A Shout-out to the Meth Dealers and Users in the Audience

  A few years ago, I expressed my contempt for lavish entertainment industry awards shows by sniffing disdainfully at the Emmys. I compared the networks' skill at creating quality television with my own (total lack of) skill at making crystal meth. As part of my snark, I ran a quick search for instructions on operating a meth lab, and linked to a couple of the pages that came up.

  Enter a group called 1800NoDrugs, which offers referral services for drug users looking to get into rehab. They've created a website at methamphetamines.org which, through clever use of keywords, comes up in a search for instructions on making meth. Budding entrepreneurs looking for an all cash opportunity, and desperate junkies looking to do a little homebrewing, go out on the web looking for help in setting up their labs and wind up getting advice on finding a residential treatment program.

  I'm all for a little subterfuge in the pursuit of helping drug addicts get clean. I don't give a puddle of opiate-laced urine what people put into their bodies, but if a search for tips on manufacturing drugs misleads someone into getting help for a life-sodomizing dependency, that's fine by me.

  The confusing bit is that, after the offer for help in finding a rehab program, methamphetamines.org lists other links for meth-making info. It's as if the site is saying "Oops, sorry for wasting your time with an offer of potentially life-saving help. Here's that information you wanted on using volatile chemicals to make an addictive substance." Seriously? Make the wannabes go back to Google if they're that determined to be drug kingpins.

  I'm flogging this particular equine-American because, by virtue of its included links, my long-ago Emmy-bashing post wound up in this list of "crystal meth making instructions Resources." Which means that I get a few hits a week from people who are, one assumes, looking for help in playing Trailer Crack: The Home Game.

  So, here's a friendly nod to the meth dealers and users wandering by. If the shakes subside long enough, feel free to browse around. Sorry, but you won't find any drug manufacturing instructions here. And in case you're wondering, I still don't watch the Emmys.

EDIT: I have caved to popular pressure and posted a sure-fire recipe for making crystal meth. Start building your drug empire here.

Someone Needs To Burn Down Bravo

  I don't usually go in for that "celebrity gossip blog" bullshit. As far as I'm concerned, celebrities are either human beings who deserve some modicum of privacy, or camera-fellating attention whores who don't need their already inflated egos stroked by the constant attention. I'm making an exception, however, for Bravo's new voyeurgasm Hey Paula.

  The satellite box was left on Bravo the other night, so when whatever it was that I was watching ended, I wound up right in the middle of en episode of Hey Paula. (I'd tell you what I was watching previously, but the memory of it was completely pounded out of my brain by the sheer horror of the subsequent spectacle.) I know I'm not the first person to observe this, but that woman is a fucking train wreck. She's whiny, hysterical, abusive and dismissive to her small army of personal staff, wildly more self-absorbed than her resume should permit, and she can't get through a sentence without slurring some relatively simple word.

  Anyone who's given even a cursory glance in the direction of American Idol knows that Abdul appears to be drunker than an Irish wake pretty much constantly. On her own show, she defends her behavior with a mantra of complaints about how little sleep she gets. On behalf of America, Ms. Abdul, I'd like to respectfully ask you to shut your fucking cry hole. Take one afternoon out of selling your crappy costume jewelry on QVC and take a nap. You'll either catch up on some sleep, or you'll lay off the hooch for a couple of hours. Either way, you might be able to get through your next public appearance without stumbling about in (a remarkable simulation of) a drunken stupor.

  Unless, of course, you're counting on your dubious behavior for publicity that your far more dubious talent and your appallingly infantile personality could never generate. In that case, keep it up. Just keep your fingers crossed that your fans don't get wise.