Dear Reality Show Contestants and Producers

If you are a contestant on one of the very few reality shows I watch (American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, Top Chef), please take a note: If you got cut early or voted off late in a prior season? Don’t. Come. Back. You have had your chance. Please let the next group of talented people have a shot. Sometimes? Life sucks like that. Welcome to sucking it up.

If you are a producer of one of these reality shows… stop letting people re-audition! Stop putting through so many no-talent bags of crap!

Oh, and network execs? Enough. Fucking. Reality. Shows. E. NOUGH. Seriously. I don’t mean networks like TLC – we expect “real” television from channels like that. I mean the pseudo “reality” shows like the somehow-still-going Survivor brand and “contest” shows. Let’s take a look at the choking shit storm of “reality” we can look forward to in coming months:

Worth It:

American Idol
So You Think You Can Dance
Top Chef
Extreme Home Makeover
On The Lot

 Maybes

Miami Ink

So Not Worth It:

8th & Ocean – MTV
Adventures In Hollywood – MTV
Agency, The- VH1
Airline – A&E
Amazing Race – CBS
American Inventor – ABC
America’s Next Top Model – UPN
America’s Got Talent
Apprentice, The – NBC
Armed And Famous – CBS
Bachelor, The – ABC
Beauty and the Geek – WB
Beyond The Bull – TLC
Black. White – FX
The Block – G4
Big Brother – CBS
Breaking Bonaduce – VH1
Cheerleader Nation – Lifetime
Cheyenne – MTV
Criss Angel Mindfreak – A&E
Celebrity Fit Club – VH1
Cowboy U – CMT
Dancing With The Stars – ABC
Dice Undisputed – VH1
Dinner: Impossible – Food Network
Dr90210 – E!
Ego Trip’s White Rapper Show – VH1
Family Jewels – A&E
Fatty Koo- BET
Fast Inc. – MTV
Flavor Of Love – VH1
Gastineau Girls – E!
High Maintenace 90210 – E!
Hells Kitchen – FOX
House of Carters – E!
Hogan Knows Best – VH1
Inked – A&E
I Love New York – VH1
Intervention – A&E
Kathy Griffin My Life On The D-List- Bravo
King Of Cars- A&E
Knievel’s Wild Ride – A&E
Laguna Beach – MTV
Last Comic Standing – NBC
Little People Big World – TLC
Made – MTV
Making The Band – MTV
Maui Fever- MTV
Miami Ink – TLC
Miss Seventeen – MTV
Nanny 911 – Fox
Nashville Star – CMT
No Opportunity Wasted -Discovery
Pimp My Ride – MTV
Pirate Master
Project Jay – Bravo
Power Girls – MTV
Project Greenlight – Bravo
Punk’d – MTV
Pussycat Dolls- CW
Random 1 – A&E
Real Housewives- Bravo
Reality Racing – Spike
Roller Girls – A&E
Real World Road Rules Challenge – MTV
Rock Star: Supernova – CBS
Real World – MTV
Road Rules – MTV
Run’s House – MTV
Shalom In The Home – TLC
Sons of Hollywood – AandE
Springer Hustle, The – VH1
Starting Over
Style Her Famous – Style Network
Super Nanny – ABC
Surreal Life – VH1
Survivor – CBS
Tiara Girls – MTV
The Hills – MTV
Ultimate Coyote Ugly Search – CMT
Wife Swap – ABC
Work Out – Bravo

I’m sure I forgot to list some of these completely forgettable shows. If you must double check my list of wasted boob tube space, you can click here.

Network Executives! Bring back writing! Scripts! Shows with a point! And a cast! Make up of people who ACT from a story and script in scenes, not yahoos we’d like to run over outside of the mall being “put in situations”. I’m begging you…. seriously. Don’t make me grovel.

Now Listening: The Hives

Tags: Reality Television Shows, Reality TV, Survivor, Pirate Master, On The Lot, american Idol

Technorati Tags: Reality Television Shows, Reality TV, Survivor, Pirate Master, On The Lot, american Idol

Suspicious Device

This has been cracking me up all damn day:

The SLD (Suspicious Looking Device) from JunkFunnel Labs.

It doesn’t do anything. The only purpose of all of it’s flashing lights, bells, whistles, displays, timers and such is to look suspicious. that’s it. I love it. Something tells me the gub’ment won’t find this nearly as funny as I do, and for heaven’s ake don’t take one into Boston!

Now Listening: The Late Show With David Letterman on TV

Tags: Suspicious Device, Moononite, Boston, Ghostbusters

The eCigarette

There is hope on the horizon for us die-hard smokers who are only quitting because we have to, not because we want to:

The eCigarette! I would so buy this right now if it were available here, to at least try it!

* side note: For those of you who look forward to the lung cancer years but want a more considerate way to smoke, there is the Smoking Jacket. Which I am not enamored of.

Now Listening: The Astronaut’s Wife on the DVD

Tags: ecigarette, quit smoking, cigarette, smoking jacket, secondhand smoke, lung cancer

Cool Art: The Vader Project

Check out The Vader Project by clicking here.

