So, the other nite I was sitting at home and flipping channels on the TV (because the Nationals had already played a day game and weren't going to be on the TV that evening).  With it being the middle of the summer, there's really nothing 'new' on the TV short of more crap like Big Brother, so I cruised past the broadcast channels and wound up landing on USA Network, a channel I haven't gone out of my way to watch in a long, long, time.

As it turned out, they were running a movie I normally really enjoy -- Bruce Almighty -- and since the premium channels weren't showing anything I particularly wanted to see, I opted to park on that channel and started watching the movie.  Boy, what a mistake.

I'm having a difficult time thinking about what to rant about first here, but I'll try.  How about the censorship that went on in the film as broadcast.  The F--- word had to be changed to Freakin.  Many times.  How about the spot in the movie when the central cast members were having a meeting in the office and Bruce (Jim Carrey) blows the trumpet on his hand, raising his middle-finger to his antagonist, Evan.  Nope, not going to be shown on USA Network, as they opted to blur the finger and hand leaving you wondering what was going on there and why it should be funny.

Secondly, well, there was the very bad editing and/or cuts to commercials.  Cuts that were incredibly poorly timed and never seemed to come at a natural break in the movie.  Breaks that are already there, and should already work for going to commercial were skipped over in favor of making a cut later where one shouldn't happen at all.

Then of course there are the obnoxious commercials for products that smart human beings wouldn't buy anyway.  Some of those might be compliments of DirecTV as they insert their own commercials along the way, but still, the items that are advertised are pretty much crap, as are the services that are also advertised.  Crap that just doesn't need to be shown on TV.

The more I watched, the more I was reminded of why it is that I 'waste' my money paying for HBO, and Starz and Showtime.  So that I don't have to watch a ruined version of a favorite movie, and so I don't have to watch these stupid commercials.