Enjoyed some good back and forth with you a couple times, and always enjoyed the column. It was intelligent, funny sports writing...and god knows there's precious little of that out there.

Bigger picture...This is exactly why I let my premium subscription expire. The good stuff goes away (I loved Audiofile), and most of the crap stays.

This used to be a must-visit site for me every day. Now I glide by, usually bored to tears by Greenwald's incessant drumbeat, often finding Andrew Leonard (sp?) the only person worth reading besides Carey. Broadsheet? Yawn. Camille? Yawn. And so on.

I don't know what the perfect online formula is, but I know daily visits is part of it.

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't feel the least bit guilty about what I have in the bank, how much of it comes from my labors, how much might've come from a relative in a will. I work damn hard, pay my taxes, take all the usual unlucky hits, and so on.

In a somewhat similar situation, I've just booked travel for me and my two kids to Europe this summer. The airfare was a steal ($1600 roundtrip Denver to Frankfurt, for the three of us...total on Lufthansa), and we'll do the Ryan Air comedy tour to get around expensive train fares.

Now they'll finally see Amsterdam, London, Rome, Paris, Frankfurt, Cologne...all on the relative cheap, and all money going into the great global economic machine.

Just being in the world, seeing, smelling, listening, eating, walking, talking, being respectful, enjoying the different: It's invaluable. It's invaluable finding out how much more alike everyone else is than different. How we all really are just looking for the same things. My kids are so excited to get off the plane, and be in the middle of all this stuff they've only ever read about and seen in movies.

And I'll be pleased as punch and won't feel a damn bit of guilt. Quite the contrary. It's a trouble of ants, my friend. Indeed, go now before it becomes impossible, or prohibitively expensive, or your destination is underwater.

Go. Spend the money. Have a fine time. If you are dignified and polite, don't give a damn what anyone else thinks. That'll fuck up your life faster than anything else will, lemme tell you.

...These ads, and those for things like Saw 15 and whatever else. They have no business being on before 10pm.

You know, you're watching something totally innocuous with your kids, and then, bam, these psycho torturer/killer movie ads hit your living room. Then it's erectile dysfunction. People are screaming and clearly terrified and getting dismembered, and then I get, "What's erectile dysfunction, daddy?"

Jesus. Plus the inanity of these ads...That freaking studio musician jam with Viva Viagra...That one just makes me angry. I'm not the target audience portrayed, but these ads are condescending, downright insulting, so heavy-handed. If I'm a "cool, gray-haired dude who jams, or just want to think I am..." well, this ad just made me cringe, creating an embarrassing association with Viagra, not a positive one.

And don't even get me started with Enzyte. "Who would ever have believed..." that the endless repetition of these ads would do anything but make me permanently hate the company, its product, and its pitchmen/women. When the wife in the newest ad says, "Maybe we'd get some of the spark back, you know..." Like it's all the guy's fault he's no longer wanting the shrewish, nasally voiced wench sitting next to him that apparently believes all great things in sex have to originate with the man. Oy. Could these actors be any more annoying?

I guess now that advertisers have made women feel like shit about themselves for the last century, it's now the male's turn.

And yes, this ad airs so often I've virtually memorized the entire damn thing!

I will give kudos to the one with "Bob"...that was funny, for a while anyway, well disguised for kids. And the Cialis ads are pretty tasteful.

The real question apparently revolves around your lack of reading comprehension.

In response to a couple of other idiotic posts in the same vein as yours, others have pointed out what parents find objectionable. They're valid points which you glibly slide by in your self-righteous rush to make yourself sound foolish.