Just Me and the Captain
Feb. 7th, 2010
12:05 pm - It's time for another Good Idea, Bad Idea
Good Idea:
Organizing a 5K run as a fundraiser for the American Liver Foundation.
Bad Idea:
Organizing a pub crawl as a fundraiser for the American Liver Foundation.
The End.
Feb. 4th, 2010
03:34 pm - An unusual cover letter
I just sent an e-mail to Comcast asking for Jeff Zucker's job. The basic gist was, even though I'm completely unqualified for the job and there's no way that any sane person would take me seriously, I certainly can't be any worse than Jeff Zucker and I'd work much cheaper. Think of the job of President and CEO of NBC/Universal as the 10:00 PM weekday slot, and me as Jay Leno. I cut operating costs so I must be a good choice. It was probably the most honest cover letter I've ever written, especially since I could use words like "balls," "kick-ass," and "hell" on account of not caring.
Jan. 29th, 2010
06:56 pm - Howard Zinn RIP
I was just made aware of the fact (via Facebook of all places...so much for traditional media) that Howard Zinn died a couple days ago.
Thanks to Alpha Delt, I had the honor of dining with him and even introducing him to give a talk at Wesleyan, so I felt like I should say a few words about him now. He wasn't the most dynamic person I've ever met...I suppose if I had to characterize him in one word it would be reflective. He seemed to give great thought to whatever he was about to say.
As liberal as I am, I would probably be a conservative in Zinn's eyes. I would like to think that there were motivations in history aside from mere greed and don't entirely share Zinn's cynicism in that regard. But he did make some excellent points and it was nice to have an alternative perspective to the more traditional teachings. Not to mention brave to have an unorthodox view that people often have a very emotional response to.
The world has lost a great scholar who was a champion of the minority. For that I will miss him.
Jan. 26th, 2010
02:09 pm - The Challenge
I'm throwing down the gauntlet.![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
humanbeatbox, this is your fault.
Jan. 25th, 2010
11:31 am - No Respect
Who the hell is Snooki? And why is she getting all this attention because she can do back handsprings on a beach? I can do a round-off back handspring on a beach! In fact, I did! At night! Under the influence of tequila! Okay, it appears she did a few more than me. But I can do a quintuple one. I just didn't want to. I thought it would be too showy. But she get's to go on an unfunny "comedian's" show. And I've been going to Seaside Heights before she was born! Basically, she's just copying me, but she gets all the attention. Why?
What's that? It's because I have a Y chromosome? Oh, I guess that makes sense then.
Jan. 20th, 2010
11:41 am - No(w/t) Broadcasting Conan
Compared to the current events of Haiti and the Massachusetts special election, this is frivolous, but I have nothing to say on those topics (aside from mentioning the Democratic party is apparently controlled by idiots) and focusing on them depresses me, so I'm going to talk about television.
I've always been interested by television and have really begun studying it in the past few years. So the whole late night debacle fascinates me, even if I'm not personally affected since I'll continue to stick with Comedy Central. The fact is, everyone involved in the NBC mess are smart, proud men despite the willingness of one side to demonize the other. While I'm definitely on Team CoCo and am thus tempted to say that Jeff Zucker has been studying the Massachusetts Democratic campaign strategy book, in truth he's a Harvard-educated guy who was responsible for making The Today Show the powerhouse that it is (that show is actually NBC's biggest revenue generator). But one has to recognize that he was in a difficult situation.
As usual, a little history might help make sense of the current events regarding late night talk shows. Back in 2004, NBC ruled supreme among the networks, especially late night comedy with its trifecta of The Tonight Show, Conan, and Saturday Night Live. The trouble was, this situation was on the verge of falling apart since both Jay Leno's and Conan's contracts were up for renewal. Conan was (and still is) one of the greatest comics of his generation (even if Zucker once had him arrested for one of his jokes) and Zucker didn't want to lose either of the money-making performers. If he did nothing, Conan, feeling that he had earned a solid enough reputation to have his own 11:35 PM show on either FOX or ABC (since the latter no longer held Nightline to be sacred). This would mean two competing comedy shows to The Tonight Show, and would undoubtedly be a hit to the ratings. So as a TV head honcho, how would you deal with this problem?
