TrumpTV Ratings Disaster

How long before the FBI or the CIA cancel the unabashedly unpopular and horrifyingly vulgar new TV reality series, “Orange is the New Moscow”?

It’d be nice to think that maybe Congress and the Senate could get together for about a five minute confab and clear this overly bronzed Bozo out of the Green Room once and for all but even the good weed out here in the high mountain meadows hasn’t yet managed to make me that optimistic.  (I’ll keep working on it though.  You can be dam sure of that.)

Congress can’t act because as we’ve all witnessed with our own two eyes, every high ranking Republican with the will and a woody must have taken a free trip to Russia for some of that sweet Saint Petersburg poontang.  Putin’s got them all trapped in some sort of piss parade.

The Russians could drop the X-rated hit “Raining Republicans” onto Netflix, charge five bucks a view, and rebuild the entire Russian Empire on the returns from that alone.

Imagine Vlad, shouting out “They will pay for all our walls!” to an enchanted Russian cocktail audience of oligarchs, as Papadopoulos, Manafort and Carter Page tip wine glasses to each other in the midst of that sordid soiree.

Meanwhile, Trump is dancing around Twitter as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Benghazi we loved you!, but Witch Hunt and Fake News are trying to stuff Hillary’s hacked Russian emails into the nutsack of a 300 pound fat man living in his mom’s basement.

The fifteen Russian hackers already living there are seriously short on space because of all the file cabinets stuffed with Trump’s confidentiality agreements hidden behind the left nut.  There’s political gold in the situational comedy opportunities presented right there that have been squandered because of the ineptitude of Trump’s disorganization.

Ratings in the toilet.  Totally ineffective public relations and advertising strategies.

The whole idea of having critics (and potential witnesses) of the series strangled and poisoned by nerve gas has not provided the intended ratings boost to stop the Orange slide.

Cancel the dam show!!  It’s way too derivative of James Bond and Caligula, and I’m going to have to check, but I’m relatively certain the Simpsons already did it.  This is your crazy grandpa.  This is your crazy grandpa on Twitter.  This is your crazy grandpa on Twitter with the nuclear button by his bedside and the FBI about to break into a fat man’s nutsack.

Sleep well America and hope that Uncle Bobbie can wrestle the button away from the Mandarin Colored Muscovite before he blows us all to Hell and back.

Enjoy.

 

 

Survivor-Candy Island

Not Even a Hint of Irony

We’re halfway through another season of Survivor – the “reality” show where contestants are abandoned and forced to make do with nothing but their outsized egos, sense of entitlement, and enough rice and beans to stave off any actual threat of starvation.

More often than not, there isn’t even a decent fire-starter in the whole mix of contestants and if hunger pangs get too dire (because Bubba eats up all the beans), you can count on Jeff Probst tossing in a reward challenge full of Snickers or short ribs.. Am I the only one who wonders how far up the beach they’d have to walk to find the luxury resort where the camera crew resides?

The Good Old Days are Gone

Nowadays, Survivor is all fun and games, with no real threat of not actually surviving.  It wasn’t always a beach vacation because in the early years there were contestants that nearly died from the harshness of the challenges and environment.  CBS has effectively turned Survivor into Beach Blanket Bingo and any of the drama from the actual survival element of the game is long gone.  Nowadays, it’s an odd occurrence if somebody doesn’t voluntarily leave the game due to being butt-hurt that they aren’t as popular in a group setting as they hoped they’d be.

“I’m so bummed out I can’t take it anymore” is reason number one most exit the game on their own accord.

It’s almost like none of them actually need or care about winning a big pile of money.  The halcyon days of seeing a dude’s face melt off while trying to maintain the fire are long gone.  Being forced to collect water downstream of a pissing rhino?  Gone.  The sweet taste of toasted rat?  Pffft.

‘”Survivor” has morphed into a (sad) metaphor for the molly-coddled upbringing most of the younger contestants bring to the game.  If they could actually catch a shark they wouldn’t eat it, they’d jump over it.

I don’t want to be accused of pointing out problems for which I don’t offer a viable solution, so those who are inclined to accuse me of that need only hang around long enough for part two in this mini-series to find an equitable solution to the problem of finding an honest version of Survivor to satiate their reality TV addiction now that the Survivor we all fell in love with has gone soft.  Stay tuned for an example of what real-life survival actually entails these days.

