The Critical 'I'
 
   
 
 
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Tuesday, February 24, 2004


 
IS DISNEY SCREWING THE NBA?
gettin' fouled
During Michael Jordan's heyday as the NBA's marquee player, you never could have imagined the league getting trumped by something as provincial as stock car racing. But in the LeBron James era, the unimaginable becomes reality: This past weekend's Subway 400 NASCAR race on FOX attracted twice as many national viewers as ABC's competing Cleveland-New York NBA game that featured James' first visit to Madison Square Garden.

There are a lot of ways to spin this in the NBA's favor: There are so many regular season games on that even a weekend network game isn't that big a draw; the Cavs and Knicks aren't playing very well this year; there's not a whole lot of overlap between the NBA's and NASCAR's fanbases. You could also blame the NBA in the sense that it doesn't have a Jordan-like player to pull in the viewers no matter what.

I think, though, that it's time to start pointing the finger at a more likely culprit: Disney, who through its ABC and ESPN networks is the NBA's main television partner.

Disney won the broadcast rights to the NBA two years ago, after the league had a lucrative run on NBC and Time Warner's TNT. It seemed like a match made in heaven: The NBA appealed to the youngest and hippest viewers, and Disney owned the gold standard in sports programming in ESPN and ABC Sports.

Yet look at what the results were during last year's NBA Finals, at the end of the first year of the new partnership (in a post I cheekily entitled "ABC Feeling Screwed By The NBA"):

ABC, which is in the first year of its valued NBA contract, is so disappointed in the lousy numbers that it's hoping for a forced Game 7 in order to dump off its advertising commitments as painlessly as possible...

As an NHL fan, I feel better about my sport in light of this. Let's see, the NHL ratings have been sucking for the entire five-year run of that league's broadcasting agreement. Then, the first year the NBA gets on board the Mouse networks, their ratings slide. So it wasn't the NHL's fault for those cruddy ratings, it was Disney's!

I was joking around when I wrote this, because I, and probably most observers, figured the weak ratings were an abberation, and the NBA numbers would rebound the next season. Now? With NASCAR beating the daylights out of the once-mighty hoops? I'm not so sure I didn't hit on the truth back in June.

It would follow that Disney is dropping the ball here. They've been mishandling ABC's non-sports programming for years now, to the point where shareholders have lost patience in the company's continued ownership of the network (indeed, it's a key reason for the recent attempts to oust Michael Eisner). If this bungling has seeped into the formerly rock-solid sports operations, it really casts an ominous shadow on the House of the Mouse. While, ultimately, the product on the court has to deliver compelling-enough entertainment, it's Disney's job to sell the sizzle through its promotion and marketing. The ratings strongly suggest that they're not doing that.

Maybe they got lazy from the reliable success of their NFL broadcasts (although the venerable Monday Night Football also has seen an erosion of viewership in recent years). The NFL sells itself, though, so it's had to screw that up.

----------


 
RICH? SMART? YOU'RE READING A NEWSPAPER
Some good news for newspapers, for a change: Their readers tend to be more affluent and educated, on average. All the pretty numbers below:

Mediamark Research Inc. and Interactive Market Systems Inc. recently released a report prepared by NAA Business Analysis & Research Department that reveals 99.9 million adults (18+) in the U.S. read an average issue of a daily newspaper. And, on Sunday, 116 million readers nationwide read an average issue.

Income has always played an important role in segmenting newspaper audiences. Readership increases steadily with higher earnings. Among adults with household incomes of $75,000+, readership stands at 57% on weekdays and 66% on Sundays vs the national average of 48% and 56% respectfully.

Slightly more than half of all men (51%) read an average issue of a daily newspaper, followed by 46% of women who read a daily newspaper. Higher percentages of both genders read a Sunday newspaper, with men at 56% and women at 57%.

60% of adults who graduated college or more read a weekday paper and 67% do so on Sundays. Five daily issues reach 78% of adults who graduated college or more. In general, people in occupations with more job responsibility also show stronger readership of newspapers. 56% of Executives, Managers, or Administrators read a daily newspaper, and 66% do so on Sundays.

