Throughout this school year, we’ve had some laughs, some chuckles, a few sighs, more than a few angry rants but overall one thing has been consistent: certain people don’t like this column.

I know this because of the dozens upon hundreds of strangers have walked up to me, punched me in the face and said, “I don’t like your column.” Others have been more civilized with regards to expressing their dislike: in my opinion a handwritten death threat adds a wonderfully personal touch to any intelligent criticism I receive.

All of that being said, one simple truth unites all of my column’s detractors: they are un-American terrorist sympathizers. I’m serious; I do not joke about such things. As shocking as it sounds, every person who dislikes my column is quite simply a threat to our national security, our liberty and our way of life.

I can already hear certain extreme left-wing liberals: “But what proof do you have of this? Why is that every person who disagrees with you is labeled ‘un-American?’ I thought this country stood for freedom of speech and ideas, or is that only the case when they agree with you?”

These left-wing nuts just don’t get it. When it comes to matters of national security and safety, things such as evidence and proof do not matter. What does matter is that these people, by disagreeing with me, are clearly harming the war effort and helping terrorists destroy our way of life.

What’s even more shameful is that our government has decided to ignore this threat to our national security. For some reason our government is willing to spend millions of dollars trying to convince us that people who use controlled substances are pro-terrorist, but it vehemently refuses to spend one dime to convince us that the people who hate my column are pro-terrorist. This is absurd – clearly the people who smoke marijuana are much less dangerous to our democracy than those who would dare question what I say in my columns.

You don’t believe me? You wonder what I’ve done to prove my patriotism? Well, let me just say: God bless America, land that I love. Stand beside her, and guide her, from the something, something above.

I am a patriot; this column is patriotic; and those who don’t like it are as bad as the terrorists.

E-mail comments to the Humor Guy at lurchness@hotmail.com.

As sad as this sounds, the school year will soon be at an end. Soon many of us will be leaving this college paradise to do other things and see other places. Please, don’t cry. As long as SDSU is in your heart, SDSU will be with you.

Okay, that’s a bunch a crap. However, so is cow dung.

What isn’t feces, however, is the reality that after the end of the year, I will have to get a summer job. And the thing about a summer job is, well, it requires me to work.

Which I am firmly against.

Work is to be done by others: people who are not I. After all, I’m young. Work is meant for an assortment of older people who have to support families and children and pay their mortgages. I’m supposed to be sitting and/or frolicking on a sandy beach with lemonade in my hand and many beautiful girls around me.

I guess I’ll have to live with the fact that there will be no frolicking for me this summer. Instead I’ll be getting up at 5:15 in the morning so I can trudge into work by 6 a.m. Once there, my bossman, Mr. Anal-retentive-man-who-loves-his-work-way-too-much, will yell at me because I’m a temp and bossman likes to yell at temps.

My job will consist of some type of mindless factory work. My co-workers will be a bunch of trained chimpanzees?both figuratively and literally. On the wall will be a company slogan that is so condescending it actually inspires the workers to become communists. A slogan like, “We will delight the customer with high-quality products that were built by trained monkeys and worthless proletariat scum.”

I could live with all of that, though. What I can’t live with is because I’m so tired and because of the horrendous work environment and because I can’t talk with trained monkeys, I will have some of the most god-awful, John Denveresque songs running through my head. The types of songs that make “Country Roads” seem like a triumph of modern music. While I work, every song I hate by every musical artist I despise will run through my head, and there is nothing I can do about it.

Which makes me want to cry.

E-mail comments to lerchness@hotmail.com.

This week, because I’m lazy, I’ve told Jarid Kvale, last year’s much funnier humor columnist, to write my column for me. For those who were curious, Jarid now works at IBM in Rochester, Minn. Yes, he has a wife, and this time, she’s real.

Since Brian has taken a week off to do whatever it is that Brian does (my guess: sitting on the couch in his underwear watching old episodes of “Coach” while eating Cheez-Its, at least until his roommates have him assassinated), I am taking this opportunity to make my triumphant return to the Collegian. Please, hold your applause until after the performance. As I have been unable to come up with a coherent theme for this column, I present to you “Ramblings from the Real World.”

?Getting married didn’t make me feel old. Having a job doesn’t make me feel old. Buying a house isn’t making me feel old. Playing pinochle with my in-laws on Easter didn’t make me feel old. Going to bed at 10 p.m., though, makes me feel ancient.

?Once you’ve worked at an office for any length of time, you begin to realize that “Office Space” is a documentary.

?So is “Dilbert.”

?Guys, did you know that there’s a wrong way to fold towels? If not, you haven’t been married.

?I’ve been meaning to clean up my desk and organize it at some point, but I keep thinking that this is just a summer job. And it’s been 10 months.

