Sometime this summer, I'm not exactly sure when, the word "Extreme" and its faddish derivations had been officially beaten into the ground. Sure, it's been flirting with the line between tolerable and irretrievably lame for some time, having lost the last of its dignity when so-called extreme games became part of the Olympics. Even before then, though, its luster had been tarnished by overuse. Eventually the word's desiccated husk has been wrung free of every last drop of vitality by clueless mass marketers.

A few months ago, though, I saw what I thought was its epitaph. It was on a loaf of bread. 

"X-Treme" bread.  

Why was this bread X-Treme, you ask? Beats the hell out of me. Ask Stroehmann's bakery. They were the geniuses who came up with it. I think it supposedly has better nutrition. X-treme nutrition.

So that was it, I thought. "Extreme" and its hipper little brother, "X-Treme," are dead. Then the Mrs. Told me about a billboard advertising "Extreme jobs." And what were these extreme jobs, you ask? Shark dentistry? Psychoanalyst to the Hilton sisters? Door-to-door sales in the Gaza Strip?

I don't know exactly, but the company advertising the jobs was a local suburban real estate developer. Apparently, building houses in suburbia is now extreme. That is far, far lamer than bread.

But wait! It gets worse! Now they have TMX! That stands for Tickle Me Elmo Extreme! Somebody take this adjective behind the barn and put a bullet in its head!

What the hell is next? Extreme plumbing? X-Treme bananas? Super-Mega-X-Treme shoelaces? Sweet screaming Jesus, let it die in peace. It's not cool anymore! Come to think of it, it never really was! Stop raping its corpse!

You realize, of course, that this is all the fault of the Baby Boomers. They're the one who started that whole "Generation X" thing because they were too fried on acid and weed to think of anything more original. Then it was X-this, X-that, all in an effort to appeal to our sense of coolness. Don't do drugs, kids, or you'll end up like your parents!

Anyway, now a perfectly normal word has been destroyed by the mass-marketing juggernaut that has since moved on to the next best thing, whatever that it. It's not that I have anything against our benevolent masters behind the mass marketing juggernaut, but it is a bit annoying when they so obviously latch on to a single concept because they can't think of anything better to do.

Now they have Transformers based on Star Wars. The Millennium Falcon splits into Han Solo and Chewbacca robots, complete with voices. I can't believe these retards are getting paid six digits while I wallow in my medium five.

I'm X-Tremely unhappy.