wife’ and it actually said ‘…thinking about Thebe Byslater when I’m in bed with my wife,’ we take full responsibility for the error and will correct it immediately.”

Tiplan indicated that Google understands the line between private and public property. “We would never think of digging through your garbage to scan receipts, cable bills, and medical documents,” he said. “But post-it notes and sketches on napkins? They’re public record.”

Google emphasized the searchable utility of the program, adding that it will sync with its social network, Google +. “Reunite with old friends, rehash long-forgotten memories, and reopen old wounds when you learn what people really thought about you back in middle school,” Tiplan said, adding a personal anecdote involving an old crush who he hunted down after reading a particularly insulting diary entry.

If you would like to sign up for Google Books’ beta list, simply go to Google and search for your own name.

Copyright 2012 The Ass Press.

“Specifically,” he clarified from his perch on a fjord, “I’m going to remake the novelization of the American remake of my original film adaptation of the  novel ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.’”

Oplev was quick to add that this would not be a shot-by-shot remake. However, while putting together a piece of IKEA furniture, he indicated that he was inspired by the American adaptation to cast “very attractive people, but to make them look as unattractive as possible” using makeup, costumes, and what he could only describe as “svenfjorgeborg.”

“It roughly translates to, ‘that thing that happens to a actor after they are woken up night after night by a naked Swedish man hovering over their bed,” Oplev said, wearing a navy blue and yellow sweater and eating a Toblerone.

The production company, Det Danske Filminstitut (really!), plans on releasing the film in 2014. American remake director David Fincher, although unavailable for comment, indicated on his Twitter feed Thursday that he would follow the remake of the remake with a claymation remake in 2017.

Copyright 2011 The Ass Press.

It began with a single drop of rain.

I had gone my first two days in Ireland with nary a rainfall. I skipped through the cobblestone streets of Clontarf, blowing kisses to milkmaids and spouting limericks in all directions.

And then came the rain.

I walked out the door of my castle hotel on Sunday morning to discover a moist substance falling from the sky. Knowing not what it was, I grabbed the nearest Irishman and insisted he tell me what it was.

He told me, and I apologized for the nuisance. We then exchanged pints of Guinness and went on our way.

The skies had opened, and the rain was relentless. I traveled to Dublin city centre by bus. Before I got off the bus, the driver grabbed me by the sleeve and said with a haunted look in her eyes, “Don’t go out there, lad!”

“I can handle it,” I told her. “I can handle a little water–I dilute my orange-mango juice with it at every dinner.”

She pointed to the fare box. “I mean, don’t go out there until you pay the fair. Elevensies halfsies is the fare.”

(All Irish currency is measured by how cute it is to say the numbers. For example, a penny is 1/100th of a Euro, while 10,000 Euros is pronounced with the sound a kitten makes when it stretches after a nap.)

By the time I had my midday tea, the rain was coming down at an angle. The normally crowded streets of Dublin were…well, still very crowded, because this was nothing out of the ordinary for them.

But for me it was a sign of doomsday.

With only my Oxford peacoat to protect me, I stripped down to my Irish loincloth (like an American loincloth, but shaped like a shamrock) and ran through the streets. I just barely caught the bus back to my castle hotel, which I stormed like you would any castle hotel (through the sliding glass doors).

I was home safe. But not for long.

You see, outside the waters were rising. Gaelic beasts of yore were rising from their slumber, tasting the toes of humans on the tides.

I knew I had to act, and fast. It wouldn’t be safe in my completely, absolutely safe castle hotel for long. I had to make a run for it.

So after sleeping in (it’s my vacation, after all), I dressed properly and  ventured into the heart of Clontarf (which basically consists of a grocery store and a few quaint shops). I stocked up on chocolate and fish and chips and headed to the wharf.

The time had come. With the help of a number of Irish Rovers and Irish Setters, I pieced together a crude raft out of former Cranberries singers and corned beef.

I tested my weight against it. “She’ll hold together,” I said while looking wistfully at the sea. “Oh, she’ll hold.”

One last piece was needed: The sail. So I threw my peacoat onto one of the Cranberries and lifted it aloft, leaving me flapping nakedly in the wind.

“Set me afloat, boys!” I cried, and the Irish Setters nudged the raft into the sea with their little noses.

I turned to the shore and raised me hand to salute the Irish soil that I had called home the last few days. Then I turned my eyes and heart to the sea, calling out to the wind, “You shall never take me! This day is mine, and I shall survive!”

(Jamey’s journal was discovered a few days later just a few yards from where he set sail. His last words were scribbled in the margins: “Corned beef was a bad choice.”)

For more of Jamey’s “true” tales of survival, click here.

This is my story.

I was driving back from brunch–something I’m guessing most rebels do on Sunday–when a police car pulled behind me, its lights flashing red and blue. Although I knew I could outrun it in my ’03 Camry, I decided to play it safe and pull over.

I handed the officer my license and insurance. He asked me if I was aware that my plates were expired.

I knew at that moment that he had me. There was no sweet-talking my way out of this one. You see, a couple years ago when I got my license plates renewed, I put on my Outlook calendar that I needed to renew them again in July of 2011. So the reminder popped up a few weeks ago, and I went to the DMV, and they told me to get an emissions test and inspection, which I did this past week. I then went back to the DMV on Wednesday, but the lines were really long, so I tried to renew online. However, I didn’t have a pin code because the state never sent me a renewal notice, so I e-mailed the state for the code. Their response was that my plates should have been renewed in January, and because they were overdue, I would have to take care of it in person at the DMV.

I am a man on the run. I no longer look anything like this. I look the opposite of this.

I was sure they were wrong, because when is my Outlook calendar ever wrong? But then I looked at my license plates, and sure enough, they say JAN on them, clear as day. Apparently I rely more on Outlook than real things right before my eyes.

I showed the officer that I truly had been trying to take care of the issue (I had the receipt for the emissions test and inspection), and he let me off with a warning. Which I don’t really understand. I broke the law, right? Shouldn’t I get a ticket?

So now I’m on the lam. I ditched my car as soon as I was out of sight of the officer, taking off on foot. I’m a marked man, with my expired license plate warning, and I’m sure all police in the area have “shoot to kill” orders.

Thus I’ve taken to the seedy underbelly of St. Louis. I live in the sewers now, eating whatever the rats leave behind, sleeping in puddles of urine and double beds.

Double beds. The horror.

I spent the first few hours of my new life as an outlaw in the most productive way possible, constructing a crude loincloth out of duct tape and cat hair. I shaved my head, grew a beard, and trimmed my fingernails so the police can’t identify me.

I am a shadow of my former self.

I roam this windswept land in search of…something. Is it love? A new start? Or perhaps a receipt of my 2009 personal property tax bill payment. No one knows.

No one knows how it feels to be outcasted from society, discarded like yesterday’s garbage. I turned to friends and relatives, and everywhere the look of disgust and dismay is the same: Why has he come to me? they wonder. Why is he wearing a duct tape diaper?

These are questions that cannot be answered.

I sleep with one eye open and the other also open. I tried to join a gang but I was too rough around the edges. So I started my own gang, the Sewer Ratz Fun-Time Solution Remedy. Initiation was brutal.

Do not try to find me. You will try anyway, as the reward money for my capture is surely in the tens of dollars. I will evade you until the end of days.

This is the last you’ll hear from me until tomorrow around this time. So until then, if you see a pale man cowering on a street corner, tufts of cat hair attached to his loins by what appears to be duct tape, please keep walking. Do not look back. Because he might not have had enough duct tape to cover his butt.