smays.com

Reading List: 2004

Stab in the Dark, Lawrence Block (December)
Distraction, Bruce Sterling (October)
Florence of Arabia: A Novel, Christopher Buckley (October)
The Rule of Four, Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason (September)
Rain Fall, Barry Eisler (September)
We the Media, Dan Gillmor (August)
R is for Ricochet, Sue Grafton (August)
Skinny Dip, Carl Hiaasen (August)
The Stone Monkey, Jeffery Deaver (July)
Live Bait, P. J. Tracy (July)
Hidden Prey, John Sandford (June)

Note: This post has been predated so that it would appear in 2004. 8/16/05

Local News.

The news director at the station in my home town called this morning to ask about my brother. Lots of folks in Kennett know he is in Indonesia and have been asking about him. I told him what little I knew. Just a little human interest story. Very local. A big city station or a "nothing but the hits" station wouldn't consider this remotely newsworthy. I'm really glad to know they've started doing this kind of local news again (maybe they never stopped).

At about the same time, I received a pointer (from XM Ben) to an interesting article on the state of radio in 2004 (Radio in 2004: An Overview, by Lawrence Stoler):

"One of radio's strong points that can not necessarily be achieved to the fullest extent on satellite radio is localism. In other words, being out and active in the community. Being at the scene of an important event at a moment's notice and providing necessary information to the residents of where a station is licensed to broadcast. The industry has to resume this practice of being community active. Radio has to go back to providing information after 8:30 AM during the week or in the evening after #7 and on weekends too. Not every area of the country has a 24 hour all news station within hearable range."

I honestly don't see how radio stations (or TV stations, for that matter) will survive without a strong, serious commitment to local news.

Death of networks?

Edward Wasserman titled his piece "The Next Rebirth of the Media" but I came away wondering about the future relavence of networks as we know them. Wasserman is a professor of Journalism and Mass Communications at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA.

"TV will migrate to the Net, and if networks can reach a national audience online, why bother with costly affiliation contracts? By cutting out the needless re-transmitters they keep the entire advertising dollar. But what becomes of broadcast affiliates once theyre no longer affiliates  indeed, once theyre no longer broadcasters either, since their audiences wont be getting them over-the-air either? When you click on to your online news and entertainment options, why will you choose your local ex-ABC affiliate? You wont, unless it has something unique to offer  namely, the very content that has been most sorely neglected in the current era of non-regulation: local programming."

Four our five years ago I described the Web as a meteor, far out in space, headed toward earth. We don't know how big it is... when it's going to get here... or whether it will miss our little planet or smash ut so bits. But we better start building spaceships. Just in case. Don't know how to build a spaceship? Better start learning. The meteor is big...and it's close.

Blane Mays update.

Blane reports he and the family were out of town (Bandar Lampung) when the earthquake/tsunami hit and didn't realize it had happened until they returned. That seems pretty amazing. His organization is sending disaster relief teams to assess needs but foreigners are not currently allowed into the province of Aceh due to the civil war going on there. He thinks the disaster will open some doors. Bottom line for the Mays family: Blane, Tonya and kids safe and sound.

Mr. Blue Bird flew into a window and killed himself.

"Are you tired of always being told to "look on the bright side"? Are you criticized for imagining worst case scenarios? Do you wish your optimistic friends would just leave you alone and let you be negative? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be one of the millions of people who have learned to cope with the pressures of modern life by using Defensive Pessimism, a strategy of imagining the worst-case scenario of any situation. Dr. Norem shows how indulging in negative thoughts like these actually helps people go on to do their best by preparing for the worst."

Brother Blane safe and sound.

"Just got back to town. Incredible damage on North Sumatra, but we were just too far south. Feeling blessed beyond words. Thanks for your prayers."

No Escaping the Blog.

Excellent article on blogging and business at Fortune.com (Why There's No Escaping the Blog): "According to blog search-engine and measurement firm Technorati, 23,000 new weblogs are created every dayor about one every three seconds. Each blog adds to an inescapable trend fueled by the Internet: the democratization of power and opinion. Blogs are just the latest tool that makes it harder for corporations and other institutions to control and dictate their message. An amateur media is springing up, and the smart are adapting."

