God help us

We have to collectively mourn a day when hell freezes over, and Kevin Federline appears to be more responsible than another human being. And he wears socks with flip-flops. It's an outrage.

Now I'm a NOW girl

Did you know that last year's women's Wimbledon champion made about $60,000 less in prize money than the dude who won the men's championship? And that just today, Feb. 22, 2007 (see above for verification), the English snobs who run the most prestigous tennis tournament in the world decided to give this year's female champion as much as the man. Just today, in a country that beat us to electing a woman to the highest office in the land by more than 25 years so far. I can't believe Venus and Serena didn't lead a boycott years ago.

There appear to be logical reasons for the difference — the main claim is that men play for the best of five sets and women only three. But women aren't incapable of playing five rounds. The English snobs simply don't allow it. Players with breasts, such as Venus and Serena, have raked in tons of cash, further popularized the sport and upped the tournament's television ratings. Plus, none of them have gone all Britney and shaved their heads. Anyone who thinks Roger Federer is sexier than Maria Sharapova should raise their hand right now.

And lest there be any confusion over whether the discrepancy was sexist until today, let us here from Tommy Haas, a German player who is currently ranked ninth in the world and said girl tennis players are great and all, but:

"I think the depth of men’s tennis is much tougher than the women’s," he told The New York Times.

Well, Haas, I think you're an outrage. Feel free to send him hate mail.

This might be too painful to watch

A purported 1,000 University of North Carolina students showed up to witness a guy break up with his girlfriend on Valentine's Day. He corralled them through an events page listing on Facebook.com that read:

"She thinks I am going to sing a song to her in the pit to be romantic, but I'm going to tell her I slept with her roommate. There will be plenty of other information that gets revealed as well. We haven't been dating very long, but we have been friends for years. ... If you haven't ever seen a bad public breakup before ... I cannot tell you what you are missing. You don't want to watch, but you can't look away. It's going to be hateful.

Also, if you know my gf, you would know why she can't see this, and I will kill you if you ruin this!"... (more)

It's an outrage that these people are considered members of my generation. But the girls' a capella performance of "Not Ready To Make Nice" wasn't bad.

Stop bitching, start a ketchup revolution

It's possible this is a little too persnickety even for me, but why do tall, glass ketchup bottles still dominate the restaurant market? Over the years, they have proven to be pretty terrible at dispensing ketchup, and many alternate containers have been invented to solve that problem. Even if restaurants think it's classless to serve ketchup in plastic squeeze bottles, there are stout glass bottles with wide mouths that save patrons at least 30 seconds and additionally save the sides of their hands since they don't need to karate chop the 57 to get the sacred Heinz recipe out of the bottle.

I say this should be the beginning of a rebellion, starting with
tall, glass ketchup bottles. They are an outrage. Who's with me?

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I thought about being outraged over the media coverage and reaction to Anna Nicole Smith's death, now only hours old. But then I thought it would sound like the same, old, tired thing. It probably would have gone something like this:

"Anna Nicole Smith, one of the many new celebrities famous for having no talent, gold digging and being an absolutely crazy blonde with big boobs, died today and instantly became the lead story on the Web sites of every major news outlet around the world. CBS Radio was standing by for updates, the delivery man in the parking lot shook his head in disbelief and the coffee drinkers at Starbucks chattered, "Anna Nicole Smith. Wow, can you believe it?" On all other days, you would never find those people talking about the same exact thing at the same exact time, but there they were.

I never hear radio broadcasters standing by for more news on the genocide in the Sudan, and, thanks to Anna, even fewer people will find out that a bunch of physicists want to build a 20-mile-long machine so they can create a new universe here on Earth. Sort of. A new universe for the low, low price of $6.7 billion doesn't sound so bad right now. I'll take it. It's an outrage."

And blah, blah, blah. Blah.

Doritos and the FCC suck

This commercial was one of the five winners in a Super Bowl commercial contest. A few Super Bowls ago, Janet Jackson's bare breast was a national scandal. Now, it's fine to insinuate that a checkout lady has just given a blow job to a customer as long as her cleavage stays tucked in her uniform.

It's the kind of thing that makes me want to become a NOW girl. It's an outrage.

'Hair today, gone tomorrow'

I might not get to marry the one on the left. That's an outrage.

His name was Barbaro. He was a horse, of course.

And, just in case you don't get it, there are about 1,000 idiotic, cliche-infested writers who will be happy to tell you why "we" mourn Barbaro's passing. Exhibit A is this New York Times op-ed moron:

He never talked about himself in the third person.

Was his name really Mister Ed? How could they have kept this from us?

His only tattoo was discreetly hidden.

Yes. There are all those horses with less moral courage who have ended too many drunken nights at the tattoo parlor.

He did no commercials for cellphone plans, credit cards, fast food chains or time shares.

Which shows incredible self restraint. Any talking horse would want to vouch for T-Mobile. Or at least be in the same room as Catherine Zeta-Jones.

He never dated Paris Hilton.

On this one, I think we have to give Paris the benefit of the doubt, and assume it was she who never dated Barbaro, despite his impassioned pursuit of her.

He never fathered multiple offspring out of wedlock. Alas.

Alas, that's because only the good die young and unmarried. Duh.

You know what else Barbaro never did? He never made up a national soap opera so editorial writers and pundits could wax poetic about absolutely nothing and get paid for it. For that, he definitely deserves a place in horse heaven. It's an outrage.