Yet Another "Hey, you kids, get off my lawn!" Moment

I'm not going to say I've never talked into my phone while driving, but I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm not going to say I've never used it while out and about, say inside a store to call someone to ask a question about what to buy or something. I understand that some people are bothered by other people doing this, though that is a head-scratcher to me. That, at least, isn't endangering anyone, and it's the same conversation you'd presumably be having if the person was with you. I do know that some people think that's rude, though, but I think they're missing the mark. If you're going to be exasperated with mobile phones, pick the right target. Pick the target that has a body count.

Text messaging is getting out of fucking control. Studies have shown that merely talking into a phone while your eyes are STRAIGHT AHEAD at the road still impairs your driving, specifically your reaction time and concentration. The fact that there are morons out there driving while staring AT THEIR PHONE typing in a text message (don't try to tell me you can do it without looking, because that's complete bullshit) is absolutely insane. You would think that's about as insane as it can get.

You'd be wrong.

Because now, train engineers who are on the job are doing it. Well, at least one, anyway. People are dead because some moron was typing in "i duno wut im doin 2nite, u?" or some other similarly literate missive when he should have been watching the tracks to see the red "stop" signal light that would not have put his train in the path of the train that had been given the right of way.

Put the phones down when you need your full attention directed at another task. I am so sick of seeing people glued to those stupid things when they should have their mind on what they're doing. There is nothing, nothing that can't wait until you aren't driving (especially driving a freaking TRAIN) to take care of.

The fact that anyone needs to say this is completely maddening. You aren't immortal, people, and nor are the people whose cars you're going to crash into.

No, Really..."No Thanks!"

I got an email from my cellular provider last week. Apparently they've been wringing their hands together, worried that my current mobile phone isn't everything my heart wants and desires. Now, I am on a very simple plan. A modicum of free minutes, nationwide long distance, and that's about it. No built-in text messaging plans, no web access plan, nothing like that. Nor do I really send text messages or use the web access built into my phone, and not just because it's not covered in my plan. I just don't use or need it. So there's nothing about my usage patterns that would make them think that I require a new phone or new packages to add to my service.

However, there is now a year left on my contract (I should have long since been out of contract, but there was some shuffling that went on last year before we moved and I knowingly consented to a two year extension to make them easier and less expensive) and I guess they're staying up nights fretting that I might leave once the contract is up. You know. IN A YEAR.

(Note to cellular providers: if you all didn't suck at least a little bit on service, pricing, and general customer service, you wouldn't have to use contracts to lock people in. They'd stay on their own. It's a terrible way to do business, it truly is.)

So I ignored the email last week. I don't want a new phone. This one calls people when I type in numbers and press send, and it lets me talk when other people type in my particular numbers and my phone rings, and that's all I'm really looking for out of, you know, A PHONE.

Apparently they were so concerned with my lack of immediate contact when they made their generous offer to charge me money to replace something that still works fine and lock me in for three more years instead of just one more short year of my life, and they sent me a text message to alert me to this wonderful deal that awaited me. In the text message, they lovingly described what I was entitled to indenture myself to, and then at the end, they included a brief, annoyingly txt-speechy description of how to reply to the unwanted text message to tell them that it was, shockingly, UNWANTED.

I worked out the instructions and replied back to get them to never text message me again, and I got a CONFIRMATION text message that I had to reply to AGAIN to confirm that I didn't want such vital messages as "please give us $79.99 so that you can throw a working piece of equipment in the trash in the name of keeping up with everyone else's pieces of beeping plastic."

I replied to that one, and my phone has now blessedly stayed silent. FOUR text messages to say, "No, thank you," and get them to actually go away.

It could be worse, though. They could have had a telemarketer call me and insinuate that I'm a dinosaur because I don't want a phone that will play MP3s at me and show me my email and generally annoy me because the main function of the phone has been nearly lost in the morass of other functions that are built into the damn thing, and the whole thing will cost me three or four times what I currently pay per month.

In fact, I think they would have done that, but I already opted out of marketing calls. That's what must have gotten them so concerned. They must think only a terribly depressed person wouldn't want to hear about their amazing offers. I really should be grateful that they care.

