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It’s been awhile since I’ve lambasted my hometown newspaper, known by this blog as the Capital City Gazette (to protect the not so innocent). It’s not for lack of things that have annoyed me with this newspaper. There’s not a week that goes by where I’m not irritated by something, usually in the OpEd page and often in the Letters to the Editor.

I missed my opportunity awhile back to craft some scathing commentary about a letter to the editor where someone was complaining because of the frequency the National Guard helicopters were flying at night. The helicopters in question are part of a medical unit which has since been shipped to Afganistan. Again.  However, nothing I could craft for a response could’ve beaten the response from the National Guard unit itself, an open letter in the paper inviting the letter writer to the sending off ceremony that took place about a week ago. It’s unknown if the person infact went.

But this morning, I found this piece which really took the cake. I’m talking USDA choice stuff here.

And for DA I don’t mean Department of Agriculture. Instead I mean, Dumb Ass.

Here is the letter, as it appeared, with only the names changed to protect the idiots.

As a Hazzard High School student and on behalf of teenagers: Please, let us get some rest.
Adults don’t rise at 6 to start work before 8; they know that sleep is helpful. In the winter months, we wake before the light, all in the name of something that will improve if we get to sleep. Sports can go later (we have lights), homework will get done (if not more efficiently), and everybody will actually be ready for class. If we really are the hope for the future, then let us rest for the occasion.

Sleepy Dozeopedic
Hazzard

First of all, this letter reads slightly incoherent and perhaps the writer really does need some sleep. But the line that just sent me into the stratosphere was, “Adults don’t rise at 6 to start work before 8.”

What? They don’t? Holy crap, what the hell have I been doing wrong all this time?? I’m up at 5:30 to get ready for my job and be there by 8, and I don’t have a long commute. Boy does this kid not have a clue or what? Let’s have a show of hands of all y’all out there who get up early in the morning, say 5:30 or 6am to be to work by 8am because you have, perhaps, an hour commute? Yup…wow, lookit at all the hands…

I’ve heard often over the years about how teenagers need more sleep. This was true when I was a teen. But I went to bed early because, unfortunately, I had to haul my ass out of bed at 5:30 in the morning to get in line for the bathroom which three other people had to use as well and be out of the house by 7 to catch the bus (school started at 7:45am). I guess this kid either lives right next door to his school or he just rolls out of bed and jumps on the bus or he doesn’t have to worry about catching a bus. Perhaps his house has more than one bathroom as well. Maybe his parents don’t work at all.

If the young people are really the hope for the future, this kid should just go back to bed and stay there because he certainly doesn’t make me hopeful.

Alas, it’s been awhile since my last blog post. I’ve been busy working on a story, which I’m currently suffering writer’s block on, and haven’t paid much attention to the news or the world. Which is just as well. Since I’ve taken a brief respite from my latest fic, I’ve discovered 1) I haven’t missed much and 2) most of what’s going on out there still pisses me off.

Which makes for great blog fodder but there just isn’t enough hours in the day to write up scathing commentary about All That Annoys Me.

So I present a condensed version for y’all.

Top Ten News, Sports and Culture Items That Currently Annoy Me.

1. Michael Jackson. His doctors. The pills. The family. The kids. For crying out loud! The man is dead (but not buried yet?!?!?). Will y’all please just leave him the hell alone?!

2. Brett Farve. Please, Brett, just shut the hell up.

3. Jon and Kate. Who the *#$*%! are these people?! And should I care?

4. The Health Care Debate. Guns at town hall meetings? Shouting and disruptions? Nazi-inspired comments? And this is all over health care?!

5. Ben Bernanke Speaks, Stocks Jump 100 Points. Please, Ben, DON’T shut the hell up. Just do us all a favor and be right about what you’re saying…

6. MySpace. Facebook. Twitter. Social Networks. The Internet as a Whole. I dunno about you, but I’m overwhelmed by the internet nowadays. Facebook scared the hell out of me when I discovered all my friends from high school are on it but all they do is play games and apps. MySpace has become the same way. Twitter I can’t decipher some folks’ posts. Doesn’t anybody speak to anyone anymore? And in English?

7. H1N1 Virus. Triple E. West Nile. Bubonic Plague. Well, that’s it, we’re all gonna DIE!!

8. Global Warming. Changes in Weather. See #7

9. Cash For Clunkers. Some people are buying Hummers with this program?!?!

10. Making Home Affordable. New Truth-in-Lending Regs. New RESPA and HUD requirements. Translation: How to Make Your Banking Career A Living Hell!!

Well, folks, there you have it. Man, I’ve gotta git back to working on that story so I can shut the world out again…

For those of you who don’t know, Web 2.0 is this whole user generated content driven web experience that I blogged about previously back in August of 2007 ironically titled, Self Produced Crap. My issue then was with Andrew Keen. Mr. Keen had written a book and had made an appearance on The Colbert Report, basically crying about there being too many people producing stuff and not enough people making up the audience.

He may be right on that point. The other point he had was that most of what is self-produced is dreck. That part I had an issue with.

Anyway, this isn’t a rehash about that post. This is a scathing commentary about YouTube.

