30 seconds ago I saw a preview for The Vampire Diaries.  Based solely on the preview, and with absolutely no desire to watch the show, I will now sum up the meeting that took place and led to this show being created:

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Random CW executive:  My 13 year old daughter really seems to like these books about vampires.

Other CW executive: Like Dracula and shit?  That’s kind of morbid and fucked up.

1st excutive: No, not like Dracula. More like Anne Rice’s version of vampires. She just can’t get enough of these things.

2nd executive: Hmmm…Anne Rice’s vampires were pretty effeminate and liked to dress like the people in Amadeus, but they also explored issues of religion and humanity, and occasionally they would rip people’s throats out and do horribly obscene shit to them.  Your daughter may need to see a therapist.

1st executive: Well, not exactly like the Anne Rice vampires, just the effeminate, dull parts.  And without any of the interesting or violent parts.  Mostly the books are about a sad, lonely mormon girl who creates stories about how super-awesome it would be if anyone liked her.

2nd executive: that sounds pretty dull.

1st executive: Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.  But then I was watching HBO the other night and I saw this show True Blood, and I thought, “Hey, wouldn’t it be awesome if we had a show like True Blood, but without any of that horrific violence or gratuitous nudity?  Or any interesting characters or storylines?  Instead, we’ll just use a whole bunch of attractive 20 years old’s who can’t act and a couple horrible writers who will work for $6 a day and might or might not have seen an old episode of Buffy once.

2nd executive:  So, pretty much exactly like every single show on our network…but the obnoxious, effeminate, borderline-retarded characters are vampires?

1st executive: Exactly!

2nd executive: I LOVE IT!  Now let’s go roll around in the big pile of money we’ve made by exploiting insecure and/or retarded teenage girls!

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CW Network, you suck huge amounts of ass.

C-HO Mesothelioma Rating – 6.0 – making shittier and shittier versions of shitty products is an important step along the way to Idiocratic Rule

First, it’s important for me to make it clear that I don’t care whether players were using steroids, HGH, amphetamines or anything else that might help them stay just a little stronger, a little faster or a little sharper.  Until a couple years ago, baseball had no drug policy.  I don’t have a problem with guys who are doing everything they can, within the rules, to excel in their sport.

However, I do have a problem with whiny douche-bags who lie about it and claim to be pure and innocent.  I don’t need every guy who’s ever tried any kind of performance enhancing drug to come out and tell everyone with a weepy, embarrassed public apology.  In fact, I don’t want to hear an apology at all.  I’d prefer to hear a little honesty when guys are directly asked about it.

For example:
Reporter:  Did you take steroids?
Player:  Yeah, I did.  At the time, there were no rules against it.  There were a lot of guys benefiting from them, and I decided to take them to try and get just a little bit better.  I’ve pretty much done nothing but play baseball since I was 15.  I’m really not qualified to do anything else.  I’m going to do anything I can to make sure my body is performing at its peak so that I can be as good as I can and make as much money as possible during my playing career.  There are some serious health risks, and I’d certainly advise kids against using drugs, but it was a good business decision for me at the time and a risk I was willing to take.

Now, what’s wrong with that?  Why can’t fans be treated like intelligent people who are capable of understanding an honest answer?  Because there’s less money in it, that’s why.  It’s better for us to watch in awe as these athletic Gods live out our childhood fantasies, than to think that these are just a bunch of guys who worked harder than we were willing to consider, and sometimes needed a little help to get to the top of their game.

I don’t need some asshole apologizing to me for taking something that might make him better at his job.  If there was a drug that I could take that would make me slightly better at my job and get me a significantly higher salary, I’d probably take it, too.  And I sure as hell wouldn’t apologize for it later just to appease a bunch of ignorant jerk-offs who want to believe the business is “pure” and “untainted.”  Grow up, you whiny, pathetic little bitches.

