The Bottom Ten, September, 2005

Here at Michael Appleby Technologies Inc. we are always looking for new and exciting ways to indoctrinate you, the masses. Tonight we present to you the first of what we hope will be many top ten lists. This list, however, is the bottom ten. The bottom ten what? Who the fuck knows. So sit back and enjoy the best of the worst.

10.) Signing one's name with an 'X'- I've come to the conclusion that there is good pretentiousness and bad pretentiousness. Signing your name with an 'X' falls into the latter category because it's been done before and probably by better people. This does not apply, however, if your name is Xavier, Xerxes, or Malcolm X.

9.) Neckbeards- See also: titbeards. I mean, seriously, it ceases to be considered facial hair if it's only sprouting out of your neck and/or man-breast.

8.) Answering machine messages that go "Hello?"- It was funny the first 3000 times this was done by clever assholes everywhere. Now it's time to move on.

7.) Wazzzzzzzzzup- Conversely, this is a fad that died altogether too quickly and I could easily listen to this another 3000 times before I might begin to think You know, maybe it's just not that funny anymore. We really need to bring this one back for an encore.

6.) Rock Star: INXS- Although it's great to see a Canadian guy winning the competition there's a part of me that gets the heebie-jeebies thinking that if Michael Hutchence wouldn't have committed suicide there would have been no justification for the competition in the first place. What's next? Renaissance Man: Leonardo, the reality t.v. show in which we, the audience, decide who gets to pick up where the late great Leonardo da Vinci left off when he kicked the bucket? You see? You can't just have a television audience pick some random fool to take the place of an artist. Once the artist is gone he/she is gone. That's it. It scares me to think that someday after ol' Michael Appleby suffocates while performing cunnilingus for 17 hours straight in a futile attempt at setting a world record some asshole is just going to take over my blog and write bottom ten lists of his own and they'll probably suck ass. Fuck. I've got to make plans to live forever.

5.) Ashlee Simpson- See also: titbeard. It ceases to be considered a singer when it's caught mid-lip-synch.

4.) Hand soap in public washrooms that is dispensed pre-lathered- I can't help but wonder about who is standing on some assembly line in a factory somewhere lathering soap up on his hands, scraping it off with a butterknife into a baggy, and then shipping it off so it can be placed in soap dispensers in public washrooms everywhere. One day somebody is going to find pubic hair in that pre-lathered soap and I'm going to seriously consider giving up the practice of washing my hands entirely.

3.) The television commercial advertising the genital herpes perfume- Okay, this one is obscure, but you can google a combination of the words genital, herpes, commercial, perfume, and bottle together to find a more in depth description of the commercial. Basically, though, some woman gets a romantic gift from her lover and it would appear to be a nice bottle of perfume until you see the label reads "Genital Herpes." First off: Worst Gift Ever! Secondly: The Genital Herpes fragrance would probably enjoy brisker sales if Britney Spears actually made an appearance in the damn commercial. Genital Herpes is one of her products, isn't it?

2.) Remakes- It seems like 67% of major box office releases these days are remakes of older movies. Only 12% of those remakes are actually tolerable. Of those 12% maybe 2 are movies that won't drive you running right up to the big screen and pissing on it out of spite. I swear, Hollywood, give me a million dollars and I'll deliver to you a memorable script about a man who finds forbidden love with conjoined kangaroos. I'll even write a part in it for that delightful scamp Andy Dick; he loves to appear in just about anything.

1.) Nascar- Yeah, okay. I get it, you guys love turning left so much you made a whole sport built around it. You never really get to appreciate just how densely populated (double entendre intended) the south really is until you watch a Nascar race on t.v.