As videos of Black Friday have started to resemble footage of middle eastern coups many shoppers have switched to Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday is when people expect to make purchases using the quickness and accessibility of the internet. That’s why Spectrum Customers are looking for alternative routes to their online shopping experience.

“I just think this might make things easier for me,” says Linda Whistlebong as she put an old AOL disk into her CD-Rom drive. “My husband’s looking in the garage for a telephone cord. We need something we can trust.” Whistlebong lifted the CD out of the tray. “Does this look scratched to you?”

Some have taken more extreme measures, like horse farm owner Winona Settles, who has set up a pony express system from the Lexington Amazon Warehouse to service the area. “These ponys’ll get there quicker than any ole Web Crawler. HeeYAH!” she yelled, dropping an Alexa into a saddlebag and slapping the Palomino on its hindquarters.

“We are fully equipped to handle whatever Cyber Monday throws at us,” said Spectrum regional manager Bryan Johnson as he flipped off the open sign and locked the front door to the office. “The internet is very complicated. It’s hard to give a brief explanation on how it works.”

He took us down the hall to an empty room and walked over to what looked like a thermostat on the wall. A strip of masking tape above it had ‘Internet’ written on it. The arrow on the dial was set to ‘Real Slow’.

Johnson sat and explained, “It gets real expensive if we raise that dial.” Then he took out a book of Magic Eye patterns and started squinting his eyes behind the cover.

Many customers in town are left without any other option and so are forced to wait on their phones listening to the company’s prerecorded apology. “If you’d like to leave a message for a Spectrum customer service representative, please leave your account number, your name and nature of your complaint and someone will get back to you shortly after your Christmas is ruined.”

Ongoing construction at CentrePointe may have created a rift in the space-time continuum and opened a gateway to what some are referring to as ‘the upside down.’ Webb Company architect and amateur astrophysicist Bernard Thurman held a press conference Tuesday in which he assured reporters that there was no need to panic.

“It’s just another Lexington,” Thurman said. “Subtly different from our own. For instance, in that version of Lexington, they actually finished CentrePointe fifteen years ago.”

However, some believe there are more sinister ramifications at play.

“It doesn’t take this long to build part of a parking garage, there’s something else going on here,” skeptic Wionna Hopper told us. “They’ve got it all fenced off and stuff, but one time, I followed a car down there. Based on what I saw there is a portal to the upside down down there.”

The fact that there is a secret portal to another world is just the tip of the iceberg, Hopper explained, “I know people say I watch too many law commercials but, I’ve seen some things. I believe they are keeping Darryl Isaacs down there, brutally training his mind to be able to move and control things. They’re preparing him to go into the upside down.”

Why are they doing this? Hopper has a fairly believable answer, “because, when they first opened the portal, Gary Becker was taken off of the diving board outside his friend’s house and into the upside down. And no one even seems to care, Kevin Renfro just showed up in the commercials and everyone moved on, but he’s stuck down there and Isaacs is being trained to go in and find him.”

If Becker is indeed in the upside down it seems he may be in some danger. “There is a monster that lives in the upside down, terrorizing and killing. The monster is called the Demomorganandmorgan and if we’re not careful and Isaacs is unsuccessful, not only is Gary Becker a goner, but the monster could come through the portal, and it would come… for the people.”

As of press time the 3 offices intend to settle outside of the upside down. The lawyers did send a joint response to our request for comment, it read: “Suffering from nose bleeds? Sudden cravings for waffles? You may be suffering from telekinesis, please call our offices.”

Raising Cane’s has won a bid to sponsor University of Kentucky diplomas. The relatively useless pieces of paper (in today’s job market) will be stamped with the chicken company’s logo along with the school crest. In addition to the diploma stamp, the sponsorship deal will also guarantee that all graduates will receive a complimentary side of cole slaw.

As part of the deal, graduation mortar boards will be replaced by graduates wearing oversized Texas toast on their heads. Liberal arts majors, however, will be forced to don a sandwich bun, a menu item as obsolete as their area of study. Graduates can get an extra Canes Sauce for an additional $50,000 dollar student loan. From now on, valedictorians will also be required to mention the chicken finger restaurant in their speeches.

“Once a Caniac, always a Caniac,” said University of Kentucky president Eli Capilouto. “In the end it makes sense. We are both institutions that strive for excellence in a singular field with only mediocre results.”

“Chicken, chicken chicken, which major you pickin’?” said Raising Cane’s manager and academic adviser Bryan Fowler. “Most of the graduates end up working here, anyway, might as well sponsor the degree.”

UK, in conjunction with Raising Cane’s, is currently working on getting some diplomas that don’t have Cane’s Sauce stains on the corners.

In a city where none of the pedestrians pay attention to crosswalks or traffic signals when crossing the street, one particular crosswalk continues to be controversial. Federal Highway Administrator Warwick Davis sent a letter to the Lexington city council stating that the rainbow crosswalk at North Limestone and Short Street is a safety hazard.

Davis and other officials at the Federal Highway Administration believe that the crosswalk is dangerous, and not just for pedestrians, but self driving cars and leprauchans as well.

