Every week, Paul, Graham, Kathleen and I get together to write ENN. Over the week, each of us actually writes stories separately, then we commune on Fridays to choose what to use, what to revise, etc. Sometimes the stories we throw out aren’t very good; other times, they are too obscure for a wider audience. Even so, very good stories are occasionally rejected because there is just not enough space for them in the episode. Here are several such stories from this week’s episode:

Really Mean Girls

Lindsey Lohan has been left off the cover of the video game adaption of Mean Girls. Out of respect, SOS Media, developer of the game, had a moment of silence for Lohan’s career.

Work Boy (with Boy from gameboy logo)

Shigeru Miyamoto has stated that one day, he will retire but not anytime soon. He then added that if his health were to fail, he would “upload his consciousness into Nintendo’s mainframe, ensuring that unlike Walt Disney, no accounting department hack would be able to take everything good he had done, and run it into the ground.”

Debt Box 180

The United States Government is partnering with Microsoft to create a game about deficit reduction. Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division hopes the project will offset its steadily-increasing losses over the last ten years.

Who’s on Probation?

South Korea was rocked last week by a Starcraft betting scandal, equated by some to the black socks of 1919. “It’s not like that at all,” said accused Starcraft champion Ma-Jae-Yoon, “Unlike baseball, Starcraft players are actually athletes.”

I’ve also included some higher-rez versions of the magazine covers we mocked up for this episode for you to peruse.

Update: added Kathleen’s New Yorker cover.