I’m a huge fan of the HBO series Big Love, and I just about laughed myself silly when I stumbled across its latest promotion for the fourth season.

If you aren’t familiar with the series, it revolves around multiple families that practice “The Principle”: an old-style form of Mormonism that believes in polygamy.  One group is a new style polygamy that lives a modern life, the other is a compound of multiple families known as Juniper Creek.  The families in the compound are all creepy and generally unpleasant, but they believe they follow the truer form of The Principle.

All that aside, Roman Grant is The Prophet of Juniper Creek, and is played brilliantly by Harry Dean Stanton.  Roman has many plots to make money, and has dabbled in music.  Well, in this new promotion for the series, it is suggested that a Juniper Creek Christmas album has released.  You can actually download the 8 tracks for free from the HBO site, or just sample the one song below.  If you are familiar with the series, this is just laugh out loud funny.  Enjoy!

Scattercast is 73 … and is down an arm.

- I had a bad week at the gym and am kind of running things one-armed this week.

- Tales of how the Nook let me down and how I don’t want “stuff” for Christmas this year.

- In a turn you never see me do, I complain about the lackluster job of the media and how they basically are awful.

- A surprise Christmas song.

Here’s

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for those who wish to download it, subscribe to Scattercast via iTunes.

Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!

For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!

Steven and I pick up tonight after a couple of missed ones to discuss something he saw happen on Twitter today.  I’ll let him explain it from his description since he has all of the links:

The acquisition in question was Social Times and my reaction to the round of congratulations that emanated on Twitter on being acquired. My first thought which I twittered was that this is what success has become – being acquired instead of building a long term successful business.

Push the big green button and have a listen in!

So, yeah … I canceled my order for the Barnes & Noble nook.

Back in November I informed all of you that I ordered a nook and I was looking forward to reviewing it for all of you.  I knew I was going to have to wait a while before I got it, but that was fine with me, I was prepared for it, but I really couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.

… then the reviews started coming in.

I read one fairly harsh review somewhere last week, but I laughed it off and still felt secure in my purchase.  Then the AP wrote a pretty harsh review, but I’m not a huge fan of the AP so I took it with a grain of salt.  What I wasn’t ready for was the absolutely scathing review from The New York Times.

The review was so scathing it almost felt over the top, and then I got to to this segment on the second page:

So O.K., the Nook is a mess, clearly rushed out the door in hopes of stealing some of the Kindle’s holiday cheer. “We want to optimize everything quite a bit,” a product manager concedes.

When a product manager is saying “we want to optimize…”, that’s when I go and hit the cancel button on an order.  If someone whose livelihood depends on the product, and they are saying that it needs to be “optimized”, they basically have just spoken code for, “Look, we know it sucks and we rushed its release, but it is what it is.”

I admit it, I got sucked into the hyperbole, and even with one friend warning me (Hi, F … feel free to say “I told you so” at lunch this week) to wait for the reviews, I jumped in feet first, and this is what I get.  At least I was able to cancel it and I’m out from under what appears to be a beast of a device.

Sorry Barnes & Noble, I thought you had won me over, but then people actually touched the device.  Perhaps you should have made no one got to play with it prior to shipping?

Well, for once the teachers were at least not going after the students, instead,they were going after each other.

According to The New York Daily News (NYDC)  33-year-old married teacher Alini Brito was found with 29-year-old teacher Cindy Mauro in an empty classroom during a school talent show at  James Madison High School in Midwood, Brooklyn by a janitor.  While being in a classroom wasn’t so odd, it was the fact they were both naked.

The janitor reported the two tenured teachers to school authorities and they have been reassigned pending an investigation by the board of education.  Ms. Brito’s husband was reached for comment by NYDC, and he reportedly denied that any accusation have been brought against his wife.

The initial report is lacking in many more details except for comments from students that imply that Ms. Brito tends to dress more like a teenage girl than a teacher, and is quite flirtatious.  As for Ms. Mauro, they say she tends to be more reserved and conservative.

