TODAY'S QUESTION: WHY DOES BILL MAHER P***S ME OFF SO MUCH?

The funny thing about Bill Maher is that he is a pretty funny guy. It's just that his giant ego and overwhelming sense of self- importance gets in the way. Not to mention his smarmy condescension. That is the tediously unfunny side of this clown.

The guy is roughly my age so I can call his BS at will, and he shovels a fair amount of it at his gullible followers. His 'Real Time' program is his personal soap box and he uses it to educate the ignorant and unwashed, by Maher standards anyway.

Bill Maher is one of those guys who sparked up a lot of joints during his high school years and probably was not taken too seriously. Maybe that was the defining moment for a future career as a comedian.

Maybe his equally stoned friends bumped up his confidence by laughing at everything he said, regardless of the possibility that maybe Bill had the best pot. Good pot that gave them the munchies and long bouts of uncontrollable giggling.

These days Bill has a nervous laugh after every one of his punch-lines. The nervous giggle may be a by-product of decades of pot use, or it may be a lack of confidence in his material.

Bill likes to recycle his material- and not for green reasons.

Read more: TODAY'S QUESTION: WHY DOES BILL MAHER P***S ME OFF SO MUCH?

TODAY'S BURNING QUESTION: WHEN DID WINNIE COOPER GET SO HOT?

'The Wonder Years' was a great trip down memory lane for anybody who cut their adolescent teeth in the 1960s. The show was an eerily accurate assessment of a kid on the road through adolescence without a good map. 'The Wonder Years' just happened to pick a familiar time and place for many of us.

The object of Kevin's affection throughout the series was Winnie Cooper. She was his little red-headed girl (in a Charlie Brownish kind of way) for Kevin. The Winnie Cooper role was played very well by a youngster named Danica McKellar during the show's five year run from 1988-93.

The first episode was a pivotal moment when Winnie shed her horn-rimmed glasses and captured Kevin's interest in a big way.

Read more: TODAY'S BURNING QUESTION: WHEN DID WINNIE COOPER GET SO HOT?

HOMER SIMPSON AND THE GUN CULTURE- A GOOD MIX?

'The Simpsons' used to be clever and funny in the early years. Before they became neither, the writers served up a pretty hilarious look at the gun culture in the US. The episode first aired in 1997, but I happened to catch it as a rerun the other night.

The program began with a large soccer riot in Springfield when an over-hyped promotion packed the stadium with people. Unfortunately soccer is an acquired taste that has yet to be acquired in the States, so the net result was total anarchy in Springfield, complete with violence, arson and looting.

For home protection, Homer considered the pitch of a shady home security system salesman before he settled on a handgun. He was enraged at the five day waiting period for a background check, but was pleased when his numerous criminal convictions only limited him to three handguns.

Homer only needed one anyway.

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HERE'S A GUY WHO DID NOT STRIKE OUT ON CLASS...A GREAT LIFE LESSON

We are car guys, but today we want to talk a little baseball. Our main reason is that an umpire manned up and showed a lot of class after he blew a call. Perfect games in baseball are very rare. Oddly enough, the perfect game would have been the third one of the 2010 baseball season. Those are very long odds in an "I never got tasered for massive stupidity at a Phillies game" kind of odds.

The real story was the umpire who admitted that he blew a close call at the base on the crucial last out of the game. He took full credit for incompetence on the call after he saw the replay. It was a close call that could easily have been missed in the heat of the moment.

After all, most of us were born on Earth- not Krypton.

Read more: HERE'S A GUY WHO DID NOT STRIKE OUT ON CLASS...A GREAT LIFE LESSON