Today's post has been sponsored by the word "and"

Brangelina, TomKat, then TomKitten, Bennifer, then Bennifer the 2nd...

Attention purveyors of celebrity media: This is not cute. This is stupid. For the love of all that is holy, stop the dumbing down of America!

The media's obsession with combining celebrity first names is just downright annoying. And try as they might, it hasn't caught on among us little people. I don't go around calling C and I some wierd derivation of our names, like C-Mi. Although "C-Mi go after Bonnie Fuller, who is the devil and started this whole mess" sounds rather nice.

Jen Aniston, imploring me with her eyes to save her from Bonnie

It's even creepier when these magazines try to "predict" what a celebrity baby will look like, by morphing the pictures of the mother and father. I think I saw one where Brad and Angelina's spawn is sporting stubble at the age of 9 months. I mean, what is that?!?

According to this morph, Britney Spears' son was apparently born wearing a do-rag

In an attempt to try this name combining thing on everyday people in my life, I called my mother on her cell.

Mom: Hello?

Me: Hi, Momather!

(Pause)

Mom: Call me when happy hour's over. (click)

Although I'll admit, as I ran down the list of my friends' names and combined them, one combination made me laugh: Cladam. It sounds like an Irish disease.

"Where's Bev? Did she not show up for work today?"

"Oh, poor lass, she's sick with the cladam."

I'd like to think that the American public can handle the conjunction "and" and that we snicker whenever magazines try to fob these idiotic names onto us. But when I spy the Nicole Richie and Jessica Simpson clones making a beeline down Seventh Avenue, with the "must-have" bag from last week's In Touch magazine, I seriously do wonder.