Luckily, even though the closest thing I’ve had to a child was a flower some chicks gave me in college that died because I forgot to water it for a week, I’ve been inspired (probably by God, but no guarantees) with a few hundred words of wisdom to guide you through the crap-caked puberty maze that is child rearing.

Part 1: Babies

Let’s get one thing straight. You hate babies. I get it. They don’t talk, they force you to abandon sleep, which you love more than almost anything, and their digestive tract is connected directly to hell. Babies are dumb and selfish and mostly no fun. And super, super breakable. One second the baby is having a good time with the weed-eater, the next second child services is trying to tell you how to be a parent. The hell do they know, right? After nine months of sitting on their asses and literally leeching off of you, you’d think babies wouldn’t be such… babies.

Here are two easy steps for handling these useless nightmares until they’re old enough to contribute:

1. Neglect:
If there’s one thing I learned growing up in an Irish home, it’s that you have to fend for yourself. Teach that lesson to your baby. Why should you have to change a diaper? You didn’t crap your baby’s pants did you? No. That baby knows damn well where the toilet is, it’s just being lazy. A few days of wallowing in its own filth will teach it to get up and take its nasty-butt business to the commode, where it belongs.

And breast feeding? Yougottabekiddingme! First of all, Oedipus, gross. Second of all, Maxim has taught us that boobs are for smashing into bras that are three sizes too small. That is NOT for you to munch on, munchkin. Toss your baby a Powerbar and a half gallon of milk. When the baby gets hungry, it’ll figure it out.

Got something to do? Got a TV? Problem solved. Plop that baby in front of the TV with an episode of Skins and go take that much needed siesta, my friend. TV is the baby opium that moms have been praying for since opium was outlawed. It really doesn’t matter what you put on the TV. Babies don’t give a crap, they’ll watch anything. No standards, the monsters.

2. Take Your Baby Everywhere:
Babies don’t know anything about the world. They’ve spent the first nine months of their lives sitting around and mooching off of their moms like some sweaty WoW addict. No more of that, kiddos. Going to see the latest horror flick, “The Exorcism of the Haunted Scream Halloween Saw: REAL3DTOtheMAX”? Bring your baby along. Everyone in the theater is going to respect you for it. You’re making the hard decision. Sure, maybe your baby will cry, scream, and beg you in baby language to take it home, but you’re the parent that clearly knows best. Stop crying and learn English, baby, and then maybe we can have a real conversation about how watching demons explode out of people’s eyes will put hair on your chest and prepare you to be a well-rounded, non-cannibalistic, non-satanic, non-serial killer when you grow up.

Pretty much every other place you might go is a good place to bring a baby. Crime scene? This is real life. Get used to it. Gym? You’re fat, baby. The world hates fat people. Booby bar? I know you love boobies. Look but don’t touch.

If there does happen to be a situation where, for some weird reason, you decide you’d rather not bring your newborn child, just leave it in the car.

And that’s it. Two easy steps for getting by until your baby becomes a human. Give me a week or twelve and I’ll hit you up again with the next step in How to Cope with Parenting: A Guide. Until then, get out there and show the world a new standard for parenting.

Typically, this is where the Ted Haggard references and “Weinergate” jokes would begin, but this is not your typical story of clerical indiscretion.  Ben Pritchett doesn’t go to Taboo because he’s “into that kind of thing.”  He goes to work.  He goes with permission from his wife and the blessings of his church’s elder board.

Pritchett’s presence at the strip club on this particular evening is part of a ministry focus that he terms “radical relevancy.”  Within the parameters of this initiative, student ministry professionals have license to experiment with all manner of vice in an effort to reach America’s jaded and over-stimulated “Youtube Generation” for the Lord.

After a young woman who calls herself Chastity finishes providing Pritchett with his 3^rd lap dance (aka “immersion experience”) of the evening, the 27 year-old father of four offers some insight as to why his unconventional approach is necessary.