C-HO Mesothelioma Rating – 4 – Not for A-Rod taking steroids, but for A-Rod being a douche bag about it and for the national sports media reacting like a bunch frightened little girls who just realized the Tooth Fairy is really their mom.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, assholes.

I’ll elaborate.  It’s the contention of Larry Flynt, the guy from Girls Gone Wild and several others that Americans are depressed about their current financial woes.  Because of this depression, we’re thinking less about sex and, thus, spending less money on sex in the form of pornography.

Pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S., employing thousands of people and providing a safe work environment for countless whores, and all those are good things.  I have always been and will continue to be Pro-Whore.

The issue here is that the current argument and request for government assistance are complete bullshit.  Major porn producers are not struggling because Americans are suddenly too depressed and broke to be interested in barely legal girl-on-girl action.  These companies have been seeing declining sales for several years and the reason for that is most of them have not figured out how to take advantage of something that is both their greatest ally and their greatest enemy: widely available high speed internet access.  A decade ago, when the vast majority of porn-hunters were using a dial-up connection, just downloading pictures could take over a minute; trying to download a 60 second video required an entire afternoon.  At that point, online options simply couldn’t compete with the quality of video and DVD’s.

Fast forward to 2009.  Broadband and DSL are fairly cheap and available almost everywhere.  Laptop computers are fairly cheap and available almost everywhere.  A Google search for “free porn” returns 69,700,000 results in .07 seconds.  The problem isn’t that people are less interested in sex, it’s that now it’s freely available and exceptionally convenient.  Major porn companies requesting a bailout because people are consuming free porn is like bottled water companies asking for a bailout because people are drinking tap water.  There’s simply not a good case in their favor.

Instead of just telling these people to fuck off, I’ll offer a few helpful tips.
1.  Free Samples – As drug dealers and direct response marketers already know, it’s much easier to take huge piles of money from people after you’ve got them hooked on your product with a “Free Trial.”  After those first 10 days of FREE solo sorority girl videos, it’s very hard to get the 11th day started without them.
2.  Adsense – Here’s an easy equation that even most illiterate whores can understand: Traffic = Money.
3.  Stop Letting Larry Flynt Appear in Public – There aren’t many things that can kill an erection faster than that horrific jackass.  Just keep him away from cameras, it will help.

Aside from that, just accept and embrace that the internet is a good thing and that it’s time to start hiring people to help you monetize your shit.  Keep up the good work.

I stopped at a local liquor store a couple weeks ago to pick up beer for football day.  While there, I walked past this:

With a sticker that read, “Holiday Sale – $6.99”

Normally when considering alternatives to beer, I prefer to go with Gin, or occasionally rum.  However, I do like a vodka & tonic or a screwdriver from time to time, and 42 Below is a common choice when I do choose vodka, so it seemed like a reasonable idea to try a new product from a brand I like at a 75% discount.  I was wrong.  Very, very wrong.

In case you think you may enjoy this product, I’ve compiled a list of questions you should ask yourself before deciding to purchase honey-flavored vodka:
Do you fantasize about being completely covered in honey?  (and not for kinky sexual reasons)
Do you have an overwhelming urge to inject pure honey directly into your brain?
Do you want to feel like you need to vomit on yourself right now?
Are you Winnie the Pooh?

If the answer to any of those questions is “Yes,” you’re part of the target market for 42 Below Honey.  If not, then you should avoid this drink at all costs.  Failure to take this warning seriously will result in a horrific sense of nausea each time you take a sip of your drink, and a potentially awful hangover the next morning due to drinking an entire bottle of honey vodka, just to get it out of your house.  (look, just because it’s disgusting doesn’t mean I’m going to throw out a full bottle of vodka. That‘s wasteful)  Making the hangover even worse, you’ll probably also have to drink five or six beers to get the taste of honey vodka out of your mouth.  Your best option is to avoid the middle man altogether and just drink the beers.

C-HO Mesothelioma Rating: 7 out of 10