Issue  Ten    March  2004 ©2004  by  Cliff  Johnson  All  Rights  Reserved  Ask me no questions — the officious newsletter of author Cliff Johnson — and I’ll tell you no lies.      >Take One<      “He who laughs last is generally the last to get the joke,” explains Terry Cohen.      >Take Two<      Steve Wright recalls, “I went into this bar and sat down next to a pretty girl. She looked at me and said, “Hey, you have two different colored socks on.” I said, “Yeah, I know, but to me they're the same because I go by thickness.”      And, “My girlfriend does her nails with white-out. When she's asleep, I go over there and write misspelled words on them.”      Also, “I bought a self learning record to learn Spanish. I turned it on and went to sleep; the record got stuck. The next day I could only stutter in Spanish.”      Finally, “You can't have everything. Where would you put it?”      >Take Three<      “The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth,” Niels Bohr points out.      >Take Four<      Collector Mark Voegel died from a lethal bite by Bettina his pet Black Widow spider. He then became a gruesome feast for the creepy-crawlies he loved. More than 200 spiders, several snakes, a gecko called Helmut, and several thousand termites gorged on their former master for days. Police were called in after neighbors complained about the smell. They found the remains of 30-year-old loner Voegel draped across a sofa, covered in giant cobwebs. “There were open cages and terrariums everywhere - all bathed in a weird green light. It was horrible.” Police described Voegel’s tiny apartment in the German city of Dortmund as a cross between a botanical garden and the butterfly breeding room from The Silence of the Lambs.      >Take Five<      “On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down,” assures Woody Allen. “It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.”      >Take Six<      If receiving this newsletter is as welcome as a blind invitation to appear on The Jerry Springer Show with your spouse, click here to cancel. However, if your spouse lined the kitty box with printed copies of this newsletter and you wish to read it without enduring the stench of ammonia, click here to subscribe.      >Take Seven<      “All is on-schedule,” shouted Chicken Little and the Boy who cried Wolf.      I can hardly wait!      Pre-order The Fool and his Money today and that late minute rush. Oh, who am I kidding? How about this? Have your name immortalized in the Compendium of True Believers inside the game! Better.      Pre-orders are autographed, did I mention that?      A lipstick kiss, also available upon request.      >Cut<      >Print<      After sixteen grueling months, a mysterious stranger has solved Blaine’s $100,000 Challenge and claimed the solid gold orb hidden inside a fake hollow stone wedged into the root (route) of the “big W” tree, homage to It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Yeah, okay, right, it’s really more of a “double V” tree. Picky, picky, picky.      A month ago, someone noted the 27/21 connection in the Imbroglio Interchange and concluded it meant 27 syllables from 21 words. I smacked my forehead. Another deduced that HORRIBLE IMP COSTUME = cherubim metropolis and then dismissed it as Just Blaine Crazy. I smacked my forehead again. Someone else posted Easter Egg photos from the Fearless DVD and yet someone else drew up a map of the Houdini estate and the Rick Rubin estate at 2451 Laurel Canyon. I smacked my forehead so hard I tumbled over backward in my chair.      View the photos of the treasure being lost and found, and in a couple weeks, look for the complete solution to the visual ciphers and forty-one clues, the Larry King clue, and the mythic DB “out of the box” blue jay way.      That most dangerous dastardly delightful holiday is back and a new treasure hunt awaits you on the eve of March 31 commencing 10 PM Eastern Standard Time.      The Grand (and only) Prize is all past, present, and future Cliff Johnson Games for the rest of his life.      The first eMail to reach me with the complete correct answer is the winner of the Grand Prize.      Like last year, anyone solving the treasure hunt within the 24 hour period of April Fool’s Day shall be immortalized in the 2004 Hall of Fame on my website, an honor of dubious distinction, auctionable on eBay.      In preparation, you might want to make certain you have Flash 7 installed on your browser and that your printer is ready to print. And if you missed last year’s hunt, you can still play it. Just click here. Or here. Or even here.      You might remember, last year, I volunteered the Fool as the official host of April Fool’s Day, purely to cash in on the merchandising, of course.      This year, please welcome Miss April, the magical imp who feels it her duty to play impractical pranks all the year long.      As The Return of the King’s $373 million U.S. box office gross crawls toward Spider-man’s $403 million, The Passion of the Christ’s $295 million whips past The Sixth Sense’s $293 million and cruises toward Pirates of the Caribbean’s $305 million. Meanwhile, Titanic remains “King of the World” at $600 million and in second place Star Wars, released and re-released, is a distant $460 million.      The tragedy of the Titanic claimed yet another victim, director James Cameron. You know, the fellow who did Terminator I & II, The Abyss, and Aliens. It’s been five years! Eschew True Lies II and come home to us.      Until we meet again.      Contrived Jargon 2003 — JAN - FEB - MAR - APR - MAY - JUN - JUL - AUG - DEC — 2004 — MAR - AUG - NOV — 2005 — APR - NOV - DEC 2006 — MAR - JUN - OCT — 2007 — DEC — 2008 — APR