Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch.  It's hard to be this angry.  I have to put up an effort to be this disgruntled.  Not really, I just go to work, and let the parade of annoyance march in front of me, then poof, I'm pissed off.  Let's start!
 

Annoy-O-Index!

WB turns tricks:  Why don't they put Bugs in a halter top and a mini skirt and send him out on a street corner to collect cash?  The pimps at the Warner Brothers company have been sending out the ho's in a commercial blitz as of late.  Phone service, automobiles, salad dressing, give them enough money, and and any cartoon character will be yours for the night.  I'm waiting (in horror) for 900 number ads with Granny and Elmer Fudd.

10-10-CRAP:  Why is it that a bunch of phone services with the 10-10 number have popped up over night?  And why is it that they have a bunch of washed up actors and other assorted has-beens to advertise them?  "You can save up to 50%."  Now, call me a cynical product of the eighties, but how are these things operating?  They have to be making money because there are so damn many commercials with quasi-celebrities.  I used to have respect for Dennis Miller and George Carlin, but not any more.  I think that no one else in the world remembers that John Lithgow did some pretty horrid work before Third Rock from the Sun.  I never had respect for Tony Danza, and this doesn't help him any.  I still like Oscar De La Hoya, but that's because he's hot.  (You can say it's shallow, but I don't care.  Mine is a lust that will last forever, well at least until he's on infommercials hawking his new "fry cook" invention, or some other equally useless junk.)  This reminds me of the "1-800-C-R-A-P" glut of a few years back that still haunts us to this day.  There's nothing sadder than an actor that can get no other work that commercials, except for actors who can't even get commercials.

Polling time:  How much whining am I going to have to hear about politics from people who wouldn't know a ballot box if they were trapped in one?  Yet the only polling that people want to hear about happened in the White House.  "Those bums in Congress..."  "You know what what the government should do..."  Yet how many people can't even sashay their asses over to their polling places and flick a few levers.  If that is too difficult, get an absentee ballot, oh, but you probably have to buy a stamp for that, and an extra trip to the mail box.  Never mind.  So you get to sit back and belly ache about how your money is being spent and all of those stupid laws that they are making, you don't have to do a thing about it.  I was flipping through the channels when I happened upon a news story about illegal voting practices.  Hell, we should be happy that someone cares enough to vote even once, and ecstatic that they want to vote two or three times.  It's not a perfect system, but it's even less perfect when you sit at home with your thumb up your butt.

The Secrets of Stupidity:  Did you know that professional wrestlers don't actually hit their opponents?  It's true! If you had watched the Secrets of Wrestling special, you would know that.  Did you know that magicians don't actually make animals disappear and don't actually saw women in half?  It's true!  You'd know that if you had watched the Secrets of Magic special.  Or you'd know any of that if any of the following is true: you are over 5 years old, you have a reading level above The Little Engine that Could, or your parent are not related.  Some guy puts on a mask and starts revealing how magic tricks are done, and supposedly all of the other magicians want to kill him.  No, they want to kill him because he is lame.  And supposedly all of the "real" wrestlers want to kill the guy revealing the wrestling "secrets".  They missed the real secret: that there are people dumb enough to pay to watch that crap.  I would like to once again thank television for belittling our collective intelligence.  Why don't they make The Secrets of Television, a special where it is revealed how shows get even less intelligent and less original, yet somehow through camera magic, computer rendered special effects, and bouncy boobs, people still watch these pathetic shows.  Oh wait, that would be entertaining.  Throw on a Friends re-run instead.

    Thank god Oprah knows how to live my life better than I do.  Please, lift me from the cess pool that is my existence, and try to put me on the radiant plane that you inhabit, though I am not worthy!  Show America the virtues of your life, so that we may one day through hard work, prayer, and dedication be like you.

    Finally, people other than myself are getting tired of this self-help nonsense that Oprah has been spouting off for the last season.  Television critics have gone as far as to criticize her!  No lie. It's amazing that someone with such body image problems feels the need to tell others how to live.  Oprah can tell people about relationships, but how long has she been living with that guy, and still no wedding bells.  Yes, finally people see the pompous facade that she puts forth.  How self-important is she to have a "moment of inspiration", and an "angel network", because she is the angel that inspires us all.  It's about helping people, not about using people like those other bad talk shows.  Never mind that her show was just as tabloid as every other show when it first came out.  But she's rich now, so we have to forget about that early poor stuff.