No word on from Indonesia.

Still no word from/about my brother Blane and his family who live in Bandar Lampung on the southern tip of the island of Sumatra. No shortage of news coverage online plus a couple of animations showing the path of the tsunami, which I found reassuring. I'll post any news here as soon as I hear something.

Rollin' my own.

I never read local newspapers. I know, I know. I'm just not interested no matter how much I should be. As a result, I've been reading USA TODAY for years. I could barely get through breakfast without something to read and USA TODAY was my paper of choice. No longer. The bump to seventy-five cents is part of it but there are too many stories I don't care about. (Yes, I know I should care about them, but I don't) So I'm reading less of the paper and paying more.

But recently I've been surfing with my finger on the print key. In five or ten minutes I have more than enough stories to get me through my Malt-o-Meal. Sort editing my own newspaper. And this process will get more automated but I enjoy browsing and printing and will probable keep rolling my own daily. And I'm saving almost $200 a year.

8-point-9.

From Reuters report: "The tsunami -- a menacing wall of water -- caused death, chaos and devastation across southern Asia. The tsunami, up to 30 feet high, was triggered by an 8.9 magnitude underwater earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra."

My brother Blane and his family live in Bandar Lampung, about 1,000 miles to the southeast of the quake's center. I sure hope that's far enough. If you check out the Reuters story above, take 90 seconds to watch some scary video. The link is about half-way down the page on the left. Still waiting for a "we're okay" email from my baby brother.

Turn the page.

I'm a long-time fan of the novels of Lawrence Block and have read most of them. From time to time I come across one that had been out of print. Spotted two Matthew Scudder novels yesterday (A Stab In The Dark, and Time To Murder And Create) and snapped them up. Matt Scudder is a New York private investigator (no license) with a serious drinking problem. He'll go on a bender and then suffer nasty hang-overs. In later novels, Matt joins AA and, finally, gets his act together.

Time To Murder And Create was written in 1976 and Matt is still boozing. When I first read these stories, it was almost painful and certainly depressing to "watch." Having read all of the later Scudder novels, I know that everything works out for Matt. He gets sober. Meets the perfect woman (for him). And finds some peace.

It's nice to think that someone is re-reading our stories and knows what happens to us down the road. Our Cosmic Author simply has no way to tell us everything is going to be all right. Or that it isn't. Or, maybe we aren't listening. I choose to believe my author prefers happy endings.

Heavenly Peace

A double shot of Bing Crosby (Holiday Inn and Bells of St. Mary), a cozy fire and those I love beside me. A wonderful Christmas Eve and peaceful Christmas morning. Wonderfully still and quiet.

One Man's Struggle To Take It Easy.

As Ferris Bueller so bluntly put it, "You're not dying, you just can't think of anything good to do."

Santa RIP

Eclectic Christmas CD

Most ogiginal gift to date comes from Matt, Marc (and Lola Belle). A mix CD with holiday selections from: The Brady Bunch, The Andrews Sisters, Mitch Miller, Boris Karloff, Elvis, Dolly Parton, James Brown, Chuck Berry, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Luis Armstrong, Doris Day and a few others.

Top five viral video clips of 2004.

They're viral because we spread them from my inbox to your inbox and so on. Eatmail ("collector of all things viral") asked it's members to pick the five best of the past year. I really liked number three. [via Adrants]

Peace.

This year's card captures our mood perfectly. Lucy --the newest addition to our family-- spent September through November in a small, wire crate and wasn't inclined to "stay" for Barb's annual card shoot. But the tradition continues and while there's not quite enough peace in the world, there's a small patch in front of our fireplace for which we are truely grateful.

Scared of Santa Photo Gallery.

I would dearly love to horse whip the parents of these these poor kids. The perfect revenge would be to wait until mom and pop are helpless and frightened in the nursing home and then bring one of these gents in.n [via BoingBoing]

Radio-like.

