On Inconsequential Things...Summer Feud Edition

1. Seth Rogen v. Entourage.

I spent approximately three seasons battling the encroaching cultural cache of Entourage after realizing, early on, that the show's creators apparently had no interest in presenting us with any sort of real or actual conflict; to this day, I am not sure if Turtle actually realizes that he is an actor rather than the star of some twisted reality series entitled Hot Girls and SUVs. (It is telling, I suppose, that the most realistic character on the show is a cartoonishly gay Asian man.) This angered me, and it confused me, and I could not reconcile my feelings with the fact that this program was both A.) popular and B.) Airing on HBO (It's not TV! It's Premium Cable!).

And then at some point I gave up and conceded that this show was, in fact, engineered to be blatantly idiotic, a sugar-coated chaser to the intensity and violence and lyrical brilliance of all those shows (The Sopranos, The Wire) with actual nutritional value. In case you, like me, were initally blindsided by this phenomenon, allow me a metaphor: Entourage is the pay-cable equivalent of this donut cheeseburger (which I ate while in Portland; and I have to say, it was far better than you can even imagine), and while one donut cheeseburger induces a false sense of ecstasy, six donut cheeseburgers, like six seasons of Entourage, induces hallucinations involving Howard Cosell and the Prince of Wales and may cause the House of Representatives to revamp its entire House health-care bill. Therefore, when Seth Rogen claims that Entourage's creator, Doug Ellin, is a "moron," well, Rogen wins, if for no other reason than he managed to lend credibility to the portrayal of a teenaged boy dating a hermaphrodite, something even Kevin Dillon could not grimace his way through.

In conclusion, Entourage is objectively and indsputably terrible, and anyone who watches for its nuanced and realistic portrayal of male friendship can probably never be my friend. And yet I will continue to watch it, because, well, to quote Homer Simpson, "Donuts. Is there anything they can't do?"

2. LeBron vs....TMZ?

Seriously. This tape, of this dunk, is worth money? It leads me to wonder how much cash TMZ has spent on leads/photographs/videotapes that proved to be so unbelievably bogus that they wouldn't even meet TMZ's standards. Is there a vault somewhere deep inside TMZ headquarters, with videos of a dude who looks vaguely like O.J. Simpson berating a car-wash attendant, and/or still photos of Jeff Bridges posing with Sasquatch?

3. Erin Andrews vs. Perverts vs. Bloggers.

So this whole thing is...oh, never mind. Here's some indignant outrage courtesy of Jeff Pearlman. Can we just start over, back in, say, 1999?

(P.S. I have no idea what Lil Wayne is doing in this photo*, and I don't care.)

*Well, I know what he's doing in the photo, I just have no idea why he's there.