Life, According to Toonhead

Verizon horror story!

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:13:20 GMT

Well, it's been quite a long time since I updated this thing, I haven't ever left really but never had anything of substance to say up until now. You know when I write an entry it's going to be somewhat long but if you stick with me this one will be worth it. Many of you have probably heard about Verizon Fios, If you have you know how awesome it is! However, actually getting it installed has been an extremely long and arduous process for me, and I wanted to tell you guys about it. We finally got it and things still aren't quite right yet, but I have promises that it soon will be. I better explain...

This all goes back to about 2, maybe 3 weeks ago now. One of the room mates, Jesse, who has since moved out decided it'd be great to have Fios, and I couldn't disagree when I saw how fast it was. Oddly enough, he had no trouble placing his order and getting it installed. But then, he decided to get his own place, so in order to, *laughs hestericly, "make things easier", he wanted to change the name on the account from his name to mine. Ok, sounds easy enough, right? Sure, under normal circumstances it is, but this is Verizon we're dealing with here. Oh this gets good LOL! So a couple weeks ago, he got on the phone with them, and he either explained it wrong or they screwed it up, because all kinds of mistakes were made. We were disconnected early when one of the techs misunderstood the date he wanted the service turned off, and on top of all that, my order for the service showed up as a duplicate order in their system. I still don't quite understand why that happened, it's a mystery to me. So after lots of phone calls and promises that they'd call me back which they only did when I actually got the order through and a date set up, we finally got everything, well, most everything back to normal. They screwed up our phone number and gave us a new one, even though we *specifically* made it crystal clear that we wanted to keep the same one, and I said this not just once but multiple times! The order even had to have supervisory approval before it went through, because it had to be placed so many times. Well, if they hadn't screwed it up so badly we wouldn't have to go through all that now would we? Also, we had verizon.net e-mail addresses, but they claim that because it's a different account that we can't just keep the old ones we had which I believe is bullshit. But I have so many e-mail addresses and can give them out to people that it's really not that big of a thing, but it's just the principle of it, knowing that you have to start all over, simply because aparentluy those addresses can't be used on this account. You'd think they could be used no matter what. Those addresses aren't being used now, so I don't get that. I've been promised that the old phone number we had will go back into effect on Monday, so I am really hoping that it'll work out like they say it will.

For a few weeks, one of the other room mates went home to visit family and friends, so I learned the fine art of taking care of 3 cats and a dog while she was gone. I actually like doing it, it gives me a sense of purpose and it makes me feel like I'm contributing something, because I do love being helpful to others whenever I can. I'll admit that cleaning litterboxes and taking the dog out aren't my fave things to do, but hey, they gotta get done. Plus having someone else take care of that does make sure it happens instead of it just being one of those things where it gets put off and nobody does it. So I really don't mind doing that at all. So as you can tell, I've been having lots of fun and have been keeping busy. In just under an hour, I'll be filling in for sweetstephanie and I'll be doing her show on The Q Online. For the first time ever, I'll be doing the top 20 country countdown. Yes, your eyes and or ears are not deceiving you, I've actually offered to play the top 20 country songs. No, really. Again, it's all about helping out. She normally does this every week on her show, but this week she had to go out of town so I wanted to give it a try, just to see if I can actually pull it off and sound somewhat inteligent. I usually help her to compile the top 20 songs for her countdown so I'm farely familiar with the songs so it's not as if I'm walking into this not knowing at least a little something about it. So this should be a lot of fun. Typically she starts it during the 8:00 PM Eastern hour, so I'll do that as well, or as close to that as I can get it. I'll be archiving this show, so if you miss it and want to hear it later, I'll post a link here.
Well, I gotta get ready for the show, but I hope everyone's doing good, sure sounds like it from what I've been reading both on here, and on Twitter where I also hang out a lot. If you'd like to follow me, I'm toonhead there as well.
Thanks for reading!

The Apple iBox

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 01:27:20 GMT

Recently, Apple made the announcement about the 4th Generation iPod shuffle, as well as the new desktop and laptops, and announced the upcoming upgraded firmware of the iPhone software.
As anyone who knows me knows, i'm not necessarily against Apple, as such, I just prefer Windows for my every day tasks. I was feeling in a bit of a crazy mood and came up with the following.

Apple announces it's latest innovation

Cupertino, Calif.

March 14, 2009
Apple, Inc. has unvailed it's latest creation, the iBox.
The design is simple and compact, it's a plane white cardboard box with the Apple logo on it. Mark Papermaster, senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering, says that Apple fans world wide will love it, because of it's sleek, thin size. if you've got stuff lying around the house and don't have a box to put it in, Apple's got you covered.
"you'll want to buy one of these for every member of your family," papermaster says. Apple fans love showing loyalty to the company, and we think this is the perfect way to do it.
The iBox will be available soon, at the ridiculously low price of $49.95 SRP, and Apple Stores will begin taking orders in the coming weeks. If this venture is successful, there's no way of telling where the company could go. There are also discussions of other household items like the iFridge, the iStove, and for the ultimate in private comfort, the iToilet, complete with Apple's patented iToilet paper, or ITP for short.
Features could include the ability to download songs right to your iTunes library, at the same time nature calls, although this is only a rumor and has not been confirmed.

"I've shown one of these iBoxes to my grandmother, and she was blown away", said acting CEO Steve Jobs. She just thought it was the coolest thing, and said, and I quote, "you kids do the craziest things. Fans are expected to buy these in droves, so an initial number of 4 million will be produced.
The iBox will come in 4 sizes, small, medium, large and extra large, but patented design keeps the iBox easy to store, and your every day household items will be safe while they're in there.
This is likely to outsell anything we've done to date, said papermaster.
Fans will love it, and we know they'll pass the word on to their friends and families. It could even have applications in the workforce, he added.

Posted via email from toonhead's posterous

Where There's smoke, there's...

