fter weeks of suggesting that patients who had gone blind while using the company’s best-selling erectile dysfunction drug were pussies, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has assumed a new tack this week, as explained in the recent publication of the company’s informational packet entitled “Viagra Doesn’t Cause Blindness, Yanking Your Wank for Five Hours Causes Blindness.�

“Not only does Viagra work, sometimes it works all too well,� Pfizer spokesperson Dennis Baylor chuckled knowingly in explanation. “And sometimes it takes a little ‘self control’ to get that horse back in the corral, you know?�

Baylor continued to speak in baffling euphemisms for several minutes.

“Like if a business meeting’s about to start, or your wife’s pulling up in the driveway and you’ve still got your pants off and the Ken dolls and Candyland pieces strewn around the bedroom, well then it might be time to take matters into your own hands, if you know what I mean,� Baylor inferred, possibly speaking from personal experience.

“But too much of a good thing can be a bad thing,� Baylor continued. “And the old wives’ tales might be right about how being a little too friendly with your member might just lead to a little condition we like to call the blind man’s buff.�

Doctors like to call the condition non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), or in English, the sudden, permanent loss of vision due to swelling of the optic disc. Pfizer argues for a coincidental association, given that the NAION condition is most common in the sadly overweight and the diabetic, both prime markets for the company’s dick pills.

Pfizer’s Viagra has been for years the leader in the lucrative Erectile Dysfunction market, known as “ED� to everyone but guys named Ed. A serious health side-effect like blindness could torpedo the company’s profits, since being blind is nearly as much of an obstacle to scoring chicks as is not being able to get it up. Add the two together, and you’re in some serious deep shit.

Baylor was evasive when asked to clarify, in simple terms, what exactly the company was blaming for the incidents of blindness.

“What, are you daft?� Baylor balked. “Choking the chicken, slamming the ham, paying a visit to Peter O. Johnson, tree-hugging, the friendly fist!�

“Uh… spanking it, giving a slap-down to the little man, torquing your tuna, performing the holy handshake!� continued Baylor, growing frustrated and less nice by the minute. “You know, kid, dong massage!�

Unable to get a clear answer from Pfizer, this reporter turned to men’s men on the street for answers.

“Yeah, my mom always told me that would happen,� explained disco-ball installer Trent Yardbird. “Going blind because of, you know, taking your little buddy out for a skipper. Pulling the pud, slapping the salmon. The man’s crank handshake. You know what I’m talking about.�

This reporter’s further requests for clarification were all met with a withering “Man, you stupid.�

However, this reporter will not rest until he finds the truth, commune readers. At the suggestion of commune editor Red Bagel, I’ve scheduled an interview with my high school health teacher, Mr. Thorpe, as I continue my dig for the truth. Apparently Bagel believes he may have inside information relevant to this investigation.

ollywood mourned the loss of another great couple this week, when super-hottie Shannon Elizabeth filed for divorce from the incredibly fortunate guy she married years ago. Citing "irreconcilable differences," not the awful Shelley Long movie, but the standard divorce patter for the sex life went to shit, the couple ended their three-year marriage, leaving Elizabeth to go back on the market and husband something Reitman to sink further into anonymity.

Elizabeth, most famous for her beautiful face and gravity-defying breasts, has appeared in two of the otherwise-insufferable American Pie movies and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, while husband Reitman, most famous for somehow bedding Playboy-quality ass despite having no real movie credits to his name, has appeared next to Elizabeth in a few photographs and not much else.

Some speculate trouble started on the set of Ashton Kutcher's M-TV show Punk'd, where trouble usually starts in Hollywood, when Reitman attempted to punk the brunette sexpot; but friends of the couple suggest the punking had been going on for months beforehand, and the couple spent more time by themselves than together, leading to the marriage's disintegration.

Elizabeth's pending divorce makes her available to enter the dating scene again, opening the door for relationships with attractive rock stars, hot Hollywood hunks, and even diminutive alternative news website reporters with charming vestigial wings.

The Shannon Elizabeth divorce from the formerly lucky fuck is only the latest in a string of super-hot celebrity babe news this week, including the deeper sinking of Katie Holmes into the world of science-fiction religion.

