Don't You Love When....

So I am trying desperately to escape the purgatory that is cable TV. Why? It sucks. Well, that is a given. The main reason is that I just don't watch it. Even if I did like scripted shows and reality lobotomies, I don't have time nor would I want to use the time when I do have it staring at the TV. What? Hockey is on? Let the staring commence.

This is not a new question. Why do I have 2356346544 channels? Why am I paying for 356346564 channels when I might watch 5 over the course of a week? Revenue, rights to programming, blah blah blah. If TV execs really wanted to think a bit harder, they would probably put a bit more into custom cable packages. A pay per play option when there is a basic service charge but each subscriber gets 3 base channels. See? A nod to the original three networks, how sweet! For additional channel, you pay a bit more. Just like DVR or TiVO, people could put together a package featuring the shows and channels they wanted to watch, not just get a giant lump of fused crappy content under a bulk banner price. Sure,sure, major advertisers don't always put programming on the smaller channels and they don't want to lose any potential audience. I am pretty sure internet advertising has found a way around that. Hell, even YouTube make you sit through an add to watch some awful video of two cats dancing. (ed. note: No cats were viewed dancing in the making of this blog) The vast majority of people would still get all the big channels and as such, be subjected to the ads plastered all of those channels. It would be a marketing coup; "Your TV, your channels." WORK IT OUT, WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE A GLOBAL COMMUNITY BASED ON OPEN ACCESS TO INFORMATION.

Yes I realize how petty it sounds to whining about TV channel choice when there are major issues in the world. Shouldn't I be celebrating Saudi women getting the right to vote? Or breaking down the possibility of another Putin presidency? I would like to but I don't get that channel.

Food For Thought/ You Are Fat

Not really new News but as you are aware, they are redesigning the nutritional diagram for Americans. By they, I mean Michelle Obama and the USDA. By nutritional diagram, I mean this:

Granted, this is a version that the Federal government spent lots and lots o' dough to develop. They even iBranded it with the name "MyPyramid". Awesome. I am not sure how it is supposed to be helpful unless the person looking at it is really good at fractions or it is coupled with an awful Power Point presentation.

This might look more familiar:

Even this is a fancier version than what I grew up with. New-fangled color photographs. I certainly did worry about yellow fat dots or white sugar triangles. Truth be told, I still don't. Still, I am pretty sure my peers and I were taught enough by our parents and, to much lesser degree, this pyramid on what we might want to think about eating and how much. Remember crying your eyes out because you only got one cookie? Notice, not on the pyramid. Portion control.

The First-Lady, however, has taken it upon herself to teach us all how not to gorge ourselves with sugar, syrupy, snacks....mmmmmmmmmmmmm, sugary, syrupy snacks....

Mrs. Obama knows best and she has headed up a government initiative to redesign the pyramid to make it easier to understand and more striking so as to be a more effect guide. The result?

Pardon me while I eat a quart of ice cream to celebrate this innovative and ground-breaking advancement in food and nutrition science.

The UN is a joke. All hail the UN

So the UN had a special team investigate teh conduct of the Civil War in Libya recently. Brace yourself, their findings were dramatic.

Both sides are gulity of war crimes!!!! NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

"Rights experts said they had found evidence of crimes including murder and torture, in a pattern suggesting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was behind them.

The UN mission also said opposition forces were guilty of abuses that would constitute war crimes, although they were not as numerous."

So you are telling me UN special human rights team, that both sides in a military conflict pitting an oppressed people versus a long term dictator aren't following the rules? How 3rd world. I do love that little spin the investigators put on the story. Sure the rebels are committing human rights violations too but not as much so it is not so bad. Not a conflict of interest when the UN turned over the Libyan mission to NATO...even though the countries involved are pretty much the same and no one has a clear plan outside of bombing Libyan military forces and installations. 'But it is a different acronym so it must mean that the UN is impartial and only looking out for the rights of people everywhere.' Sure thing.  I mean, they are going to talk about it and everything! Abusers of humanity beware! 
Thoughts on the whole Libyan debacle are fit for another post at another time but lets just say that anyone thinking that two sides involved in a civil war are just going to play soldier and go home needs their rose colored glasses shoved up their a$$. News flash, playing soldier has pretty much always involved a bit more than a battle here and a uniform there. From the beginning of organized military force, soldiers tend to do stuff that us modern, informed, ethical people frown up...except our modern, ethical, informed military forces still do it. Combat and being placed in a situation where death is probable does not lend itself to moral debate. The amount of hypocrisy at play here, that is always present in UN dealings, is crushing. Reading that story and the report mentioned in it pretty much provokes this reaction from me.

The UN is the epitome of bureaucracy at its worst. It had, at one time, a noble calling. Now it is an international bloat, a giant tick feeding off world problems and pain. 

And So It Begins...Wait, I Said That Already.

I hate blogs. Apparently I embrace hypocrisy with each personal belief shattering keystroke. "You hate blogs eh? Why are writing this?" Fair question. Why do I write this? I write that because it is the greatest hockey blog ever (and by that I mean I think so. So does the impartial jury of family members). In the course of writing that, I found that writing stuff about stuff that gets me excited/mad/annoyed/thinking is a nice way to deal with the unfortunate reality of working for a living. I then had an epiphany, There is more to the world than hockey. Not a whole lot more, but a little bit, especially during the summer when there is no hockey. I was shocked to realize I had thoughts on some of those non-hockey events as well. I was also really bored at the place of employment one day. So I thought, why not write more stuff that no one will ever read? If it shaves off a layer of stress, it is worth it. Stupid real life with its stupid bills and responsibilities. At any rate, let me set the bar rather low and go from there. If you come across this, welcome and allow me to offer web searching tips because you obviously went astray somewhere.

And now to demonstate the level of awesomeness and unoriginality I will regularly display, a giant smiley face. Random? Certainly but he is oh so happy.