Intellectual Poison

Bad Marketing at its Finest

Holy god! Now this is work related and scary bad marketing. I just got an email in my in-box (my work email) unsolicited from a conference promoter with three attached files totaling nearly 2 megabytes! If I'd been on a dial up I would have driven up to this guy's office in the time it would have taken to download and kicked him in the nuts.

People, you cannot (read this slowly CANNOT) send out bulk emails to anyone with attachments. It is the fastest and most sure way to make positive that whoever you are sending it to A. (best case scenario) deletes it immediately, noting the name of the person and the name of the event. B. opens it, reads it for a moment and then deletes and perhaps mentions it to a co-worker or C. (worst case scenario) an editor on a dial up waits for two hours to get the file, realizes its not what he was waiting for and then proceeds to write a scathing editorial about the show, the promoters and the sponsors.

This sort of oversight has killed companies in the past and will do so again in the future.
This particular incident shall remain without a name for now. I'm quite curious to see what he replies to my email telling him that he absolutely must ask before attaching such files. Stay tuned.

Man, 103, Told to Bring Parents for Eye Test.

I love stuff like this. Computers making up their minds about age and that sort of thing. He was born in 1899 but the computer could only read the 99 (thought this was the main issue with Y2K and it had all been fixed but I guess not).

Kenny Makes A Splash with the Giants

How do you make friends in a new clubhouse? Hit the second pitch you see over the fence to give your team a lead right off the bat (yep, pun intended).

Kenny Lofton is going to be a big impact player down the stretch for the Giants. And his presence now gives Dusty Baker more of a chance to let Barry Bonds heal almost all the way up before bringing him back. Today's the trade deadline though, we'll see what else Sabean can pull out of his hat. Or Billy Beane from the A's, for that matter.

More sports news? Okay
ESPN.com: OLY - Arrest made in alleged ice-dancing fix

Phew, now I can finally sleep well again now that the whole figure skating crap is taken care of.

And a cool link for UK blogs hosted by the Guardian Unlimited | Weblog | UK weblogs

Ah, you know what, fuck it. Why keep a comment system when its almost never used? And it just adds load times and hang times. So no more comments. Poof.

And I suppose maybe I should toss a quick note up to say I'm in a generally kind of not so good mood. I know why but I'm not sharing it. Actually there are several things that are contributing. But that's all I'm saying for now, don't want to further jinx the works, if you get my drift (not that you can or should).

Ananova - Robo-barman serves up beer

Now this is technology at work that will make every man in America and all over the world happier (except for those rednecks that like to open beer bottles with their teeth, sorry fellas, gonna have to figure out some other way to impress the ladies).

Thanks to my pal up north in Rocklin for the link. If he had a blog he'd have this on his site but he actually works when he's in the office. Unlike me.

And more depressing news.
Yahoo! News - US School Lunches Cause Many Illnesses: Report

This is just unsettling overall.

The Kenny Lofton Show comes to San Francisco and the Giants. Who knows what'll happen but at least he can run, hit and play. Can't say the same thing about Bonds, Benard, Shinjo and Sanders.

But they'll be back before too long and then the team'll be strong and ready for the playoff run at the end of the year.

In other news, came across this while blog surfing.

The Children of the Underground Watch is a group that watches for the Children of the Underground which helps mothers kidnap their children from their dads and smuggle them out of the country. No matter if the mothers are insane or not, its a gender issue with this lady, Faye Yager. Good for you, Faye, messing up families good since 1986 (or whenever you whacked your head hard enough to think this is a good idea).

Thanks to Shot In The Dark for the news and link.

Yahoo! News - Motorcycle Deaths Drop After Helmet Law Reinstated

Golly, next thing they're going to say is that Harley's with those stupidly overloud pipes do not avoid more collisions because of the pipes as most Harley guys claim. Which makes sense because you can't hear them coming, you can only hear them going and by that time the accidents already occurred if its going to occur. Ergo, the Harley loud pipe argument as I'd understood is bunkum. I think they just like to make noise, while put putting around on their slow poser sleds. I don't dislike all Harleys or Harley riders (but by the same token, I don't really like very many Harleys either), just the ones that ride around like they're on the fastest and best bikes on the planet when its just not the case. My little SV can smoke damn near any Harley out there (Buell's excepted because they're only Harley's by engine, nothing else) at half the cost and it handles better than any Harley out there, barring none. I've run 17 plenty enough to see that Harleys and corners are only mildly acquainted.

