Rockets' Red Glare

I just want to remind everybody that the guy who helped accelerate the nuclear programs of both Iran and North Korea is under house arrest in Pakistan. And we're not subjecting him to further questioning because we're afraid he might have information that's embarrassing to our buddy Musharraf. We should have dug up everything we possible could on A.Q. Khan's network more than two years ago, after Khan's confession. Instead, he's been pardoned and political pressure hasn't done much to get additional information out of Khan. For all we know, he may have done more damage than anyone knows.

HGTV Too Perfect

Since I met Lauren, my media consumption habits have changed a bit. I'm watching a good deal of HGTV, which I wouldn't normally watch. All these home improvement projects they do on shows like "Design on a Dime" and such never seem to run into any snags. You see a bunch of homeowners and designers happily spackling away and never running into a sagging wall where the tops of the screws have popped the spackle off. You never see corners that aren't perfectly square, caulk lines that aren't absolutely perfect or p-traps that don't line up perfectly with sink drains.

The closest thing I ever saw to a snag was when someone drilled a hole for a light fixture with a hole saw and hit a floor joist. And, of course, they had all the tools at the ready to immediately fix it and try something else.

This is what they don't show you. And you end up making trip after trip to Home Depot because you need a few extra drywall screws to fix a bad seam, or because the molding corner pieces you bought apparently don't have a mounting mechanism of any kind.

It always goes nice and smoothly on TV, and it almost never does in real life.

Decreased Attention Spans

I've had a few conversations lately with other friends who write regularly (whether on blogs or elsewhere) and there seems to be a running theme concerning people who either don't read their pieces all the way through before commenting or who see what they want to see in the piece, regardless of its content. I won't say this is a huge problem yet, but there's been a disturbing number of incidents lately where I've noticed someone has fired off a response to things we've written lately after reading only the first few sentences or paragraphs. I'm sure it's a symptom of our sound-bite media culture, where we often can afford the time to skim things or read story ledes and little else. I can tell you, if I had a nickel everytime someone flamed me for something I supposedly didn't address, but did address further down in the piece than they were willing to read, well...

Attention School Districts

When you whore your kids out to media companies, at least do it for the going rate. Joining an online ad network will still give you at least 50 percent of the ad revenue. But school districts are settling for 5 percent? Jeez, when you're giving corporations access to kids who are essentially a captive audience, at least negotiate with them. At least make it look like you give a shit. Yeah, I know. It's not the point. But not only is this a really, really bad idea, but it's also a shitty business deal.