*Preface - Today has been long day. Rex Grossman and the Chicago Bears still beat the Eagles yesterday (I didn't dream it), it took forever to get to and from work, and I have shaky hands that ruin any photograph I attempt to take. I feel the need to unload on something.*

I woke up this morning to something I've been anticipating. And while I wouldn't go so far as to say I was eagerly awaiting it's arrival, I knew deep down in my heart its' coming was inevitable.

See, some things are too good to be true, and when reality strikes, it feels colder than the 0 degrees, Kelvin. As if you were given a free pass during the holiday season to drive as fast as you want on the open roads, then suddenly and with only slight warning signs, the roads get congested, mushy, and altogether unkind. The harsh winds start blowing directly into your face, and the path ahead is as unclear as Sean Paul speaking.

Still wondering what I'm going on about?

ABC's hit show,Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, has screwed over a family with more than enough troubles of its own. Extreme Makeover builds dream houses for underprivileged families, both extremes in their own rights, with the finished houses being ridiculously pimped out, and the families being severely underprivileged, many times appearing on the verge of bankruptcy because they either have too many children and/or need to pay hospital fees up the wazoo.

This makes for a very compelling story line, complete with the telling of the life story that led the family to the unfortunate borderline poverty situation they currently reside in, then finishing off with tears of joy as the family rejoices over a brand new house, furnished and finished at no cost to the family, supposedly. All very moving, and I know people that are near tears after watching this show.

Somebody hold me.

But that's only half the story. By increasing the worth of the property, the taxing of said property should very well increase proportionately. Of course, a family barely able to support itself before the upgrade in housing most probably would have no way to pay off additional taxes.

David Goldberg, president of the production company that delivers the show, countered with the statement, "It's about making people's dream of owning a home come true. It isn't about duping them and then leaving them riddled with a bunch of tax bills."

Or is it? DAVID? IS IT REALLY?

I never liked this show, and this just story just further alienates and infuriates me. There's a basic rule that was implicitly taught to me by my loving parents through the years as they started me off with a $1/week allowance, and that was to never give a huge amount of money to those that have never before handled a similar amount of money, because they won't know what to do with it.

You generously heap televisions, cars, houses, and money onto people that have owned nothing more than the equivalent of a cardboard box, how soon before they turn around and sell it to the first person that comes knocking? Or get squashed by taxation? Or, worse yet, mishandle and lose it all?

Note that I'm not discouraging generosity, in fact, you should be going out of your way to give to the needy, provided you do it in the right way.

This show goes about it in a way that is rewarding unfortunate circumstance, spoiling people for a day or two, then running away before the consequences of spoiling settle in, without looking back at the repercussions, or ever looking to correct the unfortunate circumstances in the first place. How about providing some meaningful employment opportunities instead of building a house that begs to not only be taxed higher, but also broken into?

In the end, it's all one big ruse to exploit the tear-jerking stories, and turn it into television revenue. ABC, I'm never going to watch your show, and if it weren't for the one or two compelling shows that your network happens to carry, I'd petition for a boycott of your channel altogether, including the removal of the '1' and '8' buttons on my television remote, an impressively ignorant, but definitely defiant, move.

Just in case, I'm going to use up a full post to point out the changes made to Stupefying Stupidity, all carried out under the guise of making your viewing experience more fulfilling and convenient, when in actuality, the changes were made because I felt the need to flex my Photoshop/HTML muscles, of which I own about as much as I have real muscle in my body (faint and fading traces).

But first, important business needs to be addressed. While I can see the merits of getting through the nitty (that's not a word?) gritty details of how I finally decided on a classification scheme for my links section, and then ending this post with the big news, in order to ensure that you must read through the entire post or at the very least, click the "read more" button, thus increasing the time you spend on this site which I can track, but not only have I wasted away two good paragraphs, this sentence is quite the run-on, so I'll be nice and hopefully the fantastic revelation will be enough to entice you to continue reading.

I hope you're holding onto something. You may not be ready for what you are about to read.

I have to make you wait for this one.

Snakes on a Plane, the DVD, in stores everywhere! But that's not it...

Any time now...

Stupefying Stupidity, has been crowned the "Best Internet Site of 2006" by the terrific people over at Tambo001.

Re-read that sentence if you have to. Please, try not to look so shocked.

Technically, I share this honor with Facebook, but I choose to overlook this, just like I choose to overlook the fact that it's actually a shinier, slightly distorted, still aawesome, version of me that is Time Magazine's reigning Person of the Year.

It's appreciative people like you the reader, and the tremendous Tambo001, that spur me on to greater, not necessarily more eloquent, but definitely more arrogant, heights when it comes to the persona personified on this blog. And go ahead, click on the link that will take you to her site, because she writes more often and more thoughtfully than I. I'm still double-a aawesome, and I know that like the Terminator, you'll be back.

In fact, I'll wait.

*nondescript humming...of Vanessa Hudgens' 'Come Back To Me'*

There seems to be an overabundance of stalling on this post.

I was ever so tempted to upgrade her link status to professional but I decided against it at the very last minute, for reasons that I will get into in a future post seeing how I probably won't be talking about the tweaks and changes today after-all. Terribly talented Tammy, don't take offense to the non-upgraded link status, I put the full self-promoting propaganda machine behind your blog in this acceptance speech, and it would be a shame if you were to take offense and then we'd have to do the Internet Beef thing, complete with slanderous comments and all.

Although I suspect that it'd attract more attention to both our blogs, so I'd be open to privately discuss the possibility of sparking a fake blog war to generate traffic. Isn't that how rappers sell albums these days?

Tricked you, now go read Tambo001's site.

To Whom It May Concern.

I have been a Blogger user since '03, and never once considered switching over to another free blog host, all of which I consider inferior to the service you provide. That theory was only solidified when Google purchased Blogger, because Google seems to have a good track record in investments and seeing the future.

With all that sucking up out of the way, I'd like to inform you that I have not been put on the supposed select list of blogger that are being allowed to switch over their accounts to Blogger in Beta, this new venture co-hosted by Google and Blogger. Considering my phenomenal loyalty, this is rather unsettling. And not to sound demanding or anything, but I better be able to upgrade to this Blogger in Beta thing by the end of this week, or else I will badmouth you on Wikipedia.

I wait expectingly.

Thank you.