Being on the go

Goddamn my back hurts. I've had lower back problems ever since I began working out but something happened yesterday to make it hurt really bad. It all began when I was watching that AAMCO commercial on TV with this cool rockstar dude wearing a cowboy hat who was singing, "My life is crazy, I'm on the go, I can't stop and take it slow". And I said to myself, boy, I wish my life would be as fulfilling and jam-packed with crazy as this guy's, but I'm never on the go and I'm taking it awfully slow with my evening naps, baseball games, music and beer. I realized that if I wanted to be an asshole wearing a cowboy hat who sings to people how busy he is with all the important stuff he's currently involved in, my first order of business should be to stop taking it so fucking slow.

So yesterday evening, after coming home from work, I shifted into high gear. First, I cleared my driveway of all grass clippings that were a result of my weekend lawn mowing activities. Then, I watered my deck plants. Yeah man, I was on the freakin' go. After that, I vacuumed the first floor of my house and cleaned out my bird feeder. And finally, just as I was thinking my life couldn't get any crazier, I went out into my backyard and added fertilizer to my lawn. With weed killer!! I was certainly not taking it slow.

That's when my back gave out. It was puzzling because the cowboy's song hadn't mentioned anything about back ailments. And then I started thinking, you know, when he was talking about his life being crazy, he might not have been referring to vacuuming, watering or fertilizing. Perhaps it was something more interesting. Like going camping with his girlfriend in Alaska and killing a grizzly bear with his guitar. But I'm not sure I would be up to such craziness in my life. Also, I own an acoustic guitar that wouldn't kill a fly. I would probably cut myself with a guitar string and be the laughing stock of the entire animal kingdom.

So I went back to my comfortable sofa, baseball game and beer. I'm done with being on the go. Next time the commercial plays, I'll just change the channel. Or watch the Kingsford charcoal commercial with those lazy fuckers hanging out on the highway who advise you, screw that AAMCO guy, just "slow down and grill".

Cooking show

I came up with a great idea for a television cooking show. I will be pitching it to Food Network, Fine Living Network, Black Entertainment Television or any private citizen with a transponder who will answer my phone call. I don't think this idea has ever been implemented in the entire history of cooking shows. In my show, I would give my audience a step by step demonstration on how to cook all my favorite dishes. The twist is that this would provide people with a list of steps on how not to cook that particular dish. Every dish I have ever tried to cook has turned into a federal disaster and this would be a good way for me to capitalize on my failcooking. For example, if I were to add chopped tomatoes to something, that would let you know that you would be better off adding grated apples instead. At the end of my show, I would have the studio audience come over, taste my dish and show their appropriately disgusted facial expressions to the camera in order to demonstrate to all of you sitting out there just how bad my food turned out to be.

For now, I'm trying to come up with a recipe for the pilot episode that would perfectly capture the worst of my cooking instincts. I'm thinking the first omelet I ever produced as a graduate student in the US. In my recipe, I used two onions and only one egg, chopped the onions lengthwise and added onions and egg separately to the frying pan. If you refuse to follow those steps to the letter, you should end up with a perfectly delicious omelet.

I will be calling my show "The Opposite of Bad Cooking". I will let you know when to turn on the TV.

PS : A commenter correctly pointed out that the show should be named "The Opposite of Good Cooking". Turns out I also suck at naming food shows about cooking that sucks.

Commercials

I love that television commercial. The one where the squirrel runs out onto the road chasing a nut and a car is driving up and the squirrel sees it bearing down on it and lets out a panicked human-like yell and then other animals in the vicinity, fearing for the squirrel's well-being start yelling as well, including raccoons, mice, deer, owls and so forth, even a grasshopper whose yell is in the form of a mild buzzing, which is conceptually quite funny. Then the woman in the car, who has a funny face on her begins to scream as well and now everybody is yelling or screaming, except the guy who is driving the car, who looks at his screaming female with some amusement and with a deft turn of the wheel, drives around the screaming squirrel. Apparently, that particular make of car has amazing handling. I effing love that commercial. It is very funny. The problem is, even after watching this commercial a hundred times, I still do not know what brand of car it is promoting. Commercial Win or FAIL?