Enjoy.

Me and Larry Flynt

Welcome to the 21st Century on Facebook, where images that weren’t even considered pornographic in the Cold War Era are now being effectively suppressed by the American Taliban.  I’m opening this up for public discussion as I ponder, at the bare minimum, the degree of incompetence of a company that has such a complete track record of nearly every aspect of my life, and yet could so easily be misled into taking what I believe many of you will agree with is a customer service social faux paux of the highest possible order.  They didn’t just ban the picture, they banned me from any posting on Facebook over an illusory violation of a breach in their “terms of service”!

For fuck’s sake they’ve never so much as lobbed a first warning at me in response to any of the umm…more colorful language I use on Facebook with enthusiastic reckless abandon.  I’d at least have a bit more sympathy for Facebook, but no more respect, if that was the issue under consideration.

Keep in mind I ignored their first warning to remove the photo after reading that if I didn’t remove it immediately it would be put under a higher level of scrutiny, which I naturally assumed would involve some actual person at Facebook Central Command laughing his ass off while deleting the “complaint” that spawned the banning.  A complaint lodged by what I suspect was some militantly pissed off rightwing goober offended by my liberal politics or lack of proper respect to the memories of their imaginary Jeebus.  

Before you take the trouble of wasting your time trying to explain to me how it’s all automated, I’m going to respond that it hardly matters to me from my perspective.  If they are willing to pass off this decision to artificial logic, they need to do a much better job of programming, and I’m willing to make an example out of myself in the greater interest of maintaining free speech on the internet.  

Facebook may well be a private company, but they are operating in the public space on infrastructure built and maintained at great taxpayer expense and have a certain responsibility in regard to that position which is totally independent from their ham-handed customer service policies.  And let’s be clear, that’s what is ultimately at stake here unless we’re willing to push back against the religious trolls intent on defining pornography down to a level where a picture of a naked Barbie doll gets you banned from all social media for life.  Slippery slope and all.

In any event, I think it’s highly ironic that at a time where tech, mainstream and financial news headlines are filled with stories of youth fleeing Facebook in droves, they are willing to risk offending someone of my advanced age (and online spending habits) by willy nilly banning me over the aforementioned “pornography”.

What rights of mine have been violated, if any?  Have I not been recklessly slandered by someone that Facebook could easily identify to me (under court order e.g.) so that I may seek compensation for damages in a court of law against this defamation (I’ve essentially been accused of being a public pornographer).  If there’s an eager young lawyer out there looking for a pro bono case to make a name for himself (win, lose or draw), I’m easy to get ahold of.

It’s “only” a 24 hour ban right now, and a minor perturbation in terms of access to Facebook, but  in the overall picture of which social media service I intend to give the bulk of my data (and hence their income stream), you can bet that unless I get some type of feedback from Facebook in the form of an apology (at a minimum), I’m going to be moving off their service (like so many others have lately) and will share my marketing information with a data management service that has the competency to judge my character more judicially based on the weight of a hundred thousand web postings I’ve already shared with them against the baseless complaint of one lunatic pearl-clutching prude intent upon helping them ruin their market share.  In the meantime I encourage those of you who support or sympathize with me on this issue to help spread this blogpost as far and wide as possible.  All it takes for evil to take over is the lack of action by a few good men.

Enjoy.

Rant of the Day

I feel compelled into offering a long form analysis of the current state of affairs in the US. Bear with me as you will usually see my comments fit well within 140 characters. Nature of the beast….LOL. To wit:

The situation is more dire than most people realize. The public is forced to focus on distractions served up by the corporate controlled media (no offense to the memory of Trayvon, but in the overall scale of issues that need to be addressed, the coverage given is nothing less than a carnival show).

It’s endemic. There’s statistically much less crime (Steven Pinker has the stats) these days but significantly more coverage of crime in the media. Not that these diversionary media clown shows are restricted to crime “journalism”. No indeed. Pick a subject that can easily be broken down using scientific evidence. The media will find a way to give “equal time” to some plastic haired lunatic flat-earth leaning nut job with the appropriate fake smile and rhetorical flair.

