The Top 5 worst TV shows of 2009

Sometimes you are just disgusted into posting a blog. This is one of those times for me. Here I present to you the 5 worst shows on television in 2009 and why they should be pulled from the broadcast roster. Now.

5. There Goes the Neighborhood. CBS.
This show hasn’t even come out yet and it needs to be round-filed. It just LOOKS that bad. In this abomination of anything-but-reality TV,  8 families on adjacent properties in a suburban neighborhood are quarantined within their slice of Kennesaw, Georgia by a 20 foot high, 2000 foot long, concrete wall. At first glance, you might buy into the producer’s hype that this is a unique “social experiment” but if you consider what it took to get this show off the ground, it’s a recipe for disaster. First, producers had to find a city that was willing to allow the creation of the wall and the filming of the show (which apparently disturbed residents OUTside the wall as much, if not more, than those inside), then they had to search for 8 families that already lived right next to each other who would be willing to completely halt anything resembling normal life to participate in the show. This includes kids, people. The whole thing just reeks of desperation. Desperation does not equal entertainment in my book.

4. More to Love. Fox. Premiers Tuesday, July 28th
Also known as “The Bachelor” with Girth, this show sets up a 26 year old portly gentleman with 20 equally voluptuous women straight out of a Lane Bryant catalog who will vie for his heart (awwwwww!) and, I’m sure, a nice cash prize. I’m not exactly sure what “an adventure of a lifetime” means unless they just mean that this whole show will be one huge adventure and that’s prize enough. Regardless, this show is obviously a rip from the prior success of “The Bachelor” combined with the more recent hit: NBC’s “The Biggest Loser”. My issue is that, on “The Biggest Loser”, contestants are at least working to improve themselves, their health and their quality of life. With “More to Love”, show producers are just using large people to get at a trending segment of TV watchers, then calling it a “twist on an old favorite” Boo.
3.Survivor. CBS
Guys, It’s over. Really. No more Survivor, please. Move on.
2. Swamp Loggers- Discovery Network
Like a big, stinking turd in the otherwise pristine, blue, 1080p HD pool of Discovery Channel programming, Swamp Loggers is guilty of the same “over-milking a good idea” sin as anyone else. Sorry, Discovery. I love you so much! But Swamp Loggers is garbage. Maybe you already know this, since I can’t find a link to a show page anywhere on your site, but you can’t take “Deadliest Catch”, move it to the swamps of the south and expect it to have the same appeal. I get no crashing waves, frigid conditions, amazing ice, grizzly boat captains, or pots full of crawly, tasty looking crab. You’ve got logs, good ole’ boys and mud. Lots and lots of freakin’ mud. On it’s own, this show isn’t as terrible as the others I’ve mentioned but it is an offense to your integrity and, so, it makes the list.
1. Dance Your Ass Off. Oxygen

Here it is. The inspiration for this post. The piece of crap that may just deserve the title: “Worst Show on TV- EVER”. When I first saw “Dance your Ass Off” ( or, as our 8 year old refers to it,  Dance your A-word off) I raised an eyebrow for the same reason I’ve mentioned previously. Riffing off the success of other show themes is obviously a popular idea so I wasn’t THAT surprised to see “The Biggest Loser” and “So You Think You Can Dance” morphed into one show. But, as I continued watching, I realized that the show was dispicable on a multitude of other levels. Desperation, spectacle, awkward, sad, unsuccessful, low-rent, shameless, disgusting and holyshizbitdidIreallyjustseethatonMYtelevision??? are all approrpiate descriptions. You really have to see it for yourself to know what I mean.  Watch it, hate it, then write your congressman or what ever it is you do when you get really pissed and motivated. We have to put a stop to this kind of garbage TV.

Don’t get me wrong. I loves me some crappy TV, but the lousy TV I watch is more on the order of mildly lame or just plain mind numbing rather than the gross indicator of grotequeitude that are the aforementioned top (or bottom, if you prefer) 5.  We welcome your comments!!

Caution: iPhone 3.0 update disables video output.

It seems that, with the iPhone 3.0 update, Apple has (intentionally or unintentionally) disabled video output through it’s docking connector. The error message you get is “this accessory is not designed for use with the iPhone”. You will then be prompted to allow the iPhone to engage “airport mode”. I’m surprised that this isn’t better covered on iPod/Mac problems. Furthermore, I’m surprised that the Apple Store rep at the Genius Bar knew next to nothing about this situation when I approached him.

I first ran into this after installing the 3.0 update. A cheap, 3rd party cable that had been useful for months was suddenly problematic. The first thing I did was jump on the googlenet interwebs and start searching under the error message. I got a lot of what turned out to be misleading information on cleaning the docking area, water damage being a common cause, restoring as a new phone etc. etc. Like they say (whomever ‘they’ are) Take the information you get on the internet with a grain of salt. Though unlikely solutions to my problem, I tried them anyway. No luck. I was sure that the problem had something to do with the 3.0 update, but I couldn’t find anything on forums, Macgeek Blogs or anywhere else for that matter. So, I booked an appointment at the “Genius” Bar to see if I could sort it out.

