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Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/211 first.

Jeni: I ATE the Heck outta blueberry muffin
Gabe: Blueberry muffins ought to fear you.
Jeni: really they should
Gabe: There's a four star alert on you out on the blueberry muffinnet right now.
Jeni: I bet. I tore through that muffin like nobodies business
Gabe: It turns out I'm a sysop on Blueberry.muffin.net. Who knew?
Jeni: Goddamn narc.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/164 first.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/163 first.

Jeni and I are watching "The Secret Lives of Women," and one of those ladies -- literally -- thinks she's a vampire. I'm gonna say something I might regret later. But I have to say it; let me put it this way...

In the same sense that I do not believe in the Green Lantern, I do not believe in Vampires.

And that's not to say that I do not believe in Vampiric behavior, or that a man named Vlad the Impaler did, in fact, walk the earth. Nor is it to say that I do not believe that there is absolutely no secret corps of do-gooders sworn to protect the universe at the behest of a council of little blue midgets. I mean, there are more things in heaven and earth than can be described by today's science.

However, my point is more along these lines: There comes a time in a young man's life when he obtains a plastic replica power ring, slides it on his index finger, and finds a strange lump of disappointment welling in his soul as he realizes that even with just the right ring, he will never be a Green Lantern.

I'm just saying, when the 45-year-old dominatrix puts the fake teeth in at the start of the work day, somewhere deep in her belly, she's got to know that she's not fucking immortal.

I point this out to Jeni and she makes a face. So, I ask her, whats the deal with that face and she says:

"That sounds like the kind of story that might be a funny observation, but is probably also true."

Probably, my darling, probably.

Epilogue
And then This horrific commercial for the Trojan Vibrating Finger (Minimally NSFW) comes on. Oh. My. God. WeTV, have you no shame?

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/141 first.

A follow up to the previous post: Netflix sent me a form letter telling me that I'm probably not going to get a response. Nice. I'm not going to bother to post it, because it's just a crappy canned form letter telling me to call their assy support service.

It suddenly occurred to me that I could try running IE as "Administrator" might give the netflix Drm component installer the ability to stick it's dcik in my PC and come up juicy. Bing Bang, boom. Vista's all sexed up and can play videos again. ANd might be pregnant. You never know.

DRM does nothing to prevent piracy and hassles the rest of us. I do believe that content creators deserve to be paid for their work, however, I don't think the front line consumer should have to pay for the brunt of it. This is a debate for another day. I'll just say this.

It was me, and not any sort of caring on the part of netflix, that has restored my ability to stream netflix movies on demand on my windows pc.

Thanks for nothin, Netflix.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/openlettertonetflix first.

Dear Friendly Folks at Netflix.

I'm having nothing but trouble with your view on demand services. I have a Windows Vista laptop with all the latest patches and service packs but it will not play your on demand videos. The system continually tells me there are problems with the DRM. I follow the instructions to reset the DRM, but I they never seem to clear up the problem.

Please consider abandoning the hostile DRM wrappers that make your service non-functional. Not only do they make it hard for legitimate, long-time customers such as myself to enjoy your service, they actively lock your product and service into a single delivery mechanism, which, I'm sure you understand, limits your firms abilities to respond to changing marketing conditions.

I understand that there are market pressures that prevent your firm from operating without DRM systems in place, but that doesn't mean your firm should only provide service to a single class of PC users. In that regard, I support expanding your streaming service to other set-top-boxes like the Playstation 3. I would consider even spending a small increase in my subscription fee for the ability to stream netflix movies to the PS3.

One thing, however, I do not support, is the addition of a premium charge for blue-ray disks. I will not pay an additional fee to include blue-ray disks in my netflix cue. Please do not enact one, as it will merely curtail my enjoyment of the blue-ray platform.

Thank you very much for your time, consideration, and timely response,

Gabe Wollenburg
Netflix consumer since March, 2004.

PS. Please note that a copy of this message has been posted on my blog at writelarge.com/openlettertonetflix

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/Oh_Don_Piano first.

If Jeni doesn't stop watching this clip, I'm going to cancel the cable.

She says, "It just gets better and better."

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/113 first.

