Yes, friends. Bitchy Lonestarr is back in business...but this time, my griping is only peripherally connected to my job.

It goes without saying how hard film music fans have taken it up the ass in regards to the Motion Picture Academy's inexplicable nominations and wins racked up over the years for Best Original Score:

- Midnight Express over The Boys from Brazil and Superman
- A Little Romance over Star Trek: the Motion Picture
- Chariots of Fire over Raiders of the Lost Ark
- The Last Emperor over The Witches of Eastwick and The Untouchables
- The Full Monty over...Jesus, anything else in the category
- Shakespeare in Love over Mulan
- Brokeback Mountain over Munich

One can imagine how cool the prevailing heads were that decreed that the score for The Dark Knight not be nominated (the official reason being that Zimmer's subordinates were able to cosign the music sheets, making for a 'too many cooks' situation...but I know better). An IMDb poll yesterday asked the Joe Schmos of the world what they thought.

24.3% had no opinion, which is fine; one can't expect a regular person to follow the film music world. However, 44.1% were "disappointed, truly". Maybe these people are yanking me and maybe they mean it.

Still, to paraphrase John Doe in Se7en, "Only in a world this shitty could we say that this score deserves awards consideration and keep a straight face." (Some people might defend this by saying, "It's what Christopher Nolan wanted." And have those people ever considered that what the director wants isn't always what's best for the film?! Two words: George Lucas.)

Speaking of a shitty world, I heard about the poor Wal-Mart employee who was trampled to death during the tomfuckery known as Black Friday. Even more, the stuff-happy mouth-breathers kept shopping. (There's a Rod Serling teleplay or cautionary novel in here, somewhere. I just know it.)

Much to my deepest chagrin, this proves what I've said all along: some, if not most, people cannot and will not conceive of a world beyond themselves.

Even if such a tragedy had not occurred, there would still be the insane notion of getting up at four in the morning just to shop. Doesn't it fuck up the body chemistry having a person eat a five or six course meal, only for them to drag out of bed hours later? That can't be healthy.

If Christmas had magically been moved to the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I could maybe, possibly, conceivably see the need for the madness of Black Friday, but Christ on the rag! These people have a fucking month to get their shit done. If a person can't wait to take care of business (much like the Darwin Award candidates who were turned away in the wake of the trampling, only to bitch about being in line since Thursday morning), it's a pretty safe bet that neither they nor the person they were shopping for deserve to have the item they were seeking.

"But Black Friday is when all the best bargains are available!" Fuck you and die. It's called 'comparison shopping', asshead, and it's not difficult. Those nude Megan Fox pictures and "Twilight" lemons will always be there, so get your hand out of your pants and do some honest work.

People have a right to be ignorant once in a while, but talk about abusing the privilege.