smays.com

New section of KATY Trail open to cyclists

Holy Taco

It's always a delight to find a blog that shares my appreciation for the misfortune or dumb-assedness of others. Like these two nuggets at Holy Taco. An out-of-control teen slaps his mother... and a crew of gangsta wannabees.

Next generation radio

Jerry Del Colliano shares a few ideas on "next generation radio" he'll be presenting to an interactive session for radio executives next month:

"My view is that terrestrial radio is now a destination entertainment medium for available listeners - older members of Gen X and the baby boomers."

"...there is no need to produce 24/7 programming online. ... But the radio station of the future may only provide three hours of programming a day – that’s right, a day – and deliver it on a cell phone or mobile device.

"Podcasting will be the new radio for Gen Y."

"The successful content provider in the future will have to unlock the genius of Steve Jobs in understanding a generation they are not in – and Jobs, arguably, knows Gen Y better than they know themselves."

"In the past, a radio station had to be on-air, all the time and doing the same format over and over again. But in the future, new media will require radio broadcasters who want to play in this arena to be many things for which it does not presently have skills."

If you're interested in where radio might be headed, I encourage you to read the full post. Companies that provide programming to radio stations -- like our company-- are sure to be affected by the same forces. Are we ready?

John McCain's YouTube nightmare

From LATimes.com: "Six of the top 10 videos returned by a "John McCain" YouTube search Thursday pegged the 71-year-old as inconsistent, extreme, wooden or a combination of the three. (The one clearly favorable piece came from the McCain campaign and focused on his Navy service.)

Contrast that with a YouTube search of "Barack Obama." It's a swoon fest, with virtually all of the top entries featuring the Illinois senator at his eloquent, uplifting best."

Damn. This McCain video has been viewed 1.5 million times. Pre-YouTube, his opponents could have assembled this video easy enough. And they could buy some TV time and air it. But YouTube just changes everything. How do you answer something like this?

"They took my remarks out of context" is getting pretty lame.

We're entering (we're IN?) an era when everything is recorded and everything shows up on YouTube.

Coppyblogger Twitter Writing Contest

Congratulations to Ron Gould, first place winner the Coppyblogger Twitter Writing Contest. His winning entry:

“Time travel works!” the note read. “However you can only travel to the past and one-way.” I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill.

Second place honors went to Anthony Juliano:

"Tony was a snitch, so I wasn’t surprised when his torso turned up in the river. What did surprise me, though, was where they found his head."

Thelonius Monk took third place for:

"When Gibson hit that homerun in the fall of eighty-eight, my old man had never been so happy. He hugged me for the first time. I was eleven."

The challenge was to write a story in exactly 140 characters. I fear my humble submission was too... belittling? Too pissy? We'll never know.

"To my immediate left, a hipster dwarf leaned into his urinal, cleverly achieving a haunting reverb for his "big" finish to Unchained Melody."

One more good thing about being 60

Stick around for the finish.

New media can't get here soon enough

Proto-blogger Dave Winer thinks the real problem revealed by Scott McClellan's new tell-all book is that the press was complicit in beating the Iraq war drum:

"But corporate-owned media isn't interested in helping us make decisions as a country, they're only interested in ad revenue. That's why it's so important that we're creating new media that isn't so conflicted, and why the question of whether bloggers run ads or not is far from a trivial issue."

When it comes to national media, there really are not that many outlets that need to be manipulated. Four TV networks; maybe that many cable news channels; a handful of newspapers with national reach. If you can juke them, you've got a lot of the country juked.

The sooner their influence is diminished, the better. There will no longer be even the illusion of "national media" and people will have to work (a little) at being informed. Sure, the willfully clueless will still head for blogs and news sites that confirm their view. But the rest of us will stop trusting (if we haven't already) news organizations that are child's play for political spin-miesters.

Mike Spooner: Creator of Worlds

Remember that kid that sat behind you grade school that was always drawing? Ever wonder what happened to him? Well, if he (or she) was as talented as Michael Spooner, he did okay.

Michael (we knew him as Mike back then) and I were classmates 45 years ago in Kennett, MO. Michael and I ran in different crowds but Kennett was a small place and everybody knew everybody.

In a previous post I mentioned that Michael stumbled across smays.com a few days ago and pinged me. He included some old snapshots and his resume, to let me know what he's been up to.

He got into animation as a  Layout Artist with Ralph Bakshi’s feature production of Tolkien’s, Lord of the Rings. He spent some years at Disney where he worked on --just to name a few-- Goof Troop, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Emperor's New Groove, Treasure Planet and Lilo and Stitch. He also assisted on early development design of Dreamworks' Shrek. And he Co-Art Directed Warner Brothers first full-length animated feature, Quest for Camelot. If you have kids or an appreciation for animation, check out his bio. He was also kind enough to share a dozen or so examples of his work.

