Thankfully, Michael Douglas hasn't taken his clothes off since during the Clinton Administration

Sharon Stone

'Basic Instinct 2'

Publicity Tour Itinerary:

• Sunday, April 2: Cut ribbon at new Safeway in Ocean Bay, Long Island -- naked!
• Wednesday, April 5: PETA lecture -- naked!
• Friday, April 7: Address San Francisco Bay Area Lions Clubs -- naked!
• Week of April 10: Oprah, Ellen, The View -- all naked!
• Thursday, April 13: Leave impression of private area in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

UPDATE: The grosses are in, and apparently the movie grossed a paltry $3 million at the box office opening weekend. Unfortunately, there's no way for Sharon to get more naked than she already has, so the marketers are stumped.

Local man writes fake news, wins prizes and fame

Like to write fake news? No, not the kind of fake news you read in most newspapers -- I mean fake funny news, like you might see in The Onion. Well, then I have some good, uh, news: My friends over at IGotNewsForYou.com have launched their second-ever Funny Fake News Writing Contest, meaning you can win actual prizes for your fakery, as opposed to inspiring a lawsuit, which is what usually happens.

Get the details by clicking here, then start faking it! Like I do every stinking day of my life.

Oddly enough, the charge was not impersonating an officer

The rumors are true: The cop from the Village People has been arrested.

And in a related story, the construction worker has been pinned under a backhoe.

If this gets out, you can expect a lot of men to move to New Delhi

This story is bound to help foster understanding of Islam among the uninformed heathen in America and its environs. Apparently a man in India accidentally divorced his wife by saying the magic words three times in his sleep -- under Islamic law, apparently all a husband needs to do to end his marriage is say "I divorce you" three times. This would explain the serious shortage of divorce attorneys in the Middle East.

It seems religious leaders told the couple that if they want to remarry, they would have to be apart for at least 100 days, and that the wife would also have to spend a night with another man and then be divorced by him. Coincidentally, this is exactly what happened with Britney Spears' first marriage.

This week's column:Can't stop the 'Musical'

Well, iTunes has made its first full-length movie available to download for your iPod, and it's Disney Channel's "High School Musical." This seems like a logical stopgap until Disney finds a way to deposit the movie directly into kids' nervous systems, maybe through little "High School Musical" vitamins shaped like well-groomed teenagers.

The iTunes announcement is just the latest step toward complete world domination by "High School Musical," the channel's highest-rated movie ever and the nation's No. 1 album this week. Disney seems to be approaching that goal with a strategy similar to that of the long-nosed guy in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," who captured kids in big nets and, presumably, ate them.

My daughter, who's 6, loved this movie before it even aired, since her young brain was able to piece it together almost in its entirety from the lengthy promos Disney Channel aired for months in advance. If you're unfamiliar with Disney Channel programming, it consists primarily of corny series featuring attractive young actors who seem to have been placed into some kind of indentured servitude - you can imagine CEO Bob Iger herding them all into pens at the end of filming every night.

For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.

And as time has borne out, everyone really is a Captain Kirk

Whatever your Sunday afternoon plans were, it's time to change them. From 2-3 p.m., VH1 will be showing non-stop repeat viewings of the video for "99 Luftballons" (both English and German versions, natch). The VH1 people said something about it somehow aiding Katrina victims, but I think it's really because it's been forever since anyone's done a good song about balloons triggering a nuclear war. Now if only they'd do it for "Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats ...

Fortunately for him, nobody has ever read Allure magazine

Well, we can all rest easy now that Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria has declared that her boyfriend, NBA star Tony Parker, is super-fantabulous in the bedroom, bringing her to new heights of ecstasy every night with little to no effort. This should put a stop to the street riots and stock market crashes that occurred when Longoria told Allure magazine that Parker was so inexperienced he thought foreplay had something to do with golf.

Meanwhile, I remain shocked -- shocked! -- that TV stars and NBA players are having sexual relations out of wedlock. Next someone will tell me that nice Snoop Dogg is smoking the demon weed.

It's either a baby or a convertible

BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT
Donald and Melania Knauss Trump announce the birth of their son, Barron William, March 20 at a New York hospital so exclusive they wouldn’t let you in if blood were spurting from your carotid artery.

Mr. Trump announced that the baby was “great, super, spectacular, the greatest, best baby ever.” He was delivered by Dr. Sydney Rosenberg after the Trumps’ previous physician, Stanley Greenblatt, was determined by Mr. Trump to be “really, really stupid … just really an idiot” and ejected from the hospital, dragging his little wheeled suitcase behind him.

Barron William joins several step-siblings, two ex-wives, dozens of servants, and former “Apprentice” contestant Chris Shelton, who Mr. Trump has let live in his stable ever since he sobbed in the boardroom. Workers are still completing the baby’s nursery, which will be more than 2,000 square feet and is being built under the icy-cold glare of Carolyn Kepcher.

Mr. Trump announced the birth yesterday on the “Imus in the Morning” program, at which time host Don Imus congratulated him and then called the baby an “empty-headed moron,” at which time he was scolded by his sidekick, Charles, and apologized.

And if President Bush suddenly announces he's paying off the deficit in cash, it's time to worry

Those counterfeiters are at it again! It apparently wasn't enough for them to print fake Euros with big-breasted naked women on them. Now they've gone and done up a phony billion-dollar bill. So please, convenience store clerks of America: If someone tries to pass a billion-dollar bill to buy a Clark bar, please make sure it's real before you let him walk out with his $999,999,999.35 in change.

This week's column:You are getting sleeeeepy ...