Really, I think I'll see if another company has better coverage out here among the horses and switch when my contract's up next year. So THEY can annoy me with emails and calls and text messages anew, I'm sure.

Two Meditations on Replacing a Cable Box

There was all manner of cable company weirdness at the homestead yesterday. It was like a semi-self-correcting cascade failure: first the internet connection, then the phone, though television service was still fine. I busied myself resetting modems (cable and phone) and eventually it all worked itself out.

Then the oddness started. We lost our HD channels, so I switched to the 'regular' version of the channel to wait it out, see if it would correct itself again. About ten minutes later, though, the box itself started to make some alarming clicking noises. I mean, Poltergeist-style. (Combine this with my daughter's latest habit of randomly proclaiming, "It's coming!" and you can see why I was momentarily freaked out.)

I tried to power it off with the remote to no avail, so I got up and yanked out the power cable. In the vain hope that a power cycle would somehow help things, I plugged it back in, only to observe the problem even worse than it had been the first time.

A call to Comcast, with a remarkably laid-back customer service agent (which I thought was a thing of the past, as those CS agents seem to be judged on call length more than customer satisfaction) led us to the idea that the construction in my area had caused my intermittent outages, and also a surge of some kind when the cable was fully restored that one of my boxes survived, but the older, more beat-up looking of the two, did not.

I got the address of the "closest" service center (if you, like me, can observe that they're never close to where you live, that's actually a good thing, which I'll get to later) and planned my route for after the B got up from her nap. The good thing was that the office was open until 7:00, so it allowed me, home-bound during her nap, to still make it there after she got up. Thumbs up on the office hours.

It came time to head over there and we took off, GPS and Google Maps-assisted. The neighborhood got worse and worse as I got closer and closer. I had used street view to look around where the office was so that I would more easily recognize the office once I got there (unnecessary, as it turns out...there was a huge sign that even my sense of direction-impaired butt could see) and the building opposite the cable office, whose sign was too blurry to read in Google street view, turned out to be a "Gentleman's Club". Ahem.

I went in to retrieve my new box and was asked for my saga yet again, but it was, I think, just conversational. The content of my story didn't seem to be a contingency on getting my box, but a way to pass the time while he brought up my account and switched the old box out and the new box in. Interestingly, I was told I was getting the last one, and it was indeed the only one of its kind in the stack on the table behind him. I mentioned that the phone agent had told me she thought they had "plenty", since, as the agents can't see inventory for the different offices, they are supposed to send an email to the phone center when they are running low. This apparently reminded him of what he was supposed to do (though that hadn't been my intent, I just mentioned it in stream-of-consciousness mode) and he was working on it when I left with my prize.

So my first meditation, for those scoring from the title, is that cable service centers are always in the Bad Part of Town.

On the ride home, I decided to actually listen to the GPS and take the highway, instead of the side streets I tricked it into on the way there. There were many changes from one road to another, and in those merges, I realized the second of the things I learned on my trip yesterday.

By far, and I mean a very wide margin, the drivers of cars bearing a specific sort of Colorado plate seem to be the ones most likely to try to run you off the road, stay ahead of you on a merge at any cost, or refuse to let you switch lanes. That plate is this one, initially added to the roster after the Columbine school shootings, but now seems to be in use more by abortion opponents more than people concerned with schoolyard violence:



Not one, not two, but three cars with this type of license plate messed with me on my way there or my way back. I assure you, with my two year old in the car, I err on the side of caution, so I was not driving so aggressively as to anger everyone around me. One of them was clearly behind me as I tried to merge onto I-270, with plenty of space ahead of them for me to come in and still leave him sufficient following distance, but he sped up and paced me, forcing me to slow down to merge in behind him.

He was, of course, one of those Colorado drivers (and yes, I say Colorado, because this is more prevalent here than ANYWHERE else I've ever driven) who, once all the merging and whatnot is done, they drive along the highway at LEAST ten miles per hour under the speed limit.