“It used to be that all a youth pastor needed to connect with teens was a pair of cargo shorts and a soul patch.  Maybe some Ben Folds glasses.  Not anymore.  Not when parents are as cool as they are these days.  Moms and dads have Facebook accounts.  They’re hosting post-prom keg parties.  They’re listening to Cee Lo Green.  And if parents are that hip, how’s a Christian Education major like me supposed to stay edgy yet approachable?  I’ll tell you how – booby bars.”

Pritchett, a 4^th generation youth pastor, goes on to say that he first attempted to bridge the generation gap through more traditional means before resorting to his current “shock and awe” approach.

“Listen, broskie, I did it all,” says Pritchett, motioning to his “I Heart Liberty City” T-Shirt to add emphasis to his point.  “I was dropping S-bombs and ‘tard’ in casual conversation.  I was re-tweeting Texts From Last Night during church.  I was watching hours of Spike TV every night.  It wasn’t enough.  I mean, honestly, how many Lonely Island lyrics can one person memorize?”

Apparently not enough.  Citing the Apostle Paul’s exhortation to “become all things to all people” Pritchett began engaging in what he calls “testimony enhancement” exercises.  It started with Four Loko’s and Judd Apatow director’s cuts, progressed rapidly to experimentation with low grade narcotics, and eventually landed him at Taboo, where he can regularly be found dumping trash bags full of offering-plate subsidized singles onto the heads of cosmetically enhanced teen runaways.

Pritchett says it’s too early to tell if his time at Taboo is having an impact on the kids, but initial signs are positive.

“The guys in my Tuesday night small group have all responded really well to my ‘tales of T&A,’’ says Pritchett as he polishes off another Michelob Ultra.  “They’re engaged.  They ask questions.  They stay afterward to discuss it in greater detail.  It’s been really cool to see.”

He also brushes off any implications that his nonchalant engagement with skin bars might be having a negative effect on his students by making morally questionable behavior seem cool or somehow sanctifying.

“It’s like my first boss at the West Orange KFC told me: it doesn’t matter where you get your appetite, as long as you eat at home.  That’s something that I think is so important for the youth of today to understand.”

Have you ever gone to a friend of yours – someone you trust to care for and embrace you in your time of need – and bitched about that bad day, as unextraordinary as it might have been? You groggily stumble over to their desk/cubicle/house or lethargically shoot them a text message and talk about the excruciatingly verbose and unnecessary lecture you just received about the company’s policy on section whatever-dot-whatever in the procedures for whatever-the-hell-it-was, hoping to receive a little emotional “I got your back, bro” from your friend. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, really.

But, somehow, it apparently is too much to ask, because that asshat of a friend just has to respond with the most annoying that-doesn’t-help-at-all response:

“It could be worse.”

No way? It could be worse? Damn, I hadn’t thought about that. I feel so much better now that you pointed out that my crappy, frustrating day could be even crappier and more frustrating. You’re so right. I could be crippled. Or bald. Or Rachel Maddow/Sarah Palin (take your pick based on your political preferences). You’re always getting me to look on the bright side of things, friend.

Well...

Except that’s not at all how you feel, because that’s not at all a helpful thing for someone to say when you just want to have a bit of an innocent bitchfest about something that anyone would call obnoxious. In fact, it’s rarely ever a helpful thing to say. It doesn’t make something crappy better to know that there is something crappier out there. If I just broke one of my legs in a wild break-dancing related accident, it won’t make my leg hurt less if you tell me that I could have broken both of my legs. I still broke my leg you stupid jackass. That still sucks.

If you happen to voice this concern to your mentally inanimate friend, you may receive the following defense:

“It happens to everybody.”

If everyone got kicked in the balls at the same time, that doesn’t make getting kicked in the balls feel good. It’s still a kick to the balls. The fact that it happens to everyone just means that everyone has a pretty legitimate reason to piss and moan, not that they should just shut up about it because “it’s the standard.” If the standard sucks, then complaining about the standard becomes the standard.

