Out My Window

Lets take a break from the world of Big Government long enough to discuss something of true moral value to our society. Reality TV.

Since COPS first aired and the networks found that people wanted to sit in awe of the dumb stuff that real people do in this life, reality TV has boomed.
Why? Because it is cheap when you compare it to how much they have to pay big stars and let's face it... it's like watching a train wreck.

I caught another part of a Jersey Shore show last night when nothing else was on at two in the morning. Douche bags and sluts worrying about who they were going to sleep with after clubbing and they think they are stars.
You know, "You can't arrest me! I'm f*****g Snooki!" It just doesn't sound as good as "I borrowed the purse and I thought that white powder was gum."

My dear wife is hooked on a show called Big Brother. She loves it most seasons but this one is particularly bad. We have a live feed from the cameras in this house where the object of the game is to back stab, lie, and evict other players until there are only two standing. Then the evicted contestants vote on who the winner will be.
It is a lot of competitions to win food, favors, and prizes. This is the 12th season and the guest are still just as surprised this year that anyone of the other players would lie or deceive to get ahead in the game.

The winner of the show gets $500,000. The runner up gets $50,000. Not bad for 3 months work.

Four of these guys got together and formed an alliance (The Bro-gade). Gave themselves nick names. And proceeded to do nothing but talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. What they are going to do and how they are going to do it and how good they have played. They did nothing but talk. No prizes, no competitions won. Talk.
Finally they back stabbed one of their own (the only real player) in the back and the three of them are left with a ditsy blonde in the house that is next to go.

I was trying to make it sound interesting enough that you might go check out some of the fan blogs on it but I guess even that is a fail.
What we as viewers are sick of now is hearing the house guest talk about being big stars, getting movie contracts and making appearances. Much like the Jersey Shore crew that has become so infamous, they seriously think they are headed for stardom.

Enzo thinks he will have to make his wife do all the chores now because if he goes out he will be mobbed by paparazzi.
Britney's fiancé just has to accept the fact that this is her career now... a reality show star.
Lane will buy a bar where he can beat up people we suppose.
And Hayden , well, Hayden will never do anything.

While they sit secluded talking about what great stars they are and how they made this the best season ever, America sits bored and tweets about how dumb they are. Here are a couple of entries from tonight. Not filtered, I swear. There was just nothing good being tweeted.

wake up and stop being so boring
this season serioulsy feels like 3 years long.
This group of HGs & their egos. Yee gads. They act like #BB12 is breaking into other shows w/ alerts.
yea, they're gonna b famous...Lane 4 special showers & sassin' BB, Enzo 4 eating like a pig @ a trough & most clueless as 2 game rules
about the only show I can see Enzo on is Oz as the prison bitch
Brit: what if we get out of here and we find out no one gives 2 shits about us?
If I ever see Enzo on the street I'm gonna be like "YO meow meow I remember you from America's Most Wanted"
"What type of actor would you be? A methodist?" #Enzoisms
Okay- This Britney and Enzo "Fame" talk is giving me ear infections and rotting my brain.
Enzo "Is yous guys tweetin bout me yo"
Enzo should play Snooki's dad in the straight to video version of the Jersey Shore.
Enzo talking about being a movie star when he gets out of house.
I really dont understand what grodner/casting saw in enzo to even put him in the finals, much less picked for #BB12
sadly enzos friend in NJ (part time promoter_ says he has a few bar gigs for him at the jersey shore.. WTF??
holy shit! Enzo wanting to know how BB will have him pick an agent, to pick from agents. Have his scripts ready for him
Britney's only chance to save her ass is to win the POV. She's GOT to if for no other reason than to shut Enzo the fuck up...YO!
enzo..STOP..'what do we do when its over, how do we get famous'. "Im surprised I havent had a movie role yet".
enzo's ego knows no bounds..'who were your favorite people in the house? Besides me of course"
YES Enzo you are going to be SOoo famous! Famous for being THE worst player in THE worst final 4 in BB history!
#bb12 BORIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGG === Yes it is...Yawn!!!

I ran across this old clipping from Houston, Texas. I hope things have changed a bit in the last six years. I hate to think we really tie up our resources and spend our taxes chasing pot plants.

The plant is a Texas Star hibiscus and Blair Davis of Houston, had two of them in containers (he doesn't like to say potted) in his front yard where he stored plants for his landscape business.

There was a knock at his door about two in the afternoon.
Davis said he hadn't even gotten his hand on the doorknob when it flew open and he was looking at the barrel of a pistol.
Behind the gun were about 10 members of the Harris County Organized Crime and Narcotics Task Force, who burst into the home, guns drawn, and began shouting at him to get down on the floor.
There on the floor, Davis said, it took a while to figure out that what had caused the swarm of lawmen to descend upon him was the hibiscus in his front yard.

Davis said the team of narcotics officers combed his house for about an hour, at one point discussing whether red and gold bamboo growing in his window might be marijuana. They also asked what he did with the watermelons and cantaloupes growing in his back yard.
You would think he would be laughing his ass off by now if he hadn't been at gun point and realizing there are ten idiots holding those guns! Watermelons?? Where does their jurisdiction end?

