“Life’s a bitch, then you die.” I’m not sure who coined this phrase; perhaps it belongs to the cynical public domain. We all know life is unfair. Why else would one percent of the United States’ population own 50 percent of the wealth? Why else have the New York Yankees won 26 World Series titles in 100 years? Life is unfair. Then we die. Isn’t that eerie?

We are all going to experience something of which we know nothing. The only thing for certain that you know will happen when you die is that all of your money and possessions will be divvied up among your relatives and friends, which is a bit of a downer, considering that you worked really hard for all that stuff. According to most religions, death is that liaison between life and afterlife, and once you die, you will find out once and for all who went to heaven, who went to hell, and who is forever stuck in Montana.

Death is an extremely fascinating subject, isn’t it? We want to know how it works, and how death affects the soul. Many people take this a step further and enjoy studying those who take the lives of other people. For example, the journal of a French executioner who manned a guillotine from the late 19th century to the early 20th century was auctioned off in Paris on Wednesday. It sold for 85,000 Euros (over $91,000). This fascinates me, because I thought nobody in France had the guts to kill anyone, given their track record in the past century.

I don’t have all the answers. What happens once you bite the big one? Do you become worm food? Do you reach the Pearly Gates? Better yet, does St. Peter give you a hard time, according to several jokes I have heard?

You see, I have as many questions as anyone else concerning posthumous activity. The irony in this mystery to search for answers is that once you die, you will know what happens. However, I have not been contacted by any of my dead relatives, nor have I received any e-mail.

This tells me one of two things. Either they were instructed to keep a secret from a higher power, or they haven’t figured out how to escape those caskets buried beneath the ground. I suppose we must wait until David Blaine kicks the bucket.

Nothing is more frustrating than trying to comprehend something, even though you know you will never find the answer. So what should we do? There must be some outlet in which we can explore a subject like this. It may not be the most appropriate, but gosh darn it, it sure is fun.

Being an advocate of things that stupid people do, reading about deaths due to slow-wittedness is one of my hobbies.

Luckily, several of these accounts are documented at darwinawards.com. The Darwin Awards are handed out to those accidental deaths that could have been prevented if the person was just a whole lot smarter.

Maybe I should give you an example. This story was the 1999 Darwin Award Runner-Up. A guy in Cambodia found a land mine in his backyard, and he came up with the brilliant idea of bringing it to a bar with his friends and playing a Russian Roulette-style game, where one person would take a drink and then stomp on the mine. The rest of the patrons ran out of the bar, and eventually the bar exploded, taking the lives of three intoxicated numbskulls.

This next story hasn’t made the Darwin Awards yet, to my knowledge. A man from Virginia was pistol-whipping his dog because it had bit him. Sadly enough, the gun was loaded. The weapon accidentally went off and killed the man.

This story has it all. First, you have animal cruelty, which is funny in a sick way. Second, you have a person stupid enough to actually attack his dog, a 30-pound Shar-Pei, with a loaded pistol.

This is my kind of entertainment.

The meaning of death is as crystal clear as the meaning of life. Don’t rack your brain trying to solve the puzzle. Simply take one piece of the puzzle, and admire it. My niche happens to be the Darwin Awards. My new hobby is learning how to kill sinners. This will be fun and easy with my new French executioner’s journal.