from the Bleedin' Obvious Dept.

I've probably talked about this before, but frankly can't be arsed checking.

Due to inattention on my part, I just watched several minutes of Fox31's main evening news broadcast.

I say "news" but really that's rather stretching the definition.

Like most US local TV stations, they spend a good 15 minutes of each hour teasing us about what's coming up later in the news broadcast. You know the sort of thing:

News-guy: A deadly air-borne virus is killing thousands. We'll tell you which neighbourhoods are in grave danger, and how to protect yourself, sometime in the next half hour.

News-gal: And, after the break, we'll be telling you, that we're going to eventually tell you, about a crazed axe murderer, on the loose, somewhere in Denver, and if you're really lucky, we might even share our knowledge of what he looks like with you."

Then there's the inordinate amount of time they spend giving you sports "news", which if any of us actually cared to know about, could be found on the myriad of sports channels that are available. Please, someone, tell them, we don't care!. If we did, we'd watch ESPN, listen to the radio, or read a newspaper.

Then there's "the Troubleshooter" Tom Martino, with the ultimate in non-news, "Fame, or Shame", wherein products from informercials are tested to see if they are, in fact, every bit as shite, as anyone with a brain might have guessed from the cheesy way in which they were hawked in the infomercial. (hint: When they say something is not available in any store, there's a reason.). Could someone please find Tom a proper job? Every time the poor man appears on screen, it's seems as though Fox are increasingly more and more desperate to find him something to do.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, there's their news reporting. I say, "news", but their coverage barely meets the definition of the word "news", at least where I come from.

Sorry but, I don't give a flying fuck about people getting upset about guys who are amateur football referees, changing into their uniforms behind their cars, on the street. It's not news, it's just filler.

And when your most action-packed feature is about a policeman falling off his motorcylce whilst riding around some cones on a training course, again, it's not news!

Injustice, war, starving millions all over the world? Anyone? Hello? Y'know... I hate to use the F-word on you, but .... Foreign places, including ones that (gulp) don't have oil.

Europeans widely regard generalise about Americans, as having no clue about what's going on in the world, especially events outside the US. Some even suspect that many Americans know little of what's going on outside their own city. They see this as part of a mass-dumbness in the US, but it's simply not the case.

Watching Fox31 news, shows the cause of the problem. If your news broadcasts focus almost entirely upon what happened that day in the city in which you live, with occasional mentions of stories from other parts of the country, how the hell are you expected to know about anything that's going on, elsewhere in the world?

This wouldn't be a problem, if the channel also had an equally frequent, national and international news programme. They don't. They don't, and they tout their lame-ass, local yokel, bulletin, as the news programme to watch.

Sure, there are more intelligent, in-depth, and broad-ranging news broadcasts available on CNN, but not everyone has cable or satellite. What kind of television system is it, that discriminates as to what you're allowed to know about, based on how much you're prepared to spend on your television service?

I think I'll stick to getting my news from the Quahog 5 newscasts within episodes of Family Guy. It's just like Fox31's news, only more in-depth.

Finally, after a lot of faffing, I've managed to get eBay to verify my worthiness to sell my crap on their system. It seems that almost every page of eBay's website needs a couple of tries before the changes take hold.

I blame society.

My first two auctions are for an antique CalRod stove, and an old Apple iMac.

Click these links to see the stove or the iMac.

There'll be more techno-gubbins on sale soon, and more news about what the hell is up with me at the moment.

I can't sleep. I went to bed early after a fair bit of wine (Rioja), and was woken around 1am by the sort of inconsiderate loud assholes that drink at the bar a block away.

When the bar first opened, it looked promising as a regular haunt for yours truly. It had reasonable ambience, the Guinness was poured relatively well, and the bar food was nice enough.

However, within two months of it opening, it was "discovered" by the Cherry Creek Trenderati. You know the sort, they're everywhere throughout the US and Europe.

