Pornography, like disappointment, is a hard thing to avoid.

As both production and access have become easier and cheaper, there seems an endless number of (free) opportunities to discreetly partake of the same scenes over and over again played by different actors with different surgical histories.

However, if the latest e-mail purportedly sent by Apple CEO Steve Jobs to a customer called Matthew Browning is, indeed, genuine, then Apple seems to be reaching for some moral high ground, which may or may not be virtual.

Browning wrote to Jobs because he was concerned that Apple was choosing to become something … Read more

And so the upshirt goes the way of the upchuck.

After pressure from some people who found it creepy and thought it encouraged sexting, Microsoft intends to re-edit an ad for its new, socially networked cell phone, Kin.

The ad, which some might consider about as dangerous as an ice cream cone in a gunfight, showed a young chap take a Kin shot of whatever was up his shirt--presumably tautly trained pectorals-- and send it to an attractive person of the opposite sex.

Consumer Reports was in the vanguard of those who wondered whether the ad encouraged the practice of … Read more

I first sold my soul to a girl with a very large gap in her teeth. It took me years to get it back. (Yes, souls are recoverable.) But then I met a former trapeze artist from a Hungarian circus. The rest, as they say, is misery.

So I feel a peculiar and vigorous bond with the 7,500 people who, so mesmerized by the idea of buying a video game, sold their souls to the UK gaming retailer GameStation.

You might think I am making this up. You might think that no one can buy someone else's soul. At least, not legally. Well, please check your own soul compartment, just in case you might have inadvertently sold its contents while ordering up a new Xbox 360.

According to Fox News, you see, GameStation decided to slip a clause into the terms and conditions of its purchase contracts that gave the company the rights to your immortal being.

The clause makes for stimulating reading: "By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non-transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk or one of its duly authorised minions."

The retailer reportedly began this clause as an April Fool's joke, but then developed it in order to prove to itself, the world, and the heated inhabitants of Haedes that no one reads these often draconian draftings. … Read more

I'm sure there are few people left in the world who have not, at one time or another, sent a picture of their most favorable body parts to someone they loved. Or at least coveted. Or at least knew. I am, therefore, moved to photograph the frothing in my brain caused by the controversy surrounding a video for Microsoft's new Kin phones aimed at young social-networking hipsters.

The film appears at Kin.com, a Microsoft promotional site that tells you the Kin is "impulsive" and that "the more you share, the more you get." … Read more

NFL stars have a real talent. It's just that sometimes their real talent for not quite thinking things through can get them into trouble.

So I would be curious what you might feel about the latest enterprise from Jeremy Shockey, the Super Bowl-winning tight end of the New Orleans Saints.

Shockey has a singular grasp of the power of social networking, as well as that of the English language. So he has announced a contest on his Facebook page, a contest that will hopefully throw up one woman who "deserves" to date him.

I know that there … Read more

YouTube is graced by a channel called DROIDshortcuts. Here you will find many vastly serious ways in which you can use special codes on your Droid to improve your life and make you a better person.

You can, for example, use your Droid to change the traffic lights. You can use it to improve your pool prowess. That would be pool hall, rather than swimming pool.

However, many readers might find the most spiritedly enchanting video on this channel the one that reveals the unlock code that releases one of the Droid's most needed features. At least for the … Read more

The idea in life, unless you're Brett Favre or Kate Gosselin, is to quit while you're ahead. So Justin Long's revelation that the "Get a Mac" campaign might be done suggests that Apple might think it's sufficiently far ahead of Microsoft for arms to be laid down and fingers to be wrapped around a peace bong. Well, almost.

Now the real battle, the one for hearts and minds, is supposedly between Google and Apple. It's a battle in which Apple, naturally, goes for hearts, while Google tries to impress minds. It's a … Read more

He tells you he made mistakes. Terrible mistakes. He'll change. He's going to be a different man. He's going to be more respectful of life and of the game. He's rehabilitating himself. He's seen that winning golf tournaments (and, one imagines, making money) is nothing when compared with the important things. You know, like family.

Oh, go on, admit it. You watched the Tiger Woods press conference on Monday (live, naturally) and thought to yourself: "Oh, maybe he's telling the truth. Maybe I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. My kids … Read more

I don't know who decided that when it comes to the time for a brandy and toke, every American TV should feature a middle-age man with difficult hair sitting behind a desk.

Perhaps it was a middle-aged man with difficult hair who spends his whole day sitting behind a desk.

However, Conan O'Brien, he who made so many feel sad that he was being given a lot of money not to work, seems to have decided that he will become America's most future-focused, Web-aware middle-aged man who sits behind a desk.

Conan first wafted onto Twitter in February … Read more