Columnist Lauren Herget investigates the phenomenons that have arisen from the very technology that is allowing you to read this, the Internet.

Everyone loves teddy bears and pajamas, right? Wrong. Lauren Herget tells you why Vermont Teddy Bear Company represents all thats wrong with consumerism.

As a young lass many moons ago, hygiene and hand washing were not huge priorities for me. Add to it that there was this one girl (who shall remain nameless), who contracted and spread Strep Throat every single year of Elementary School — she was like the class pet Petri dish. But anyway, I suffered innumerable sick days during my youth.

“Cawll meh now!” was Miss Cleo’s Siren Call for the gullible masses in the late 1990s.

“99 cents a minute to have all of my life’s problems answered by a Jamaican/West Indian/generally Caribbean woman? What a steal! This shaman is so much better than therapy with a licensed doctor!” thought Blockhead.

Take this interchange from one of Miss Cleo’s better-known commercials to show the level of chump we’re dealing with here:

Cleo: “...And it was on a little cul-de-sac?”

“Real Caller”: “Right! This is amazing me!”

Cleo: “It’s okay — it amazes me every time I do it, too.”

THE REASON IT AMAZES HER EVERY TIME SHE DOES IT? Because she’s lying through her teeth every damn time, so guessing something accurate from a caller’s past is nearly as good as winning low-stakes lottery.

Ah, photo manipulation. Not just reserved for Photoshopping Ralph Lauren models’ legs to look chicken-esque anymore (“Nothing tastes as good as being falsely-presented as über-skinny feels” – KL), this brand of artifice has hit the tyrannical masses like a ton of bricks.

Next week, Cornell is going to break for a hot sec. to honor our country’s Thanksgiving (for the “peace-making” between “whiteys” and “injuns”). As per custom, we’re gonna fete this holiday up big by feasting on some turkey (or, like me five years ago, beasting on Tofurkey — the horribly sad and gastronomically inept soy-isolate protein “turkey”).

It’s a busy time of year, so I’ve turned to all sorts of crap to distract me. (The year is not busy enough for you yet? Oh, aren’t you just the luckiest duckling!)

Actually, my “snark attack” on your lack of work is quite apropos to this week’s theme, sort of.

Lemme explain: remember in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing when the dude put up the two four-finger rings next to each other, one inscribed with “LOVE” and the other inscribed with “HATE”? This week, I’m holding up only one fist. And I’ll give you a hint: it ain’t the fist of love.

Dudes can be cruel to be kind. As a womyn, I can say that. Dudes, you can be cruel — to be “kind” — either to embarrass us or reproduce with us.

Case in point: about a month ago I was walking to a party with my gal pal. We were gabbing about, you know, Sex and the City, and which character we’re most like, and what sort of vodka-tinis we’d be imbibing later, and then we talked about doing our nails, and kissing boys and having the red tide come visit us every 28 days.

Life is hard when you’re a baby. Wake at 7:30, cry at 7:40, suckle at 8, “spit up” at 8:30, sleep at 9, wake up at 11, poop at noon, cry at 12:10, stare at a black and white mobile that won’t stop its goddamn spinning at 12:50, smile at 3 and sleep again at 7. It’s an incredibly demanding schedule that should inspire special perks at the end of the day. But the plight of the modern baby has generally been overlooked by society ... until now.

Bienvenue, Baby Massage!