Spotify has arrived in the US! Twitter was all abuzz when the announcement came, and lots of my friends jumped on board as soon as […] Read More
Category: culture
There have been a couple of interesting developments in news media in recent weeks. The first development is the mostly symbolic vote by the House […] Read More
In my last post I attempted to list the things I found especially resonant last year in media, entertainment, art and journalism. I say “attempted” […] Read More
The latest highly-publicized, hotly-ridiculed move by my adopted city of San Francisco was to ban the Happy Meal. And so once again we have lobbed […] Read More
The ongoing BP / Deepwater Horizon oil disaster is a sickening object lesson in the evils of oil. Of course it’s just the latest in […] Read More
I was a good Bryn Athyn boy once. Many people reading this will have no idea what that means, but briefly, Bryn Athyn is a […] Read More
Things are ugly right now. After the healthcare bill passed, we all heard how a few so-called tea baggers hurled racial slurs and other insults […] Read More
I feel like the media constantly bombards us with two completely opposite visions of the future: In future #1 I can talk to my home […] Read More
Today I walked down to Cafe Dolci to grab a banh mi (I always order a combo of grilled pork and paté incidentally), and there […] Read More
When future archaeologists unearth the cities of what was once the great empire called America, and they sift through the remains of our civilization looking […] Read More
“[The writer] does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.” – J.G. Ballard I’ve been on a kind of media fast […] Read More
Americans, it’s well known, aren’t interested in soccer. Americans prefer the other football. We don’t like hockey either, which isn’t surprising, since it’s a lot […] Read More
Yes old friend, I’m talking to you. You with the high-paying office job, the fine house in the suburbs, the lovely wife and the precocious […] Read More
I suppose I could create a bridge between them, but sometimes it’s fun to just watch.
If Sarah Palin falls in the forest and the media ignores her, does it make a sound? I shouldn’t have to wish for Sarah Palin […] Read More
It’s been a while since I posted here, and I’m introducing a new category: Elimination Dance. Instructions: An elimination dance begins with a crowded dance […] Read More
After holding out for a couple of years, I’ve become a full-on twitter convert. I wasn’t avoiding twitter on principle or anything. I just couldn’t […] Read More
I have a somewhat irrational affection for Costco. The selection is good, the prices are low. They have a generous return policy (my friend just […] Read More
I just finished watching the second season of Mad Men, and I’m left with a familiar bittersweet feeling. The same one you get when you […] Read More
[Disclaimer: The following post is partly a reprise of one I wrote last year] March Madness is almost here, and my workplace productivity is bound […] Read More
There’s no shortage of ideas for how the newspaper industry might save itself – by adopting new business models, distribution strategies, etc. The other day, […] Read More
My last post, “How to win at Yelp: a guide for businesses” was inspired by the recent controversies surrounding Yelp, and the gist of the […] Read More
Last week, the East Bay Express published a lengthy story accusing Yelp of extortion. Among other things, the article charges Yelp of offering to take […] Read More
Here’s a remarkably simple formula for personal finance. It’s genius, and I wish someone had told us this sooner.
