Links to hilarious webpages? Duh:

Pictures of Desi Arnaz? Why yes . . . yes I can.

Stories of eggplant-related sexual deviancy? Of cour - Well, you get the picture. (And if you do, you now understand my pain. Don't let it ruin your life like it has mine.)

I say that because I have a couple of topics that may or may not be particularly couth, and that most folks probably don't give a damn about. But because this is my soapbox, I can do as I please. Anyway, on to this week's topics:

Topic #1: Urinalphobia. What the hell is up with dudes that don't use urinals in public bathrooms? I was unaware of this issue until a few years ago my buddy Ian (hi Ian!) informed me that he refuses to use a urinal, and promptly went into a stall to drain the dragon. We were both drunk at the time, so I assumed he was just, you know, being a drunk. Hey, I do weird stuff when I'm drunk, like write weekly columns and engage in violent, confrontational performance art. (It's like Blue Man Group, but with grenades.)

I've noticed it a few times since, though. Some guys just seem to have a generous fear of using urinals. I'm assuming that this is because they don't want splash-back from the urinal getting on their hands; they figure, if they just use the stall john they don't have to worry about washing their hands. Just a comment on that, guys: I'd much rather shake the hand of somebody that took a piss and washed his hands than a guy who touched nothing but his warty, sore-covered johnson and just walked right out of the crapper.

Even worse, the splash up from 20 guys peeing in the pot instead of the urinal like a normal human causes pee and jaunt to splash up onto the seat. That's assuming they even bother to lift the seat up instead of pissing all over it. This is extra lovely for those of us that have to go in there to drop the kids off at the pool, and first have to spend 5 minutes bleaching the seat and putting down 11 layers of toilet paper to prevent syphilis from jumping off the seat and straight into our brain, causing us to go insane right there on the crapper and forget to wipe. (I've seen it happen, and it's horrible. It's like trench warfare, but with an overwhelming smell of urine, and without the Huns rushing across no-man's-land to stab you with bayonets.)

I think we should enact an unwritten rule: guys that get caught peeing in a pot when there is an open, relatively clean urinal, get an immediate swirlie. And maybe a couple good whacks in the package with a big binder. Let it be written, let it be done.

Topic #2: Pop music seems to be on the upswing; have you noticed? We have Justin, Norah Jones, John Mayer, some good bands, etc. Just last year, all we had was N*Sync (which clearly was holding Justin back from greatness), Britney, and Counting Crows. (I can't begin to emphasize how much I dislike the Counting Crows. I have some friends who are big CC fans, but whenever I hear Adam Durwitz start to sing I have a hard time not puncturing my ear drums with a cordless drill. Just can't get past his voice. The rest of the band might be great, and I understand the lyrics are like butter, but Durwitz makes me violent.)

On the other hand, we now have "Cold Play," which is rapidly becoming the Counting Crows of 2003. WHY CAN BANDS NOT FIND DUDES THAT CAN SING? It's very depressing. I need to find a bad with a good sound, nice lyrics, and really shitty vocals and offer them my services. It shouldn't be too hard. I have the Counting Crows' agent's number somewhere around here, don't I?

Topic #3: Diet update: still dieting. Still fat. Stay tuned for more updates.

Topic #4: Bought a new video game the other day: Stuntman. I bought it 'cause I thought it'd be dope to launch cars flying through flaming hoops and crash them into crowds of people and cause horrific injuries and impale people on the radio antenna. Here's a quick review:

Graphics: Good. The car view is nice and detailed, the backgrounds are neat, the victims try to jump out of the way convincingly. Score: 8/10.
Sound: Not too bad; the cars sound sweet, the tires squeal nicely. Apparently they could only afford one song for the soundtrack, though, and it's just some crappy techno beat. Score: 7/10.
Controls: A little confusing, since I'm used to other driving games and the controls vary just enough to be frustrating. The cars handle nicely, though. You can get a nice slide without spinning out too badly. Score: 7/10.
Ease of Play: ABSO-FRICKIN-LUTELY RETARDED. I have never been so frustrated with a video game in my life. The career mode isn't TOO bad; my only complaint would be that it spends no time trying to get you adjusted to the game with some easy levels, it just dumps you in with some hard stuff. The first few levels took me between 5 and 8 tries to beat.

The "Driving Games" mode is idiotically hard. It never bothers to tell you what the hell you have to do; I must've almost beaten the level 11 times before I figured out you have to stop in the last set of cones, not just blow through it at 90. Plus, it has parts where you have to reverse into a spot, and you can set it to automatically look behind you when you go into reverse, but it doesn't do it right away. So you have to waste valuable time inching backwards, waiting for it to reverse view. OR you can just hit the button that does it for you, but then when the game realizes you wanna back up, reverses THAT view so you're just looking out the front again.

I began having seizures. Score: 0/10.

Overall score: Absolutely Crap.

Like most talented writers, I have no good way to end my column. So I'll just say this: in eight hours or so, we're gonna be bombing the shit out of Iraq. My prodigious vocabulary fails me.