I'm no prude, but I tend to believe that the higher the prominence a service has, combined with its ease of access, the more responsibility that service has to ensure its content is within commonly accepted guidelines. Barring those restrictions, the option should be offered to avoid questionable material. While Google does a good job with the majority of its offerings, the company's Google Video site is out of control - dominated by by soft core pornographic clips and innuendo.

Despite my noting several months ago that the Google Video service's most popular videos are almost universally offerings of a sexual nature, the world's number one information portal has done nothing to stop its direction. If no action is taken, it's likely that the adult portion of Google's video collection will so overwhelm other content that those seeking less titillating topics will head elsewhere.

Nearly a year after Google acquired YouTube, the main page of Google Video promotes videos they believe you would like (Recommended), Popular Videos, and a wide array of featured material. Also included on the front page are "Blog Buzz" items, similar to Technorati's Popularity rankings, Movers & Shakers, and a Top 10 list.

Today's Top Ten List as of midnight Sunday Pacific Time...

1. SEXY HOTTIE BABE DECIDING to SHOW HER BIG BOOBS on YOUTUBE?
2. Barbie Girl :D
3. Woman In SHOWER!!!
4. Girl caught by boyfriend
5. Webcam Girls Go Wild ( full )
6. Guy pwned by girl! www.videowhip.co.uk
7. Ainda te amo
8. sex hardcore xxx
9. Beyonce falls
10. loko da xuxa

It doesn't take a forensic scientist to see what is driving these rankings. In fact, if you click on the Top 100 link, the "brilliance" continues... offering... "Two girls teach one another how to French kiss"... "SEXY FART IN WEBCAM"... "close up half-undressed couple rolling around on bed"... "Hot Bikini Porn or Proud Vet?" ... "Kim Kardashian HUGE A*S AND TITS" and much more.

In Google's search results and image results, one has the option to add SafeSearch filtering to "not to have adult sites included in search results". Yet, even if I set my preferences to the most strict option, these videos don't change. Google's algorithm shows me the top 100 most popular videos, regardless if I'm looking for the PG-rated list or R-rated list.

Google is pervasive. As I mentioned last week, the site delivers me 95% of my blog traffic from search engines. With YouTube and Google Video, Google can dominate the video space as well. People of all ages are turning to this site to learn what's hot and what's not, and if Google Video is to be believed, sex continues to be hot. Very hot. I think the very least the site could do is extend the "SafeSearch" filtering to video, remove adult material from the Top 10 and Top 100 listings, or collapse the Top 10 list so the questionable material is off the front page. We wouldn't accept this ease of access to soft porn from AOL or CNN or Yahoo!, and we shouldn't accept it from Google.

Nobody wants to see ads any more. We skip commercials on our TiVo, mute commercials during live ball games or events, change radio stations during breaks, and can generally ignore ads in magazines or billboards. On the Web, there's also plenty of software out there that can help us ignore crass commercialism, such as plugins for FireFox and Safari Web browsers, and junk mail filters built into most modern e-mail clients, including Apple's Mail. But as advertisers get more hip to the simple "right click and add to filter" practice, it looks like their move is to use Flash in their ads, and so far, those ads are slipping through.

For the last few years, I've used the PithHelmet ad filter program on Safari to weed out DoubleClick, Federated Media and more. But as Apple introduced Safari 3.0 beta on Mac and Windows, PithHelmet hasn't kept up. With the ads back, I downloaded SafariBlock and have been starting over, right clicking on all ads I see, and adding a * asterisk for wildcards so I won't see anything like them again. But if I right click on Flash ads, that option isn't there. I also don't have any way to hide Google's text-based AdSense advertising, which pollutes many blogs and media sites.

I expect there to be a continued war of development between the advertising community and those of us consumers who want to decide for ourselves, without pervasive marketing. Today, Flash and AdSense are the filters' achilles heel, and are driving me a tad nutty. I wonder how long I have to wait until the filters catch up...

I am a Simpsons nut. There, I said it.

I've probably purchased every DVD compilation of the show. I've likely watched every single episode in syndication, and most, several times. I can't help but laugh in advance of the best parts of a show, because I know they're coming. I have a bad habit of telling people, "This is a good episode", or shushing them in advance of a much-anticipated one-liner.