I've been in three accidents over the last 15 years of riding cycles. I had a helmet on in all three and walked away from all three of them with minor injuries. Without the helmet I would be a vegetable or dead. Simple as that and I've seen the scuff marks on the helmet to prove that I bashed into the ground with my head though I didn't feel it.

Yahoo! News - Ex-Congressman Traficant Gets 8 Years in Jail

And so the purges begin...........

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Off to see the Wizard at Cooperstown

This will be the first of several postings (most likely) about Ozzie Smith and his acceptance speech into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He is/was and always shall be one of baseball's greatest ambassadors, heroes and sportsman.
If there were ever a role model to emulate, he would be an excellent choice. But I want to find a copy of the speech he gave, he made so many excellent points that it should be posted.

Just as Smith did on the field, Hall speech shows unique flair. Need I say more?

I do want to find that almost final line he said about Heart, Mind and Courage. It was most excellent and poignant.

Hey, its been brought to my attention that there are some issues with looking at the blog in IE 6. If this is caused by something I can change then please let me know. If its the comments that's the problem then use the Comments? Scorn? Praise? in that mish mash monument to my lame ass HTML skills to the left.

Heck, I need to do something different with the thing anyway so maybe I'll just add that to the list of things that've gotta get done. But then, today was a good day with a distinct nod to Ice Cube. All's right, sort of, in the work place.

I ended up getting the project taken care of, had a good meeting with my boss lady and found some more ink. I am basically a digital and physical ink pimp or ho, not sure which way to look at it. I pimp my company, flog (politely, properly and gently but flog) them with our news, our word. Our neverending supply of data, fed to a never ending eater of data with a healthy sales cycle built in to generate high quality, repeatable revenue.

Recognizing the situation is both fascinating and maddening though. Because I'm not sure if there's enough cohesion in the company to be able to expand as rapidly as it appears that we are about to do. But on the other hand, part of my job is to drive that expansion by putting our name in front of more and ever diverse numbers of people. In some ways, the blog here is the anti-thesis of this. I do publish it to Weblogs and link to others but beyond that, its up to others to find me.

Is that wrong? I don't know, I'm not trying to follow another set of rules, I'm sort of letting the blog run its own course and go where it will. Yep, my other writing might suffer because of it, this is time consuming in excess of the time actually spent typing and linking and checking and all that. I think about things I just want to toss up here for kicks.

Tomorrow's another day, still far too early in the week to think about the weekend but its already on my mind. How could it not be after the good, generally clean and harmless fun of the last weekend? I specifically halted a conversation with an drunk Christian virgin girl because she was questioning her belief in God. And whatever my beliefs are, I've no right to go mucking about with hers, no matter how right I think and know mine are. They're only right for me. So if there's a big old karma calculator in the sky I should be sliding ever closer to the black again and out of the red (I was a particularly bull headed and stupid kid in my teens, does that stuff get erased when you turn 18 too, like your juvenile police record?)

I could and might blather on but instead, I'm going to go and get some late dinner, call it a night, get up in the morning and hope for sun so I can have a nice workout and bike ride before work. My volleyball weary muscles should be just dandy in another 7 or 8 hours.

Something I'd originally thought was an anamoly seems to be happening more and more. Last week when I wrote about Adelphia and the corruption (hmm, Freudian slip? I wrote corruptoon first), someone from Adelphia.com logged onto the blog that afternoon (thanks Site Meter). And today, I blogged about Qwest being knockered around by investors for deciding to republish their books for the last, oh, three years, who should log on but someone from Qwest.
Not sure if its a good thing, a bad thing or just a thing. But its there, its interesting and makes me wonder if I start writing about Natalie Portman, if she'll log on to the blog.

Yahoo! News - Qwest Stock Slammed on Accounting Woes

Is anyone surprised that more and more companies are coming out of the woodwork and admitting that they fudged books to create an aura of profits when there were really minimal improvements. Isn't there some saying that goes, Those that can, do, those that cannot, fake it?

