eports from the afterlife indicate the Reverend Jerry Falwell, who died last Tuesday after smelling one of his own farts, has indeed gone on to meet his maker, validating his lifetime of religious conviction. The reverend was, however, shocked and dismayed to discover this creator is, in fact, a large, friendly purple creature with a head ornament shaped like an inverted triangle, rather than the cloud-surfing white dude Falwell had been expecting.

Upon spying the return of his beloved son, whom God had not seen in over 73 years, the deity shouted an excited greeting of “Eh-Oh, Falwell!� before attempting to embrace the reverend, who recoiled in horror.

Eyewitness accounts indicate a stunned Falwell then began to shout Bible verse and incoherent, mouth-foaming nonsense. God immediately became frightened and confused, scurrying away while shouting “Run away! Run away!� Only after Falwell left could God be coaxed out for snack time.

Meanwhile on Earth, medical examiners attributed Falwell’s death to the reverend taking the holy vessel God had given him and crapping it all up with fatty foods and prescription medication.

One of America’s best-known religious figures, Falwell was famous for his amazingly untarnished record for being on the historically wrong side of every issue he ever addressed over the course of his long career. From segregation to civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and the rights of anyone who wasn’t exactly like Jerry Falwell, the reverend demonstrated an almost eerie ability to choose stances that would make him look ridiculously backward to future generations.

Falwell also set the bar unthinkably high with the sheer number of absurd public statements he made, and then later retracted, during his years as a spokesperson for America’s evangelical Christians. Decrying Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a phony, claiming that 9/11 was caused by feminists and lesbians, stating that AIDS was God’s punishment against homosexuals, questioning the sincerity of Martin Luther King, Jr., and claiming that the Teletubby Tinky Winky was gay because he had an inverted triangle on his head, carried a purse and was purple, all signs of homosexuality in the reverend’s feverish, confused nightmares.

In 1994, Falwell released a videotape called The Clinton Chronicles: An Investigation into the Alleged Criminal Activities of Bill Clinton, which inaugurated the “crockumentary� genre of filmmaking. Among other things, the film accused the president of smuggling cocaine, murdering journalists who got too close to the story, and being the devil. The film was voted 1994’s Worst Episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

Afterlife pundits suggest it may take years for Falwell to accept the truth of his origin, preferring in the meantime to blame his plight on the machinations of liberal angels or a Jewish afterlife conspiracy. Experts stress, however, that God will not hold Falwell’s convictions against him, and when the reverend is ready, he will know where to find God, sitting in the grass, playing and looking at bugs and stuff.

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Every year when Christmas rolls around, kids everywhere are treated to the months of anticipation and hours of fun that only a really awesome Christmas present can bring. Unless they get a robot dog that's retarded.

Last year for Christmas I got a retarded robot dog. It doesn't do anything cool. I was hoping that my robot dog would have heat vision or at least be able to curse in French, but all it does is eat puppy food and pee on the couch. I told my mom and dad that we should check the instructions, because they probably put the batteries in backwards. That happened one year when I got the Hot Wheels Detailing Shop for Christmas and it started smoking and caught the drapes on fire. That wasn't such a big deal though since Billy Doogan down the street got the same thing and his Hot Wheels always looked lame after that, he could never get the paint to go on smooth and all of his cars looked like they were fresh out of a burn ward. But last year I was excited about the robot dog so I thought we should check the directions. My mom and dad said that Santa hadn't brought any directions but I think they were just afraid of being wrong again, like the year I wanted the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers video and it turned out dad got confused and got me Nightly Muff'n Pussy Rangers instead. Dad thought we should just keep it but mom made him take it back and get the right one.

So last year I was stuck with a retarded robot dog that probably had the batteries in backwards. Or maybe it's just deflective from the factory, but something's definitely wrong. My friend Carl Washbaum got a deflective Poo-Chi for his birthday one time and all it would do was rub it's butt on the floor while it made the noise from electronic battleship, and mine is at least ten times more screwed up than his. I even think that mine's getting bigger, which is definitely not supposed to happen. If it keeps this up, pretty soon I won't be able to close the lid on my toybox.

At least Carl's deflective Poo-Chi was fun for a while. We used to hide it under his older sister's bed and she would run around, looking for her cell phone every time it went off. Mine just makes whining noises and chews on an old tennis shoe. And if you thought a Tamagotchi had to be fed a lot, you obviously have never owned a retarded robot dog.

