Las Cruces Skidmark: September 2008

September 1, 2008

Condos To Grace Organ Mtn Ridge

Special Report: Economic Progress

Amateur Photoshop artist’s conception of the future Organ Mountain ridge

As the population of Doña Ana County soars past 200K, area developers, homebuilders, and architects are teaming up to put the future of Las Cruces on the drawing board – as well as determine which property zones and development plans are projected to turn the biggest & quickest profits with complete disregard to the environment and local economics.

Condo fever is about to hit town.

We met with John Stickelmeyer, former director of the Downtown Development Team – which has since disbanded after successfully luring Walmart to completely restructure and occupy the entire downtown core. Stickelmeyer, now working as an independent covert liason consultant, was able to show us some architectural renderings of what’s in store for the Mesilla Valley.

“So we was brainstorming various ideas on managing growth...you know, I mean do we keep building out and out into the desert? We researched the megatropolis of Phoenix, which 50 years ago was about the size ‘Cruces is today, and decided it’s pretty much an overcrowded, dirty, volatile pressure cooker that is liable to explode in the near future. And it smells like shit, especially in the East Valley.” Stickelmeyer, drinking a glass of Kool-Aid, added, “We want ‘Cruces to be totally different than the other southwestern metros.”

Dutifully following the current construction trends of every other sizable American city, Las Cruces also plans to stimulate growth with the rapid erection of multi-story condominium towers. Due to the lack of a lively city center, the development will be breaking ground (rock) along the craggy ridge of the Organ Mountains using the city-owned Dildozer, providing future residents with extreme privacy, spectacular views of an endless desert wasteland, and occasional sneak-peeks at missile detonations and other war games at The Range.

Stickelmeyer has been meeting with the condo tycoons, who feel the construction of comically overpriced tenement towers for wealthy white people will create an economic boom for Las Cruces.

Coffee giant Starbucks has already secured locations along the side of the ridge, at both ends of the Sun Tunnel (which provides a direct route to the missile range), and plans to have smaller satellite stores peppered throughout each tower; McDonald’s plans to erect the largest Golden Arches in the world, visible from Deming to Alamogordo; and a new golf course is slated to raze over 800 acres of pristine desert and eventually deplete the East Mesa aquifer.

Project planners are debating how to handle the incessantly growing wall of graffiti defacing the lower west side of the range, nicknamed Tag Tor. Continued removal is pointless and expensive, so it may be promoted as a new “Art Park” with an ever-changing display of spray painted craftwork.

“The developers want to promote ad nauseum how earth-friendly the new community will be. You know, all that carbon footprint bullshit and how compacting residents into shoebox-size concrete bunkers 18 stories tall is going to save the world,” said Stickelmeyer.

Condo units (aka studio apartments) in the proposed Flatblock 18A-Linear North tower will start at $499,000 for a luxurious 200 sq. feet of living space. Monthly resident membership dues are expected to be around $500, which covers eco-friendly amenities such as use of the unicycle-powered elevator, access to the rooftop clotheslines and putt-putt range, Tunnel Tomb® car parking, and solar-powered tanning beds. A graywater swimming pool, located on the ground floor, will be perpetually replenished with residents’ filtered dirty dish water.

To maintain condo community standards, the developers will be targeting potential buyers within the following demographics:

White
Independently wealthy
Drive Lexus RX 400h Hybrid
Visit Starbucks at least twice daily
Yoga every morning
Buy organic produce at Toucan Market

Children, dogs (except poodles & chihuahuas), hanging wet towels on the balconies, and vehicles costing less than $40K will not permitted in the community.

For information on being among the privileged few to snap up a brand new condo or be lucky enough to get on a waiting list, look for the full page ads to appear in Las Cruces Sun News in coming months.

Study Hints Kids Now At Their Fattest

LAS CRUCES—The percentage of ‘Crucen children who are overweight or obese appears to have leveled off after a 25-year increase, according to new figures that offer a glimmer of hope in an otherwise dismal battle.