Anybody want to take bets on how many more companies do this voluntarily? Does it make sense to blow the whistle on yourself, does it abuse your stock price any less? Does it allow a sliver of respectability to be retained? Does anyone trust big business? Did they ever?

Who do you trust less, Corporate America, Dubya and Dicky in the White House, Father Sodomite (or is that Pastor Sodomite?), that latest SPAM for prestigious non-accredited college degrees or a used car salesman?

Yep, too close to call. We'll call it a tie across the board with the used car salesman slightly less than the rest because you're not supposed to trust them. And SPAM's in its own category altogether. I've always wanted to talk to a spammer and get an idea of by what justification they are ruining the internet. They are the blockages, they are the aneurisims (sp?), they are the lamprey infestations in the waterways of the internet. And its only going to get worse.

I suppose I should get a program to take these huge pics my little camera takes and reduce them to a more loadable size so that those potential readers of limited bandwidth can read in. But for now, I'll just link and once you hit one, you should have a decent idea of the normal size for pics. I know I'm overloading my accounts right now so I'll have to figure out a better way to have pics up.

But I suppose I should demonstrate a valid purpose in making this post, a post on a Sunday evening when nothing ever happens. Does it? No, not in this neighborhood, not with these freaks and monkeys.

Today should probably be titled

SkewDay

And I must start off with an apology because some of the best pics from the day I'm not allowed (in fact my family jewels were specifically and explicitly threatened) to share. But there are plenty of other good ones to see. Like Paul taking a wipeout at Brady's a few minutes ago. Or hanging out with Johnny, Maya (and yes, they do make a lovely couple, even nicer with the proper pic linked to them), Paul and Ken after Johnny's show, Scriptease, which is, quite excellent and highly recommended to anyone cruising through the Cruz, to having an end of the day drink at the bar with some pool winning, a strange crazy woman flashing me out back (no, not the good kind of crazy, she was just nuts). And there's also the pics I shot on Saturday night between heading home from Brady's and catching another party at Brian's around the corner from my house. One of decent note (the pics of the skinny dippers didn't come out) is James' MR2 Spyder taken in a heavy morning fog. And before the Johnny show I got a surprise and quite welcome visit from an old pal.

I think I'll wrap it all up with a little Ice Cube and sleep the sleep of the burnt.

But tomorrow promises to be a difficult day. Not sure how much I'll be able to post but its been incredibly heartening to see the traffic increasing in the last week or two. It makes my desire to report on the world from my own tiny and warped perspective that much stronger.

Get Your Fresh Hot Under the Bridge Smack Here

There are some distinct advantages to living and working in the same town. I'm not quite so lucky as some of my pals who work at home, but then, they go weeks sometimes without really leaving their houses. That's unhealthy.

Anyway, my commute is short, gorgeous, filled with natural beauty, safe (we'll come to this later) and fast.
I head down 1st across Atlantic and out front which is the front face of Youngman's. It lets me have a moment or two to check out the beach and the waves. The expanse of our beach is just cool to take in, especially when the sun's out and its warm and inviting. It does make taking the turn away from the beach much harder than it would otherwise be. But away I go, down the short hill past Rhett's, down to the cove and then back up the other side past the cement whale (no really) and up to the corner above the point, where you can sit above the water and look back to the left and see the whole Boardwalk. beyond Main beach (an awful beach in my mind, way to crowded and well dirty), to the right is all of Seabright which was once called Castle.

But going out to the point, while its scenic, is not really the best way to get into work. So I head down the hill, not dropping down the short hill and crossing the trestle, instead taking the East Cliff route down to the beginning of the bike path along the river. Its a decently long hill and I've gotten up to more than 30 mph down it but more times than not there are some walkers or tourists who don't quite catch what "Passing on your left" means.

But normally I can make it down to the bike path proper without any serious incident. In fact, I think the worst that's happened on my morning or evening commute is a staredown from a watcher for a drug dealer. But we'll get there eventually.

