Oh how things can change in 5 short years

Here is my current opinion and a potential topic for next week's show. Today AT&T announced Adjusted Mobile Data plans.

http://www.droid-life.com/2013/12/05/att-adjusts-mobile-share-data-plans-makes-cheaper-adds-no-contract-option-at-15-discount/

Here was my comment on my Facebook page  that I shared from the Droid Life link.

This is only my opinion, but given that I am a Verizon Moto Droid hacker, rooter and hardware repair guy exclusevely for MotoDroids, I have had every incarnation of the Droid from the OG Droid to my current Red Droid Ultra, I am more than qualified to raise these questions a offer my opinion on the subject. Hope you can use it on next week's show.

Oh how 5 years can change everything. In 2008 AT&T was the most evil cell phone provider in the USA. Then for the next 2 years they made an exclusive contract with Satan himself Steve Jobs and Apple for exclusive sales and distribution of the iPhone. I hated AT&T and Despised Apple more because between the two of the companies one had no choice but to use apps approved and manipulated by both companies.

I was a Pure Verizon Motorola Droid fanboy. Google was god and the Android operating system was going to take over the world. I was correct about one thing. The Android OS now has 85% market share worldwide in smartphones and are now outselling the iPad 3 to 1. I told you so.

I also predicted that as the number one technology company Apple had nowhere to go but down. And down they went. Their fearless creator and leader Steve Jobs died before his time. Tim Cook has realized partially that the ability to interact outside of the Apple ecosystem was necessary. At the same time, ATT realized that they were as bad of a company ass I said and in the past year have improved their LTE coverage and are opening up to the new way of doing business - open unlocked no contract devices. I was in an AT&T store last month and for the first time ever the guy who helped me knew MORE about Motorola Android devices than I did. I tried to impress him with my Red Moto Droid Ultra. And he  pulls out his AT&T customized Moto X which has the same motherboard as my Droid. They have gone from being evil to being number one in customer service in the industry.

I have been with Verizon Wireless for 18 years, even before they were Verizon they were called in Los Angeles AirTouch. Verizon now is the evil known as Big Red. They have expensive and small shared data plans, long manipulative contracts and now their LTE system is overloaded. I am grandfathered in to an old UNLIMITED Data Plan and I use, and I am not joking here, 700 Gigabytes of data per month. I download torrents from my Droid which is rooted and the database is hacked so it tells the red mothership that I have permission to wireless tether to my computer. My other 4 phones SHARE a total of 8 Gigabytes of data.

Google purchased Motorola Mobility in 2012. Google products are no longer the default apps on the Android AOSP. Google has abandoned its "do no evil" policy and shares your data, searches and email with all google services in the name of a unified search experience.

I have more predictions now as we end the year 2013. Verizon is now at the top and they have no where to go but down and to become humbled by the competition especially by Sprint who will be broadcasting LTE on an uncluttered WiMax frequency that they now have access to when they purchased Clear a few months back.

The exclusive Motorola Droid line will die a silent and painless death as Google puts fulfills their contract between Verizon and Motorola and every Droid from now to the end will be a re-badged version of a Moto X or G in a Verizon color.

And my final prediction I have been saying for the past decade. Google will become Skynet. It already has satellites in space, a sophisticated algorithm that understands, and comprehends human in every language and Google just announced that they are going to build robots. And one last thing. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the Governor of Google's base of operations.

The only question to which I have no answer is when The Terminator will come back in time to a pre-googleverse to save the future.

Maybe if the Terminator android come and kills Arnold before he becomes the goernator, an android will prevent Android from taking over the world?

Oh wait, never mind. If Android was never to be invented then the world would be controlled by Apple's IOS software. And the imminent devastation off the world would be better choice than Apple giving us no choices.

Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility - My Motorola Droids are finally once and for all the OFFICIAL Android devices OFFICIALLY

Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility - My Motorola Droids are finally once and for all the OFFICIAL Android devices OFFICIALLY

Motorola split in January into 2 companies Motorola Mobility that makes Droids and Xooms and regular Motorola solutions that makes those shitty cable boxes and transistors and electronic stuff.