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:29:42 GMT

Usually, things are pretty calm around here. Oh sure sometimes the music gets played kinda loud but other than that, things are pretty calm as most things are concerned. Last night however, it was quite a different story. Not to say that it was like awful or anything but at about...11:30 or so, came in here and told us that one of the neighbors had just pounded on the door and told us that we had to evacuate the building. Turns out one of the people in the upstairs apartment was using their dryer and it shorted out or blew a fuse or some damn thing and it started smoking. The smoke got really thick and it spread all over. So to make absolutely sure everything was ok, the firemen said the best thing to do was just evacuate so they could blow the place out. So we got on our jackets and warm coats, this is February after all and remember this is at 11:30 at night. so it was cold as a witches tit out there. So we headed outside and surprisingly enough, the lady in the apartment upstairs where all this was going on, actually stopped what she was doing to make sure we got outside and were ok. Wow, that still floors me. So we hung around out there for a good hour, not really sure what in hell was going on, but we were pretty sure things would be ok eventually. We thought that it was a firetruck we were next to because I saw the flashing lights and heard the syrens and things, but it turns out they had just turned on a really powerful fan and were trying to blow the smoke out of the partment upstairs. So like I said that lasted for a good hour. I stood next to sweetstephanie and she kept me warm out there. After we got the all clear, we came back inside, made sure everything was ok, and it turns out it was. While we were outside, we all decided that having a cup of hot coco and some cookies was in order, I mean in winter, there's nothing better in the world than a cup of hot coco on a cold night to warm you up after you've been outside. So we had that and it was great. I didn't really finish mine but I definitely had all I wanted so it was cool.
So things are much more calm today. I've been playing with the latest game over at all In Play called Loco Locution.
If you're familiar with the gameshow Lingo, it's like that. You're given a 4 letter word, and the first letter is revealed but the rest is up to you. You try different letter combinations and different sounds give you clues as to wether or not you're on the right track. It's quite fun, but i'm not always good at word games. I'm much better at card games and other things like that because I'm better with strategy and deciding what move to make next after a card is played. I guess you could say the same thing about this but for me, the card games are really what I'm good at. So if you like, give it a try if you're an Allinplay member. Trial users and non-members won't get to try it so you really do have to be a member to do this. Other than that things are still good.
Tonight, my show will be on The Q Online from 10:00 PM. Eastern, to 1:00 AM eastern early Wednesday morning. I play rock and pop from the last 30 to 40 years or so, and in the last hour I play a healthy dose of comedy and novelty stuff. Note that it mmay contain some adult material. It doesn't always but if it does, I'll certainly let everyone know before it comes on.
Well, that's all there is for now. More as it happens!

Yep, I still have a journal and I exist I promise!

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 04:15:16 GMT

Well here it is, almost the end of January 2009 and it's been a while since i last wrote. I ended up going back to my parent's for Christmas. I wasn't sure how this would go in the sense that I didn't know if it would be uncomfortable for everyone or what in the world would happen. But it turned out ok and while Christmas wasn't the best one I ever had, I think the best one I ever had, was back in 2006 when I spent it here with the lovely sweetstephanie. I really felt weird not having her near me at Christmas, it just didn't quite feel right if that makes sense. I did get to see my family mostly on my dad's side since they live pretty near us and that was pretty cool. My parent's bought me a new cell phone which I needed for a good long while, that other oneI had definitely outlived its usefulness. Other gifts included clothes, yes I actually did need some new ones! Other things included gift cards and some other fun little things I can't remember at the moment, but all in all it wasn't too bad!

I wanted to see some of my other friends but sadly, because of the snow being what it was, that didn't work out.
Getting home was certainly ok and I got back there without incident. Coming back here though was quite a different story let me tell you!
The original plan was that I would fly out of Bloomington Il, go to De Troit and in about an hour, fly back here. Well, due to several flight delays, mistakes made by the airlines and other assorted weirdness, that didn't happen. What ended up happening was that I flew to De Troit, but the next flight didn't end up leaving until about 9:30 PM. So, I got to lay over in the De Troit airport for roughly 7 hours. Not fun you say? You'd be right! and to add insult to injury, they ended up changing the gate for my flight not once, but twice! This is one of those situations where speaking up for yourself and being pro-active really pays off. One of the staff at the airport found me, took me to get a bathroom break and get something to eat. I tipped him big time, because he definitely helped me out. He even went ahead and made sure that I got to where I needed to be and I got back here roughly 8 hours after I originally had planned to, but the point is I made it!

Since I got back, life's been great as always. I've mostly been doing my radio shows and of course, enjoying life with the beautiful sweetstephanie she's got that name for a good reason let me tell ya.
I've also been helping out with 20 20 The Blink as far as management goes. I never pictured myself in management, usually I'm the guy who makes the other people in management go crazy, but now I'm on the other end of that, LOL! It can be frustrating, but also really fun and rewarding especially when you hear a dj do their first show. It's a lot of fun to hear new folks get into this internet broadcasting thing and have a lot of fun.
I'll also finally be able to post archives to my shows again. My website provider doubled my disc space and bandwidth per month, so I'll post archives of my shows, I haven't decided which ones yet but definitely some will be around for you guys to listen to. I'm on every tuesday night, 10 PM to 1 AM eastern on The Q Online, and every Thursday night, same time 10 PM Eastern to 1 AM eastern, but this time I'm on 20 20 The Blink. I hope some of you will take the time and tune in as the show airs live. I know it's awfully late but I think you'll like it if you listen. I know I certainly enjoy doing it.

Well I suppose that's it.
Stay tuned as more stuff happens!

Really quick update

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:26:43 GMT

OMG, he actually remembers he has a journal you say? Yep, I'm alive! I haven't dropped off the face of the earth I promise. The only reason I haven't updated is because there hasn't really been much exciting to talk about, at least until just a little bit ago. So I figured I'd come on here and write a bit. It's almost Christmas as we know, so this year, the lovely and talented sweetstephanie and I will both be going home to our parents for the holidays. We leave tomorrow which as of this writing is Wednesday the 17th of December and we'll be gone until Sunday, the 28th. That date has significance for us because that was the day that I went back to my parents a couple years ago, and now, I'll be coming back here on that same date so that's really cool. I'll miss sweetstephanie a lot, but it'll be good to see the family. I'll be taking my laptop with me so I'll still have lots of time to be online and stuff. Aparently I'll be seing lots of family and friends I haven't seen in a while which is gonna be nice since I can't ordinarily do that since I made this big move. But I'll write again in here about everything going on, or if you want the blow by blow update, you can follow me on Twitter. I also post over there about random things going on, so that's a fun way to keep up. Granted each update is only 140 characters in length and it's sometimes hard to keep it to that, yes I know I'm wordy! I've known this for a long while. But anyways, that's what's been happening. Other than that, life's good. The pretty lady and I have been spending loads of time together and we're reading some good books as well. We're almost finished with "The Christmas Sweater" by Glenn Beck, which was suggested to us by a friend so we're enjoying listening to that. I got it from audible. I have a gold membership which lets me have 1 free book a month, which I usually get, but it's nice to be able to gather up a few credits if I don't see something I like.

Anyways, that's about it!
Talk soon!

Tweets from Twitter!

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:11:19 GMT

@shazza59 Yes, I do like Firefox! If I can get it and XM online to cooperate I'd switch. #

Labor day weekend stream continues. Put lin1.ash.fast-serv.com:6038 Into Winamp, and then sit back an enjoy! #

@awallens Hey, sometimes you just have to listen to what your body is trying to tell you. I know this from experience! #

Currently playing Corner Gas with DVS. listen at: lin1.ash.fast-serv.com:6038 #

@shazza59 Not for long though, the pretty lady and I will be headed out to Ruby Tuesdays in a while. Yummy! #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Tweets from Twitter!