There are two ways to enter the bike path, the first involves slowing down a whole lot and taking a sharpish turn in just across the last bridge down the hill. But I don't really get into the idea of bleeding off so much speed without a real cause to. And I've learned the second quick way to jump up and onto the asphalt highway. Continue down the hill, staying up tight against the railing and then the cement of the bridge, nobody on the sidewalk means a terminal velocity of about 28 mph. Not too bad for a mountain bike. Nowhere near max speed but still respectable, especially with on coming traffic.

So I bomb down the hill, swerving to avoid the heavy thick lightpost, picking a car out of the rolling traffic off to my left, a car to try and match speed with all the way down to the next bridge, the road that takes all those happy, soon to be sun burnt valley bastidges to the Boardwalk. I cross over that bridge so as to hit downtown from the other side, there's a road crossing at Soquel that's easier on the downtown side, no road at all. The other morning just a trio of smack dealers working it, making some money providing a valuable service to some messed up monkeys.

The other morning I rolled down through the underpass, one watched looked me over, no worries, just a roller on a bike. Pass by two strangers engaged in a business transaction in the dark shade, nighttime in the middle of the day. And out the other side, passing another watcher, a guy with a suspicious eye and itchy finger. Is it truly dangerous? Who knows? Could these nimrods be packing pistols? I don't know but so long as I pose no threat, and I don't really. I'm a passer by, usually at some speed that I'm beyond their reach by the time I've registered on their radar screen.

Smack dealers, you know, heroin, the other white folks drug. Its back in vogue out here at least. Not that I've had any real dealings with it, but I can tell a smackhead pretty easily, unlike cokers. But smackers are easy, they have a desperate look in their eyes. The ride home yesterday was one of those. A couple, emerging from the relative darkness under the shadow of the bridge, triumphant but still in need of a fix. Its the period between the score and the hit. All drug users are aware of it. Better places of procurement will have the facility to allow immediate imbibement but such is just not the case when the score is landed under a bridge just out of the center of town.

Some mornings, when its not sunny usually, I'll come across packs of sleeping folks, huddled behind certain buildings, places where they know the management's not harsh to those without homes. It doesn't make people bad to not have a home, there but for the grace go I. And no, I'm not getting into a theological bend, we don't need to go there. I keep meaning to chronicle them as well but am normally carrying a good head of steam from the flats.

There are never any people on the underside of the footbridge to San Lorenzo Park or try this VR styled one too Virtual San Lorenzo. Its just a short buzz down to Wells Fargo, jump the curb, jump down the steps, roll across River and I'm at the office. For another fun filled day under flourescent lights doing statistical analysis and PR. A very tough pair to emulsify somedays.

So there ya go. More pics to follow, of course.

Conspiracy Diagram

All I can say is Whoa, this guy's got a wee bit of free time and an extra helping of conspiracy. But its at least interesting to take a look at and making people think is just as important as making them stop.

DaveNet : Hollywood wants the right to hack your computer

Thanks to Dave at the Scripting News for the article (he wrote it) and the link.

The post about this on his page is pretty inciteful. Just how far do you think they'll try to go? I was amazed at the bull headed stupidity of the RIAA when Napster first came around. And it seems like they have learned nothing from all the bad PR they got from their stupid, we-don't-make-enough-money-off-of-this position. Greed is an ugly thing.

Intellectual Poison Archives

Don't click the link, its busted, I just checked it again and it seems that either I can't code (likely) or that Blogger's munging my code (also likely but less so than my meager coding skills).
Its Friday, I've got a few days to get it worked out. Though its looking like Sunday's a work day too. Yippee!

Adult Panties, with a Christian Message

What the? Shouldn't these be little boy's briefs instead of panties? Seriously though, who wants to find a Psalm as your stripping down some hot chick?

Check out the copy "Teens! Imagine how all the other young girls in the locker room will react, emerging naked from hot showers, to see your Christian witness, modestly covering your most nubile private parts!" What the flipping hell are they talking about?

Yep, I want some undies that say "What would Jesus Do?" Or his ultra cool acronym, WWJD which sounds like a spin off of the WWF.

Woops, smack me, I forgot to credit uberchick for the link. Sorry! Don't hate me (yet).