I guess there were sort of two driving meditations there at the end, the first about the Respect Life plate and the second about the Colorado Sunday Driver phenomenon, but I'm far too lazy to change the title now.

Help Me, William H. Macy, You're My Only Hope

I'm going to wager that the next bit of information that I type in is going to be something that no one who is likely to read this will already know.

William H. Macy provided the voice of the Narrator on the first season of the current PBS Kids show Curious George. It shouldn't be surprising that he was really, really good at it. It helps that the writing on that show, especially for the narrator, includes the occasional bit of irony, wry humor, and absurdity, but a great deal of the "hey, this is better than I thought it would be, and GREAT for preschool television" impression the first season episodes leave you with was due to William H. Macy's delivery of the lines.

For whatever reason, there was a new narrator at the beginning of the second season. Now, I don't have anything AGAINST the guy, but the whole show just doesn't have the same snap that it had before. The writing doesn't even seem as snappy (again, for a preschool-aged children's show) without him delivering it.

I don't know if he got busy with other projects, if they wouldn't pay him enough, or if it was something else, but I honestly wish he would come back. The hijinx of a monkey and his man with a yellow hat just aren't the same without him.

Idle Wondering

If there was an alternate system of airports and airlines that did the sort of screening that was being done, say, in the 1990's and not the type that is being done now, and assuming that the safety rating of the airlines themselves (working equipment, competent pilots) was adequate, would you fly that one instead of flying within the system that the U.S. has now?

Seriously, think it through. Would you fear that someone would sneak through with something really dangerous like her nipple rings on, or with their sterile feeding tube still in its wrapper, or would you believe that your trip would be within a reasonable, acceptable "safety" range?

Who Programs These Phone Trees?

So I'm calling the company I'm considering getting phone service from at our new address, and the first thing the phone tree prompts me with is, "Enter the telephone number of the address where you have service or the phone number where you would like to get service."

Bwah?

I mean, granted, the phone service is not the only service this company provides, but when one actually is a purveyor of phone services, has it not occurred to them that there will be people calling from outside the area, wanting to hook up brand-new service, and they will not have an answer to that phone prompt?

I waited through the computer lady asking me to please input the telephone number requested three times ("I'm sorry, I didn't understand you, can you please enter that again?") and I tried the 'press 0 for an operator' trick to no avail. Eventually, the phone tree kicked over to its secondary option to route my call, asking for a zip code where I had existing service or wanted new service.

Still...annoying. Head-scratching. You give people phone service! Is it such a stretch to think that a good number of the people calling have no way to start drilling into your phone tree without having to wait through the timeout on the first option? That's really, really annoying.

Oh, Realtors

You sit and listen to us and nod. You seem like normal people. Then you talk out loud, and the following becomes apparent:

a) You don't hear inconvenient details.
b) You willfully ignore anything you don't like.
c) You especially ignore anything that will reduce your commission, even if it's in the best interests of all (say, in getting a house bought or sold in the first place).

You're all very warm and huggy, signing off emails with "warmest regards", but you'd suggest conveying our kids along with the house to make the sale if you thought you could get away with it.

Expelled

Oh, Ben Stein. WTF is this supposed to be?

How can you be so repressed when you're the MAJORITY?

Dvorak Schmorak

I've had a passing interest in the Dvorak keyboard ever since I first heard of it. The notion of being able to type faster than I already do (~90 wpm) is extremely compelling. Mind you, I've used QWERTY since I was (literally) three years old, learning how to spell in front of a manual typewriter with my mother asking me to find letters and type words, so I would guess my QWERTY typing is so ingrained that it would be impossible to supplant with another system.

(Learning to spell on a keyboard is clearly why my handwriting is so horrible, but I'd pick fast typing over good handwriting any day.)

I stumbled over a Dvorak keyboard article, and went to our old friend, Wikipedia, to get a look at this superior layout. I have to say, I'm unimpressed.