Think about it. You’ll get it.

Ruth (Jenna Jameson) and Boaz (Michael Cera) have promised themselves and their Facebook groups to lose their virginity and have torrid sex on their wedding night. They’ve made it through the courtship, through the engagement, and through the Joshua Harris conference, but now they’ll have to make it through the wedding…and what a wedding it will be!  From a unity candle that won’t stay lit to an uncomfortable reading from Song of Solomon, events seem to be conspiring to keep Ruth and Bo from the blessed consummation they have heard so much about on the cover of Cosmopolitan.

True love has waited long enough!

When, at long last, the ceremony concludes and the reception begins, the mishaps and mayhem only get worse.  With no alcohol and no dance floor Ruth and Bo thought they were playing it safe and paving the way for a long night of necking and heavy petting.  They didn’t plan on Bo’s best man, Jeremy, having a few too many sparkling grape juices before his toast.  His graphic retelling of Bo’s church camp van encounters throws the assembled guests into fits of indignation.  Relationship Defining Talks and readings of Proverbs 31 ensue.  And that’s only the beginning!

What carnal advice is Ruth’s unsaved grandfather (Michael W. Smith) whispering in her ear?  What PG-13 plans do their friends have for their getaway car decorations? (You can bet there won’t be any prophylactics!)  Will the two ever make it to the Holiday Inn? Will they in fact “do it again and again” like that lady from the abstinence conference said they would?  You’ll have to watch to find out!

Whether you’ve had sex before or just think about it all the time, It’s About Time! has something for everyone.  Watch it with your youth pastor!  Watch it with your parents!  Watch it with your fornicating, non-Christian friends!

Watch it again and again and again.

This article was brought to us by the honorable and venerable James King, a master of thumb wrestling, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and RISK: Lord of the Rings Edition. We’ve made him laugh many times, and now we thank him for returning the favor.

The social universe has an unspoken balance in place that ensures that life makes sense. We hang out with people as cool as we are, we date within our acceptable range, and people that are born into wealth and status run our countries. When some son of a bitch tries to upset that balance, bad things happen. Remember the French Revolution? That happened because one of Quasimodo’s descendants landed a smoking-hot art model. The Civil War? Some mustachioed sea donkey from the North decided she wanted to date a studly land owner from Alabama.  Name any natural disaster and it can be traced back to some fugly idiot not following the rules of romance. If you mess with the balance, the universe compensates with blood.

Despite this delicate equilibrium, matchmaking is never perfect. Occasionally it is so uneven that it elicits a deep sense of injustice from our communal soul, sort of like any time Keanu Reeves gets another acting gig. You know something isn’t right. You can feel it. Someone is getting something they don’t deserve.

So, you walking dumpster, how do you make things right once you have a hottie in your white-knuckled, kill-me-to-take-it grip? How do you cope with dating someone that is hotter than you? Grab your Moleskine and take a seat, my child. We have much to discuss.

One rule: Over Compensate
She’s a 10 and you’re a 3. That’s a pretty sizable gap, almost as significant as the one between your two front teeth. You’re going to need to string a rope-bridge across that dark chasm. When people see you with your deafeningly hot significant other, the comments will go something like this:

“Damn, (he/she) is so (hot/attractive/sexcellent). Why is (he/she) with that Seth Rogen look alike? Well, I guess (he/she) is at least (fill in the blank).”

That blank can be filled with a few different things that will help even the score between you and your walking fantasy.

That is one unattractive dude.

1. Get in ridiculous shape.
You can’t help having a Haitian Earthquake for a face, but you can blast your pecks into beautiful oblivion. Work out constantly, get really into triathlons, get ab implants – whatever you want. You need to work your way into the “butterface” zone so people may be able to shrug off the 7 point difference between you and the Greek sculpture you’re dating.