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:10:43 GMT

I'm streaming a bunch of random stuff. Direct link for Winamp is: ping.fm/dHH5b #

I really love firefox 3. All accept that I can't seem to get it to play any XM Radio online streams. Any thoughts, fellow Twitterers? #

oops. Let me give a more direct link for my online stream. lin1.ash.fast-serv.com:6038
Hopefully that works a little better. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Credit cards, Cabs, and taco bell goodness!

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:08:19 GMT

I know it's been a while since I updated this thing, but I have a story which, after you read it, will hopefully make you laugh, and will have been worth the wait!

This afternoon, jade2006 went out to take the dog to the vet, and afterwords, agreed to go to Taco bell to get us all dinner. I agreed to pay for the cab fare and the food since sweetstephanie and jade2006 were paying for the vet visit. Hey, not a problem, that's perfectly cool. So as she walked out, I handed her my card, not thinking much of it and going back to the e-mail that I was reading. About 15, maybe 20 minutes later, the phone rings and from the caller ID I can tell it's none other than jade2006, and she proceeded to tell me that I had given her the wrong damn card! See, I have 2 credit cards, one I had used when I was living with the parental units, and one I have here. I had given her the one from the account at my parent's house on accident, because the 2 cards have raised letters on them, so the 2 cards feel almost identicle to each other. Unfortunately, I suspected that I didn't have enough in that account to do much of anything with, so I called the automated bank thingy to confirm this, and I was correct. So, I had to go meet her at the vet and bring her the right card so we could pay for the dinner and the cab fare home. Hey, I wasn't going to just stiff her and leave her stranded. I couldn't do that. She had taken a cab out there and she got the driver, who definitely deserves a big vote of thanks BTW, to come back and get me and bring me to her at the vet's office. So here I am, never taken a cab alone in my life, and wasn't sure where to go, what to do or anything, I was pretty damn nervous and a little scared to be honest. The good thing was, the guy was nice enough to come right to the door and I was able to walk with him out there. So we got into the cab, and I paid for the fare out there and everything. I met Tammy at the Vet's office and we took care of that. Afterwords, we headed over to Taco bell and got lots of great stuff. I had tried their "big taste taco" and a "Three Cheese Rollup" for the very first time and I liked both of them, although I definitely liked the taco better than the rollup. It wasn't that it was bad or anything, I just think the taco was better. I still have a cheesey big beef burrito in the fridge and if I get hungry I'll heat that up later on. Yeah, I know, it's not quite the same as the first time you get it, but damn it it's taco bell and I love it so you know I'll have it whenever! So I felt kind of nervous at first, but as always, everything turned out ok in the end. Plus I can actually say I took my first ever cab ride all alone here, which has never happened before. I've done it with other folks before, but never all by myself. So it was nice to get out, but damn it was hot! The summers are pretty hot here, so that's to be expected I suppose.

Other than that, I'm just enjoying life here and spending as much time with sweetstephanie as I can. we love to read books together, and a few weeks ago, we went out to Ocharleys for a nice dinner, just for the 2 of us. It was really nice to be able to do that, and we'd like to be able to go out together at least once a month, just so we can get some time out of the house.
So as you can all tell, life's good here! I definitely love it and I can't ever imagine going back to what I was doing before. I love sweetstephanie so very much and can't imagine life without her! It's so nice to be able to spend every day and night with her, instead of just lying around, wishing I could do that and being so far away. I can not believe how lucky I am to have her, and I'm so blessed that she feels the same about me! I am the happiest I've ever been and I hope to make her just as happy as we continue our life together!

updatage ahead, look out!

Fri, 23 May 2008 16:24:35 GMT

Well, I'm still in Richmond! i didn't go back to Illinois, and it was the best decision I ever made! I love my parents but come on!
Everyone I know was asking me if I had heard from them yet, and up until last night I hadn't yet. We were all worried that they would blow up and go all crazy, coming here and demanding that I come home or something else crazy like that, but they were really cool with the idea. I reminded them that I would call them on Thursday right around the time sweetstephanie usually calls hers, and I think that's probably a factor in why they both handled this so well. As long as they know they can hear from me every so often I think that helps.
So you can bet that was a big relief for me there. I just hope things continue in this direction.

As for what's going on here, things are awesome! Just being with sweetstephanie full time has been the best thing! We've been able to go out to eat a lot, Last Saturday I had my first ever meal at Friendlys, which was really good. I ate so much that I couldn't eat anything for the rest of the day. If I don't gain a few pounds from that I'll seriously be worried! But the food is awesome so if you ever get the chance to go you must! It's got the Toonhead stamp of approval. Other than that, she and I just love to spend time together, which is what we love to do. I love her so much. She is truely the best thing that ever happened to me! So you know we're both happy about everything going on!

Let me give you guys another broadcasting update, cause I like to let people know where and when I'll be on. I'm now doing a show, at exactly the same time I did before, Thursday nights from 10 to midnight eastern, but this time it's on another station called LLJ FM.
It's almost exactly like my show was on ACBRI, so if you liked that show, you'll love this one. You won't hear any kind of adult content, so if that's a concern for you, you can rest assured you won't hear anything that's not family-friendly.
The lovely and talented sweetstephanie has a show on there too. It's called "Young Country" and it airs every Saturday night from 7:00 P.m. to 10:00 P.M. Eastern. So if you're into all the newer modern country artists, give it a listen. She does a really good show and definitely knows her stuff!

Kfuz, the other station that I was on and had big hopes for, had to shut down due to lack of cash and other stuff we won't go into here. It was sure fun while it lasted though.
I'm still doing my shows Monday nights on The Q Online, and they're at the usual time, 10 to midnight eastern.

I love to broadcast stuff in my spare time, which is why I wanted to install a SHOUTcast server and do it again. I'm not good with working with routers, so for now, I bought the use of a server and will be doing some streams from time to time. Be looking for another post really soon about that, with a direct link to listen. If you've got nothing to do over this Memorial day weekend, i just might be streaming something you like!It might be some OTR, it might be some cartoons, radio dramas, audio books, it could be just about anything, which is the idea, you never know what'll pop up next. But like I say I'll post when I get closer to starting the stream so everyone who wants to can listen if you'll be around.
Ok, I seriously need some caffeine so I'm off to get that but I wanted to check in here and let everyone know what's been up around here. More soon!

Voice Post: food, food and wel, food!

