I swear, if I could switch isp’s I would, but living where I do, I’m stuck. Bastards.

Reading Engadget today led me to this article. The British Home Secretary, John Reid, wants to approach Apple and Sony to join a summit to help fight crime in England. It seems a lot of gadgets are getting stolen, so, of course, the solution is to make them more technologically complicated, raising risk of more things going wrong, and raising the cost across the board to all consumers of these products.

All because England is worried about their crime rate.

Thanks England!

Here’s the part of the article that kills me though:

“New technology, lifestyle changes, new commodities and new gadgets mean that the criminals continually move on,” Reid told the BBC’s Sunday AM programme.

“So when we defeat them on mobile phones, they move on to Sat-Navs and then on to iPods.”

Okay, so, you’ll get to work on iPods, and as you just said, you defeat them there, they move on, leaving consumers to continue covering the costs of theft-prevention to help idiots who aren’t careful with their gadgets. Again, seriously Reid, so appreciate it. I’ll remember you fondly when I buy my next iPod.

I belong to an online survey site that allows me to earn frequent flyer miles for completing them. I just started one on photography, and this was the first page:

I was just surfing ye olde DriecTV when I flipped past Turner Classic Movies. Coming up next? Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!… a Russ Meyer “classic”. Were they REALLY desperate for a movie to air?

I am just beyond shocked… a Russ Meyer film… as a “classic”… too funny.

It seems that starting next month, EMI won’t be the only company providing DRM free music via iTunes. Apple is contacting all their partners that they can join in on the DRM free fun in May.

Numerous small publishers know this is the future of music, DRM free, and higher quality bitrates. I, for one, can not wait!

I’ve had it with Fox. Why should I invest any time in a new series with them when all they do is cancel them? Drive is the latest victim of their antics. No, I did not expect great things of it, but I like the main actor, Nathan Fillion, who also starred in the doomed Firefly… also on Fox.

Seriously though, how many times has Fox gotten me interested in a show, shown a couple episodes, killed it off? Firefly… Reunion… Vanished… Drive… The Lone Gunmen… I know there’s more. And it’s not just recently either! Anyone remember The Tick or Profit?

This network has just screwed me too many times to care anymore. I will stick with the shows I currently watch with them (24 and Bones, I won’t count shows like Cops), but aside from them, I’m done with them. I’ve been screwed just too many times now. And, oh yeah, they have two episodes of Drive they plan to burn off this summer. Why should I care? Why should I watch? Don’t worry, I won’t be!

And no Roy, this doesn’t mean an automatic pick-up of LOST!

The numbering on the posts is off due to aborted entries, but this is the true 1,000th post since I started blogging. I stand at 25 months of non-stop blogging, and very hit-and-miss entries before that.

So, I feel like I should say something monumental on this occasion.

Um…

I just did a big cleaning of the sites plugins, taking out the failed items like that Snap Preview *cough*.  I am fairly certain I didn’t delete anything that was necessary, but if anyone spots something not working, please let me know!

I recently saw this list over on AOL about what they considered the best fifteen comic book movies. I agreed with most of it, but, eh, I might as well do my own seeing as I have worked in, and around, the comic industry for 21 years, and was almost in a comic based movie once. (Stupid change of rights… I won’t go into which movie it was, and it still irks me, I was going to have a really bloody death!)

In no particular order, other than alphabetical:

Batman Begins - While I enjoyed the two Tim Burton films (I try to ignore the other two), I really felt they didn’t capture the vibe of Batman as much as they captured the sensibilities of Tim Burton. Batman Begins is much, much closer to how I view the Dark Knight. This is a man of many levels, many personal demons, and while he does good, he is not sane. Fantastic film, and I am anxious for the sequel.

Blade - Vampire movies are, by nature, usually cool. Add in a bad ass half-vampire, cool weapons, kicking techno music, and you can ALMOST ignore the huge plot hole in the final battle. (they needed a representative of all twelve tribes, you killed one off *cough*) A lot of fun, and the two follow-ups weren’t horrible.

Hellboy - Ron Perlman… poor guy is so odd looking, he always gets hidden under make-up it seems, but he can act. Great story, didn’t skimp on the occultish aspects of the mythology, and was visually pleasing. Was a good romp.

