This week, thanks to the efforts of the magnificent TheChaz, who may very well be hereafter known to the community as "The Puberty Fairy", There will make available four styles of facial hair for men in the new release! From what I understand, TheChaz majored in virtual facial hairology in college and whatnot, and has studied the technology for many years before being brought to There to program this functionality for all y'all. On the other hand, the only things I got out of college were how to be ignored by sorority girls, or all girls really, and that it was most likely time to stop carrying around my Rainbow Brite lunchbox.

The way it works is quite intriguing if you are keenly interested in how virtual facial hair happens to work. It turns out that it works in much the same way you pluck sheep for their cotton or whatever and then weave the cotton balls into sweaters. First, they begin by harvesting hair from Vash_Community's back with special titanium-bladed electric shears. This is one reason why we've waited so long to get this feature into the game... the There staff had to be sure they had an ample supply of his back hair in order to create enough product to satisfy the projected initial demand. At this point, most normal people will stop reading this article to go throw up.

After all of that greasy, matted, rat's nest of hair is removed from his back, Vash_Community is placed under UV lights and is given special vitamins and ointments to rub all over his back like one of those Chia Pets to stimulate rapid hair growth for the next harvest period. This is just like egg factories keeping chickens in their cages to collect their eggs, except Vash isn't covered in feathers and he can't lay eggs. Those abilities will be programmed in for a future release, I am told. Or maybe I just made that up... sometimes my own vivid imagination interferes with what I know to be the fact and "detracts from my credibility" or so my esteemed journalist colleagues say. But for now, since I can't substantiate any of my outlandish claims, I will just say that at some time in the future, Vash will sprout feathers and be able to lay eggs.

Upon collecting enough of his back hair, the There staff then transports the material via a specially-constructed facial hair pipeline to the north to TheChaz, who works diligently at the North Pole in his secret Arctic Facial Hair Research Facility (which is across the street from Santa's workshop, by the way) to force his worker elves to weave the clippings into moustaches, goatees, and beards. These worker elves are mostly Santa's previous employees who have either been laid off due to lack of work during the off-season, or fired due to multiple violations of Santa's strict HR policies. TheChaz then uses his technological advances which involve complex things such as "computers", "textures", "meshes", and "paste" to attach the facial hair to the eyebrow templates and paint them in different colors for the store. Hopefully, the knowledge of this process and where the material comes from does not hurt sales.

The results of this labor-intensive and slightly disgusting process are four different types of facial hair named The Selleck, The Hogan, The Spock, and The Patch. I was disappointed that he has not yet developed more interesting facial hair templates such as The ZZ Top, The Grandma's Upper Lip, and The Stubble, but hopefully these and other facial hair choices will be forthcoming. Apparently, there were some bugs and glitches during the initial beta-testing of this feature. One beta tester had his face turn green and completely melt off, while another reported that his Hogan moustache leapt off his face, carjacked his buggy like a greedy newbie on his first day in There, and drove away. Towards the end of the beta test process, one member reported that women flocked to him to admire his new goatee, but I'm not entirely sure that was a bug and I have no clue why he would be complaining about that. There assures us that all of these problems have been completely resolved... to include the women-flocking-towards-you thing, unfortunately.

In retaliation for all the times she has censored stuff in my articles before you get to read it (I submit them at least three times as awesome as the version you get to read, but for example, this time I'm pretty sure the entire 3rd paragraph I wrote in this article consisting of nothing but F-words is going to get cut), I recently commissioned an artist to conceptualize what Geea might look like with some of this new-fangled, fancy-schmancy facial hair, but somehow I don't think she's gonna go for it if TheChaz comes out with facial hair for women. Our younger male members of There will have to wait for virtual armpit and chest hair, but for now they can feel all grown-up with the new virtual facial hair. The big question the six or seven of you who actually read my articles probably have is: Will Rick_Slick be sporting any facial hair after this Wednesday? The answer would be no... not only am I completely awesome just the way I am, but RavenTresses says that facial hair would be all scratchy on her hands when she backhands me for not buying her presents or forgetting to tell her how pretty she is. Enjoy your new-found puberty on Wednesday, men of There!

[Editor's Note: The new facial hair to be released this week is not actually constructed from anyone's back hair, nor does TheChaz run a facial hair weaving sweatshop with Santa's elven rejects.]