touchmonkey

I have, in the past, always felt pretty strongly opposed to censorship of any kind for television programming, whether it be for shows on cable or network channels. The main reason I’ve always felt this way is that I’ve just figured if people don’t want to see swearing/violence/sex/etc. on tv, they don’t have to watch the show, and why should the picky ones get to ruin it for the rest of the nation if more viewers want to watch it than not?

Lately, however, I’ve been considering becoming one of those annoying letter-writers who contacts the networks, the NFL, and really anybody involved with the recent practice of inserting all kinds of horrific advertisements during commercial breaks for NFL games. These are particularly insidious because there’s no way to know what you’re in for. You think you’re sitting down with the family to watch a football game where the most risque thing will be a mouthed curse word or a gyrating cheerleader. Instead, you get to see a graphic ad for Saw III or The Hills Have Eyes or whatever slasher-rape-fantasy-horror flick is coming out next.

Traditionally, watching NFL football on TV has been a family-safe activity. It’s even on during daytime/primetime when networks tend to keep the racier shows off the air until the later hours when the young kids are supposedly in bed. Now, however, it seems like every NFL game is sullied with graphic and disturbing commercials for the latest Hollywood slasher gore-fest. And I have to either hope I get the channel changed before my young kids are given nightmares for the next week, banish my kids from the room when football is on, or choose to not watch it. And that sucks.

I’m not against the crappy slasher films being made if that’s what people want to pay to watch. I’m against the graphic commercials for these movies being aired during otherwise family-friendly programming in the middle of the day on a Sunday or smack-dab in the middle of Prime Time on a Monday evening.

Maybe becoming a parent has turned me into a bit of a prude, but I don’t remember ever seeing the level of depraved violence being graphically portrayed during NFL commercial breaks as there have been this year. ESPN, Fox, and CBS are all equally culpable.

I really thought we’d seen the height (depth?) of stupid ad copy back in the days of the McDonald’s “I’d hit it” ads that featured a young urban male expressing “I’d hit it” about a cheeseburger. I guess he really, um, likes his beef. Sadly, that obviously isn’t the extent of advertiser stupidity.

Take Dairy Queen, for example. Somehow, someway, in whatever cultural vacuum DQ lives in, they thought it would be a good idea to make a drink that’s part coffee (dark) and part milkshake (light) and name it the MooLatte. Go ahead and say it out loud. Sort of boggles the mind, doesn’t it? Either that or it warms the heart to see a major retailer coming out in favor of mixed race children…

It gets better though (or worse, depending on whether or not you’re the schmuck paying for some pinhead to write your ad copy). I really can’t add anything to make this product sound more inappropriate for children. Heck, I can’t make it sound more inappropriate for adults! Hasbro has “upgraded” the super-soaker water gun with their all-new Oozinator.

Here’s the marketing verbiage in case Hasbro comes to their senses and does a rewrite:

“Sneak up on your opponents with a surprise bio-ooze attack! Just when they think you’re coming at ‘em with water, blast ‘em with a shot of icky bio-ooze! Shoot out globs of gooey bio-ooze and then drench ‘em with water! It’s a double blast attack that’ll keep your opponents on their toes and running during every water fight. With the OOZINATOR blaster you don’t just get soaked, you get drenched!”

I used to be excited about Nintendo’s Next-Generation game platform. The development codename they were using was The Revolution and they were going to revolutionize videogaming through a creative motion-senser type controller that opens the possibility for such fun interactive gaming experiences as wielding a samurai sword where the on screen action replicates the motions you make with the motion-sensing controller in your hand.

My enthusiasm grew as I learned of the way Nintendo would continue to work on their own special type of quirky-yet-addictive games while also devoting resources to third-party developers so cool things like excessively violent games could also launch with the new system… a notable departure from Nintendo’s too-cutesy game design culture that left gamers suffering from saccharine overdose.

But now I just want fill a pillowcase full of… I don’t know… meatballs and frogs… and beat the snot out of whatever Nintendo marketing weenie decided the name for Nintendo’s new console would be the Wii. That’s pronounced “weee” as in what you do shortly after drinking a super big gulp. Or, depending on how juvenile your anatomical nomenclature: what the pee comes out of. Just imagine it: “Hey guys, want to come over to my house and play with my Wii?” I don’t think so.

At first I hoped this was just a clever marketing ploy. You know, make jaws drop with just how stupid the fake name sounds before unveiling the real name — the codename-that-should-have-become-the-real-name Revolution. No such luck. Here’s the official press release

Dangit.

I just broke an eight-year-long-no-puking-streak. If we eliminate vomiting for… uh… collegiate indiscretions the streak would stand at ten years. That’s right, it’s been ten years since I’ve had the puking flu, and I got it BAD this week. We’re talking gut-wrenching, dry-heaving, Exorcist-like Retching. My son, who isn’t scared of ANYTHING ran away and hid under a chair when he heard me hurking up in the bathroom.

The manner in which I broke my streak… repeatedly… was so violent that I burst the blood vessels around my eyes, leaving me with puffy red eye sockets that looked as if I had just lost a boxing match and a completely bloodshot right eye. I’m not talking about a few red veiny areas on the eyeball — I’m talking about the entire white of my eye turning deep red… it’s actually kind of cool looking in a Death Rock Metal Band kind of way.

Anyway, I’m better now, though significantly weaker and lighter. Hmm.. now I don’t need to diet after the holidays! I’ll just pig out at Christmas and break even due to the week of the flu!

I’m a teacher in a public high school. Which I guess means I’m part of the problem with America’s education system. But I like kids and hopefully from time to time I do some good for them. But sometimes I just want to scream. Or bludgeon. Bludgeoning’s good. But I never want to bludgeon any kids. Well, hardly ever, anyway. It’s the adults I’d like to give some Louisville Slugger attention.

Take this lady as an example. Not lady in the “Ladies and Gentlemen” sense… more like lady in the “Hey lady don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out” kind of way. This particularly fine example of what happens when gene pools get too shallow is the parent of one of my students. Not a very good student. Not a very good kid. Long story short, kid gets in trouble at school and we have to have a parent-teacher conference about it.

Mom comes in with both barrels firing, so to speak. Sort of in mother-bear mode, which is understandable, if misguided. As the conference wears on, it becomes quite clear we’re not going to see eye to eye about… well… anything. Then she lays this doozey on me: “you just don’t understand how things work in America because you’re foreign.”

I guess it’s not readily apparent why this is such an absurd statement since I write this cloaked in the anonymity of the internet. Suffice it to say that my mother’s side of the family has been in America since colonial days and my father’s side came over three generations ago. The fact that my last name contains more than one syllable apparently marked me as a foreigner for her.

Now, at this point I was furious. You know how sometimes you’ll wake up two days later with the perfect comeback but of course it’s too late? That didn’t happen. I had the perfect retort spring to mind and man oh man, it would have been so sweet to lay into this piece of Jerry Springer show refuse. But I chose professionalism and merely stood up, thanked the lady for her time, and declared the meeting over. Smug in her perceived victory, Loud Ignorant Mom strutted from the room as if she had just won Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

I guess that’s why they pay us the big money.