And then there's the Head-on commercial. It simply consists of a female voice repeating the following sentence three times in quick succession, "Head-on : apply directly to the forehead". On the screen is a picture of a woman applying Head-on directly to her forehead. While she is thus engaged, the caption next to her reads, "Head-on : apply directly to the forehead." The message is unmistakably clear. The product is called Head-on and it should be applied directly to the forehead. Aesthetically, probably the absolute worst commercial of all-time. But as to effectiveness, look at me, I'm writing about Head-on. Definitely commercial Win.

MSeinfeld

Wait, wait, don't retire those ads yet. Explain to me first what the heck they were trying to say.

The Rachel Maddow Show

Tired of watching angry white conservative men talk shit about your favorite black presidential candidate on television? Here's Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. This young liberal white woman will take on that sleazy old bastard with the creepy smile who's also running for president and fuck his shit up. She will fuck his shit up in style and she will smile at you all throughout the shit-fucking. Watch her every night and give liberalism a chance on TV.

That is all.

The fake blur

There was this huge news story that broke in the Indian media over the weekend. A Belgian model was walking down the catwalk and suddenly she had a wardrobe malfunction. Her wardrobe door fell off. And then, her top slid off her shoulders, exposing her breast.

On Saturday, I spent thirty minutes watching a Star Nyuz anchor analyze, in excruciating detail, the physics, the math and the free market economics behind the sliding of the top. I was also treated to innumerable consecutive television replays of the fateful moment. Except, every time, the replay would end just before the top actually fell off and despite the absence of on-screen areola, they still blurred the screen. I can imagine the discussion that must have ensued in the Star Nyuz studio just before they aired the clip.

"Okay, so it is decided, we will show her top falling off and then we will blur her breasts."

"Excellent. Congratulations, people, good job, good show. These blurred breasts will ensure, at least for the next week or so, that there will be food on the table for our families."

But then, a sour note.

"Hold on sir, what about Bal Thackeray?"

"What about him?"

"He does not like breasts."

"We are not showing breasts. We are blurring them."

"He might gather all the pieces of the blur, match them together in Photoshop and break our windows."

"Yes, our insurance policy does not include Bal Thackeray liability. Alright, cancel the blurred breast pictures."

"But what about our viewers? We have to think of them too. If we fail to show them blurred breasts, why would they continue to watch this channel?"

"You're right. My wife just purchased a new I-Phone. I need this job. That blur needs to be broadcast."

"Alright folks. Here's what we will do. We will run the video upto a point just before when the top falls off. And then, we will blur the picture regardless. Our viewers will mentally undress this fake blur and recreate a naked breast out of thin air. And no matter how much image processing Bal Thackeray performs on the video, he will not manage to piece together any nudity and stay in a window-friendly mood."

"That was some mighty quick thinking Varma! You are hereby promoted to Chief Blur Executive."

Why Varma? I don't know, seems like the kind of name a dynamic Blur Executive might have. A Chopra might have capitulated to blur anxiety.

Seinfeld

Some day I hope to elevate myself to that highest of existential levels where every thought, desire or complaint I have will be expressed purely through the usage of appropriate Seinfeldian quotes. That day is not too far.

TDS

Jon Stewart is killing on Larry King right now. If you're not watching it, you're missing something beautiful and delicious. Watch it again at 12:00 am EST in case you're too busy right now having dinner or wiping dust off the fake plastic tree in your bedroom.

Indian television

We took this opportunity of our move to switch to DirecTV. Not just because Comcast was stealing my pants and was asking for my shirt after I ran out of pants, but also because my wife wished to partake of Indian programming. So now we have two satellite dishes on our roof which allows the aliens to transmit their mind-controlling signals into our brains in 1080i high definition. Apart from alien mind-controlling signals, we now also receive Star Plus, Star One, Doordarshan, NDTV, Star Nyuz (which is how they write it in Hindi) and something called Cricket Plus which allows me the luxury of watching live cricket matches between the Dominican Republic and The British Virgin Islands, yes, I said live. I don't know about you but I don't think I could wait till tomorrow to find out the Dominican Republic - British Virgin Islands score, hell no.

