Pitch Forks

WOULD JENNIFER ANISTON EVEN KNOW THE DIFFERENCE?

A man impersonating Brad Pitt has been making appearances in the actor's hometown of Springfield, Mo. Sporting a black cowboy hat and traveling with his own entourage of bodyguards, the impersonator reportedly prowls the bars of downtown Springfield in an attempt to deceive young women. Unfortunately for the man, though, most of the town's females have expected him to duplicate Pitt's romantic persona from Meet Joe Black; most of the male residents have challenged him to live up to his role in Fight Club. -- Jon Niccum

Xerox Corp. will announce that in order to reduce costs it will cut 3,000 to 5,000 jobs, resulting in a $600 million to $900 million decrease in profits. The downsized employees will be given a generous severance package that will be paid in cash as soon as Xerox finishes "testing" its new high-tech color copier. -- Robert Bishop

Phone bills at the White House rose by more than $50,000 after an Army sergeant gave out the special long-distance calling code. Sgt. David Gilmer was arrested after handing out the top-secret code to friends, resulting in 9,400 unauthorized calls from December to February. The jump was the largest in the White House's phone bill since the 900 number was introduced. -- Jon Niccum

Former Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page won substantial but undisclosed damages from Ministry Magazine, a British publication that alleged he stood by while bandmate John Bonham choked to death on his own vomit in 1980. The publication apologized, claiming it was a misprint that should have said, "Consumers might choke to death on their own vomit if they ever listened to that Coverdale/Page record." -- Andrew Miller

3Com Corp. will unveil a new consumer Internet appliance this summer that chairman Eric Benhamou hopes will be ''bigger than Palm,'' the top-selling handheld computer unit that was introduced earlier this month. Market analysts predict, however, that it is unlikely that palms will cease to be used in conjunction with the Internet. -- Robert Bishop