Mon, 12 May 2008 03:16:00 GMT

Voice Post: trip update

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:51:47 GMT

suggestion for those who love posting polls

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 04:01:27 GMT

Lately a lot of people on my friends page have fallen in love with these polls you can post on your lj, i'm sure we've all done them a time or too. But lately, just the last time I looked at my friends page, I saw 4, yes, people, count 'em, 4! polls right in a row. Is it just me or is this a bit much? I know the people involved here mean absolutely no harm in posting them and i'm certain that they weren't done with the intention of actually pissing someone off. To me, this gets old very quickly. It's kind of like having the same breakfast cerial, or the same food for dinner every night. We all have our favorites and naturally we're going to gravitate towards those. But it's this idea of posting a journal entry every day with a poll in it that bothers me. Some might say well, why not just press the letter b with jaws to just take you to the submit button and arrow down to the next entry? well, it's a good thought but i don't always use JAWS and Window-eyes doesn't have that particular keystroke. (edit) thanks to sweetstephaniefor reminding me that you can just hit the letter c to get to the next control, so it might take a few presses of it, but it is possible to get through the poll quickly if you want to skip it. Also, some might say well, why not filter out polls? I would accept I know a few people are actually looking for useful information and they're posting them with a serious attempt to find answers from their fellow readers and I don't want to punish those folks. So, with that in mind, let me make a suggestion. If people are looking for fun things to post in their lj's in an atempt to write somehing every day, and they wanna keep things exciting, why not post something from Blogthings. There are a lot of great little quizzes and things on there and they always come up with new ones. Another suggestion might be to put the poll behind a cut so those not interested in it can just skip over it and go to the next entry. It could really save a lot of space on people's friends pages. Is it filler for your lj? Sure. Is it fun? Well sure, depending on what your opinion of fun is, LOL! But I thought I might offer that site as an alternative to the polls that everyone seems to be posting of late. I don't mind them, but when so many people are posting them, it gets to be a bit much. Ok, I hope I didn't piss anyone off here. After all it is your ljs and you do what you like, but I thought I'd offer that idea up as a suggestion here.

Changes in broadcasting and other randomness

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:25:07 GMT

Well, here we are again for yet another update. Wait, we have a question from the audience...yes? *is heard from way in the background* "why don't you update this thing more often?" Well, see, that's the thing. If I wrote in this thing every day, trust me, we'd all be bored out of our minds and that's not why this is here. I want to entertain the people who read this, rather than putting them to sleep. See, it all works out great, because when I post, you know I've got something to say, or I'm doing it for a reason. Well, I do have some stuff to talk about, so let's dive right in!

As many of you probably know by now, I've been broadcasting on the net since, like, 2000 I think it was when I started. I did my own thing on Live 365 for a while, and that was just automated music. Then I joined a now defunked radio station called Test Pattern Radio, TPR for short. To say that the whole station was a mess would be about right. But ya know, in a way I'm glad I did because that was the best lesson in the world as to how not to run a station. There were definitely some politics involved, but hey, all I wanted to do was get on the air, play some music and comedy and do the best damn show I could. So I hung around until TPR closed down. Then later, in May of 2002, I joined ACB Radio Interactive. It was what I had aspired to doing all along but at the time I was doing my own thing and TPR was just crazy. I really didn't feel like I knew what I was doing.

But after getting a little experience I felt like I was good enough, so I had an audition and was accepted. I was amazed, I actually made it on there! It was a big deal for me. I felt like I was part of something bigger, something awesome.

So now, flash forward to January of this year, and some major changes are going down! I can deal with change lots of the time. You might hear me grumble a little bit because lots of times I don't like to change something if I know it's right. But you know all that about "change is inevitable" and I can certainly understand that.
Basically, it was decided that it would be a good idea that the Interactive project should be done legally, as in the djs who are on it tell other people who gather this information what songs we play, when we play them so everyone gets their little peace of the pie. I get that and that's ok. So initially, I was ok with it and actually looked forward to it because it might make us a more high-profile
station in the process. Then we learned what was going to happen, and why/how it all needed to happen. I won't go into specifics here, but let's just say that in order to broadcast on there now, it requires a lot more work than I did previously, and it feels like I'm doing homework. I didn't get into this whole broadcasting thing for homework, I got into it so I could play lots of good songs and entertain the listeners, should anyone actually tune in and make a request.
When I heard what was happening, it made me realize real fast what was required of me, and then I had to make a choice. If I stayed on, I could keep my slot that I've held down, keep in mind y'all I had this particular slot, Thursday nights 10 PM Eastern to midnight for 6 years. That's a damn long time to keep a slot, let alone for an Internet station to stay on the air when so many of them have left the air due to lack of interest, or life just getting in the way. I can understand that for sure. So I talked it over with the lovely sweetstephanie and she encouraged me to follow my heart and told me that if it wasn't fun for me anymore, then I should do what was best. So, as of last week, I officially resigned from ACBRI. I got nothing against the actual staff of the station, let me be right out front about that! I'm still maintaining friendships with a lot of the djs on there, I don't do this thing where I only talk to them cause they're on a certain station, that's stupid. But fear not my fellow Internet radio fans! For a while now, I've been doing 2 shows on different stations. Let me tell ya, just from a personal standpoint, I'm having more fun now than I ever had, and I actually look forward to doing my shows! When I was on ACBRI I sometimes felt like I was doing it just to do it, but now that I have a lot of the restrictions lifted I can better do the show I'd like to do and I can present me, as people really see me. Sure there is something to be said about following rules and regulations...but on these stations, those being Hot 979 Radio and The Q Online. I can broadcast on those stations without having to follow all those extra guidelines and send in all that necessary info. It was just handled very badly, the people doing it didn't really have much of a clue as to how to handle it, so as a result, lots of people have already left, including myself and a lot of others. It really is sad to see this happening, when you work on something week in and week out for 6 years, dude, that's a damn long time to do anything. so it feels different not to be doing shows on there, but I choose not to do all that work, I got into this for the fun of it and these 2 stations really allow me to just be me. So, if you'd like to tune in, yep you knew plug-o-rama was on the way LOL! I can be heard on Hot 979 Radio on Sunday nights from 8:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M. Eastern time. Then on Mondays from 10:00 P.M. Eastern til midnight, I can be heard on The Q Online.
The 2 shows I do are sort of different. The Sunday show is very much like that of what I was doing on ACBRI, accept this time you may hear some adult content. So if I'm going to play something that contains some adult material, I'll let everyone know ahead of time just in case they need to get their kids away from the radio, or maybe they just don't like adult content and want to turn it off for a while. Hey, that's ok.

The Monday night show is quite different though, it focuses on a lot of the more modern rock and heavier stuff, and some comedy and novelty stuff as well, but again, adult content will be heard on this one. It's all the stuff that I was wishing I could play on ACBRI, but couldn't. So these are fun shows, or at least I'd like to think they are.