I called Michael up this morning and asked him to share some of his adventures and we wound up talking for an hour. I've cut the interview into three segments about about 20 minutes each.

Download Interview-part1.mp3

Download Interview-part2.mp3

Download Interview-part3.mp3

Today, Michael owns Spoonerville Animation Design, an independent visual development studio, providing both traditional and CGI design concepts and lives in the western suburbs of Chicago with his writer-wife Beverly, and son Philip. Michael is a visiting artist and lecturer, presenting in universities, art schools and animation studios throughout the United States.

Download Interview-part1.mp3

Download Interview-part2.mp3

Download Interview-part3.mp3

Today, Michael owns Spoonerville Animation Design, an independent visual development studio, providing both traditional and CGI design concepts and lives in the western suburbs of Chicago with his writer-wife Beverly, and son Philip. Michael is a visiting artist and lecturer, presenting in universities, art schools and animation studios throughout the United States.

Download Interview-part2.mp3

Download Interview-part3.mp3

Today, Michael owns Spoonerville Animation Design, an independent visual development studio, providing both traditional and CGI design concepts and lives in the western suburbs of Chicago with his writer-wife Beverly, and son Philip. Michael is a visiting artist and lecturer, presenting in universities, art schools and animation studios throughout the United States.

Download Interview-part3.mp3

Today, Michael owns Spoonerville Animation Design, an independent visual development studio, providing both traditional and CGI design concepts and lives in the western suburbs of Chicago with his writer-wife Beverly, and son Philip. Michael is a visiting artist and lecturer, presenting in universities, art schools and animation studios throughout the United States.

Blogger's High

E-Media Tidbits points us to an article in the May 2008 Scientific American, by Jennifer Wapner (Blogging: It's Good for You): 

"Blogging may make us feel better because it acts as a substitute or placebo for real satisfaction. Or, according to one neuroscientist cited by Wapner, our limbic (primitive) brain may have an innate need to communicate -- akin to our drives for food or sex. Thus, as we blog, our bodies may release the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine."

Damn. I feel better already.

Best BLT in town

What makes for a really good bacon-lettuce-and-tomato sandwich? The L and T should be fresh and the B should be crisp and generous in proportion. You have a couple of options on the bread, whole wheat or sourdough. But either must be toasted.

One of the best BLT's in Jefferson City can be found at Oscar's out on the East end of town. Chef Rich (Richie?) made this one for me and it was de-licious.

Scott's been brainwashed!

Let me see if I've got this... the mainstream media boys are covering --and evaluating-- Scott McClellan's charges that the mainstream media was asleep at the wheel in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Is that right?

Give me a fucking break. McClellan's book appears to confirm what most Americans now "know in their knowers"... Bush & Co. lied to us in selling the war.

What we're seeing now is the frantic scramble you get when you turn the light on in a kitchen full of roaches. RUN!!!

What mystifies me is why the Bush Gang cares. They long ago quit giving a shit what the American people thought about them and their policies. Why all the drama about a press secretary's book.

The obvious spin is going be that someone "got to" Scott McClellan.

More flip video (Intern Birthday)

I'm still testing the flip video camera under different lighting conditions. This clip runs just over a minute and looks a little washed out (?) to me. And the flickr stream tends to stop-start. Not sure if that's the flip or flickr.

Our IT guys found a fun way to embarrass one of the new interns... AND share a Big Cookie.

The Digital Cottage Industry

I've posted frequently about my friend Chuck, who --with his wife Cindy and a SWAT team of free-lance bloggers-- have built a thriving business providing blogging, podcasting and related services to a growing list of clients.

"Cindy and I have been going over calendars and we just realized that we have 23 events scheduled to blog in the next 3 months. Yeeow. Just the hotel reservations, credentialing, registering, airline reservations, etc. are a task. We’ve also got 5 website projects underway just to add to the fun."

Can you make money blogging? For most, the answer is "not likely." For the few, the proud, the Marines... yes. Booyah!

The results business

Mark Ramsey points to a survey of marketing professionals that shows growing pressure on accountability:

"86% of marketers say pressure has increased on them to account for results; no one said that the pressure has decreased. Moreover, 68% of organizations are measuring the quantifiable contribution of marketing to the bottom line.

Message to radio: You're no longer in the advertising business. You're in the results business. So which are you selling, advertising or results?"

I feel like I should have something to say about this... but I don't know what it would be.

"Poor whites are being conned"

So writes Leonard Pitts, a columnist for the Miami Herald who's trying to understand why Barack Obama lost so decisively in West Virginia (and later in Kentucky). If there's a victim here, it's not Senator Obama.

"The white poor have been victims of a con job going back at least as far as the Civil War, when poor white men were used as cannon fodder for the right of rich white men -- I repeat: rich white men -- to keep slaves. They were told they fought for state's rights.

