“Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end.”

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One of our networks received an email from a listener/reader this week, objecting to our use of the adjective "elderly" to describe a 56 year old woman who was killed in a tornado. I'm sure I once considered 56 "elderly" (ancient?) but no longer.

The next day I received a phone call from an old friend of my father, Luther Pillow. He's 86 and still works ("when I want to"). Sounded very healthy and sharp. Assured me he'd get back online and check out my KBOA website.

In a little more than two weeks, I will have been working for our company for 25 years. Have you figured out the math yet?

Mr. Pillow is 25 years older than I. Which means –health and circumstances permitting– I might be nearing the halfway point in my current employment.

Think of it. 50 years with one company. And what changes will I see in the next quarter century?

No, I don't think 56 is elderly.

Headline is a quote by Stephen Hawking

Fists getting airplay on BBC

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A few months ago I received an email from a young man in the UK, asking permission to use a photo he found on my flickr for the cover art for his band’s new single (Cockatoo). I said sure and please keep in touch. And he did.

“The vinyl version of the single’s out now and is doing really well. The photo has certainly done it’s job and intrigued people. We’ve had lots of national airplay from the BBC and lots of new opportunities have been popping up all the time which is obviously very exciting.

We did a single launch in this big DIY arts space called The Arts Organisation in Nottingham. There was talk of doing a Steve Mays photo reel featuring a whole raft of the photo’s to be projected on walls and stuff but we didn’t have enough time in the end and felt that we’d be taking the piss a bit in terms of permission to use them.

Here’s 23 seconds of that show that somebody took on a phone (I’m the short guy wearing the black jacket and white T-shirt btw):

We’d love to send you some copies of the single in the post if you’d like. Posterity and all that. Let me know where to send them and we will. That said we certainly wouldn’t be offended if you’d rather we didn’t. Once again thanks for everything.”

James and all of Fists

Ah, to have my life become the backdrop for an edgy British pub band…

I’ve added the Fists blog to the sidebar for wonderful passages like this:

“…if you want to go on a slightly wrong night out then you should go to Wildside which is this once monthly cock/sleaze/glam rock revivalist night at Junktion 7 in Nottingham. It’s mostly filled wall-to-wall with dysfunctional hard rockers who get crazy drunk whilst getting emotional about it not being 1986 before dropping to their knees for an Eddie Van Halen solo and then disappearing into the toilets to have sex and drink Jack Daniel’s and fall out with each other due to fringe scene claustrophobia. It’s like going to a special zoo that houses dying musical sub-cultures and is one of my favourite nights out.”

Okay, but I like to be home no later than ten p.m.

11,000 channel “radio”

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“The VTech IS9181 is a Wi-Fi music streaming device, designed to make accessing the near-infinte variety of Internet radio as easy as traditional radio.”

“The IS9181 connects to any wireless network (802.11 b & g) and lets you access more than 11,000 free Internet radio stations worldwide. It also lets you access audio files (MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV, Real) stored on you Wi-Fi-enabled computer (PC or Mac). The IS9181 also offers localized weather (based on zip code).” (via Podcasting News)

My first thought was, “If I’m running a radio station, it better be one of the 11,000.” My next thought was, “It better be one of the ‘best’ of the 11,000.”

Captain Blood

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I love grabbing snippets from old movies or TV shows and sharing them here. The process goes something like this: I hit the record button on the DVR. Then I hook up my old Sony camcorder and pull the video off the DVR. Next, I import the video from the camera to the MacBook. Now, thanks to a new little video capture widget from Elgato, the drill got much easier. (Mac only, sorry)

One end plugs into the video/audio out of any device and the other is a USB connection to the MacBook. And the software is simplicity itself. If you need to get video from your TV or DVR over to your computer, the Elgato Video Capture is a near perfect solution.

My test clip is from Captain Blood, starring Errol Flynn.

Scott Adams: Calendar as Filter

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Scott Adams thinks the calendar will be the organizing filter for most of the information flowing into our lives:

“You think you are bombarded with too much information every day, but in reality it is just the timing of the information that is wrong. Once the calendar becomes the organizing paradigm and filter, it won’t seem as if there is so much.”

News: “When I read the news, I’m generally most interested in how stories have unfolded across time. I want to know the “new news,” as in the topics that have never been reported until today, but I also want ongoing charts and graphs about the “old news” such as wars and the economy. My understanding of the war in Iraq, for example, has little to do with what blew up today and a lot to do with the trend lines over the entire war. In other words, I see the news in terms of time.”

Advertisements: “Some time ago I blogged that advertising belongs in your electronic calendar, for your benefit more than for the advertiser. That’s because my interest and desire in certain products and services is linked to timing. If my calendar has a certain birthday coming up in a week, and I’ve checked the boxes saying the person is a certain age and gender, or has certain hobbies, my calendar can start giving me gift suggestions and recommending online flowers and e-cards and the like. In other words, advertisements can move from nuisance to valuable service just by adjusting when you see them.”

I know a lot of folks who use their Outlook email in-box as their primary organizing tool. (shudder) The calendar makes a lot more sense to me, too. Especially working out of iCal that’s sync’d between my desktop, laptop and iPhone.

Listenomics and why things are different this time

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I remember reading Bob Garfield’s The Chaos Scenario as an article in Advertising Age but I’m not sure I listened to the interview Mark Ramsey (Hear 2.0) posted to his website back in March. More on that in a moment. I don’t think the book is out yet but here’s a blurb from the web page:

“What happens when the old world order collapses and the Brave New World is unprepared to replace it…as an ad medium, as a news source, as a political soapbox, as a channel for new episodes of “Lost?” That is The Chaos Scenario.

In this fascinating, terrifying, instructive and often wildly entertaining book, Garfield is not content to chronicle the ruinous disintegration of traditional media and marketing. No, having established the problem, he travels to five continents for solutions.

What he discovers is the answer for all institutions who wish to survive – and thrive – in a digitally connected, Post-Media Age. He calls this the art and science of Listenomics.”

Mr. Garfield is Advertising Age editor-at-large and co-host of NPR’s On the Media. Looking forward to the book. If you spot it before I do, let me know.