As someone who is passionate about environmental issues along with common “be good to your planet” sense, I am thrilled to see large retailers like Home Depot pushing the new types of light bulbs that last up to thirteen times longer than an incandescent bulb.  Being also a pessimist at heart, I wonder what Home Depot’s “angle” is for long-term profits on this item.  Yes, the initial cost of people paying slightly more for these bulbs will provide a nice padding of the bottom line for a few years as people switch over but what’s in it for them after that?  After the initial purchase, where do they make the same kind of profit?

Here is a product that is an energy conserver which, in turn, is a budget helper for the consumer.  It’s the proverbial “win-win” for the end user.  I’m dying to know what large retailer’s plans are after the initial sales surge because at the surface it doesn’t make business sense.  Why sell a product that will reduce your client base from buying that product long-term by at least tenfold?  As much as corporate America pretends to be green (I see full page ads from gas companies in the newspaper every day perpetuating this lie), they’re in the business to make more green – as in dollars.  Maybe they’ll make the money with other peripheral products but I’m very curious to know what their long term plans are.

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I’ve noticed a disturbing trend lately although it could be solely relegated to my local cable company and could even simply be my set-top boxes.  The past 4 or 5 Amber Alerts have been completely useless.  The message breaks into the regularly scheduled programming as it’s intended to do (it even interrupts you while watching something previously recorded on the DVR) but that’s where the effectiveness completely ends.  The feeds have been extremely choppy and not only has the law enforcements audio message been completely indecipherable, the ticker tape feed of the description of the situation also has been chopped up, coming in and out of the signal, rendering the message useless.

So not only can you not hear what the situation is, you also can’t read it the scrolling message bar because the feed goes in and out constantly.  As a parent, I’ve got no problem with my show being interrupted for a legitimate issue like this but if you’re going to inconvenience people, at least make sure the message is getting across.  If I were a family member of an abducted child and saw that the message was impossible to understand, I’d lose my fucking mind.