?No matter how solid your reasoning, it’s never a good idea to share pro-polygamy views with your wife.

?Night shifts stink, especially when your spouse works them. Being quiet all day comes to me as naturally as eating lizards.

?Males, beware: Women aren’t nearly as receptive to eating the same food for consecutive meals as we are.

?The joy of proving your wife wrong is quickly dampened by the fact that she’s now very angry at you.

?Who decided that split-level houses were a good idea? Can we have that person hanged?

?I was looking through my baseball cards yesterday, and I realized that almost none of them are still playing. In fact, some of their children are now playing. This means one thing: I need to buy some new baseball cards.

?If my wife reads that last sentence, I’m probably in trouble.

The biggest problem with columns like this is that there’s no good way to end them.

(Brian: Find a better way to end this please – Jarid)

E-mail comments to the Humor Guy at lerchness@hotmail.com. You can probably reach his ghost writer at this address too.

An open letter to all those who went somewhere warm and pleasant over spring break:

Dear person whom I want to maim,

To begin with, I just want to make it clear that I do not hate you. I don’t even hate the fact that you had a wonderful spring break in Mexico or Florida or Texas or wherever all you scums-of-the-earth go. What I hate is that you have to come back here, still wearing your sunglasses and colorful print shirts and looking like ugly Miami Vice extras to tell the entire world about your adventures on the beach.

I hate how the first thing out of your mouths is “you’ll never believe what an awesome time I had” and how the second thing out of your mouth is “you’ll never believe how awesome the weather was.” I hate having to smile as you tell stories of youthful debauchery and excess. I hate having to mumble “sounds fun,” 60 times because you are too self-absorbed in your own story to realize that no one else around you gives a fiddler’s fart about your vacation.

I also can’t stand how you trot out the pictures. Countless pictures of you surrounded by countless other gorgeous college students on a spectacular beach with what seems like endless miles of sand and crystal blue water in the background. Pictures that have you standing front and center with your arms around a member of the opposite sex and come with you saying such things as, “I don’t remember her name but wow! You don’t want to what happened!”

But more than anything else, I hate that you, a person inferior to me, somehow scrounged up the money and got to have the time of your life. While I and countless other college students work hard at backbreaking labor but barely have enough money for food, you, being a spoiled little brat, simply called mommy and daddy and said, “I’m going to Cancun, please send money.” And of course they did.

Which is why they should be maimed as well.

E-mail comments to the Humor Guy at lurchness@hotmail.com.

“Studies show old people are just as good as drivers as sleep deprived apes.”

-Lisa Simpson

Nothing in the world is more irritating to a young, on-the-go college student than having to deal with the old and feeble people on the highway. We must wait behind them as they crawl along down the road going (of all the God-forsaken speeds) the speed limit. We must stare at them as they drive for miles and miles and miles and miles and … (you get the idea) with their right blinker on (Just turn into the ditch and be done with it!). We must accidentally rear-end them every time they slam on their brakes for no apparent reason.

In short, we must finally make them realize that we’ve had enough. No longer will we let this threat to our youthfulness and idealism go unnoticed. We refuse to wait patiently behind those who would go the speed limit or drive in the passing lane on the freeway. We refuse to be silenced. Instead, we shall be heard! In particular, they will hear all the words we scream to ourselves when we’re stuck behind them. They need to hear every word that rhymes with “ship,” “bass-coal,” “back-bass,” “truck,” “trucker,” “mother trucker” and, lest we forget, “trucking plastered.”

Let them call us immature; let them call us uncivilized, but it has been made clear that offending their PG-13 sensibilities is the only way to get their attention. They obviously don’t listen to our honking horns, and they obviously don’t see our finger extended. To them, we college students are subhuman: something along the lines of aggressive apes.

What causes them to treat us this way? After all, they were young once; they must remember what it was like to be on the go, always on the lookout for a new and exciting adventure. Can’t they see that by utterly ignoring the most common sense rules of the road they are slightly inconveniencing us youthful, good-looking college-aged students? They can, but they don’t care – because they are jealous. They are jealous of our youth, our energy, our vibrancy. And every time they see us cruising down the road, their hearts fill with rage because we are what they once were. Driving poorly is their only revenge.

It’s time we have a little revenge of our own.

E-mail comments to the Humor Guy at lurchness@hotmail.com.

Recently, an acquaintance of mine turned 21. This is his story.

8 p.m. – Starts evening with two pints from the well and an appetizer at The Ram.

8:30 p.m. – Goes to another bar, has much more than two drinks.