Look at the placement of some pretty commonly-used characters, like "r", for example. Ring finger on right hand, not on the home row. Not exactly a power placement. Common punctuation like (" , .) on the left hand, and not on the home row. Bleh. "L" might not be the most-used consonent ever, but how does it rate being in the gulag up there? The "l" key is the top-row equivalent to the bottom-row key for the same finger, which is "z". Madness.

Writers of any discipline that includes dialog wouldn't benefit from the " moving, would they? To say nothing of ' being so far away from a power position, because I personally cannot say that I would enjoy avoiding contractions and sounding like Data from "Star Trek" all the time.

Vowels all jumbled together on the left hand. Ugh. Every word has a vowel in it. Most people's left hand is weaker than their right. So why overstress the left hand with all that typing? QWERTY puts two on the left and three (or four, if you count "y") on the right, which is a nice balance for most people.

I can't believe programmers of most of the modern programming languages would benefit from this setup. Lots of ":" and ";" used in coding, you know. There are some disciplines that probably use ";" more often than letters like "h" and "n".

And on a personal note, I think all of us would have to look at the keyboard layout above to see how inconvenient typing our names would be, as it's something you usually have occasion to type, especially if you regularly use it in your email address or business correspondence. I have to say, typing my full name would be a complete bummer on this keyboard.

I'm at a loss as to why this keyboard is supposed to be so efficient. Looks like a horrible design to me, but people swear by the Dvorak layout, I know. I guess it works for them, but I'll stick with what I know in this case.

I wanted to like you, Dvorak keyboard. I did. It'll just never work out between us.

Screw You, Her Depot

Please observe this news on The Consumerist, that Home Depot is opening a series of stores for all of us poor, unfortunate females who lack the ability to comprehend things like nails or thermostats, or the ability to withstand a moment in front of something so unsightly as a bag of dirt or grass seed. They are calling these stores Her Depot, the store for the poor little ladies who are, of course, all scared by the big, scary hardware store.

Seriously, condescension just drips off of this little venture. Screw you if you think I don't know how to pick out a drill or a belt sander. Screw you if you think we don't possess the ability to pick up these skills if we need them. Home maintenance is something anyone who owns a home should be prepared to noodle their way through, unless you go the handyman route, which is fine too. But don't give me a dumbed-down, less "frightening" store where the little lady can pick out light bulbs without all that lumber in the corner scaring her.

Just screw you.

Mommy Brain

Earlier today, when I didn't have hands free to type, I thought of a great idea for a blog post. It seemed really important and insightful. I also remember that it, shockingly, had nothing to do with the B. I even remember chuckling to myself over some random pun or something that I was going to include.

Yeah, that's all gone now. I can tell you how many ounces of milk the B drank today, and I can also tell you, down to the penny, how much the two pair of usually-outrageously-expensive Stride Rite shoes that I got for the B that were marked down 60% and 80%, respectively, cost me. (Damn her cute little wide feet that no one but Stride Rite seem to care enough about to make shoes for.)

See you later, post idea. Maybe you'll visit again. But I doubt it.

I Have the Power

So, the wind blew above 10 miles per hour during a thunderstorm last night, and 50,000 people in our area lost power. Including us.

It was a million degrees here last night, and has been surface-of-the-sun hot for over a week now. We also use a baby monitor without a battery backup, though we have a secondary monitor that does operate via battery.

However, at 1:00 a.m., do you really want to be in your kid's pitch black, completely silent room trying to sneak a fresh 9V battery into the nursery unit (I was pretty sure it was a fairly run-down battery in there) without waking up the baby? I decided just to wave the white flag and bring her in with us, something that ensured that none of us got a lot of sleep last night.

This morning, we still had no power, and the number of households in the blackout weren't getting lower very quickly. No ETA's from the power company, either, although they always seem to be working hard to restore power when this happens.

The real problem isn't the power company and how quickly they restore power. The real problem is that a rat's misplaced sigh seems to be enough to set off some sort of blackout chain reaction. The technicians seem to be hard working and well-intentioned, but I can only assume that some areas of our county have such woefully outdated or just plain busted power infrastructure that we'll have these issues over and over.

