HAPPY HALLOWEEN, everybody! You know, Halloween is the best goddam holiday EVER, which means I should be happier than a buck-toothed beaver at an ass-slapping convention. However! The only downer about Halloween is (of course) thinking up an appropriate costume. "Oh, PLEASE, Wm. Steven Hump-me!" you are probably groaning. "Every year you bitch and moan about not having a costume, and every year you dress up as the same thing -- a red-butt monkey!" That may be true, but since I ripped the scarlet ass out of my suit last year while climbing out of a window at Aurora's Marco Polo Motel (please... don't ask), I have no choice but to dream up a new idea.

As you know, I am extremely nit-picky when it comes to Halloween costumes -- not only those worn by me, but those worn by others as well. A few costumes I would prefer not to see this year are: Monica Lewinsky, Austin Powers, frat boys dressed as girls, anything from any Star Wars (especially Jar Head Stinks, or whatever his name is), and, as always, nothing with the word "sexy" in front of it. Every year it's the same thing; you show up at a party and there's the "sexy" maid, the "sexy" devil, the "sexy" witch, the "sexy" bee... what's next? "Sexy" Jeffrey Dahmer? So no more "sexy"... okay?!? Thank you.

See, I think one should either dress up as something they really want to be, or the thing that scares them the most... which is why my number one choice for a costume so far is Ruthie, the alcoholic from MTV's The Real World. My reasoning is two-fold; not only is Ruthie authentically horrifying, but since I usually end Halloween by getting blasted and stripping on top of a table anyway, Ruthie and I are a perfect match.

Take it from me, you can walk into almost any bar in the world dressed as Ruthie or another Real World cast member, and scare the shit out of all in attendance -- that's how popular the show is. But you wanna know something even more scary? Ratings have been so good for The Real World, foreign producers are coming up with their own variations of the show! For example, if you happen to be traveling to Amsterdam for any reason (you pothead!), you'll notice a new show taking the country by storm, called Big Brother. Like its American cousin, Big Brother televises the exploits of seven people chosen to live together in a house -- but here are the key differences. There are no age restrictions (unlike MTV, whose limit is age 25); every three weeks, viewers get to kick one person off the show (with the final house member winning 10,000 smackers); and -- here's the really weird part -- while The Real World edits hundreds of hours of action into a barely palatable 30-minute episode, Big Brother telecasts the exploits of their house 24 hours a day!

Do you realize what this means? If Lars is picking his nose, you see it! If Annika is getting her annual smear, you see it! And if Bjorn is lying face first in a gutter outside one of Amsterdam's pot brownie bars... well, you see that, too! Though the show is only a few weeks old, unsurprisingly, it's already wildly popular. In fact, a nation of fickle watchers have already voted one of the house members out -- we'll call him Lutefisk -- apparently because he was such a dork, he makes my cousin Chet look like... well, like me!

And speaking of those looking like me, I've been hearing some rumors that some of you are using Wm.â„¢ Steven Humphrey as a potential Halloween costume idea. I have no problem with this, as long as the following rules are observed: Take it easy on the coke, stay away from the Marco Polo Motel, and if I catch you putting the word "sexy" in front of my name, I'll disguise my foot by sticking it up your ass. Happy Halloween!