Forty-nine percent of whites read a daily newspaper, compared to 43% of African-Americans, 37% of Asians, and 29% of adults of Spanish/Hispanic origin. On Sunday, the reach among racial/ethnic newspaper readers is 57%, 58%, 42%, and 39% respectively.

I take these results to mean that the higher up you are on the socio-economic ladder, the more likely you are to want to intake different forms of news and media, since these same numbers largely apply to the most plugged-in media consumers as well. This suggests that format, while important, isn't the only consideration when choosing news and media sources.

These specific results will help papers in their pitches to advertisers, as they can point to some pretty coveted demographics in their readership.

----------


 
BOARD GAME PR
Home & Garden Television came up with a novel way to promote its upcoming new show, "Designed To Sell": It made a board game out of it:

A board game resembling the Riff's favorite game growing up, "Clue." In the series, homeowners are given advice by real estate experts and interior designers on how simple, inexpensive changes can boost their home's economic value. The game is no different. Complete with game pieces and cards, the players either choose to be the host or the designer featured in the TV show. The object is to reach the end of the game first, along with making minimal repairs along the way. "Replace that '70's wallpaper with a fresh, neutral color coat of paint."

I'm not much for board games, but I admire the ingenuity.

----------


 
CD SUIT MONEY: ON THE WAY!
Oh boy oh boy, that class-action suit against the music industry over CD price-fixing has finally been settled. So the checks are being mailed out right now. It looks like the delay netted an extra dollar: From the original $12.63 estimate to a whopping $13.86. Cha-ching, baby.

I could take or leave the slightly-higher-than-token amount--I will take it, thanks--but fortunately, it looks like public libraries around the country will reap millions of dollars from being a part of this suit, which they can then use to expand their freely-available collections.

UPDATE: Got the check in the mail today. It came wrapped around a nice little note from Mr. Charming himself, Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist (although suspiciously, the postmark is from Minnesota--doubtless the central location for check distribution). If I had a scanner, I'd throw an image of it up here. But I don't, so I won't. The check's going to the bank, but I'll keep the Crist letter as a memento.

----------


 
TRACKBACKS FOR NEWS SITES
Amy Gahran makes an argument for having news sites provide trackback capabilities, as a way to enrich site content.

I've often wished for feedback functions on newspaper and other news sites, for adding my two cents to the article du jour. I would think that the average site would probably opt for regular comments over trackbacks, as commenting is more straightforward, and more inclusive (i.e., not everyone has a blog).

But I think the big disincentive for adding feedback features to news sites is, as usual, spam potential. Regular, run-of-the-mill blogs are getting plagued by comment and trackback spam to the point where many blog authors are shutting down those utilities. News sites, with their larger audiences, would be an especially attractive target for spammers, and would bring on unwanted headaches that would outweigh the intended advantages.

Aside from spam, I wonder how trackbacking would work with sites that require registration or subscription access. I suppose parts of the registration barrier could be dropped for something like this; again, I'm not sure it would be worthwhile to do this.

Gahran's post did alert me to the existence of Movable Type's standalone trackback tool. I guess MT wants to spread the love, hoping that it will lead to increased adoption of their full blog management software. Of course, this tool still requires the backend access to your blog's site that comes with owning your own domain, so it wouldn't have done me any good when I recently added the trackback function to this blog.

----------


 
REALITY CHECK: THE MAVERICK BENEFACTOR
mav-elous
Wacky Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is tossing his hat into the reality TV ring this summer with "The Benefactor", an ABC show where he'll give away a cool $1 million out of his own pocket.

"You don't need special talents," Cuban said. "I'm not looking to find out who is the grossest, funniest, prettiest, smartest or able to go without food or water the longest.

"The right person is going to get on my good side at the right time, and whoever that is is going to walk away with a check from me for $1 million," he said.

Hmmm... I'm thinking the folks at ABC are going to want a little more fleshing-out on this concept. A hallmark of reality programming is (at least the appearance of) fast-and-loose, but the audience still needs some kind of structure to make it compelling viewing. Basing the series around just having Cuban act like his usual jackass self is good for one episode, but not much beyond that.

"Why has he agreed to give away such a large sum of money? Simply because he can and because he can't wait to devise the means through which applicants must prove to him that they deserve the money," ABC said in a news release to be issued Tuesday.