2. Get rich and/or famous.
Ideally this would happen before you start dating a walking masterpiece, but if you somehow win the lottery before buying the ticket you still have options. Are you talented? You’d better hope you are. It doesn’t matter if you’re the world’s greatest tap dancer or if you start the next Google, you just need to be on top of something. It can even be something nerdy like math or writing internet humor, people won’t care as long as they have a good reason not to kill you for upsetting cupid’s system. Hell, you may even be able to get away with being a second or third string celebrity/musician/mogul, you’ll just have to deal with more public anger and ridicule than you would have if you were Seal.

Apparently he's a great musician.

3. Get a horrible disease.
If all else fails, there’s always the “Make-A-Wish Foundation” route. This is the Hail-Mary of dating-up excuses, but it is also one of the hardest with which to argue. Example:
“Damn, that girl is fine. What’s she doing with that retarded hippopotamus?”
“Bro, you’re an asshole. That guy has EbolasyphillAIDS. He’s already died like three times.”
You’re clearly not otherwise qualified to bask in the magical fairy-glow of hotness that shines forth from your spouse, but somehow you’ve earned it by suffering so hard that even Job says “yikes, that sucks.”

Follow these rules and you might be able to avoid getting hit by a meteor for dating someone that even blind people can tell is better looking than you.

Enjoy pointing out who got the sweeter deal in a relationship? Roll on over to SheWonHeWon.com and vote on hotness to your heart’s content!

“Sure, we make fun of Catholics. I mean, they do worship Mary and all, but no one can deny that their use of guilt as mind control revolutionized religion” said Dan Alterman, pastor of some church which members describe as “bible-based.” According to Alterman, guilt has long been used to control church-goers.

“It’s easy to throw a guilt trip at someone, and then ‘boom,’ you have your adult chaperon for your next mission trip to Guatemala.”

Catholics, Alterman says, have perfected the use of guilt, getting their followers worldwide to do crazy things like giving up chocolate during Lent or telling their deepest, darkest secrets to lonely, unmarried men.

“Statistics show that only 24% of the world’s usable guilt is being utilized as an energy source,” Alterman says, not citing any resources. “It’s time to bring guilt into the 21st century.”

(Note: This stat is a bit misleading as it leaves out the fact that TOMS Shoes is burning roughly 16% of the world’s guilt by selling shoes to help improve the lives of the people who made the Nike shoes that the TOMS customers feel guilty for buying in the first place.)

“We see it as a way of reaching out to the community, and the rest of the world, and saying, ‘Jesus loves the WHOLE WORLD, even the hippy, environmental part of it,’” Alterman explained.

Many members, including Alterman himself, are doing their best to raise awareness about the new fuel which will purportedly fuel everything from cars to toasters to the factories that produce the Prius that Alterman drives to church.

Alterman’s own son Josh had the idea – some might call it a divine revelation – while observing the exhaling breaths of people at concessions stands at the moment that they are asked if they want cheese with their soft pretzel. “There’s a lot of guilt tied up in getting a pretzel AND the processed cheese sauce” says the 17 year-old who works at the AMC over on Roy Road. This was the initial breakthrough that lead Alterman to begin harvesting “guilt sighs” during his famous sermon series Sad-Looking Minority Children and Starving Puppies.

But after harvesting all of that guilt, how will it be used as fuel? Alterman has the answer: “We’re doing our best to be ecumenical, so we’re working with General Motors’ Smart Energy People [Editor: "Engineers"] to develop a new engine powered entirely by guilt.” The questions of whether or not the technology to efficiently turn guilt into energy is possible or whether or not Alterman knows that he incorrectly used the word “ecumenical” have yet to be answered.

A GM prototype sketch featuring the theoretical "Guilt-Eating Rabbit Engine"

Stay with TTM for further developments.

TTM welcomes the humorous musings of Matt Browning of “Real World: Omaha” fame to our humble website. We have spent the last six months recruiting Matt, and almost lost him to the Bulls. Luckily, LeBron ganked his spot and he had to settle.

