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My coming of age story.
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Why I don't care:
Didn't you hear me?! Comedy Central is gone! I CARE!

It's fun to hate:
Viacom and Echostar for dragging us all into a fight over a few pennies a month per customer.

In My Grand Scheme of Things:
Television channels would all be on a pay-per-view basis. Maybe a nickel an hour, that would be $36 a month which is quite comparable to the plans available now, and the companies would only have to waste their resources if you actually chose to watch that network that hour.

Music lost to history:
Alice Cooper - The World Needs Guts. From the Constrictor album realeased in 1986 this song never really got any attention, I remember loving it, but I don't remember exactly why. You can hear a thirty second clip of it if you click the link above. Then the 'sample' button next to the song in question. If you want to download it, I as sure you know where to go.

NinjaBurger-
This is the site of the moment. If you are ever in need of a burger, but are a long ways from a McDonald's, this is the site for you. Delivery guaranteed within thirty minutes, and they really mean Guaranteed

Well it turns out that Flux over at Blackchampagne had a link to my site in his blog today. The good news is that it did make me have quite a spike in site traffic, the bad news is that there was not much worth reading on my post. Whether there is ever anything worth reading here could be debated till the end of time, so I won't go there. It is the thought that counts.

I awoke this morning (I am using the term 'morning' very loosely here) and flipped on my television to find out that some jack-ass had taken comedy central off the air. There had been ads running on Comedy Central all week that said that Dish Network was going to quit carrying the channel, but I just assumed that was a ploy to get a bunch of people to call Dish Network and say "I want my Comedy Central!". Well if that was the case I guess not enough people called, or Dish Network just didn't seem to care, since it is certainly gone now. Other networks that were ripped from the lineup include Mtv, Vh1, Nickelodeon and a bunch of others. To put it bluntly, my "top 50" package is now more of a "top 35" due to this.

Wy wife called to ask if the stations were really gone, and I assured her that yup, we're fucked. But, at least we still have our CBS affiliate, as they have removed CBS from the lineup in many major markets including New York and Los Angeles. So it could be worse, I guess.

Once home from work I really wanted to go see just what the whole fuss was about, and I found it in heaps. I went to Yahoo News and did a search for 'Viacom' (who own the stations in question) and found at least a dozen stories there that had been added within the last three hours. Every on of them was about Viacom and Echostar's (the company that owns dish network) dispute. I read about ten of them, starting with the earliest post. It just sickened me. The following quotes are taken from this article

Viacom officials said EchoStar was fighting over what amounted to 6 cents more per customer per month.

I can certainly see where each side is coming from after having read all of the articles though. Viacom is constantly stressing the pennies per person per day thing, while Echostar is talking about Hundreds of millions of dollars over the next four years. I am pretty sure that they are using the exact same number but it sure seems a lot bigger when you say hundreds of millions of dollars. Don't get me wrong, I bet that if everyone that subscribed to Dish Network would send my six cents per month I could easily retire and buy that new Ferrari Enzo I have had my eyes on.

I had been siding with Echostar on this, thinking that Viacom was really trying to be a mean old bully and beat us up for our milk money, then I saw this particular quote;

EchoStar said it planned to give $1 monthly credits to customers who lose CBS programming, and another $1 for those who subscribe to additional Viacom channels. Besides CBS, media conglomerate Viacom also owns MTV and the Paramount movie studio.

What burns me worst of all about this whole situation is that I only signed up for Dish Network for two reasons. The first reason was that it was about three dollars a month cheaper than my local cable, the second was that they had Comedy Central. Now what am I to do? If they do not bring back Comedy Central I may well just go back to local cable since I could then get high speed internet access in a package deal with the cable and save myself a bit of cash. In case you had not yet noticed, this whole thing just really has me pissed off.

I got yet another email today, that is like two in two days. I don't know how I am going to deal with this constant barrage of email... Seriously, though, this one was from an old friend who was wanting to know if I had any pictures on the site since his wife has never seen myself or my wife. I feel quite obligated to throw a couple of pictures up here because, well, I don't really know why. So here are a couple of pictures. As always click on them for a full size pic.

Here is one of me playing guitar. This picture is a bit dated, but I really don't look that much different now, unless you want to count that strange third arm that recently grew out of my forehead. The problem is that while I am usually quite photogenic, that requires that I be near a camera while someone is clicking it, and for some reason that is something that I really try to avoid.

Here is yet another rather dated photo of me, maybe three or four years old. I am standing in front of the grand canyon if you were not able to guess. I really actually hate this picture because it makes me look like I have one of those little Fu-man-shu moustache type things. I am pretty sure that I hadn't shaved that day, but still.

Here is one of my wife and myself at the wedding ceremony. For some reason the camera has made the color of my flesh look a lot more red than it actually is, but it did the same thing to the Pastor. This may have been one of the photos taken with the cheap disposable cameras that we left on all of the guests tables, I am not really sure. It certainly does look like I have been holding my breath for about three minutes though. This was the best photo I could find that really showed how beautiful my wife's dress was. Of course you need to look at the full size shot to see that.

Well, that should be enough photos to sate you all for roughly the rest of your natural lives. I had never actually seen these shots side by side before, and I think that I really look just about the same in all of them. Sure I have more gray hair now than I did in the photos, but with just a bit of selective plucking or some "just for men gel" I could probably take a photo in a similar pose and be able to fool people into thinking that they were taken at the same time. If I am ever reduced to that, though, it will probably be at about the same time as I buy a convertible and start cruising for women twenty years my junior. Since I am quite happily married, and I really think that it would be sick and wrong to look for dates at a gradeschool, I will let that thought go for now, and hopefully the rest of my life.

Now on a side note. If any of you are reading this after having linked through from blackchampagne yesterday, I would really like to know your thoughts, good or bad, about my little site thing. What, if anything you like, what, if anything you hate kind of thing. I do enjoy email.