Senseless Censorship

I, like many TV geeks before me get irked when daytime airings of adult leaning cartoons are censored for questionable reason.

Today's C4 Simpsons is about the worst example I have seen. All but one line of a scene in which Homer asks his family to guess where he put the garbage is chopped. The remainder is all three responding along the lines of "selling drugs". You think it's cut because it mentions drugs, but in the very next scene Lisa exclaims "I almost wish it were drugs", negating the point of the censorship as well as making no sense to the viewer. You could perhaps argue that depiction of drugs (cartoon needles) and the use of the word wasn't the reason so much as the idea of selling drugs for money, only seen in the cut segment. Probably not, but you could perhaps say that.

Minutes later the ex Garbage Commissioner comes up on stage and tells the mob that it's gratifying to leave them wallowing in the mess they made. Now, that's not word for word, but it doesn't matter. In the original he closes by exclaiming "you're screwed, goodbye" and walks off, but tonight "you're screwed" was removed. Mention of a potential sex act? Perhaps. Not ten seconds later the Mayor exclaims "we are far from screwed". Are we to believe (ugh, I just realised what i'm doing here) that not screwed is fine, but screwed is a problem?

What annoys me the most about this stuff is that they chop it badly once, save it and then always air that version. Sky, to their evil overlord credit, are far more liberal and cut a lot, lot less.

Channel 4 was my favorite channel by a huge margin when I was a teenager, though I never had Sky available to me back then. It's a complete shadow of what it was to me. Having said THAT, there's a good chance that many saw it as a shadow of what it was to them back when I liked it. The C4 I remember brought me all my favorite US comedy and drama. To anybody particularly bothered about needing to air UK shows that probably wasn't all that popular, but given that the UK show business can't seem to produce anything remotely worth watching between hit shows it stumbles into creating every ten years or so, it was fine by me.

Still, I have a good feelin about Red Dwarf over Easter. Okay that's a lie, but I definitely want it not to be what I think it will be.

Wow. This went all over the place. It was supposed to be quick but it's clearly not.

QUICK: Jade Goody

It's more than a little bleak to read of the impending death of a celebrity under the heading "Entertainment" on BBC News. It wouldn't sit right in any other category either because it's not really news, but it says something.

It says that it's probably about time media created a new category specifically to discuss celebrity. Give the Entertainment section back to actual art...

Then I might not be writing a short blog post feeling ambivalent about saying anything at all about this given the fact that I've certainly never been a fan of this girl two years younger than me, and though I sympathise for her as much as anybody else losing to cancer, I can't help but thinking I shouldn't have found this where I did, if at all.

QUICK: Android - Does No Compue

My T key is fauly so ry o follow along.

Okay i'll just have to make sure I press harder it's not readable without T's.

Android feels like one big misstep made of smaller but not tiny stumbles. Announced far too early. Finally one handset available, slightly ugly and a crippling battery. Many months later after tens of companies are alleged to be building something, nothing else is available. Today another unit is finally official and it looks almost as bad as the first one. It looks like a white Macbook phone. Those white ones never looked good - i'm sorry.

And it has no keyboard.

Seriously, the second device available to promote this platform should not be absent a major selling point of the first, and for what? If there's one component that won't drain a battery it's a keyboard. Did they not happen to notice that slide out keyboards on phones are THE feature of right now? Or am I just being swayed by engadget?

For space? Maybe but this thing doesn't appear any more compact than the G1.

Dream on, dreamer.

QUICK: Odds On, Nine through Twenty One

I woke up at 9.
I got up at 11
I remembered Friday was 13
Remaining in my wallet was 15
I was born on a 17
I don't have anything for 19
21 was a good time.

QUICK: Wikipedia and Facts

I hadn't heard the vicious circle argument against Wikipedia until this week. It makes a better case against the site as a sound source of information than most naysayers do (citation needed). It revolves around the idea that use of the service as a source has elevated to the point where mainstream media might make claims based on it. Being already "trusted" sources, these outlets don't tend to need citations to state what they present as fact and be believed, but eventually their stating of the "fact" ends up back on Wikipedia as a citation for exactly the piece of information that was used by them uncited to begin with. Now cited it will be increasingly trusted and repeated. The problem is, it was never true. That said, both you and I have learnt a lot from Wikipedia articles, and we both know a lot of it is correct. I've always found this argument a tough one in which to pick a side, and now i'm more unsure than ever.