The countdown is on: It’s only a few short weeks until the start of daylight-saving time, when we’re so excited about the days being longer that we all fall collectively asleep at our desks, our heads hitting the keyboard with such force that old muffin crumbs lodge themselves in our jowls.

It’s the great daylight-saving time irony. We should be celebrating the end of that period when the only light outside after 3 p.m. comes from the glowing embers generated by the smokers. Instead, though, we spend the day reeling over that one lost hour, like the sleep-deprived people in your college psychology textbook who started speaking gibberish and thinking they were Mao Tse-tung.

If you think I’m exaggerating, check out how the car accident statistics go through the roof for the first Monday after the time change. It’s bizarre, given that it seems to me you can lose an hour of sleep any other time and it’s no big deal - for instance, I recently stayed up an hour late to watch the end of "Eight Legged Freaks" on cable, with no noticeable effects other than a new respect for David Arquette. And yet that one lost hour every April turns all of society into the old guy asleep at a stoplight in Coral Gables.

For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.

What's yankin' Annie Proulx's chain today?

This just in: "Brokeback Mountain" author Annie Proulx, fresh off her scathing essay in The Gaurdian about the Academy giving the Best Picture Oscar to "Crash," has released the following list of cinematic atrocities that really push her buttons:

• "That Tim Burton 'Shaggy Dog' movie. I mean, a guy turns into a dog? Come on."
• "Have you seen 'Big Momma's House 2'? Like anyone would believe that's a real black woman."
• "Those movie popcorn sizes -- who can eat that much popcorn? They give you like 10 pounds of it to justify charging you eight bucks, but I'd rather have a smaller popcorn and pay less money."
• "'Failure to Launch' -- you can't see it, but I'm putting my finger down my throat."
• "People who pronounce my name 'Prolcks.' Don't they see the 'x' in there?"

Unfortunately, only dogs can hear them

It took a while, but nature has finally developed an ultrasonic frog. For a sample of how these bizarre creatures sound, click here.

And yet Andy Rooney refuses to step down. It's a cruel world.

Mike Wallace, you lazy bastard.

Welcome back, your Fo' Fo' was your ticket out

OK, I stood by when they cast Johnny Knoxville in the movie version of "The Dukes of Hazzard," but this time I can't remain silent. Ice Cube as Gabe Kotter? I hope no one will consider me racist when I point out that Ice Cube is not even close to being a wry, avuncular Jew. This is like casting Adam Sandler as "Shaft." (Although granted, that might be kind of funny.)

I'm fearing the worst:
Gabe: Julie, did I ever tell you about my Uncle Max?
Julie: No Gabe ... Tell me about your Uncle Max.
Gabe: Well, then get off my my d&%$, ni&%$!, and tell your b&%$! to come here!*

I can't wait to see the next TV remake, when they cast Ludacris as Barney Fife, and he finally gets to pop a cap in Otis's ass.

*Actual Ice Cube lyric. Comic strip swear symbols added.

They grow 'em big out there in Hawaii

It's not fair -- when I show off my five-pound monster mango, I'm threatened with a restraining order.

If you need me, I'll be in the tub

Why does this never happen to me?

Frankly, all Euros look fake to me

Blast those dastardly counterfeiters! This time they've come up with something foolproof: Fake Euros with big-breasted naked women on them. Presumably they pass them at convenience stores, and while the clerks are drooling and stuttering, the villains walk off with all the jerky they can carry. (Do they have jerky in Europe?)

This week's column:Who's on First (Amendment)?

Last week, a new study revealed that only a quarter of Americans can name more than one of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. Yes, I know what you're thinking: There's more than one?

And the answer is, yes there are, but the study said that twice as many people could name members of TV's Simpson family than could name two or more of those freedoms. Which, granted, isn't an especially fair comparison, given that "The Simpsons" has been on for so long now that it's impossible not to know them; it's rumored that Woodrow Wilson ended his 1912 debate by telling Taft to eat his shorts.

But it wasn't just the venerable Simpsons that people were more familiar with; the study also said that more people could name the three "American Idol" judges than name three First Amendment rights. (Which is ironic, considering that Simon is actually exercising at least one of those rights every time he tells a contestant that if she'd sung like that 2,000 years ago, people would have stoned her to death.)

For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.

We'd like to get one of these against almost everybody we know

This just in! A court commissioner has signed off on a three-year restraining order that states Paris Hilton must stay at least 100 yards from event planner Brian Quintana unless they are attending the same party, in which case the distance can be decreased to 25 yards.

No word on who gets custody of the bean dip.

This week's column:Candlepins didn't bowl him over

I grew up in New York, where we engaged in what people in Eastern Massachusetts refer to as "big balls bowling." Despite being vaguely suggestive, this is a pretty accurate moniker.

Here -- as I discovered recently when I lent my bowling skills to a charity bowl-a-thon -- the balls are anything but big. And while I tried, I simply could not master the finesse being displayed by the obviously semi-professional bowlers in the other lanes. Quite to the contrary, my ball would tend to hit the floor with the force of a small nuclear explosion, sending a thundering echo throughout the alley and eliciting actual cries of pain from small children.

The experience was somewhat demoralizing considering that, in my younger (and bigger-balled) days, I was an actual league bowler. Yes, as a high school freshman my friend Mark Pengelski signed me up for a team he was on with Joe DiVestea, who had a habit of clapping to himself for no apparent reason. Mark did this despite the fact that I had told him, in no uncertain terms, that bowling was out of the question -- I had too many other things to do, like homework and finishing puberty.

For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.

Well, maybe there was no trash can around

Hats off the the Detroit 12-year-old who stuck a wad of gum on a $1.5 million painting. It's that kind of gumption that's sorely lacking in today's youth. Get it? Gumption? Oh, never mind.