...the internet is loaded with online gossip sites. You've got TMZ, Perez, Smoking Gun, and all the usual sites for People, National Enquirer and so on.

And general blogs. Don't forget the general bloggers out there who might know things but aren't "established" like some of the others. But do they have to invade the television airwaves too?

Perez Hilton, if this hasn't happened already, is going to get his own show on VH1. My esteem for that network is going totally down the toilet now. Well, the network was going to die off anyway since it's pulling an MTV and showing more reality shows than music videos, but still. Add to that, TMZ already has a show on the airwaves.

This just isn't right. Television was free of gossip... or was it? For years we had Extra, Hollywood Access, and the granddaddy of them all - Entertainment Tonight. If you try and convince me that that wasn't a gossip show, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I could make a nice deal on for you.

No matter what we do, we can't escape it. I don't even try anymore considering how many times I've talked about Britney in this blog. And O.J. just this week. We're surrounded by it in the media when someone does something particularly dumb that the social press considers "newsworthy".

You know, that's a good name for it. "Social Press". You have the regular guys who cover Iraq, Congress, the President. You have the other guys who cover sports and business and opinion sections. Food and Wine sections, Comics and human interest. And then there's the social press - the charity events, the latest stupid celebrity tricks. The gossip.

It's like we're heading back towards the 30s and 40s when every paper had a gossip column and folks like Liz Smith and Hedda Hopper were household names. I don't know that I want those days back. I avoid the television gossip shows, and I don't visit Perez or Smoking Gun unless there's something really insane going on or if someone cites them as a reliable source. Personally, Smoking Gun is the Oxford English Dictionary as compared to Perez's Baby's First Words picture book of a site. But that's neither here or there. The regular press is being taken over by gossip and we're not going to be able to escape from it....

...aw hell, I give up. Pass the bonbons.

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In other news today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Arrrrrrrr, matey. Saavy?