sax and violins, minus the sax

I was at a friends flipping around various cable TV channels and just astounded by some of the stuff i was seeing. For example, a man operating a machine gun from the pulpit of a Hummer, sawing a tree stump in half by machine gunning it. Next, video recorded in a prison yard. It was the poor quality, black and white video, synonymous with surveillance cameras mounted in the facility. The video was of a prisoner violently beating another and finally kicking him multiple times in the head. It was strange to see, as most of the violence i see on TV is fake, but this was the disturbing kind you wouldn't want to show your children, or anyone for that matter. Next. CNN, RAPIST MAN HUNT, the text read on the screen. 'Serial attacker on the lose' Nineteen year old girls dead body, slash, remains found... oh that's nice. If it bleeds it leads. I was reminded of this, very funny video from the folks at the Onion. The CNN coverage was strikingly similar to the spoof sadly. Next. Charles Bronson takes his gun from his suit jacket and shoots dead, at point blank range, a black man who was stealing the radio from his car, Oscar material. Next. Mythbusters, this show dispels various myths. Today's episode had the host transporting a barrel of gunpowder as a trail of leaking powder is burning behind him. Ah... yeah (he said quite sarcastically) this 'myth' is from a cartoon. Wow! You've got to be pretty hard up for material, when your dispelling events that have happened to cartoon characters. Perhaps next week they'll drop an anvil on someones head, hopefully theirs. Now that i would tune in to. Lastly i stumbled upon a comedy show, in which some, not very funny material was followed by a recording of people laughing. My friend actually pays for this crap, ouch. I titled this post 'sax and violins, minus the sax' a play on the words, sex and violence. Where is the sex though? I think i would rather see some of that.

three years

A new documentary Taxi to the Dark Side was recently nominated for an Academy Award. The film investigates some of the most egregious abuses associated with the so-called war on terror, including the US torture of prisoners. The film is directed by Alex Gibney, who also directed Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Gibney sold the television rights to the 'Discovery Channel' who own them for the next three years. The Discovery Channel had told him “Look, we love this film. We’re going to give it a broad and very prominent airing.” The following is Alex Gibney speaking on Amy Goodmans Democracy Now!

"Well, it turns out that the Discovery Channel isn’t so interested in discovery. I mean, I heard that—I was told a little bit before my Academy Award nomination that they had no intention of airing the film, that new management had come in and they were about to go through a public offering, so it was probably too controversial for that. They didn’t want to cause any waves. It turns out, Discovery turns out to be the see-no-evil/hear-no-evil channel."

If the film comes to your local theater, you might consider seeing it, as you won't be seeing on your TV for the next three years. An update to this posting. The film won an Oscar for Best Documentary and HBO bought it from the Discovery Channel.

congratulations you're a wiener!

The title of this posting should be rapidly blinking, to the point of causing you to go into spastic convulsions on the floor. And the reason your a winner is... well, cause you did that very unique, courageous thing of visiting a web page where this insanely annoying ad appears. While surfing you may come upon one of these terribly annoying banner ads, alerting you to claim your winnings for being the 999,999th visitor. Of course your not stupid enough to respond to such nonsense. Are you? I never pay much attention to these vile, repugnant things, as hard as that can be sometimes, but i looked at it and paused for a moment and assessed the risk associated, and decided to put the hook around my mouth. I decided to claim my prize. The one for me being the 999,999th visitor. Okay i know what your thinking. Don't do it. Stop! Go back. Run for your lives!

Well, throwing caution to the wind, i decided to click the banner, which was indeed blinking and actually exclaimed my status as the 999,999th visitor. I entered my email address and clicked return. You see, I have this neat option of being able to create as many email addresses as i want, and give them names like 'fraud@blahblah.com' for example. I was asked to provide my physical address and phone number. Here i paused and wondered if i should provide an address, like my parents for example (mom i hope your not reading this. Your moving soon aren't you?) Well, while i left the window open, and considered my options for a few minutes, I notice an email came down the pike. Now this is at 3am, and i don't get many emails from friends at 3am. Checking my mail reveled, that in the few moments of my contemplation, my junk, virgin, email address had already been compromised, i mean violated. The horror.

Now keep in mind, i haven't even signed up for, or agreed to any terms or conditions, and i have already received four junk emails, from 'The University of Phoenix' and 'eHarmony' specifically sent to my brand spanking new email address, that i provided only to them. A Google search for ConsumerGain.com reveals another company MemberSource Media, LLC. Another search reveals a Federal District Court filing in the state of CA of the United States of America vs. MemberSource Media, LLC. Hmm, i wonder if i should peruse this further, or just jump out of the boat? Oh by the way i've visited the webpage were i first saw the ad, it seems i'm the 999,999th visitor again, and a winner, or wiener again.