ormer Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic showed up for the first day of his war crimes trial in The Hague, Netherlands with a fierce determination to prove his innocence against the charges—and with a hot new look.

Milosevic's new mustache was reportedly recommended by his legal advisors, in an effort to change his appearance from the Slobodan Milosevic that has been seen all over the news, a visage people around the world have come to know and hate for the charges against him. Legal advisors believed a mustache would make Milosevic look more distinguished and lovable, like America's Wilford Brimley.

Yuri Nokostimov, a part of Milosevic's legal team, was quoted as saying, "Uh… it isn't quite what I had in mind. It's, er, definitely a… change. Big change."

Valta Krikosec, another legal consultant aiding in Milosevic's defense, added, "I'm sure it will have an effect on the jury."

Milosevic is charged with 66 counts, including crimes against humanity for actions in Croatia and Kosovo and genocide in Bosnia. The former Yugoslav President's efforts to cleanse Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo of ethnic Albanians has led to his being labeled the biggest war criminal since the Nuremberg Trials.

Milosevic has called the trial illegal and said he is not guilty of the charges. He has never killed a person, only Kosovars [ethnic Albanians] and enemies of Yugoslavia.

Though considered less than respectful to the judge and those involved in the trial since its inception, Milosevic arrived Thursday and promptly greeted Judge Richard May with an open-handed salute. May didn't appear impressed with Milosevic's effort.

"He looks different with that mustache, that's for sure," said Co-Prosecutor Dirk Ryneveld. "Something is very familiar about it instantly."

"I know!" exclaimed Co-Prosecutor Geoffrey Nice. "Charlie Chaplin has a mustache just like that."

Prosecutors stated that until 1999, 800,000 Kosovo Albanians were forced to flee their homes due to actions of Serb troops acting under Milosevic. At the end of the statement, Milosevic made a farting noise from his defense table and chuckled loudly, applauding himself.

If found guilty, Milosevic could face a life imprisonment. When asked for his opinion on the trial, President Bush said, "I would not want to be in Slobobobobadan Milosevic's place. He is fat and old and his mustache looks stupid."

yndicated newspaper columnist and host of MSNBC's Hardball Christopher Matthews was reported to be resting comfortably following three hours of surgery to remove excess fecal matter from his nose, lips and cheeks yesterday. Doctors at Walter Reed Memorial Hospital confirmed that this was the fifth such procedure in just the last two weeks.

"The problem starts with his kissing the president's ass," chief surgeon Jerome Splay told reporters. "He's just such an enthusiastic ass-kisser. He gets all up in there, you know, and he never knows when to quit."

Asked how long this had been going on, Dr. Splay responded, "It all started about the middle of September. Before that, the only thing we ever saw Chris in here for was over-inhalation of helium. He's got that voice that, when he gets excited, only dogs can hear him, you know what I mean? High. He's a high-talker. Well, he doesn't come by that naturally. It takes tanks and tanks of helium to get his voice up into that register, and sometimes he just overdoes it."

He went on to say that the recent surgeries were "all just since September, and they've been getting more and more frequent. In fact, if you recall that so-called pretzel incident with the president, that was actually the worst one of all. The truth of the matter is, that was no pretzel that was lodged in the president's throat. That was Chris's tongue. He had worked it all the way up through the alimentary canal, up through his stomach, and had gotten it lodged in the president's esophagus, which is what caused him to black out. That was one big mess, I'll tell you!"

"Of course," Dr. Splay added with a chuckle, "Chris's case is nothing compared to those Fox News guys. We must do five or six fecalectomies a week for each one of them. O'Reilly and Hannity are the worst. I mean, you should see the poundage of stuff we take off of them nearly every day. The other doctors and I were joking recently that we should start our own fertilizer business on the side. Heh, maybe we should change the name of this place to Bandini Memorial!"

Mr. Matthews was unavailable for comment. His lips moved, but no sound came out. A number of nearby dogs began barking furiously, however, so it's possible that he was actually saying something, though not of any consequence.

Well, first thing's first and I have to say I was very disappointed in the response to my shout-out last issue for little Asian kids to join my rock family. So far I haven't got a single kid signed up, not even any tone-deaf little Asian tykes who can lip-synch or white kids with squinty eyes. I can only think this says bad things about literacy among our nation's Asian kids. So much for the myth of Asian toddlers speaking three languages and piloting biplanes and shit. I guess I should have expected as much from a culture whose "language" is just a bunch of little drawings of houses. I like picture books just as much as the next guy, but we all know the truth: all pictures and no text means it's not a men's magazine, it's a porno.

I did get one response for somebody to be the Asian rock band family mom, I think. Whatever it was, this Asian chick showed up at my door the other night and has been living at the Bricks Manor ever since. She doesn't speak of lick of English, so she could be a Yokova's Witness or one of those gag mail-order brides Ramon Nootles keeps sending over or something, but she cooks some pretty badass duck so I haven't had reason to question the arrangement thus far. She doesn't look like she can play the tambourine, so it's possible she may have been responding to the column. Though unless one of us gets a whole hell of a lot better at charades we may never know for sure.

So anyway, Osaka and I (that's just a name I made up for her, since she wasn't wearing a name tag and all that "ra ra ra" sounds the same to me) were toilet papering Ramrod Hurley's house when the idea it me: I don't even like music. So maybe the lack of qualified Asian rock band child applicants was more of a blessing in disguise. Like they say, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Not that I buy into any of that crap, but they do have a lot of convenient ready-made quotes like that which come in handy sometimes.

The one good thing to come out of all of this, besides the awesome duck dishes, is that Osaka is way better than Foghat at Monopoly. That's not to say she's good, since she's not, which is good because I like winning. But she at least gives me the impression that I'm playing with someone who's aware the game is taking place. Foghat's one strategic decision in years of Monopoly playing was to eat the little pewter shoe, which was sly but I still won that game regardless. I brainstormed at ways to get that shoe back, but after considering my poop-sifting options I decided that if anybody wanted to be the shoe in the future, tough shit. Go buy a shoe-wearing Barbie doll or something, you big sack of weird.

It's not like the shoe could win any conceivable kind of Monopoly token battle, not when you consider how big that damned thimble would be in real life. If Foghat had eaten the racecar or the wheelbarrow or something it might be a different story, but he made the right call in eating the gayest token available.

Like I said, Osaka's better at Monopoly, but she's not going to take Donald Trump down to the mat any time soon. When we played she bought one property, built a house on it, and then just saved her money for the rest of the game. I kept trying to pantomime that she needed to buy up whole city blocks and cover them with soul-crushing cookie-cutter hotel megastructures like I was, but I guess when you're not from America the whole concept of crushing the poor with your privilege and gluttonous might is harder to grasp. It's hard to explain why it's good to take way more than you need just using shadow puppets and forming letters with your body.

Now I know how the pilgrims felt when they got off the boat and had to explain to the Indians why they were building mini-malls and hotels and all that shit. You just know there were some hilarious scenes when the pilgrims tried to start charging the Indians camping fees and all the Indians had was some beads and feather hats and bullshit to pay for it. You can bet the Indians were washing some serious pilgrim dishes that night.

Bricks out.

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