Sin City - A shot-for-shot “retelling” of the books. Proves to Hollywood you don’t HAVE to change things from comic-to-screen to make it work. Excellent film, gorgeous to look at, well acted, brilliantly casted, and amazing when you compare it to the original work.

Spider-Man - Spider-Man is one of those characters you can easily write off as a one dimensional character, but director Sam Raimi really captured that Peter Parker’s powers just enhances the trials of growing up. And, as one of the most famous comic lines ever written says, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” Excellent film, and the follow-up was just as good.

Superman - I am not a huge fan of the character of Superman. After this many years, I feel they’ve done everything they can with the character, and he is honestly just too powerful to be that interesting. I would have liked to have seen Lex Luthor handled a bit better, but oh well. It was a solid film, well told, and did a good job of bringing across the character. The second film was also fantastic… three and four don’t exist as far as I’m concerned. (And no, I haven’t seen Retruns yet.)
Tank Girl - Odd, quirky, clearly not for every one’s tastes. Very off-color humor, but a lot of fun.

V For Vendetta - I have raved about this film numerous times, and I still do. It is one of the few times I feel Hollywood changing things a lot worked. They made it a tighter, more coherent film. Add on top of everything else it had a strong statement about government, it was well done.

X-Men - It captured the essence of the X-Men and their rich history. Yes, there were a lot of changes, and the strange awkwardness of the Wolverine/Rogue attraction, but the allegory of accepting your fellow man, no matter how different, came shining through.

I don’t even watch the soap opera Passions, but this news is amazing to me.

Passions was recently canceled by NBC, everyone thought it was a done deal, and that was it. Now it seems NBC has reached a deal with DirecTV to continue the quirky little soap. Yes, you read that correctly, DirecTV, the satellite company. They will air the show four days a week and the budget will be cut, but the show will continue.

It just proves that standard television is in grave danger if they don’t mind their P’s and Q’s. This, in my mind, is similar to the beginnings of premium cable. Who ever thought HBO would be such a gold mine of high quality television? Could carrier-specific programming be next? Or will it be more shows going to the web?

The times are a changing for televised content, where it will all end up, or how it will even be shown, is anyone’s guess at this point.

I haven’t written about the American Family Association in… why… four months. I must be slipping. The loon birds saver of our souls are back, this time after Burger King for showing “adult nudity” in a television ad. (YouTube link here… you see nothing) Article here on the whole hoopla.

This quote from the article really sums it up:

Bob Garfield of Advertising Age writes: “It’s not as though this is somehow erotic. It’s not as though there is any prurient appeal intended or achieved. It’s Dad being goofy, period.”

The thing is, the AFA has to feed their little group of lemming followers SOMETHING to get worked up over every so often so they will continue to send in donations and help support the battle on immorality on television. As I have said endlessly, if you don’t like it, turn the channel. I’ve seen the ad, it’s innocent and awkward… just what it was intended to be. So now they are crusading against an embarrassing dad taking a bubble bath. An ad running during adult demographic times.

These people REALLY need lives.

Saw this over at Jo’s Cafe:

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

North Central. This is what everyone calls a “Minnesota accent.” If you saw “Fargo” or “Drop Dead Gorgeous” you probably didn’t think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Some Americans may mistake you for a Canadian.

Take this quiz now - it’s easy!

Um, yeah… no.

I am coming to the conclusion that I am not a “people person”. Funny since I work in retail, but it’s true. A great many people in the world annoy me. My latest annoyance?

Billy Mays.

He’s been on late night TV for what seems like forever now. Shilling whatever new “miracle” cleaning product is out there, but as of late he is really grating on my nerves. Now, he’s no Rachael Ray mind you, but he ranks up there. His loud, aggressive voice… telling you what the “secret” is… giving that stupid thumbs up he does. Billy, newsflash, you aren’t my friend, shut up an go away.

Honestly, I am finding that most TV personalities annoy me. I really could care less what “Oprah’s Favorite Things” are. My dislike of Oprah really came to a head last week when I saw an ad for her show (no, I don’t watch it, the ad’s alone annoy me) where she was going to go meet her neighbors. The most irritating moment came when she is standing in some woman’s kitchen and said something to the effect of “You throw parties a lot and entertain, but you’ve never invited me?!”… wow… can we say “awkward”? You just berated a woman for never inviting you over. Wow. I have had many neighbors in my life I never even met, let alone came over for dinner. It just seemed blatantly rude to me.

