Don't Get Attached

Over the past few years, I've become very disillusioned with television and especially the fall premieres of new shows. Every year, the same scenario repeats. X new shows premiere. Y existing shows return. Z shows are canceled or otherwise ended prematurely. At the end of the year, this parade of dashed hopes, failed dreams, and unemployed actors leaves even the most dedicated fan (read: couch potato) wondering why to even endure the inevitable pain and suffering.

Last year was bad for cancellations of both new and existing shows. It was even worse for new and existing shows that I watched or was looking forward to. Let us recap those shows no longer with us except for in the recesses of our minds, Bit Torrents, or DVD.

• The Nine
  
• Vanished
  
• Kidnapped
  
• Drive
  
• Justice
  
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
  
• Veronica Mars
  
• Gilmore Girls
  
• Jericho

That is not even to mention the handful of shows that I was going to watch but decided they would probably be canceled early on.

This year, I am on a boycott of all new shows for at least the first two months of the season. If after that point, shows are still on the air, I will consider going back and watching the previous episodes to catch up. It seems rather self-defeating to do so, but at least I won't be stuck in the same lurch of investing in a show only to have it ripped from me as a bully would take your lunch money on the playground, push you down, and walk away laughing.

At least I have the old favorites to cling to for however long they might last such as Lost, 24, and Prison Break. Perhaps this year, I may have time to check out other things such as Buffy, revisiting X-Files, anime, or perhaps I might actually spend some time with the family.

Don't Cut the Juice Loose

It should be apparent now that O.J. Simpson is a menace to society. First, he was facing double murder charges. Now, he is charged with the alleged robbery of a sports memorabilia dealer. Perhaps O.J., on his quest to find "the real killer," became bored and decided to branch out into different areas of lawlessness.

Simpson does not deny that he was in the Palace Station Hotel and Casino room that night. He states though he was merely going to collect his own personal artifacts that were stolen. You have to give him credit at least for a semi-plausible argument.

What's next for O.J.? Jaywalking? Parking in a handicap space at the Sav-A-Lot? Sure, the crimes are decreasing in seriousness, but someone needs to stop this man before he resorts to littering or spitting on kittens.

Don't Buy It

With the Nintendo Wii selling like crack in a downtown metropolis, new gadgets and accessories to correspond are coming out like Elton John. One recent development in the stable is the Zapper. Developed for games where shooting is involved (representing about 80% of console video games now), the Zapper is the next-generation answer to the old-school NES gun controller for use in Duck Hunt.

Despite the marvelous advances in technology (not to mention aesthetics), there are those who do not appreciate the technology available for simulating violent acts. NJ.com asked their readers what they thought of the Zapper. Of the three responses posted in the article, two readers (as well as many other commentors) thought the Zapper was a poor idea.

A "very concerned grandparent" wrote:

"....Why don't they enclose an application to the NRA in every box as well....the marketing person who came up with this brain child of an idea should be fired."

Very insightful stuff if you ask me. I bet that was senile-old Charleton Heston's brainchild to boost NRA membership by a shameless, but awesome, cross-promotion.

Here we have but another case of over-protective, uppity parents trying to remove the fun of everyone else so their little sociopath-in-the-making would have far less avenues of anger management. While I certainly don't think such a "toy" would be appropriate for a 6-year-old, what about sensible adults or kids who can understand the difference between reality and video games?

What's the next step in this shameless process of sheltering young, impressionable minds from potential violence simulation? Water guns? Crocheting needles? Bananas? All of these objects can, and as I can attest, have been used for the depiction of shooting, maiming, and killing. This list will likely grow as children have boundless imaginations and can use pretty much any inanimate object for their desired purposes, whatever those may be.

Of course, you as a parent can decide if your child is mature and stable enough to use such objects, including the Zapper. In the event they are not ready, exercise your right as a consumer to not buy a particular product you do not feel is appropriate. That would then leave other consumers the same choice: to buy or not to buy. Since I have successfully solved this major dilemma, next I will work on stamping on racism and reality TV.

Don't Confuse Determination with Dumb

In Allen Park, Michigan, police discovered a man's body in the woods who died from apparent self-inflicted wounds. He had built a home-made guillotine and fastened it to a tree in the area the body was found.

Deputy Police Chief Dale Covert said in regards to the peculiar manner of self-termination:

"I can't even tell you how long it must have taken him to construct," he said. "This man obviously was very determined to end his life."

While suicide is not something to take lightly and represents a terrible breakdown in a person’s life, you have to admire this man’s dedication to ending his life in a cowardly but standout way.

Don't Kill Dogs: Part 2

Sgt. Tom Lovejoy, a police officer from Arizona, was charged with the death of a fellow police officer: that of 5-year-old police dog Bandit. Lovejoy allegedly left Bandit in an enclosed car for 12 hours on a hot Arizona day with high temperatures exceeding 100 degrees while he was running errands and canoodling with his wife.

"I am certain Sgt. Lovejoy has suffered greatly from leaving his police dog in a sweltering car," Sheriff Joe Arpaio said in a statement.

I'm pretty sure the dog suffered more. Perhaps, Michael Vick will have a buddy who understands inside the pokey.

Related: Don't Kill Dogs: Part 1

Don't Steal Babies

One expects when shopping in Wal-Mart to have their sense of taste threatened by the hordes of hideous, lead-tainted home furnishing and clothing lines. You might also find your personal space susceptible at the sheer amount of people wandering around 2 feet wide aisles filled with cases of soup or brutally obese individuals riding in their diabetic Big Wheels. You may not expect to have a security guard intimidate you for toting around your infant while perusing the clustered aisles for random Chinese trinkets.