So, I got this Mac. It has a lot of software installed on it, and a lot of software that has been unistalled or removed incorrectly.
How do I clean up my right click "Open With..." Menu on OXS?

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/112 first.

This is the first Super Smash Brothers game I've ever played. I don't get it. It's a buttom masher, ehy?

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/awstats_and_whores first.

Didja watch the 20/20 show on Prostitution last Friday night? I did. Sort of. It was on while we were making meatballs, anyway. Mmmmm... Meatballs. Anyway, I saw that one of the "legit" brothels uses the internet to process there transactions and what do they use to track their website traffic? You know it: Say it with me:

"Awstats!"

Of course, I pointed this out immediately, and J. told me that I was probably the only person in America that would take note of the web-metrics package that whores use.

If I was the Awstats people, I'd jump on this promotional opportunity right away. Awstats! The Web Analytics Software Choice of Whores!*

The Google Analytics people must be pissed.

*Because, honestly, "Awstats! The Web Analytics Software Choice of Whores whose web hosting provider allows Perl, CGI and log access" just doesn't roll of the lips.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/81 first.

Have you guys seen the "Above the Influence" public service ads that have the guy wrapping himself in a pot cocoon? If you want to see it, it's wrapped in a flash site you can't link to here.
I _love_ this commercial. And here's why:
Never before have I seen a comercial with such a lovely crafted prop. The person who made the pot cocoon really worked hard to make the very nicest pot cocoon that they could. It's a lovely peice craft-service. It's a pot cocoon of the very highest quality.
That pot cocoon is some crafts service guy's magnum opus. The finest pot cocoon that the world has ever seen.
Every time I see the commercial, I want to wrap myself in a pot cocoon and come out all warm and high.

Found it on the you tubes.

For the record, my pot smoking days are long behind me, but this commercial makes me nostalgic for them. In that regard, it's probably the worst anti-drug commercial ever.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/60 first.

After this post made was highlighted at the Consumerist, I got a call from a local radio station to tell the story. I love the Consumerist! Not just for the traffic, but because the kind of Journalism the consumerist does is Journalism that matters.
So, this morning, I did a ten minute segment on Glen Gardner's morning show at WTDY in Madison. Didn't have my recording setup at home with me, so I didn't capture the interview to share, but I did have a nice conversation. My favorite part was when we started talking about how Justice was really my motivating factor.

Regardless, it seems like a decent station that WTDY.

Also, my brother-in-law Jessie made a cameo on Fox 6 last night. I'm not really sure what he's doing there with that plank, but that's ok. He had to have tons of dental work once because of an accident that happened while he was working on my car.
Fox6's links go away after a time, but here's a screencap:

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/47 first.

I'm disappointed that it took me this long to give my holiday-award to the most offensive commercial or advertisement of the holiday season.
See if these bother you like they bother me:
1. There's a Virgin Mobile commercial where they talk about how great it is to use your phone to arrange illicit sex in the company mop room. Because if you use the corporate interwebs, you'll get caught.
2. The commercial where the girl gets a goddamn pony! And she's pissed because it's not a cellphone. It's a goddamn pony! And It bites! Good, you little bitch. I hope the pony bites you twice.
3. Any goddamn ad that suggests you buy a cellphone for someone as a gift. There is no worse gift you can give someone than giving them a cell phone. Hi! I took the liberty of signing you up for a contract for a piece of crappy electronics that will probably break or get lost before you're free to buy a new one! Let us celebrate the birth of our Lord by texting each other from across the room.

Hey Kids!This was posted at http://writelarge.com/node/31 first.

Transformers Cartoons are the best Joost has to offer? Please. There is also GI-JOE. LOOK MOMS! THE INTERNET IS NEW and MODERN! I CAN SEES MY CARTOONS.

I guess if I had to pick a locked down, DRM'd, not-really-tv-on-demand client, I'd pick the one that has a huge selection of Anime and didn't have an absolutely baffling user interface and pop up advertising windows.

They say that the real value in Joost is the Social aspect. You can bring up chats based on the channel you're watching.Maybe I just don't get it. But I don't need TV to be a social phenomenon. I watch TV because I like the stories. I don't need special Internet TV buddies.

Joost doesn't bring me anything that Miro + TV-RSS doesn't. Except legality. Crap.