10:30 p.m. – Still drinking at bar #5, and he has started on straight shots. He has also moved into his professor stage of drinking: coherent, witty, sometimes even insightful. Like this wonderful anecdote, “The reality globalization is that it is a combination of the end of the cold war with post modern sensibilities, and it cannot be derailed, only detained.”

11:30 p.m. – Trips over crack in sidewalk outside of Jim’s Tap. He now says, “I’m still good,” over and over again.

12 a.m. – Starting to drink obscenity-laced named drinks. Speech has become slurred. Still says, “I’m still good,” but sounds as if he says, “I’m ill lood.”

12:20 a.m. – Orders drink that the bartender describes as, “The worst I can give you.” It contains four distinct kinds of hard alcohol, Tabasco and a little mustard. For the first time in his life, my friend cannot finish a drink and says, “I’m still good, but it’s the mustard. I can’t stand mustard!”

12:25 a.m. -Throws up outside of bar

12:26 a.m. -Asks, “Did I just throw up?”

12:27 a.m. -Says, “If I did, it was because of the mustard.”

1 p.m. – Arrives back home, sits with head over toilet stool for 10 minutes.

1:11 a.m. – Comes up for air, says, “I’m still good. It was just the mustard.”

1:12 a.m. – Sits with head over stool, again.

1:30 a.m. – Starts apologizing. Begins with apologizing for having the mustard that made him vomit, ends with apologizing for contributing to the holocaust.

1:45 a.m. – Sobs, lots and lots of sobs.

2 a.m. – Attempts to leave his toilet stool prison. First attempt fails when 10 feet away from bathroom, he stains the carpet with afore mentioned appetizer from the Ram.

2:30 a.m. – This attempt he succeeds. He arrives at his bed, with ice-cream pale tied around his wrist (his roommates learn quickly) and goes to bed.

12:30 p.m. the next day-Wakes up. It is suggested to him he follow the “four no more” creed. He says it was the mustard, and promises never to mix mustard and alcohol again.

E-mail comments to the Humor Guy at lurchness@hotmail.com.

Society considers our generation a bunch of greedy, self-centered jerks. It would shock them to learn that we think of others every once in awhile. It would shock them see a bunch of young, able-bodied college students contributing to an organization that seeks to make someone else’s life better. This is why I strongly encourage all of you to contribute your time and energy to a non-profit organization.

And one non-profit organization in particular comes to mind: an organization I founded two years ago with the single intent of making the world I live in a better place. This organization is the A Date for Lurch Foundation or “ADLF” for short. For the record, yes, Lurch is my bad high school nickname.

As the name suggests, the ADLF exists with the express intent of finding me a date. A worthy cause, indeed. I know what you’re all thinking: “I wish I could help the ADLF, but I’m only one person, and what can one person do?” To begin with, you can throw that pessimistic attitude out with the bottle of rum I drown my despair in. You can also help by doing simple things: the next time you see an attractive lady around campus, ask her if she’d be willing to support the foundation, then get her name and number.

Of course, financial help is always needed. The Foundation needs money to spend on advertising: a large billboard and television ad campaign is being developed as I write. Obviously, the ad campaign will use Derek Jeter’s picture, because (as you can tell from the mug shot above) I’m not exactly beautiful. The Foundation also needs money to pay for any expenses that occur on possible dates — I hear that Taco John’s might be raising prices on their Border Fries soon.

Any names/numbers or donations you wish to give can be sent to the Collegian, care of the “ADLF” or e-mailed to me at the address below. Also, for a donation of $3, you can subscribe to the ADLF Update, the official e-mailed newsletter of the foundation. The Update is published Bi-whenevertheheckIfeellikeit.

Yes, I know we need to strive for cures to AIDS, cancer, heart disease and so on. Countless people suffer from these diseases everyday. However, I make you laugh, and people suffering from fatal diseases never do. So, really, whom would you rather give your money to?

E-mail comments to “The Humor Guy” at lurchness@hotmail.com.

Non Merita di creatore, se non Iddio ed il Poeta-Tasso.

Intelligence, like beauty or wealth, is something very few of us have. However, like beauty and wealth, that doesn’t mean everyone needs to know about your shortcomings. If you’re ugly, wear makeup; if you’re poor, get a credit card; if you’re stupid, act smart.

How do you act smart? It’s really quite simple. Take the quote that started this column: what does the average person read into that quote? Remember — the average person is an idiot. The average person probably thinks that I have a working knowledge of some strange romance language, and that I am familiar with the works of some guy named Tasso. And any person who knows another language and Tasso must be genius.

Or maybe not. After all, you do not recognize the above language-The above statement might be pure gibberish. And have you ever heard of Tasso? Tasso may be a famous Italian poet or it could be a name I took from the bottom of a microwave-safe dish. You don’t know. Nor does any other unintelligent person.