While this differs from the other teacher sex scandals I usually cover, if true, it is just another sign of people not using their brains.  The school is full of students, in an assembly or not, and you would choose to have sex in a classroom?  True, the NYDC report never blatantly says they were engaged in sexual activity, but it is certainly implied.  What these two women do off school grounds, on their own time, married or not, is their own business.  However, doing something like this in the school with students around is just stupid and irresponsible.

Where has all the good sense gone in the world.  Heck, not even “good” sense, just plain COMMON sense.  Would the average person not think, “Hey, maybe this isn’t such a hot idea to do this in the building where we teach, let alone with our students in the building.”  Apparently those that say common sense has become more uncommon or on to something.

UPDATE 4/5/10: Both teachers have now been found guilty by the Board of Education.

These two now join the roll call of teacher sex scandals for 2009!

• Christine McCallum, Boston, MA
• Lisa Lavoie, Holyoke, MA
• Christy Lynn Martin, St. Petersburg, FL
• Linda Nef and Valynne Bowers, Bountiful, UT
• Sarah L. Tolzien, Richton Park, IL
• Autumn Faulkner, Randolph County, WV
• Lindsay Massaro, Hackettstown, NJ
• Lauren Breslin, Vineland, NJ
• Kristina Anna Baeta, Union City, CA
• Raeanna Jewell, Apache Junction, AZ
• Jennifer Lea Burton, Orangefield, TX
• Tamara Hofmann, Chandler, AZ
• Jennifer Marie Collier, Jacksonville, FL
• Gina Marie Watring, Durham, NC
• Alison M. Peck, Greenfield, MO
• Maria Guman Hernandez, Hialeah, FL
• Helen Goddard, London, UK
• Amy Rita Ellsworth & Brian Drake, Waterford, MI
• Amanda Watkins, Muscle Shoals, AL

[via The Inquisitr]

First it was Guiding Light, and now As The World Turns is going to the great soap opera heaven in the sky.

It was announced today that CBS would not be renewing As The World Turns for the 2010/2011 television season, meaning that the last air date for the show would be Sept. 17,2010.  This means that the show will end after a 54 year run on CBS where it started off as a 30-minute live broadcast in 1955.

The is the second soap opera cancellation by CBS this year, with the first having been the 72-year-old Guiding Light having left the airwaves this past September.

TeleNext Media, Inc., the company behind both of the canceled shows, is a division of Proctor & Gamble, the main sponsor of both series.  This leads one to believe that it was possible CBS was just looking to sever that tie, but that is pure speculation at this point.  The remaining two CBS soap opera, The Young and the Restless & The Bold and the Beautiful, are both productions of Sony, but that doesn’t mean that they are any safer at this moment if CBS is looking to dump all of its soap opera properties.

Revenues for soap operas have been suffering in the past few years as audiences have declined, and the current recession began to cut into advertising budgets of companies.  On a local level, one of the biggest styles of advertisers has been car dealerships, but with the jump in gas pries a few years ago leading to lower car sales, they cut back on their ads, beginning this snowball effect that has led to the current situation.

It is easy to write soap operas off as melodramas because, well, they are, but I don’t feel they get enough credit for the training they give actors and writers.  For instance, did you know As The World Turns was the launching ground for actors such as Dana Delaney, James Earl Jones, Julianne Moore, Parker Posey, Meg Ryan and Marisa Tomei? (yes, some of them only appeared in one episode, but they still count)

With two soaps down for the count (TeleNext said they will shop As The World Turns around to other venues, but they said the same about Guiding Light), the precedent has definitely been set that soaps can end at any time.  ABC seems pretty vested in its line-up of All My Children, One Life To Live and General Hospital, but what Days of our Lives as the lone soap on NBC?  Of any of them, I could see NBC dumping Days just to clear the slate, and as I said before, how safe are The Young and the Restless & The Bold and the Beautiful over at CBS?

I think the days of the daytime dramas are numbered, and what a sad time that will be when daytime television is filled with nothing but talk shows and court programs.

Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!

For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!