Well we all know what a big fan of the REAL Droids I am, I had an original Droid. Then the Droid X, the Xoom tablet and last week the Droid X2. I kept my Droid X1 and use it as my Google voice phone since I have a program that lets you make wifi voip phone calls from the google voice google talk ecosystem.

Anyway, once again I have been proven to be on the right tip with my obsession with Motorola Droid Android devices. Because Google just bought Motorola Mobility.

So the un-official Official real Andorid phones from Verizon are truly THE OFFICIAL ANDROID DROIDS.

I have all 3 sitting in front of me as they radiate their new googleness to me.

Hail Big Brother. Hail Google.

Mercury Retrograde Is Really Biting My Ass This Time

Only during mercury retrograde can this kind of a cavalcade of misfortune befall one human.

http://www.astrologycom.com/mercret.html

Late last week my 1 TB external hard drive with over 800 gigs - 800 movies - of porn, died. When I took the hard drives out of the case, one had indeed crashed and one worked but all data was lost. I have been downloading and building my porn library for over 5 years and now 1/4 of it is gone. Never buy Western Digital hard drives.

So Thursday I get home from work with groceries in my arms. I guess I did not latch my security gate all the way. I have an evil Tabby who literally pushes against the gate on a daily basis to see if it will open. Well as I was taking a nap, apparently it opened. All 4 cats got out. I do not know if they were out for 5 minutes or 3 hours. I heard Pixel fighting with another cat but it was not coming from inside the house. This was my first clue. As I went to open my back door the handle broke off in my hand so I could not use the back door to get the kitties in. So I chase Chester back in and he is such a good boy he runs right inside. Pixel was having a screaming match with a young male from the neighborhood so he was distracted when I came from behind and scooped him up and threw him back inside. Then I saw FX then he disappeared. So I am walking around calling his name and he pounces out of the bushes and attacks my feet. He is excited and does not know if he is happy or stressed. As I grab him, he bites my left hand between my thumb and fore finger so hard that the puncture DOES NOT EVEN BLEED. It was so deep and so sharp it was a hole. The part where his lower jaw got my palm bled like stabbed pig. So 3 down one to go and blood all over me, my clothes and the cat. Well there is a reason only one of my indoor cats wears a collar and name tag. Once Cyber gets out, he stays out and will not come back until he is starving for food. I saw him lounging in the sun as I called his name, he looked at me and when I got near him he dashed under the house. So fuck him. He has been out for 5 days before. He will come back tomorrow. My hand started to hurt. Since it did not bleed it trapped the infected saliva in the puncture hole. And FX was out chewing on god knows what just minutes before he bit me.

The next day my left hand was like a pink grapefruit and the pressure from the swelling was killing me. Luckily I had some Keflex which is good for skin infections left over from my infected belly button debacle from March. So finally after 6 days of anti biotics the hole has a scab and the swelling is gone. Oh and the Keflex gave me diarrhea.

Cyber comes back Friday at dinner time when I called out for dinner just as planned. That night Cyber was cuddling with me in bed as he usually does and I guess he smelled like outdoor kitty because as we lay there Pixel jumps on the bed, turns around and sprays piss all over Cyber and my faces. Well he got out just a few drops and my foot sent him sailing across the room. Now this seems humorous now but to have your cat piss in your face as you are falling off to sleep can really piss you off - all puns intended.
Only during mercury retrograde could something like that happen.

Then I was on my computers downloading files on one and doing work and Internet on the other when my Internet connection started to only kind of be there. I was at WelcomeDriver.com doing stuff for work and the page disappears. Then I cannot even access the router via the browser interface. I ended up reformatting the router and reinstalling my Ubuntu Linux operating system. I was so stressed that I did not even go in to work Monday. TimeWarner is delivering me a new cable modem tomorrow. I did after lots of yelling at my computer hardwaare I got everything working but if I had to tell you exactly what I did I could not.

You cannot make this kind of shit up. I know I will laugh about this at some time in the future, but right now my nerves are raw and so is my left hand.

So how has mercury been treating you?

Only 10 more days..........................

...

gn

Apple Nazis

People who use Macs do not know how to think for themselves. They allow Steve Jobs to make their computer related decisions for them. It is either Apple's way or the highway. Now don't get me wrong, Apple makes great products that work well. But once you buy one you have to operate within the limited confines of what Apple approves of or not.