Applicants? More like supplicants, I'm betting. Cuban is going to get his jollies by having some poor saps get him coffee, brown-nose to him, and maybe do a little song-and-jig, all while he sits back with the camera squarely on him.

...So, where to I sign up again?

(I have a feeling this also will give fellow Dallas sports team owner Jerry Jones some ideas...)

----------


Monday, February 23, 2004


 
BUBBA BOOTED?
You may recall the saga of Tampa Bay shock-jock Bubba the Love Sponge, who recently brought down a record $755,000 FCC fine over some raunchy on-air material last year. Now, late-breaking news has it that Bubba has been fired by his corporate employer, Clear Channel Communications. Details to follow tomorrow. Thanks to my friend Kirby for the heads-up on this.

I guess this frees Bubba to pursue the Howard Stern-like fame he believes he's due. Given that he's flopped in the couple of times he's tried to break into larger markets like Chicago and Philadelphia, though, I'd say his more likely destiny lies in strip clubs and metal-rock festivals.

I can make a lot of guesses on this, but without any details, it's all conjecture. I'm sure Bubba's track record, both in terms of past fines and contentious contract negotiations, helped with this decision. Obviously, Janet Jackson's Super Bowl performance has got big media players like Clear Channel nervous too, and hits in the wallet like the one Bubba brought drive the point home. I'd assumed Bubba was still the area's ratings king, which presumably insulated him from negative consequences; I wouldn't be surprised if the latest numbers may have shown a slip, thus providing a good excuse to can him. He also serves as a convenient sacrificial lamb, given the environment.

All this is somewhat negligible to me; I don't listen to any mainstream radio (only NPR at work, and I can take or leave that most days), and having Bubba off the air won't change my mind one bit. I'm sure there'll be a lot more made out of this by both sides of the debate.

UPDATE: It's now official, but Clear Channel managed to dismiss Bubba in the most hypocritical way possible:

"After conducting an internal investigation, we concluded that Bubba's show will no longer be carried on any Clear Channel Radio station," [Clear Channel President John] Hogan said in his statement. "This type of content is inappropriate and not reflective of the way we run our local stations or Clear Channel Radio."

Bubba's been on the Tampa Bay airwaves, doing pretty much the same schtick, for over ten years. Clear Channel has owned the stations where Bubba worked for just about that long. So what Hogan is trying to sell here is either one of two things: a) It's taken Clear Channel the better part of a decade to conduct this "internal investigation", or b) Corporate just now, after years of broadcasts, realized what was in the content of Bubba's shows. Both premises being complete garbage, of course.

The bottom line here: Clear Channel is trying to get out of paying the FCC fines, and is cutting Bubba loose as a good-faith move in order to get the fines quietly reduced or (less likely) eliminated altogether.

It's a cynical move, especially because it shows how slimy this company, and others like it, is. They'll put raunchy programming on the air, encourage the personalities to continually push the limits in pursuit of ratings, probably with assurances that they'll stand behind them. Then, once the heat gets too hot, they stab them in the back. That was the case with Viacom's "Opie and Andy Show" in New York, and that's exactly what happened with Bubba. It tells you just how meaningless a contract is in the radio industry.

I'll reiterate that I'm not a fan of Bubba's show, nor of any other crap, banal or extreme, that pollutes the radio airwaves. But I recognize a raw deal when I see it.

----------


 
BIGGER DISK
biggie-sized
Are all those (legally-obtained, I'm sure) mp3s, mpegs, jpegs, avis and who-knows-what-else files rapidly filling up what once seemed like a gigantic 30-gig hard drive? Then you need more disc storage, and there's no sense in staying in the double-digit-gigs range when you could really up the ante with LaCie's 1-terabyte Bigger Disk.

That's 1 big terabyte, aka 1,000 gigabytes. To illustrate that: You could fill this bad boy with enough mp3 files, each at about the average size/playing time of 4MB/4 minutes, to play continuously--without repeats--for nearly two years. Chew on that!

I'm still continually amazed at the leaps and bounds that hard drive technology is taking. It wasn't all that long ago (the late '90s) when 1-gig was the high end of digital storage for the consumer market. I once worked with a client whose business was providing outsourced digital storage in terabyte-sized chunks for organizations like NASA; I wonder what he thinks of this.