From then till now, the white poor have often been the front line of white supremacy. You think people with college degrees and six-figure salaries are out there marching around under pointy white hoods, burning crosses? Hardly.

My point is that race has often been used as a means of distracting and diverting the white poor. They had little in life, nor any realistic expectation of having more.

But the one thing they did have -- or so the con went -- was whiteness itself. Which meant they had someone to be better than. Someone to look down upon."

Hearing this idea so clearly expressed reminded me of some of my favorite films that incorporated this theme: To Kill A Mockingbird, In the Heat of the Night, Monster's Ball.

It will be interesting to see how the GOP works this lever between now and November.

Thank you, Mr. Pollack

Sydney Pollack is gone but he left us lots of great movies, including some of my favorites (Jeremiah Johnson, Three Days of the Condor). We remember him here with this final scene from TDOTC:

Michael Spooner

A Google search led Mike Spooner (he goes by Michael these day) to this blog. I grew up with Mike, er, Michael, in Kennett, Missouri. He moved to Flint, Michigan, in 1964, did "some" college before getting drafted in 1969. Not a good year to get drafted. Following service he attended art college in Los Angeles and stayed for 28 years. From Michael's bio:

"Michael Spooner has worked in the animation industry for twenty-five years with such notable studios as Walt Disney, Warner Brothers and DreamWorks. Michael’s professional career in art began in 1976, when he was invited to join the faculty at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, after graduating with distinction.  He taught for twelve years, simultaneously working as a freelance illustrator for clients that included the Public Broadcasting System, Zondervan Publishing House, Masda Motors, the National Football League, NBC Television, Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox."

This sounds like a Brush with Near Greatness to me and I've asked Michael for an interview. Stay tuned.

He got lost for a couple of hours in our Flickr photostream and shares some photos from his stash. A couple of his Cub Scout pack; one of the KHS swim team; and one of the KHS junior high track team.

The swim team photo brought back fond memories of Diane West (far left). We dated a few times. She was 16 --and could drive-- and I was still 15. She lived at the municipal swimming pool and exuded the intoxicating fragrance of chlorine.

It's nice to hear from Mike and see a few long, lost photos from my youth.

"Waning Days of the Road Warrior"

I hate air travel. Not "white knuckle" hate, but "hassle hate." Fortunately I don't have to do much of it any more. But lots of people in our company do and I feel for them. I also wonder how much of it is really necessary. Usually while playing with iChat and live video streaming.

Latest issue of Business Week has an article titled, The Waning Days of the Road Warrior (Why the current slowdown in business travel may not end when the economy recovers).

"For years, Irv Rothman, CEO of Hewlett-Packard's Financial Services division, traveled at least once a quarter—top three lieutenants in tow—from his New Jersey base to HP's Silicon Valley headquarters. After enduring Newark airport hell and six-and-a-half hours of stale, germy air, the team would arrive, strung out, to meet with their boss. For one hour. Then they would turn around and do the whole thing all over again.

The super surge in oil prices and resulting spike in airfares is just one reason companies are ordering their road warriors home. Factor in, too, the misery of modern air travel, which has de-glamorized the business junket. HR types also have a new appreciation for how the frequent-flier lifestyle can wreck executives' health and family lives. And they have come to realize that jetting off for a one-hour meeting, while instinctual for corporate strivers, is rarely productive.

So, if managers aren't flying to meetings, what are they doing? Using newfangled technology that is finally delivering the kind of Star Trek-y, space- and time-shifting experiences that tech executives have blabbered on about forever. Videoconferencing, Web-enabled meetings, online collaboration tools—all are giving workers the ability to dart around the globe from their desk chairs."

The article reminded me of driving from Jefferson City, MO, to Dubuque, IA (9 hours?) to call on a station manager who really didn't want to see me. To get the appointment I said something like, "All I need is a minute of your time."

When I walked into his office and started take a seat, he reminded me that I had said I only needed one minute and that's all that I had. So I stood there with my little briefcase in hand and told him what our network could do for his station. (I didn't sign him up) Today I might have just sent him a Quicktime file or made my "pitch" via iChat. No less effective and a lot less costly.

Videoconferencing and related technologies really only work when both parties want to hear what the other has to say. How many meetings take place because it was the only way the "prospect" could get the sales rep to leave her the fuck alone? (Wonder if there's any data on that)

These days, most of the people I deal with in remote locations want to talk to me and I want to talk to them. And, increasingly, they have the tech skills to do a quick face-to-face.

And if I need to send them a url or an image or any other kind of file for that matter, it's easy to do.

Old Schoolers will talk about body language and non-verbal communication and "pressing the flesh" and all the other arguments for being in the same room.

We'll talk again when that airline ticket to the coast is $2,000.