Which is how anyone can pretend to be intelligent — make stuff up. Don’t worry about details like facts and truths, and instead focus on appearing smart. The next time you’re having a conversation with someone, quote a Mandy Moore song, but attribute it to a famous English poet. Don’t know any English poets, I’ll give you a few-Byron, Shelley, Tennyson, Thomas; they’ll all work.

Don’t know much about history? That’s alright, all you really need to know you can learn at your local video store-movies like Pearl Harbor, Titanic, Thirteen Days, The Patriot, Saving Private Ryan and, if you prefer your history Scottish, Braveheart, all can help your pseudo-historical intelligence immensely. Yeah, I know these movies take some liberties with history, but who cares? It’s not like most people actually bother to learn about important historical events.

Still not quite able to convince you friends and loved-ones of your intelligence? That’s okay, you still have one trump card to play: statistics. Seventy one percent of people cannot tell real from completely false statistics, so just make up some numbers that help prove your point, attribute them to a “Gallop Poll” and walk away. Everyone will be stunned by the wealth of knowledge at your disposal.

Just pretend to be smart, and no one will be the wiser. Except for actual smart people.

E-mail comments to Brian at sdsucollegian@yahoo.com.

As strange as it sounds, hassle-free furniture stores often pester you into buying expensive futons. This is just a warning to all who dare venture into the realm of furniture purchases. It has nothing to do with anything else. NOTHING. Anyone who thinks a hidden message telling them to walk around campus naked exists somewhere in the above text is just plain old foolish. Or maybe insane.

Either way, when the eagle flies at midnight, the drunken hick will ring the chimes, and the cows will seductively dance with the moon. This is your clue that everything is in place. Don’t worry; it shouldn’t be that cold outside.

This column is about lousy advice. I have received my fair share of it and probably given out much more (no, you don’t look too drunk to drive; yeah, you two would make a great couple; extended warranty, how could you lose?) than I prefer to admit. Regardless, I, and everyone else, still give horrendous, stupid, moronic advice with an enthusiasm and zest that defies logic. Do we not know the suffering we cause? Probably not. We’re too busy feeling good about ourselves and how, by gosh, we care about our friends. We care enough to tell them what to do.

Often times, we care so much that we give them the advice that we ourselves would never follow. We say such things as, “You need to live life like this is your last day on earth. Carpe diem, Good sir/madam!” After our friends leave, we grab a cola out of the fridge watch a rerun of Seinfeld, take a nap and watch Dumb and Dumber on TBS for the 22nd time. When our friend calls us five hours later because every member of the opposite sex that he/she wanted to carpe diem with rejected him/her, we listen intently while thinking about all the advice our friend needs.

Advice like, “Have you tried drowning out all your troubles in booze? It works for me! Like this one time, I bought a really expensive futon . . .”

E-mail comments to Brian at sdsucollegian@yahoo.com.

I am standing atop a high platform. Beneath me, throngs and throngs of people (including many beautiful maidens) are looking up at me in reverence. To them, I am more god than human. It’s clear they want me to speak. And for some reason, I feel an urgent necessity to reflect upon the journey ahead of me. “I will be going on a journey,” I say.

A silent shock echoes through the crowd. Finally, like a perfect chorus in unison, they all ask me, “What journey do you speak of?”

My reply to them is: “The journey that will take me from point ‘A’ to point ‘B.’ The journey that will be full of peril and despair. The journey that I may never come back from.”

This astounds the masses. I hear their shrieks of dismay and terror. Then they ask to hear specifics about my journey. They ask to know why I might never return to them. I oblige. “I am not sure if I have packed enough underpants.” I leave them to ponder my final words. Sobs break out among the throngs.

A single teardrop falls down my cheek as well. I will miss the masses as much as they will miss me. I look out from my platform at my servants, perhaps for the last time, then turn back to return to my palace. Once inside, my three most trusted advisers, Yoda, Ernest Hemingway and my imaginary friend, Bob, are waiting for me. They know nothing of what my announcement means. I want to explain it to them but cannot. “Leave me,” I command them, and they exit the palace room in silence.

Once they are gone, I go to the large, walk-in closet on the east side of the room. Inside, I stare at the thousands of Hanes underwear packages. They are all packs of three; they are all unopened. “God,” I speak softly, “I hope this enough.”

Just then there is a knock at the chamber door. I am startled and quickly leave my secret underwear closet. I go to answer the door, and I am surprised to discover it is Bob. I let him in. “Just one question,” Bob begins, “It there a point to this story?”

“No, I just couldn’t think of anything to write.” Then I am walking into the sunset.

E-mail comments to Brian at sdsucollegian@yahoo.com.