Apps," or software programs designed for handheld devices, are all the rage these days, as more and more internet-capable phones and state-of-the-art tablet computers utilize them to make apps one of the more enjoyable aspects of mobile technology. There are current apps out there for reading books and documents, doing your taxes, watching movies and television while on the go, and getting directions as you drive. But apps don't stop there, as independent designers and big-name companies work to bring new abilities to your tablet computer like the iPad, the Galaxy Tab, and Motorola's incorrectly spelled Xoom device. In the wake of the recent removal from the Apple Store in France of an app called "Jew or Not Jew?," designed to give insight into the background of entertainers and icons of Jewish descent, the commune, mostly me, Raoul Dunkin, decided to investigate some of the surprising apps out there for various devices. But yeah, all of these are Apple, because nobody left an HP TouchPad discarded at the bus stop last week. Although they probably should have.

Encore! For iPhone (Guncho Ltd.): This fresh app saves the user breath and energy by automatically shouting for "one more" from your favorite band who has left the stage. An update reportedly automatically requests "Free Bird" if it has not already been played, and mimics your drunken slur. Encore! costs $4.99 on iTunes and is also available for the same price for iPad. For $8.99 an Apple customer can buy Encore! Pro, which boos the opening act during the first ballad.

U.R. Gay For iPad (OutThere Apps): Ever wanted to know what your best friends or romantic partners would look like if they chose the homosexual lifestyle? U.R. Gay can take any picture of the manliest dudes or girliest girlfriends and gay them up big time. Adjust the gayness to your liking with a touch-friendly slider. Deck out that obnoxious brah in your office in a tight-fitting long-sleeve shirt and pencil-thin mustache, or a loud Hawaiian shirt and biker shorts, or go full gay with a bushy 'stache, leather vest, blue jean cut-offs and—is that eyeliner? Advisory: Can only go gay, will not work on already-gay pictures, and they highly recommend you don't try it.

iBlack (Cheap Bastards): If you're thinking this app traces the purity of your blood back several generations, you're wrong (that app's called Kiss My Black(?) Ass for iPhone). iBlack can, at the press of a button, turn your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch to a completely black screen so you can see your reflection, see what it looks like if your device was turned off, or simply give people the impression that your handheld computer is not being used. It functions much like if you held the button down and turned off the device, except it costs $12.99.

OverLaid For iPad (Knocks Industries): You won't find a better app than this one for your fantasy lotharios. If you've ever told your buddies about sexual liaisons that never happened, so many and so frequently that it's hard to keep track of, you need OverLaid. A spreadsheet in this app counts of all the women you've slept with, honestly, while another spreadsheet keeps track of all the women you claim you've slept with. Personalized data entry fields allow you to keep names, locations, and hotness levels (on a 1-10 scale) of all your imaginary affairs, so that you never give erroneous or contradictory information regarding all your fictional erotic encounters. For the $5.99 full version, you can also compare your actual sexual conquests, their attractiveness and numbers, with all those you've bragged about to friends, either to set goals for your bedroom romps or just feel bad about yourself. For you high schoolers, the app also includes a helpful "girlfriends in other states" section.

No Rape! (Danger Dude Enterprises): For iPad and iPhone, this clever app claims that the mere push of a button will send rapists and molesters running the other way. Works on all ages, genders, and sexual orientations, although it never details how it does this and explicitly states it offers no refunds. It's the exclamation point that sells it.

Punch Your Balls (Danger Dude Enterprises): From the people who brought you No Rape! For the iPad and iPhone, at the mere push of a button, a representative of Danger Dude Enterprises (perhaps Danger Dude himself) will come to your house when called and punch you squarely in your testicular area. This app comes with a guarantee, void outside the continental U.S. It seems like Danger Dude Enterprises are the app developers to beat.

Awkward Silence For iPhone (Krustinators, Ltd.): Have you ever told a joke and felt the burn of absolutely no one laughing, not even laughing at the fact they didn't laugh? Now you can enjoy that painful humiliation even without anyone else around. Awkward Silence bathes users in the gut-wrenching shame of stark quiet after every bombed joke or embarrassing admission. Or, if you prefer, you can come by Emil's house and just record it with your iPhone recording app. We're overflowing with riches here.

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Like that faithful old pisser of a national monument out there in them park, one could always set their watch to the Great Burping German of Pistro Falls, Pennsylvania. When Ned was a boy he would often go to see that German down at the bookstore or the dog track to ask him questions or just to stand there and stare in wonderments. People came from far and near and places too near to be far or too far to be near just to see that eighth belching wonder of the world, as he sat with a little schnauzer dog named Blueten on his lap and burped the merry day away.