In other news, I had to buy a new cordless phone last week, because my other one stopped working, I couldn't press some of the buttons and it became that old idea of that I couldn't call everyone I wanted because all the buttons didn't work. So I got another Panasonic one with talking caller ID which I like the idea of. I have one of those other talking caller ID boxes, but it just reads the number out but doesn't actually tell you who is calling. The Panasonic will do that with the talking caller ID. It's awful at pronouncing some names but more often than not it's pretty easy to figure out who it is calling here. So it's working very nicely! I originally bought one that I thought had caller ID but didn't, so I exchanged it for another model and it works great now.

So Other than that, I've just been spending a whole load of time talking and hanging out with the lovely sweetstephanie. WE actually skyped for a while last night, and that was a lot of fun. We had never done that before, because before this, I had Skype installed but it didn't work really well. But it seems to be working now so that was really nice. Hey also before I forget, welcome back to silly_singer. Nice to finally have you back online again! I've also been reading some of the entries in therealljidol. I did say that I might write up some other entries and play the home game, but nothing really caught my eye, or I guess it would be in my ear so I just prefer to read other's entries. Besides, it's gotten to the point where people are in teams, so when you vote for one person you actually vote for both of them! So if you're interested, check out some of the entries in the different topics. I was in it for the first 8 weeks, and I'm still actually
amazed I got that far. I'm not sure if I would be able to make it this far, so a big congrats goes to everyone who have survived!

So besides broadcasting and hanging out with my sweetie, and reading, I can't really think of a lot of other things going on. I know this has been another one of my loooooooong entries. and many apologies to those who are using their eyes to read this, I do try to not make everything all run together but ya know what? My thoughts just kind of come out and I guess I'm more concerned that the spelling is right and that the message gets across. I do try to proofread as much as I can before posting these, LOL! Hey some people don't even do that, so people write in many different ways on here. Anyways, I guess I've rambled on long enough, so I'll write again soon, hopefully with more news that is fit to print. or all the shit that will stick, either one I suppose! Heeheehee!

Voice Post

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 04:15:36 GMT

Voice Post:

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:51:17 GMT

Voice Post:

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:44:32 GMT

Since everyone else is doing them...

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 01:06:45 GMT

View Poll: Poll about polls

Thank you!

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 09:59:20 GMT

I just wanted to come in here to thank everyone for voting for me during my participation with therealljidol.

Unfortunately I didn't quite make it for this 9th week, but I'll still be "playing the home game" as we like to say. I'll be posting my entries here and then posting links in the green room when it's time to do that.

I've been doing a lot of thinking, and after careful consideration, I think I'll skip this week's topic. It's about our scars, and I definitely have some, in a lot of ways. It's just not something I'm particularly comfortable sharing, don't worry there are no deep dark secrets here. But this is a really sensitive topic for me, and even if I'd still been in the competition I think I probably would've taken a bye week. When you read this journal, you get me as I am, uncut, uncensored and right to the point and I just wouldn't be able to write about the topic in a way that would make sense to anyone but me. But again, I wanted to thank each and every one of you for reading this stuff I bash out every so often. The fact that I was able to last 8 weeks in a competition such as therealljidol shows me that I really am a little better than I thought, and that people are actually interested in what I have to say. I know you guys don't always agree with some of my stances on certain topics, but that's completely ok. I don't hold anything against you guys, even though you're all completely wrong, LOL kidding kidding of course! Anyways, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for voting. Out of all the entries you voted for you picked mine and I definitely appreciate it!

LJ Idol week 8, goals for 2008!!!

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:42:52 GMT

Well, here we are in 08 and personally I am glad! Ok. I'm just gonna come right out and say it. For me, last year, in most instances, 2007 sucked, and I wish we could wipe it from the record, but no such luck. But I'm one of these guys who believes that January means that you can start fresh, and make that the best year you can. I stopped making new years resolutions a very long time ago, because let's face it, you make them January first, and forget them by the second. I think the idea of resolutions in itself is good, we can all improve on things. But the problem is sometimes people make too lofty of a goal to achieve and it becomes unrealistic, or they make the goal and they just fall into the old habits and just kind of, well, forget. I'm definitely of that tribe and I wish I wasn't.

I remember when I was a kid, 2008 seemed so far away. I always imagined that whole futuristic George jetson kind of world where people flew around in cars and houses were all automated. I didn't know if we'd have robots or not, but I figured they might be involved in some way or another. In some ways, we really have advanced. We have Tivos for recording our shows, the Internet is pretty much ubiquitous, I mean here we are sitting in front of our computers right now reading, or in some cases for myself and some others here, listening to this. It's with a silly synthesized voice, but it's a whole hell of a lot better than not being able to have it at all.
So in some ways, we really have advanced and I'm sure 2008 will see some interesting things. Now of course what might be interesting to me might not be to you, then again it just might. I guess, if I had to pick one goal, and one goal only for this year is to finally make the necessary life changes that have been staring me dead in the face and I've been hesitating, but only because I didn't particularly like the environment, or if I just wasn't ready emotionally. I've had a lot of fun for a while, and while it still is going to be a whole lot of fun, i need to stand out on faith and believe in myself to do this. You guys who know me personally know *exactly* what I'm talking about, and for those of you who don't, that's ok. I definitely feel better about myself emotionally. Not to say i was all down and suicidal and all that, because I love life. Life is frustrating, complicated, confusing, annoying, depressing, cold, mean, painful and often-times just plane nasty and not fun. But at the same time, it's amazing, special, wonderful, funny, weird, incredibly happy, interesting, challenging, terrifying, and at the same time, it really can be a lot of fun, especially when the one you love can share all those life experiences with you. Everyone deserves happiness, and my goal this year is to be happy and do my best to make everyone else around me just as happy as I am. Now of course life's challenges bring you all kinds of emotions, see the above list and you'll know what I mean. But thanks to my prayers and the encouragement of the people who truly love me, I'm finally realizing that yes, I really can be happy and yes, I can have that happiness I've been wishing for for so long and I shouldn't just have to settle for second best. and when a big opportunity comes, I am usually one to run away from it, because...well, because it's a challenge and I sit there, wondering if I have what it takes to actually be able to do it instead of getting off my ass and actually doing it. I mean hey, I'm not expecting perfection, because none of us are perfect. If we were, life would be pretty boring, so yes, I will make mistakes and so will everyone else. But at the same time, this has got to be the year when I go for it. I know I have friends and family who love me, and when things get tough it's really easy to forget that because sometimes the obstacles just begin to look so big. But the thing about that is if you keep running away from things, they often-times have a funny way of catching up with you, or you find yourself in a situation that you don't know how to handle so learning those necessary skills will be a part of this too. Anyway, it sure as hell can't be as bad as 2007 was like I said at the beginning of this thing. I know it was a lot better for others and hey that's beautiful. But for me, I'd like to say goodbye, and good riddance to 2007!