Steven and I have a chit chat about the CrunchPad the JooJoo tablet announced today by Fusion Garage.  If you have no idea what that it, you can check out my historical post from earlier today about the history of the JooJoo, but really Steven and I are talking more about the circus that surrounds the device than anything else.  It boils down to being the Web 2.0 soap opera to end them all … with a $499 hunk of plastic at the end for anyone silly enough to buy it.

Push the big green button and have a listen in!

The countdown to the final days of David Tennant as the tenth Doctor Who have begun, and I couldn’t be sadder.

I remember when the announcement that Tom Baker was leaving Dr. Who in 1981 started circulating, and I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing the character.  He was my favorite Doctor and I just didn’t want to think about anyone else in the role, ever.

After I suffered through the Doctors that followed, and then the years with no show at all, I was greeted with the introduction of Christopher Eccleston as a very different Doctor, and I loved him!

… then he left after a year.

Then came David Tennant, and I just wasn’t sure how he would be in the role.

I can easily say my sadness over Tom Baker moving on is nothing compared to the sadness I am feeling over David Tennant leaving the role.

Mr. Tennant has brought a depth to the character that I don’t think anyone even imagined this character could ever exhibit.  Remember, this was originally envisioned in the 1960′s as a kids show to teach them about history, but it left that behind a long time ago.  Mr. Tennant has brought a mixture of excitable wonderment and dark brooding to the role that portrayed a man that is the last of his kind.  He has completely changed the perceptions of this character forever, and I can’t imagine the pressure Matt Smith, the eleventh Doctor, is feeling as he films his first episodes.

I’ll give Matt Smith a fair shake as the newest incarnation of this character, but he will have a long way to go to fill David Tennant’s Converse sneakers.

Make sure to check out the BBC site that is counting down to the end of David Tennant, and also don’t forget to voice your opinion on the best Dr. Who.  BBC America will be airing the ending episodes also this month for those of us here in the United States.

From the “You have to be kidding me” file, rumors are circulating in the British media that Amazon is looking at opening retail store fronts.

According to The Sunday Times, a secret American retailer has been talking to “high street” (the British version of a main street in the USA) landlords about renting retail space.  While no names have been mentioned, the landlords have been hinting that it is indeed the leading online retailer.

Why would such a successful company, that has never had to deal with the headaches of a storefront, suddenly decide to do this?  Some speculation centers on the idea that consumers are really beginning to take to the idea of ordering online and picking items up at a storefront at a time of their choosing.  I could see this being tested in a smaller market such as the U.K., but the overhead this is going to add to Amazon’s operating costs is going to be staggering.

I can see why they would ponder this, but as someone has gone from retail to Internet only operations … you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to having a retail shop.  Sure it had its good moments, but it’s like a giant anchor around your neck.  I hope this does prove to just be rumor, but we shall see.

What do you think?  Good idea or bad?

45 articles this week as I added FunJug.com and RememberingChristmas.com to the mix.

FunJug.com

• My Mom’s On Facebook
• The Lip Sync Kid
• James Cameron Joneses for Effects
• Star Trek Klingon Hamlet taH pagh taHbe’ (To be or not to be)
• Pink Glove Dance
• At My Wedding Twitterring and Facebooking at the Altar

iPhoneTouch.BLORGE.com

• Top 10 best free iPhone and Touch shopping apps

Photo.BLORGE.com

• Former editor-in-chief of JPG Magazine launches Pictory online magazine
• Epson launches 2-in-1 digital photo frame and printer

RememberingChristmas.com

• Christmas TV Special 2009 Schedule
• Watch The 1935 Version Of Scrooge For Free