Our Paragon of Masculinity, pushing more hair out of his chest with raw anger

1. How often do you watch UFC?

A. Always.

B. Always and with beers.

C. All of the above.

D. What’s UFC? I’m gay.

2. How often do you play video games?

A. Only with one of my multitude of children. I’ve lost count of them.

B. All the time. I’m a loser.

C. Sometimes. I’m a half loser.

D. What’s UFC? I’m gay.

3. How often do you fist fight?

A. Sometimes, but now that I’ve found Jesus I’m trying to stop.

B. Never anymore, but I used to fight people all the time. That was my sordidly badass past, which I talk about often in order to witness to others.

C. Only when dudes fail this test. Just kidding… Or am I?

D. I punch like a girl and am gay.

4. What do you think of having a family?

A. I am married and am actively producing offspring.

B. I am unmarried, but look forward to being a father like Mark, and especially look forward to the process of making children which I will talk about frequently in Church because that shouldn’t make you uncomfortable.

C. I am too busy trying not to fist fight to have children, but I will one day because having lots of children is a divine mandate.

D. I do not want children. I play lots of video games and am gay.

5. What are women good for?

A. Bringing me non-light (i.e. non-wimpy) beer as I watch UFC.

B. Incubating children for our large family.

C. I’m not sure.

D. Women are an important part of the Church because they contribute to Church development through theological interpretation and Church leadership. I am a gay heretic.

SCORING (DON’T LOOK HERE UNTIL YOU’RE DONE. GOD IS WATCHING)

A = 5 points.

B = 4 points.

C = 3 points.

D = 0 points.

20-25 points = Welcome to Mars Hill! Head to the information table to find out how to join an Arm Wrestling Small Group!

15-19 = Not our first pick, but welcome to Mars Hill anyway. Brush up on your micro-brews and you should fit in fine.

9-14 = Hmmm. Well. I mean, I guess we’ve got some room. Why don’t you come by the Men’s Automobile Repair and Violence retreat, and we’ll see where it goes from there. Sound fair?

0-9 = You’re either a woman who took this test on accident or you’re gay. Either way, we have a retreat to cure you.

Okay, so maybe that’s a little extreme.  Obviously there are worse places in the world than an American freeway at rush hour.  (The back seat on a Greyhound bus comes to mind.)  Can we at least agree that traffic is the most annoying thing in the world?  And yes, I’m putting it above Wanda Sykes, rainy weekends, and middle schoolers in a movie theater.

To say traffic is one of my pet peeves would be like saying that civil liberties were one of Stalin’s pet peeves or that George W. Bush “annoyed” some political science professors.  I hate traffic.  It makes me crazy.  No matter how much I brace for it or plan my trip to account for it, I always end up losing my freaking mind.  I gesture and curse, I rant and rave, I call down fire from heaven.  I go nuts.

I don’t like feeling this way.  The occasional longwinded rant notwithstanding, I consider myself a fairly even-tempered guy.  I’m not prone to fits of rage and I don’t often ponder the ways my temperament might be improved by an automatic weapon.  Traffic makes me do these things.  But why?  Why have six short months in Los Angeles (aka The Julliard School for traffic jams of promise) transformed me from Jeffrey Lebowski into a ball of rage who is perhaps only days away from (a) some serious stomach ulcers and/or (b) pleading guilty to vehicular homicide?  I have some theories.

My first problem with traffic is that it is an inexcusable underutilization of one of the great inventions of human existence: the automobile.  The automobile is a wonder of modern technology.  It allows us to travel at speeds unimaginable even 100 years ago.  Yet there it sits, bumper to bumper with its similarly impotent peers, while lesser modes of transit like bicycles and feet race ahead on nearby pedestrian walkways.  I defy anyone to show me a situation more frustrating, more enraging, more downright tragic than watching an octogenarian in a motorized cart reach your exit before you do.

