Library Thriller

Okay. I'll play along and link to a Michael Jackson-related video. This is from the 2008 National Library of Australia staff Christmas party. It must be nice to work in a place that has six new matching book carts.

• One of our book carts is so old, the wheels are made of wood.
  
• One of our carts is so old, it was used to haul away victims of the Black Death.
• It's so old that when Johannes Gutenberg gave it to us, he said that as soon as he invents a way to mass produce books, he'd want it back.
• It's so old that the first time it won a "pimp my bookcart" contest, the contest was called "cuckold thy book cart."

(I said it was old.)

Okay, here's the video:

Where are all the bogus Michael Jackson wills?

There are the stories about Elvis giving away Cadillacs to strangers. Celebrities give gold watches to fans. But where are the crazy stories about Michael Jackson signing away pieces of his wealth?

I'm looking for a story where Michael goes into a convenience store for a bag of chips and a soda, but forgets his wallet at home, so he signs over part of a Beatles' song to the store clerk on the back of a brown paper bag as payment:

To Whom It May Concern,
I, Michael Jackson, King of Pop, do hereby assign twenty percent (20%) ownership in the future publishing rights to The Beatles' song titled "Good Morning Good Morning" to Lxxxxx Pxxxxxxxxx on this date, 7/23/2004, in exchange for one 6.3-ounce bag of Cool Ranch flavor Doritos and one 20-ounce bottle of Diet Mountain Dew Code Red soda.

Signed,
Michael Jackson (MJ)

Witnessed,
Harvey Sxxxxx, a customer

But don't try to copy this one; I've just submitted it myself through my attorneys.

Please help me to exploit a dead celebrity.

Last year, someone donated a copy of Making Michael Jackson's Thriller on VHS to the library, and as is the case with donated items, the library put it on a book sale table and I bought it for $1.

Now that the King of Pop is gone from this world, I see that his memorabilia is soaring in value. On Amazon, copies of this tape are listed for over $150.

So, how can I profit from this? I guess if I sold my tape for $2, I'd still make 100 percent profit. But how can I make 10,000 percent profit? Does that seem fair?

See? That's the thing. I don't really care to rip people off by selling worthless crap at outrageous prices. Don't get me wrong, I love money. But there's only so much I'm willing to do for it. I've been talked into swallowing 100 heroin-filled balloons and sneaking over the border from Canada (damn your sexiness, George Clooney, you can talk a girl into anything). But exploiting a dead pop star is not cool.