The sort of people who invade nice pubs, and suck all the character, charm and soul out them, just by sitting there with their loud, obnoxious and frankly boring as fuck friends, none of whom have anything of value or depth to stay. A lot of them ski, and if you asked them, or even if you didn't, they'd probably say they're into "extreme sports"

Anyway, they woke me, and so I'm wide awake, and watching Ronin for the third time - a superb action film, with a great plot, good direction and camerawork, and a good performance by Robert De Niro.

But it's the car chases that rock in this movie. I like intellectual cinema as much as the next Guardian-reader, but sometimes you can't beat a well-choreographed, balls-out car chase. Add in the fact that as the whole movie is set in France, with its narrow winding streets and market stalls everywhere, and you've got some great chases, that add to what is already a good film.

There are twists, turns and betrayals galore in the story, but nothing that's going to tax anyone smarter than your average Fox viewer.

I dare say this is doing the rounds of email inboxes all across the US and UK, but rather than spend hours coming up with something original, I thought I'd share this with you.

Read the material, then click on the link.

There's a new Honda commercial in the UK. The film uses no computer graphics or digital tricks. Everything you see really happened, in real time, exactly as you see it.

The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very minor, didn't work. They would then have to set the whole thing up again. Despite being only two minutes long, the film cost $6 million and took three months to complete.

The film is fast becoming the most downloaded advertisement in Internet history.

There are six and only six hand-made Accords in the world. To the horror of Honda engineers, the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make the film. Everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and complete Honda Accord) are parts from those two cars.

The voiceover is Garrison Keillor.

When the ad was shown to Honda executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphics have gotten. They fell off their chairs when they found out it was for real.

Oh. And about those funky windshield wipers. On the new Accords, the windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet. It looks a bit weird in the commercial.

http://home.attbi.com/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html

My latest addiction, since managing to purloin a broadband connection from an unsuspecting neighbour, is the BBC's Radio 6, known as "6 Music".

This is a digital radio station, available on the UK's digital radio system, and online.

Those of you in the US who are tired of the same old commercial-ridden formulaic shite, pumped out by Clearchannel clones all over the US, should give it a listen.

You'll hear a startlingly refreshing mix of pop, rock and electronica, featuring bands you're familiar with, and some that you've never heard of. What's more, there are no commercials.

The presenters are intelligent, seasoned broadcasters which their fingers on the pulse of new, quality music. Musician Tom Robinson is one of them. A full list is here.

One of the things that is not so good about living in Denver, is keeping yourself informed of new music. The radio stations here are incredibly formula-driven, compartmentalised by musical genre, and absolutely shit-scared of taking any kind of risk, such as might be involved in playing something, a little different.

The only near exception to this is 99.5 The Mountain, who apparently take to playing entire albums, if they think it's what listeners want. One breakfast time, they played a whole side of The Beatles' White Album, for example. But even The Mountain has to play commercials to fund itself. The BBC does not.

The streaming signal will work over dial-up, but really broadband is recommended.

I've just seen one of those television commercials (here in the US) that, right up until the end, I was sure was a spoof of cheesy tv advertising. It wasn't. It was for a real product. But what a product!

It's the Karma Chameleon Telephone.

Yes, an animated chameleon novelty phone, that plays the Culture Club classic "Karma Chameleon" when a call comes in. How classy. I daresay it's the harmonica-playing frog sidekick that'll make it a popular attraction at dinner parties throughout the nation.

No explanation is given, however, as to the reasoning behind using a song with no connection to phones, talking or telecomms.

A quick search online reveals that not only is this product legit, but it orginated from the UK.

Is it just my imagination, or is Gary Busey a bit creepy?

Or perhaps it's just that I can see no obvious sign of talent, despite the fact that I'm With Busey portrays him as someone who is apparently famous. I'd never heard of him.

Oh and WTF is the point of that show? Then again, the same could be said for a lot of Comedy Central's current output.

Just because British chaps aren't generally allowed to carry guns, doesn't mean they're harmless.