At $1,200, the Bigger Disk isn't cheap, but it's certainly a reasonable price as far as computer components go. For a multi-computer household, it probably makes sense. Of course, I'm now waiting for the day when I hear about people and their kids filling one of these up, and needing to get another one...

----------


 
COUCH-A-BUNGA, DUDE
Hey man, you got a couch I can crash on? You do? Killer! Then maybe you'd like to share the wealth by joining The CouchSurfing Project.

It's kind of kooky idea: You sign up, thus putting out notice that travellers are welcome to come by and stay for a spell. Should you get the wanderlust, you can put out the call to other CouchSurfer members. The network stretches from Indiana to India, so there are plenty of options (provided you can get yourself to wherever you're going).

Naturally, the first thing that comes to mind is: What about the psychos? Apparently, like many Web-based ventures, the guys behind this are relying on a self-correcting system of "verification"; that's basically referrals from one user to another. It's a nice idea, but I really don't see how this is anything to put faith in; for instance, I notice that Leo, one of the founding members, is himself not verified as of this writing.

Still, I guess if you're adventurous (and trusting) enough, you could really have some keen experiences through this. Just watch out for Funky Couch Syndrome; better keep a good supply of Febreze on hand!

----------


 
OH TO BE LIKE DARRIN STEPHENS
sam!
So I'm reading today's Business section, which includes the weekly Business Briefcase Profile. This week, it was on Bill Carlson, the newly-promoted President of locally-based public relations firm Tucker/Hall. I believe I've spoken with Bill once or twice, as Tucker/Hall is the PR firm for Florida Trend.

I got a kick out of this part of Carlson's profile:

Carlson says he was inspired to go into advertising and marketing by the 1960s TV sitcom "Bewitched". The male lead, Darrin Stevens [sic], "was in advertising. I thought that was kind of cool. It influenced me," he said. "It thought it was great people could have a job in a field that was creative."

I've often suspected that "Bewitched" played a huge role in shaping scores of young minds' perceptions on the advertising business, and even leading some people to pursue it. I'm glad to finally hear someone admit it!

Of course, you'll often come across oblique references as to how Durwood Darrin Stephens inspired a career in advertising. And we all know that Larry Tate is a better-known advertising industry icon than David Ogilvy.

Perhaps the most impressive homage to the sitcom was the real-life ad agency of McMann & Tate, which is apparently now out of business (I guess they were overly-reliant on using witchcraft as their ace-in-the-hole). I remember coming across their site years ago, and I shot them an email asking if they were, in fact, "Bewitched"-inspired. Someone shot back in the affirmative.

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Sunday, February 22, 2004


 
THE RANDOM 20
Here's a thing going around:

Step 1: Open your MP3 player.
Step 2: Put all of your music on random.
Step 3: Write down the first 20 songs it plays, no matter how embarrassing.

Well, since the random/shuffle setting is the default for my iPod, this should be pretty easy. I'm not going to add hyperlinks to these results, or even offer running commentary; if you're that interested in any song title or artist, search away.

So let's do this:

1. "Dancing Queen", ABBA
2. "Love For Sale", Talking Heads
3. "Boom! I Got Your Boyfriend", 20 Fingers
4. "What Goes On", Velvet Underground
5. "War In A Babylon", Max Romeo
6. "Above The Clouds", Amber
7. "Never Enough (Big mix)", The Cure
8. "The Emperor's New Clothes", Sinead O'Connor
9. "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel", South Park (Kyle Broflofski)
10. "What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 1 - Blue Sky Revisit) - Transmission 3", DJ Shadow
11. "I Saw Three Ships", South Park (Shelly Marsh)
12. "Torture", KMFDM
13. "Aishiteru", Starecase
14. "Caught, Can We Get A Witness", Public Enemy
15. "All Apologies", Nirvana
16. "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding", Elvis Costello
17. "Running On Empty", Jackson Browne
18. "Mr. Jones", Talking Heads
19. "Surrender", Cheap Trick
20. "Time To Get Ill", Beastie Boys


I'm glad the Beasties finally got in there, at No. 20. It's a fairly representative list out of the 690 songs loaded on the iPod, except maybe the lack of real techno. I'll also note that I used my iPod instead of my computer, because I always listen to that and never listen to music on my computer anymore.

