ntl:Virgin No Longer Showing Sky One

Well the deadline passed a few minutes ago and Sky One is no longer broadcast on ntl:Virgin (and Sky will soon no longer be broadcasting any programs on Freeview unless you sign up for them).

At first when I heard about this, I was upset and annoyed.

But as I thought about it more, I realised I wasn’t going to miss Sky One. It shows mostly repeats and I’ve been using it in a lazy way, watching any old junk rather than surfing the myriad of other great channels and shows, or (as a truly outrageous suggestion), turning the damn TV off and doing something else instead.

I’ll buy the DVD box sets of the shows I’ll miss. They’re cheap enough online and come out soon after the show broadcasts anyway, so what’s the big deal?

Trident Soft Advert

Not sure exactly what it is about that advert for Trident Soft chewig gum that irks me, but I think it might be the comic’s style. Telling an audience what annoys him for laughs hasn’t been a popular comedy style for five years.

It just makes an annoying advert even more annoying.

The Dog Poo Fairy

What is it with some dog owners? They let their dogs crap on the street and just leave it.

What do they expect? Some magical creature comes swooping down to clean it up? Let me make it clear to all dog owners who do this.

Someone always steps in it! That’s how it get’s “cleaned up”!

One can only image that the dog poo fairly must be related to the cigarette end gnome, who goes about cleaning up all the discarded cigarette butts dropped in the street, and is probably a distant cousin of the chewing gum elf.

Bottom line: I don’t crap in your hallway, please don’t shit on my sidewalk.

Virgin slams BSkyB in TV dispute

BBC NEWS | Business | Virgin slams BSkyB in TV dispute

That Rupert Murdoch is a four star act. Those four stars taking the place of the four letter word I’d like to call him.

Virgin’s Responce

Sky basically have tried to increase the cost to ntl:Virgin by almost doubling the price. I’m sorry, but this is unacceptable. Are they increasing the charge to their own subscribers by the same amount? No.

As one person on the comments section of Virgin Media’s website put it:

Sky said last month it planned to withdraw its channels from Freeview viewers – offering them instead on a terrestrial pay TV service.
So Sky wants to hold all us television viewers to ransom, pay up or else! Isn’t it about time that the government stepped in and told Sky that they are not able to hold a monopoly?

Not likely given Murdoch’s strong connections to the government. But they do have a reputation of bullying other companies into getting their own way.

Frankly, I’m goosed either way. I don’t want to miss out of my favourite shows like Stargate SG-1, Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica. But I don’t want to be bullied into changing my television provider. Like most people in Edinburgh, I would be charged extra for a non-standard installation. The roof is over four floors up and because most of the city is covered by a protection order, the dish can’t go on the wall. It needs to be attached to the chimney, if it’s strong enough to support it.

It’s basically £300.

I’ve got two words for that plan: Screw That.

Although those aren’t the two words I’d use to Mr Murdoch’s face.

Worst Junk Food Ad

I’ve just seen what I think is the worst advert for junk food I have ever witnessed.

When I say worst, I’m not talking about badly made, or annoying or innacurate. I’m talking about completely irresponsible.

It’s an ad for a microwavable burger, and shows a kid going to the fridge and looking for food. He dismisses the sausages as too much hard work, the red pepper as tricky, the fish as an unknown food and settles for the burger.

What the hell kind of message is that sending to kids? Forget healthy food, go for quick and easy? Exactly how hard is it to cook sausages anyway? Five minutes in a frying pan, 15 minutes under the grill or 30 minutes in the oven. How hard is that? Peppers tricky? Maybe for an idiot, but stuffed pepper is one of the first things I learnt at school cooking class and it takes fifteen minutes. And if he doesn’t recognise fish and the importance of protein, then he’s in for trouble later in life.

Ever Changing Norton Anti-Virus

That was the problem with the old version of Norton Anti-Virus. Although its program would often be changed with updates it downloaded, it was always at a loss to understand that this process could occur on other applications.

Every time my Star Wars Galaxies executable was updated by a patch, it had to be told to allow this program internet access. This consisted of deleting the entry to the program, allowing Norton to capture the outgoing connection, then allowing all instances of that program, so it would remember.

What have PCs and Grandfather Clocks got in common?

They’re both less agreeable when you move them.

Doesn’t matter how many carefully you move it, the darned thing never works just right the first time in its new location.