Finally the officers gave up and left, leaving Davis only a "citizen's information card" with "closed-report" written on it.

"No apology, no nothing," Davis said. "I realize they have a job to do, but this seems a little bizarre."

I bet they cleaned up after themselves before leaving.

Zagg invisibleSHIELD Might be the hottest new product for the gadget generation.
My son came in with this body shield on his G1 phone and attacked it with a key. Not a mar one.
I, of course, had to have one of my own and purchased a full body kit for Lenora's myTouch phone.

I am a cell phone holster junkie. Hard cases, leather cases, clips, and ropes. I have tried them all and this may turn out to be the answer to many gadget user's prayers.

I found it fairly easy to install and the feel is fantastic. One of the things I liked about the myTouch was the looks of the shiny case but it this also made it a disaster to hang on to. It didn't take much to make it go shooting right out of your hand. Zagg fixed that. The shine is still there but the phone now has a tacky feel. Much more secure.
It was made up of many small pieces but if you keep your fingers and the phone moist, intermediate skills can apply the whole thing in about thirty minutes.

The shield comes with a lifetime warranty and they seem eager to ship you a new one should something happen to your old one. Just make sure you keep your receipt. (more on that to come)
Although I was happy to pay almost $30 for mine at Best Buy, I found you can get them on eBay or straight from the company site for around $25.

Now for the bad.
The plastic shield comes stuck to a piece of slick coated paper. I am sure anyone who has ever applied a sticker knows what I mean. The kit that I used had an issue with the backing wanting to separate. The slick side of the backing tore off along with the shield. Not a big thing and I over came this once I knew about the issue but one piece was rendered useless because of a wrinkle caused by this.
It was the screen protector part.
The email support I received got to be hilarious. I even pasted it into this blog so all could enjoy but it turned out to be just too long so I had to take it out.
They would have been glad to send me another whole kit but they needed an itemized receipt and even advised I could get a duplicate receipt at Best Buy. (seventy-five miles away)
Not even a copy of the credit transaction and a picture of the defective product was good enough. To get my screen protector, I had to go get the copy, strip the shield off my phone, order a new shield kit on my credit card, and when I return the complete old shield, they credit my account.
Since I didn't want to strip my phone I kept asking if I could just buy a new screen protector. These pleas were just ignored. I did give up and went to their site to find they do sell them separate and they are many times cheaper on eBay.
In an effort to provide such a great warranty and confidence in their product they have completely destroyed confidence in their customer support. I will pick up a copy of my receipt though, next time I am through that town because I am hearing these things start giving problems after about a year.

I think I will try a different brand next time on my G1. GadgetShieldz sells one for about $8. I might send them an email just to see what support is like.

UPDATE: In yet another email from Zagg, it is explained that the way the warranty works is:
You have a hold put on your card for 25 days. They send you a brand new complete kit. You only strip off the bad piece from your phone and replace it from the kit. You then send the kit back, with the bad piece, and the hold is released. This works. They just failed to realize that I didn't care.

Former veep candidate Palin and her family were the focus of Letterman's "Top Ten" list broadcast Tuesday night. But it was a line in his monologue about Palin's visit to Yankee Stadium with her 14-year-old daughter, Willow, that set off waves of criticism.

One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez

Letterman tried to calm the storm by saying he was making the crack about 18-year-old single mom Bristol Palin - not Willow
Letterman has been getting a lot of millage from the Palins ever since he took on the the Republicans and, to all outward appearances, made it his personal quest to get Obama elected. Of course it is his job to poke fun at anything and everything but it seems he has rode the Palin pony into the ground. Now others are beginning to think twice about his rhetoric.

I told a bad joke. I told a joke that was beyond flawed, and my intent is completely meaningless compared to the perception. And since it was a joke I told, I feel that I need to do the right thing here and apologize for having told that joke. It's not your fault that it was misunderstood, it's my fault that it was misunderstood. So I would like to apologize, especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke. I'm sorry about it and I'll try to do better in the future.

A Web site called FireDavidLetterman.com is organizing a rally outside Letterman's show.
Polls do show that a lot of people are upset about this but I don't think it will ever go as far as firing him. I do think his reputation has finally been scared by taking things a little too far. He has contended that Palin is fair game for his repeated shots because she let her daughter get pregnant. Yeah, dumb analogy but he is a comedian not politician.
Now he has committed as big a sin as she. All the excuses in the world won't change that he screwed up his facts. He is responsible for advocating child abuse just as much as Palin is responsible for her 17 year old getting tossed but the hockey star. I'm sure Letterman didn't write the joke, I'm sure Palin didn't watch the kid diddle her daughter.
Maybe we can watch Late Night again now without having to endure the Letterman politics. Who does he think he is anyway... Oprah?

I was sitting at the drive through ATM the other day, trying to see the screen through the sun glare, when I noticed that the keys all have Braille markings on them.
My mind wanders to the sight of a blind person pulling up and having to feel for the correct numbers. It wanders again as I question what they push for "English".
It is about that time the car behind me honks so I know I have taken too much time to to buy my $20 bill for $22.50 and start to pull off.
Was that guy shaking a white cane at me?