“This is a first encouraging finding in what has been unremittingly bad news,” said Dr. Fatblaster, director of the obesity clinic at the hospital. “But it’s too soon to know if this really means we’re beginning to make meaningful inroads into this epidemic. It may simply be a statistical fluke.”

Since 2003, roughly 32 percent of children were chubby but not blubby, 16 percent were blubby, and 11 percent were fucking fat, according to a study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those levels held steady after rising without interruption since 1980.

“We’ve really been mystified as to why so many kids are getting outrageously obese,” said the head chef at the Las Cruces Public Schools Culinary Kitchen, Rachel Ray. “The public school system is firmly committed to providing nutritious foodstuffs to all of our little angels and we ensure each and every meal contains a deep-fried meat product stuffed with cheese, a serving of vegetables smothered with cheese, fluffy white bread, a slice of cheesecake for those with a sweet tooth, and a pint of milk. We also offer a fruit-flavored beverage for children who do not like to drink the milk of another species.”

“We follow the government’s recommended food pyramid to a tee,” added Ray, “so we’re truly bewildered with the abundance of all these little gundyguts waddling around.”

Some people say that if the cellulite climax is real, it could be because some parents and children have discovered “alternative” eating habits and are engaging in an activity called “exercise.”

Che Gordo inhaling his final McDonald’s Happy Meal.

“My 10 year old, Che, blimped up to 275 pounds. Finally, one of his knees gave out and we had to have it surgically reconstructed with metal plates,” said local mother Grande Gordo. “But the final straw was when I made him turn off the fucking television and go outside for once; he tried getting on his bicycle but both tires blew out and the frame collapsed, knocking Che face-first onto the pavement.”

Gordo decided to change the way her family eats by simply eliminating all dairy foods, avoiding products that contain high-fructose corn syrup (a cheap, nutritionless sweetener used excessively in place of sugar), and serving normal-size portions during meal times. She states finding foods that do not contain some form of cow’s milk was “nearly impossible,” so was forced to buy items in their natural state and prepare her own food, as people have for eons.

“I started looking at labels on food packages,” said Gordo. “Dry cereals, crackers, bread, and even non-dairy coffee creamer – all that shit has milk in it. They call it ‘casein’ in the ingredient list.”

Gordo adds that in the two weeks since banning dairy products in her family’s diet, Che has lost 12 pounds and his perpetually snotty nose has stopped running. The family also utilizes the multi-use path along the Rio Grande four evenings a week, where they can walk, run, and ride bikes without dealing with asshole motorists. The Gordos have also ceased viewing any television programming that is sponsored by corporate advertising.

“TV is nothing but ads for cheap-quality crap and junk food, so we just pulled the plug and started reading books from the library and playing trivia online,” said Gordo. “Che was excited after he discovered Wikipedia and began editing various articles.”

The full impact of the childhood epidemic will continue to mount in coming years, because it can take many years for obesity-related complications to translate into life-threatening events, including heart attacks and kidney failure. Additionally, most fat kids start breeding more of their own kind before their 20th birthdays so they can get into the welfare system as soon as possible.

Dr. Fatblaster says “Las Cruces should be congratulated” if the rates have in fact peaked, because up until now Southern New Mexico has produced the fattest kids in the America, and such as, in addition to leading the herd with the most teenage pregnancies, a phenomenon he calls “Stupid Babies Having Stupider Babies.”

“There is a small group of people going against the grain and back to basics,” Fatblaster said. “Some rogue schools are even getting all wild and crazy by providing better meals with fresh, low-fat foods and increasing physical education.”

He noted that he recently treated a young fatty “who in three days did not have a single piece of fresh fruit.” He states she was stunned to learn that her breakfast of Wild Wacky Fruity Loco Puffs, Rockin’ Razzleberry Toaster Tarts, and a quart of Tang orange-flavor drink did not actually contain any fruit.

“We still have a long way to go,” he said. “If parents completely eliminated dairy products from their children’s diets for a 30-day trial, they’d be amazed at how quickly the blubber burns off and resolves a number of health problems, such as asthma, respiratory mucus, and even death (SIDS).