(Via Dustbury.com)

----------


 
REALITY CHECK: REAL-LIFE ROCKY
In a weird convergence between reality television, movies and boxing, Sylvester Stallone has been attached to the development of "The Contender", a reality series about boxing. It's scheduled for debut on NBC in 2005, timed to come alive along with a new, apparently for-real boxing federation.

"We're looking to reclaim a part of America that's been missing," ["Survivor" creator Mark] Burnett tells Variety. "Where are the 'Thrilla in Manilas?' The Sugar Ray Leonards? We all agree no one can tell who owns what belt.

"We're all businessmen, and there's a serious business around boxing," he says. "It's the highest paying sport, yet no one believes in it anymore. What happens when we make it transparent and clean? Once clean, the upside is astronomical."

Boxing, clean?? I'm not sure that's even possible anymore. The sport's been crooked for a lot longer than most people like to think--even the golden age of the 1930s and 40s were shady times. It's just more obvious now.

Aside from Stallone's presence as the on-air personality, this show won't have an official connection with Rocky, because MGM owns the rights to that. That might change, though, depending on the prospects of "The Contender" and how the next Rocky sequel goes.

----------


 
HARRY POTTER AND THE GREEK TRANSLATION
You'd figure a book series as massive as Harry Potter would be available in several languages. Heck, it's even available in Greek, my primary second language.

But it hasn't been available in ancient Athenian Greek--until now. Classics teacher Andrew Wilson has just completed a translation of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" into ancient Greek. (Note that this is the original, UK title of the book/movie known in the States as "Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone"; I guess philosophy turns off American audiences...)

"I suspect very few people will read it all the way through," he said. "You will need a degree in Ancient Greek to get a great deal out of it."

But Wilson hopes students studying the ancient language will enjoy reading extracts of the book as a "relaxation."

I've tried reading ancient Greek before. It ain't easy, although I was struck more by the number of similarities with modern Greek than with the differences, considerable as they are. The Greek alphabet hasn't changed a whole lot over the centuries, which helps a little. Learning Cypriot Greek might help some too, as it's my understanding that it's the closest existing dialect to ancient Greek that's left.

I'll never forget one time, at a museum exhibit, looking at an ancient stone tablet, filled with Greek writing from around 200 BC. It was all bunched together (spacing was a concept that didn't come along until later) and worn away and hard to make out. But as my eyes passed along it, I finally made out a name: "Orestes". Clear as day. It was a slightly exhilerating feeling to have been able to personally decipher even such a small sliver of information, come to me from across the centuries.

Quidditch becomes Ikarosfairike or "Ikarus ball" -- in a reference to the mythological boy who few too high -- while Hogwarts is Huogoetou, deriving from words meaning "hog" and "wizard."
Harry Potter is Hareios Poter. Hareios means "belonging to Ares," the war god, or "warrior" and Poter, a "cup" or "goblet."

Lord Voldemort, Potter's nemesis, becomes Folidomortos, which literally means "scaly death."

"Ancient Greek has a massive vocabulary," said Wilson. "Now it's got a slightly bigger one."

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Saturday, February 21, 2004


 
OH MY, IN ENGLISH
droppin' mad english
You may recall OhmyNews, the innovative Korean news website that relies on the average person on the street to provide their news stories. As the operation has hit its fourth anniversary, it's gained legitimacy in Korea as a respected news source, and has now rolled out an English-language version of the site.

Yi Sang Ho's essay celebrating OhmyNews' birthday makes a big deal out of the site's unconventionality, identifying it as the reason for its rapid success:

Saying someone has manners (beoreut itda) or does not have manners (beoreut eopda) relates to the traditional East Asian concept of propriety (ye, li), which stipulates strict hierarchal classifications and was created to support the feudalist government. Of course Confucius also presented us with a concept of reconciliation and unity through music (ak, yue), but all that gets applied today is "strict" propriety.

This kind of propriety is the strictest with people lower on the hierarchy, and behavior that does not meet with those regulations is said to have "no manners." The problem with discussion about manners is that it hinders normal communication between different levels in the hierarchy, and functions to keep people from speaking out. Organizations operate with subordinates maintaining their silence, while their superiors issue orders from above.