My parents thought I might have fun with my robot dog if I taught it to do some tricks. Billy Doogan has a robot parrot that he taught to say "Fuck You Asshole" just like in Terminator so I thought my robot dog might be able to do some cool tricks too. But unless you consider crapping on the kitchen floor to be a real special trick, my robot dog just plain sucks at tricks. No "Simon Says", no adapter to connect to my Nintendo 64, nothing. I did see him eat a potato beetle over by the pantry one time but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to impress my friends with that one.

It's hard not getting your butt kicked at school when you're missing a front tooth and you whistle when you say "Miss Spankenauber" in class. Everybody thinks you have a crush on the teacher and that means serious underwear violations. Richie Turner really does have a crush on Miss Spankenauber, but his dad brought him a GameCube from Japan last month so he's pretty much untouchable.

If you think a lousy retarded robot dog is going to keep me from coming home with snapped underwear elastic and that it's going to restore my status among my classmates, you're sorely mistaken. At this point, there's only one thing that's going to set things right: a robot dinosaur.

A robot dinosaur would be bound to do some awesome tricks, and probably could eat other kids' robot pets alive. Maybe even other kids. And I bet it could do my homework, too, or at least scare Miss Spankenauber into giving me less workbook pages to do every night. And I'm sure it's got some kind of flashcard mode or some kind of educational thing going on somewhere in there, easily making it a better choice than that lame-o "LearnCo Systems Tutoring Funputer" that I know my parents have been looking at. And I'd be willing to bet you never have to mash up a heartworm pill into a robot dinosaur's food every night.

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Did you know not all books are bad?

Yep, in case you thought that was a misprint, I confirm. Clarissa Coleman has found books that aren't half bad. Comic books!

Now, I know what you're thinking, but comic books aren't for kids anymore. They're way too expensive. The only kids who could afford comic books now are complete rich kid pricks. Like that kid from The Toy, if he hadn't spent all his money buying Richard Pryor. Or Richie Rich. But he was a comic book, so figure that out. Like a mystery in a riddle wrapped inside a taco or something.

Modern comic books are filled with real issues and topics, like swearing, and getting laid. They take away all the annoying things about "literate" books like politics and descriptions. And you know that really annoying thing book writers do where they spell the words like they sound when people say them? None of that shit, thank God. Comic books only take half the time to read, too, because they don't bore you by telling you what you would see if you walked in on the whole thing. There's a picture right there, like we're looking in through a window. Can you imagine what it would be like if some writer tried to write Superman as a book?

"Superman worried terribly about how big his butt looked in his red underwear. It was a goofy costume, but it always served him well. His bulging muscular top body was covered in a thin sheen of blue alien spandex, the last thing left over from the planet wherever he came from. His thick and meaty thighs were also draped in the velvet-like blue tights. Over his back was draped a bright red cape with a curved yellow 'S' on the back. Superman lifted his fist skyward and leapt into the air with a loud cry of, 'Up, up, and away!'"

Actually, that's not half bad. I could stand writing that a bit longer, maybe later tonight, before a cold shower.

But it just gets to my second point, that comic books have more interesting characters. None of this boring shit about a building contractor cheating on his wife with an aspiring interior decorator. Huh? Those sound like people you could meet at a gay uptown restaurant or something. All I can say is I've been to the restaurant and if I had my choice I'd rather see Superman's planet. Everybody dresses the same in both places, but there's probably cooler shit going on with the alien planet. They talk like Shakespeare there and don't scowl at you for wearing white past Labor Day or eating your salad with a knife.

All the movies coming out lately are made from comic books, too. Spider-Man, The Hulk, even Men in Black was a comic book, believe it or not. I wonder how they did the rapping in that. It just proves comic books are like books for normal people. When was the last time someone made a movie out of a book? Had to be the 19th century or something at least. Before there was TV and people had to go see a movie or read a book if they didn't want to die of boredom. They didn't have refrigerators back then. They just buried everything in the ground.

Obviously now that I'm being paid to model for that Metallichick comic book I'm a little biased on the whole thing. Still, I'm not the kind of person who can be bought for free lunches or anything, I call it like I see it. You won't see me dressed up in leather on the cover of some lame bestseller or anything. And both me and the world of books are probably both happy with it that way.

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