Take this tale of two drinking buddies, one of whom must have spilt the pint of the other.

Which just goes to show that when they drink, some people are fairly 'armless whilst others just go to pieces.

During my forced foray into the world of leisure and unpaid broadcasting, I've had to make certain economies. One of these economies, was to give up my broadband internet connection.

By a happy coincidence, those geniuses at Qwest (note no hyperlink, so they're less likely to be alerted to this article) failed to delete my user account. So, equipped with the Qwest dial-up numbers, and a bit of reprogramming of my wireless router, the phone line here provides a bearable connection, supplemented by visits to coffee houses with free DSL.

Tonight, things are improving. One of my neighbours has been kind enough to start up a wireless network in his house, and not password protect it.

So here I am, sat on the couch, watching Inspector Morse ambling around western Britain (and making me homesick for a land awash with decent pubs, and populace not afraid of a pint or six), and my iBook picks up both my wireless network, and a neighbour's one.

Better yet, said neighbour seems to have a broadband connection. DSL, for free, from home. You can't beat it!

I have no idea which neighbour it is, nor am I about to name the network. But thank you, whoever you are!

The word of the day is "Ugh".

Actually, it's rapidly becoming Word Of The Year (beating out "Freedom", "roadmap" and "embedded"), but I digress.

I went to bed early, but due to the fact that I don't need much sleep, woke super-early, before 3am. Just as I was getting back to sleep, sometime after 6am, the alarm went off.

I resisted the urge to punch said alarm clock to the ground, in the knowledge that it'd be me who came off worse, and the thing would still be going off, only it'd now be out of reach. Heaven forbid I'd have to get out of bed to switch the alarm off.

After waking in a haze sometime later, I got my shit together, and got ready to head out to the station. The plan to make a pot of coffee (Daz Bog, French Roast, weapons-grade strength), fell through due to my usual early morning faffing, which was ably assisted by a very squawky Benny, who's grasp of the concept of "Dinner Time", involves the following theoretical questions:

• Am I awake?
• Is anyone rubbing my tummy?
• If not, shouldn't they be feeding me?

So I set off for the , stopping at a 7-11 for coffee and the Breakfast of Champions: a large hot-dog, in a stylish and real classy Incredible Hulk box (can you say merchandising?)

The show went well, and was the usual slick and flawless event.

At the end of it, I'm left, a former shell of myself, drained after three hours on-air, standing up, being charming, and the following off-air drop in adrenaline, and wondering if those burnt crunchy bits under the station's microwave would be tasty, or if I should venture outside, with less than caffeine in my bloodstream than seems wise.

But still, I love it, and would not give it up easily. In fact, you'll get my microphone, when you pry it from my cold dead hands. Something which shouldn't be too difficult to do if I don't get some coffee, real soon.

Alert DMfM reader Tim has sent me the following amusing link.

It's for an electric shaver, with a few curious extra features.

Tim tells me he's waiting for the EPOC version (that's the multi-threading OS that British PDA-maker, Psion (pronounced sy-on) uses).

Read the whole list of features. I'm not sure how well the infrared beam cuts your bristles, or just how safe it is to email someone whilst the razor blades are whirling around.

In my search for gainful employment, beyond that of unpaid wit and raconteur, a certain alert Irish DMfM reader in the Denver area has forwarded the following important news article to me.

"The law is perfectly clear," Jerry Jelusich of Multnomah County's Department of Human Services told a press conference in Portland, Oregon, "and it requires us to provide information in all the languages our clients speak. Mental health patients in this county currently speak a total of fifty-five languages, including some rather unusual ones, and that's why we're advertising a post for an interpreter who is fluent in Klingon."

Jelusich was explaining to reporters why government money was being used to fund a post for a linguist specialising in a fantasy language, invented for the Star Trek tv show. "Although it was created by Gene Roddenbury for a work of fiction, the Klingon language was designed from the outset to have a consistent grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. And recent research has shown that many people, and not just fans, now regard Klingon as a complete language.