Inmates take over asylum

Taisir made the mistake of leaving the coffee bar unattended for a few minutes and that was long enough for Randy Allen to commandeer the Rocket Fuel.

PS: I shot this brief clip with the Flip Video camera.
PPS: Yes, I'm cross-posting from the Coffee Zone blog to avoid TWO days in a row w/o a post here.

Flip Video Camera

Yes, I am aware of how many video cameras I own. No, I do not need another one. I purchased a Flip video camera ($150.00) because I was so intrigued with the idea of a small, inexpensive camera designed to do just one thing. Video.

They even did away with the USB cable and SD cards. You plug the Flip right into the USB port with a little... flip-out USB connector.

The one I got records an hour of video. I think the $100 model does 30 min. Check the website for specs.

Does the Flip take better video than my little Casio. Probably not. Is it as handy as a pocket on a shirt. Yes, indeedy, and it's less than half the price.

I'm not sure what I'll do with mine. I just wanted to see if this device is a cool as I've been hearing and reading. I think it might be. Toss it in your beach bag or your purse and go. Hit the red button and you're recording. Makes the Sony Camcorder seem like a big old pain in the ass to lug around.

Uses two AA batteries and works with Mac or PC.

Warning: You'll hear me talking baby talk to our Golden Retrievers. Runs 90 sec.

flickr'ing and 'tubing Obama and Clinton

Senator Hillary Clinton has been complaining (whining?) that she is not being treated fairly by The Media. I won't argue that point because "media" probably means something different to me than to her.

But I was fascinated by the results of flickr searches for "Hillary Clinton" and "Barack Obama." Rather than try to characterize the two here, I'll let you browse at your leisure and draw your own conclusions. And I'm open to the possibility my perception is colored by my support for Obama.

I suppose Senator Clinton could argue that she is not being treated fairly by "flickr users" since her core constituencies seem to be white women over 50 and less-affluent, less-educated white people living in Appalachia. Not heavy flickr users, one might suppose.

But I'm not sure how one could argue that the future does not belong to the Internet generation(s). And I recently hit 60 so I don't think that's ageism.

What's my point? This just underscores the idea that Obama represents the future and, yes, change. McCain and Clinton... the past. Things as they have been.

PS: I just did the same searches on YouTube and the difference is even more pronounced. Obama - Clinton.

Twitter our little secret

"Do not tell your journalism colleagues about Twitter! Keep it as your own secret tool. Instead of seeing journalistic conservatism about online media as a problem, try viewing it as your competitive edge."

The best advice I've had in weeks from Fons Tuinstra at E-Media Tidbits.

Bill and Sheryl

Friend and photog Bill Greenblatt is kind enough to share a few of the photos he took of Sheryl Crow this week at an event in Kennett, MO (her hometown and mine). Bill and Sheryl are pals which helps him get nice a close for the great shots he always provides.

SC fan and smays.com pen pall, Ann, points out how happy and relaxed Ms. Crow appears in these latest photos. Hey, she's just a former twirler from KHS.

Google Blog Search

I was curious if any other bloggers (from the Kennett area, for example) had posted on Sheryl Crows visit. I entered "sheryl crow" (w/o quotation) in Google Blog Search and got more than a million results.

Just 14 hours after posting Charles Jolliff's report (with a link to his flickr pix), my post topped the list.

Here's the thing: smays.com only generates 300 page views a day. And maybe a couple of hundred people subscribe to the RSS feed. And there are no shortage of blog posts from fans or whomever.

It always blows me away when I'm reminded of the power (at least as far as Google is concerned) of blogs.

"We make money because we blog, not from our blog."

"We make money because we blog not from our blog. We earn because we learn from sharing our experiences with others, not because we let advertisers hitch a ride on our writing for a fee. No one pays attention to the ads, so it doesn't matter if you include them or not." Dave Winer quoting Doc Searls

The very essence of blogging.

Sheryl Crow back in Kennett for ribbon cutting

The old Ely & Walker shirt factory, just off the downtown square in Kennett, Missouri, has been converted to nice new apartments and today was the ribbon cutting. On hand for the dedication was Kennett's favorite daughter, Sheryl Crow. And smays.com's Kennett Bureau Chief, Charles Jolliff was there as well and shares his photos.

"I missed the money shot, going to the top of the roof and looking down while the ribbon cutting was going on... but, I can only be in one place at one time for the moment." [Note to self: send Charles latest draft of Bilocation and You. And You.]

Charles says he didn't spot anyone that looked like Ms. Crow's new Friend, so he moved in for this quick shot. Well done, CJ.

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"Interact or stay home"

Seth Godin writes of a new standard for meetings and conferences:

"Here's what someone expects if they come to see you on an in-person sales call: that you'll be prepared, focused, enthusiastic and willing to engage honestly about the next steps. If you can't do that, don't have the meeting.

