Random

You know those self-centered, self-regarding people who just have to look at their cell phones during dinner?

Facebook loves them. Facebook admires them. Facebook wants to promote them.

This thrust toward spiritual progress is the company's latest ad for Facebook Home, its attempt to turn your Android into something from Redmond.

In one recent ad, we saw Mark Zuckerberg's loyal troops ignore his dull corporate ra-ra in favor of a screeching goat.

Now, we can see a young woman ignoring her family.

Oh, all families are awful, aren't they?

They insist on imposing emotional control upon you. … Read more

The police are sometimes accused of linear thinking, especially when it comes to DUI checkpoints.

They set them up on Friday and Saturday nights. They redouble their efforts on New Year's Eve.

Perhaps the finest example would was one police force in the wine country of Northern California that decided to put a DUI checkpoint at the bottom of a winery's driveway. Yes, on barrel-tasting day.

The police now have a stronger enemy in the people -- the people who are using social media to warn others that this particular Friday or Saturday night has been selected for … Read more

So you're in the hospital. You want a reassuring environment. You want everything to go well.

But who's that man in the dark suit? The one with the shades. The one with the very suspicious face and accent.

Why, it's Agent Smith. The very same Agent Smith who contributed to making "The Matrix" something of a cult classic.

The very same Agent Smith who can occupy your body, or a version of it. How might this affect your surgery?

Please try not to worry. For the moment, this is just an ad for GE software. … Read more

Have you ever thought how pop-up ads really work on you?

I'm not looking for a rational answer. I am, as usual, trying to explore your feelings.

You see, things can affect us in insidious ways, so much so that we don't realize what we are becoming, until we have irrevocably become it.

Analytics company (1-1 consumer lifestyle predictive analytics company, to be precise) InsightsOne decided they had to know how ads were affecting Americans. In a deeper sense, you understand. So it commissioned Harris Interactive to probe, delve, and elicit.

The results are not an advertisement for … Read more

I have never presented a pornographic show on television, but I imagine it's quite stressful.

The normal scrutiny afforded TV personalities is surely doubled when your show has carnality at its core.

It is, then, understandable why a 19-year-old adult TV presenter, Sophie Dalzell, was mortified on being told by a judge that she must wear an electronic tag on her ankle.… Read more

It takes a revolution to effect a revolution.

This is the modest hope of T-Mobile, as it attempts to wean the American public off two-year plans.

In order to introduce the iPhone 5 to its mold-breaking community, the company has decided to keep it fairly simple.

Yes, it's co-opting the revolution for its own purposes.… Read more

They're a smug, self-centered, self-righteous lot at Facebook.

Which is why Facebook Home, the tool that turns your Android into a Windows Phone, was designed specifically for them.

They can stare at their phones all day, bathing in the joys of those closest to them. Well, those closest to them in a virtual sense.

They can also ignore the catatonia-inspiring monotone that regularly emerges from their CEO's mouth.

Please, you know I'm never mean. I am merely describing the new commercial for Facebook Home on AT&T, a quite stellar act of self-deprecation.… Read more

Finding true love is as difficult as finding an original needle in a sewing establishment.

No art form has ever made that more poignant than "The Bachelor" and its sister show "The Bachelorette."

For weeks and weeks, potential partners are examined, touched, whispered to, held and discarded, until, somehow, a lasting happiness emerges. Oddly, so many of these couples break up around four minutes after the show is over.

Still, the wise people behind the apparently rather fine HTC One thought it would be a good idea to compare choosing a phone to choosing one's … Read more

When a murder trial becomes a televisual happening, somehow the public aspects become almost as significant as the legal ones.

We're always told the jurors don't know what's happening in the media, but we wonder that they may have known more than they let on before being selected.

Then there are the defendants and the prosecutors. Each tries to gain some sort of sway in the public eye -- perhaps on a just-in-case basis.

There now, though, seems to be an usual twist in the trial that is currently capturing popular eyes -- that of Jodi Arias.… Read more