Over-Thinking Children's Television, vol. 1

Franklin is a Canadian cartoon aimed at preschoolers, based on a series of children's books. It's about a little anthropomorphic turtle named Franklin who is, as near as I can tell, mentally retarded, and manages to wiggle his way into any stupid, easily-avoided predicament that may present itself at any given time.

The show also endorses genocide.

That's a shocking claim, but stay with me here. Almost none of the other characters in the cartoon aside from Franklin's stupid turtle family have names (and even then it's only him and his little sister). They are all just called by whatever animal they happen to be. Franklin's best friend is a bear named Bear. Other idiots he hangs out with are named Rabbit, Snail, Beaver, and Fox. The soccer coach is Mrs. Porcupine, and the teacher is named Mister Owl.

The very few characters who do have proper names are younger siblings (a couple of Franklin's friends have these, I think), fictional characters like Franklin's favorite superhero, and the occasional professional athlete or something.

What this leads me to believe is that in the twisted Franklin universe, the turtles reign supreme and have virtually wiped out all other species. Only a single breeding pair of each other type of animal has been allowed to survive, hence there being a Mr. Bear and a Mrs. Bear, for instance. With no diversity, what need is there for names other than a generic species identifier? If they were enslaving the populace they might at least have ID numbers and barcodes tattooed on them, but nope. The skunk is Skunk, the raccoon is Raccoon, all parents and authority figures are Mr. and/or Mrs., and that's all there is to it.

The fact that other characters with real names only appear in one or two episodes is further proof of the atrocities that have taken place off-camera. They're probably all being shipped off to concentration camps after their token appearances. Or maybe slaughtered for food.

I don't know why nobody has spoken up about this before. These hard-shelled dictators must be stopped at all cost.

Here's how much of a nerd I am:

Okay, the new Pepsi logo:




bears a very slight resemblance to the Seamonkey logo:




So when I first started seeing all these Pepsi billboards that just had words written across them and nothing else, with the new logo in place of the letter "O," like this one here, I actually believed for a little while that it was a new Seamonkey logo... and I thought to myself, "Wow, where did the Mozilla Foundation come up with all the money for this big ad campaign?"


Clearly, I am not a Pepsi drinker.

Big Lots! has the best toys this side of the flea market...

On my way home from my dentist appointment today, I decided to stop at Big Lots! (you have to leave in the exclamation point or it's no fun) and shop around. I hadn't been in this particular Big Lots! before and sometimes there's some good finds to be... uh... found.

Quick tangent - I had just gotten my teeth all professionally cleaned and polished like ten minutes prior, and the first thing I wanted to do was hit the candy and snacks aisles of Big Lots!. How stupid am I, really?

Anyway, I wandered into the toy aisle and found some toys that only the kids on those Sally Struthers commercials would be happy to receive on Christmas morning. I wish I had a working data cable for my phone, so I could upload the pictures I took.

There was an inflatible Spider-Man mallet. I've read a lot of Spier-Man comic books and boy, let me tell you, without his trusty Spider-Mallet, mister Parker would have been in quite a pickle. A giant, city-crushing pickle. I'm glad somebody has finally immortalized the most trusty tool in Spidey's arsenal in the form of a cheap plastic blow-up plaything.

Also present were three packs of Noah figures that looked like they were supposed to be accessories to a Fisher-Price My First Ark playset or something. With no articulation they could hardly be called action figures, but Noah wouldn't need any kung-fu grip here, because all told I only saw three animals. Not three pairs, mind you. Three animals. One pack of toys was Noah and his wife, one was Noah with a giraffe and some kind of leopard (I think), and another was Noah's son (I guess), with a lion and what looked like two small yellow barrels. Or maybe they were giant yellow beer steins. I assume they were to be filled with Lion Chow or Honey Nut Cheerios or whatever. You need lots of Cheerios on an ark. It's a fact. Saw it on the History Channel and everything.

Great big Chinese-knock-off Voltron-Mechagodzilla-Power-Ranger-looking things! Saw some of those too. Seriously, they were taller than my daughter. Scary toys.

And what kid wouldn't be thrilled with Professional Bull Riders, Inc. toys? Not many, because they only had two left at Big Lots!. I kid you not, two different little plastic bulls, all posed like they had just flung off a rodeo clown and were getting ready to gore him.

Speaking of which, I also saw a four-or-five-pack of rodeo figures, including at least two clowns and, you guessed it, a pissed-off bull. I was too amazed by this next item to take an accurate count...

Rescue Heroes! Probably the most legitimate toys in the bunch, I think I've seen commercials for these things, but, much like with glamorous movie stars, seeing them in real life is another deal altogether. The first one to catch my eye was what at first appeared to be a Native American (I now realize he is supposed to look Asian) in a red sleeveless karate gi, like Ryu had gotten his dry cleaning switched up on him. He was partnered with a big black panther carrying something that resembled a black-and-red beer cooler with, I don't know...legs. This gentleman's name? Marshall Artz. It's a pun, see? Like, martial arts? Except he's a Marshall, that's his title. Like Wildlife Marshall. Or Grand Marshall at the parade. Guess which parade. And as luck would have it, his last name is Artz.

