’m serious, what the hell happened last year? Did we mix up our multivitamins and roofies again? Because if anything at all of note happened in 2006, we missed it here at the commune. Best to check the tape.

Ah, right. Who could forget the midterm elections, when even Republican candidates were voting to toss their own corrupt asses out of office? Never before has the term “midterm� meant anything near this good, usually it’s just a sign that the time has come to stop having sex with that pregnant girl at the office.

The Iraq War trundled on, if you can call it a war when we stand by and watch while a country tears itself to shreds like that one Superman where he tried to rip his Clark Kent suit off, but forgot he had already done so and ended up pulling off all his skin like a Halloween costume and got a superinfection. That’s basically what has happened in Iraq; only the country is infected with assholes.

Speaking of assholes, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was hung like a horse, only not in the good sense of the phrase. It turns out Iraq doesn’t hang many people, preferring execution by forcible blowupification, and so Hussein had to be put down in the capital punishment wing of a veterinary hospital. Tack-y, Iraqis.

Paul McCartney’s pirate wife, Heather Mills McCartney, filed for divorce on the grounds of emotional cruelty, on account of McCartney’s habit of singing her Wings songs during their tender moments. McCartney took the news in stride, citing the fact that he’d run out of good “one leg� jokes months ago anyhow. This, moments before he launched into an a cappella rendition of ZZ Top’s “She’s Got Leg,� bringing the room to an uncomfortable silence.

Ariel Sharon had a stroke, and millions of children cried. Until adults explained that this was not the Ariel from The Little Mermaid. And so, millions of children went back to playing with their food.

It was the year of K-FED, some kind of sexually transmitted disease the young people were going nuts about this year. And it says here they finally caught the guy who killed JonBenet… I can’t be reading that right. Anyway, a bunch of Amish kids got shot, if that surprises anyone after all the crap they’ve pulled.

A bunch of yabbos tried to bring down airliners with Gatorade, resulting in a ban on anything wetter than Tony Danza’s back going through airport security and spiking sales of $5 bottles of tap water in airport gift shops.

And how could we have forgotten the Foley sex scandal? Republicans proved yet again that they do everything better than Democrats, including falling flat on their faces in public after quizzing underage boys about their boner etiquette. Thankfully for all involved, Foley quickly entered alcohol rehab, the only known surefire cure for rampant pedophilia.

Oh shit! Cheney shot some dude. Yeah, that was pretty memorable. Anyway, it was a year, end of story. Unless you died or got laid, in which case it was the most important year in the history of mankind. Congratulations.

Controversial Rockwell Painting Found in Collection of War Criminal Spielberg

Giuliani Woos Conservative Base By Killing Arab

Bush Admonishes Tornado’s Cut and Run Policy

OH MY GOD SNOW

A recent poll of girls hanging out in the food court at the mall has yielded this unexpected result: the words most commonly associated with Omar Bricks in the minds of teenage girls are these: cocky good-looking son of a bitch. Actually, those were three separate entries, but I like the way they run together. The good-looking part actually came from a guy working at the novelty gift store; I'm not sure how he got a hold of one of the ballots. But I kept it in the mix, for scientific reasons and because I think it was probably a back-up choice in the minds of most of the food court girls. Makes sense.

Before you jump to any ludicrous conclusions, let me first off say that the "son of a bitch" part didn't bother me. As far as I'm concerned, that's between teenage girls and Mama Bricks exclusively. If any bare-midriffed mallrats have a problem with the way Mama Bricks butters her bread, they know where to find her. As she's fond of saying, I'd just recommend bringing several friends and a first aid kit, that's all.

Nope, what really set off my bullshit alarm (I recently had to have it recalibrated after watching half of the State of the Union address on TV before I realized it wasn't Sesame Street) was the "cocky" bit. I mean, what a bitch. Whichever one of them it was. Omar Bricks is a lot of things, including the masked daredevil who jumped a dirt bike over the turnstiles at the State Fair last year (I would have got away with it if it weren't for the blabbermouth working at the cotton candy booth that broke my fall), but cocky? That really takes some imagination.