They market Macs as easy to use, simple. So what they are saying is we make our products to be idiot-proof. If you are an idiot and you do not want to learn how to do anything for yourself, buy a Mac and let them do the thinking for you.

I understand why Steve Jobs had to take a 6 month leave of absence as CEO of Apple. He is a power hungry control freak and the stress of managing the lives of all his employees and everybody who has ever owned an Apple product has finally caught up with him. This is what happens when you try and play God.

And then there is the arrogance of Mac users like they are better than the rest of us. When a proud Mac user gives you attitude just pretend to be interested and ask them some technical questions about their machine and see what response you get. It is usually "I dunno, it's on the computer."

Have you ever tried to find personal data on a Mac? As a computer consultant and somebody who knows a fair amount, but not everything about Apple's operating system, I used to work on Macs too, but it got to be more work than it was worth. Apple does not adhere to worldwide computer industry standards and protocols. They are so arrogant that they feel they can do whatever they want for their own reasons and their minions will follow. Ask a Mac user where their iTunes music is stored or where their documents are and again you get the response "I dunno, it's on the computer." Ask a PC or Linux user, even the stupid ones and you will hear that is in My Documents.

Now nowhere here have I once mentioned Microsoft Windows. I do not like Microsoft either. They too are controlling and so big that they think they can do things anyway they please. I use only one Microsoft product and that is the operating system Vista. Microsoft should stick to what they are known for and do best, operating systems and stay out of the browser market or try and push their bloated Office suite on everybody who buys a computer.

But unlike Apple, Microsoft gives you unlimited customization and control of the programs and files you use. You see even though I am using Vista, I can CHOOSE not to use any other Microsoft product. They give me that option. They give me the freedom to not use them, Apple does not.

Now of course I am a big fan of Linux, specifically Ubuntu. It is free and open source. All software is free and you can customize and use it how you want for free. This is the future. Computing needs to not be a big profit endeavor, but something, like television or radio, that is free to anybody who chooses to use it with no corporate restrictions.

Apple is so arrogant that the technical support people in the Apple Stores are called geniuses. Yes you would have to be a genius to locate your personal data or god forbid save it to a different folder.

And then there is that god dammed iPhone. The thing has no buttons. I like buttons. My phone has a full qwerty keyboard surrounded by buttons. The iPhone has a virtual keyboard that for obvous reasons is always dirty because you are always touching it.

There is a reason that the iPhone is only available with ATT. Apple demands too much control for Verizon or Sprint. No other cell phone manufacturer demands a piece of your monthly service fee. And here we go again, if you have an iPhone you must have ATT. No choice.

I guess I should end with this. Most people are lazy idiots. Most people believe in some sort organized religon and do not question it. It looks like Apple will always have a fan base to sell to.

ZEIG HEIL !!

Black Californians Shame On You

If black Californians had not turned out in record numbers in November's election Proposition 8, the anti gay marriage bill would not have passed.

First let me say that I refuse to use the term African-Americans. The term is divisive. What am I a Middle Eastern American and a European American. I have never been to the middle east or Europe and most black Americans have never and will never visit the mother land. By modifying what kind of American you are you are saying that you are less than a whole American. Black Americans are are full and complete Americans just like every other race color or creed. And when black people look in the mirror what do they see? They see a black American. There is not a body with the outline of the African continent in place of their head. Black people you are no more or less special than anybody else and how you refer to yourselves should not differ from anybody else. You should hear my hero Whoopi Goldberg go off on this subject.

It is like it is some big secret. Let's be called African-Americans because we are afraid to be called black. Hello, every black person I have ever known KNEW they were black and it was no secret. Correct me if I am wrong but wasn't the civil rights struggle to achieve equality? Separate is never equal. And the names we give ourselves can separate people in our minds. Using the term African-Americans is the same thing as having black only drinking fountains. We are all just plain old Americans.

That being said.....................

The election has become a double edged sword. The black community has had a historically low voter turnout because of the apathy in the community. Blacks tended to feel that their vote would not really count. For the first time because of Barack Obama the community has hope and feels part of the system and not disenfranchised. This is a very good thing. It is a very empowering feeling to feel that your voice counts. Hopefully this will not be a one time thing and the empowerment remains and becomes engrained and hope prevails.