It always seems to be the same zip codes. It always seems to be the same damn houses in those zip codes. It makes me want to call the power company and beg them to raise everyone's rates some infinitesimal amount and upgrade the damn breakers or whatever is not toting its load. I am so sick of either freezing or roasting in this house without climate control.

The B, on not a lot of sleep and a crappy nap the afternoon before besides, did a wonderful job soldiering through this morning. I took her out to Target, Kohl's and then St. Louis Bread Company for an early lunch, and she was a trooper. She waved at people and stomped around, still in a good mood, but boy if she didn't just collapse when I put her down for her nap.

Best moment of the day was when I was leaving Bread Co. and called our answering machine one more time before giving up and taking the B to our BIL and SIL's for her nap (because they had power) and discovered that we got our power restored just in time for her room to cool down enough for her to nap in.

Seriously, though. I've never lived anywhere that had so many troubles with its infrastructure. The cable is iffy. The power is iffy in lots of areas. Property taxes per square foot are comparable to our last house, only the city doesn't pay for trash collection out of that kitty. It's just insane, but no one is interested in fixing it. The only things that are argued over in our elections are social issues that the candidates have no intention on following through with anyway, just interested in using the hot button issues to get elected.

Fix it! Fix it so those poor techs aren't out in the middle of the night, in the rain, trying to get our power back. Won't someone please think of the techs?

Aggravation

So, when a big famous website where people auction stuff sends you an alert telling you that you have to update information in your account, and you actually go to their website (to make sure it's legit), find the alert message, and then click the link in it to update, shouldn't that fix the problem?

No! Apparently, it shouldn't. You see, the link in the alert message only updates half of the info you need to update. The other half is, of course, not even listed as steps or as a link in the alert message.

To some of us who are easily annoyed by an alert message (that you can't delete, by the way, even though you followed all the instructions in it, because you, of course, didn't follow the secret instructions that aren't there) this is enough to drive you nuts. Nuts enough to contact the customer service of the site and ask for the stupid thing to get nuked I don't have to look at it anymore.

Cut to the response from customer service, snarkily telling me what I should have done. I even opened the alert message up again to see if I just missed this part, but I didn't. It's not there. When I inquired why this part of the procedure (which does not follow naturally from the instructions provided, by the way) isn't listed in the message that was designed to get you to accomplish both tasks, I got a non-response, a boilerplate restating the instructions I got originally, as though I was too dumb to follow the first one.

No, no. You don't realize that I'm trying to help you by pointing out all the time of yours and ours you're wasting when you don't tell us what you actually want us to do. I bet they wonder why no one updates their information, too.

Real head-scratcher, that one.

Oh, and I updated the info. The alert's still there, and I still can't delete it, even though they said I'd be able to once I finished the sooper seekrit part of the process. For heaven's sake.

Two Very Unrelated Things

I am just lifting my head out of a period of extreme weirdness here, and I have two odd things to share with you.

First, in playing a bit of LOTR: Shadows of Angmar, I encountered an odd situation. I was invited to help with a quest, and I warned everyone there that I might have to leave partway through if my napping baby woke up. It was all right with everyone there, but one of them said, "Dude, isn't that what your wife is for?"

There are a couple of things wrong with that. He assumed I was male because I was playing an MMORPG. He also assumed that it's the woman's job to attend to the baby. I just laughed and ignored it, because who wants to type enough in one of those tiny MMO chat windows enough info to set that guy straight? Plus, what's the right answer? "I am the mom"? That implies that it's always my job to get her when she wakes. Better to just ignore it.

Second, while I was playing, I had Snakes on a Plane on (Netflixed) in the background. Worst movie ever made. Seriously. I was only giving it about 40% of my attention, and it still bored me to tears. Just horrible. Why did we ever waste the queue space on it?

The worst part is that I'd heard from just about everyone how horrible it was, and I still had to see it for myself. Yikes.

Ow

Today, the B was resisting a quite necessary diaper change (TMI: because of a bit of a rash) and was flailing her arms around. Unfortunately for me, she was holding her hard plastic sippy cup in her hand, and it connected with my nose.