Yahoo! News - Yale Tells FBI Princeton Hacked

Um, isn't that like calling the cops to tell them your neighbors were robbed a day or two after they crooks have left?

Oh no wait, this is quite a bit more serious, it seems the head of admissions at Princeton did the hacking and that's a wee bit more culpable than students hacking, isn't it?

But does it really count as a hack if he used information given to him by applying students? Isn't it more likely a misappropriation of resources of somesuch like that. But they are going to try and go after the admissions guy on federal charges. This might just turn into something interesting.

Stay tuned on this. Or not, I mean who really cares about hoity schools like Yale and Princeton anyway, they're so full of themselves that they have to charge extra for students to go there. The whole Ivy League oftentimes smacks of a freakish and incestuous family that tells jokes only they truly understand. Not I, I'm a slug, a banana slug from UCSC, Poser U.

tech journalist

Might be a holder, possibly a keeper

Paul's UBF: UnBridled Fury in all her splendid present glory. Out above the beach at Seabright and looking fabulous. I suppose I should explain why this is a cool bike because, on the surface it looks like most others. But UBF is a converted single speed, she used to be a Klein Rascal mountain bike with three rings up front and a cassette in the back, not to mention derailleurs. But not anymore, now she's a very fast and sometimes kind of scary single speed. Fun for bombing around the neighborhood but would be too tough to offroad with in present gearing configuration.



Seabright Porsche 928, this is just a pretty car down at the end of the block. It reminds me of Scarface, though Pacino's was silver. But its a big and comfortable V8 from Porsche, a strange bird for them. Loads of power and style but room for 4 pretty comfortably. The guy's also got one of those sweet little Lexus convertibles. They look better up close although they still have a big ass but they also haul ass.

For pure shopping pleasure, you just can't beat Trader Joe's. Its got all kinds of great fun kinds of food and big bottles of alcohol and everything a body could possibly want. Even crazy Indonesian rice.

And what the trickle down means is that having whiskey on hand means I'm that much more likely to pour a big old tumbler of it and write for a few hours some evenings. I've got to gather up some materials to write from but its often an exercise in just letting the writing go. Who the hell knows where I'll end up?

Oh yeah, I did want to conversate on the Adelphia fiasco.And wondering whether the dad and his boys are going to prison for a long time or not. Adelphia is disavowing them, casting them to the wind as it were and hopefully the stench of corruption along with it. Adelphia unaware of Rigas deals, they want nothing to do with them.

And its cool, I can understand. In this day and ago of investor panic at the slightest sign of trouble, no one wants to appear to be off center or below average. The ranks are being culled, the bizarre anamoly on the market the other day aside, the markets have been sliding and slipping down to crazy lows, scary lows.

But back to Adelphia, how in the hell did the Rigas family get more than $3 BILLION away from the company? How does that just happen? How can people be so blind and stupid to not notice three billion dollars missing? I just cannot, for the life of me, understand how it could happen. And what in the hell did they need three billion bucks for anyway? Oh yeah, a hockey team costs an awful lot of money. But these greedheaded monkey pokers should get jacked for it and I hope they are made an example of, creamed, smashed, dashed against the rocks of American justice.

Restore faith in our judicial system by decimating some of of those same rich and powerful bastards. Kill some of your own to prove you mean business. Bush is scrambling but at least he can get this right, he understands the idea of retribution. And kickback but let's let him slide on that for now, Cheney's another matter altogether.

Why is that? Because the world needs its Dan Quayles and George Bush's and Gerald Ford's. Maybe not as Presidents but we need them. Politics is a bizarre and far too convoluted for the lay person to understand much less access. Its beyond people's ability to attend and that means that most people don't know what's going on in the government, what these incredibly powerful freaks are doing. Waging wars, funding wars, paying off dictators and banging expensive Washington call girls and tipping them with yours and my damned money.

And the only thing to do is either ignore it all or try like hell to get into the little club.
Either way, nothing to be done about it tonight. Sleep well John Rigas, for soon they shall come for you and all your house of cards shall belong to us.

Hmm, lost a post or two on my way to Pro, but I think I can live with it.

Well now that I have it all set at home, everything seems to be in complete order. How cool is that.