From a Reuters story at MSNBC.com: "Music Choice and Sprint are launching a music service that allows mobile phone users to view short videoclips and listen to radio-like programming on their handsets. For $5.99 per month, users can listen to a range of genres and formats, including R&B/hip-hop, pop, country and rock. Earlier this year, the company announced Sprint PCS Vision Multimedia Services, which delivers streaming audio and video content from NBC, CNN, ABC News, Fox Sports, the Weather Channel, Discovery, E Entertainment, and others."

List making.

I don't make lists the way I used to. Many years ago I became a voracious list-maker. I attended lots of time management seminars and read lots of self-improvement books and was very much into being effecient and effective. It occurred to me last week that I no longer do very good job of making lists. I'm much more likely to scrawl something on a Post-It not. Or enter a new Task in Outlook. As a charter member of Anal-Retentives of America, I started wondering why. Here's the best I could come up with:

For most of my 35 years as a working adult, I was responsible for "managing" others. Now, I'm pretty much responsible only for my own work. I can still appreciate the need for organizing and prioritizing my work but I just don't seem to take the time make those nice, neat, numbered lists (with the A, B or C designations). It would be easy enough to check (15 years of Day-Timers in the upstairs closet) but I'll bet most of those list items involved telling someone else to do something or checking to see if someone did what I told them to do. Only now, in retrospect, do I see how much I hated those little "nag lists."

Maybe it's like a bunch of people that all want to reach a common destination. They can get there much faster, and more comfortably, if they get on a bus. Everyone can shout out the best route but, in the end, only one person can drive. For some, the slave galley is a better analogy.

A few years ago I decided I didn't want to drive the bus, even if it wasn't headed in the direction I wanted to go. For now, I'm enjoying the ride... but I don't mind walking.

Fiber to the home.

Brother-in-law Chris reports that Verizon is installing fiber-to-the-home in his neighborhood of South Lake, Texas. According to this Yahoo! story, the company expects to market video services on the new FTTP network next year. DSL? Cable? Shhiiiiitttt. Fiber will deliver "download speeds of up to 5 Mbps, 15 Mbps and 30 Mbps, with upstream speeds of up to 2 Mbps for the first two products and 5 Mbps for the third. The 5 Mbps service sells for $34.95 per month, when purchased with a package of Verizon services, and $39.95 when purchased separately." Hard to believe I'll live to see that kind of speed to our home but I'm happy for him. Sort of.

BBC Radio gives podcasting a try.

"BBC Radio has for the last month been making some of its radio shows available for MP3 download. Is this news? Well yes, previously they've always streamed their content, so you had to be by your computer to receive it. With downloads you've been able to take it with you." [via Scripting.com]

Our networks should be exploring podcasting but when I talk to people about it they think I'm nuts. The fact that BBC Radio is jumping in (and NPR and a shit-load of other pretty reputable broadcasters) is completely lost on them. Check out some of the podcast categories and tell me how many of these can you find on traditional radio.

The Joy of Tech.

Just stumbled across this wonderful comic strip. I don't know what percentage of American's wind up in nursing homes but we all fear it. At least I do. Even the best nursing home is not a good place. Or so I concluded after my experience with my father (shudder). And by the time "they" have to put you in the home, you're too far gone to blow your brains out or over-dose. My standing joke has been: "Just make sure they have broadband."

Numb3rs.

I'm a big fan of the movies of Ridley and Tony Scott, so I don't know how I missed the fact they are brothers. The two are collaborating on TV series (that premiers on CBS in January) called Numb3rs:

"Rob Morrow stars as an FBI agent who recruits his mathematical genius brother to help the Bureau solve a wide range of challenging crimes in Los Angeles. Inspired by actual events, the series will depict how the confluence of police work and mathematics provide unexpected revelations and answers to the most perplexing criminal questions."

I'd be much more hopeful about the series if it were going to be on HBO but I'll be watching.

Photo journal.

