h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If a poorly made hour-long commercial can wear down your self-esteem that much, I think you have much bigger proglems than insomnia.

On the other hand, if you suddenly realize two days later that you really DO need that AbSmusher or Rotato (one of those is a real product, by the way), help is as close as your web browser. Go to http://www.informercialindex.com/index.html and you'll discover that you can search for those late-night wonders by name or by spokesperson, and even order online.

Dear God WHY?!

This is the web. We don't NEED a reason.

"This is the web, we don't need a reason".......

Sounds like the film Trainspotting - "Who needs reasons when you've got heroine?" - and the principle is just ther same.

The world in which we live spends most of it's time undermining the self-esteem of the "average" individual, in order to promote some or other point of view which more intellectually autonomous people might otherwise reject. The result is a search for escapes and/or substitutes.

Buying something to make yourself feel better is one widely recognised "solution". But really it's just giving in to (and thus perpetuating) the pressures that create the problem. Taking drugs is another, which suggests to me that drug "abuse" is the RESULT rather than the CAUSE of society's ills. Or of course you can just lose yourself in the web, rather than get out there and live a real life that is rewarding and fun.

For the record I'm preparing a series of lectures (and associated website) on this very issue, but I'm constantly distracted by the sealions in my back garden and the demands of the ex-model who shares my new sailboat with me.

Follow me and cop out! Join the DotCommunists. Whatever. Just stop whingeing and get on with it.

Why is there an inordinately large number of ex-pat Brits with annoying Brummie accents on infomercials?

How many rolls for those types do you see rolling out of hollywood?
Probably all have the same agent too.
Frankly put, while SOME of these things do have value to them, I have yet to see one that actually deserves a whole half hour devoted to it. Could be worse tho, you could have to write for one of these. How many ways can you tell people that something isn't the piece of crud they think it is.

There are a few rare gems - that tent you can set up by just tossing into the air? Bloody ingenious that!

At 3 am (welcome to the club) you could watch other stuff if you're at home in UK, most of it guaranteed to send you to sleep.
If you're in a hotel room there's the ubiquitous Sedish porn - also pretty yawn inducing. Or you could turn the radio on instead. Personally, I've always fancied some of that car polish that they set fire to on a Rolls Royce, but I need the Rolls Royce first and that is taking some time to come by.

Speaking of other stuff there is always those cheaply made tacked together little numbers like Great Animal Rescues, Police chases, etc ad nauseum. If infomercials are feeding on the avid misguided wish fulfilment stuff then these programs are spot on with the sad but just as avid "rubber-necking" habits of humans..then there are the Talk Shows...Jerry Springer, Oprah etc with people literally climbing all over each other to tell their sordid little tales and behave in the worse possible way ..all for 15 minutes of "fame" [ maybe money ? ].
TV is getting worse by the day.
However...is it TV's fault or the advertisers and are they creating this need or ours for continually viewing such trash. Oh yes - word has it that the most popular program on American TV is WW [ or whatever it is called ] wrestling. Is this for real ?

What, the wrestling or the fact that it's so popular?

Wrestling used to be quite popular here (in NZ), remember "On the Mat" in the early 70's?

(an American)

Wrestling popularity seems to fluxuate in cycles or something... its currently more obnoxious than usual. If it indeed is the most watched program on TV, somebody please Nuke the ever living Ab-Masters out of us.... ((just give me enough warning to head to the Great White North)).

You can read more about why braindead saps suck in my new book "Nuke them all and let the theoretical physicists sort it out"... Now just 9.95... but thats not all, you also get this handy bottle of asperin, earplugs, even a school desk to huddle underneath... //** Click **\\