This same social structure ended up being applied to the media as well, media that should speak out. Power came to be regarded as identical to one's seniors, and "media that says it like it is" became outlets that lacked manners. In the history of the Korean news media, only sources willing to risk being silenced spoke up to power and authority, and that's why the media started minding its manners.

Ever mindful of its manners, the media unwillingly came to stand on the side of power and authority and speak on its behalf. Speaking for power and authority for so long meant that the media also became part of the powers that be, and now it fabricates its own argument for maintaining that power. Forget about speaking out – the media was no longer even able to say what it had to...

I hope OhmyNews remains a medium that has no manners. It needs to be more than a news outlet that just says what it says and then forgets about it. It has to be a source that actively speaks up, all the time, about everything.

What I said before about why OhmyNews resonates in Korea still applies, and Yi's comments reinforce that. Despite what most people probably think, I don't think American, or most Western, media behaves the same way, and so I question if OhmyNews' model would even be necessary here. A bedrock of American political culture is a free, and even adversarial, press; accomodation in the media is generally sniffed out right away.

UPDATE: It looks like the English language edition is just the tip of the iceberg. Poynter's Steve Outing reports that OhmyNews is angling to spread its citizen-journalist model throughout the globe. It's ambitious, and a good test as to whether something that's worked so well in Korea's political culture will gain favor in other countries.

----------


 
FERAL ROBOTIC DOGS!
cherried-out!
Those robot dogs sure are tempting toys, ain't they? But how much fun can these kid-targeted toys be, right out of the box? See them fetch, hear them bark--whoop dee doo.

No, to get a real bitchin' experience out of these mechanized mutts, you have to pull out the toolbox and get to work. The result will be something like Yale University's Feral Robotic Dogs project. Amped-up robo-Rovers!

To hear Professor Natalie Jeremijenko tell it, these dogs were hacked to serve a social purpose:

The robotic dogs' "brains" are upgraded and their "noses" programmed to pick up the scent of common volatile organic compounds -- such as paint thinners or dry cleaning fluids -- or more dangerous toxins. They also are built to navigate a variety of terrains.

In addition, cameras are placed in the dogs' hindquarters to let researchers observe their interaction with handlers.

Doggie crotch cams? I question the scientific merit of that. I think these Yalies just decided to have some fun with robots, and came up with a justifying purpose for it later.

Jeremijenko is asking for donations of unwanted robodogs. If she wants to pay for the shipping, I'll gladly send her my Tekno the Robotic Puppy, an impulse buy that's been sitting in my closet for years now.

----------


Friday, February 20, 2004


 
ESPN DREAM JOB: CODA
dare to dream
ESPN Dream Job, the sports network's latest stab at a reality/game show, is set to debut this coming Sunday. Accordingly, they've been running a lot of promos to remind us to tune in.

This naturally reminded me of my own Dream Job tryout, when the casting call blew through town last September, and the cold reality of not making the cut. (Cold, baby. So cold I'm still freezin'.)

As I said then, I figured no one in my group would be selected. We shouldn't feel too badly, since no one from the Tampa Bay leg of the audition tour managed to get to the final stage.

Considering that it's highly unlikely I'll watch any of this show, this news puts a fitting end to my angle. I'm not shunning Dream Job because I didn't get in; I stated at the outset that I wasn't counting on that, and that I went mainly on a lark. But the reality genre holds little appeal for me, so I don't watch any of those shows. I suppose there's a good chance I'll stumble upon it, since ESPN/ESPN2 are two channels I watch more than most others, but I doubt I'll sit down and actually take in an entire episode.

----------


 
MY ROLE AS PATRON OF THE ARTS
beforeafter
Last week, Mark at Duh! got the itch to commit some art on a local street marker. He put out the call for the donation of a sawbuck to do it right.

I was surprised that, a day later, no one had coughed up the dough. So I did:

Wow, how often do you get a chance to become a patron to the arts, for the low-low price of $20 American? I'll pony up, artdude. Go nuts on the thing. My only demand: That I get an emailed advance heads-up for your next public wine tasting, whether it's at the busstop or whereever.

Also, of course, I absolve myself of any knowledge of your shenanigans in the event the fuzz nails you.

Thus equipped, Mark did his deed last weekend, the results of which you see above. I drove by it once (it's slightly out of my way), and it looks good. I wonder how long it'll stay in place.