This is yet another in my series of entries in participation with therealljidol. I hope you all enjoyed reading this, and have a happy and safe new year!

LJ Idol Week 7 My Best Friend

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 02:05:03 GMT

It's summertime, 1979. I'm 8 years old and I'm headed off to this summer camp, scared and excited all at the same time. I'm excited at the prospect of making some new friends, and scared because I'm in a whole new environment and it's the first time I've ever really been away from home. I met the usual mix of people, some good and some not so good, and some of the councelors were freaky. One I remember pretty clearly was a British dude I think his name was Kevin? and I was fascinated by his acsent because I had always heard people with acsents on TV but never met one. There were the fun activities like horseback riding, yes I actually rode and didn't even fall off once, go me! I tried to swim but just couldn't do it, even back then I think I was scared of being under water, and still am to this very day. Everyone always told me it's something I have to get over, and I know I will at some point, but I remember being really scared.

But in addition to the scary and bad times, like with every other situation, there were some good times too. I don't actually remember the first time Keith and I actually met, it wasn't one of those situations where 2 kids just start talking and form a friendship. We had been in the same dorm, and had been on opposite sides of the place so it wasn't very easy to find someone with all the other people around. But for whatever silly reason, I had been the target of the resident bully and had been scared to death. Remember I was 8 years old at the time, I was really small for my age, I still am I mean I'm only about 5'3 maybe? But the idea being if I had pissed this guy off, I would've gone home with a fat lip and several bruzes, and all just so this other guy could feel better about himself.

But Keith actually stepped in and pretty much saved my ass. He says he didn't wanna be violent and cause any trouble, but he didn't know what else to do. I don't actually remember what he did, all I remember is this other guy making a run for the nurses station soon after, and I remember feeling incredibly relieved that someone had actually stepped up and defended me. That'd never happened before, in school or anything else in life so it was a fantastic feeling. After that, Keith and I got to talking a little more and we discovered that we liked the exact same kind of music, the same radio people (both of us had been bitten by the radio bug at an early age), and it was awesome to finally meet a guy who I shared so much in common with.
But then camp ended, and we went home and kind of went our separate ways and lost touch.

So now fast forward to the summer of 1982. I was at yet another summer program, this wasn't so much of a camp but it was a summer program for junior high school kids and kids in their early teens to get together and learn skills with daily living skills, assistive devices for the blind and to just meet new people and have fun. Or try to anyways. i remember hearing his voice at some point, it was a little different than I remember but it was still recognizable. We ended up going to his room and just sat around talking for like 2 or 3 hours catching up on what we'd been doing with our lives, how school was going, the music we listened to, all the other things friends talk about. It was great to finally meet a familiar person there, it made my time there a whole lot more fun. One great memory I have from that particular year was that he told me about this interesting channel that showed music videos, called MTV. It'd been around for a whole year but I, for whatever reason, hadn't heard about it til then, and thought he was having me on. To my 11 year old mind, music only belonged on the radio, and outside of just live performances, I didn't quite understand what an entire channel devoted to music would be about. I knew I'd probably want to watch it, but the chances of me seing it for a while were probably pretty slim. Actually, I would only have to wait a couple of weeks to see it, since my parents had friends who had it and I got to see it, but Keith was the first one to introduce me to it and when I finally understood what it was, I couldn't turn it off! It was awesome! It's totally different now, but back then, Keith and I would watch it for hours when we got together during the summer.

We went to that same summer camp again the next year, and we decided that we would have to get together every summer after that. We lived about maybe 2 hours away so it was kind of a trip but we did the half-way system. My mom and dad drove me to a half-way point that they had figured out would be good, and then his parents took me back to his place or they him to mine, based on what year it was. So we spent the next 5 or 6 years getting together for a week every summer and had some of the best times I remember from then. It's hard to believe, but in the 25 some odd years of our friendship, I think we only ever got into one fight, and it was about something really stupid too, the choice of a tv show to watch. I wanted to watch something, I can't even remember what it was, but I remember he wanted to watch the animated version of "Watership Down", which we ended up watching, because i eventually realized hey, he's the guest and he should be able to watch what he wants. It actually turned out to be pretty cool. We watched a lot of tv, listened to a whole lot of music and radio stations, and in later years we even made our own little atempts at a 2 man personality show, in kind of a nod to our 2 favorite radio personalities of the time, Steve Dahl and Garry Meier. We both loved listening to the show every day and we knew we weren't half as good as they were, but Lord knows we had fun trying.
None of those tapes exist anymore, probably a good thing because I'm positive that if we both heard them today it would be cringe radio at its worst! But you guys all know how it is, when you write something or perform something when you're younger, you look back on it and it just doesn't quite hold up. But at the time we thought we were the greatest! and in our own way, for 2 guys who have been friends all these years that's a damn good accomplishment. Most mariages these days don't last half as long as my friendship with Keith has, and I know that if he needed anything, I would help him out in any way I could. It's wonderful to have a friend for so long, and when we talk on the phone or on IM it's like we just pick up where we left off last time, like no time has passed at all.

We don't talk quite as much as we used to, but we've still got our hands in the media. Keith does a show on 100.9 WBGZ and he does a podcast called Candid Radio. and as the name suggests, lots of it is probably NSFW or for kids, small pets or kitchen appliances either! and I continue to do my weekly shows on ACB Radio Interactive. So we're living out our dreams of being radio guys. Yeah, not the most glammerous job in the world, but it's like I tell people, once the radio bug bites you, it never quite leaves you, it's in your blood as we like to say. I'm really glad I could share this entry with you guys, it's all part of my continuing participation with therealljidol. I hope you like this entry and my other writings as well. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Reading a lot lately, and my radio show...