Homeland Security: All Your Laptops Are Belong To Us

The gropers at the Department of Homeland Security, not content with patting you down and rummaging through your underwear, now say that they can confiscate electronics brought into the United States for any reason, anytime, and share the devices and their contents with anybody.

The Washington Post reports: Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop’s contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption, or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The DHS claims it’s protecting against terrorist, drug smugglers, people sneaking kiddie porn into the country, and people violating copyright and trademark laws. Questions: Is this behavior by bad guys common? Common enough to warrant the expenditure of work, tax dollars, and infringement on people’s privacy that these measures call for? And how are the border guards going to recognize trademark and copyright infringement when they see it? How are they going to distinguish a stash of legally ripped MP3s from pirated music? What kind of training do the border guards get in intellectual property law?

In the name of protecting America, the TSA has demonstrated a lack of respect for the privacy, property, and dignity of Americans, with recent behavior including taking out nipple rings, pantsing amputees, and confiscating a homemade battery that looked like a bomb – then bragging about it. The DHS simply cannot be trusted with the authority to confiscate electronics anywhere, at any time, for any reason, at any border crossing in America.

Community Wins Uncoveted “Worst Of The Web” Award

After a tense deliberation between the Las Cruces business community and 14-year old gamer Daniel Norton of Arkansas, the Worst of the Web Consortium awarded Las Cruces the unprestigious honor of hosting the decade’s most unattractive and outdated websites on the entire Innernet.

Websites were judged based on pre-Web 2.0 criteria including scrolling marquees, animated GIFs, beveled text effects, automatic music that can’t be turned off, and web pages laid out entirely in Microsoft Word.

“We let the people decide,” said PHP programmer Clive Pompousass, “and the consensus was Las Cruces had the most tacky websites per capita.”

Pompousass stated the tie-breaker was the abundance of grainy and blurry pictures of the Organ Mountains used as header images, particularly on real estate websites.

“We calculated over 89% of Las Cruces area websites were in violation of W3C validation standards, used inline styles and the deprecated font tag, and did not render properly on modern browsers. Additionally, a large number of business sites were created with ‘AOL Geocities Easy Builder Website Tonight’ and had dated information on their homepage from several years ago.”

The WWC suggests if a company can’t handle keeping their site current and giving it a fresh look, it’s better to just get it offline and spare potential visitors the agony.

Future 40-year old virgin, Daniel Norton.

Upon hearing the news of his defeat, Daniel Norton started crying and proclaimed he refuses to learn CSS in hopes of winning next year’s award.

1-800-PIT-BULL

Public Service Announcement

The City's Animal Control Department is in the process of setting up a new hotline to report abused and neglected pit bulls. Effective later this year, dialing 1-800-PIT-BULL will allow area residents to leave a detailed message reporting mistreated pit bulls. For those nervous about being confronted by their thug-trash neighbors or waking up to find your car with four slashed tires, the automatedsystem will be completely anonymous. Obvious signs of pit bull abuse include:

Lack of owner interactivity with the pit bull, other than yelling at it to "sic 'em" or "shut the fuck up"

Enclosed in a derelict dirt backyard full of broken junk with virtually no shade or shelter

Seeing the pit bull stranded on a small patch of higher ground as the summer monsoons turn its enclosure into a mud pit

Missing an eye

Barking incessantly for 2-3 hours every night for no reason whatsoever

Snarling at anyone who comes within 100 feet of its territory, including next-door neighbors prevented from enjoying their own backyards

Chained to a gas pipe or dead tree

Until the new hotline goes into effect, concerned residents are urged to report abused pit bulls and other less prevalent dogs to the City Animal Control Department at 526-0795 or 528-4100.

Throb: Good Grub, Stupid Prices, Sucky Service

Throb entertainment guide for Las Cruces

See what’s pumpin’ in ‘Cruces!

