*** The MTV Video Awards were held last night. Have you ever seen a more self-absorbed group of people in one place before? I mean, other than at the Grammys, the Emmys, the Obies, the Oscars, the Tonys, the Country Music Awards, the Peabodys, the Nobel Prize Awards, and every one of my family reunions? No? I didn't think so.

*** 'N Sync won for best group video, best pop video, best dance video, and viewer's choice, all for "Pop". (That's there song about zits, right?). Explaining, once and for all, why they're called "Video" awards and not "Music" awards.

*** Britney Spears performed a new song with a large python. I must've been in the bathroom. Did she really do a duet with Tommy Lee?

*** Anne Heche got married this past week. To a guy. I give this wedding six days, seven nights. Or maybe even as long as "Six Days, Seven Nights" played in theaters. Ten days at most.

*** Anne Heche told Barbara Walters that she's two people: Anne Heche and a being from the Fourth Dimension called Celestia. This means that whenever she's with someone it's always a menage a trois.

*** This other Anne Heche, this Celestia, has a direct line to God and speaks to Him quite frequently. This has gotta be tough for the new guy. He gets her in bed and gets her screaming, "Oh, God! Oh, God!"; he doesn't know if he's got Anne Heche excited or he's interrupting a personal conversation of Celestia's.

*** Anne Heche also said that she is "committed to heterosexuality". "Heterosexuality"? That must be the name of the loony bin in the Fourth Dimension.

*** Janet Reno announced plans to run for governor of Florida against Jeb Bush. This has led many to question her chances of winning and, as usual, her gender.

*** Reno's certainly got what it takes to make any Bush all wet.

*** Did any else notice how inflated Jerry Lewis looked during the Labor Day Telethon? Did he get confused and think it was Thanksgiving and he was a balloon in the Macy's parade?

*** Legendary comedian Bob Hope, age 98, is responding to treatment for pneumonia, but his doctors say he's not telling jokes or swinging a golf club just yet. That just leaves making his doctors rich as his only reason to live. 

*** Hank the Angry, Drunken Dwarf died this week. His life was as angry, drunk and short as he was.

*** Film critic Pauline Kael died after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. If she died from Parkinson's disease, who's gonna die from Pauline Kael's disease?

*** McDonald's gave its million dollar prize to a homeless guy this week. The first thing he did was buy a refrigerator and move right into the box.

*** I wonder if he got fries with that.

*** Research suggests that as many as one in ten college students have turned in a paper straight from the Web. I'll bet one of them was Peter Parker.

*** Police in the Czech capital Prague arrested a man suspected of murdering his girlfriend and mailing her body parts to fictitious addresses. I wonder if he knew they'd all wind up in the dead letter office.

*** What's the latest beverage craze in the Orkney islands off northern Scotland? Dung-flavored beer. Historians have recreated the recipe after uncovering what they claim is a 5,000-year-old pub and brewery on the remote archipelago. Dung-flavored beer? Well, that'll certainly get you shit-faced.

*** This has gotta be the easiest way to turn #2 into #1 ever.

*** It certainly gives the phrase "drunk off his ass" a new meaning.

*** They say this dung-flavored beer is making quite a comeback. I'm thinking the only comeback dung-flavored beer will ever make is back up the alimentary canal.

*** This dung-flavored beer has gotta be for all those Schlitz and Rheingold drinkers who are tired of drinking beer that just tastes like piss.

*** Here's a slogan: "Dung-gold! For when you're having less than one."