Moreover, we've had a growing number of cases involving mental health patients where Klingon is the only language they would speak. We need to communicate with them somehow, and if hiring a Klingon interpreter enables us to diagnose their problems more effectively, then it's money well spent."
(Florida Sun Sentinel, 11th May 2003)

And before you ask, no I don't speak Klingon. All my faourite Sci-fi was made in the UK, where all the aliens had the decency to speak proper English, before exterminating you.

Update
Thanks to Andy from WorldWide Rant for reminding me of the excellent service provided by Snopes. I guess in my amusement at the idea of bureacracy gone astray, I forgot to double-check the facts!

Snopes confirms or debunks urban myths and dubious news stories. The story above is debunked here.

OK, it's been a quiet week on DMfM.

Truth is, there's been a lot going on for me, and that has made me too busy and/or tired to feel like writing.

One day, when things are more settled, I'll tell you all about it, but not right now.

However...

Radio Maxathon
Meanwhile, last week was also busy because I did a record three radio shows, on KUVO - , in one week.

They were all mostly good, except for a small technical hitch on Friday, where no-one had re-pointed the satellite dish for the news feed from NPR. Ever the professional, I had a nice tune standing by for such an emergency.

Oddly enough, the listeners seemed to prefer Red Garland over hearing about the latest BS from our so-called President, and his henchmen.

One interesting development lately, as I've become used to radio broadcasting, is that I'm starting to sound increasingly like John Peel and/or Mark Radcliffe, in my presentation style. This is entirely a sub-conscious thing, and in no way related to the fact that both men are radio gods.

Sadly, my Hapless Boy Tim was unable to make it to the .

Word Whore
I have also been working on some articles for a magazine. Anything that gets published will result in much-needed hard cash in my pocket.

I'm seriously thinking of parading my (writing) wares around a few other publications. It can't hurt, surely?

If any of you have any ideas, leave a comment.

Rain Man
This afternoon's thunderstorm waited until I was exactly as far from the house as I was planning to go during my walking the dogs, whilst wearing just a t-shirt and jeans, before unleashing a torrent of rain upon me.

The dogs and I waited under a number of trees, but ended up sprinting most of the way home. Both dogs couldn't believe their luck as they got to have a good run, even though they weren't off-leash.

This was all going well, until I stopped running to open the back gate. At this point my body pointed out to me that it was, in fact, severely out of practice with this sort of healthy running nonsense, and it wasn't going to put up with any more of this behaviour, thank you very much.

After I'd caught my breath (about five days later), I decided that I actually felt good for having run, and that I really should go back to the gym.

Once my senses had returned, I dismissed this idea for the blatant idiocy it was.

Uggh. If I hear one more celebrity, or semi-famous person, say how they don't go online, or don't "know how to work the computer", I shall probably vomit (into a bag and send it to them).

First off, there's that affliction of so many people in the world, inaccurate English. It's not the computer, it's a computer. If you're clueless about one, you're likely clueless about them all.

It's the same dumbness that causes people to say "PIN number". PIN stands for Personal Identification Number, so tacking "number" on the end is redundant and dumb.

Secondly, how, in this day and age, can you not know how to use a computer? I'm sorry, but unless you live in the third world, there's really no excuse. I'm not talking about object-oriented software development, I'm talking about the everyday mundane communications tasks.

If my father, a non-techie senior citizen, can master surfing the net, sending email, writing documents, and even hooking up a digital camera, then W(hy)TF are these 30-something tossers, surrounded by technology in s every day, so helpless?

Either they're dumber than a bag of rocks, or (brace yourself for a shock revelation) they're lying, because they're doing that whole "too cool to know stuff" thing.

But it's not just celebrities who have this whole "I'm too cool to be remotely technically-minded" misconception. Everywhere you go, you meet these people who have this bizarre pride in their ignorance. It's as if they're saying, "I'm too posh, and too important to bother with such trivialities.".