G-Fresh, Throb Columnist

Attention all eaters: Restaurant Review! ‘Yo all, I been scorin’ real good lately with the perks of being the Throb columnist. Free booze at the Wine Fest, ridin’ dirty in the Skidmark hearse, and now...FREE FOOD! Shit yeah, biatches. It don’t matter what it is; if it’s free, I eat it. My boss had a couple apologetic 5% off coupons from International Disappointments over some wicked food poisoning incident last month, so I volunteered to return for the official review. I gotta say that I’ve been to this place about six times before, and every time there was something wrong with my order or with the price. But we gotta stay objective here and I’m really trying hard to like this place, so let’s pretend all those negative experiences never happened, k?

The IDC is a nice place. Almost “too nice” for ‘Cruces, if ya know what I mean. The furnishings aren’t made of plastic and they have fancy Egyptian mummy stuff decorating the walls. I was mesmerized by a big wide screen TV above the counter until I looked around and realized the TV was just showing still shots of the restaurant itself. Vain!

I said NO yogurt sauce.

I got neurotic as I approached the service counter. “They gonna fuck up my order again?” I wondered. You see homeslices, I don’t eat anything with dairy junk in it: no milk, no cheese, no cream. Call it intolerance. I eat it, I start staining my shorts and wondering how all those thirsty baby cows are doing.

For purposes of this review, I ordered the same thing as always: a falafel wrap for $4.79. I took a gamble and asked the cashier (hot young chick, like all the workers there) if she could replace the squirt of yogurt sauce for a smear of hummus. “Um, that’s like an extra dollar,” said the girl. And I was like, “Dayam!” So I said forget it and told her to make it without the yogurt. I also ordered their large bowl of lentil soup for $3.59 cuz they don’t have a smaller cup for cheap. You can’t go wrong with soup, right?

I was hungover from last night, so I also ordered a cuppa for $1.59. I got a mug 3/4 full with coffee grounds floating all over the top and I was like “WTF?” She said they just ran out of coffee and if I want she can add a shot of espresso to fill it up. I was like, no, and I asked for a splash of soy milk instead of dairy creamer. “Um, it’s an extra dollar,” she said. I snorted smugly, just shaking my head over such a retail robbery, and decided to drink my gritty coffee black. They don’t have free refills on the coffee, so if you want a little bit more you just have to buy another cup.

Dogs at restaurants suck.

I went out to the patio and saw an empty table next to the fountain, but tripped over a huge St. Bernard resting in the shade underneath. I hate it when people bring their fucking dogs to restaurant patios; I guess I should start bringing my pet bull snake and let it slither around everyone’s ankles while they’re dining. Fair is fair. As the server brought my food and disappeared, I could see the dog taking a massive shit in the bushes near the fountain and a small commotion started so I just put my iPod on.

VERDICT: My falafel wrap was drenched with yogurt sauce, as unrequested. This is like the sixth time now. I complained about it before and once they offered to make me a new wrap, but I don’t play like that because then the kitchen staff puts stuff on the new food. So I took the whole thing apart and scraped off all the creamy crap and quickly threw it in the fountain. The falafel balls were pretty tasty, but the lettuce was limp; all I could think about was the diarrhea that would probably rush through me in a couple of hours (it did). The “large bowl” of lentil soup I ordered reminded me of the time I went to that Phish concert and the only beer for sale was Miller Light in “Super Jumbo” size cups for $5, but they were just regular 12 ounce cups filled with piss-poor beer. False advertising, dudes. The soup was foshizzle fine, but then again I ain’t never had a bad bowl of soup in my life cuz I don’t think it’s possible to fuck up soup.

When I got home, I checked out their website as part of my field research. It’s one of very few websites in ‘Cruces that don’t look like total crap, but it was full of mistakes. First off, all the food prices were like two years old and each about a buck less than what I had just paid. I figured that’s just a result of Mañana Mood, and they’ll update the 411 when they feel like it. But then I saw all these spelling errors – chiken, babaghanoudj, estern, mronig, lattuce, cambo, cofee – and I was like “no ways!” Workin’ in the publication biz I catch these bombs all the time and it makes a writer look pretty retarded when they don’t use the spell chekc.