Anyway, the second Rescue Hero was cleverly named Hal E. Copter. And oddly enough, his accessory was an inflatible life raft that doubled as a waterproof MP3 player. You'd think with a name like that, he'd be some kind of helicopter pilot... Ha! Just kidding, he came with some kind of helicopter-backpack thing. Don't wave hello to the nice lady down the block who always wears a low-cut tank top when she's pruning the bushes outside her house as you fly by, Hal. You may accidentally lop off your fapping hand.

Oh, look, I found pictures on Amazon:


I don't know why these things strike me as funny.

Pucker Up, MySpace.

Be careful. Shield the eyes of your young children. You're reading a very "naughty" blog. Additionally, I am trying to spam you, phish you, steal your identity, and then infect your computer with viruses, spyware, adware, and other unspecified malware. Not necessarily in that order!

Or so MySpace says.

I discovered this morning that MySpace has blocked all links to my Blogger blogs, replacing them with this twaddle:

The link you are trying to visit has been disabled.

You have reached a link that is no longer in service. That means the link was very naughty, and, much like head lice, had to be eliminated before it spread.

You may be asking yourself, 'Hey, what was it about that link that got it in trouble?' An excellent question! Usually, it's one of the following reasons:

- The link was spam! No one likes spammers, and we don't like their links.

- You almost got phished! There are people out there who want to steal your MySpace password. They want to log in as you and send spam, harass your friends, change your profile, and generally run amok. Phishing pages are usually designed to look like MySpace to trick you. Other sites may also ask for your MySpace login information to customize your profile, insert videos or slide shows, track visitors, or any number of other things.Don't make it easy for them. ONLY USE YOUR MYSPACE LOGIN INFO ON WWW.MYSPACE.COM!!

- Viruses are not fun! Neither is adware, spyware, or malware. We cut the links to places that are known sources of infection.

If you really did want to check out some spam, viruses, or phishing pages, we're really sorry to have interrupted. We're sure you can find it elsewhere. There's plenty on the Internet.

What can I say, MySpace. You got me. My quasi-clever little ramblings about the antics of my 18-month-old daughter and the dumb crap I see on TV were really just an elaborate ruse hiding a nefarious plot to gather people's American Express card numbers so I can fraudulently purchase bigger, more powerful computers with high-def monitors so I can write even more pervasive viruses to infect my friends with so they will see pop-up ads for natural male enhancement every time they try to open Microsoft Word. Curse you, MySpace, for foiling my plot to build my own personal botnet and infect the world with the next Bonzi Buddy. I am forced to retreat to my underground lair and begin hatching another scheme. You can't see me, but I am furiously dry-washing my hands and maybe cackling a little bit.

Seriously. I had run into this problem before, but I was trying to use tinyurl links like I had done in the past on Facebook and Twitter. I can kind of understand MySpace blocking tinyurl links, because their opacity does make it easier to launch such phishing attacks or lead people to shock sites or whatever. I have never goatse'd or Rickrolled anybody, nor have I any intention to do so, but MySpace doesn't know that. So, fine. I used regular links, which worked well until probably a couple of days ago, I don't know. It only came to my attention today (thanks, Dena). All the links I'd posted in MySpace blogs that worked just fine at first are now blocked.

And it would appear that I am not the only one facing this problem. MySpace is blocking all links to Blogger blogs. Links to the Blogger home page still go through, but try to link to your own blog, and your browsing freedom gets the old MySpace clothesline. This is nothing short of censorship.

I realize that this may very well be the result of a poorly-coded or overly-zealous site maintenance bot of some sort, which MySpace has only recently deployed, and the issue might even be resolved soon, with a full apology. But I don't care. It's bad enough that MySpace gives you a big stupid warning every time you click a link that might lead you out of their dungeon of irritating corporate advertisement, but flat-out blocking anything, even with the best of intentions, is unacceptable. When it spills over into blocking legitimate links, it's abusive.

So, MySpace, I would like to extend to you a formal invitation to kiss my ass, and in fact, to kiss the collective ass of the entire Blogger/Blogspot community. Stop treating all your users like idiots. Many of them probably are, but not all of them. Phishing is nothing new. Anyone with a computer and enough of a clue to get on MySpace has heard of phishing and, if they're smart, they've already done something to protect themselves from it. They don't need your hand-holding, and we don't need your accusations of wrongdoing. Stop censoring your little corner of the Internet, because there's nothing stopping people from leaving it en masse. They're already doing so, in fact.

Frankly, I'm surprised that it took this long for the influence of Rupert Murdoch and the Fox drones to be felt.