And now, the worst waste of time on television.

Most of you already know that I enjoy my share of cheesy TV shows, including such cerebral guilty pleasures as “Operation Repo,” “Hardcore Pawn,” “Tabatha’s Salon Takeover,” “Millionaire Matchmaker,” “Top Chef” and “Project Runway.” Last year I even got into the “Real Housewives of New Jersey” for a few weeks but walked away by the end of the season when I began to worry about permanent brain damage. (Mine, not theirs.)

The point is, last night we’re surfing through our 450 U-Verse cable channels and seriously can’t find anything to watch until Sam says, “Wait. Go back one screen. WHAT THE HELL IS CUPCAKE WARS.” We arrive at the Food Network.

“Cupcake Wars” is a reality competition series featuring four new contestants every week. They all operate their own cupcake stores and seriously believe this is a launching pad to international fame and fortune. Although the producers attempt to invent suspense and drama where there isn’t any, it’s still just a really stupid show about people frosting a bunch of cupcakes. The host is a creepy little guy named Justin who spouts slogans like, “lock and load your pastry bags!” and “in a cupcake war there are always cupcake casualties.”

Apparently each show includes one or more of these thrilling make-a-cupcake challenges: 1) make a cupcake using specific ingredients (i.e., bacon and floor wax); 2) make three cupcakes using your own recipes; and 3) make a thousand cupcakes to display. Then you get to watch a team of three self-absorbed judges (pictured below) eat and critique a whole lot of cupcakes. Some are piled with so many decorations — feathers, stars, glitter, pearls — they look more like kindergarten craft projects. (I’m referring to the cupcakes, not the judges.)

By now I’m praying for a diabetic coma and thinking holy crap, this is ALMOST as boring as “Dancing with the Stars.” Sam and I are so thoroughly irritated by the entire program that we don’t even hang around to find out who wins the final cupcake battle and decide to watch How the West Was Won instead.

God bless Cinerama. Our night wasn’t a total loss after all.

By the way — for your possible interest — I’m still sick. Not SICK-sick, really, just mildly sick. I’m only reminding you in case you’d like to send Jello, which I first requested on Saturday. And in case you haven’t seen the big news today on MSNBC.com, Meredith Vieira is resigning from the “Today” show in June. I’m not exactly sure who she is, but this definitely sounds like a major traumatic hoo-hah to me. Thank you for reading this.