It's been a while since I watched Indian television and everything feels very different. For one, I could not help but be surprised at how young everybody on Indian airwaves is. Here in the US, most television anchors, reporters, etc are on an average, about forty - fifty years old and the only people who are younger are on Comedy Central. On the other hand, the average age on Indian television has to be about eighteen. It's amazing. It's like someone threw all those broadcasting jobs up in the air and said okay, whoever catches 'em can keep 'em. And while the old veteran broadcasters were looking around searching for their canes and eyeglasses, the young people, being nimble of ankle, supple of thigh and perky of breast, and who could jump higher and faster than those older guys, were successful in capturing all those broadcasting positions.

It is very disconcerting to watch a news channel where everybody appears to be younger than you, especially when you're not that old. How can that little girl know more about weather than I, you think. After all, you've been surfing weather.com from before she was born. It feels like a media being run by children. Which is actually not a bad thing when you come to think of it. Hopefully these kids still have the baby fat of idealism under their lovely smooth skins. And although I am fairly positive that someday they will grow up and sell their souls to whatever evil force it is that controls Rupert Murdoch's cortex, today is hopefully not that day.

It is also strange the way India does reality TV. Now by definition, reality TV needs to be real and devoid of any kind of outside interference. But Indian producers do not appear to be aware of that fact. Let me give you an example. On Star Voice of India (the twentieth different Indian offshoot of American Idol), whenever a singer falters or loses his or her voice or forgets the lyrics, the producer behind the scene adds the sound of explosive thunder to the proceedings. It's as if we viewers cannot be adequately trusted to grasp the drama of the situation due to our feeble intellect and therefore, have to be made aware of it and guided to it through the use of external audio stimulii like explosive thunder.

I am also concerned by the widespread abuse of slow motion imagery in Indian television. It so happened that somebody in the industry came upon a button, a magical button that could play video back at a slower frame-rate. And then in no time, this button became the hot technology of our generation. It made a lot of sense to utilize this technology to the hilt in reality TV, even though reality does not actually move in slow motion. After carrying out a considerable amount of research on this topic, it was concluded that the image of a person clapping his hands in slow motion is infinitely more dramatic than that of the same person clapping his hands in real time. And the act of someone walking to the podium to accept an award needs to be savored more fully by reducing the speed of that person's gait through the use of this button. Even the simple nondescript act of someone blinking in order to hydrate their eyeball, it was discovered, could be made acutely electrifying by chronicling the travel of the eyelid in minute detail as it descended towards who knows what fate, perhaps a collision with the upper cheek?

I think that the problem here is that we Indians, through regular doses of Bollywood slapstick and over-acting administered to us throughout our lifetimes, have become so inured and desensitized to drama that we literally need someone to slap us with a stick before we can grasp any kind of subtlety in a situation. Or, at least, that is the opinion Indian television bigwigs have of us. And I guess it's probably accurate.

Maybe you were watching Comedy Central on Christmas day, maybe you weren't because you aren't a loser. But if you are not a loser and you weren't watching Comedy Central on the weekend, then you missed Demetri Martin make a very profound point. It was about how we keep asking people in glass houses to refrain from throwing stones at others. Demetri Martin wanted people to quit throwing stones, period. Society's disapproval of stone throwing should be independent of the stone thrower's housing situation, was Demetri Martin's opinion. Unless, added Demetri Martin as a caveat, someone were to be trapped in a glass house. And this someone had a stone handy. In such a situation, Demetri Martin was prepared to concede that stone-throwing would be something to be encouraged. But not otherwise.

Demetri Martin had these words of wisdom and more. You should check your television schedule for when Demetri Martin is on next.

Cutting chin

Hello razor blade manufacturer attempting to sell me your product on television,

If you are a man or a group of men, which I kind of doubt, you should know that we, men, are already quite apprehensive about applying sharp metal objects to our chins during the removal of facial hair. To take a particular case, namely mine, this is due to a constant awareness of the presence of my jugular vein somewhere in the vicinity of my neck. My lack of knowledge of its exact whereabouts doesn't help in dispelling the fear that I might somehow cause its destruction while shaving.

So keeping this in mind, I would like to tender some advice to you regarding your television spot. Your attempts to convince me to apply your particular brand of sharp metal to my skin would go a longer way if you were not to illustrate the sharpness of that very same metal by demonstrating the remarkable ease with which it slices through tin cans, bibles and a variety of assorted vegetables, the raw consumption of which would leave one with sore gums.