SeanPAune.com

• Black Friday 2010 Won’t Go Smoothly
• New Moon Is Still #1 At The Box Office; World Ending
• CobWEBs Daily Edition: It’s FTC Eve, have you put out milk, cookies & disclosures?
• Iron Man 2 Teaser Poster Released
• CobWEBs Daily Edition: Comcast & NBC now confirmed lovers – consumers screwed
• Introducing RememberingChristmas.com and FunJug.com
• CobWEBs Daily Edition: The Pollyanna landscape of blogs and brand protection
• LG Takes A Tongue-In-Cheek Approach To Educating Teens About Sexting
• CobWEBs Daily Edition: $31 billion equals a dead network plus a date with Congress
• Scattercast Episode 72: Affairs Of The Heart
• 2010 World Cup First Round Schedule
• CobWEBs Daily Edition: The FTC Disclosure Fiasco – It’s all over but for the crying
• Clean The Clutter Out Of Your Life

SiliconANGLE.com

• Mobile Monday: Mobile App News for Week of November 22nd

SitePoint.com

• 12 Top Notch Online Presentation Tools

StarterTech.com

• Cyber Monday Set To Be A Lackluster Black Friday
• Windows Systems Suffering Black Screens After Security Update
• FTC Guidelines For Bloggers Take Effect Today
• Thermal Roof Tiles Change With The Temperature
• Windows Systems Suffering Black Screens After Security Update Turns Out To Be Bunk
• Lack Of FTC Guideline Answers, Bloggers Make Their Own Disclosure Rules
• Reports Indicate Apple Has Purchased Lala

Tech.BLORGE.com

• Android phones get an app store for porn
• As Barnes & Noble starts shipping the Nook, Amazon boasts of Kindle sales
• The CrunchPad has officially been killed off
• Blockbuster entering the DVD kiosk rental business
• Comcast releases usage meter to aid customers with understanding their bandwidth cap
• Spring Design denied injunction against sales of the Barnes & Noble Nook
• Diggnation cohost claims Apple Tablet will be “shockingly” inexpensive
• Redbox looking into video game rentals as the movie studios cut them off at every turn
• Chinese sales of iPhone becoming a huge disappointment
• Microsoft’s Bing went down for a half hour
• Rumor: Apple in talks to buy Lala
• Windows 7 Family Packs appear to be no more

Folks … start cleaning out your life.

I’ve been attempting to clean out some of the clutter in my life for the past few months, and thus far I have thrown out enough garbage to fill the warehouse dumpster completely once, and put a good hurt on it a few other weeks.  I am also gathering stuff to donate to the public library and the Salvation Army, as well as making a pile of stuff to sell off.

In short, just like with my weight loss, it’s time for me to change my pack rat tendencies also.

So, as I have been in this major life changing mode, I got asked to help a friend unload moving trucks today as he just moved into town.  He just moved here from Las Vegas and he filled a 14′ foot U-Haul truck, a 17′ U-Haul truck, a U-Haul trailer and put stuff inside my parents car who helped him move.  I spent the day today helping unload the 17′ truck and car, tomorrow will be the other truck and the trailer.

By the way, did I mention he owns no furniture?

You read that right, he filled all of this without benefit of owning a bed (he sleeps on a futon), owns no couch, has a couple folding chairs and the rest of all this is … “stuff”.  Just plastic tubs, milk crates and boxes of stuff.  Stuff, more stuff and, oh, did I mention stuff?

After spending a day dealing with someone else’s stuff, I turned to my mother who was there helping also, and said, “I’m filling the dumpster again this week.”  I can’t take dealing with my own stuff any more, and seeing someone else’s stuff was almost like going through a “scared straight” program for clutter.  I felt like I had been taken to the morgue and shown the corpses of people who died in drunk driving accidents and told, “This is what could happen to you, smart guy!”  Well, the program worked!  I’ll never clutter again!  I promise!

All kidding aside, it just amazes me how much stuff people can accumulate, and I am more than willing to admit I have been horribly guilty of this myself, but I have every intention of changing my ways.

So, what are your tips for cleaning up your lives and ridding yourself of clutter?

Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!

For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!

Mark and I take yet another look at the whole FTC disclosure debacle in the wake of the fact that it has now turned into a joke meme in the blogosphere.  Maybe the FTC will some day decide to clarify itself, until then, let the humor commence.

Push the big green button and have a listen in!