And the bad news. Because of the high percentage of hompphobia in the black community Prop 8 passed. 70% of black Californians are against gay marriage as opposed to only 50% in the white and Latin communities. Black people you are living by the very double standard that the civil rights movement tried so hard to eradicate.

The wife, family and foundation of the Reverand Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has repeatedly said that the struggle for racial equality and gay rights is the same thing. Blacks are in the minority because of the color of their skin. Gays are in the minority because of who we love. Neither one is a choice. This is how we are made by God and God does not make mistakes.

Hompbhobia in the black community is a big problem. Why should one minority have full civil rights and another not? It is a classic case of the double standard. Have black people forgot about the fight for equal rights to the point that they do not even know what it means? Or are they so self absorbed that they think equality only applies to them? Black people have you lost your ever lovin' minds? You are doing to gay people what white people did to you for 400 years.

One disgusting result of homophobia is the concept of transexuals. They would rather chop of their dick than accept that they might be gay. If I am in the wrong body it is not my fault or responsibility.
When I see all the transexual hookers on Hollywood Boulevard why do they all seem to be either black or latin? Well I have the answer. Homosexuality is so forbidden and engraned in those communities as wrong to the point that it is easier to believe that you were placed in the wrong body of the wrong sex instead of just accepting that you are homosexual. Transexuals would rather butcher their sexual organs and have breast implants and live as the other sex than to admit that they might be gay. Once again people, God does not make mistakes.

Now even open minded George has his morality judgements. You are not going to like what I am about to say because it is not politically correct, but I believe it to be true. Transexuals are going against God by changing the very essence of who God created them to be. Changing your sex is not like having liposuction. Gender identity is one of the most basic brain functions in all mamals. My cats know they are male and they are fine with that. We are born either black or white or gay or straight. We are not born into the wrong bodies.

And one more thing. I resent being grouped and identified every June and having to endure Gay Pride Month and the subsequent parades as the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual and Transgender parade.
Gays, Lesbians and Bi-sexual people know who they are. Transexuals are an abomination.
I know who I am. I have struggled all my life to accept myself the way that God made me. Transexuals are lazy. Rather than understanding and accepting who they are they have a surgery to absolve themselves of the responsibility of being a complete and perfect human. Gender re-assignment is wrong and is a sad and nauseating result of rampant homophobia in the black and latin communities. Every transexual is homophobic. They are afraid to be gay. It is not a medical problem it is a socal problem and it should not be resolved by cutting off your penis.

So black Californians remember your struggle and realize you are and never were alone. At one time black slaves were only counted as 2/3 of a person in the national census. Funny, that is exactly what black people are doing to gay people right now.

The Gay Music Gene

Anybody who knows me knows that I am a dance music historian. I compiled the Billboard Dance Chart book a few years ago so you could say that I wrote the book on dance music.

Recently my 22 year old friend Luke asked me why all gay people like dance/house music. He asked me because his sister asked him and he did not have an answer. His sister lives in Nebraska and even she noticed gay people like house music. When Luke asked me I quickly replied "it's the gay music gene." But it is a good question. Why do 3 generations of gay people over a 40 year period all gravitate towards a certain sound?

Here is a little history. If you were gay in New York in the 1960's you would go to an underground gay club where all they had was a jukebox filled with the hits of the day mostly Motown and you would dance to that. There was no such thing as a DJ. If you were dancing in this club you would select a song like Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - Tears Of The Clown or Martha and the Vandellas - Dancing In The Street. To quote the countless American Bandstand rate-a-record contestants "It had a good beat and you could dance to it."

That sound evolved into early disco with songs like 1974 Hughes Corporation - Rock The Boat. Then came hard core disco in the late 1970's. High Energy in the early 1980's, and from the late 1980's until the present there is house and techno.

Here is the cultural history. When you are gay you know you are different. You search out others that are like you. It is human nature. Those clubs where gay people have congregated have always had a dance floor and hence play dance music. This is what we hear so it is what we are familiar with.

I know that I have extra strong dance dna running through my veins. I have always been this way even when I bought my first 45s of KC and the Sunshine Band - Shake Your Booty and the Sylvers - Hot Line. So I know it goes deeper than a cultural soundtrack from bars and clubs. I certainly was not going to gay bars when I was 12 but I had EVERY Donna Summer and Village People albums. This was the biggest clue that I would turn out to be a fag. And to make it worse my mother bought the albums for me! She had no idea!

