Tastes like chicken

I didn't see any news of it, but last night's broadcast of NBC's "My Name is Earl" had a cannabalism joke that was fairly over the top for primetime. Not that I'm complaining, because I thought it was funny,- I like "sick" or black humor, but I'm wondering how NBC let it air without one of those annoying content warnings preceding the show? The joke was the character Randy finding a cooler containing transplant organs after a tornado strikes. He stupidly assumes its contents are steaks, and cooks and eats them. But, ha-ha, they're human livers he's eating! Yes, transplant organ cannibalism jokes, pretty sick, isn't it? If I were on a list waiting for an organ to be donated to save my life, I'd be mortified. I wouldn't want to explain that to a child. Because it would ruin the joke, mostly.

Cannabalism has been on television longer than I've been "Alive", and I laughed myself crazy as I watched the "Lifeboat Sketch" on Monty Python's Flying Circus, and over the years enjoyed Simpsons Halloween episodes with cannabalism-themed humor, and the episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" "The Pack"(season 1) had plenty of peeps eatin' peeps, and while off-screen, the show acknowledged, for the sake of authenticity, this wasn't some nightmare sequence, it happened in the show's meta-reality. I enjoy this stuff, but am not so stupid as to be led to think eating people is something mundane, or funny if it were to happen in real life, which it has, unfortunately. I'm not saying this is something we have to warn the viewers about, which the Simpsons used to do, but there's a place for tasteless content in a world that is willing to pay for it. I say "tasteless content" in reference to the eating of human organs intended for life-saving transplant procedures, not a light topic, but the writers could find other things to make light of in this venue, not that I was asked

Ghost in the XBox Machine

My old XBox game console (i.e. not 360) upped and died on me this week, and gave me the dreaded "red eye", which was a surprise to both me and my brother. He's much more of a gamer than myself, and was even interviewed in The Richmond Times Dispatch for waiting overnight for the first XBox November 15, 2001, his 30th birthday. He's moved on to other consoles, the pc, and I mostly used my XBox as a DVD player. I played a lot of "Klax" on Midway Arcade Treasures, but I don't have the time or patience for most newer games. I still read books, like to write a letter with pen & paper and send it in the mail, rather than email or social network. That's becoming a thing of the past, and I guess I am too, but I'm wandering off-point. There has to be something going on with Bill Gates' empire if my original XBox got the dreaded 360 VD. I never even got XBox Live! Infer what you will from that, but clearly, this is built-in obsolescence. I hate that, and think Gates is a bastard of the lowest order, the kind that uses technology just to rip people off and profit. My Atari 2600 still works, my frickin' Pong home console still works! My XBox didn't last a decade. Why do we put up with this douchebagerry?