Well, the Eagles lost the NFC championship game… again. This is what Philadelphia teams do. Instead of outright sucking like you can always count on, […] Read More
I received my weekly BayCHI job bank email today, which has always contained at least twenty or thirty postings. Today, however, it was so thin […] Read More
On many occasions and even in a recent post, I’ve said that I just don’t get twitter. I was certain I didn’t want to tune […] Read More
The other day on my bus into downtown SF, a down-and-out looking guy stepped on and asked if anyone could give him the dollar he […] Read More
The somewhat agonizing ritual of sending holiday cards has been my way of keeping long-time and distant friends up-to-date on my life, and each year […] Read More
For the last couple of months, I’ve been working for Kyte (more on that in a future post), and yesterday we got a nice shout […] Read More
I wish I could maintain this perspective all the time: Thanks Louis CK
No, I don’t mean I’ve been flirting via twitter. It took me a long time to sign up for twitter. I just didn’t get it. […] Read More
It’s taken me a few days to write this post, partly because I’ve been busy (remarkable in itself, since I’m officially unemployed right now), and […] Read More
I’ve been off the grid for a couple weeks, backpacking with my brothers. We embarked a day or two after McCain announced his surprising (and […] Read More
The Business Technology blog over at WSJ reports on a recent study of more than 100 corporate social networks. Ed Moran, a Deloitte consultant, found […] Read More
Perusing the online blogopolis today, I saw that Xeni over at boingboing has proposed a new greeting card that would thank the recipient for “not […] Read More
I’ve been stretched too thinly across a few big projects and trying for nearly three months to find a couple of qualified people to help […] Read More
Lots and lots of people have passed this video around, but it puts a giant, ridiculous grin on my face everytime I watch it. This […] Read More
I was doing a little housekeeping the other day, and I found a packet of cream-colored, cotton fiber resume paper that I must have bought […] Read More
My small town library was one of my absolute favorite places when I was a kid. I regularly borrowed to the full limit of what […] Read More
Have you ever noticed the way American beer commercials emphasize packaging gimmicks? The wide-mouth can. The label that turns blue when it’s cold. The easy-pour […] Read More
I can’t believe I’m writing about Britney Spears, but bear with me. One would hope that Britney bottomed out somewhere around the head-shaving or the […] Read More
‘h’ is for hypocrisy. If the premier selling point of a hybrid vehicle is fuel economy, then you have to wonder why Lexus won’t reveal […] Read More
The state of Texas recently held an “e-vote” to choose a new license plate design. There were five designs in the running, and over 450,000 […] Read More
Starbucks To Begin Sinister ‘Phase Two’ Of Operation read the headline from The Onion. That was 2001, and Starbucks was heading for world domination. Seven […] Read More
The fantasy known as Dubai, home of the world’s only 7-star hotel, is planning to burn another billion or so on what will be the […] Read More
When I was a kid, my parents controlled my TV diet, and while I was hardly deprived, I was never at risk of becoming a […] Read More
President Bush is touring the Middle East right now, and he has made sure to bluster about Iran’s fictional nuclear ambitions at every stop, but […] Read More
File this under “random.” I’m not sure what to make of this, but as I was listening to the speeches of the various candidates after […] Read More
It really bugs me… They say, ‘Oh, David Beckham – he’s not very clever.’ Yeah. They don’t say, ‘Stephen Hawking – shit at football.’ – […] Read More
Doesn’t it seem a bit strange that the places in this country most likely to be attacked by terrorists – New York, San Francisco, Los […] Read More
Did that get your attention? That’s the name of the movie I saw last night, as part of the San Francisco Independent Film Festival. It’s […] Read More
On Anca’s blog tonight, I came across this H.L. Mencken quote… Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, […] Read More
Monday was Tracy’s birthday, and we spent the morning wandering through the Yu Gardens and Market. It was in the Yu Gardens that we suddenly […] Read More
In all my experiences of international travel, I’ve been able to get by in English without too much difficulty, and where I’ve had trouble with […] Read More
We saw nothing interesting about the architecture as we walked through the French Concession district of Shanghai, and our language issues persisted. There’s literally an […] Read More
Shanghai has not felt warm since we arrived, in any sense of the word. It was 5° C last night, and I woke up to […] Read More
“There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something […] Read More
I haven’t watched a lot of tv in Singapore, but the other night I saw the end of an episode of Singapore Idol, and it […] Read More
The other night a small group of us went to see a play called “godeatgod” by local playrwright, Haresh Sharma. On our first or second […] Read More
By way of Brett, whose friend Nathan Piazza has authored an eloquent primer for honing the rhetoric of the left… “As I contemplated the depressing […] Read More
Just in time for Halloween, the scariest costumes for 2004. So wrong it hurts. Thanks Rebecca! Ralph Nader Put the fear of God in John […] Read More
A group calling themselves gravity monkey has gone mobile with FundRace‘s geo-coded FEC data. They’ve created a Java app called red | blue (pronounced “red […] Read More
Someone named Taylor Donahue, vice president of production at Timely Studios, wrote this memo to his boss. It’s pretty funny, but not nearly as funny […] Read More
I’ve been re-reading bits of Mishima’s Sea of Fertility tetralogy: book 1 – Spring Snow book 2 – Runaway Horses book 3 – The Temple […] Read More