Sext and Sensibility

I never thought I'd be praising the ultimate blue-state government of Vermont, but this time they're working on a plan that actually makes sense. And that plan is to decriminalize sexting between teenagers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, religious conservatives, it'll probably lead to more of that kind of thing. But we're not talking about school shootings or fight clubs here. We're talking about stupid and horny kids doing what stupid and horny kids do whenever a new technology is invented: use it to get their rocks off. In a post-Megan's law world, is that worth being branded for life with the modern-day scarlet "A"? That's in the same category of stupid as stigmatizing someone for taking a leak in the alley behind the bar.

To Amazon: You Stink, No Link

I like keeping the Recent Experiences section over on the right hand side of this site up to date. It's a way for me to let my visitors know what entertainment I've been enjoying lately. To do that, I use the thumbnails from Amazon.com, just because they're there and easy to grab hold of. As a way of thanking them for not blocking me from leeching their images, I link back to the product's purchase page so that they can perhaps grab an extra sale or two out of the deal.

Well, not anymore. After I read this story on Slashdot today, I refuse to send them any more business until they back off this policy fix the "bug". Oh, sure, they're free to to sell or not sell whatever they want. But I'm also free to encourage others to send a message by taking their business elsewhere.

Sin Tax Error

I'm sure everyone's read the stories and the opinions, pro and con, about the biggest ever tax hike on tobacco in history. (And it is tobacco, not just cigarettes. In fact, the taxes on cigars are going up at an even higher rate in some cases.) Problem is, most of the money goes to increase funding to S-CHIP, the childrens' health insurance program. That's not something that's suddenly going to need less money if smokers quit en masse. This tax has two goals that are at odds with each other: to get more people to quit smoking (and buying cigarettes), and to fund government programs. If and when the first goal is accomplished, the revenue stream dries up for the second. And what does the government do then? Well, if the fiscal conservatives are in charge, they cut spending commensurately. But if the government acts in character for recent times, that's not going to happen. And in the end, when everyone's taxes go up to keep the money flowing in, even the saints will be paying the sin taxes.

Bailing Out The S.S. Georgie*

I don't necessarily agree with Barry Hussein's Bailout Bonanza, but I can at least get the arguments.

Bank bailouts--I get it. We can't let our banking system collapse.
Automaker bailouts--I get it a little less than the banks, but they do provide a buttload of American jobs.

But newspaper bailouts? I don't get it at all. At least the banks and automakers still have a type of product that people want and need. Do we really need to spend still more taxpayer money to preserve paper copies in the era of 24/7 news channels and the interweb? Why don't we just bail out Tower Records and the vinyl record industry while we're at it?

*If you don't get the title, watch the TV movie version of IT.

March Madness 2009

It's that time again--the only time of year that I watch basketball, the NCAA tournament. (I refuse to call it the "men's tournament" because the only women's sport I watch is beach volleyball.) For the record, I'm predicting Pitt to win it all over Louisville, with Memphis and UNC rounding out the Final 4. My big first-round upset predictions are Maryland over California (UMD is up 3 at the half as I write this), Mississippi State over Washington, VCU over UCLA, and the Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky taking out the Fightin' Illini.

It's just too bad the NCAA's new and "improved" video player sucks so bad. Just a few of the new "features" include:

• Gigantic advertising banners that take up approximately 1/3 of the available viewing room in fullscreen mode. That's not fullscreen, you greedy scumbags. That's 2/3 screen. And just to add insult to injury...

• The inability to switch games during commercial breaks. Why would I want to check out the near-upset of #2 Memphis during the commercial break of the also-close LSU vs. Butler game?

• Underestimation of bandwidth. Apparently they've failed to realize that 90% of the audience will be watching the daytime games on our superfast work connections and therefore we'll all want the high-quality feed. I actually want to see the shots go in, not hang in midair while the word "Buffering" and the Wheel of Waiting sit on my screen.
  

• Microsoft Silverlight. If your computer had balls, Silverlight would be the steel-toed boot slamming into them. I'm not a Microsoft-basher (in fact, I'm a Microsoft-basher-basher), but in this case, I've got to call a spade a spade.

I suspect 99% of these problems would be solved if the NCAA would follow baseball's lead and ditch Silverlight in favor of Adobe Flash (or just stick with good old Windows Media Player. Really, was that so bad?) Better luck next year, hoops fans.

Autoneurotica

I don't read the news and stress about the economy. No, I just find more and more other things to worry about. Just a few:

• I've already posted my fears about Europe's Large Hadron Collider, or as I call it, the Doomsday Device. Now I find out that there's a similar gizmo right here in the U.S. The race is on...to see who can cause the Apocalypse first.

• I can't go out to eat anymore. At least not to a lot of the places I used to go. Not since my local paper introduced me to a searchable database of health code violations. I'm reasonable with it--it's not going to steer me away from my favorite cheesesteak place just because they caught one of the cooks smoking too close to the kitchen door. But I'm sure as hell never going back to the Chinese place that got written up because the staff was handling the food with piss-hands!

• This is my ultimate fear. This is the reason that I've never had the organ donor label on my drivers license. I saw an episode of Law & Order similar to this when I was younger, and had it removed the very next time my license was renewed. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for organ donation, and my family will donate my organs, but they know to keep it to themselves until they're satisfied that I'm completely dead. In my worst moments, I imagine my organs being harvested while I'm conscious (similar to locked-in syndrome).
  

