smays.com

Writing it down.

I started this blog almost two years ago (03-Feb-2002) with the idea it would be good place make note of people, places, things, ideas (see tagline above). I've been browsing the last few days and must say this effort has exceeded my expectations. I find myself searching this record for some article, website or random thought... and there it is. Pretty much everything I thought worth remembering for the past two years. A couple of years ago (see?) I wondered about the logical extension of this.

I read several blogs just about every day (see list on right side of page) and feel I know more about those people than some I work with every day. Those of you that read these posts know more about me than most of my Real Time acquaintances. For better or worse. If anything about this concerns me, it's the "looking back" aspect of this endeavor. Always where we've been...never where we're going.

Money talks, democracy walks.

"Recently Kevin Phillips, former chief political strategist for Richard Nixon and author of "Wealth and Democracy," said he no longer believes that democracy even exists in this country, but has in fact been replaced by a plutocracy -- a government controlled by its wealthiest individuals to promote their own specific agenda." Full article. [via JOHO]

War is good.

"After years of cracking the whip, employers who want to win the coming war for talent need to start giving their troops a compelling reason to stay."

The horrible truth about whipped cream.

Leigh Rubin is a syndicated cartoonist (more than 400 newspapers worldwide). His work often features farm animals so a reporter for our ag network decided to interview Rubin. I'm adding Rubin to the list of people I'd like to go have a beer with. Runs about 6 minutes.

Dopey bestseller.

I couldn't find the article but --according to an Amazon review-- Stephen King cites James Patterson's thrillers as examples of of "dopey" bestsellers. Read Patterson's latest (The Big Bad Wolf) and find I agree with King. He's just cranking 'em out now. Same old same old. Too bad.

I'll never doubt this guy again.

Mark Cuban thinks he's ready to turn filmmaking on its ear: "Why can't I preorder a DVD and receive it the day the film is released in theaters? Or buy it on my way out of the theater if I liked what I saw? One thing I learned from the Mavs is that you can watch the game on TV, but you'll still go to the game, because it's a different experience." [Wired via Boing Boing]

In no particular order:

Barb
Ripley
Family
Friends
Health
Hope
Faith
Prosperity
Job
Home
Peace

Let's hang it over the fire place.

I'd really prefer to have something you made yourself. You can get the kit here. [via Boing Boing]

Making us sound better than we are.

Scott Brandon is a gifted radio producer. He was the creative influence behind the broadcasts of the Wisconsin High School Football Championships last week. You can listen to his work here.

If George Patton managed a Tastee Freeze.

"Don't tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results." --George S. Patton

Short subject or feature length?

One of my first posts was a quote from Lawrence Block's Everybody Dies:

"When you die, it is said you see your whole life. But you don't see it minute by minute, like a speeded-up film. It's like everything you ever did in all your days was a brushstroke, and now you see the whole painting all at once."

Poet Billy Collins has a different view:

I wonder how it all got started, this business
about seeing your life flash before your eyes
while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence,
could startle time into such compression, crushing
decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds.
From The Art of Drowning

Because we can.

The city of Berlin is going to start putting solar powered electronic trash receptacles around town that can speak in three different languages

A life where TiVo has always existed.

I grew up watching TV. Literally. And a new generation will grow up always having had Tivo. "There are a lot of other home entertainment developments that have changed since I was a kid, but none so radically as the TiVo experience." [via E-Media Tidbits]

Just like in the movies.

A story in the news today from St. Louis County: A man who broke into a St. Louis County home and held a woman hostage has been shot and killed by the woman's husband. The husband and wife are both 73. Police say the burglar was holding four-inch scissors to the woman's throat. The husband told the man he had to get his wallet from the bedroom...but came back with a gun...and when his wife pulled away, he shot the burglar. Police believe the burglar was responsible for other home invasions and burglaries in the area.

And they don't advertise on the radio.

The Wal-Mart you don't know. "I first encountered Wal-Mart in the mid-1980s, when I worked in Kansas City. I watched as it marched through rural America, decimating downtown commercial districts everywhere it went. A corporate marauder, Wal-Mart had no mercy, no sense of anything but growth. It was, and is, an endlessly feeding shark." [Fast Company]

A strong four out of five

I'm inclined to think Peter Weir deserves a lot of the credit for the new Russell Crowe movie, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. The marketing guys always mention The Truman Show, Dead Poets Society and Witness. I think my favorite Weir movie was The Year of Living Dangerously.

Kidd and LuEllen are back

in John Sandford's The Hanged Man's Song. I'll try to make it last.

Happier Days.

There's no way to prove I accomplished this but it's apparent I had the technique to do so.

The doctor is in. And damned funny.

I just think this is really funny shit.

If I read one a week...

I'm way behind on The 100 Greatest Novels. I'll bet I could pick out 100 you'd like just as well.

Not blogging but still dangerous.

"And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and its not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire." Scott quoting Milton.

Alien.

The marketing boys have been calling Alien The Director's Cut "the scariest movie of all time" and I think I just might agree. Certainly on my Top 10 list of the best movies. I learned today that in the first movie they used KY Jelly (right out of the tube) for the alien slime. Probably a good story about some production assistant being sent to the drug store to buy 500 tubes of the stuff ("It's not for me, really"). Oh, by the way...Matrix Revolution just sucked.

No going back.

Dan Gillmor on rolling his own news: I realized I was probably getting a better report than anyone watching television in the United States. It was more complete, more varied. In effect, I'd rolled my own news. It was a convergence of old and new media, but the newest component was my own tinkering to create my own news "product" -- a compilation of the best material I could find. It was a pale imitation of what we'll be able to do next year and in future races, but it worked.

The prevailing form of publishing.

Dave Winer is a very smart guy but I've yet to meet someone that had even heard of blogging before I started trying to explain it. [via JoHo]

Weblog software is going to be like mail servers. Lots of ways to deploy, every niche filled. For the masses, services like Yahoo, MSN and AOL. Blogging servers for corporations, inside and outside of the firewall. For schools, for the military, specialized systems for lawyers, librarians, professors, reporters, magazines, daily newspapers. The next President will have a blog. Writing for the Web, the prevailing form of publishing in the early 21st Century, will come in many sizes and shapes, flavors and styles. It won't be one-size-fits-all. Open formats and protocols will make this possible.

Thank god.

Google has rejected a takeover bid from Microsoft in favour of selling its shares directly to the public.

There are places I'll remember

There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all