In college, I made sure my classes wouldn't go too late, so that my roommate and I would be in front of our TV to see back to back episodes on local cable in the early evening. At times, in fact, my roommate and I could hold entire conversations, just by utilizing Simpsons quotes. This was also the year he and I discovered the newsgroup alt.tv.simpsons, where fans around the world, starting East and moving West, would voice their jubilation and/or displeasure about the show they had just seen, with many gleefluly announcing, "Worst Episode Ever!"

In fact, that year, it seemed like The Simpsons and Fox were on to us, when Comic Book Guy declared:

"Last night's 'Itchy & Scratchy' was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured that I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world."
-- Reference SNPP.com

But my Simpsons fandom was gradual. When the show debuted on Fox, my family lived so far into the boonies, we didn't even get Fox. I had friends at school that would rave about the show, and we didn't have access. Instead, we only got media warnings about how The Simpsons were emblematic of a declining society. But once, when in Sacramento at my maternal grandmother's home, we stayed late and caught our first Simpsons, Life on the Fast Lane, in 1990. I was 13, and hooked.

But the Simpsons didn't make it easy for me to keep watching. The show announced it would go head to head with The Cosby Show, a ratings behemoth, on Thursday nights. My family, with one TV, continued in its conservative ways, supporting the Huxtables. Later, once the Cosby Show had been trumped, The Simpsons moved to Sunday, and again, my family's conservative background decided such fare wasn't appropriate for the Sabbath.

That left ample time for me to catch up. Many seasons worth of shows on syndication were new to me. On a great week, we would catch anywhere from 5 to 8 new episodes, sometimes at the rate of two a day. That meant a serious injection of Itchy and Scratchy, Homer, Bart, Lisa, Maggie, Marge, and dozens of minor characters that would occasionally steal the show, including Cletus the slack-jawed yokel, Willy the school janitor, Comic Book Guy, Ned Flanders, and Ralph Wiggum.

And now... today is a big day. It's huge, in fact. After more than a decade of anticipation, The Simpsons family is hitting the big screen in a full feature-length film. If you thought the level of anticipation around Harry Potter was high, you haven't seen anything like Simpsons fans, who are no doubt going to regale you with tales of their fandom and drop quotes like they are going out of style, now with new lines from the movie.

Will I be in line for the show's premiere? Sadly, no. We're going to be less extreme, but we already have tickets to see the show tomorrow, with friends from high school and college and my wife. The six of us will be converging from our different geographies, each with differing Simpsons knowledge, and take in a little bit of Springfield. And if it's good, maybe I'll be dropping in to the theater a few more times.

If you're not quite the Simpsons afficionado, start here for the definitive resource of all things yellow: SNPP.com

For all the noise I made a few weeks ago about my eight worst stock trades ever, you might have the impression I'm the worst stock investor of all time. And while I've certainly had my share of bad calls, the occasional wins here and there keep me trying. Today, I bet big on Apple, hoping the company's earnings report would do us well, and it paid off in a big way.

I very publicly dumped my 200 shares of Apple stock in the low 90s per share earlier this year, and with the stock approaching $140 a share today, it's clear that was a mistake. But as the hours ticked down toward Apple's earning announcement this afternoon, I knew I had to give it one more shot to make money off the Cupertino juggernaut. So I did something crazy...

At 12:48 p.m., I put in enough cash to pick up 250 shares of Apple at $137.43 apiece, less than 15 minutes before market closure. As you likely already know, Apple walloped analyst guesstimates and the stock shot up in after-hours trading. My big bet started to look better and better as the stock rose past $140, then $142, $145 and beyond. By the time it peaked above $148, I knew I'd seen enough. At 2:38 p.m., I had sold it all, at $148.48, clearing more than $2,700 for less than two hours "work".

While that doesn't make up for missed potential earnings from my previous trade, I was fairly pleased. In fact, looking at my eTrade account, Apple has been the one stock I've consistently had success with over the years. While I at times feel too much like an Apple fanboy to tie up a good portion of my portfolio in the company, the truth is that it simply makes sense. The company continues to execute on all cylinders, and surpass expectations, and that's the best type of company to put your money on. It's just too bad I have such a short attention span that I can't stick it out.

If, like my colleagues, you see my trades as a contrarian indicator, now would be the best time to get into Apple, because I'm out. For all I know, the stock could be headed to $150, $160, $180 or beyond. Then you'll be hearing whining from me for certain. But for today at least, I'm content.

More coverage on the Apple earnings boom: Webomatica, Parislemon, Engadget