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:05:08 GMT

As a lot of you know, I love to read, or in my case, listen to audio books. Some years ago, I remember reading a set of stories by Stephen king, called "The Bachman Books, 4 Early Novels. These are certainly different than King's normal fare, in fact some of them are different enough that I wouldn't have known it was him unless I was told. The interesting thing about this collection is that in the early editions, he included a story called "rage" which was about a sixteen year old kid named Charley Decker, who just snaps and decides to take one of his classes hostage. He kills 2 of the teachers and has the authorities of the school wondering what crazy thing he'll do next. It's a fascinating look into this kid's mind, and it's actually scarier than a lot of his stories because of the way Charley acts and thinks. This kid thinks nothing of setting his locker on fire, shooting people and doing all these awful things, and the way he tells it is so matter-of-fact that it's like he's telling the events of a normal day in his life. I don't know this for sure, but I believe the story actually inspired another kid to do something similar after reading the story, and because of all the high school shootings and things that happened, Richard Bachman, AKA Stephen King had the story removed from later editions. It's not a story that he's particularly proud of writing and I can understand that. But at the same time, it's interesting to be able to read a story that isn't so widely available anymore. It's certainly not his best work, most King fans, depending on who you are, believe that "the Stand" was his best, but other people love his "Dark Tower" series. I've been a fan of his for years, and while I think some of his more recent works aren't as good as his earlier stuff, I always like to follow what he's doing. I think that something happened after the well-publicized accident he had back in '99. After that, his stories just don't seem to have the bite that his earlier stuff did. Some folks might say well, the guy's 60 years old, and you eventually run out of things to write about. I don't know if that's necessarily true, but I have noticed that the pace in the stories has slowed considerably, some almost to the point that I couldn't finish them. For example, some people just loved"Lisey's Story", but the pace was just too damn slow for me. I think it would've made an interesting story, but it was just too damn slow and drawn out. I felt the same way about "Jeralds' Game", but I was able to finish that one at least. I'm hoping that his next book, due out next month is different cause I think it'd be neat to read some new ideas. You can only shove The Dark Tower universe into so many books and short stories. Some people might ask well, do you think you could do better than him? Certainly not, cause if I could I'd have sold more books than he has and that ain't happening, not in this life time. But I just know what he's capable of, and his last few stories have been pretty ok, but I haven't read something that completely knocked me out since a few years ago when he released his short story collection called "everything's Eventual". There were some pretty cool stories in that one.

I do like other genres of books though, I like Sci-fi, crime novels, some suspense stuff, medical thrillers, the occasional mystery now and then, but like everyone else I have my faves. I get my books from Audible, which has been around for quite a while, and has tons of books, radio shows and other assorted good stuff. So if you've been looking for another place for audio books, that's definitely a good one.

My regular show on ACB Radio Interactive will be on tonight, and hopefully I won't have any issues with my net connection. If all goes well, I'll post an archive of the show on Friday so people can listen for the next week whenever they like. So I look forward to that. The show starts at 10:00 PM Eastern and goes til Midnight, that's 9:00 PM Central, 8:00 PM Mountain, and 7:00 PM Pacific! I hope you'll tune in and give the show a listen! You are bound to hear something you haven't heard in years, or maybe you might hear something you've never heard before. It's definitely something I enjoy doing and I like sharing it with as many people as I can.

LJ Idol Week 6, That'd Be In The Butt, Bob!

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:03:27 GMT

Did that subject line grab your attention there? If you recognized the phrase, you know all about the little event that happened years ago on the Newlywed game that became the stuff of Urband legend later on. The article posted on the popular site Snopes.com" tells the story of a rather humorous response given by a contestant on the show that most definitely didn't make it past the network censors at the time. The show was in the mid to late 70's and into the early 80's and would never have made it onto day time TV for sure. The funny part about all this is that Bob Eubanks, who hosted the show for many years denied that the incident ever actually happened, and got sick of everyone asking him about it, probably because of stuff that gets collected and sent on the internet via e-mails and message boards and such. So he claimed that he'd give a $10000 reward to anyone who could provide him proof that the event actually happened. Well, it turns out that it really did happen, and you can view a video clip of it and listen to an audio clip as well on the above link to the article. There were also other versions of it that went around the net as well, attributed to a radio station in Australia or somewhere near that.
Personally, I think this is one of the funniest urban legends I've heard in a while, and that bit about the radio station, at least to me, was probably just an excuse to use the words, "up the arss"! In an e-mail.

It's funny how these urban legends propagate and become so popular. Years ago people were told that if they simply opened an e-mail that their entire computer would be destroyed, which of course, wasn't true. But because it was on the internet, it had to be true, right? It's just so funny how much power people give the net. It's just another way to get information, and it can give good, as well as bad information. If people do a little research they'd figure out what's going on, but these e-mails are written in such a way that they use scare tactics which frighten the hell out of a new computer user and that can be dangerous.

The other ones that get me are the chain letters, promising the stuff of legends like the free trip to disney world, or the free computers just for sending an e-mail to a specific number of people.
As far as I know, there's no way of tracking an e-mail, and seing how many times it's been sent, or to how many people it's been forwarded to. If there was, I think that could get some of the privacy groups up in arms. Microsoft hasn't, at least not at this point, developed a system of tracking how many copies of a specific e-mail have been sent around. You can trace the path that an e-mail took by reading the headers, but for a *specific* e-mail? I don't even know how they would possibly be able to do that. It would have to involve some kind of identifying mark to differentiate it from all the other information floating around out there, and it just doesn't seem possible, or even worth anyone's time.

I remember when I first got on the net about 10 years ago, I saw some of these things and the great big bullshit detector went off, because it just seemed too good to be true. and we all know how that is, if it's too good to be true, it most likely is. They do certainly make for interesting reading though, Snopes is an interesting site for sure. I definitely like the way it's written and it's the first place I go to find out if something is true or not. If I was teaching folks about the net, that'd be one of the places I'd send them too right at first so they could be a little more educated as to what's fact and what's fiction.
I'm sure there are other sites out there that debunk myths and rumors, but that's my favorite one. Hey, if nothing else, the stories like the one I quoted above are just plane fun to read. in some ways, you almost don't care wether they're true or not, because they're just fun and are definitely worth a laugh.
If I had to make one suggestion to everyone, it would be to go searching for a myth you always heard about, but were never sure about, and find out the truth about it. If we can educate ourselves, and use the net all at the same time, that's definitely a good thing!

This is for my continuing participation in therealljidol. I hope you enjoyed reading this, and vote for me when the polls go up!

LJ Idol Week 5, Sexual Ethics

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:24:00 GMT

So here we are into week 5, and the topic this week is sexual ethics. Sex is everywhere nowadays. It's on the tv shows we watch, the movies we watch on demand or buy on DVD and of course it's online in whatever way you choose to watch it. There are plenty of websites to go to if you need your sexual fix. But some people believe that it should be toned down. Some people believe that sex is meant to be shared between 2 people, alone in the privacy of their own bedroom, and it shouldn't be out there for everyone to see. I kind of fall right in the middle. I don't think having a scene in a movie that involves sex is really a bad thing, as long as it's done in the right way. Same goes for books...I think it's ok for an author to write story lines that involve sexual encounters, or other content that is of a more adult nature, but it's all in how it's done.
The kind of displays that bug me the most when it comes to using sex in the media are those that throw it right in your face. Britney Spears is a great example. Her new album Blackout is actually full of sexual references, and even the album art shows her in some very sexually suggestive poses. Definitely not the kind of thing you'd want your 9 or 10 year old daughter to go around singing. Well, on this new album of hers it's more like moaning and sighing rather than singing, but she just seems to think that the more sex you throw into it, the better it is, and for her, I'm sorry but it just doesn't work for me. I think Janet Jackson was able to pull this off a whole lot better in some of her earlier albums, she involved it in her music, but not every single song was about it, and not every song had suggestive lyrics. She used it like it should be used, to add spice to the music, and to me that works a whole lot better. It gets it across without shoving it into your face. So Janet did it right.