If you're a knowledge worker, your boss shouldn't make you come to the (expensive) office every day unless there's something there that makes it worth your trip. She needs to provide you with resources or interactions or energy you can't find at home or at Starbucks. And if she does invite you in, don't bother showing up if you're just going to sit quietly."

There's little doubt I could do what I do from home (or the Coffee Zone) but gosh, I'd miss interacting with co-workers. I could get some of that over the net but I do like breathing the same air.

Having said that, I can do without the travel and hassle just to watch a Powerpoint show. On Saturday, I showed one of our top execs just how easy it is to stream live via Ustream. I could almost reach out and touch the little lightbulb that appeared above his head.

Pull!

I went skeet shooting with Scott and Christi yesterday. Technically, I went "skeet-shooting-at," since I didn't actually hit one of the little clay targets (in the air). Scott placed a couple on the ground about 20 feet from the shooting area ("home intruder range") and I sent them to the ER if not the morgue. [Video runs 90 sec - Flickr set]

I haven't shot a gun in 40 years. Last time was during training for the Postal Inspection Service. We had to qualify with a sidearm (a very un-sexy .38 revolver back in those days) and got an hour or two of training with a 12 gauge riot gun.

I really enjoyed yesterday's outing and quickly became the designated clay pigeon flinger. Used a little plastic launcher to sling tiny clay Frisbees into the air where Scott and Christie blew them to smithereens.

I was impressed by the skill exhibited by both Scott and Christie. She wielded a 12 gauge pump (is there anything hotter than a woman with a 12 gauge?) and he switched back and forth between a couple of shotguns.

In case you're wondering... no, I'm not a hunter and don't plan to be. I've never owned a gun. But in the unlikely event someone showed up in the middle of the night, uninvited, I'd like to greet them with something besides my MacBook in my hands. Scott recommends a side-by-side double-barrel 20 gauge.

I know. I'm as surprised as you are.

Bonus Image: Ejectile Dysfunction

Novel only missed by eight years

I'm reading (for the 4th or 5th time) The War in 2020 by Ralph Peters. One of the minor characters in the novel, written in 1991, is Johathan Water, the black president of the United States. Here are a couple of paragraphs from page 120:

"President Waters had been elected in 2016, on a platform that focused on domestic renewal and on bridging the gap between the increasingly polarized elements in American society.

The candidacy of Jonathan Water succeeded on the premise that all Americans could live together. He promised education, urban renewal, and opportunity, and he was a handsome, magnetic man, who spoke in the rhetoric of Yale rather than the Baptist Church. A campaign-season joke called him the white-man's black and the black-man's white... and he felt like the right man for the times to a bare majority of the citizens of his country. He defeated an opponent who was a foreign policy expert, but who had few domestic solutions with which to inspire a troubled nation."

Is it just me, or does that have a familiar ring to it?

New beau for Sheryl Crow?

The National Ledger --quoting Life & Style-- reports Sheryl Crow is dating John Cassimus, a restaurateur from Birmingham, Ala.

"John, who’s also a pilot, has been flying his plane to Nashville to see her. They’ve kept it pretty low-key — cooking together, riding horses, going up in his plane.” And if they decide to dine out, they’ll never have to worry about a reservation.

“John runs a restaurant chain in the South called Zoë’s Kitchen,” the insider says. “He’s also a partner in a Japanese place called Jinsei in Homewood, near Birmingham.” Sheryl is set to perform in nearby Pelham on May 23 — and, according to the insider, be with her new beau."

Here's some background on John. Is it just me, or does he look a little like Lance?

"No one's in heaven here, but no one's in hell"

I don't think I've ever heard a sadder love song than We Just Get Along by the Evangenitals.

I gave it some thought before I wrote that. I tried to remember some of the saddest love songs (are all sad songs love songs?) I've heard in the last 40+ years. Don't worry, I won't try to list any here. My list wouldn't look anything like yours.

How sad and achingly beautiful is We Just Get Along? Do you remember the moment in Thelma and Louise when Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis are sitting the car near the edge of the cliff with the cops coming for them and they look at each other with perfect understanding? It's that sad. And just a little bit sadder.

I'm nothing like her
Which may be why he likes me so much
I don't have her power
I don't have her touch

No one's in heaven here
but no one's in hell
We just get along

Naw, that doesn't cut it. You gotta sit in the dark with that last beer, remembering. Remembering a time when you were in love and they weren't.

As I listened to the half dozen cuts from the CD (Everlovin') I kept wondering, "Why aren't these songs hits?" But that's just the old DJ/Billboard Hot 100 coming out. We don't need radio to make hits anymore. The songs --if they're good enough-- take on a life of their own and roll across the Internet, from one link to the next.

10 Cutest Lesbians

Huffington Post: "Ellen DeGeneres is putting the California Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage into action. She and Portia de Rossi plan to wed, DeGeneres announced during a taping of her talk show."

