I already knew that the people over at Microsoft were idiots.  That fact has been confirmed to me every single time that I’ve powered up my Vista-platform PC.  One day, after Vista/Internet Explorer had me trying to fashion a noose with my power cord, I smartened up and went Mac.  But that isn’t really the point.  The point is that the people at Microsoft are idiots.

The software company committed to single-handedly sponsoring a Family Guy special due to air on November 8th.  Apparently, they just heard the title of the show and thought that it was a modern-day, souped up spinoff of the Waltons.  They didn’t know about the tampon references or incest jokes.  Microsoft doesn’t approve of Holocaust humor.  Now they’ve pulled their support with proclamations that the show “was not a fit with the Windows brand.”  And if Microsoft doesn’t think that Vista and the Holocaust have a few common elements, they’re kidding themselves.

Lauren Conrad may be done filming The Hills, but she’s not ready to leave TV entirely. She just filmed a guest spot for Family Guy — playing herself, per usual, except this time it turns out she’s a genius! Hey, at least she’s not pulling an Audrina and trying to get into acting or pulling a Heidi and releasing crappy singles — LC knows what she’s good at, and she’s stickin’ to that. There’s some credit due there.

Lauren says of her Guy gig, “The idea in the episode is that they make fun of me for being dumb and then discover that I’m actually a genius, and that [Lauren Conrad is] kind of a character I play [on TV], because America likes dumb people.”

And how did L.C. handle the challenges of playing a cartoon genius?

She says, “I hired an acting coach just for the day because a lot of the lines later on in the episode are very complicated. I’m talking a lot about history and theorems and conductors, and there’s a lot of facts and a lot of big words, and I had to say it as if it was coming to me very easily, so I had to learn the lines ahead of time rather than just reading them. I actually had to research some of them because the acting coach told me that if I really understood what I was talking about, it would come through a little more true.”

What do you think, America? Do you like dumb people?

Lauren’s episode will air May 3.