And my car isn’t just sitting anywhere mind you.  It’s sitting on a freeway. Freeways are to cars what military service is to high school linebackers.  It’s what they were made for.  Sitting in a car that’s parked on an interstate is like starving at a Golden Corral.  You have a machine (your vehicle or your mouth, respectively) which wants to do only one thing (drive, eat) and here it is in the one place where it can experience the fullness of all it was meant to be (an open road, a buffet) and yet it is doing the exact opposite (idling, starving).  Inexcusable.

It is one of the cruel tricks of the universe, and an indictment of traffic’s wickedness, that the only thing more aggravating than being stuck in traffic is to be freed from traffic.  This is because 90% of traffic jams end without explanation.  One moment I’m taking a nap while I roll along at 0.5 mph, and the next I’m cruising at 70 without so much as a construction zone or escaped zoo animal to account for it.

I’m more pissed now than ever.  “WHY?” I shout to the heavens. Why did this have to happen?  To what end?  For what purpose have I been tormented?  It’s not enough that I’m going fast again.  I want answers.  I want to know what greater good was served by my time in gridlock.  I want – alright, I’ll admit it, I want an accident.

Go ahead and call me a terrible person, but don’t tell me you haven’t thought the same thing.  I don’t want anyone to get hurt or killed or anything crazy like that.  I just want to see some good, old-fashioned, drivers-ed-worthy wreckage.  I sacrificed 30 to 90 perfectly good minutes of my 20s.  All I want in return is a Hyundai wrapped around a telephone pole.  Or maybe an 18-wheeler on its side with Hostess products strewn across the asphalt.  Or anything on fire.  Whatever.  I’m not picky.  I ask only that it justify the delay and that it look awesome.

But no.  Nine times out of ten the bottleneck’s origin is more underwhelming than Britney Spears’ acting career.  It’s a stalled vehicle 25 feet off the shoulder.  It’s a puddle.  It’s a curve in the road.  It’s some jackass who hits his breaks for no reason thereby forcing the next 1,000 drivers behind him to hit their breaks at the same spot.  It’s nothing and no one and my precious minutes die in vain – unexplained and unavenged.

I’ll say it one final time, traffic sucks something awful.  I could go on (and on, and on, and on) but, depending on your reading level, I think my five minutes are almost up.

I’ll close with this.

Traffic is a step backward for humanity.  It is the most disagreeable symptom of civilization as well as a compelling argument against it. If I’ve learned anything from The Road, The Book of Eli, or Revelation it’s that freedom from traffic will be the coolest thing about the coming nuclear holocaust.  Will it make the cold, hunger, and roving bands of inbred barbarians worth it?  I couldn’t say.

Am I looking forward to finding out?  You bet.

This is not the article I wanted to write.  When I set out to write a review of MTV’s controversial new reality show Jersey Shore, I had a pretty good idea of how it was going to go.  I was going to write my standard (dare I say “trademark?”), long-winded rant which would combine obscure references, big words, and level one swears to express my deep displeasure with the show’s public displays of douchebaggery.

It seemed pretty straightforward. The show is a vocal proponent of self-ascribed nicknames, the state of New Jersey, and Italian-Americans engaging in non-mob activities. I had (and have) no interest in any of those things, and was confident in my ability to heap scorn on Jersey Whore.

But that was before I watched my first episode.

Fifteen minutes into “researching” my article, a strange thing began happening to me.  It’s the same thing that happened to John Smith in Pocahontas.  And the main character in Avatar.  And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  I fell in love with that which I set out to destroy.

Since last Monday, I have watched all eight episodes of Jersey Shore and several of the “After Hours” Q&A sessions with cast members.  During the course of my research, I was forced to modify my article’s thesis.  It now reads: Yo, Tila Tequila, I’m really happy for you and I’ma let you finish, but Jersey Shore is the best reality show of all time.  OF ALL TIME!

