I Think, Therefore I Rant!

Time Warner cable may not be available in your neighborhood so you may not have a dog in this hunt. To catch you up, TWC offers a free iPad app that allows you to stream live video TV feed to your device. You would think that the networks would have no problem with this. Let’s list the reasons:  

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• You must be a Time Warner customer to use the service.
• You must be a RoadRunner customer to use the service (RoadRunner is the brand name for TWC’s cable modem service).
• You can only use this service at the specific IP address of your RoadRunner account.  You cannot be at the Starbuck’s down the street. You cannot be at your neighbors house that also has TWC and RoadRunner but a different IP address.  You cannot be traveling to a hotel in a far off city.

I have always known that Kanye West was a jerk.  Why is it such a surprise that he was a complete jerk and idiot for going on stage with Taylor Swift? Does anyone really expect this imbecile to have good manners?

After all, when we have Congressman yelling “You lie!” during a Presidential address to the joint session of Congress, why would we expect a dumb rapper to have better manners?

Of course, hats off to the beautiful Beyonce for giving up some of her time to honor Ms. Swift.  She has shown the world that she has class (and Kanye and Representative Joe Wilson are classless).

I have an idea!  

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• If you are in South Carolina – don’t vote for Joe Wilson and donate generously to his opponent
• If you want to listen to music – buy something from Taylor Swift or Beyonce

Bill Maher is a relatively famous television personality. Of course, he got this position by correctly realizing that he wasn’t a very good standup comedian and his real talent was getting famous people on TV and then making fun of them or using them as foils to make a political point.  He has bounced around a couple of different venues and has currently landed at HBO.  His show is called “Real Time with Bill Maher”.  He has used this notoriety and fame to also publish some of his remarks and is a frequent contributor to Huffington Post.  His latest article is the subject of this post.

Originally, I only wanted to reply to Bill Maher in his comments section.  However, Huffington Post limits comments to a small number of words so I am forced to make further comments here.  You can read my original thoughts at this link as there are currently over 2500 comments on this article and it would be difficult to find mine.  You may also want to read Bill’s original article before you read my comments.  

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Is President Barack Hussein Obama lying? 

I am sure that he doesn’t think he is.  I am sure that if you parse his words he would point out that he didn’t say that Caterpillar would be able to re-hire those laid off employees immediately.  And I am sure that he would say that if Congress would pass HIS package (rather than the compromise package) then the CAT employees would get to work a lot faster.

While we all know when politicians are lying (their mouth is moving), it is not inconceivable that the CEO of Caterpillar told BHO one thing in private and another on television.  On TV, his statements would have been closely followed by investors and so his honesty factor has to go way up.  He could get into all kinds of trouble if he said that he thought he could bring back workers and then announce that he was just kidding.  

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I am sick and tired of the bad attitude and the drugs in professional sports. I know that many athletes say that they aren’t heroes and they shouldn’t be held to a higher standard. I tend to agree with them but can’t we at least hold them to the same level of conduct that we hold our own co-workers?

If my co-worker was found to be sleeping with the boss in order to get ahead, they would both be dismissed from their position. If they lied on their resume, they would be fired. If they were salespeople and they falsified an order, they would be fired.

Similarly, if I go into work tomorrow and strike my boss with a fist (sometimes I have wanted to) then I would be fired and possibly be charged with a crime.

So why is it okay to have steroid use in sports? That is cheating.  

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The party is over. There were thousands of people in attendance and hundreds of people playing musical instruments. Supposedly, there were millions of people watching the show on TV but who really knows the correct number.

There was a lot of controversy, ranging from trash pickup to the lack of reality for the 90% reduction pledge. There was also some good music played so I am sure there will be a CD put out for the greatest hits (which will use more energy in creating).

Overall, I have a hard time with all of this attention. Yes, there does seem to be some validity to the argument that Earth is getting warmer but the science doesn’t seem to be conclusive that it is being caused by humans (check out Is It Getting Warmer for a bunch of articles on both sides of the subject – for and against).  

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I have a TiVo. Most of you probably do also. Actually, I am a little weird in that I have TiVo as well as a HD-DVR from my cable supplier (I will definitely rant on this in the future).

I get really ticked off when television shows decide to start a couple minutes earlier or stay on a couple minutes longer. Do the TV execs really think we don’t know what they are doing? It isn’t that they couldn’t figure out how to edit the show down to 60 minutes. No, they are trying to screw up our TiVo programming! They want your love of ER or Lost (or whatever) to screw up their competitor.

TV executives KEEP YOUR LOUSY SHOWS IN THEIR TIME SLOT! STOP MESSING WITH MY TIVO!

I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.  

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Some of you are not going to get this post. I live in the Midwest, not in Boston or New York. There are different rules of etiquette in driving in those two cities but everywhere else is pretty much like the Midwest (or should be).

When I was a kid (as my children say – back when TV was black and white, the radios only played AM, and a CD was bought by rich people at the bank), we always let others in when driving and were stopped at a stoplight. You know the situation, you are the 5th car from the light, some poor soul just spent half of his savings at the gas station on the corner, and now he needs to enter the traffic stream. Back in the dark ages, that driver would give you a wave of thanks and usually even mouth a “Thank you” in your direction.  

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