Fresher news also has Alias star Jennifer Garner wedding millionaire dope Ben Affleck in a secret Carribean wedding. Affleck, a renowned babe bagger with a track list including Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lopez, began dating Garner after his relationship with J-Lo flamed out, and he desperately wanted to find someone to fulfill the "nifer" part of his famed "Bennifer" moniker. The wedding comes as no surprise to hot chick watchers, as rumors have circulated for weeks that Garner may be pregnant with the seed of Affleck. Biologists, at least those of us who have a high school biology background, speculate the baby will either be a super-sexy spy or a really bad actor.

Also on the Ted Ted short list of fine asses to watch, Tomb Raider and sexual fantasy star Angelina Jolie was photographed with rich male hottie Brad Pitt, further fueling speculation the two were the source of friction that ended Pitt's marriage to Hollywood TV honey Jennifer Aniston.

On a sadder note, picky religious nutjobs found fault with sculpted super-beauty Jessica Simpson after the debut of Simpson's semen-inducing video for "These Boots Are Made for Walking," where Simpson is seen washing a car alá home video queen Paris Hilton's infamous Carl's Jr. commercial, in the guise of her Dukes of Hazzard role of Daisy Duke. The alarmed Baptists condemned the lovely jezebel as parading around all "slutty" and demanded she make a cleaner version of the video. Ted Ted, in response, demanded they burn in hell for ruining his good time.

In the meantime, Shannon Elizabeth asked for privacy during this very personal time, and could not be reached for response since this reporter did not have her number, no matter how desperately he keeps asking the publicist for it.

After last installment's adventures with the Omar Bricks Perpetual Motion Machine (an electric water distiller covered on all sides by throbbing punch-balloons) and the resulting disastrous core meltdown that destroyed the southern quarter of my neighbor Hamms' house last week, I realized the error in my recent thinking. True inventors don't set out to make the world a better place. True inventors set out to make the world give them a lot of money. So I decided that free energy for all (and especially for me and select close friends) could wait, since I can't waste any more time or brainpower on inventions that don't make a shitload of money really fast.

Answer? Last week I formed Genius, Inc., a think tank that consists of yours truly and my loyal secretary and bodyguard, Foghat. It's an idea factory, really, a new kind of company that doesn't play by the old rules, in business or in badminton. It's like Apple without all the gayness attached.

And let me tell you, it's been a busy couple of weeks. Omar Bricks is the first to admit that, while brilliant, not all of our early products have been entirely successful in the marketplace. Among the long string of inventions that the world was not ready for include the Live Mouse Computer Mouse, the Freeway Parasail and my pride and joy, BreathWreckers gum (available in Onion & Garlic, Cigarette, and Whiskey Double flavors).

But failure is the mother-in-law of success, or however the bar-napkin quote goes, and in time the world finally caught up to Genius, Inc., leaving us with our first truly marketable product. SpamHat.

Genius, Inc.'s first product release to extend beyond the convenience store down the block from Bricks Manor is going to be SpamHat 8.0. It's really the first version, but people like to feel like they're buying some advanced version that's had all the bugs and bullshit worked out, hence the 8.0 at the end. Eight's a good number, since most things have been perfected by their eighth time around the block, except of course the Rocky movies.

SpamHat does exactly what you'd think; it filters out the sun's harmful rays and prevents you from getting hat cancer. Originally I was going to make an electric hat that filtered out junk email, but that turned out to be a real pain in the ass so I just kept the name and tossed all the computer bullshit and the '87 Ford windshield wipers I had bolted on, and we were ready to go.

There's also a piece of Spam sewn inside the hat, to keep your head cool. I mainly added this so I could keep the bitchin' name without getting involved in any false-advertising lawsuits, but then I came to realize it was actually pretty useful for head-cooling, attracting wildlife, and as an emergency snack. A safety note for bald dudes though: don't leave SpamHat in the freezer too long or else the Spam will bond to your scalp when you put the hat on and you're gonna be wearing it for a while. I'm also working on SpamHat Remover for such instances, but it involves pissing in a tube attached to the hat and I probably won't have FDA approval for that until late next year.

Next step is the marketing campaign and saturating the region with television commercials for SpamHat, which will commence as soon as I'm done training Foghat to hold a goddamned video camera straight. I swear, sometimes I think that dog expects me to do all the work. Bricks out.

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