QUICK: Decession or Repression.. Who Cares?

Firstly, a slip of the tongue is saying the wrong word, not starting to say the right word then correcting yourself midway through it with the supposedly wrong word.

Whether he meant to say it or not though, who cares? We were happy to call "this" a recession six months before it officially became one, so what's the problem with starting early on calling it a depression? If you want to call it a banana cheese-monkey tomorrow, the situation will still be the same. Disclosure - I own shares in cheese-monkey's. That's a lie.

QUICK: Changing Desires

Why do they change? Convinced I wanted to find a terraced house, now suddenly I'm interested in apartments again. I think it's about being higher up and having a view actually, which is very hard to achieve in a terrace. I also worry about sound travelling. Would hate to get stuck somewhere that I can't make any noise whatsoever. Loud music through speakers isn't even the problem - Acoustic guitar tends to be louder than that. I do want to get into a new house/apartment soon though - that much I do know. I'm bored of this place now, and the bathroom is fucked. I'm liking the vibe of these Quicks..

QUICK: The more I like it the more I wanna spoil it

Just more about Lost here. Although I am subscribed to a blog called "Lost Spoilers", they do a good job of separating devistating spoilers from more teaser styled material, so I skim it and skip the ones with the warnings. Until today I was fine doing this, but after last night's fantastic episode i'm wanting to cheat. I'm not going to, but it's a moment of weakness.

QUICK: It would have been my fault, but...

All afternoon I made light of going home early because of the snow. Nation of pussies I said. Think of Chicago I said. Never even seen snow chains here I said. On the way home I damn near lost control of my car. Not at speed. Nobody would have been hurt, but it would have cost me. I estimate I would have had to shell out for three cars worth of damage, insurance wise. Thankfully i'm smart enough to know that if i'm skidding there's really no point staying of the brake - better to try again, and it worked, but it was close. Why did it happen? As we crawled into Leicester at about 25mph on a light sheet of snow, the guy in front decides to do the decent thing and let in a guy. For the seven millionth time I my life I'm left wondering why people can't just follow the law and trust these people to make their own way into the stream of traffic when there's an appropriate gap. Nonetheless, as per international law, had I hit him, it would have been my fault.... but...

QUICK: Lost

Still loving Lost. The time stuff was getting a bit confusing by the end of the second episode but I guess I thought maybe the island guys were jumping around independently of each other. Now it's entirely clear that they're all jumping together it's easier. I have tended to be scheptical about the creator's insistence that everything was decided up front in this story, but I'd love to be wrong about that. So far we haven't really seen anything that happened prior to last year's episodes explained by time travel... Have to wait and see I guess. Jughead gets best episode so far award. Hope the Oceanic 6 stuff doesn't consume too much of the season. The likely story of Ben desparately gathering them is a little dissattifying because it does nothing to further the original story - the mystery. Either they get back or they don't, and of course they will. The Lie fell a bit flatter with a number of people i've read/heard, and I think this is why.

QUICK: Silent Cameras

This bill in the US to insist phones with cameras make a faked shutter noise is a typical example of do as we say not as we do. The rationale is that nobody should be photographed without their knowledge. Naturally it's for the fucking children who are apparently having their photos taken in dressing rooms. No idea why some guy's in there with the kid pretending to be texting though. On a related topic, I believe just a few days ago some kid was found guilty on porn charges involving only pictures of himself. For certain, some judge or jury forgot what they were supposed to be there to achieve in that case. Anyway, go for a walk outside. If you're anywhere urban, most of the time there is a camera on you. You don't know where it is often, or what the footage is used for, but naturally that's just fine. I've actually heard this camera bill described as another instance where freedom must be sacrificed to protect people. It's getting scary how blatently justifications stamp on freedom. I barely even though of this as a freedom issue until I heard that. Would like to see this one fail, but it won't.

QUICK: Somewhere between 140 Characters with a Facebook Status Update and normal Blog Post

I think having my Twitter account linked to Facebook is a bad idea. It means I don't tweet because I know it's often not really a status. Nonetheless i'm going to keep them linked for now because I hope one day someone I know in the flesh actually takes an interest in Twitter! I'm going to try posting shorter stuff here under a QUICK tag. Not microblogging, more miniblogging. Why not?