Humping. The search for intelligent life on other planets. Two preoccupations that have weighed heavily on the souls of humankind since the dawn of vaginas. Now the two come together (pun, woefully, intended) in a new alien sex doll! You know, for all you people whose genitals felt the flames of desire when you caught a glimpse of that veritable vision in latex, the tri-boobed mamma-jamma on the American classic, Total Recall. Tricolletage! What a concept!

For those of you whose genitals felt the flames of desire when you heard the mutant man-baby Kuato intone those magical words, “Start the reactor,” alas, there’s little we can do for you. Except give you this for your twisted intergalactic spank bank:

With the mystery surrounding the Apr. 5 death of Buffalo Jim Barrier deepening by the day, now’s a good time to breathe for a second and remember something about why the man stood so tall against the Vegas landscape in the first place. It wasn’t just about his growly image, his over-the-top self-promotion or his bulldog’s tenacity in the Rizzolo mire. There was much more to Jim’s high popularity, and I’ve tried to explain a bit of it in this week’s CityLife.

From “More than a ‘colorful character’ ” :

When I first met Buffalo Jim, he kind of scared the hell out of me. He wasn’t surly or threatening or anything like that — very much the opposite — but while we talked about my ’93 Taurus and its transmission issues, there was something volatile and immediate in his hulking, hairy form, wrapped in frayed flannel, intense eyes darting here and there to size up six simultaneous mini-crises around an office “decorated” like a memorabilia bomb had exploded. He didn’t look dangerous, but it seemed that if he’d wanted to be, it’d take everything he had to restrain himself.

Over the next couple years of working with Jim on his weekly automotive advice column, “Nuts & Bolts,” I got to know a guy more complex than he ever let on to the vast majority of customers who came through his repair shop. Everyone familiar with him knew about his gonzo public persona. His grizzly castaway beard. His wild younger days, cable wrestling show, vintage car collection, ongoing charity work and bottomless bucket of celebrity friends. Anyone who paid closer attention saw what it cost him to have these things — how he juggled enough interests (legal fights and family matters included) to fill the lives of five normal men, all while owning a successful garage he insisted on running himself despite not having the means.

Jim’s standard of what it meant to really live demanded all the energy he could muster, and the price was heavy stress. One Friday afternoon last year, I could hear it in his telephone voice. No sighing or whining about his workload; just a worrisome tone, bleary and battle-fatigued.

“Are you OK?” I asked. He instantly perked up, not having it.

“What? Yeah, Davey, yeah. Doin’ great. How ‘bout you … you doin’ alright?”

A few days later, he laughed and fessed up to having been overworked and mentally mangled the week before. Then he explained two things to me: 1. Since he’d been still on the job when I called, he wasn’t about to start complaining; 2. He was still very happy that I’d asked. Then he grilled me about some personal concern of my own I’d mentioned a month earlier and he hadn’t forgotten about, even though I had.

That’s when I learned my favorite thing about Jim. Whether it was an added stress or a source of relief (surely both), people really were, as cliché as this sounds in a eulogy, all that mattered to him in the end. Already ridiculously busy, each day he’d suffer endless chatter from a stream of adoring, non-celebrity customers, unassuming, never wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, never wanting to miss anything, constantly making introductions and acting with a child’s naïve generosity toward this whole freakshow he’d drawn around himself since first rolling into Vegas. Never had I seen self-promotion and humility find such groovy co-existence in the same person, and now I have.

Buffalo Jim Barrier obviously wasn’t the type to burn slowly and linger into his 90s, I know that. He wouldn’t have wanted his memory linked to sadness either, but whatever. For now, I’m going to go ahead and miss him immensely anyway.

Note: Funeral services originally scheduled for Saturday have been postponed.

Last week many of us in the office received a present from Harun Yahya. He’s the anti-Darwinist who published the ginormous, 800-page Atlas of Creation (to be more specific, Volume 3 of a forest-devastating possible seven volumes). After contemplating the text and web site which are both full of examples illustrating the similarity of fossils and their modern equivalents which therefore ABSOLUTELY PROVES evolution does not exist, it is further stated that Darwin’s theory is singlehandedly responsible for all the evil in the world, including international terrorism (and obviously Nevada’s current governor).

This Big Book of Ridiculousness made me think about evolution, natural selection and a recent episode of my favorite animated series: Squidbillies, “The Appalachian Mud Squid: Darwin’s Dilemma”. Ain’t it funny how the mind works?!

Now here’s a scary fact we didn’t know before we wrote that big story calling on Gov. Jim Gibbons to quit because, well, he blows as governor: He’s strapped!

That’s what the young people (and rappers!) say about someone who carries concealed weapons. And according to a great story by my colleague Anjeanette Damon in the Reno Gazette-Journal, Gibbons has nine handguns on his concealed weapons permit.

And we thought we had a lot of pistols. We’re pistol pikers compared to the state’s commander in chief.

Funny thing, however: According to the story linked above, Gibbons only qualified with seven of those nine handguns. (Qualifying is what they call it when you take a handgun safety/law course and then plug some paper targets at varying distances to show you know basically what you’re doing. In order to carry a concealed weapon in Nevada, you must qualify with every handgun you intend to carry at an approved range, have a firearms instructor certify that you’re proficient, and then carry only those weapons with which you’ve qualified and that are listed on your permit.)

Apparently, the governor didn’t bring the entire arsenal down to the range — he qualified with just seven of the nine weapons he wanted on his permit. His instructor, however, certified that he’d qualified with all of them. That’s what they call in the business a “no-no.” (Gibbons, for his part, promised he’d return to actually qualify with the remaining two weapons, but then “got busy” and forgot. Must be all that budget cutting.)

Anyway, he finally did qualify with his remaining two weapons, and now is licensed to carry all nine. The Gazette-Journal story identifies them as “9mm and Glock handguns,” although that’s somewhat confusing because Glocks come in 9mm, too. He’s even proficient in derringers, which are really lame. But that’s just our opinion. Stick with the Glocks, governor! They’re great.

Anyway, our fears about being plugged by Gibbons after he reads our story were put to rest by his press secretary, Ben Kieckhefer, who said this to the Gazette-Journal: “He doesn’t carry. He likes to hunt. He likes to shoot shotguns recreationally. He likes to exercise his rights afforded under the Second Amendment.”

Well, geez, what’s the point of getting a concealed weapons permit if you don’t carry? Sure, the governor has state-provided Nevada Highway Patrol troopers to provide security for him. But you can never be too careful.

Now, as far as we’re concerned, you shouldn’t even have to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon, since the Second Amendment guarantees our right to keep and bear arms. This is that odd issue where we’re to the right of Gibbons. (In fact, we recall once having a conversation in which we were surprised to learn that the governor — a former pilot and a gun enthusiast — was against armed pilots on commercial flights as a counter-hijacking measure. Gibbons said he worried that bored pilots would start playing around with their guns mid-flight, and cause an accident. Who knows, maybe he was right.)

But until Gibbons starts campaigning for all of us to be able to carry weapons, permit-free, as per the Second Amendment, we think he at least ought to follow the rules. He is charged with executing the laws of the state, after all.

And just in case, since we’ve been so critical of the governor, we’re going to start looking into some body armor. Maybe something from Second Chance, which sells to law-enforcement. We once saw Richard Davis, founder of Second Chance, shoot himself in the chest with a .40-caliber Glock while wearing one of his vests and walk away without a scratch. Now that’s standing behind your product!