Administrator Davis explained, “Ready or not autonomous cars are here, and we have to worry about what messages we’re sending them with our roadways.  Faded white lines tell the cars to watch out for pedestrians.  Everyone knows that when artificial intelligence sees a rainbow crosswalk, it then searches for a nitro boost zone, thereby creating confusion and allowing Princess Peach to slide into first place.”

Self-driving cars and pedestrians are not the only issue, the administration says the crosswalk is far more dangerous for leprechauns. “You’re just forcing all of Lexington’s leprechaun population to hide their pot of gold at Thursday Night Live,” he added, “where’s the fun in that?”

Defenders of the crosswalk note that there other rainbow crosswalks in other cities, but Davis’ morning commute doesn’t take him past any of them. “I can only strongly advise against what I see,” Davis said.

If the city does change the crosswalk back to a regular boring crosswalk, residents are hopeful that perhaps this will alleviate crosswalk congestion throughout the city and that this might begin a good faith relationship with the Federal Highway Administration, allowing them to start weighing in on other problems with our city streets.  Eventually even maybe helping us fix a lot of our other issues.  However, unfortunately they just care about the crosswalk. Seriously.

Former Vice Mayor Jim Gray says he’s going to stand by the rainbow crosswalk for now, “I have some hand warmers and a big thermos of hot chocolate. I’m not leaving until my ears get really cold.”

Jim Gray announced that Lexington is set to become the country’s first ‘giga-bit city’ where internet provider MetroNet’s high-speed, fiber optic internet service will be available to most of the city. The city is cautiously optimistic about the upgrade with many citizens hoping MetroNet internet is better than MetroPCS phones. As Lexington prepares for the change, here are 14 things you need to know to get you ready for the city-wide high-speed internet:

1. The upgrade will make Netflix movies impossible to watch as they will speed by in fast-forward till the credits.
2. It’s ok to plug an ethernet cable into the new fast internet and then touch it to your tongue to get a little jolt of superfast information but be careful, leaving it on too long will result in your brain turning into a comments section.
3. Remember, just because the internet is faster does not mean your aunt’s political tirades are any more well-informed. You’ll just be able to load the pages of all caps text faster.
4. If you message people in towns with slower internets it will be important to note in the subject line “Not From the Future.”
5. Swiping left on someone’s Tinder profile will erase them from existence.
6. Darryl Isaac commercials will still play in the lowest quality possible.
7. Spectrum will try and rebrand their internet to sound faster in order to compete, but it in no way will be. Magnum Pi.4x Speed isn’t a thing, Spectrum.
8. You better believe you’re gonna have an advantage when it comes to the speed at which you can crush some candy.
9. You can find out about restaurants closing even before they do.
10. Fiber optic internet is not just “Raisin Bran taped to Google Glasses,” no matter how many times Joe B. Hall tells you it is.
11. The SuperComputer underneath Centerpointe will know your name!
12. Remember, just because we have faster internet does not make us better than any other town. Like those cave people in Shelbyville.
13. There is no escape.
14. Kentucky.com will still operate at the speed of newspaper.

Ernest Hemingway once said, “There is no hunting like the hunting of man.” WLEX Meterologist Bill Meck believes he is on the receiving end of this as he says he is being constantly terrorized while on air by a man wearing a green body suit.

“No one really believes me because the man terrorizing me is invisible to any producers watching the monitors. This is my own personal nightmare come true. I’m being terrorized by my own technology, betrayed by my own green screen,” Meck recalled as he looked wearily at the ground shaking his head.

“It began innocently enough. I saw something moving against the screen at the beginning of a broadcast but then, when the green screen smacked my arm down as I began to point out a cold front, I knew something was afoot.”

LEX18 security is certain that no unauthorized visitors made it into the news room. “He must have had a badge,” said security guard Todd (there was no last name on his name tag). “If he indeed exists at all.”

“It’s become a real problem,” Meck continued. “You can see his outline if you slow down the tape, here and here. At one point it looks like the temperature is trying to pick my nose. I have my suspicions. At first I thought it was Bailey but we’re on at the same time, he has a rock solid alibi.”

The green man allegedly made another appearance Monday morning. “There’s a little green man up here telling me I don’t know how to do my job,” Meck said, breaking from the 8-Day Forecast script. “He likes to whisper things to me. Things you people wouldn’t believe.”

Then the station went to an unscheduled commercial break after Meck lunged at the green screen.

“War is hell, but this is worse,” said decorated Army veteran James McGill as he sat down his fork after taking a bite of the complimentary Fiesta Lime Chicken.

“I really appreciate what Applebee’s is doing here,” said Terry Wyatt, a veterans association leader. “I appreciate them trying to recreate the wartime experience so that people can better appreciate what we went through, but I’m just not ready to relive the experience yet.”

“You ever open up an MRE and have everything blended together and you only get one flavor?” asked Daniel Castillo, marine. “No? Me either. So how does Applebee’s have an entire menu that has one flavor?” He tossed the offer for a free Veteran’s Day meal in the trash. “I may have a Purple Heart, but I don’t have an iron stomach.”

“These riblets are drier than Desert Storm,” McGill said, turning some charred meat over on his plate. He stood up and thanked the server for the offer and for his effort but said, “I’ll just go pay full price at Roosters. It might cost more but at least they care about food. And they’re like a more patriotic Hooters anyway.”