Three months ago I wrote a stash of posts to fill on a rainy day. Enjoy this one before it gets any more stale and out-of-date.

Have you ever seen one of these Chris Hansen "To Catch a Predator" shows on NBC Dateline? He joins forces with an independent group called Perverted Justice that goes online to chat rooms and poses as underage girls and boys. They then ask the pervs who contact them to meet them at their parents' house. Once the pervs arrive, Chris Hansen steps out from the shadows and announces they've been caught on Candid Camera -- no, I mean they've been Punk'd! -- no, I mean he tells them they're big pervs who are going to jail! Then four or five policemen slam them down to the street top/black police showing out for the white cop (Ice Cube lyric). The home viewer is on the edge of their seat, then relieved the bad guys are caught, Chris Hansen is perceived as a heroic crusader, and the advertising sells.

The "To Catch a Predator" series now has over a dozen installments and has made Hansen a sort of news star. However, he's aware there are only so many times we can watch the same plot play out. He needed something new. So he came up with a new angle recently: iPods.

The latest "To Catch a Predator" was about stolen iPods. The term "iPod" was said so many times in this hour I had to think Steve Jobs had paid for an infommercial, but NBC claimed Apple had not cooperated in the report. Hansen and crew bought a load of iPods and then left them lying in malls across America with hidden cameras watching. Passing shoppers would then find an abandoned iPod, laugh to themselves, toss it in their bag and abscond at a leisurely pace.

After they went home and registered for iTunes, Chris Hansen and his crew would track them down and drive to their house in a winnebago, claiming to be an iTunes prize patrol handing out gift certificates to winners. Of course, once the iPod "thief" was on the winnebago to claim their gift they would legally have surrendered their rights to not be portrayed as a thief on national television, because they were on NBC property and NBC (and you) can do whatever they want with things filmed on their property, even if the object of their cameras has been bamboozled (Hansen even actively denied who he was when one woman recognized him). So Chris Hansen would then say, "I'm with NBC Dateline, and you're an iPod thief! Shame on you!" (No police to attack the culprits in this report, however.) The hardened crooks, who would probably have been showing up at some pre-teens house for sex if they hadn't been busy stealing abandoned iPods at the mall, would then try to explain their subversive, antisocial actions.

A couple of the people did grab these from the dashboards of cars, and that was inexcusable, but the majority were found them in mall food courts. I thought that was a lame premise to shame someone on. As one of the subjects argued, you could take it to lost and found but what says someone else, maybe even a clerk, wouldn't grab it? Anyone could go to lost and found and claim they just lost an iPod. "Did it look like this?" "Just like that! Thank you!" I would leave the iPod there and figure the rightful owner would return for it, but it's also reasonable to assume they're long gone and it's going home with somebody.

Though I thought that was the lamest premise for a "gotcha!" news report I'd ever seen, I still watched the whole hour. But please, Chris -- think up something better.

And by the way that iPod was a gift, and the girl told me she was 18.

* iPods are merely a brand name for MP3 players. Other manufacturers of quality MP3 players include RCA, Zen Drive and Creative Labs. Go buy one of those other brands and don't get into the Steve Jobs monopoly.

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