In this day and age, email is as basic a communication tool as the telephone or written letters. To say, "I don't know how to do email" is tantamount to saying, "I can't operate a telephone."

I dare say some of you are thinking, "how elitist, not everyone has a computer", but I'm not talking about ownership of the technology, I'm talking about the snooty arrogance, that causes people to think they're too important to learn the fundamentals of existing in the modern world, and that such activities are for "the little people".

Can't seem to find an end to this piece, so in great tradition of Monty Python sketches, we'll just end it sans conclusion.

Just because I know you ladies can't get enough of the cutest guy in my house, here's a picture of Miles, riding shotgun in my truck the other day.

Normally he rides in the back, and sits either in the cargo area, or on a single rear seat (the other 2/3's being folded flat).

This day, however, the truck was full with stuff I was taking to the thrift store, so there was no room for him. He, however, was quite insistent that he come along, so after giving him a boost up into the front, here he is, happy as a sand boy, in the front seat.

Click on the thumbnail to see the full-size image.

Shotgun!

Due to my heavy use of my little Apple laptop, I needed a minor repair doing on the keyboard today. I shalln't bore you with the details, suffice it to say, something had broken off that held a Shift key in place.

The folks at AppleCare, informed me that it was down to the folks at the Apple Store to fix it, as they'd last touched the keyboard, so off I popped down to Cherry Creek Mall.

As it turned out, they had the parts in the store, and so I ended up with a brand new keyboard being fitted, and a new power supply (because I mentioned the tiny crack in the power line). The new keyboard is nice, clean, fully functional, and almost glowing. The translucent nature of the iBook keyboard, means that you really notice when it's got dirt (and in my case, cat hair) underneath it. The new one looks positively surgically clean by comparison.

I estimate that there was enough cat hair and dirt under the keyboard, to make me a third cat. Not that I'm stupid enough to want more cats than I already have.

I told the Mac Genius guy, that I was going to rechristen my iBook, "Cher" because it's had so many bits of itself replaced or renewed, or operated on over the years.

There have been mayoral, and council elections going on in Denver lately. You will be aware of this if you live in Denver, because the signs are everywhere.

That doesn't bother me. It's good that people are interested in the political system. Heaven knows there are enough people who are completely apathetic with regard to voting (and this also applies to the UK to a lesser extent) that it's good to see people taking an interest.

What does bother me, however, is these muppets, standing at every major junction, holding signs, grinning and waving at drivers like retards.

First off, someone needs to point out to these people that distracting drivers, especially Colorado drivers, at busy intersections, is dangerous, and could cause accidents. Lord knows Colorado drivers are bad enough, without these grinning idiots hoping to distract them at every junction.

Secondly, just WTF do these cretins think they're going to achieve? The signs they hold are invariably the exact same signs planted in front yards all around the city, so offer nothing new for readers.

And why, unless they actually are retarded, or perhaps just very lonely, do they feel the need to wave at ever vehicle passing by?

I think what bugs me the most, is that well-intentioned-but-dumb manner, in which people, hell-bent on something they're interested in, blindly carry out their quest, assuming everyone else agrees with them. Of course you could apply that description to this website! ;-)

I mean, do they actually think that after seeing them grinning and waving, holding a sign with some guy's name on it, that people are going to think, "Well, I wasn't going to vote for Albert Tatlock, but now that I've seen some dickhead holding a banner with his name on, I'm sold!"?

I wonder if, in a fit of rage, someone ploughed into a group of these cretins with their car, they could argue a defense that they were distracted at a busy road junction by all the waving of placards?

Then again, knowing the American legal system, their defence could probably be, "none of the people I killed were carrying signs saying 'do not run me over'".

So, go and vote, if you get a vote, that is (I don't, despite paying taxes whilst I was working). If you should happen to cull a few of the 'human bollards', due to some "Road-to-Damascus-blinded-by-the-light (reflected off a placard)" incident, then look upon it as a way of making your own mark on the political system, even if your mark does bear a striking resemblance to that of the Toyota Corporation.