Tags: Darth Vader, Fan Art, the Vader Project

NH Joins The Anti-Real Id Bandwagon

If this passes, and I hope it does, I can almost forgive NH for even considering banning smoking in public places this year. Almost. Because the libertarian in me doesn’t think personal choice should be legislatable. Making high end smoke eaters and perfect ventilation a requirement would make more sense. But I digress…

NH To Take Sides Against National “Real ID” Article Here.

Now Listening: The The Mind Bomb

Tags: National ID act, Real ID, NH, ME, Against, Vote No On Real ID, Ron Paul

Pippa Rocks Socks

Look What She Found For Me!

CLICK HERE for a Bit of Fry and Laurie!

Pippas gives the best presents!

Happy Friday and Memorial Day Weekend

It’s the Friday before a long weekend, and it has that lazy, sluggish, relaxed, summertime “why am I working” feeling in the air. Even those of us who work out of a home office are feeling the cabin fever after months of snow, rain, ice, wind and (if you are me) accident recovery. i have an appointment with the allergist next week to get my asthma back under control (it’s as if the accident knocked it out of whack. Haven’t been this wheezy and uncomfortable since before I was diagnosed and receiving treatment.). After that I can actually go play outside with my friends!

/begin shameless plug

If you have a Mac, check out my contest over here.

/end shameless plug

Also, I spent my evening last night making a friend a present. You can see her shiny new blog look and location here.

So what are your plans for the long weekend? Camping? Rafting? Gorging yourself on hot dogs, steak, burgers and beer like the rest of us? Let me know in the comments.

Our plans are up in the air. We’ve been invited to several barbecues. If I can get my allergyfst under control with OTC stuff, I want to go to most of them. Other than that honey will be mowing the grass and patching the roof, and I will be writing, writing, writing.

Now Listening: See My Mog

Tags: mac mod contest, barbecues, memorial day, long weekend, patch roof, mow grass, cookout, asthma, allergies

Personal Blogging, Women on the Web, Trolls, Etc

A while back I blogged about Kathy Sierra and the way she was taunted online, even threatened. I am not even going to link to the original post, because it was a knee-jerk “poor thing” response. I took her side in the original controversy, but as time passes, I find myself more and more on the opposite side of the argument (click here for the better way to look at the Kathy Sierra controversy, written by Cyndy). What has happened is that bloggers everywhere are using the Kathy Sierra controversy as a springboard for such asinine ideas as a Bloggers Code of Conduct (censorship, plain and simple, and curtailing of free speech. I won’t be signing that any time this century). Other bloggers are forgetting the basic unwritten rules of personal blogging because of the Kathy Sierra brouhaha, and thinking it’s no big deal to ignore the rules then to get bent out of shape when they catch flak for it.

What are the basic rules of personal blogging?

Don’t give out personal information online, especially about your friends, loved ones, and children. Make up a nickname for the people you know in real life and stick to it, so that trolls and other malcontents can’t find them in real life and do them harm. It’s why I call my honey “honey” and remain vague on the names of family members and close friends – keeping it to first name or nickname only.

The more you share, the easier to make into a target you are. Just because you think you are hard to find (“I only list my county name, not my town.” “I just described my son or daughter’s school, I didn’t give the name.” “How can people find out about me and where I live by my telling the name of my doctor online?” etc) doesn’t mean you are hard to find.

Ignore the trolls, and make sure your friends ignore the trolls. If you can’t keep your friends under control, and they put you in danger, there isn’t much you can do but ride it out and lose the so-called friend who was so willing (or so stupid) to put you and your children in danger.

Make sure your online photos and videos don’t have identifiers in them (your house number, street signs, school frontage, your license plate number, etc). This includes not blogging about your commute with photos and other identifying information that could lead the bad guys direct to your door.

Host your own blog on a web server, using either a free platform like WordPress or a paid one like MovableType. That’s how you can gain the ability to ban trolls and control IP addresses and spam in a way that hosted sites like Blogger can’t do. If you have a low budget and need cheap hosting, I recommend my web host. They rock, and are less than $4 bucks a month for unlimited bandwidth and server space. Click here for HostDepartment.

Don’t include personal information on your domain registration (real home address, real name, real phone number, etc.). The only thing that has to be real on the domain registration is your email.

Don’t blog about work. If you do blog about work, you may get fired. If that happens, you will just have to suck it up. There is no labor law recourse for “blogging about the job” or using company time “blogging on the job”.

Make Flickr photos of your children part of your private photo collection that only your Flickr friends and family can see.

If you use social networking for business and for personal friend finding, and you have kids or engage in non-businesslike behavior, you may want to open a separate account for your business Id that isn’t linked to your personal one. Especially if you lead a double life as a binge-drinking, coke snorting, pot toking, nekkid cam whore or something. You know, in case it looks bad for business.

Don’t engage in flame wars in the comments on other blogs. This is part of ignoring the trolls mentioned above, but I felt the need to spell it out for the Sofa Kings out there. Newsflash for the internet noobs: changing your name in the comments, signing up under different names on sites like Digg to leave comments, etc? Doesn’t work. The internet tracks you by IP address, dumbass. If you use the same computer, house, router, etc? They know that all of these “mystery” commenters are you. And if someone you are friends with has broken the rules of blogging on their blog, the internet baddies can then find that person by searching for you, the commenting Sofa King. Don’t put your friends in that kind of dangerous position by being that kind of hotheaded asshole.