The guy I worked with was genuine and fairly methodical. To make a long story short, we reset the phone and left it more or less blank, ensuring that there wasn’t a software or settings issue causing the problem. We then tested the unit by connecting my cable. It took a moment, but ultimately the message came up. I was relieved to see it in the same way you are relieved when you take your car into a mechanic to have a funny noise checked out and the car actually delivers for you while being listened to by a professional. Next step was to try the cable on a new 3G s phone. Same message and no video out. Then, we tried an Apple branded cable. The problem continued! If the problem was a matter of using a third party cable, the Apple Branded cable should have worked just fine but it did not.

Now, I’ve been to a few blogs and forums that indicate a rumor that a special cable with an authentication chip built in needs to be used. But if that is true ( and it sounds like something Apple might do) then why is it that nobody at the Apple Store has any knowledge of this. I mean, if it really was an effort to increase add-on sales by prohibiting third party hardware and accessories, then doesn’t it stand to reason that the Geniuses at Apple would know a little something about it? I’d expect something like, “Well, sir, I’m very sorry for the inconvenience but, in order to keep the iPhone experience consistently high, we have chosen not to allow cheaply made third party accessories. Here, let me show you this amazing $50.00 cable” See… at least THAT would explain things.

Nay. Either Apple is not being honest and forthright or they have NO IDEA that this is a problem. Or they are just ignoring it until a patch is developed or their PR person comes up with something REALLY good.

I know I am in the minority of iPhone and iPod Touch users that actually use these devices to display video and pictures on monitors. But I LIKE that feature. It’s even got it’s own bullet point in the product description, for crying out loud! If Apple wants to just strip it away, then they need to let us know!

So… HEY APPLE. What gives? Is there a cable out there that will work? Are you aware of this issue? Did you plan and engineer this or are you just painfully ignorant of the problem?

I’ll let you all know how the escalation of this problem gets handled and pass along any updates I get. In the mean time, please help me spread the word to other iPhone/Touch users.

For the 4 of you who gave a crap

Well, the results are in…all four of them. Yes! Yes it’s true, my attempt at a quick survey was met with a less than an enthusiastic response from my less than fortuitous audience of friends. SurveyFAIL!. The title of this post might lead you to think that I’m bitter or something. I’m not, I swear. I’m just making fun of myself because, really, if you can’t make fun of yourself then it’s really hard to justify making fun of other people and without that, life just wouldn’t be as fun.

I blame myself for posting such a LAME survey. I mean, when I think back to it I laugh because NOW I can see that it was a pretty ridiculous idea. Who cares about my aversion to bees and recent infestation? Not many of you apparently. Out of 25 visits, only 4 voted and there was no concensus. But, for those who did give a crap, here’s the deal:

They aren’t honeybees. After browsing a local exterminator’s web site, we determined that the unwanted residents of the NW corner of my home are in fact yellow-jackets. I was initially embarrassed that I didn’t identify them on site, but then I realized it isn’t really my fault. You see, these are wussy yellow-jackets. Some sort of NW hybrid “wannabee” that looks nothing like the the giants of SW Texas that I grew to hate so much as a child.

Since they are hard to reach and not likely to be killed by a topical spraying, we are hiring an exterminator to, well, exterminate them. I wouldn’t mind shelling out the dough so much if our water heater hadn’t taken a dump on us yesterday. I just don’t appreciate the irony of multiple unforeseen expenses hitting us right after my wife and I get laid off of work. NO GOOD.

What do bees have to do with gadgets? Nothing. Nothing at all. Which is why I shall turn my attention to this set of B&W LCR60 S3 speakers that I’m reviewing. At least that is a relevant pursuit.

Got Bees!

Help me out.  I’ve got a bee hive building up in my roof, possisbly my attic, and I want to know what you think I should do.

Before you cast your vote using one of the below choices, please consider the following:

I have what some might consider to be an unnatural fear of all bees/wasps/hornets/yellowjackets/insertinsectwithstingerhere. It hasn’t always been this way. When I was 10 years old, a yellow jacket flew up my shorts while I was enjoying a snow cone on a picnic  bench in Texas. It may have been all the sticky, sugary, neon blue goo lining the picnic table that attracted the little bugger to my nether regions, or maybe it just had it out for me to begin with. Either way, I freaked out, rocketed from my seated position and got myself stung in a very undesireable place. It was excutiating- much worse than being stung on the foot or the hand, both of which had happened in recent years.

So, yeah. I don’t do so well around bees anymore.  BUT, I feel like I need to do something about this infestation I just discovered. If the bees are contained to a sealed off section of roof then, at worst, I have bees flying all over my back yard. If they are in the attic space, they could end up entering the house and I have a 7 month old baby and 8 year old stepson I’d prefer to keep unstung.

So… help me out, people. Please vote here and Thank You:

This survey is powered by SurveyGizmo’s online survey software. Please take my survey now