Mark is, of course, a pro at this kinda thing (if it's possible to be a pro at guerilla art--I think that's an antithetical concept, actually). You can see samples of his past exploits on his blog, including the stunt that first brought him to my attention.

Was this the best twenty bucks I've ever spent? Sure, why not; at least until the next twenty comes along.

----------


Thursday, February 19, 2004


 
ROBO-RECEPTIONIST
Why pay some semi-skilled schlub to sit, glassy-eyed, at a front desk just to greet visitors and sign for packages? Valerie the "roboceptionist" can do the job at least as well, while also giving your dump a veneer of cutting-edge cache. Carnegie Mellon University is putting Valerie through her paces.

Who decided that these robo-servants needed to be sassy, or even have a personality in the first place? Are they all using Rosie from "The Jetsons" as a role model?

Maybe I'm just jealous. Valerie certainly makes my Roomba vacuum seem dull by comparison.

----------


 
NEXT, A BIKE THAT'S ALSO A JUICER
In the space of a few days, I've read about one bicycle that comes with a high-intensity watergun, and another that comes with a cellphone. Both bikes incorporate the rider's pedalling action as a power source for its add-on gadget.

I never figured bikes were so popular. I prefer rollerblades myself, although my back problems now make skating an adventure in pain.

----------


 
FAT TAXING
If you want to be a big fat British slob, you're going to have to be a big fat well-off British slob, if the proposed taxation on fatty foods sold in the UK becomes reality.

As much as this sort of thing would raise the hackles of opponents of additional governmental reach, I think this proposal makes sense. Obesity (or even overweight conditions short of that) leads to widespread health problems, and that eventually impacts the economy and society. Everything from worker productivity to healthcare feel the resulting pressure. Consumers and the market alone, even with plenty of motivation, just won't solve this alone. I'm no advocate of a hand-holding state, but in this case, it's a good idea for government to prime the pump.

Obviously, there's plenty of precedent for government taking action in the name of public health. I don't know what the track record is in the UK, but over here, everything from anti-smoking efforts to the Federally-determined Food Pyramid came as a result of government support.

----------


 
BEYOND THUNDERBUG
he scores
Hockey fans have heard all about the impending end of the current NHL collective bargaining agreement, and what that means for the owners and the players. But aren't we forgetting about the other people in this?

I'm talking, of course, about the team mascots. Those tireless performers that yuk it up all game long, and then take their act to every shopping mall and car dealership within 20 miles of the arena. People like Jason Franke, aka Thunderbug, who is putting it all on the line for next season:

How long Franke continues as ThunderBug "depends on the possibility of a lockout next year [the NHL's collective bargaining agreement expires after this season]. If that happens, I may be hanging it up."

If that doesn't motivate the NHL powers to get together and hammer out an agreement, then nothing will.

Ah, my cherished memories of Thunderbug... I remember years ago at a game that the Lightning was losing badly, he planted himself right in front of our section. A little kid started pelting him with peanuts; da Bug loved it and asked for more. So our whole section started shooting him with peanuts. Fun-fun!

There used to be a Mrs. Thunderbug, or Thunderbuggette, or whatever she was called; I don't think she lasted more than a season. Seeing them side-by-side, I used to absently wonder if there was a girl or a guy inside the female bug uniform, and whether or not that really mattered.

I always knew that being a mascot was harder work than it looked--the suit's unbearably heavy, it's hot, and all that. However, I had no idea of the advanced ergonomics involved in the costume design. Especially the importance of Head Superiority.

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WUERFFEL ERA OVER
pray, away
Making official what has been de facto for years now, former Heisman-winning quarterback Danny Wuerffel retired from football. Nothing short of the second NFL coming of Steve Spurrier could revive Wuerffel's pro football chances now.

My God... How will the league survive this crushing blow??

By "league", I'm referring, of course, to the CFL. Because if Wuerffel had hung in there, he surely had a spectacular Kerwin Bell-like career in front of him.

Wuerffel's focus is on Desire Street Ministries, a New Orleans organization in one of the nation's poorest neighborhoods.

