Celebrity WHAT Showdown? Are You Freakin' KIDDING Me?

It should be pretty clear to anyone who watches even just a few minutes of TV a week that NBC simply no longer gives a flaming sack of crap. Their new programming strategy appears to be "Well, we got a lot o' air time t' fill, an' we don' really care what we fill it with." Apparently, they'll throw just about anything on the air wherever there's an opening, without, I'd guess, actually bothering to watch it and determine if its any good or not. Seriously, people, how the hell else do you explain such nonsense as Deal Or No Deal, The Biggest Loser, The Apprentice, Teachers, Four Kings, Medium, Las Vegas and Crossing Jordan. And now there's Celebrity Cooking Showdown. Geez, this sounds like an idea (and I use that term extremely loosely) too cheesy even for NBC's sister network Bravo, and, believe me, in the post-Queer Eye For The Straight Guy era that's a major, though dubious, accomplishment.

Y'know, I'm not getting paid for this, and there are other things I could be doing. I could go to bed early, or watch the Special Features on the Revenge of the Sith DVD or read Joe's manuscript that he's been bugging me for weeks to return to him or that Hunter Thompson memoir that I checked out of the library almost two weeks ago or work on that piece about poker player Jesse Alto that I've been meaning to write for a quite a few months now or...or...or...anything, dammit, absolutely bloody anything, but subject myself to Celebrity Cooking Freakin' Showdown...

But you and I both know what's going to happen. No matter how hard I try to avoid it, sometime this week I'm going to break down and turn the TV over to Channel 4 and actually watch this damned thing. Why? I'll tell you why: I am sick. Sick and weak. I need help. Turn Away!! Don't look at me, I'm Hideous!!