I know.  Calling a show the best reality show of all time is a bit like calling the Phoenix Mercury the best team in the WNBA.  It’s not saying much and it’s still not real television.  But it is something.  Love it or hate it, reality television speaks to our culture.  Since the debut of The Real World in 1992, reality television has been increasing in both airtime and, more importantly, influence.  From The Bachelor to The Hills to The View, reality TV is everywhere.

So it is no small thing when I say, with complete sincerity, that the eight juiced-up, fake-baked, foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, hard-fighting, STD-collecting, toilet bowl-hugging Guidos in the Jersey Shore house represent the pinnacle of all that reality TV aspires to be.

Don’t misunderstand me.  The stars of the show are every bit the self-absorbed, inarticulate, non-contributing zeroes you imagine they are.  The Italian-American organizations who criticize the show as “the biggest step backward for Italian-Americans since the birth of John Bon Jovi” are exactly right.  The cast members suck to a degree that is both impressive and remarkably consistent.  As an example, here is one exchange which is particularly illustrative of the lifestyles and IQs we’re dealing with.

(Sami “Sweetheart” and Ronnie are debriefing after their first night of promiscuous sex)

• Sami: Yeah, I had sex.  I mean, of course you’re gonna have sex if you like somebody.  Um, hello!  It’s natural!
• Ronnie: We smooshed. (fist pumps)

They are, without exception, terrible people.  And that is precisely the point.  The laws of reality TV dictate that every show must have a “token toolshed.”  For a reality show to survive it needs a guy/girl/trannie who will stir the pot, say offensive things, get someone pregnant, OD on NyQuil, and generally move the plot forward.  To effectively fill this role, a cast member must lack morals, restraint, basic human decency, and – most importantly – anything resembling self-awareness.

With Jersey Shore, MTV has for the first time stocked a reality show exclusively with token toolsheds.  Every guy is “that guy.”  Every girl is “OMG…ho bag!!!!”  It’s as if the producers only accepted applications from society’s Douchebag Elite (i.e. DJs, club promoters, assistant managers of fitness clubs, amateur models, and Ed Hardy enthusiasts.)  This makes for a fairly predictable storyline (i.e. posture, argue, drink, fist fight, hook-up, pass out, repeat), but it also makes for brilliant reality television.

As I have said before, reality television is not here to celebrate America’s best and brightest.  That’s what the Country Music Awards are for.  Reality television is for shining a spotlight on all that is base, freakish, and dysfunctional in America.  We watch families disintegrate and coeds get alcohol poisoning and we can’t help but feel better about ourselves.  It’s the feel-good genre of the 21^st century!  With the help of reality television, even the worst parent, the most irresponsible drunk, the most promiscuous cheerleader, and the most fist-pumpingest frat boy can point at someone else and say, “well, at least I’m not THAT bad.”

The problem is, as America accelerates its slippery slide to Sodom, the reality television machine has had to scramble to keep pace.  As real life douchebags strut out of the closet and into Armani Exchange in ever-increasing numbers, the reality show douchebags must rise to an even higher (or sink to an even lower) level.

In that respect, Jersey Shore may have saved reality television.  Vinny, Ronnie, Snooki, Sweetheart, Jolie, Pauly D, JWoww, and The Situation are the new gold standard by which all future television toolsheds will be judged.  These eight have advanced the limits of douchebaggery to heights never before thought possible, and I refuse to believe any actual person will ever equal them.  Or maybe I just don’t want to.

I take comfort in their accomplishment.  I sleep more soundly at night.  Or at least I hope I do. The Jersey Shore season finale is tomorrow night and, judging from the previews, it’s going be an emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually draining hour of television.  Trust me, you do NOT want to miss it.

(In other, unrelated MTV news, I had my first “I have lost all connection with young people” moment last week.  While innocently watching Jersey Shore, I was treated to a public service announcement featuring an apparently nude girl standing in an empty gym and holding a large poster over her lady parts.  The girl stared at the ground in shame while a voiceover intoned, “If someone pressures you to send revealing photos, you can say no.  Because there’s a thin line between him and the rest of the world.”  For the first, but assuredly not the last, time permit me to inquire, “Is THAT what kids are doing these days?”)

