Tigger - The O.G. LOLer

So I was watching Winnie the Pooh with my little boy, reminiscing about how when I was a little boy I'd collapse into tears whenever Winnie the Pooh ended on TV (back then we didn't have any fancy DVD players, so we had to watch the shows when they came on once a year). Anyway, Tigger comes bouncing on, which makes my boy and I both start giggling, and when he leaves, he says:

"TTFN! Ta ta for now!"

So long before Al Gore's Internets were invented, Tigger was using cute acronyms.* What a debt of gratitude we owe that pouncing bouncing combination of rubber and spring.

TTFN!

*It must be mentioned that Tigger's "TTFN" was not the work of A.A. Milne, but added to the character by the Disney folks when Pooh and friends became moving pictures.

Killing Internet Radio

If you ever listen to any sort of streaming radio on the Internet -- including one of my favorite sites, Pandora -- please take a moment and go to this site:

Save Net Radio

In a nutshell, the Recording Industry Association of America convinced the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which oversees sound recording royalties paid by Internet radio services, to increase those royalty fees between 300 and 1,200 percent.

Not only that, but the fees are retroactive for 18 months.

The vast majority of Internet radio services will obviously not be able to absorb this sort of cost. So they'll go away.

This isn't piracy. These Internet stations have been adhering to the law and paying licensing fees. But the RIAA wants them out of business. And if this sticks, it'll succeed.

First Henry and June, now Boiled Dinner!

Because of these words:
Suck (5x)
Shit (4x)
Ass (2x)
Shitty (1x)

"Fuck" didn't register?

Swiped from Sour Grapes.

Best of the Best

TV ads from around the world vying for awards at Cannes this year.

Cannes Predictions 2007

I haven't watched them all yet, but so far the Altoids Sours "Fruit Pants" takes the case for the weirdest of them all.

I'm a Work of Art, New Edition

El Greco

Boticelli

Modigliani

Manga

Afro-Caribean

West-Asian

Baby

Ape-Man

Drunk

Face Transformer swiped from Sour Grapes.

I'm Juggernaut Kaboom

What's your action name?

(Click the Action Name Generator)

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Netflix vs. Blockbuster dilemma.

Let me start by saying that I love Netflix, hate Blockbuster.

Ah, if only life decisions were based soley on love and hate.

I've been a Netflix user since its inception in 1998. I've been an evangelist for the online dvd rental site, directing countless friends and family to their awesome service. The benefits were, and still are, fantastic: one monthly fee, no due dates or late charges, quick shipping, online queue, and the best feature of all: IF IT'S AVAILABLE ON DVD, IT'S AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX.

Seriously, they have pretty much any movie you can imagine, from the most recent to the most obscure. The rating system and customized recommendations have introduced me to a plethora of wonderful movies I'd never have known about, let alone seen. Blockbuster, on the other hand, caters primarily to the, well, blockbuster crowd. In other words, they're not real big on the Criterion Collection.

I was on the four-movie-at-a-time plan, unlimited movies per month. When I was living by myself, I'd easily go through 10-12 movies per month. That averaged out at about $1.50 per movie rental. Uh, great deal.

Here's the problem. Now we're a family of five, two of whom are pre-teen girls and one of whom is an 8-month-old boy. So movie watching has become much more of a spur-of-the-moment thing:

Hey, looks like we could watch a movie tonight. What do we have from Netflix? Hmm, don't really feel like that. Let's go to Blockbuster.

See the dilemma? Now, Blockbuster has a new thing called Blockbuster Total Access. It operates like Netflix where you go to their site, fill your queue with movies and they mail them to you. The kicker, though, is that you can either mail back the movie when you're finished, or you can take it to your local Blockbuster store, hand it to them, and get a free in-store rental. They send back the movie for you, and you still get the next movie in your queue mailed to you. Every time you have a movie to return, you can take it to the store for a free rental.

Shit.

I signed up. I had to. For $15 per month we get two movies out at a time, plus the free rentals. Oh, plus we get another free anytime in-store rental (meaning we don't need to return one to get it) every month. It just makes more sense for the family. I'm a sellout.

But I couldn't say goodbye to Netflix. I downgraded my membership to the lowest level: one at a time, max of two per month for $5 per month.

If only Netflix would open a brick & mortar store...

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Quotable?

I just found the most randomly weird thing.

If you go here and scroll down to post number 4 from someone named Bert Clanton, you'll see, in his signature, this quote:

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."

What's weird about that?

It's attributed to someone with my name.

Now, I'm here to tell you that my name is not overly common. Yes, there are a handful of others with my name (my cousin and his son, for instance), but none that I would ever consider being quotable.

I'm now on a quest for more info!

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Radio Avenue ... here's the link.

You can go here to download an mp3 of the show. If you just want to hear the bits that I was in, they're at the 22:00 point and the 54:00 point.

Other bits to listen to are when Dave (my co-writer and director of B.F.E.) talks about our new show at 41:15, and a very funny song parody at 19:20.

