Father Blows $3,200 on Tree House He's Ordered to Tear Down for Zoning Violations

How many of you tried to play the video? It's not really a video.

Fox News - A zoning board in Fairfax County, Va., is standing firm in its decision to order a war veteran to destroy a tree house he built for his two young sons. County officials determined Mark Grapin, an Army aviation specialist, violated zoning regulations when he built a tree house in his backyard. “The boys wanted a tree house,” Grapin told Fox News Radio, explaining it was a promise he made to his 8-year-old and 10-year-old sons before he left for Iraq. “It was a commitment I made to the boys and, frankly, we should do our best to keep our commitments to our children."So when Grapin returned home, he followed through on that promise and headed off to the local home improvement store. He said he contacted Fairfax County and was given assurances that he didn’t need any special permits to build the $1,400 tree house. It turns out Grapin didn’t need a permit – he needed a zoning variance. That’s because his house is on a corner lot. And in the eyes of Fairfax County – Grapin has two front yards. In the meantime, Grapin has had to pay nearly $1,800 in permits and fees to build the $1,400 tree house. “I paid $885 for a special permit to build the tree house,” he said. “There were additional fees of $975 to have the plats for the property redrawn to reflect the tree house and then I had to pay mail fees to notify the neighbors of hearings so they could voice any concerns they might have about the tree house.” All that trouble – for a child’s tree house.

I was all ready to rail against government beurocracy here, and the ridiculousness of having to pull permits for a frigen tree house, but then the article started getting into costs and it blew my mind.

What kind of a tree house are we talking about here? $1,400 dollars? Is that for material or does it include labor costs or something? I mean that just blew me away.  Nevermind the fact that he's also paying $1,800 in permit and zoning fees. Combined he's flushing more money down the drain than my first car costs...it's astounding.  I built a shit-ton of forts in my day, and not one of them cost more than about 25 bucks.  Granted the legality of most of them was questionable at best, stolen scrap wood from house construction sites, forts erected in people's wooded backyards, but we got away with it, and certainly didn't pay a dime to the city's tax coffers. 

Tree houses are about freedom, not red tape and beurocracy, you slap a few planks of wood up, a questionably safe ladder nailed to the tree, and a couple of wobbly railings up top and you're good to go. No need to spend your afternoon down town filling out paper work in triplicate. Just build it and forget about it.  And it should not cost $14 hundo. No way on earth. Even a high quality fort should cost, like $200 tops. If it costs anymore than that just buy your kids a new Xbox and let them occupy themselves in the basement like normal kids these days. The fort game was for a previous generation anyway.

Steven Segal Sworn in as Border Sherrif...It's About to Get Dead Serious Down By Mexico

Steven Seagal is used to going straight to video, but this time it's surveillance video...border surveillance video. The hard fighting star of such Hollywood martial arts fare as Dangerous Man and Born to Raise Hell, was sworn-in last week as the Hudspeth County Sheriff’s department’s newest deputy, according to the Houston Chronicle. Located in West Texas, a short two-and-a-half hour drive from Ciudad Juárez, Hudspeth County Sheriffs patrol a 5,500-square mile area including a 98 mile stretch of border. According the sheriff's department, Seagal, 59, a 7th dan black belt in Aikido, will bring his martial arts prowess to bear in protecting the border, as well as offering up his expertise to train the other sheriff's deputies.

Oh Steven, this isn't going to end well. Just leave Texas to Chuck Norris, the guys got it covered. Sure you may be fantastic at inventing new kick moves that no one has ever thought of, and talking in a deep, nasaly tone on C-grade action flicks, but in the real world, that's not going to buy you much cred with Mexican street toughs. 

I'll tell you with 100% certainty, the first time you go to round house kick a drug mule federali to the face, his amigo side  kick is going to shoot you. With a gun....You understand this isn't the movies and they're not going to attempt to fight you with Mexican martial arts moves, or just hold the gun out shakily, allowing you the chance to half moon kick it out of their hands. They're just going to shoot you and go about their day selling their drugs. You and your movie career will be dead (oh wait, your movie career has been dead for about a decade).