But she liked the disco music that I blased from my room in high school. Not because it was gay music but because it was up beat happy music with good melodies and of course it had a good beat and you could dance to it.

I think I got my gay music gene from my mother, but I digress....

All I know is that when I hear a song that starts out with a dance beat of about 130 beats per minute with major piano chords and a black girl singing I lose my ever lovin' mind! Nobody can hear CeCe Peniston - Finally and not smile and tap their foot.

This leads to that other strange connection between gay white men and straight black women. What's that all about? Gay white men and straight black women always get along. And every gay boy has his black girl attitude speak when emphasizing something. Girl, I know I do. And when I lose my temper I turn into Shaniquia on her period!

Well most early disco and later house music is sung by straight black women. Are we drawn to it for that reason too? Many, including Martin Luther King, Jr.'s wife and foundation have said that the struggle for equal rights for gays and blacks has many parallels. A black woman is gonna tell you what she really feels and will keep it and you real. When you struggle for equality you have to do a lot of introspective searching. Most straight people who do the standard high school, college, marriage, children, house thing never have to think about who they are and why they are doing it. This is more true for the 1960's than today, but we minorities have to figure out who we are and how we fit in and why. We ask ourselves the hard questions to make sense of ourselves.

So when a black girl tells it like it is there is power in that attitude. It says that I know me, and I know you are fooling yourself so get over it! Gay people have that same attitude. We have to know who we are because there is no historical life template that we can fit into. So when we hear the power of that black girl singing we are emotionally moved and drawn to it.

But this does not explain how Luke's sister in Nebraska with no gay culture at all knows the gay - house music connection. It must be something deeper.

My best logical answer to Luke's question was this. As gay people we struggle. Certainly less now than 20 or 40 years ago but the coming out process is never easy. We as gay people always have that weight on our back that eats away at your soul with thoughts like "why am I different" and "am I a bad person" it takes a life time to come to terms with accepting who you are.

Maybe, just maybe, dance/house music makes us feel good and forget our troubles for a few minutes. I know it does when I am on the dance floor. Maybe gay people are drawn to House instead of death metal because we have enough to worry about and we just want to feel happy.

I do have one gay friend who lacks the gay music gene. Michael does not own or get dance music and certainly not remixes. He thinks the regular radio version is just fine. I guess nothing is 100%.

With the exception of my best boogie friend Lauren and a gaggle of fag hags, straight people really are not moved by dance music the way gay people are. Sure they may know or like a dance song here or there but they do not blast dance music in their car when there is not a dance floor in sight.

Which brings us back to my original answer. There must be a gay music gene or something in the way gay people's brains are wired that makes us gravitate toward positive up beat music.

Of course this does not include Lesbians with their depressing, introspective folk of the likes of the Indigo Girls. But those Lesbians are in a class of their own. Maybe there is a Lesbian music gene that makes you like political folk rock and acoustic guitars?

In the end it all comes down to this quote form the late, great and immortal dance diva Sylvester: "Your ear has to be in your foot to not hear these girls can sing yall."

Another friend's Prop 8 view

I have been friends with Randee since she was 10 and I was 11. Here are some good points made by her in regards to equality under the law and prop 8.
She is another one of my brilliant friends.
Here it is:

I work in the HR field. Coming from that perspective, until the federal government gets on board with this, a civil union or domestic partnership will never be equal to hetero marriage.

Another example of the inequality comes in terms of taxes and benefits. A man may place his wife on his medical plan and the premium costs deducted from his check will be done so on a pre-tax basis. A domestic partner or even a gay person who has legally married in CA does not have that luxury. It is done on a post-tax basis. So provided Prop 8 is overturned in CA, we still need to take the fight to the federal level because as others have said on this thread, separate is NOT equal.

One cannot help who they fall in love with and they should not be penalized because it is outside of a church's "norm".

Besides, in my humble opinion, marriage is a legal transaction anyway. You have to go to your local government office to get a marriage license and you have to go to court to get a divorce. Last I checked, the church had nothing to do with either of these.