Some said that one could peek into the future by listening careful to them reverberant conflagrations of air and sausage fumes, like lookin' close at tea leaves or the part in Teddy Wetzembaum's hair. Others waxed and waned poetic 'bout them ringers like they was the music of the night, a waltz of the human iced with the frosting of the divine. Still others called him a big fat pig of a slob and wished he'd eat his dinner in some other restaurant. But nobody not here nor there denied that he belched, nor argued that it weren't frequent.

Once a scientist-type tried to catch one of the Burping German's belches in a great big balloon, like the kind them kiddies tie to their half-formed fists with a band of rubber and then proceed to punch at the thing until one of them is the loser. Needless to say, once he had that balloon he didn't have to wait long for the German to belch, and when he did, that scientist was lifted up in the air like a hot air balloon pilot. And we didn't see none of him for eight more months until one day he floated on back into town dressed up like a geisha girl and with two black eyes. Nobody never did ask him what happened on his trip when he was riding that magical belch but nobody argued that he hadn't caught a burp in a balloon nor that he didn't fly away like a squirrel taped to a blimp.

Some folks, like the owner of the opera house who'd never once put on an opera that wasn't punctuated by rafter-rattling burps, or the dental assistant who'd had her fillings shook out when she got too close to one of the Burping German's grade-A rumblers, and possibly the German's upstairs neighbors also, thought that we should run that German out of town by torchlight for disturbing the public peace.

But the rest of us remembered all that the Burping German had done for us, ever since the day many a year ago when he arrived in town mysteriously, being burped up out of the belly of a beached whale and all down by the shore. And unlike the Sneezing Chinaman of Cinder Nook or the Flatulent Finn of North Tonken, the Burping German never stopped giving back to them peoples, teaching little know-nothing children how to burp whenever they asked, and delivering a special belch sermon in church on Sundays.

So them next time you hear a sound not quite like a goat and more roundish than a foghorn, one that gives your earlobes a tickle and makes your hair feel electrimafied, before you go to your cabinet for that elephant gun remember that it may just be the Great Burping German of Pistro Falls, stopping by to see if you have any baking soda to spare.

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Hello and welcome to day four of Operation Jerkhunt, the pet project of a neighborhood group I recently organized to hunt down the freakish scum who stole my neighbor Hamms' Winnebago and, once they'd had their vile fun, dumped it in the Potomac River to conceal the evidence of their truly heinous crimes against the retired. That's the story the vigilante group is working from anyway, I personally know better but am in the unique position of being unable to correct their misconceptions without revealing the fact that Omar Bricks was the one who borrowed the Winni and, through no fault of my own, drove it into the Potomac with a half-naked record store clerk in the shower. "Drove" is actually entirely too strong a word, since in truth there was a giant stuffed carnival bear behind the wheel at the time, and the Winnebago actually rolled downhill backwards into the river thanks to the stuffed bear's poor understanding of parking brake procedures.

I have a rock-solid alibi since I was in the Winnebago's shower at the time, as can be backed up by a half-naked record store clerk named either Darlene or Danielle. That was a large part of the problem, actually, since when you're already wet and in the shower, it's not as obvious as it would otherwise be that your mobile home is steadily sinking into one of America's greatest rivers. So by the time you put two and two together, it's way too late to organize a team of pack mules to pull the Winnebago out of the river before someone's collection of rare "road music" LPs is damaged by the river water, silt, and various beaver activities therein.

So far we've had little luck tracking down the vermin, though we have concluded conclusively that there's no way in hell he could live in our neighborhood. In fact, it was likely a woman, possibly crippled, from remote Eastern Europe, making retaliation all but impractical. There is a moral victory, however, in knowing the truth, and I know that Hamms has appreciated my help and the fact that he can sleep well at night now, knowing that Omar Bricks is keeping an eye on his house and assorted goodies.

Our previous misunderstandings about my frequent trespassing in his bathroom, burning down his house while it was being built, having him arrested twice on charges of necrophilia, and taking a shit in his garden and blaming it on my dog now well behind us, Hamms and I have moved on to a beautiful new phase of our friendship. Namely the first phase after someone's been your enemy before and now you think they're okay on a provisional basis. Like I said, truly a beautiful thing.

He's had me over to his house for beers twice now, once that he knew about, and I can clearly see the roots of a lifelong friendship taking hold. Or at least as long as he's going to live, which from the looks of things should only be another seven months at best since Hamms is older than Bob Hope. But Omar Bricks is pretty good at seven month friendships. Any longer than that and you hit the dreaded "Seven Month Itch," when your friend inevitably finds out that you used their precious Hummel figurine collection for a pyrotechnic-heavy one-sixteenth scale recreation of the Spanish Civil War or that you're the one who's been painting all those crude sexual figures on their bathroom walls at night.

But those first seven months, or five, man. That's the beautiful part. Bricks out.

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