I knew Ms (no offense) DeGeneres was gay but had forgotten that PDR was her significant other.

There was also something in the news this week about Jodie Foster being gay. As Johnny Carson used to say, I did not know that. Huh.

You know what I did next. I Googled Ten Cutest Lesbians, thinking I might find... a list of attractive woman of an alternate (alternative?) persuasion. Uh, no. Almost 3 million results and not one even close to what I was after.

I would take a stab at creating such a list but realized I cannot tell who is gay and who is not (unless we move into Birdcage territory). So, if you don't find it inappropriate (and I do not), help me compile this list so there will be at least one non-porn result in that Google search.

Goobris: Excessive pride in pointless Google rankings

Someone watching this morning's webcast pointed out (in the chat room) that a Google search for the words "fez, ukulele, magician" (no quotation marks) results in 1,320 hits and OrderoftheFez.com is #1. Cool. Those are pretty common words.

Google "fez ukulele" (no quotation marks) and OOTF tops a list of almost 11,000 results. Cooler.

Regular readers know I post on this kind of "accomplishment" with some frequency, exhibiting a kind of search engine hubris (excessive pride). I decided to call this flaw, "goobris."

Before claiming this new term, I googled it of course and found the following definition:

"Goobris: The arrogance exhibited by many in the Valley, especially those that believe "the geek shall inherit the Earth." [S. E. August]

From the context, I surmise the "goob" in this usage is from the term "goober," ... NOT Google. Therefor, I lay claim to the term "goobris," meaniing excessive pride in pointless Google rankings.

Radio with pictures

I gotta face it. I'm a radio guy. I have neither the face nor the concentration for TV. That's my take-away from this morning's live webcast from the Coffee Zone. Just too many things to keep track of. Watch the chat stream, monitor the audio (which is several seconds behind what is being said), look at the camera... whew!

As I replayed our half-hour chat I found myself thinking, this would have been much easier (and less painful for all concerned) if we'd just streamed the audio. Pictures added nothing to our little experiment.

We had 9 or 10 people watching, giving us encouragement in the chat room like parents at a grade-school production of 12 Angry Men, whispering our lines from the wings ("Turn up the mic!").

I think I'm going to look for some sort of live event for the next webcast. Perhaps the 4th of July parade or something. Stay tuned.

Bill O'Reilly's Producer

The amusing lads at Barely Political give us a peak at the man behind the camera that sparked Bill O'Reilly's Inside Edition tirade. All they had to do was think of it. Good stuff.

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Stop me when it starts to look like I'm stalking her

I really enjoyed the movie Million Dollar Baby... right up until I realized it was not going have a happy ending. I spent the last 15 or 20 minutes of the film in the lobby, watching some brats play air hockey. I didn't watch the ending of Old Yeller either.

I bring it up because I just discovered a connection between Maggie Fitzgerald (the Hillary Swank character) and Juli Crockett, the lead singer of the Evangenitals who dropped us a comment last week.

"Boxing trainer Jerry Boyd had never met Juli Crockett when he wrote the stories on which the film Million Dollar Baby is based. But when he did--at a bout in San Diego--he was convinced she was Maggie Fitzgerald, the tough and driven fighter of his fiction (played by Hilary Swank in the movie) come to life. Like Fitzgerald, Crockett came from the South, grew up without a father (but found one in the ring), and had a brief but stunning pro career (3-0, with 2 knockouts) cut short by injuries (though not nearly as severe as Fitzgerald's). Other parallels: ambition, boxing style, that smile. Crockett, now 29 and a grad student, saw Million Dollar Baby for the first time last week." [Interview in USNews]

Turns out Ms. Crockett is much more than a humble singer/songwriter. Her Wikipedia page has the dope.

Today's assignment... name three other female singers who can punch your lights out. Leave your answers on my desk as you leave.

I'll take geo-political history for 500, Chris

This segment on last night's MSNBC Hardball is one of the things I most dislike about cable news (yes, I did watch it).

"Chris Matthews, convinced that LA radio talk show guy Kevin James wasn't real strong in his knowledge of geo-political history, asking James if he knew what Neville Chamberlain did at Munich in 1938. If you answered, "He signed the Munich Agreement, conceding a portion of Czechoslovakia to the Nazi regime," you are right. If you answered, "He talked to Hitler, and caused 9/11 to happen, just like Barack Hussein bin Laden wants to!" then you are Kevin James."

When did it become okay to just shout the other guy down? No wonder the rest of the world thinks were a bunch of assholes.

A million photographs

There's an image on the right side of this page that's taken by a little webcam in my office that uploads a photo every 30 seconds. At the end of the day I sometimes leave it pointed toward the door to the hallway, and sometimes I point it out the window. Today I aimed it in a different direction and got this image.