Greatest Excuses Ever

"I thought I was smuggling diamonds, not drugs."

The false suitcase bottom didn't tip this guy off to the fact that he was doing something illegal? It's too bad they can't tack on extra years for stupidity.

Backpedalling

I hate flip-flopping, but in this case, I have to do it. I don't mind changing my mind, so much, but when I feel strongly about something and give voice to it in strong words, like I did with my A-Rod post a couple of days ago, I like to stick to it. But this time Bud Selig has gone too far.

A-Rod "shamed the game" of baseball? Maybe so--but no more so than the other 103 players who tested positive in that supposedly anonymous test. I'm pissed at A-Rod--and not so much pissed at as disappointed in--because he was supposed to be the Great Clean Hope, who would reclaim baseball's home run records from the evil, tainted clutches of Barry Bonds. His record and legacy are just as tainted as Bonds, McGwire, Canseco, and others from MLB's Steroid Era, but he was within the rules of the game (if not the rule of law). About 14% of the league tested positive along with him, not an insignificant number. And that's just the ones who got caught. Serious juicers know all sorts of tricks to avoid being caught by simple urine tests. For that reason alone, I'm against Curt Schilling's call to publish the names of all those who failed the anonymous tests. It could falsely exonerate a cheater who managed to game the system by chemical means.

But I digress. A couple of days removed from Alex's confession, and with some time to think with some balance about what's best for both baseball and for my favorite team, I just don't feel as harshly about A-Rod as I did a few days ago. And I certainly don't feel as harshly about A-Rod as Selig does. I'm disappointed, and certainly won't root for A-Rod with the same intensity as I did in past seasons, but for the good of the Yankees, I'm going to move on and focus on the present. Bud Selig needs to do the same.

Separated at birth?

Bank of America head honcho Ken Lewis and former XFL commentator Jim "J.R." Ross

I don't know why, but I feel a lot more confidence about our economic recovery after seeing this. Maybe it's the knowledge that if this bailout thing doesn't work, we can stay afloat selling barbecue sauce.

Workin' At The Car Wash

Car wash owners charged with mistreating, harassing employees

This story doesn't say, but it makes me wonder what the immigration status of the employees in this story was. I'm not saying that the owners aren't scumbags, or don't deserve to go to jail if the allegations are true, but people who are in the country illegally and working "off the books" make themselves targets for this type of predatory boss. That type of thinking probably makes me some sort of evil victim-blamer in some people's eyes, but I don't care. I think of it as taking one's fair share of the responsibility when bad things happen.

A-Hole

Headline blatantly swiped from yesterday's New York Post. Because it's true.

I was defending A-Rod--once again--to friends over the weekend. My side of the conversation went something like, "Well, you know, it is possible to have a false positive in these tests. You don't see any of the other telltale signs, such as becoming injury-prone, or suddenly, mysteriously, gaining 50 pounds of muscle in the offseason. I'm going to be on his side until he confesses."

Which lasted until Monday afternoon. Whoops.

I'm so tired of having to stick up for this douche. He's made an ass of himself and his family right on the front page of the papers, he's caused nothing but distraction year after year since coming to the Bronx, and he's done nothing but fail down the stretch and into the postseason. And still, I've rooted for him, for the good of the team. No more. I'm done. I'm out. The Yankees don't need him anymore. There are other third basemen out there. We've added Mark Teixeira--he can replace A-Rod's offensive contributions easily. Oh, I'll still be rooting for the Yankees--I'll just be hoping they win while A-Rod falls to the bottom of the lineup, eventually getting benched and traded for a couple of long-shot pitching prospects. The worst part about all of this? A-Rod was the best shot to have a "clean" player break Barry Bonds's tainted home run record. Now it looks like the most revered record in sports is going to be in the hands of a juicer for at least another generation.

Post-Super Bowl Thoughts, XLIII Edition

• The commercials sucked this year, just like the last couple of years. I blame the whiny noodges like the PTC that give bad press to any company that dares to try anything edgy or outrageous (remember the flack over Budweiser's farting horse ad?) and scares the advertisers away from taking any chances.

• I feel bad for Larry Fitzgerald. He played a great game, and it's going to be completely lost to history. He's the best receiver in the game today, and non-diehard football fans don't know him because he doesn't do prop celebrations in the end zone, doesn't shoot himself in nightclubs, and doesn't do cocaine off a credit card in parked cars.

• That said, Santonio Holmes's game-winning TD catch was one of the greatest Super Bowl plays I've ever seen. Maybe not quite as good as Tyree's helmet catch last year, but I'm definitely biased.

• Parity is a good thing. We've had a bunch of good, close Super Bowl games over the past several years. Remember when the 49ers or Cowboys could be counted on to blow out their Super Bowl opponent, year in and year out? Those games were boring to watch. Dynasties are great for the history books, but boring to live through, unless you root for the team that's on top.

• If New England is the team of the 'aughts, Pittsburgh is a close second. 2 wins and no losses in the Super Bowl, and two more AFC championship appearances...that's not too shabby.

Finally, in tribute to the champs--an updated video version of their fight song!



Is it as good as the original? You be the judge. There's definitely more "shoehorning" of the lyrics to fit the original song, but to me, that's just comedy gold.