WHAT: Authentic foods from everywhere but here
WHERE: Las Cruces, New Mexico
WHEN: Mon 9:15am-6:10pm, Tues 8am-1:40am, Wed Noon-Midnight, Thurs CLOSED, Fri-Sun 23 HOURS. Closed on Groundhog Day.
WHY: Only place in town that don’t serve hamburgers or burritos

'Cruces Shopper: September '08

FUN PARTY LIFE at Casa Pendejo Apartments. Close to NMSU and Starbucks. Wake up at 7:55 and make it to your 8AM class! Resident convenience store with pharmacy, private hot tub rental, discotheque. All units come with front & back door. No deposit for students or Section-8. 555-5555

CATCH THE SKIDMARK and smell the roses! Available monthly at select Las Cruces locations and always online at www.lcskidmark.com

NUTS ARE COMING and you know you want them! World-famous “Poocans” grown right here in LC beside sewage filtration plant. All natural, all organic, special nutty flavor. Packed in toilet shaped tin, great gift idea! Visit www.freshlcpoocans.com to order.

CHEAP BEER BOTTLES for sale. Collector items, all brands, mostly Bud. Several hundred, empty. Build a sparkling pyramid or glass wall. No recycling, can’t bear to send them to landfill. Billy Bob 555-5555

YOU WANT IT we got it. Give some to your friends or display it at your business and attract the coolest people in town! Fun! Free! Order some Skidmarks today by emailing bob@lcskidmark.com

SUPER DVD SALE at the library. Scratched, scuffed, might play, might not. $5 each, help support the literary community

NEED FAT GUYS to beat the crap out of people at local concerts. Must be huge and intimidating, no education required. Contact Trendy Tune Promotions and start kicking ass tonight! 555-5555

YOUNG CHIHUAHUA FEEDERS perfect for training attack dogs. Cheap. Call Mula 555-5555

BIG BLACK PENIS truck for sale. Lifted, decked, 6 wheels, super-duty V-12 hemi turbo, 8mpg, flames painted on sides. Tight. Got fired, can’t afford gas. Call Butch 555-5555

ADOPT A SIDEWALK Community Action Group now forming to take back public walkways and make them nice. Sign up for your block and make it passable once again. www.savelcsidewalks.com

ADORABLE SWEET CHEEKS DIAPER CAKE (MADE FROM DIAPERS) FOR BABY SHOWER CENTERPIECE OR GIFT GIVING!! I CAN DESIGN ANY THEME, SIZE OR COLOR COMBINATIONS. SIMPLE OR EXTREMELY ELEGANT! CALL NOT-MARTHA 555-5555

UPDATE YOUR WWW to lcskidmark.com. We scrounged up the 9 bucks for our very own domain name. Bookmark it now.

RIO GRANDE WATER Fresh, delicious water in convenient 2 oz. “One Sip” disposable bottles. Perfect for home or work, save the hassle of filling a glass from the faucet. Water sourced and filtered upstream from sewage sludge release. A buck a bottle, visit www.riograndewatersuckers.org

BEAT THE SYSTEM Free seminar teaches you how to embezzle funds, host dog fighting competitions, get multiple DUIs, falsely receive welfare benefits, and much more WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE! Everyone else is doing it, let us show you how. Contact Las Cruces Chamber of Crime 555-5555

ORDER A CONDO and live even higher than the people “down there” on The Hill. Custom condos with an Organ Mountain address. Hot! Visit www.overpricedshoeboxcondos.com for info.

TOUGH GIRL WANTED to be my bitch. You got tats, rings, plugs, sweet ride, smart lip? Cool, me too. Let’s hook up and be domestically violent together. Call Darren 555-5555

NEW ENGLISH CLASSES Learn the new speak so u can sound as dumb as the rest. A must 4 teachers. Immerse urself in Texting Internet Slang. 555-5555