If I've done the math correctly, that's 2,880 images every day. One million plus every year (is it really a new photograph if nothing has changed?). The daytime images aren't all that interesting but the ones taken when the office is empty sometimes are. Maybe it's the idea of the photo composing itself.

I've had the Office-cam for years and, frankly, I'm surprised nobody has gone into my office at night and... had some fun. The obvious thing would be to moon me (and the world). But wouldn't it be more fun to create little tableaux? Maybe a solitary figure standing in the parking lot, in the rain... looking directly up at the camera. Or close-up of someone's eye. Or a page from a book.

And knowing the photo would only exist for 30 seconds, when the next photo takes it's place. It would really only exist if someone, somewhere, saw it and decided to save it within that half-minute.

I have this fantasy of some guy serving a life sentence. In his cell 23 hours a day. No TV, no radio, no books or magazines... just a computer that can only do one thing. Show the images from my webcam.

What sort of story would he construct from these images. Year after year, some aging white guy in some office somewhere. People walking past the open doorway, sometimes coming in to talk. About something he'll never know. Would he wonder about my moods from my facial expressions? Would he feel as though he knows me after years of watching me, hour after hour?

And suppose --somehow-- I was made aware he existed. And my webcam was his only window on the world. Would I behave differently? Perhaps lure some cute co-workers in for a chat, to brighten his day?

As silly as this sounds, I really don't know that this is not happening. Hmm.

Well. Tomorrow is Fez Friday. He always enjoys Fez Friday.

Old dogs and new tricks

Mindy McAdams (Teaching Online Journalism) always seems to have fresh insight into the state of journalism:

"I see a few people in almost every newsroom (usually less than one-quarter of the staff) embracing the new ways of communication and trying to spread their journalism and enhance their organization’s outputs via new channels and techniques. I see a lot more people who are worried, even frightened, that there will be no place for them in this new world.

The latter group interests me a lot more than the small number of chained-to-the-barricades dinosaurs (who also exist in every newsroom) — because they are very different from the dinosaurs. They are not resistant because they think the Internet is a short-lived fad, or because they fail to see its potential, or because they are in love with the smell of ink on paper. Rather, they are resistant because they don’t know how to train themselves — they are waiting for someone to hand them a tool and show them how to use it."

This is a point I tend to overlook. And journos --if I may generalize-- aren't the type to admit they don't know how to do something and ask for help.

Goodnight, Chet. Goodnight, David.

Lost Remote's s Cory Bergman thinks J-schools should downplay anchor careers:

"Journalism schools, as a public service, should strongly discourage students from pursuing an anchoring career. The emphasis should be on the “do-it-all” multimedia journalist who can produce, report, write, shoot and edit both on TV and the web. Flexibility is key."

And if you need another reason to be discouraged from pursuing a career as an anchor...

The First Thing I Saw When I Opened My Eyes #001

After a long night of blogging and Beck's guzzling, I sometimes wake up in strange places. Last weekend it was in the middle of a gravel road. My first thought was "The Beck's Elves have left me in The Land of Giant Turtles." My second was, "No problem, I can outrun a giant turtle, even with a hangover."

Someone please tie me to the mast

I make and receive about three phone calls a week. All to and from Barb.

"Want me to bring you some Chinese?"

"Pick up some dog food. We're out."

"Did you try to call me just now? (No) Huh."

So I don't really need a cell phone. Let alone an iPhone. But boy are those buggers cool? All my pals have them and love them. Can't imagine going back to whatever they had before.

And next month we'll probably see the new and improved (3G) iPhone and the flames of my iPhone lust will be whipped as by Santa Ana winds.

When asked why I don't have an iPhone, I mumble some variation of what you just read. But the real answer has more to do with my MacBook Pro. I always have it with me and have big chunks of my life recordable or accessible there.

Think of the MacBook Pro as a sleek, high-performance racing car. And the iPhone as a sexy, top-of-the-line motorcycle (Candy Apple Red).

It would be fun to ride the motorcycle (zoom! zoom!) but that would mean leaving the MacBook Pro in the garage. What a waste. Why not take both along? I could, but that would be like towing the motorcycle behind the sports car on a trailer. Cumbersome (and silly).

I'd love to see some data on this. Do new iPhone users tote their laptops less often? Perhaps at the molecular level, we are laptoppers or iPhoners. I think I'm the former.

Chroma Key effect with CamTwist

I finally figured it out. Sort of. If you can count stumbling on the right configuration and being unable to do it twice in a row "figured it out." But I now know that it can be done. (The background image is lobby of our new offices in Dallas.)

My setup is pretty crude. Two flood lights from Lowe's and a few yards of green felt on the basement wall. It's pretty clear that lighting is critical for this effect and I might have to come up with more or better lights before I try a video background.