Some friends of ours are making a quick holiday trip to see family in Florida and will be travelling at the peak. It gave me a wonderful idea. Take a photo every hour, on the hour, for the duration of the trip. Start with a shot of the alarm clock on day-one. Then, at the top of each hour, look around and take one picture. Nothing posed. Just shoot the first thing that catches your eye. And then go one with your holiday. If you're awake 15 hours each day, for a fast 3-day trip... you have 45 images without having to think much about what you're doing. If anybody tries this, let me know how it works. And I'd love to see the photos. If you don't have a Fotki account, here's a good reason to set one up.

Play-by-play on line two.

Rick Bozich -- a sports columnist for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky-- isn't sure he needs radio anymore:

"I followed the final 15 minutes of the Louisville-Florida basketball game while I was in Freedom Hall on Saturday. The game, remember, was played in Gainesville. I was courtside for Kentucky's annual Basketball 101 lecture against Indiana. I did not have a radio. I did have my cell phone. I connected to the Internet. Clicked to an ESPN site. Another click, and play-by-play from Gainesville flashed on my screen. Stats. Time. The works. Actually, that's not true  no greasy bacon ads. So tell me again, for precisely what do I depend on WHAS radio?

From my perspective, the most interesting part of this story is that the cheif operating officer of our company brought it in to me. He gets it and that's very important. One more thing... Radio is not going away. I don't want it to go away. But broadcasters must find a way to embrace new technologies instead of trying to lobby them out of existance or deny that existance.

Get Lit This Holiday.

Best holiday card to date is an original creation of Jeff Bassinson, inviting us to "light up the world."

We're not your real parents.

"Help real snipers get the real gear they need to help keep us safe." The most amazing thing about this website is that there is a need for it. We send these people into combat without the stuff they need so the folks back home provide it. Update: WRN reporter Bob Hague interview with Keith Deneys, director of Adopt A Sniper. [8 min/mp3]

Podcast your world.

"At present, terrestrial radio stations tend to structure their playlists to offend the least number of people so that audiences will stay tuned for the next group of commercials. That format has alienated listeners who crave more eclectic, less predictable fare on the airwaves." [from The Christian Science Monitor via iPodder]

Who indeed?

From adrants: "Who needs broadcast television, when podcasting will literally allow for the creation of personalized media channels? In the future, the device referred to as a TV will carry your own personalized podcast that you create and modify to your heart's content. Looks like growing old might not be so bad."

Free dog

Lucy has been "crated" since the first of September. She is now a free dog.

Too campy by half

How do you go over the top when your main character is a black, half-human, half-vampire? The producers of Blade:Trinity cast Parker Posey as the bitchy boss lady of the vampires.

And maybe it's just me but I thought the #1 Bad Guy (Dominic Purcell) looked a lot like Usay Hussein.

To die for

From USA TODAY: "Three decades after the U.S. defeat in what Vietnamese call the American War, and just three years since the two nations signed a bilateral trade agreement, U.S.-branded hotels such as Sheraton have opened. U.S.-based tour operators are venturing in. And today, a United Airlines jet touches down in Ho Chi Minh City (still called Saigon by many), marking the first commercial American air link to Vietnam since the war."

I think I read some where that the US now does $5 Billion in trade with Vietnam. Flash back to the bloodiest days of "the American War," and imagine you're a U.S. soldier being ordered to risk your life to save the South Vietnamese from a life under Communism (I think that's why we were there). If you could have looked into the future and seen that we would one day be trading partners with Communist Vietnam, would you still have been willing to lay down your life because politicians back in Washington decided it was vital to U.S. foreign policy?

So now our young men and women (and Iraqi men, women and children) are dying for a different foreign policy (I think it's the War On Terror). Just for fun, let's pretend it's 2035 and the U.S. has just signed a new trade agreement with Osama bin Laden. Seems ridiculous. Obscene. But no more impossible than the USA TODAY story above would have seemed in 1970.

Should a young man or woman be asked to lay down their life fighting an enemy that will one day be a trading partner? If we use WWII as an example, I guess the answer is "yes." We were on the right side in that war and we do lots of business with Germany and Japan (and Italy).

But, somehow, that just doesn't feel right to me. If I'm going to risk my life to kill the other guys, I don't want to kiss and make up down the road. Never. Ever. That's why I would have made a poor soldiar and an even worse Secretary of State.