Pentagon Wins A Stop Loss Round

Pentagon Wins A Stop Loss Round

I first found out about this in an episode of Boston Legal. I thought it was a joke.

It’s not!

Qualls was in the Army from 1986-94 and re-enlisted in the Army National Guard’s “Try One” program in July 2003.

Under the program, Qualls was supposed to be in the Guard only for one year.

However, in October 2003 the Army told him he was recalled to active duty and his “expiration of term of service” was being moved from July 6, 2004, to Dec. 24, 2031 — not that Qualls would actually be held for that long. Stop-loss generally means a soldier is held in the service to the end of his or her tour of duty and 90 days after returning home.

It gets worse:

For Jessica Salamon of Ravenna, Ohio, the stop-loss policy has already affected her and her husband, Chad, a National Guardsman who is serving in Iraq with the 118th Medical Battalion as a mechanic. Chad Salamon’s six-year commitment should end in March, but he is almost certain not to return by then.

“This is supposed to be an all-volunteer military,” said Jessica Salamon, who has been to therapy and has seen her dream of starting a family deferred. “They’re not volunteering when they’re told they can’t leave.”

(Soldiers Facing Extanded Tours)

War

I’ve just finished watching an episode of Boston Legal, where James Spader is arguing that a soldier killed in Iraq shouldn’t have been there, was fraudulently kept in service and not given the correct equipment.

I don’t know how much, if any, of the story is true or based on true events. And since the phrase “based on a true story” has been rendered completely meaningless by cynical movie producers, I probably never will know.

But what I started thinking about was the reasons for going to war.

You see, I can understand why we went to war against Hitler. There was a clear threat there.
I can understand why the Korean War happened, because it was necessary to halt the spread of communism in an unstable region.

But then it gets a little hazy.

I understand (roughly) why the Vietnam war started, although I was shocked upon looking it up to discover that it ran for 16 years. Sixteen years at war.

I sort of understand the Falklands War, started because of a misunderstaning between what was said and what wasn’t said between the UK and Argentina. Basically, we decommissioned a small patrol boat guarding the island, a boat that would have lasted exactly five minutes against the Argentinian navy, but they saw this as a message that the UK would not defend the island if invaded.

But I cannot begin to explain the war in Iraq. I mean, I understand the first one. What I don’t get is:

1. Why we never finished the job, deposed Sadam and liberated the country.
2. Why we felt we had to go back and have another go at it.

The amount of money being spent there is obscene! Hundreds of billions so far. Likely to be measurable in trillions of dollars before it’s over. And why?

Yes yes yes, I know. Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Weapons that we already have, by the way. Weapons we haven’t been able to find, due to a fundamental failure of intelligence. A failure that continues to be promoted.

It’s like halfway through a game, somebody suddenly changes the rules. All of an instant, no-one’s talking about WMDs. I can almost imagine someone off stage whispering to the President or the PM: “Downplay the WMDs!!!”

This failure can be traced back to the bay of pigs incident. A small almost forgotten incident that occured (and partially led to) the Cuban missile crisis.

Basically: The CIA, with the support of the US armed forces, would support an invasion of Cuba by exiled activists. The key word there is “support.” No direct action would be taken, save for air support.

There was good intelligence that there was a lot of resentment of Castro at the time, so a small uprising could give way to civil war and depose him. The insurgents were to be dropped off where they could make their way to nearby mountains if they needed to retreat.

Well first, the landing site changed. The mountains were now too far away. Secondly, Kennedy seems to have changed his mind and cancelled the air support, which was vital for the plan to work. But worst of all, the reported feelings of hostility towards Castro in the general populace was completely untrue. The CIA’s network had been completely infiltrated by Castro’s men and they were feeding false information to the CIA.

Castro then decided that he needed insurance against a US led invasion, which precipitated the Cuban missile crisis. Missiles were installed, and we damn near had world war three.

And all because the Pentagon was too eager to believe the reports coming from Cuba without verifying them.

My question is: Have we really learnt the lessons from our past? Do we truly understand how wars start and why they are fought? And do we know how to end a war when we know we can’t win it?

The Anne Hathaway Paradox

Odd thing about Anne Hathaway. She keeps doing Disney films like the Princess Diaries, and family films like The Devil Wear Prada. But every other film she seems to spend a lot of time with no clothes on.

Seems strange that she keeps getting cast in kids films.