I have never before seen or heard of this cartoon, and the only reason I was watching it was because I was watching adult swim last night… oh, Einstein, how your laws still haunt me. Anyway, to sum up the plot, a fake mechanical loch-ness monster was scaring kids from swimming in a lake. But drastic times call for drastic measures, so the sweltering heat leads Johnny Test, his dog, and two sisters to test the “mythical creatures” existence. Well, the mythical creature is just a machine, that eats Johnny Test and his dog. Right, keep it together, it’s just a cartoon. Of course eating them sends them straight into the cockpit where Johnny takes control of the mechanical beast.

We’re taken to a scene that looks much like a military war-room where all the military representatives are sitting around a circular table throwing paper airplanes. Just when the head of the table (the four star general) expresses his desire to find something to blow up, the little red telephone in the middle rings requesting their services to blow up the machine. Within seconds, they are on the scene chasing after Johnny with Russian style missile-launcher mounted vehicles. (Something like the BM-21s but only one missile, you can Google that.) Well, of course they don’t kill him, but Johnny makes several statements that are quite disturbing along the way.

Do not quote my order, this is the best I can do with only seeing it once approximately half an hour ago. The first scene though is with the monster standing in a crowd of people by the lake where it emerged. Johnny states, the military wouldn’t fire into a crowd of people! Arguably, the crowd disperses leaving the monster on its own — upon which the military fires the missals (imagine end of the world but not as funny). The monster leaps away in time and runs into a forest. Johnny says, “the military wouldn’t clear an entire forest.” The orders that follow? “Clear the forest!” Missals fire, forest is destroyed. Johnny then escapes into a populated part of town — “the military wouldn’t fire into a populated area!” says Johnny. The orders? “Fire the missals!” Oh boy, this is the third time this dialog is exchanged, am I detecting a theme?

Here’s the final and most disturbing interchange between Johnny and the “military”. Johnny runs into a carnival type setup, and says, “the military wouldn’t fire on a group of children!” … the military? they blow up the ferris wheel.

What kind of message is this supposed to send? Honestly, what were the writers thinking? I don’t usually take offense to rhetoric or jokes, because really, our nation is too uptight about offending anyone to speak our minds. On the other hand, I take negative portrayals of our military very seriously, and this is just disgusting. I hope this show, besides being just stupid (I watched the second episode that immediately followed just to give it a chance before I spoke my mind), slinks away.

Oh wait, there was a Russian star shaped icon on the trucks. That must make it ok, right? Because children will recognize they’re Russian before they recognize it being the military…

Oh, you did see the asterisk? Hmm.. damn, I was hoping you would just take it as a typo. Alright! Fine! If you insist, here it is: *If you’re a new AT&T customer…

Hmmm… okay, so I thought about checking that out for myself, and indeed. If I go to the AT&T website and look at my upgrade options for the 3GS, I will have to pay full price ($299/399) since I am only a year into my two year contract. What. The. Fuck? To be honest, if it weren’t for my awesomely not family plan, I probably wouldn’t even own an iPhone. On top of the monthly service charge, AT&T also asks for $30/month for unlimited text messaging – even though the service plan includes “unlimited data”. The last time I checked, SMS was data.

I’m not about to say AT&T is the devil amongst cell phone carriers, after all, I did go from Verizon, to T-Mobile, to Cincinnati Bell, back to Verizon, before finally landing on AT&T. They all legitimately suck. These companies are basically the RIAA of the cellular industry with more contracts and legal jargon to give anyone a headache, but honestly? AT&T, you’re dealing with a whole new breed of customer: Apple Fanboys.

Apple fanboys do not want anyone getting in between them and their Lord-provided technological devices that even Zeus himself would feel comfortable using – and that is exactly what AT&T is doing. AT&T is alienating a customer base that they must have bid through the nose with Apple to have full access to. Why? Why throw all that away? As if all the users jailbreaking their phones wasn’t enough. As soon as customers have warranty-preserving rights to leave AT&T for their own preferred cellular providers, I’m pretty sure AT&T is going to see a sudden drop in renewed contracts.

Of course, we could also be witnessing a last ditch effort to suck dollars from consumers as they renew / pay-up the cancellation on their AT&T contracts; then as soon as the iPhone 3G/S becomes portable service plans from AT&T will drop to remain competitive. We’ll see, but I hope Apple doesn’t let AT&T keep their monopoly on the iPhone (which we should find out within the next few months or so). All I know is I’ve got plenty of good reasons not to upgrade, and by plenty, I mean it’s gonna cost me plenty of money.