What is with these pro athlete washouts turning to Christ after they bomb out of their first chosen profession? The time to pray was when they were in the huddle or on the field, asking for a better throwing stance, or jump shot, or whatever would have kept them from being a footnote in league history. It works for some atheletes; I guess they give 110 percent in their prayers, unlike the duds.

So Wuerffel joins the likes of ex-Bruins/Sabres goalie John Blue in the path to post-sports salvation. He'd better save a seat for fellow God-boy Jon Kitna, another marginal QB who'll probably be looking for non-football work in a couple of years.

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Wednesday, February 18, 2004


 
TRACKBACK COMING...
... I guess. HaloScan has rolled out trackbacking utility, coupling it with its excellent commenting system. I suppose I'll take advantage of it and add it on here (although I've always said that trackbacks are of questionable value, as they seem to be overly complicated).

However, after an hour of trying to implement them, I haven't been able to get them to work on this blog. I think the problem is a result of several hacks I've made in the original HaloScan commenting code, basically overriding the original JavaScript commands. I'm too tired to try to figure it out tonight; in fact, I may not be able to do it alone, so I'm going to revisit it either tomorrow or next day. 'Til then, it's business as usual around here. NEVERMIND! It came to me in a flash, and I figured it out. Trackback away, y'all!

I have noticed that trackbacks have been largely a Movabletype feature, almost exclusively so. The only trackback-enabled non-MT blog that comes readily to my mind is Whump.com.

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MR. POPULARITY
Somebody's reeling in the eyeballs in a big way today. As of this writing, this blog is approaching 200-odd hits since this morning; that's about two or three times as many hits for an average day.

I'm gonna venture a guess on my Beyonce post being the breadwinner here. She's bootylicious, you know.

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HOCKEY BECOMING TOO ELITIST?
the elite
A mind-boggling report out of the Great White North finds that most Canadians feel the national game, hockey, is getting to be too much of a rich-boy's (and girl's) sport.

The survey found that 82 per cent of Canadians feel all children living in Canada should have the chance to play hockey but that 66 per cent feel the sport is becoming elitist due to the high costs associated with playing the game.

The survey suggest it can cost around $1,000 for a child to play minor hockey for a year, depending on such variables as equipment and number of tournaments played in.

This is more than a little disconcerting, because these are the exact same reasons cited for why hockey doesn't take off in a big way in the States. The lack of resources and opportunity among lower-income kids serve as a barrier to entry, while the low everyday investment required of sports like baseball and basketball (and, relatively, even football) keep hockey from being a realistic option for most of America's youth. Actually, these factors apply just as well to families that otherwise have the means to buy hundreds of dollars worth of hockey equipment; just because they can doesn't mean they will.

Could this foreshadow a crisis in the talent pool foundation that the NHL needs? I can't believe this is all of a sudden a major concern. I'm sure there are still plenty of rural kids spending endless hours skating around backyard rinks, learning the basics with whatever equipment they could find. Cost was a significant disincentive before; I have to believe that where there's a will, there's a way.

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IS IT SPAM IF YOU ASK FOR IT?
Online marketers take great offense to being compared to spammers. Their definition of spam is limited strictly to the junk that shows up in your inbox complete unsolicited; this is different from legitimate email marketing, or permission email, which is requested. Unfortunately, the war against spam employs tools that often can't tell the difference, and as a result, it costs more for marketers and others to ensure that their missives get delivered.

The question is, if you end up not missing that blocked newsletter or daily news update, is it particularly worthwhile to get it in the first place? My workplace recently put in stricter email filters that have dramatically reduced the amount of spam we get (although the levels are already starting to rise again). These filters did their job too well, taking out a few newsletters that I had been getting as well.

But the thing is, I didn't even notice that I wasn't getting those things until a couple of weeks later. With quite a few of them, it had gotten to the point where I deleted them without looking at them, because I found they were no longer worth my time to review them. When the filters were adjusted to let them through again, I was actually disappointed.

Additionally, I think a lot of organizations play it pretty loose on what consitutes permission. I've found that once I've signed up for one newsletter, I start getting a lot of other useless junk, most of it barely-disguised marketing pap. At that point, you're obviously getting spammed, with the flimsy excuse that "you asked for it" stemming from requesting something totally different.

UPDATE: Recent research related to this topic apparently reveals that I'm not alone in having these attitudes.

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