Since I am merely covered in skin and hair, I would not wish my razor to possess the ability to slice through metal and cardboard. Furthermore, I would even go so far as to suggest that I would like my razor to be as docile an organism as possible. In the event of a showdown between my razor and my skin, I would like my razor to back down. Instead, I would like to see my skin slice through my razor. I would want my razor to break in half and my skin to climb atop its prostrate body and bellow victoriously to the high heavens. That razor, show me that razor. I will buy that razor.

Look, men don't really care if hair gets trimmed during shaving or not. For us, the joy of shaving lies in the act of shaving itself. It is a ritual more symbolic than substantial, with very little utility value, kind of like sticking pins into an enemy doll or washing your hands after taking a whiz.

So anyways, quit wasting your time making sharper razors. Just give me what you already have.

Don't be surprised

I don't understand the people in all these commercials who still get surprised when they encounter an inanimate object equipped with the ability to speak. It's like, here is this guy, supposedly living in the twenty first century and yet, when his bedroom heater speaks to him in a sensual feminine voice (turns out that bedroom heaters are female), asking him to use her more often, he is like, "hey girl, how come you can speak", and "but you're a heater, heaters can't speak", and then, continuing in the same vein, "but you don't have a biological larynx like me, how is it that you can speak", until you feel like telling him, hey buddy, are you ever gonna let her get to her sales pitch? Are you? For God's sakes man, keep up with the times. Everybody knows that in the world of commercials, heaters and bedroom furniture and coffee mugs and even parts of your own body (except your mouth, which could already speak), have long since developed the capacity for intelligent conversation and impeccable social etiquette.

So act like a goddamned professional. Don't keep wasting the first two minutes of every commercial acting all amazed and requesting elaborate explanations from the kitchen faucet on the hows and whys of his ability to sermonize. Instead, get out more often. Watch more commercials. Do your homework on your own time and quit wasting ours with your unpreparedness when the rest of us just want to know what it is that the faucet has on his mind.

This fall's network lineup

Oy people. The new season of Lost begins today. Fire up your office watercoolers 'cause there's gonna be a whole lotta discussin' going on tomorrow. According to the official CNN Lost reviewer, "The first 5 minutes are pure genius and it only gets better from there onwards". So keep your heart medication handy and shut the hell up once it's on, jeez.

I am quite satisfied with this fall's new network lineup. I watched the first two episodes of Jericho yesterday on On Demand and they were quite satisfying. After all, who here hasn't imagined a nightmarish scenario where every city in the US has been nuked and you are in a small Kansas village cut off from the rest of the outside world with escaped convicts running around eating eggs and killing your sheriff and all this while there is a storm approaching that is expected to dump nuclear fall-out in your backyard and the only person competent enough to know what to do is a mysterious black guy whose identity no one knows and who the fuck is Skeet Ulrich and why does that name seem so familiar? Really, that was a question, anybody? Anybody at all?

I was very impressed with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on NBC. It brings to the table the signature crisp dialogue delivery of The West Wing, replete with the ultrafast zingers that come and go even before you are able to comprehend the dark humor in them. Bradley Whitford appears to have lost a lot of hair. Mathew Perry's face looks less swollen. Hopefully one has nothing to do with the other. Rehab seems to have helped Mathew Perry. He did go to rehab right? Or was it just the Central Perk coffee that made his face look like a sofa cushion suffering from mumps?

Boston Legal is back. They brought in some snotty new lawyer. He is quite irritating and not in a cool James Spader kinda way. I hope he is not the transition guy for quietly taking over Spader's job when he leaves next season. Because that would not sit well with me.

I wonder about 24. Will it be back? The last we saw of him, Kiefer Sutherland was on a boat to China, probably getting his penis ridiculed by an Asian Lynndie England. Maybe he remembered to leave some of his spawn back in the US to carry on the good work.

CSI is awesome as always. I liked the concept in one episode where they carried out an autopsy on a murdered rock star with one of his own songs playing in the background on a stereo. Ah to be autopsied to my own music, that has been my lifelong dream. And then the autopsy guy describes the cause of death to the CSI investigator in rock song format. Very cool. But on the other hand, I would like my own autopsy to be carried out to a Seinfeld sketch.

"So what's the deal with exit wounds? If the bullet left my body, how come I'm still dead?"

*Applause*, snip, out comes my liver. It would be the first to go because it would be screaming to get out of my body for obvious reasons.