YouTube is probably the preeminent example of self-produced crap. Anybody with a video camera can film themselves telling a joke or singing a song or film their dog doing a trick. Next thing ya know, it’s an overnight smash and it’s being featured on CNN. Then by the following week everybody’s forgotten about it.

Well, let’s face it. Other than anything completely and totally original on YouTube, probably 97% of the self-produced crap that’s posted there makes use of somebody else’s material, be it video or music. Very little, if any, of it is done in a malicious context or in an attempt to rip off somebody else. My two videos (which I’ve now removed) were slideshows set to music. Really benign innocent crap. Yet, YouTube, under pressure from Warner Music Group, had to put on it’s Gestapo uniform and crack down on users who had videos that contained any music from a WMG artist or band and yours truly recently got busted.

Since I did not have authoriztion to use ZZTop’s “Rough Boy” with my Bill Maxwell slideshow, YouTube muted the video. The slideshow would still be seen, just with no music.

Man, I feel like such a bad ass now. I was using a song without authorization. GASP!

I figure the reason I got easily busted was because I was dumb enough to put “ZZTop” and “Rough Boy” in the tags. Of course, I also put “Robert Culp” in the tags and I figure, had I waited long enough, the video would’ve been blacked out or deleted for using his likeness without authorization.

You see where I’m going with this? I can’t show my appreciation for something without somebody getting their nickers in a twist about copyright infringement and unauthorized use and blah blah blah. I mean, come on, I’m not mass producing this video and selling it for profit. I make no money by having it posted on YouTube. I acknowledge that the source material is not my own and note where it did come from. I like the song. I love Culp as Maxwell. I thought it went well together and wanted to share it with other folks. But nope, that’s not good enough.

Doesn’t WMG think it’s possible that somebody who digs Culp/Maxwell coulda found the vid but maybe had never heard the song before? And maybe, after watching the vid, they decide they like it. So they go on over to iTunes or to Amazon.com or whereever and end up buying the song. Hey, lookit that, another royalty dime for Frank, Dusty and Billy.

Yeah. FREE ADVERTISING, you can’t handle that concept WMG??

Nope, they can’t. Instead it’s just “you don’t have permission to use this song. You suck. Your video is now muted.  We’re not making any money off this deal and you’re a jerk!”

Oh, I had the option to swap the music out for one of YouTube’s “authorized” songs. Damn, are they kidding? They got songs in there from artists/bands I’ve never heard of. I tried one song with the slideshow and absolutely hated it and there was no way I was going to sample any of the other music on there for this vid. I’m sorry but the slide show was timed to match “Rough Boy.” Anything else will just look stupid.

Of course, I coulda contested the copyright notice if I wanted to basically commit internet suicide. Hahah….right.

So, in the end the creative urge has been squelched. I’ve pulled both my videos, the Dukes one too, as I figure at somepoint somebody will get upset I used ol’ Willie’s version of “Georgia on My Mind” without permission too. Or Warner’s will get upset I’m using the Dukes of Hazzard images and force the thing to be deleted.

By the way, I never got notice that my video was being muted. I just happen to be checking on the thing yesterday and saw the bright pink (Pink? Who the hell picked pink for such a dire warning color?!) banner on my video indicating it had been muted. And who knows how long the thing had been muted.

Morons.

I am done with YouTube.

The 2008 List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness was released on December 30th 2008, and there was one word in that list I was very upset to see.

Maverick.

Believe me, I was sick of hearing every fifth word out of John McCain’s and Sarah Palin’s mouths be “maverick.” They totally beat the thing into the ground and ruined it. Especially for folks like me who happen to like REAL Mavericks. Y’know, the good lookin’, poker playin’, cowboyin’, shuckin’ and jivin’ while lookin’ debonaire kind…

Which reminds me… Hey! Warner Brothers! You blew it with your 50th Anniversary thing back in 2005 by teasing us and saying you were going to put this show out on DVD.  Yeah, so you put threeepisodes out on DVD?!  What the hell is that? C’mon! Get this show on DVD…NOW!

Ahem…thank you. Now, where was I?

Oh yeah, the word Maverick being beaten to death. Thanks a lot O Ye Who Were Not Mavericks for totally killing the word! Between that and the still lacking DVD release from WB, I’m all riled up!

…must be funny…in the rich man’s world…

More proof that the people who write finance articles over at Yahoo are truly a bunch of yahoos.  I read a little gem back on October 30th written by Laura Rowley about a girl who “retired” at the tender age of 29.  I was going to post a diatribe about it here and post the link for y’all to read the article but it apparently has since been removed from Yahoo.

The gist of the story really wasn’t so much that the girl “retired” she simply took herself out of the workforce and is now a stay at home mom. But, she was fortunate enough to have worked a job for about ten years making a six figure income. She’s also married and her husband continues to work.

Yeah. Six figures. At the minimum that’s about $100,000. A year. Gee, musta been nice.  I suppose if I had made a six figure income for ten years I could take myself out of the workforce too.

The comments to the article were a resounding thumbs down on the whole thing, which is probably why it was removed.  Granted, yes, the girl saved and invested her money, which is sound advice, but when you got six figures to play with the advice is kinda like a slap in the face.  I mean, I’ve been working for the past ten years too and saving my money, but I’m nowhere near being able to “retire.”

Now, if I buy that Powerball ticket and win, however, we’d be having a totally different discussion.