In the meantime, the transfer of wealth from the many to the few continues to accelerate even after the US banks “collapsed” as a result of their overzealous self regulation and return to the banking practices circa 1890, (a point at which we are still mired, no offense to Elizabeth Warren. Heaven knows she’s trying). Banks are giving something like 2% “return” on your money while simultaneously charging 30% interest on credit. Sounds fair.

Healthcare costs were already off the charts when I bailed out of the US several years ago. It isn’t gonna matter how much you pay for insurance or who is paying it so long as we allow immoral profiteering off our sick, elderly and dying. And let’s be blunt here. It’s outright highway robbery on a scale unseen in human history. The suffering and misery imposed by the US healthcare system is shameful to me as an American and as a human, but that’s just because even though I’m a devout and militant atheist, I stand firm in my Christian values. It’s what my momma raised me in.

Something’s gotta give sooner than later in the US. If it doesn’t then America will be like any other South American country where the rich are forced to live behind walls. That’ll work for plenty of the idiots I left America to get away from but not for me. The stink of the ghetto and the desperation of the deprived always manage to breach the walls which is not the way I wanna live my life. If I thought there would or could be a peaceful, political way to diffuse the powder keg that will ultimately explode, I would not be so pessimistic. We’re still spending money we don’t have on military expeditions we should never have started while simultaneously making it harder for poor people to either abort or feed their babies. I quote the immortal words from a popular song:

Who is to blame in what country? Never can get to the One.
Dealing in multiplication but they still can’t feed everyone.

Enjoy.

Thrice in Two Days

The “Once”

What in the hell is going on at Apple?  The Mac Mini I just got was a royal pain in the ass to setup because it wouldn’t sync with my Apple Bluetooth wireless keyboard. (below, my full MacMini Epinions review here.

The “Twice”

Yesterday I decided to upgrade my iPhone 4 to the new iOS6 (because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time? Argh!)  The press hoopla over the talking maps app DEMO made it out to be the shizzle.  “Dazzling Flyover” was mentioned on a plethora of tech websites.  It was so exciting that I posted the event to Facebook and Twitter while waiting on the download to finish. The kinda thing people do when they are expecting the birth of a new family member.  The kinda thing I should only share with my support group at Apple Fanboy Anonymous (AFA) meetings.  They have a twelve step program to clear your mind of Windows clutter, the details of which I am sworn to protect with the tenacity that Mitt Romney does his hidden tax records.  But I digress.

For the most part, outside of the invisible internal code changes, I suspect that the maps change was the biggest deal for iPhone 4 users, since we lack Siri functionality and our models aren’t panorama capable.  Once the download and upgrade was finished, the first thing I did was check a route I utilized under the old map.  The walking route from my house to the NaturZoo in Rheine.  The walking route is basically the bike route and I used it to get to the Zoo on my moped awhile back.  Imagine my shock and surprise to find that no such option is available now.

With the new map app I only get routing via the autobahn, and with my moped being limited by law to the sidewalk at 15 mph (25 kmh) that info is as worthless as a plea for sanity aimed anywhere in the general direction of the Republican party (or Faux News, ibid)

I jumped on the web to check what was up, Seconds after confirming the trending Twitter topic MAP APP SUX, I see all these tech sites that had previously been heralding the new iOS like the second coming of Christ are now bashing the crap out of the new maps app like Mitt Romney attacking reason itself, and with the exact same Etch-a-Sketch ability to condemn what they so heartily were hailing just a day earlier.  That must have been the day the seed was planted that I “needed” this upgrade.  I blame those media bastards because “never blame yourself” is something I learned at AFA.  Actually, It is the first rule of fight club. AFA from which I shall now be banished for exposing the first rule of AFA.  Not that I would chance attending another meeting now that I have blown the org.

The “Thrice”

Now my update apps button takes me to the German version of the apps store, where it correctly identifies the apps I need to update and then rejects me for being in the wrong store for my device (DUH).  It always went to the US store before.  I now have to chase down or figure out if-where that setting resides so I can update about half a dozen apps that the device says I need to update.  Steve Jobs, I am crying for you bro’

Enjjoy.