"And what's with blunt force trauma? Surely the guy could have taken some pride in his work and sharpened the murder weapon. "

*Applause*, slice, off comes the scalp.

Cause of death : Slipped on his own vomit and hit the toilet seat on the way down. That explains the blunt force trauma. Case closed.

I work at The Office

So I was watching the season premiere of The Office on NBC, the American version, not the British one, because ever since I got over my colonial hangover, I began to not understand the British accent. So I was watching it and being happy that I do not work in An Office when suddenly Jim said to the camera, "The people here call me Big Tuna because I ate a tuna sandwich on my first day at work. I doubt they even know my name".

And then it hit me. I work at The Office. Because even though the people at my Office know me by name and pronounce it in a way that would make my ancestors fly screaming off their funeral pyres, I am known as The Subway Guy because I eat exclusively at the neighborhood Subway restaurant. Everyday, a couple of minutes before lunchtime, there is a long line of people outside my cubicle patiently waiting to ask me the million dollar question, namely, whether I am going to eat at the Subway today. And when it is 12:00 and not a minute before, I let them in, one by one, and they ask me the question, get yes for an answer, chuckle to themselves, thinking it's such a huge fucking joke that I eat at the Subway everyday and then walk out with the sun shining brighter in their previously overcast lives because they got to ask the Subway Guy whether he was going to eat at the Subway today and haha he was.

Some days I do not eat at the Subway because I am human and there are other things in life which cannot be obtained at the Subway. Those days are worse. Because not only do I have to reply no, that I am going to have to forego Subway today, I have to provide a detailed and credible explanation on why I am taking this drastic life-changing decision.

So, to recap things, fucked if I eat at Subway, fucked if I don't. I am the Subway Guy and I work at the Office.

Enzyte

I don't know how many of you here in the US are television fanatics so much so that you will watch whatever is on at the moment because the alternative would be to stare at a blank screen.

We have these Enzyte commercials here featuring a guy, "Bob" who used to have a small penis until he started taking Enzyte, a natural male-enhancing drug. Now Bob walks around with a creepy grin on his face and a perennial bulge in his pants. His wife (who looks 60 by the way, thus accounting for Bob's previous deflation), is very happy now because until now there used to be a vast gaping void in her life which is now being filled. And these Enzyte commercials chronicle various events in Bob's life which give him an opportunity to showcase his brand new refurbished member. For example, in one such instance, Bob jumps into a swimming pool and when he steps out, his shorts are observed floating in the water as his guests, especially those belonging to the female persuasion, stare transfixed at his luminous chlorine-bleached knob.

They have a number of these commercials, all of which feature Bob and his Jack Nicholson grin as they fight crime and prop up the drooping garden hoses of their neighbours (this is not a euphemism, taking Enzyte really does wonders for your garden hose) by introducing them to this marvellous drug. The following is one of the better ones mostly due to its liberal usage of puns (even though I profess to be someone who hates puns).



The reason I bring up the topic of creepy Bob and Enzyte is because Enzyte appears to have defrauded thousands of its customers by promising them free samples and then placing unauthorized charges on their credit cards. You see, those penis enlargement spammers are not fools. There really IS a market for that stuff.

But the point I am ultimately trying to make is, I wonder how hard CNN had to battle with its conscience in not issuing a headline saying :

"Male-enhancing drug company stiffs its customers"

Aren't you glad you continued reading till the end?

Hurricane Katrina : One year later

This is the Hurricane Katrina : One year later post.

R.I.P

Oh and watch Spike Lee's documentary if you have HBO.

Thank you.

Melon collie

I got this cool bottle opener keychain yesterday from the newly opened Indian restaurant in my neighbourhood. That's great because now I can start drinking from the moment I unlock the door to my apartment.

In general, I have no problems with the current pace of technological progress. I am happy with the way my socks no longer mysteriously develop holes in them like they used to when I was a kid. Underwear lasts longer too. Soon people will have to buy underwear only once or twice in their entire lifetime, thus giving Chinese sweatshop workers an opportunity to take a bathroom break. But it would definitely be useful if my toothpaste tube would give me some indication of when it is empty. You know, you squeeze it till it's flat but still you keep on squeezing it because you're hoping, like any normal human being would, that surely there is some more in there, at least enough for today's brushing. But what I would like to see is a tube that starts to scream and vomit blood when it is out of paste and needs to communicate that fact to the squeezer. This would save many people a lot of time in the morning, I'm sure. Another good idea, a ketchup bottle that would begin to cough violently, invoking the Lord's name when there's no more ketchup to be banged out of it.