Meet Stacy. Stacy writes:

The next thing I know a security guard is asking me to hand him Ava. Evidentally someone in the store had their baby in a cart and someone rolled the cart away...

They are trying to tell me that Ava is not my child. She started fussing so I began taking her out of the seat. The whole time this security guard is asking me to "give him the baby". FUCK YOU! There was no way I was handing her over! I tried to walk away, leaving her car seat, the diaper bag, even my wallet...they blocked me! I am screaming for them to get the fuck away from me. I start crying, sobbing, just holding Ava near me. Everytime the security guard put his hands near her I shifted away. Ava is screaming at the top of her lungs by this time. I am screaming to get a manager.

The entire ordeal is detailed on Stacy's blog.

In the internet realm, there seems to be two schools of thought with this story. The first is that the store team overreacted and threatened a young mother who only then turned crazy hysterical to protect her child. The other camp feels that Stacy was being selfish and overreacted to the situation.

I would have to fall squarely in the first category. Having worked in retail, I can certainly understand the need to protect a child who may have wandered away or been taken by being diligent to ensure no one else takes that child out of the store. However, this situation certainly could have been handled with much more grace and tact as opposed to simply demanding a mother give up her child as the child could be the missing child in question. In all probability, there were other parents and young children in the store that day as well. Were those customers treated differently, did Stacy really overreact, or is this just the first we are hearing about it?

Yes, she acted in a rash manner by trying to grab the child out of the seat, leaving her belongings and just making a run for it. Such behavior could lead one to believe she had something to hide. As in nature, though, a mother will go to great lengths to protect her young.

As a parent myself, I would be highly irate, probably throw down a few choice words you won't find in Disney movies, and possibly escalate to a physical altercation if need be. If that were the case though, due to my scrawny stature and lack of physical prowess, I would probably be on the wrong end of a taser, foaming at the mouth and writhing on the floor of the local Wal-Mart.

Parenting will certainly screw you up for life in many, many ways.

Don't Be Entwined with Web 2.0

USA Today reports social networking site Facebook will be releasing the names and photos of its 40 million users available in search engines such as Google and Yahoo. This marks a change from actually having to take the extra steps to go to the Facebook website and search the same terms. Nonetheless, some are perturbed by this development.

"I'm amazed that they seem to be opting-in literally millions of people who never asked for Facebook to put listings out in the public," says Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineLand.com and a Facebook user.

Admittedly, I may not be on the cutting edge of these social networking sites. I have a Myspace page to keep up with the few people from high school and afterwards that I care to keep contact with. Otherwise, I'm not trying to hunt down every single person I have had fleeting contact with to add to my already bloated "friend" list.

However, it was always my understanding that the point of social networking sites was ... for social networking. Crazy, I know. Why would you have any expectation of privacy or any objection to allowing those to find you on such sites if you signed up for that express purpose? There is always a way to opt-out and restrict your profiles to only those who have already made your list.

We already know that potential schools and employers look on Facebook and Myspace profiles for an unofficial assessment of a candidate. This just means that Aunt Betty or that creepy guy in Starbucks who overheard your name can retrieve the same information with ease.

Regardless, if there are any photos or videos from that week on Spring Break or at amateur night at the strip club, better be on the safe side and relegate them to the relative privacy of a blog that no one reads.

Don't Be Left Behind

On some level, you have to feel bad for Miss Teen South Carolina, Lauren Upton.

Two weeks ago, she was a 18-year-old living a relatively normal life. Now, she is the butt of jokes for many late night talk show hosts and forwarded inter-office emails.

"Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?"

This simple question from last week's Miss Teen USA pageant will probably haunt the southern belle for years to come. Her now infamous response of awkward stammers, pauses, and Valley Girl-style phrases was a rambling, incoherent abortion of grammar usage and logical thinking.

She responds:

"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the US should help the US, uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for our children."

Now, it is understandable that she may not have heard or understood the question posed to her, she was nervous in front of the hundreds of people in the audience and watching at home, or is uncomfortable in public speaking. Of course, if any of these were true, Miss Upton certainly picked the wrong hobby to participate in. In fact, I will go to bat and say that sounds like a pretty odd question and I personally would like to see such "studies" that conclude that one-fifth of "U.S." Americans cannot locate their own country on a map.

However, what I find most frightening about this whole ordeal is the possibility (as demonstrated by Miss Upton) that young people now lack a very critical skill that should be fully ingrained into their impression minds at least once they reach high school: being able to bullshit. More so than proper sentence construction, isosceles triangles, or the periodic table, bullshitting is something that will be of great value to anyone over the age of six when faced with a question or problem that he or she does not know the first thing about, whether it be a personal, academic, or professional problem.

In my opinion, bullshitting is being able to spout out nonsense with confidence in hopes that whoever is asking will accept your fictitious answer and go away. Occasionally, you may be called on it but most are not confident enough in their intelligence to question an answer that may not make a lot of sense but is given with the confidence of an academic scholar.

In the future, this is something that Miss Teen South Carolina, as well as all young persons, need to work on to ensure their success in life. That is, of course if actually learning the appropriate material is out of the question.

Image © CBS

Follow up: Just like many of us thought, the question itself was bullshit.