t’s almost the time of year to start pretending you’re Christmas shopping while you look for swanky new shit for yourself, and the commune is there for you with our first-ever annual Fall Gadget Guide. Join commune Tech Correspondent Mitch Kroeger as he guides you through the bewildering wilderness of the new and the shiny.

















Be sure to join us again next year when we’ll take a look at the iPod Video, the Petco Remote Control Dog Neuterer and the Nokia Earring Phone. Until then, stay tight.

Just when you thought the chance had passed, the commune news went and saved the best for last: this. Lil Duncan is the commune's Washington correspondent, and claims she will retain that title indefinitely, regardless of whether or not Denzel ever writes back.

There must be some sort of law that says I, Rok Finger, can never live next to a normal neighbor. Well, I suppose the neighbors on the other four sides are normal enough. But that doesn't excuse the fact my neighbors to the right are the most obscene excuses for homeowners you've ever seen. You have seen them, haven't you? Leaving their vehicles on the lawn, setting fire to things at all odd hours, walking around the neighborhood in full Nazi regalia. I am not kidding—these are neighbor freaks.

They are the Joneses, if that is their real surname. I'm not sure if they're Eastern European or Russian or what, but they are clearly not indigenous to the area. They claim to be from Mississippi, but their accents are the worst I ever heard. If people in Mississippi all talk like that, I don't know how they ever get anything done—nobody could possibly understand that gibberish. Come to think of it, I'm not sure they get anything done in Mississippi at all. But that's another column.

Don't try complaining to the neighborhood block association either. There's clearly a strong foreigner sympathy streak running through them—maybe they have a soft spot for those who live behind the Iron Curtain, I don't know. But they always take their side. They let them burn animals at all weird animals, calling it "barbecue," an American tradition. But you throw firecrackers at one cat and all of a sudden they're the SPCA.

Nazi-lovers, too, obviously. You'd think that would faze their liberal sensibilities, but they just became very offended and told me I was mistaken. I know the symbols of hate when I see them, good people. A vicious eagle swooping down on the poor and defenseless, and he has it all over his little stormtrooper outfit. Blue shorts and short-sleeved shirt, and that huge bag of dastardly evil he carts around everywhere. If he does work for the post office like the block association says, than how come a different man delivers my mail every morning? Caught you in a lie, Sigfried.

And those little miniature dwarf spies of theirs leave their riding instruments in the yard all day long. For quick and easy get away, should the FBI ever come in, guns blazing, to finally do their job. I've called them three times now and all I've gotten is a tap on my phone and a flower delivery van sitting outside my house. Where are those damned flowers anyway? They should have been here four days ago.

Ginger, the missus, my missus, says I shouldn't worry about it. Especially since I only go outside to throw firecrackers at passing animals. I'm inside every single hour I'm not at the commune, it shouldn't bother me, she says. But it's for her sake I'm worried. What happens when these Nazi freaks kick open the door and try to drag her away to a concentration camp? Or worse, a fat kids camp? Ginger's practically a size 5 now, she'd waste away down to nothing in one of those horrors of human nature. But I do have to go to work sometime. Red Bagel is starting to suspect that beard on Camembert isn't real, and as soon as he remembers I don't wear a beard anyway, my job may be in the stew.

So I'm going to buy a gun. Long and short of it. Hey! Long and short… barrels are long and short. That was almost a pun. But not quite.

Ignoring that, believe me, a gun is the best solution. In fact, I may buy two, since if I'm attacked by multiple opponents, it looks pretty ridiculous to slide across a floor, one gun blazing, to take them all out. And my biggest fear, other than my wife being subjected to inhuman torture, is looking stupid while killing attackers. So… I suppose I'll let you know how this gun thing works out.

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