It was only love the deepest parental sort that allowed me to hang on to her (I'd picked her up intending to comfort her because I knew she would be upset about the diaper change) while the birds and stars orbited my head. If I'd been hanging on to anything else that weighed 27 pounds while I was that stunned and in pain, I'd have dropped it.

A little ice and some Advil seem to be doing the trick, though I was afraid at first that it re-broke my nose. Still feels heavy and strange, but I think it's okay. Yow.

Involuntary Lack of Personal Responsibility

So, Josh Hancock's father is suing the restaurant where his son got drunk past the legal limit after drinking alcoholic drinks that he ordered, making the assertion that his son was under "involuntary intoxication". Go look that up. I'll wait.

Back? Yeah. That basically is a defense you can use if you drink punch out of the punchbowl at a party, believing it to be regular punch, but it was secretly spiked with alcohol. Or, say, if someone slips you a downer in a drink, and you don't realize you've ingested anything.

If someone keeps filling your glass in a bar and you drink the shit, it's your fricking fault if you drink it. If you don't want more beer, don't drain the glass. My dad didn't like to drink, but he was frequently at parties where people kept trying to buy him a drink. He'd order a drink when he got there and just carry it around, then set down the full glass on his way out. It kept people from offering to get him something, and he didn't have to drink or explain why he didn't want to.

Is the dad going to sue the cell phone company for not telling him not to talk on his phone when his drunk ass was driving way over the speed limit and he's not belted in or looking where he's going? He's suing everyone else: the manager of the bar, the tow truck driver, and the owner of the car the tow truck driver was there to help. When lots and lots of other cars saw the big flashing lights of the tow truck because they weren't drunk off their asses and weren't speeding out of control while distracted talking on a phone. You better watch where your car breaks down, because if a professional athlete drives his car into it, you're going to go bankrupt trying to defend yourself.

It's everybody's fault but the guy who drank the alcohol and drove his car without any regard for his safety or anyone else's. You asses. I don't feel bad for you at all anymore. You are now the least sympathetic people in this whole debacle.

The Croup...

...can bite my butt.

The B developed a breathing issue last night which spurred an "ER or not ER" debate between myself and the on-call nurse for my pediatrician's office. That'll sure scare you. I think back to all the times I went to the ER as a kid and I wonder how my mom stayed sane through it.

We ended up not going to the ER, but waiting for a 9:30 appointment at the doctor's, mostly because she seemed to be getting air, just not sounding very good doing it.

So, it's the croup, which could be an early indication of asthma. She's the tiniest little trooper in the trooper army, though, trying to be herself, though she is clearly a bit deflated. She reminds me of one of those mylar balloons about three days after you've bought it. It's still shiny and cute, but it's sagging a little.

In all my parenting wisdom, I have been eschewing juice in favor of actual fruit. More nutrition, better eating patterns, etc. This, of course, has bitten me right on the butt. She has no appetite, but she won't touch juice or Pedialyte because they're so unfamiliar to her. Doh.

She's finally settled in to sleep, but I have a feeling I'll be up with her in a few hours. Wish us luck here at B central, huh?

So, Stuff

There is undoubtedly stuff happening. News, memes, effluvia.

None of this makes a spot, even a molecule of difference when your little baby is sick.

I took her, a couple of weeks ago, to a horrible "free intro" mommies and me class that was a complete disaster. Bad course design, completely not age-appropriate (and I was encouraged to bring her after discussing her age and abilities over the phone) and filled with kids twice her age who were not being watched by the reluctant parents who were physically there but mentally checked out.

In addition to all of that, it seemed every other kid in the class was coughing, had a runny nose, or both. There wasn't a lot of contact, but they all held the hands of the instructor (an untrained high school kid) on the trampoline. That's the only time I can think of that she might have gotten exposed to a bunch of nasties that might have led to her ear infection, diagnosed earlier today.

Of course, it might have just been the luck of the draw. I know she has to get sick. Everyone does, and why not build up her immunities now, when she's too young to remember the discomfort? Still, having her cry and sweat her way through the night, her breaths coming in pants in response to her fever is not my idea of a great time.