Puppies Vs. Babies is Either the Low Point or the High Point in American Television History

It's definitely the low point, right? I mean, this is what its come too? The lowest common denominator of what drives all internet and television viewing, cute babies head to head, mano e mano, with cute puppies?  It sounds horrendous.

On the other hand, I'm not, not gonna say that I watched this past midnight last night, waiting for the epic conclusion as to who would be crowned champ, I'm just far more concerned with what exactly that says about me. If I'm watching this (and I was really watching this, I briefly thought about changing the channel but honestly couldn't pull myself away), I'm basically saying that there is no limit to the crap producers can put on tv and hope to reel me in with.  

It's basically to the point where TV execs could just canvass the street for soccer moms and unemployed 20 somethings, ask what they'd like to see on TV, and go shoot it that afternoon, because I refuse to think any further planning went into this show. They got like, the three worst comedian writers I've ever seen (assuming all the good ones were doing an "I Love the I Love The Shows" Reunion on Vh1 or something), and a few hastily put together internet clips and filmed it on a flip cam. That's it. That's all this took, and its working! I'm on their website right now, searching for more clips. I'm busting my ass here trying to be creative, pointed, snarky, and funny in hopes of attracting some advertising, and all I had to do was compare babies to puppies. It's enough to make me snap.

PS: How does one go about getting the narrator job for these type of show down shows? It's like the hardest nut to crack in show biz, there's literally only 3 or 4 guys that snatch up all the gigs for narrator led clip shows, Vh1's got one, Spike has one, TruTV has one, and now, apparently Animal Planet has one.  I'm guessing the only qualification being that your voice sounds vaguely derivative of Casey Kasem.

Double PS: If me writing a three paragraph blog on Puppies Vs. Babies doesn't shame Dr. Jack into writing a new television blog, nothing will. This should be killing him right now.

Horrendous PR Strategy Show Down: Blackberry or Netflix

Boston Herald — The BlackBerry has left a bitter taste in the mouths of its users. Trying to make amends for massive outages last week, Research In Motion on Monday promised BlackBerry users free premium apps and a month of technical support. But the apology is unlikely to placate miffed customers, many of whom are considering whether to part with the tarnished brand in favor of more popular devices such as Apple’s newest iPhone. The Canadian company said it will give BlackBerry users free app worth more than $100. The apps will be available over the coming weeks on BlackBerry(at) App World. They include iSpeech Translator, Bejeweled and Texas Hold’em Poker 2. The offer runs until the end of the year.

Guys, you already give away your best game for free (brick breaker), I doubt there’s tons of psyched middle managers and Gov't bureaucrats out there thrilled that they can kill time on a free crapp (crap app) of Texas Hold'em or Bejewled II. Are you kidding me? 

And how are you supposed to drop $100 on apps? Granted I left Blackberry about 2 years ago, but back then apps were like $1.99, they were all crappy games I'd never think of using beyond a trial period, and Blackberry was steadfastly refusing to give you a phone that could hold more than a handful of non-stock apps (because god forbid someone find a way for users to save games to their memory cards, that only makes sense). 

I mean why are you not just cutting a couple of days worth of service off their bills and calling it a day? You realize that would put all this to bed, right? It's almost as if your business has been doing so bad that you've had to cut your PR department and are just winging it because there is no way in hell a professional would sit there and say "you know what will appease all these crackhead fans of ours who've been without service for 24 hours or more? A free game of Texas Hold'em." That's insane. I don't know if your goal was to compete with Netflix for worst PR strategy of 2011 or what, but that's exactly what you're doing now. 

ESPN College Football Announcer: That's Kinda Gay

If this dude's teaching his sons about hard and stiff and carressing and shit in his backyard, someone might wanna call DSS and get those kids out, stat.

Serious question, this is from 2007, am I the last person to see this? I find that shockingly hard to believe, but I have no memory of ever seeing this, and I have a memory like an elephant when it comes to viral internet videos. 

Was this just not a big deal because its NIU VS Iowa and no one was watching, or did America just collectively agree that the acts that he were describing, were in fact, gay, and as such the use of the word was apt?