Bellnnnn, WA - ( March 6) - Microsoft Corporation of Bellingham or Bellevue or Ding Dong School, or wherever, Washington announced today that it's finally fixed a bug in its software which caused users to turn into babbling fucking robotic idiot buffoons, after only 5 minutes of usage.

The bug also causes the complete erasure of all attached mass storage devices and melts the CPU till it flows out the openings in the unused drive bays.

According to Microsoft, they have not heard of any cases where the bug actually caused any problems, but they were fixing it anyway.

"The fix," said Microsoft spokesman Gunnar Myhhrvold or whatever, "Involves simply erasing all post-1986 Microsoft software from your system, re-installing MS-DOS 3.3, Wordstar 2.1, and Visicalc 4, and, like, basically going from there."

Myhhrvold, or whatever, also added that people who'd done this, uh, upgrade, report a 900% increase in productivity, a 400% drop in stress-related illnesses, as well as a richer, deeper, fuller, infinitely more pleasurable and rewarding life, in general.

Bill Gates also declared that everything he's ever said since 1986 is now "completely and unequivocally inoperative," and recused himself from the coming fall of civilization as we know it.

Microsoft has posted a fix for the bug on its website at www.(whatever).com. The "fix" is actually an "intelligent" agent that, once downloaded, examines your hardware and software and reconfigures your machine to DOS 3.3 specifications. It also converts your A: drive into a shredder-modem into which you must insert all your copies of "The Road Ahead." The unit will shred each copy, digitize its remains, and broadcast the resultant bitmap into outer space, in the hopes that, by the time it returns -- in 11 trillion years, or so, -- mankind will have evolved to the point where it will not be so easily reduced to, like, uncontrollable fits of vomiting.

Following the release of the bug fix, Microsoft chairman, Bill Gates, announced he was stepping down from his post as Microsoft chairman in order to be able to work full-time at coming out as a lesbian and hosting an all-lesbian talk show on MSNBC.

"I've also bought the NBA and the NHL" Gates announced, almost as an after-thought, "And will merge them to create a whole new game where men in heavily padded militia-style clothing, and on ice skates, try to make lightning quick deceptive moves and throw a little puck through a 10-foot high basket -- constantly falling, causing pileups, breaking through the ice, and dislocating whole skeletal systems. And the winner is whoever can still walk at the end of an hour of this bullshit."

In a related story, the White House and the US Congress announced that a bug has been discovered in the political process, but that they have come up with a bipartisan fix for it.

The fix can be downloaded from their website at www.fix.gov, and, according to a government spokesperson, "Consists of a small personal thermonuclear device. Now, if each one of you could just download one of these and set it off in your backyard this evening, I think we could put an end to corruption once and for all."