If you're going to involve sex in a book or a movie or a song, keep it simple and just let the scene go the way it's going to go. and if it involves music, some singing would go a long way, because the style of singing is enough without all the other extras. I want to hear singing, not moaning and groaning and giggling all the time. Maybe it's just me, but that's how I happen to see it. I'm sure there are some that'll disagree with me, and as always, that's ok. I just think if the whole idea of sex is overdone, it loses something. It takes all the romance out of it. On Britney's album, there's no romance in it at all, it's about getting it done and having a few moments of pleasure, maybe. I just think that she could've gone about it all a different way.
Maybe if Britney and a lot of other artists learned how to do it in a different way, their music would be a lot nicer to listen to.

This is for week 5 in my participation in . I hope you'll Cast your vote if you like this entry, or any other entries I've written in the past. As always, thanks for reading!!

Less than one hour til show time!

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 02:16:26 GMT

Well, we have less than one hour until my weekly radio show starts, so I wanted to give everyone who hasn't had the chance to listen a bit of info about it and a link to tune in. It's called "The Toonhead Experience and airs every Thursday night from 10:00P.M. to Midnight Eastern, 7:00 P.M. to 9:00 P.M. Pacific, or if you're in part of the world that observes Universal time, that's 3:00 hours universal on early Friday morning. My show can best be described as what it might be like if I took over a radio station for a couple of hours and play whatever I like to listen to. You'll hear everything from classic rock, to pop and rock from the last 30 years or so, a little chatter from me and a little novelty and comedy bits thrown in there. I also take requests from listeners, so if you think you just have to hear something, just write to me and I'll play it. The very fastest way to get ahold of me is to use Windows live messenger or another one of those chat programs that lets you use multiple messengers at once. Just add the address: request@acbradio.org to your messenger contacts and I'll show up there and you can send me a message and I'll respond. It may take me a few minutes to respond but I most definitely will. This show is most definitely not the kind of thing you'll hear on traditional, boring, out-of-date fm radio. To tune in, just visit the ACB Radio Interactive website and choose your connection speed and player of choice. I always recommend Winamp for the best listening experience. This should be a fun show so I hope you'll all tune in!

LJ Idol Week 4 Sesame Street...For Adults Only?!?!?

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 03:29:14 GMT

I'm a big fan of classic tv. If it's being shown on a channel like Nick At Nite or another channel that shows re-runs, and if it ran in the 70's or 80's, I probably saw at least a few episodes.

When I was a kid, one of my very favorite shows without a doubt was Sesame Street. Every day I'd watch it and it would just be a lot of fun. Cookie Monster always had cookies no matter what and he always seemed to be eating everything else he could get his crummy little paws on. Ernie and Bert were fun because they had a great chemistry. Bert played the straight man and was grouchy, while Earnie was always playing tricks, and that laugh of his was just awesome, it always made me laugh when I heard it too. They were just 2 guys on tv being funny. Big Bird was just, well he was big bird! You had to love him in all his big, yellow glory.
The show also helped me see that people of all races and nationalities could live together. People just got together and if they had differences, they were always able to settle them. It was how I learned about the alphabet and numbers too. Hey, education mixed with fun? I like that idea! It was just a fun place to be, and if I was ever sad, I knew I had a show I could watch that made me really happy again. It was just innocent, good clean fun. Now the classic episodes from 1969 and 1970 are being released on DVD and that's awesome, accept for one thing. These aren't the real versions of the shows we all love and remember. A recently published Article in the New York Times makes the buyer of the DVD beware that"Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

Say what?"
The author of the article is just as confused as I was when I heard about this! !
Well, I guess while I wasn't looking, times have changed. The article sites many examples of aparent scenes that may frighten or forever scar young childrens lives, such as seing Bert and Ernie share an apartment together, Cookie Monster smokes a pipe and then eats it,{These scenes were later re-shot and had the pipe removed} revisionist history, anyone? We wouldn't want to promote smoking pipes or anything, oh the humanity! and as if that weren't bad enough, people, lets consider the fact that Mr. Snuffalupagus, a classic character on the show, could only be seen by Big Bird in the early days. Later on he could be seen by everyone, but in these early shows, Big Bird was the only one who could see him. We wouldn't want to promote the idea of imagining things, now would we? aparently the idea of doing that is just unthinkable! and don't let your kids see Oscar the Grouch. He may scare the crap out of them and keep them up at night for weeks, maybe even months.

There are more examples but you get the idea. The very thought that these classic shows are even suggested to be for adults only is just plane ridiculous! I know times have changed, and things aren't the same as they were back then in some ways, I can respect that. But classic tv is classic tv and you shouldn't mess with it, or promote it in ways that it was never intended. That's taking a peace of art, and changing it just because the political climate is different. To me that is just plane wrong! I think if you showed any 4 year old these shows, I'm almost certain they would laugh at some of the scenes and think the characters were just as funny as I did when I was young. After all, the kids aren't even thinking in the terms of smoking being bad, or Bert and Ernie sharing an apartment together, or the fact that these characters are acting the way they are. and what about the fact that these people, at the end of the day, all seem to get along?I don't know about you folks, but I always thought that was the coolest thing about the show. You had real and imaginary characters interacting and people might get into arguments but they always got resolved because they learned how to settle their differences in a nice way. I'm actually quite disappointed that the makers of these dvds would even put this warning on the box. Why can't they just ship the dvds as they were, with all scenes included, and let the parents decide wether or not they're kid friendly? I don't like the fact that content was changed in these shows, and I really don't like the fact that it was aimed at adults instead of kids. This is definitely something educational that I think all kids should see, no matter what reservations people may have. It was good, harmless fun back in 1969, and it's still good, harmless fun in 2007!

If Jim Henson were still alive, he'd be quite angry, and i know he would never allow this to happen. So, if you end up buying these dvds, don't listen to the warnings. There's absolutely nothing wrong with these shows!! Sit down with your kids and show them these shows as a family. I think everyone can enjoy them, regardless of what decade it is.

This is for week 4 in my participation in therealljidol. If you like this entry, I hope you'll Click here to vote!. Thanks!