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A Face for Radio

Last night I performed on a local radio show called Radio Avenue that broadcasts the first Monday of every month. What a blast! It's actually recorded on Sunday evening in front of a live audience, then broadcast Monday night on KGNU in Boulder and Denver. The show is recorded at the Avenue Theater, which is where we're going to be opening B.F.E. The Town that Christmas Forgot in a couple weeks. The show takes a (usually) comical look at current events, and is a fun mix of old-time radio show and modern technology.

Having absolutely no idea what to expect (and having never seen nor heard the show before), I showed up thinking we were just going to talk about B.F.E.. Nope! Dave Johnson, one of the creators and hosts of Radio Avenue, told me that since Tuesday is election day and the voters in Colorado have a godzillion referendums to vote on, the majority of the show would be dedicated to discussing the issues. My job was to play a super-right wing conservative, and my friend and fellow B.F.E. cast member Kerstin was to play a leftyloon, and we were to go through the referendums and give our opinions.

So I created the character Thornton T. Billows, president of the CCCCC -- the Conservative Coalition for the Conservation of Conservative Conservativism. Let's just say I had a whole lot of fun.

You can listen to it! It'll be broadcast tonight at 8 p.m. MST on KGNU, and available for download at the Radio Avenue website sometime after that.

UPDATE: If you decide to listen, my bit is in the 2nd half of the show. And make sure you listen to the very end when Thornton T. Billows hits the bong and starts singing.

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Cool Newness; The Trouble with Boys

I changed my masthead. Got tired of the fire truck (a picture I took way back in the last millennium) and replaced it with this shot of Alcatraz I took in March. The print has such a cool grain that I thought it looked like an old postcard, so I kinda sorta made it postcard-like.

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Esquire magazine had an article recently about why boys are more fucked up now than ever before. It was pretty powerful. Here's a particularly sobering section:

Here's the deal if you are a boy in this country right now: You're twice as likely as a girl to be diagnosed with an attention-deficit or learning disorder. You're more likely to score worse on standardized reading and writing tests. You're more likely to be held back in school. You're more likely to drop out of school. If you do graduate, you're less likely to go to college. If you do go to college, you will get lower grades and, once again, you will be less likely to graduate. You'll be twice as likely to abuse alcohol, and until you are twenty-four, you are five times as likely to kill yourself. You are more than sixteen times as likely to go to prison.

The overall thrust of this article, which I wholeheartedly agree with, is that this is not because "boys will be boys." We've spent the past few decades -- rightfully so -- focusing on elevating girls. Teaching them self-confidence. Opening up to them career and educational opportunities. Telling them it's okay to want a career. And telling them it's okay to want to stay home and raise the children. While there is still most definitely inequality, particularly in the business world, women have made enormous strides. It's as it should be.

The problem is, boys have been neglected, even demeaned, because of what men did before them. See the difference? Men have been sexist and misogynistic, but that's not a boy's fault.

Imagine the reaction if a teenage boy had a "Girls Suck" sticker on his car. Concerned parents would be lining up to tell the principal he should be expelled. Yet I've seen plenty of these:



I know, I know. "Lighten up, Jeff. You men are so sensitive!" Maybe so. But the reality is that there is a crisis among boys, and those boys are going to be men someday.

And looking at some of the horrible fucking things men have done lately, I think we might want to start paying a little more attention to our boys.

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Do You Pandora?

If you're not familiar with Pandora, and you like music, get familiar right now.

Pandora was the result of the Music Genome Project, which was basically a new way to categorize music.

With Pandora, you simply input musicians you're fond of. Pandora the creates a customized station just for you. It uses the MGP to find other bands you might be interested in, and plays them on your station. The really cool thing is, you can create more than one station.

For you Mac users out there, there's now a standalone freeware version of Pandora called PandoraBoy, so you can use it without having to use your browser. I would assume there's a similar product for the PC.

Give it a try. You just might become addicted like me.

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Of mindset and frame-of-reference.

Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin, puts out a "Mindset List" every year. The Mindset List is a way to give the faculty some perspective on the frame-of-reference of incoming students. Each year's list is designated by its class's year of undergraduate graduation, assuming four years of college, e.g., Class of 2007 are the current undergraduate seniors who will graduate next year.

If you're writing anything directed toward or referencing the younger generation, or you deal with them in any way, you should check out these lists. They're a mindfuck. Things like, "Stores have always had scanners at the checkout," or, "Directory assistance has never been free."

Be prepared to feel old.

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The Internet is a series of tubes.

Did you know that?

Freaking hilarious.

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Awaken the Inner Ninja Within.

If you're anything like me, you've found yourself frequently lying awake at night wishing upon a star that you could learn how to awaken the inner ninja within. Well, my friends, I have found the answer:

Ninja Secrets Revealed

Valued at more than $1,029, you can learn how to awaken the inner ninja within for only $27.77.

And, believe it or not, there's a money-back guarantee.

I'm off to buy a sword.