Tech support told me that it was a misassigned IP address. How does that happen? Oh well, I'll leave it as done and move on. I'll be back later, its sunny and nice out which means good picture taking weather. Be back soon to try out the file upload.

Yahoo! News - AOL TW Stock Dives as AOL's Woes Deepen

How can a company with an estimated MONTHLY income of almost $700 million be experiencing any sorts of revenues?

Think about it. Thirty million users (last time I remember AOL bragging about how big they were) times $22/month equals more than $660 million. What in the heck are they doing with all that income?

Apparently not hiring good accountants because the Street beat them up today and will likely continue to beat them like the bad dogs they are.

A sign of bad things to come.

Egyptian Couple Jailed over Nude Internet Photos

Thank goodness I don't live in Egypt! Or Alabama for that matter.

Well, surprise surprise, the vitriol brings 'em out almost everytime. Get angry and people have to deal with you, or something like that.

Pyra contacted me today about the Pro upgrade problem and the Public Mind help pages issue (text box without a submit button, DOH!). We'll see what happens from here but at least they're reacting and that's one hell of a step up from where they were ten minutes ago.

First GIF. Then hyperlinking. Now JPEG. Bummer

Here's another example of misdirected greed. How could these idiots think they can reap royalties off of Jpgs? Forgent Networks, remember the name, forget the site. They will be going nowhere really fast if this is part of their revunue generating business plan. What is WRONG with people? Doesn't anyone want to make an honest living anymore?

And here's an interesting take on MS's good side. Top ten reasons why Microsoft is a good citizen. Skewed and warped tho his perspective may be, the author does make some valid points. Though a couple of his more important points would have been accomplished by any company in Microsoft's position, just because it happens to be Microsoft that makes it better?

Thanks Technovia


Yep, I like the pic but I don't quite understand the Think About Baseball part. Huh? Can someone explain this one to me?


Gotta love a Mac specific blog! Keep it up! And what a sweet link too!

Okay, I would imagine that this is tantamount to setting fire to the boat you're sailing on (with a nod to Dennis Conner and his sunken America's Cup racer). But I've got to write about this because its seriously starting to piss me off.

Why do dot.com's fold? Because they don't follow through on what they say they'll do. Once you join the Pay-for-play ranks, they couldn't give the least damn about you aside from the fact that you're now a paying customer. But these companies don't realize that said support can be removed at any time. They are, in effect, at will employees.

And once I've paid for a service like Onebox.com, I demand customer service because that's part of what I am paying for. To date, I've written more than five emails to Onebox.com asking for some help with an issue. They have no responded at all, in fact they've ignored every single attempt to get help. So I'm going to demand my money back and go elsewhere, there are dozens of online mail centers and I'm sure some of them give a shit about their customers beyond the sale.

McCovey Point Project

Dear Giants Fan,

You have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to take part in the
completion of the China Basin Park located across McCovey
Cove from Pacific Bell Park.

China Basin Park will be a magnificent public open space with dramatic vistas, picnic areas and even a small T-ball
field. The park will also celebrate the history of the Giants in San Francisco including a beautiful statue of Willie McCovey. Along the shoreline from the McCovey statue to the Lefty O'Doul Bridge, fans will be treated to the Giants History Walk. The walkway will include a 570-foot SeatWall incorporating the rosters of every Giants team from 1958 through 1999.

You can participate in this project by purchasing one or several of the individualized tiles that will be randomly
embedded in the SeatWall. Use your tile to make your own statement about the Giants, the players and your memories.
Tiles are available in two sizes 4"x 8" for $95 and an 8" x 8" which includes a Giants 44 logo and a commemorative
baseball autographed by Willie McCovey for $225. Tiles are limited in number and will be sold on a first-come, first-
serve basis; so don't delay.

To download an order form or for more information visit our website at www.sfgiants.com/mccoveypoint here:
http://lists.mlb.com/u/12320/8800260

Here's part of the ever continuing backlash against the "free" internet. Tough news because tiny stations on the net are great to listen in on. But I suppose everyone wants to make a buck.

Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 08:41:48 -0700
From: "NewsScan"
Subject: Royalty fees may be the death of Internet radio

All kinds of radio stations -- both Web-based and traditional over-the-air broadcasting stations -- have to pay copyright royalties to songwriter associations, but only the Web stations are required to pay a new performer's fee that goes to record companies. At a rate of seven-hundredths of a cent per song per listener, the fee is expected to undo the economic viability of almost all of the 10,000 Web radio stations now in existence.

The 200 stations that have already ceased operations include nonprofit stations at UCLA, NYU, and other colleges and universities, and people seem to be punching different calculators to attack or defend what's going on: Congressman Rick Boucher (D, VA) is introducing a bill in support of small Webcasters and says its goal is "to make sure that Webcasters who measure their revenues in the tends of thousands are not put out of business by a copyright payment requirement in the hundreds of thousands."; using a different calculator, Hilary Rosen of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says that most college stations won't owe more than $500 a year, and adds, "Given our problems with digital piracy on university servers, it is almost comical that they have the nerve to complain about $500." [*USA Today*, 21 Jul 2002; NewsScan Daily, 20 July 2002] USA Today

Yahoo! News - Programs: Screensaver Aims to De-Motivate the Masses

This is simply capitalizing on an anti-trend. Sure its marginally funny but is indicative of a serious problem in American business. Maybe I'll get back to this later on and expound a little more but for now it'll have to do.

I'm de-motivated presently.

�berchick: ramblings of a nyc writer

Good stuff and another link to make.

Sean Gallagher's Rant Central

And another blog.


*drunkblog

Yet another blog to add to the ever growing list I link to. Funny stuff though.

From the Stud Archive:

I am willing to remain and play the man's game if there are not enough boats for more than the women and children. Tell my wife I played the game straight out and to the end. No woman shall be left aboard this ship because Ben Guggenheim is a coward.
- Final words of Benjamin Guggenheim, millionaire traveler aboard the ill-fated Titanic. As the boat began to sink Guggenheim changed into formal dress and calmly faced death.

I've Seen Better Days

But Not Many Nicer Ones

What a day, what a wonderful morning and a great way to start the middlest day of the week. Sun streaming in my sliding glass doors, Ted David's back on CNBC, almost all is right with the world, unless you're an exec at Adelphia, in which case you should probably get as much money into your wife's accounts as possible. Because Federal prosecutors are going to be coming after execs who got rich while screwing stockholders over. Yeeha! I love a good white collar witch hunt! Shame its a ruse to keep us from remembering that Dick Cheney's in the same crosshairs.

But the best part of the morning was running into my friend, Star, who was breathing his first sea air in several months after being a guest of the state for defending himself against a pyscho. He's alive, healthy and happy to be back out in the free world. And he's the same Star which is a good thing, he's a great guy. So yippee!

And, in other news, there has been a clear winner in Layne's Love Offensive. Trish and Brian are now officially engaged and that's pretty damned cool. Good deal!

And so on to the work I must go. Much justification to do today, and planning and recording hits and all that fun stuff that makes being a flack soooooo worthwhile.

A quick word of the day because its soooo appropriate to the Flacking World.
Word of the Day for Wednesday July 24, 2002:

equivocate \ih-KWIV-uh-kayt\, intransitive verb:
To be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or
to avoid committing oneself to anything definite.

The witness shuffled, equivocated, pretended to
misunderstand the questions.
--Thomas Babington Macaulay, History of England

By equivocating, hesitating, and giving ambiguous answers,
she effected her purpose.
--Harriet Martineau, Letters from Ireland

Dr. Lindzen does not equivocate. "We don't have any
evidence that this is a serious problem," he says flatly.
--William K. Stevens, "Skeptic Asks, Is It Really Warmer?"
[1]New York Times, June 17, 1996

And one last note, I need to start a bumper sticker company again. I've been coming up with excellent one lines that should be slapped on every guy's Toyota pick up from Aptos to Athens. Latest one: My Life is a Porn Soundtrack. Another recent one: Be Smooth, Gorgeous. Stickers rule, they rule, man!

Selah

If I owned Hell and Texas, I'd live in Hell and rent Texas. - Gen. Phil Sheridan

Truer words haven't been quoted.

Dictionary.com/selah

Since its not readily apparent what it means, might as well blog the definition.