What is it about appearing on TV that makes you think you are somehow superior? It seems to make people act in ways that any normal, sane, person never would. Rachael, Oprah, Billy, Dr. Phil, Regis… all annoying. Yet, they all seem to get legions of fans. Am I missing something? Is there some part of me that just doesn’t function correctly and I am incapable of falling into these people’s vortexes of popularity?

Thanks to an eagle eyed commenter on my LiveJournal entry for the Tom Cruise story, something was pointed out to me I had not caught on The New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project. I had not found the photo gallery of the positive aspects of the program, but the most amazing one has to be this one. The caption reads:

Patients at the detoxification facility have stained towels blue, purple, yellow, orange, green and black. Black sludge, glass shards, and other matter have been observed to be coming out of the pores of program participants.

Glass shards? Out of pores? Black sludge? From exercise, vitamins and dry saunas… I mean, let’s ignore the fact that this should be impossible to begin with, but, it just sickens me Scientology is taking advantage of these people who are so desperate for help.

As the anonymous person who pointed this out to me said, if Scientology could prove this, I would eat my hat.

Spider-Man the Broadway musical… with music from Bono and The Edge of U2. This is all sorts of wrong, not only for this character, but Broadway in general. Whatever happened to musicals written just for the stage and not based on a movie? The Lion King… The Color Purple… The Wedding Singer… all musicals now, and that is but a small sampling of similar shows.

Spider-Man? Really? Someone isn’t pulling my leg here? That’s just all sorts of wrong.

According to this news story, Dell is again offering computers pre-installed with Windows XP as opposed to Windows Vista. (You can locate the desktops with it here)

It seems this was the number one request on their consumer feedback website. Microsoft of course is trying to play it off, but isn’t it fascinating people DON’T want to deal with Vista? One of my employees has been putting off a purchase due to the fact he wanted nothing to do with the bloated software. I called him the second I read this, he’s thrilled. (Before anyone says it, yes, I talked to him about Macs)

So, you have a new OS that is spitting out existing software, peripherals that won’t work, and is a resource hog. And Microsoft is surprised by this?

In response Microsoft said that Dell was responding to a “small minority” of customers who had a very “specific” request.

Uh-huh… right.

My friend Nikki sent me this news story today.

Female high school teacher fired for relationship with student
The Associated Press

MULVANE, Kan. | Spectators burst into applause as the Mulvane School Board voted unanimously to fire a female high school teacher over an inappropriate relationship with an 18-year-old female student.

Tiffany Garrison, 25, had submitted her resignation from Mulvane High School well before Wednesday night’s special school board meeting, but it was not scheduled to take effect until the end of the school year.

Garrison was suspended with pay April 9 when the district started investigating the relationship. Officials in the south-central Kansas district officials have said the relationship did not involve any illegal activity such as alcohol use or anything of a sexual nature.

About 60 people attended the special board meeting, which ended with the vote to fire Garrison for reasons that included insubordination and maintaining a relationship with a student. Garrison, who did not attend the meeting, has 15 days to appeal the dismissal and request a hearing.

The girl’s parents attended the meeting and said they were “elated and relieved” by the board’s decision.

As the board was in executive session discussing the matter, the girl’s mother read the crowd a letter she had sent to board members demanding Garrison’s dismissal.

The letter said e-mails between Garrison and the girl suggested that their relationship involved more than “pure friendship” and that it involved some physical contact.

“Ms. Garrison should have never allowed the relationship to escalate past the point of teacher and student,” the letters said.

“At the present time, we feel the only appropriate and acceptable action by the Mulvane school board is to fire Ms. Garrison.”

The parents said Garrison moved out of the area after the relationship was exposed.

Now, anyone who has read my blog for more than a month or two knows of my “fondness” for student/teacher relationships. They are… oddly intriguing. Wrong, yes. Intriguing none-the-less. And of course the fact it was a lesbian situation makes it all the more intriguing to the media. Bless them, they do love their sapphic laden stories.