    The positive thing that I will say is that at least the self-help people she has on for some extent do stress personal responsibility (this year, what were they writing five years ago), not mommy and daddy caused all of my problems.  She also doesn't have that "talk to the hand", "whatever" moron audience and guests that plague the other shows.  Now she has yuppie idiots and baby boom half-wits that have to have someone tell them how to live their lives because they are too busy working to live their own lives.  "Oprah, what books should we read?  Give us your divine wisdom."  Maybe if people took responsibility for their lives like she says, they wouldn't have to watch her show.

Dr. Katz, Professional Putz

    A TV show that causes seizures, and it's not anime!  Actually, I think the only reason that people aren't going into seizures from that horrible squiggling animation, is that the show is so boring that it counteracts with a coma.  Would somebody please send them to an art class!

    A show with a endless string of formerly vital comedians and up and comers (or is it up and chuckers?) using their worst lines to try to get laughs.  Let's try to rise above the "neurotic comedian" thing, shall we?  Actual line "If you grabbed onto Jesus's feet as he ascended into Heaven, would you have gone up with him?"  My reaction, "If your joke sounded more like Steven Wright, would you still get no laughs?"  OK, I understand that since Dr. Katz is the psychiatrist that he should be a bit boring, (heaven forbid someone go against a stereotype) but why is there not a funny character to be seen.  "Hey!  Let's put another scene of the Doctor's son hitting on the secretary, and her bored reaction.  That'll be funny after 30-some episodes."

    Comedy Central has some very funny shows, Win Ben Stein's Money, Viva Variety (Although the State was funnier), the Daily Show, and of course, South Park.  And they have some great re-runs, like the Critic and the Tick.  But then they have some real bombs, Dr. Katz, Bob and Margaret, and the wholesalely awful Make Me Laugh.  Make me laugh, I'm still waiting.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that every network has its share of garbage (look at NBC) but let's not try to say that it's the best thing on Earth.

Men are from Mars, This Game Sucks My...

    What would be more fun than reading a book that perpetuates every awful stereotype about men and women?  How about playing a game reinforcing them?  Just in time to suck away all of your money for Christmas, it's Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, the board game.  Answer questions that demean your mate in front of your friends, it's big fun at parties.

    Who want's to listen to a thrice married  monk for advice on love?  Obviously a lot of people, since he has made lots and lots of money on the best selling books he wrote.  This is another example of the "Everything that you know is right" phenomenon in pop psychology.  (If only I could get over my moral streak, I could write a book like that and make a lot of money.  Damn conscience.)  I read an overview of his (for the lack of a better term) "philosophy" that the Mars/Venus expert wrote for a fluff psychology magazine.  "There are Martian and Venetian traits.  (As if he could say either of those words.)  All men and women have a certain amount of each of those traits, and problems occur when Mars and Venus are in opposition."  Here is the simple way to spell it out, people don't get along when their personalities clash.  You can say that being a hunter/gatherer is a Martian trait, or that being domestic is Venetian trait, but that is a pointless distinction, what is the point to wasting time labeling these "male" and "female" traits that all males and females have?  We were told for years that girls were bad at math, and so they were.  They even had a Barbie that told them so.  But guess what, girls aren't that much worse at math than boys are, they are expected to be worse at math, and are called on less in classes.  We perpetuate the male and female stereotypes in our actions, teach them to our kids, then when they act like "a man" or "a woman", we take it as proof.  (And don't even dare let them act counter the stereotypes.)  It seems that all of the toys marketed to girls this Christmas season are about dressing up pretty and looking good for boys, even more so than usual.  Buy "The Clueless Fashion Diary" for your daughter so that she looks like all of the other girls, otherwise she may grow up with a personality and not join that sorority and not marry a doctor.

    Yes, there are answers to the problems in a relationship, but for some odd reason, I doubt they come from someone who lived in a monastery then left and can't keep his own relationships together.