Toyota Yaris has a couple of grisly ads out. A car comes wandering by and stops in front of a piggy bank, one of them small cute pink pig-shaped things. The car and pig blink at each other. Then the hood of the car opens and an electric saw appears, cutting the pig horizontally in half. Then, the saw cuts the pig vertically. The pig continues to blink at the car, distraught at this violent behavior exhibited by someone claiming to be as planet-friendly as Toyota. Then the hood again opens and out comes a hammer which strikes the pig and breaks it into two. Inside is a coin which the car picks up and goes off. Very heartbreaking if you're a pig-lover like I am. Bacon is one of my favorite foods.

Then, in a different ad, the car comes across a robotic spider and runs over it. Then, it sucks up all the fluid dribbling out of the crushed spider and goes off. Another blow to the planetary robotic ecosystem. I ain't buyin' a Yaris anytime soon.

And speaking of cars, I saw this clip from the new Disney movie "Cars" yesterday. A couple of cars are standing around in a courtroom and a Porsche rolls in. "Holy Porsche", says one car. What, says I. And then it goes on and blah blah blah and says, "You know there are some people in this courtroom who aren't firing on all four cylinders, if you know what I mean". Yargh, the pun made me pull off the newly discovered silver hair on my head in frustration.

Salespeople will say anything to get you to buy stuff, regardless of how preposterous it sounds. So I went into GNC, the store that sells protein shakes and things of that nature. I wanted to buy some Creatine and this guy wanted to sell me the high end expensive stuff. Said that it is the most potent of his products and would have an instantanous effect on my physique. So I told him that working out is just a hobby of mine and that it was okay with me if I didn't turn into the Michelin tire guy overnight. To which he replied, "Well, it really doesn't work that fast anyways, sometimes it takes years to get your body in shape. Fucking guy said the exact opposite of what he'd just said a moment ago.

Then, he began to sell me some nitric oxide or nitrous oxide or whatever. Said that it would dilate my blood vessels when I work out, thus allowing me to work out for longer periods of time. "Sometimes, I work out for four hours and still don't feel tired", he said. Four hours? Mmmkay. Then, I asked him if this stuff is safe and he told me, "It is so safe that sometimes people with high blood pressure take it as medication." I think it was around that time that I started doubting the veracity of his claims.

Then, he tried to sell me some more crap. He asked me, "Since you work out, do you take any extra vitamin supplements?" I said, "No, but I eat food". He asked what is that? I said "food" is what people who live in the natural universe eat to get their vitamins. He wasn't convinced. He probably donates to the "Vitamin supplements for Somalia" fund.

Head on

So I was watching television and this commercial came on.

Voiceover guy : "Is head on right for you?"

Then, two female voices started speaking in a conspiratorial manner as if they were discussing feminine hygiene at an Al Qaida convention.

"I just bought head on at the drugstore."

"What is head on?"

"You don't know what head on is?"

"Should I know what head on is?"

They would probably have continued in this vein indefinitely right upto armageddon if it weren't for Faceless Voiceover guy, who, realizing that all that womanly yakking was taking up valuable air time, jumped back in to make his closing statement.

Voiceover Guy : "Head on..available at most pharmacies without a prescription."

End of commercial.

If I asked you "what do you think head on is" and you replied "probably a blowjob simulating gel", I would say, "well, that's what I thought it was too". But it isn't. It's a cure for headaches as explained here. Ok it's not exactly explained there either. It's as if the company that manufactures "head on" went to great lengths to shield consumers from exposure to knowledge about what this product actually does for you.

But when you think about it, you realize that it makes great business sense. Say you are the maker of "head on", as you may well be. "What does your product do", someone asks you and you tell him with a wink, "why don't you find out for yourself, my friend", and so your friend buys it and uses it and then suddenly the rash on his buttocks is gone 'cause he was too worried about the rash to sit down, and he thinks it was the power of head on that cured him. So now everytime he has a butt-rash, he buys head-on, thus becoming a loyal customer. And similarly, anyone else who has a cold, enlarged prostate, cirrhosis of the liver or lung cancer uses head on and keeps using it. Everyone except the guy with lung cancer, of course, who dies just as he's sniffing his last unprescribed dose of head-on and that was stupid of him 'cause head-on wasn't meant for nasal ingestion anyways.