Use GIMP, Seashore or Photoshop to blur identifying information out of pictures, like license plates, ultrasound names, house numbers, etc.

Don’t allow anonymous commenters. Ever. Require a name and valid email. It’s for your own protection. If you lose a few commenters because of this policy, too bad. Write more and get new ones.

Don’t engage in personal attacks on other bloggers. If they engage you… ignore them. What? I’ve said that already? Tough. That one is well worth repeating over and over again.

Long story short, don’t be a Sofa King about the way you handle the internet. Following a few simple rules can help keep you and your children safe online, and keep your business businesslike. You don’t need a silly “blogger code of conduct” to tell you how to act or censor your words and the words of others! You just need common sense. You can still blog like you have diarrhea of the mouth if you want to, just keep the personal stuff vague and in check, and curb your hot-headed friends and blogfriends – their tempers can get you in trouble just like too much info can get you in trouble.

Do I break some of these rules? One, mainly – I link everything. I’m a freelancer, and I’ve been freelancing long enough that my clients are already aware of my political views, religious views, etc, so they also know I am professional when it comes to work. I’ve built a rapport over many years with them. Before I freelanced full time, I worked in an office and tended bar, and this blog was hosted on Blogger and much, much tamer and less blatant about my viewpoints.

/rant off

On a side note, someone took one of my favorite 80s songs by The The, Armageddon Days, and set it to images of current events. Awesome. Hard to believe an 80s song applies so well today. Enjoy!

Now Listening: Check My Mog – iTunes is Running today

Tags: the the, armageddon days, blogger code of conduct, kathy sierra, rules of personal blogging

Technorati Tags: the the, armageddon days, blogger code of conduct, kathy sierra, rules of personal blogging

Bush as Dictator in Vaguely Worded “Catastrophic Emergency”?

This little gem flitted across my feed reader a moment ago and made me completely speechless. I don’t even know what to say. I know how the mainstream media missed it – they miss quite a bit these days, being so busy puckering up for the Presidential Ass. I must say I’m surprised it hasn’t been burning up more of the blogosphere and “citizen journalist” sites. What is this news item that has me so floored? A sneaky little thing that just passed, the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive.

In this directive, Bush declares that in the event of a “Catastrophic Emergency” the President will be entrusted with leading the activities to ensure constitutional government. The language in this directive would in effect make the President a dictator in the case of such an emergency.

I would comment further on this, but my head hurts just thinking about it. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Now Listening: HBO Boxing on TV

Tags: Dictator, President, Bush, Homeland Security

Brief Thoughts On Thinking and Spirituality

I’ve been out and about traveling the past few days, doing various activities with various clients, relatives and potential clients. I had a conversation about a book I recently put on my Amazon wish list (Go ahead, buy me a present interwebs. I want an Oompa Loompa.). That book is Christopher Hitchin’s new work “God is Not Great: How Religion Ruins Everything“.

The person commenting is upset that I would want to read such a book, claiming that just by reading a “book like that” I’m denying God’s existence. Without getting into personal religious beliefs, let me say that I emphatically disagree. I believe that if you believe in God, you believe in using the gifts God gave you. These gifts include your brain. Your belief should be able to withstand logical thought, and considering the opinions of others. You didn’t get the capacity to think about alternative viewpoints without the expectation that you would use the ability.

Why do people get so frightened of an alternative thought? Why does having friends with opposing views seem so scary to some? I’ve never understood that. I don’t agree with many of my friends on religion or politics, but I can listen to their viewpoint, even debate it, without fear of my personal beliefs being shaken or losing the friendship. That freaks some people out, and I don’t understand why. Shoot, take a look at former child actor Kirk Cameron. He’s become nutty as a fruitcake, and uses his brain for some wacky nonsense now, but he got in a debate with some atheists recently and is proof positive that you can argue your point without losing your faith, if you are so inclined. (Perhaps a poor example, what with the banana argument and the crocoduck and all, but still – he held onto his faith no matter how bizarre.)

So, I read books like this one that make me think, because I believe thinking is key to forming my own beliefs and ideologies about a variety of things. I think you can’t be well-informed without being all-informed. You can’t argue your point without ammunition. You can’t even formulate the thought behind your point without a basis for it. So don’t be afraid to read outside your world view. I promise reading about other religions, ideologies, and viewpoints won’t get you kicked out of heaven if you believe in God. It might just make you more effective at convincing people of your point of view as well – a common side effect of expanding your knowledge.

As to what I believe, that’s fodder for another post, but suffice it to say I fall into the Spiritual Humanist category, and leave it at that.

Now Listening: ZZ Top Greatest Hits

Tags: Atheist, God, Spiritual, Humanist, Religion, Debate, Hitchins, Education, Kirk Cameron, ABC

Technorati Tags: Atheist, God, Spiritual, Humanist, Religion, Debate, Hitchins, Education, Kirk Cameron, ABC