Bamboo House.

The best place to eat in the Jefferson City Mall food court.

The Ecco Lounge.

One of our favorite places to to eat/drink in Jefferson City.

Radiosaurus Rex?

DenverPost.com reports radio execs are cutting ads, and trying Internet streaming to halt youths' exodus to iPods and satellite signals. Arbitron ratings show a 15 percent decline in listening over 10 years, a fall that accelerated the past five years.

"God help me, my 15-year-old daughter just put an XM satellite radio on her Christmas list," said Joel Burke, program director at KYGO's country 98.5 FM.

I'm not sure the NAB can lobby their way out of this. Thanks to Ben (an XM Radio employee) for the pointer.

Pop-up designers.

It never dawned on me that there are men and women out there making a living designing pop-up ads. Spammers remain a lower life form but this is a close second. Every day you sit in front of your computer designing ads that you know people don't want to see. Sort of like running up to strangers on the street and screaming in their face. I love the sentiment but not sure where I could wear the T-shirt.

Word of the year.

Merriam-Webster Inc. said on Tuesday that "blog" was one of the most looked-up words on its Internet sites this year. It tops the list the 10 words of the year. I don't know how you can read a newspaper or magazine, watch TV news or listen to the radio...and not have heard the word. But hardly a day goes by that I don't find myself explaining. [Reuters story]

Cluster Ballooning.

Amazing photos of the the amazing people that do this. The pilot wears a harness, to which a cluster of large, helium-filled balloons are attached. Control is achieved by releasing ballast to ascend, or by bursting balloons to descend. [Boing Boing via Slashdot via...]

Goodbye Thinkpad.

God, how depressing. I'm on my third Thinkpad and loved 'em all. Next one will be a Mac.

Party #1

The firm where Barb works had their annual holiday party last night. I captured the most interesting 30 seconds of the evening. I also learned that at least two Amish men have lost fingers in power tool accidents in recent months (in mid-Missouri). This raises too many questions to answer here. A Google search shed no light.

Tour de Northeast Arkansas.

We have been able to confirm Sheryl Crow and Lance Armstrong were in Kennett, Missouri for Thanksgiving and while I can't confirm the Wal-Mart siting, we're told SC and LA lunched at Bill's Bar-B-Que. Lance also found time for a little bike tour of northeast Arkansas (Kennett to Rector to Piggott to Kennett). Less hilly than some of his other routes.

A need to know

On March 25, 2002, I posted some thoughts on the movie Monster's Ball, including a reference to the execution of James Henry Hampton two years previously (I was a media witness). On Thursday I received an email from someone (no name was provided, just initials) identifying herself as Hampton's granddaughter.

I have just recently learned that I am the granddaughter of James Henry Hampton, a man you saw executed on March 22, 2000, ironically the night of my junior prom. I've been searching for information on him for a while, because my family refuses to tell me even his last name or anything about him. I was only told of his first name and my mother informed me the night of my celebration that my real grandfather was being executed. The only leads I have are the online articles I've come across. My friend came across your web log and suggested I e-mail you. So I guess I'll get to the point. Can you please tell me all that you can remember about my grandfather's execution? Was he hateful or spiteful? Was he scared and lonely? Regretful? I realize that this man was an atrocity to society but this same man's blood courses through my veins. I'm the only one in my family who apparently has his color features and love for root beer (only thing mom and grandma ever let slip when I ordered it at a restaurant). So please sir, tell me what you can, to help me in my search for my family's truths. Thank you for your time.

I replied with a description of the execution and a link to a website with more information about her grandfather. I can only wonder at the woman's curiosity that she would be moved to ask a stranger to "...tell me all that you can remember about my grandfather's execution." As we (the official witnesses) waited for Hampton's execution, I had many thoughts. That this man might have a granddaughter attending her junior prom was not one of them. Another example of Dr. Weinberger's Small Pieces Loosely Joined.

Necks of red.

Sheets of white. An Alabama lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries. It's amazing how many of these guys turn out to be deeply closeted homsexuals.