And on an utterly unrelated note, "Stewart Greenleaf for PA Senate" campaign posters actually have the picture of a green leaf on them. I'm trying to remember if Vote Bush posters were accompanied by pictures of hirsute genitalia.

Thumbs

Thumbs up to the West Wing for ending its 7 year run on NBC, but not before giving us a democratic president for the next 4 years. Sometimes, when you want to drown out the George W. Bullshit happening around you, its best to live in a television fantasy world where the Democrats are in power and the Republicans don't walk around eating people's brains.

Thumbs down to Southpark. Southpark has officially bottomed out. Once upon a time it used to be funny, intelligent, crass comedy, you know, hilarity for the sake of being hilarious. Now we have Trey and Matt the creators of Southpark, taking on the role of political commentators. In their attempt to make the show relevant and a "commentary on our times", they have begun to destroy the wholesome raunchy nature of Southpark which uptil now used to consist of nothing but fart jokes and redneck bashing, by infecting it with the virus of reality.

This tactic, in my opinion, has failed. Let's say you go to a doctor 'cause you have genital herpes. When you inform him that your balls are itching like crazy and it hurts like hell when you urinate, the doctor, instead of prescribing you some anti-itching and anti-urination-pain drugs, takes out a couple of sock puppets out of his desk drawer and uses them to graphically demonstrate the dangers of unsafe sex. That's how one feels when one watches Southpark nowadays. A feeling of being patronized, followed by acute ball-itch.

Is it really necessary for everybody in the whole wide fucking world to try and make a statement about every burning issue of the day? Am I asking for too much if I just want someone to make me snicker without trying to cram a rolled up life-lesson up my butt during the process? This attempt at increasing its own self-importance in the scheme of things has taken all the humor out of the show. Southpark is no more a bunch of cute kids with deliciously filthy mouths. Now it's a bunch of adults making an educational cartoon and imposing their so-called "politically incorrect" (or as it's colloquially known, indefensible) worldview on you with a supercilious condescension.

Gah Southpark, you shouldn't have tried to all grow up n shit. You were goddamn hilarious when you were a little kid who used to die a horrible death every week and get eaten by rats. Now you're just a fuckin' preachy-ass pain in the sphincter who's just not funny anymore.

Thumbs down to Lost. Fuck you for even daring to raise the possibility of the entire show being nothing but a lunatic's daydream. I haven't spent 48 hours of my life and more than 50 bucks in dvd rentals just to be told that there are no Others and that the Island is a giant psychiatric ward. And I'm not too sold on the entire thing turning out to be a reality show either. Get more creative, people, surprise me. In return I promise not to fast forward through the commercials.

Results not typical

You know, when you are watching television and that Slimfast ad pops up with all those curvaceous women jumping around with those stupid happy grins on their faces, celebrating the fact that their bodies are no longer as prone to gravity as they used to be 4 weeks ago, or 2 weeks ago, or even 1 week ago in some cases, before you say to yourself, fuck, I wanna be as thin as those women and wear tight fitting jeans that look tasteful without being obscene in order to show off my newly visible curves, just hold on for one goddamn minute. For one, you are a man, so quit acting gay. Unless you are in fact gay, of course. And secondly, stop watching those women for a while and check out the bottom part of the screen. If you are quick, you'll see the phrase "Results not typical" flit by.

So when they are telling us that this woman lost 10 pounds in 2 weeks and while you are busy watching the jumping and the oscillating, they also quickly let you know that these women are an aberration, and that the probability of you losing the same weight in the same period of time is as high as you coming across a half-eaten muffin lying on the road and not devouring it. Which is close to zero, since you are a fat bastard who will eat everything he sees.

But my question to Slimfast is, why in the name of Rosie O'Donell are you showing me women who've had non-typical results? In order for me to make an educated decision, shouldn't you show someone in the ad who has had a realistic sheddage of pounds, not someone who got thin through some voodoo black magic not available to the layperson?

Boy, there's just no honesty left in the advertizing industry.