So, why is this even remotely funny? Remember when I talked about the April 11th episode of South Park? Ms. Garrison, formerly Mr. Garrison, discovered she was a lesbian… and is a school teacher. Oh the jokes I would love to make here.

Tom Cruise is being fruity again. This time he’s decided to disguise it as aiding the first responders of 9/11, an effort that is difficult to argue with. Everyone wants those people taken care of, of course they do, but at what cost?

The New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project sounds like a noble enough cause, and Tom Cruise is trying to raise funds to keep it going. The problem is, it’s based on a program designed by L. Ron Hubbard, and you know what that means… Scientology is involved.

This is a difficult thing to argue with, it really is. I feel horrible for the first responders, and they do need help, but this is not the place to get it. Never mind how questionable the treatment is. It involves 30 minutes of exercise, taking vitamins & minerals, and spending several hours a day in a dry sauna. Sure people are going to feel better, but it is not treating the toxins these rescue workers inhaled, they’re just losing weight!

Someone wrote into the New York Post editorial page and summed it up perfectly:

I’m not surprised that City Councilman Hiram Monserrate, the host of the Cruise fund-raising dinner, claimed such extraordinary benefits from following a health-restoring regimen inspired by L. Ron Hubbard (’Cruise Control’ Pol: It Helped Me,” April 7).

For someone of Hubbard’s genius, it’s clearly a small step to cure respiratory diseases that have baffled doctors at our best hospitals.

Hubbard’s brilliance will shine even brighter when donors respond with millions of dollars aimed at getting those 9/11 rescue workers into saunas, taking vitamins, exercising and dieting - leaving a big cut of the donations for a few at Scientology headquarters.

That same brilliance fogs minds. It makes it impossible to question Cruise’s mission, despite the fact that a membership at a YMCA with a sauna, a bottle of niacin from the corner drugstore and a month without trans fats would accomplish as much for about a hundredth the cost.
Chris Bischof
Brooklyn

Exactly! This is no different than going to the YMCA! Instead, Cruise is soliciting millions of dollars for this program, and it is estimated he has raised $4 million already. If you look at the video on this page from WABC, you will see this is being done in a very nondescript office. Why so much money? Where is it all going?

The first responders who talk in the video about the benefits, bless them, they swear the religion is not being preached, it may very well not be, but this is nothing more than a PR sham put on by the “church”. L. Ron Hubbard was a documented “exaggerator” about his military and educational record, he wrote bad sci-fi, and by no means did he have medical training to come up with a “detox program”.

In fairness, here is another letter from the same New York Post editorial page:

For a newspaper normally on the forefront of speaking out for 9/11 rescue workers, you did us all a disservice by calling the Cruise-sponsored event a fund-raiser for Scientology.

The program is secular and not run by the church.

I wonder if your medical experts, who are calling it “hocus-pocus,” have ever dealt with the sleepless nights, leg pains, tingling in their hands and breathing issues.

Thanks to the program, I don’t. It gave me and hundreds of my fellow rescue workers our lives back.

I started the program knowing nothing about Scientology, and I know nothing about it now. I just know that, thanks to them, I feel like a new person.
Steven Mona
Greenwood Lake

I hope it is helping, I really do, but the Church of Scientology is not who I would turn to for help. They are a cult, nothing more, and their methodologies have been called into question numerous times.

Someone does need to help the first responders, and everyone who suffered from that horrible and tragic day, but anytime “Tom Cruise” and “Scientology” are mentioned in connection to anything, my suspicions are immediately raised.

I am still waiting for a good explanation of why the school felt the shooting at the dorm was not worthy of locking down the campus. They have been quoted numerous places as saying because it was considered “an isolated event”… WHO CARES?!? You had someone with a gun on your campus! You lock it down and locate the gunman!

And now… NOW we learn that during his two hour pause, he went to a post office and mailed a manifesto to NBC! (and why NBC?!? Of all the news agencies, you choose the currently lowest rated network?) If the school had locked down, those classes would have been secured and lives would have been saved.

To me, this is worthy of a full investigation and it had better be forthcoming.

Ladies and gentlemen… the moment we have all waited for…

The Satchel Of Doom is back on 24.

SOD… FTW! (For The Win in case you don’t know)