Natick, MA - (Dec 7) - According to an article in Microsoft's sleazy house organ, Slate Magazine, there's, apparently, a "New Shipment of Hard Cheese at the General Store."

Though general store manager Hollis Mosher III was unavailable for comment, Rebecca Kramer, a regular patron of the store, where she buys tons of fertilizer for her garden and gallons of kerosene for her many festive kerosene lamps, told a press conference, "I think Hollis said something just the other day about getting in a new shipment of hard cheese or something."

Another regular customer, Garth Register Jr., formerly of both the Backstab Boys and the Spite Girls, but now moved back home to become a country preacher, told reporters that he actually saw some hard cheese being delivered out back, earlier today.

"There was this truck," said Register, "and it pulled up out back in the parking lot and the driver got out and unloaded a couplea crates of hard cheese. Apparently, though, he was on step 6 of the 7-step "Power of Positive Drinking" program at the time, and had to stop suddenly in his tracks and be immediately hospitalized before he could actually make it in the door with the cheese.

"When he arrived at the hospital," Register continued, "it was actually a bombed out gym where everybody walked around all defensive, claiming they weren't here for a drug OD, but were here because of a simple allergic reaction to an 8-year heroin binge.

"The doctors all walked around claiming the cure for this was actually quite simple, and just required that the Cosmos be momentarily shut down and then, uh, you know, re-booted.

"'Because they are so injured,' one of the doctors said, 'these people can be fiercely competitive for even the tiniest speck of turf -- so if you didn't shut down the entire cosmos altogether, somebody would cheat and then....' but he trailed off into oblivion, no doubt distracted by the thought of some new arcane neuro-surgical maneuver he could try out later today.

"See, he had been sent here from the future or from another dimension, or both, in order to bring some much needed advances in science and medicine and philosophy to get the home species here out of a hundred year cognitive funk.

"And once he'd imparted all the information and the species took it and was now humming along with all their new found knowledge, thank you, there was no longer any reason to stick around -- but, unfortunately, the vehicle for the return trip back to his home dimension or time had been stolen by someone on a heroin binge, who'd OD'd and died, smashing it to pieces.

"Stranded, with no money, he was knocked unconscious at a bar in the warehouse district, and hijacked into the neuro-surgery service where, after enough drugs, he learned to be obsessed about it and about developing new arcane neuro-surgical maneuvers which, he hoped, would compensate the world, finally, for having so graciously hosted that fuckin' freak show, History."