Omar Bricks is, and presumably always will be (unless I wake up with super powers one day or something, then screw it) one modest motherfucker. I haven't taken credit for half of the amazing shit I've done and haven't called out one-third of the fronting wannabes who don't deserve to lick the sweat off my balls. And not because I lacked the vocabulary to adequately explain my innate superiority, either. Omar Bricks has made up more words to describe his bitchin'ness than most suckers have ever even heard of.

Everyone seems to forget the time years ago when I saved all those little kids from the apartment building that burnt down after my porno collection caught on fire. They wanted to put my picture in the paper with this ass-kicking article about how I had braved certain exposure to uncomfortable temperatures to throw those kids off the balcony to safety. They would have been screwed if I hadn't been there, since the stacks and stacks of XXX magazines (and enough pizza boxes to build a fort) stoked the fire into some kind of special effects inferno, and nobody had hauled away the mattress I threw out that was blocking the hallway. But when the time came for my fifteen minutes of newspaper glory, I said no way, Jose (the guy's name, I think). Omar Bricks isn't in it for the glory. Saving those kids and making out with their mom behind a fire truck was reward enough for me.

What kind of cocky son of a bitch lets a cherry story like that go untold? (Before today, anyway.) Nobody I know. Most guys would have it printed up on a shirt that said "AWESOME HERO" on the back. But not Omar Bricks, Modest Motherfucker. Besides, that shit's expensive and they charge by the letter.

Clearly there's some player-hating going on down at the mall, and that's the kind of shit for which Omar Bricks cannot stand. Next time I see those girls they can buy their own goddamned frozen yogurt.

Bricks out.

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Uproar has swept over me, good people. You want to know why? You want to know WHY? I can't hear you! That's better.

This morning, my good wife of thirty years, Arvelyn, suggested maybe it's time we possibly consider getting a dog if that's okay with me. Why, I was truncheoned! How dare she bring a new family member into our little fold without consulting me!

Sure, we've had discussions like this before: parakeets, goldfish, rats that don't live in the walls. There was one time Arvelyn was pretty adamant about getting a cock, and I never thought I'd wear her down. But eventually logic prevailed and with the price of a chicken coop and feed continually skyrocketing, she realized it was just a fantasy.

And now this dog thing rears its ugly cold-nosed head. From the sheer force of her words—"I think I'd like a dog, Rokwell,"—I don't think she'll be swayed. It may even be pointless trying. But even if we end up getting the dog, I don't like the way she's carried out this campaign of propaganda and brute force.

In the past we've sat down at the family table for these sort of discussions—I in my great big chair, Arvelyn in her slightly smaller chair, Makeshift, our cat, in his tiny chair that's just right. And we've talked about this like adults, at least Arvelyn and I have, Makeshift sometimes just licks his butt in quiet dissention. But these rough and tumble guerrilla tactics don't sit very well on the head of Rokwell T. Finger.

I dread the thought of it now: playing fetch, drinking out of the toilet, dropping feces left and right—all of that will have to stop once I assume the responsibility of dog ownership. Not to mention the miniature birthday parties with the dog wearing a tiny tux and I have to eat whatever kind of cake he chooses, even if it's chocolate swirl or marble—I will not have it, good people. Again—I. Will. Not. Have. It.

I think in the meantime I will put an ad in the paper, to stall Arvelyn's dog search. She will be convinced I'm all for it, but the ad will have such high expectations that no dog could possibly live up to it. A sample would read:

"WANTED: Empowered, professional-minded canine with own dish. Must be able to fetch, cartwheel, drive large-engine truck, shake, converse at length on the works of Victor Hugo, proficient in MS Word, Excel, Lotus, Quark X-Press. Starting salary of belly-scratchin' and Kibbles 'N' Bits 'N' Bits 'N' Bits. Must read ad and respond in person. No Schitzus."

Ha! I'd like to see the dog who could fit that bill.

And if one does give us a call… God help us all.

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