And streaming (over the wifi) from the basement isn't gonna cut it. Too slow. Gotta get an Ethernet jack down here or set up in the upstairs office. But hey, that's what weekends are for, right? I'm proud to say I PayPal'd the CamTwist guy $50. It's worth far more than that.

Shredded memories

My friend David, who lives in southwest Missouri, found some... I hate to call them scraps or debris... shredded memories from the weekend tornadoes that hammered parts of four states.

He posted them to his blog in hopes someone might recognize the photo and help get (what's left of) it back to the owner.

Regular readers of this blog know I loves my photos and I keep iPhoto backed up nightly. And I take great comfort in having many of them on flicker or embedded in a post here.

If you have a shoe box full of photos but lack the time, tools or patience to scan them... send them off to one of the many services that will do it for you. I'd add: then hire a high school kid to put them up on flickr, but a lot of folks are just not comfortable with that. But it give me great comfort knowing mine are safely floating in cyberspace.

When the time comes, I'm going to figure out a way to see that they stay up (out?) there after I'm gone.

When I get famous, I'm gonna be a dick, too.

From Huffington Post: "It should come as no surprise that Bill O'Reilly has always been a screamer, but it's always nice to have video proof. Below, watch a vintage meltdown from his "Inside Edition" days that has just resurfaced (via Gawker), in which he freaks out over bad writing on the teleprompter and unleashed an obscenity-laced tirade towards the writer. [My original link was to YouTube. They pulled that. You can watch Big Bill go ape shit here.]

Brush with Near Greatness: Juli Crockett

It never ceases to amaze me how many of the people I mention here find my humble little notes and get in touch. I could mention a few but it would be the worst kind of name dropping. Okay, I'll mention one.

A week or so back I gushed about the song Fuck 'em All by the Evangenitals and how I had searched (unsuccessfully) for the lyrics. Well, guess who left a little comment love:

"I'll tell you what...  I'm going to add Fuck 'em All to the Evangenitals website, and I'll put the lyrics up there just for you. :-) Give me a few days, and as you wish, so it shall be. Thanks for finding us, for listening, and for hearing."

Love, Rev Juli Crockett (lead singer/songwriter) - The Evangenitals

Like the lady in the DirecTV commercial (the redhead with the big ass) says, "How cool is that?"

Mom

iMage Webcam, CamTwist and Ustream

I've been trying to assemble the best combination (for me) of hardware and software for streaming live video. The ease-of-use and price (free, for now) of Ustream.tv has made it possible for any nimrod to play in Wayne's World.

MacBooks, with the built-in iSight camera, make live video just that much easier but sometimes you want to point the camera the other direction, so an external webcam enters the picture (so to speak).

This weekend I've been playing with the iMage webcam from eCamm. It doesn't look like much but --for $60-- it delivers a very nice image and you can put it in your pocket. I've mounted mine on a small tripod.

The final --and most exciting-- piece of the puzzle has been a freeware app called CamTwist. CamTwist works very well with Ustream.tv and comes with an amazing set of features and a UI that's intuitive and easy to use. If you're interested, I recommend this short video, but let me mention some of the cool things CamTwist does:

• Stream your desktop. Rather than making your webcam the video source, CamTwist lets you stream all or part of your computer's desktop. Let's say I wanted to show some co-workers in Des Moines how to use a new piece of software. I could simply stream the demo over Ustream. Much better than me trying to remotely "take over" their desktop.

• Slide Show. The slide show source allows you to stream still pictures. You can drag pictures to the list from your desktop and even iPhoto.

• Movie. With the movie source, you can play movies over your broadcast. You can drag in several movies to the play list or select a single movie with the movie selection button. Next Saturday George and I are gonna take another run at streaming live from the Coffee Zone. Instead of just watching us yacking for half an hour, we can play video clips as part of the live feed.

• Flickr Set. Similar to Slide Show, the flickr set source will fetch pictures from a flickr feed and stream them on your broadcast. Why would you want to do this? I don't know, but it's cool.

• Picture-in-Picture. Once you have your video going, it's possible to overlay another video source on your video.

• Chroma Key. Sometimes called a Green Screen. This is typically used to create the appearance that something is behind you, such as a picture or a movie. George and I figured out the other features but I haven't tried this one yet.

There you have it. An inexpensive webcam; a feature-rich piece of freeware; and --for now-- a free streaming solution at Ustream.tv. Do we have any program that's especially compelling or useful? No. But that will be the easy part. And when it comes up, we'll be ready to share it with the world.

The county takes care of our bridge

We've had a good bit of rain recently and it's made it difficult getting back and forth across the bridge to our place. Here's a clip from this past Friday. The guy down the road has a truck so he drives when the weather is iffy.

Technically, this clip doesn't belong in the Don't Look Down series because the bridge isn't all that high. If you haven't seen Sorcerer, I highly recommend it. Directed by William Friedkin and starring Roy Scheider.