So no Princess Consuela Banana-Hammock or Crap Bag, either?

That's really clever. Local commercials are bound to be awful anyhow; they might as well be amusingly ironic at being so!

He looks like Mr. Handsome's (aka Omar Borkan Al Gala) embarrassing pervy uncle. The facial hair is reminiscent, too, sans the bearded jawline.

I bought a washing machine from Mr. Appliance! He is very nice and, perhaps disappointingly, not as wacky as one might imagine, however. And his nutty/ridiculous commercials aren't half as annoying as the grating Kiefer Kia princess ones (which you, too, might be tortured/haunted by if you live/have lived in Eugene…

No doubt many are generally amused by it, which is really inexcusable. However, others (including myself, unfortunately) might simply find the imagery so surreal as to be not at all truly funny but (in not equal measures) horrifying and laughably absurd. Perhaps this has something to do with how we relate to…

OT but somewhat related: Obviously, what this sick woman did was just egregiously abusive, completely horrific, and wrong, wrong, wrong. Having said that, while just Googling fellow penis lopper Lorena Bobbit, I came across this fabulous Samoan/Indian singer from New Zealand, Aaradhna, and her song "Lorena Bobbit."…

I share your sentiments, all of them (including feeling awful about it!).

"You're full of toxins!"

Excellent choices! For myself, I would add, for one, Shirley MacLaine.

I also adored "The Bletchley Circle"! I hadn't realized that Diana Rigg's daughter is in it, however! Anna Maxwell Martin, who plays the lead in Bletchley, recently starred in another BBC period miniseries that I enjoyed about a progressive headmistress in the 1930s: "South Riding."

My pleasure! Happy working/watching!

Yes! Also, for anybody who likes this sort of thing and hasn't seen it, you must see "The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries," a cheeky BBC detective series set in the 1920s, starring Diana Rigg. All episodes are available streaming on Netflix and, possibly, YouTube. Here's the beginning of an episode (via YouTube):

I posted this in another comment, but as a humorous aside, I'll leave it here, too, since regional accents and diction training are being discussed in this thread.

The video in my previous comment was supposed to be set to begin at the 16 minute mark, BTW! :)

Ugh—I so empathize! I have the very same problem, except my voice become higher when I'm nervous . . . and then I become cognizant of this happening and it gets even higher still. (Oy!) All the while, I worry people are thinking this:

This reminds me of Mia Farrow's hilarious character from Woody Allen's (sorry) wonderful late 1930s-early 1940s period piece, "Radio Days" (1987). A cigarette girl and aspiring actress, Bronx-born Sally endeavors to improve her voice for radio through diction lessons:

UGH, what a travesty. See also: Rainbow Brite's 2010 makeover and Strawberry Shortcake's original vs. 2003 and 2009 incarnations.

Yes—excellent points and very interesting about the fish! My partner did her graduate research on microbial communities (algae and cyanobacteria) and sometimes expressed frustration with the limitations, despite whatever obvious usefulness, of the "species" concept.

That's true that reproductive isolation is the hallmark of a species. As Yvanehtnioj wrote, there has been a long-standing debate between classifying Neanderthals as a separate hominid species or a more closely related 'Homo sapiens' subspecies. (I, for one, was initially taught the latter.) Prior to genetic testing,…

LOVE it, too! Thanks for sharing. :)