SPOILER ALERT: He pretty much gives away the whole movie.

BY: Benjamin Woodyard

I want to tell you guys out there about the movie Avatar. It’s so cool.  The dragons are so cool.  The floating mountains are so cool.  The main guy (I forget his name) is so cool.  I think pretty much everyone thinks it’s probably the best movie of all time.  Some people might say Harry Potter or Monsters Inc. or something else is better, but that’s probably because they saw it in a normal theater instead of in 3-D which is how I saw it.

Avatar is about this soldier who’s in a wheelchair for some reason we don’t know about.  (Probably from fighting the terrorists in Detroit.)  He goes in a space ship to another planet which is kind of like Earth except cooler because they have aliens and dragons.

When he gets to the new planet he meets this army general who talks about how everyone wants to kill the people but how the people are going to kill everyone first because the people have guns and no one else does.  I think.  It was kind of confusing.  But then the wheelchair guy meets the mean lady from Holes.  She’s a scientist or something.  She’s mean to him at first because he’s in a wheelchair.  My mom says this is called “disc-information.”

So then the wheelchair guy goes into this tube and when he wakes up he’s one of the aliens.  The scientist lady and some other people are aliens too.  They all go exploring the planet together.  Wheelchair guy gets separated from the group when these big rhinoceros-looking monsters chase him into the forest.  Oh yeah, he’s not in a wheelchair anymore.  It gets dark and everyone else has to go home to bed (probably by 9:30) but he stays out in the jungle cause he’s lost.

Some dogs with six legs try to eat him but an alien girl saves him. All the animals have six legs which I guess is better than four.  The alien girl isn’t wearing a shirt and you can totally see her boobs but my mom said it was okay because she’s an alien and her boobs are blue.  She only has two boobs.  She takes him to her tribe and at first they want to kill him but they decide not to.

For a long time he hangs out with the aliens to learn how to be like them.  Here’s some of the stuff he does: climbs trees, rides horses, hunts with a bow and arrow, plugs his ponytail into stuff, and wrestles dragons!!  That was probably my favorite part.  That or the time he smashed the two helicopters together like they were made out of LEGOs.

Then he falls in love with the girl alien who rescued him and things get weird for a minute. My mom made me cover my eyes during this part but I think they were doing the same thing Brian (that’s my older brother) was doing with his girlfriend last week when my parents were out to dinner.  So things are going good for the main guy.

But then everything gets bad because the guy from Gone in 60 Seconds wants to open a coal mine right where the aliens are camping.  I know how he feels because one time I wanted to build a fort behind the couch (which is probably the best spot in my house to build a fort) but my dad said I couldn’t because we had company coming over.

The main guy thinks if the humans kick the aliens out, then the girl alien won’t make out with him anymore, so he tells the humans to leave them alone.  So then there’s a big battle.  I don’t want to give away how the battle ends, but basically it’s like the end of Return of the Jedi except the aliens are awesome like Legolas from Lord of the Rings instead of like the Ewoks who are stupid like my little sister’s zhu zhu pet.

That’s pretty much the rest of the movie except for this part at the end where all the humans get kicked off the planet.  My mom said the movie had a “viral mental” message and that’s why my dad had to sell his Hummer.  I think the message is that dragons are awesome and aliens aren’t as bad as some movies make them look.

One day I hope to visit another planet.

The idea for this article and several of it’s humorous lines were taken from an article written for another publication by Mark “Sugar, We’re Going Down” Downey.  It is used with his begrudging permission.  Mr. Downey has not tasted meat since the spring of 1993, but he has killed more squirrels than you will likely ever see.

Check out more “Biased Reviews” written by Teddy Roosevelt, Paul Walker, Harry Potter, Jennifer Aniston, and more.

That picture of Benjamin is copyrighted Yahoo.com and probably “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader.”