"We have an obligation to protect our trademark; otherwise we'd lose it." - Noel Lee

Monster Cable Products is run by litigious maniacs.

But let me back up for a moment: for those of you unfamiliar with Monster Cable Products, they are a Brisbane, CA-based electronics company, notable for purveying wildly overpriced video and audio cables to the rubes strolling the TV section at Best Buy, as well as tax evasion.

I recently heard that they had filed a lawsuit against Monster Mini Golf Courses over their use of the name, you guessed it, "Monster". Now, I know that there shouldn't be much confusion over which is which - overpriced electronics or glow-in-the-dark mini golf, but apparently there was some concern.

Curious, I decided to investigate a little bit more, and came to the conclusion that either Monster Cable Products is run, as I said, by litigious maniacs, or that they think all Americans are stark raving idiots. I'm going with option A.

Allow me to elaborate. A short, non-comprehensive list of things that Monster Cable Products is NOT:

1. A chain of miniature golf courses.
2. An energy drink.
3. A purveyor of performance car parts.
4. A reality show about building wild machines.
5. A line of paintballs.
6. A children's cross-country skiing group.
7. A slot machine.
8. A used clothing website.
9. An employment website.
10. A series of seats above the left-field wall in Boston's Fenway Park.
11. A Disney movie about brightly-colored creatures that go bump in the night for a living.
12. The Chicago Bears.

Now, a short, probably-non-comprehensive list that, judging by the lawsuits they've filed, Monster Cable products is worried the American public will think they ARE:


1. A chain of miniature golf courses (The aforementioned Monster Mini Golf).
2. An energy drink (Monster).
3. A purveyor of performance car parts (Monster Transmission)
4. A reality show about building wild machines (Monster Garage).
5. A line of paintballs (Monster's Balls).
6. A children's cross-country skiing group (Snow Monsters)
7. A slot machine (Monster Slots of Bally's Gaming International).
8. A used clothing website (monstervintage.com)
9. An employment website (monster.com)
10. A series of seats above the left-field wall in Boston's Fenway Park (The Monster Seats).
11. A Disney movie about brightly-colored creatures that go bump in the night for a living (Monsters, Inc.).
12. The Chicago Bears (The Monsters of the Midway).

Now, would everyone please raise their hands if they thought that any of these were the same thing? That's what I thought.

Monster Cable Products is run by litigious maniacs.

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Is Disney finally getting its act back together?

I went to the movie theater to see Up with Kim the other day (which, by the way, was totally awesome), and saw a preview for a new Disney movie. Blah blah, ho hum, Pixar is the only good part of Disney these days, et cetera et cetera. But wait! What is this? A return to...::gasp:: traditional animation? Say it IS so!

Yes, the upcoming film The Princess and the Frog is taking Disney back to its roots for good, old fashioned 2D, pen-and-paper animation. You know what I say? It's about darn time. It's been almost a decade since we saw a good hand-drawn movie (sorry, I'm not a big fan of Lilo and Stitch), and with cartoons becoming less and less inspired every year (I'm looking at you, Space Chimps), it'll be nice to see if Disney can bring back the good old days of Broadway-musical-style cartoons.

Yeah, it might stink like almost every other cartoon that's come out in the last ten years, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

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I hate the internet.

Everyone hates watching or listening to advertisements. That's why we have Tivo, radio presets, and, most importantly, pop-up blockers. I've lost count of the number of times my Firefox browser has given me that little yellow window that says, "Firefox prevented this site from opening a pop-up" and thought, "Oh, thank GOD."

But what happens when the pop-up blocker isn't enough anymore? CHAOS. Well, maybe not chaos, but extreme annoyance and accidental clicks on advertisements. I think if had to pick one person to string up by his toes and beat with a tube sock full of wood screws, it would be the guy who developed the technology to build pop-up ads into the flash coding of a website so it won't be caught by the blocker. Not only does it force me to watch scrolling advertisements for lame movies, but more often than not, the "close" links are incredibly small and hard to find.

Of all the websites employing this technology, though, ign.com is BY FAR the worst of the bunch. Not only do those things pop up every cotton-pickin' time you go there, but new developments show that there is now a pop-up ad that simply looks exactly like the layout of the website itself, but instead of links to stories and reviews galore, every link sends you to Nestea's awful, awful, awful, awful liquidawesomeness.com. Check it out and see if it doesn't make your blood boil.