I'd do anything, anything to have it be me instead.

This is why blogging about anything else seems completely irrelevant, yet you fine people have no reason to be interested in the details of her illness. Therefore, I'll see you guys on the flip side.

To the Networks:

Hi there. Let's get right to the point.

There are some shows that are going to be really popular, and there are some shows that will have smaller audiences. It's time that you embraced the idea that, by definition, not every show is going to be in the top ten.

If you have shows that are good, well-written, well-acted, and they have loyal, but (gasp!) smaller than top ten audiences, just keep the show for cryin' in the sink. I bet you there are some advertisers who can't afford to buy time during your blockbuster shows, but who would be more than willing to pay for some time on a middling-popularity sort of show.

Let me 'splain to you why this would be good. We, the viewers, wouldn't see the same blessed ads over and over again. Do you know what we do when we're inundated with the same damn ad over and over? We ignore it. It becomes part of the furniture. Some of us are so aggrieved that we mute the damn things, we're so sick of them.

So what do you think would happen if you had a wider variety of advertisers, based on a wider variety of fees? We'd pay more attention to ads! They might, you know, actually work, to make us want to buy things. You can back up your ability to sell their product.

And you know what else? Stop counter-programming popular shows with other shows that would be of interest to the same audience that watches the show you're programming it against. That just sucks. Some of us have to TiVo to see stuff because we're busy with the kiddos, or we, you know, just want to turn off the TV every now and again. Most of us don't have two TiVos or a dual-tuner one, so you make us have to choose.

Out of spite, I always choose the established show over the new one. Do you know why? Because you could have chosen any time to put it on, but you intentionally made me choose. You're the one causing the conflict, so I ignore the new show. This is why I don't watch Heroes, though I've tried to find my way into it with the Sci-Fi reruns (sadly, to no avail, because it just doesn't seem to hook me in). I know I can watch 'em online, too, but I didn't find that out until later, when I'd already tried a few reruns and didn't find it pulling me in.

But NBC, you put Heroes against 24. You made me choose, so I stuck with the network that DIDN'T make me choose. You lose a viewer, not that it much matters because that particular show is a hit without me and my ilk.

Instead of whacking all the shows that have the potential to attract the same sort of audience into the same damn time slot in some sort of network-based game of chicken, hows about programming them against unlike competition, so that people of differing tastes are served at the same time, albeit maybe (say it's not so) by your network at that particular time.

Now, I notice that the show "Thank God You're Here", which could be interesting to people who like comedy improv on against 24. You might not think that comedy improv and terrorism drama overlap, but I bet you a lot of the 24 watchers would give "Thank God You're Here" a try if they weren't on against each other. I think they're probably both younger audiences who like offbeat, break-the-rules sort of shows.

Why, when there are a week's worth of other choices? Why doesn't anyone put anything on against some of those asinine half-hour sitcoms or plethora of reality game shows?

Oh, screw it. The networks aren't listening to me, anyway.

This was going a different way, but...

I was going to post about how I couldn't make a top five villains post. I saw everyone else's posts and wanted to join in, so I looked at my list of top fifty movies. It turns out that I don't like movies that have villains. The only villains in the movies on my list were Darth, Sauron, Voldemort, the Alien Queen, and possibly the MCP from Tron.

I realize that's five, and I guess you could count that as my list if you wanted to, but none of those feel like they should be on my list. There's just no real bad guys on my list!

So that was what I was going to write about, but when I opened my blog publishing page, I was assaulted by this:

WARNING
This blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-prevention robots. You will not be able to publish your posts, but you will be able to save them as drafts. Save your post as a draft or (link removed) click here for more about what's going on and how to get your blog unlocked.

Which fucker out there reported my blog as a spam blog? I don't buy this robot BS. Now I have to wait for a human to OK my blog. Joy. I'm sure I'm in a 5000 person line for that to happen.

So thanks, you splogging assholes, for ruining it for the rest of us. You guys suck more than Hoover.

(And I can now finally publish this post now that I've been declared not spammy.)