Zucker's solution wasn't good, but wasn't bad either. He did what many of us would do: put the problem off until later. He renewed Leno's contract for five years and promised Conan that if he stuck around for half a decade, he would host The Tonight Show, a boyhood dream of his. Yes, it was a long time to wait, but Conan literally turned down an extra $13 million dollars from rival FOX to pursue it. As for Leno, Zucker persuaded him that he'd be a hero for not being the guy to push out Conan. Leno, stilled scarred from the Letterman disaster a dozen years earlier, agreed.
Flash forward five years and it's later. Zucker, became the personification of the Peter Principle and the NBC well ran dry. Leno, for all of his faults, is something of a workaholic (not having any hobbies outside of his career aside from collecting cars) and wasn't content with retirement. Zucker tried to solve his problem of not having any dramas and losing Leno by putting Leno in the time-slot where dramas traditionally go. He spun it as being daring and the necessity of taking a risk in a business where the the old models no longer functioned, but I wonder if even he believed this Hail Mary would succeed.
Which brings us to today where Conan's pissed off, Leno's pissed off, and Letterman is enjoying the whole thing from his view in the peanut gallery. Zucker's attempt to please all the parties failed miserably and now the problem is an unmitigated disaster as NBC's reputation is further tarnished. Now if I were Zucker, I'd just cancel Leno and invest some money in some good pilots in the hopes that maybe next year NBC would have something worth watching. But Zucker seems convinced that the best way to generate revenue isn't to have quality content but to cut costs, which is the fundamental reason why we're here. But I suppose this type of analysis is why I'm not a network executive.
Jan. 5th, 2010
01:36 pm - My real New Year's resolution
Okay, I think I just decided on my 2010 New Year's resolution. Yes, I said in my last post that I'll try to read (and write in) LJ a little more frequently, but I also promised last year that I'd write more and look how that turned out. My joking resolution, because I seem to fail at delivering (even my fun resolutions like playing more video games and seeing more movies I'm bad at accomplishing) was to not get a job...that way when I fail again I'll be ahead of the game. Eh, maybe I just needed a year off. A sabbatical, as it were, except I didn't really accomplish anything. Anyway, now I'm digressing.
My New Year's resolution is to be less honest. No, this isn't a joke or a psychological trick to convince me to be more honest. Really, I think I'm honest enough. Perhaps too honest and therein lies the problem. I believe most people remember my great moment of honesty with Jasmine when we were first partnered. Yes, there was more to it than what the audience saw, but it's also true that I could have phrased things differently. That first night as partners was uncomfortable, to say the least, and even a couple weeks into it our relationship was poor because of that decision to be brutally honest.
Honesty has its problems, notably self-esteem issues. We all have a self-serving bias as a defense mechanism. I remember my social psychology professor asking the class to raise their hands if each of us thought we were smarter than the average person in that class. 90% of the class raised their hands which indicates that around 40% of the class was lying to themselves. But just because we may attribute our successes to our character and our failures to externalities doesn't mean that's a bad thing. It's the people who are the best at self-evaluation (i.e. brutally honest with themselves) who are most susceptible to depression which begets its own set of tribulations.
I'm not saying that I'm going to begin lying. I am saying that I want to master the art of spin. Spin seems to have acquired a negative connotation, probably because its associated with lawyers and politicians who don't seem to have the best reputations in our society (despite my abundance of lawyer friends). Bill O'Reilly is famous for his "No Spin Zone" despite the fact that everything on his show is spin. But spin is also used by the story-tellers. If they didn't utilize spin, narratives would be incoherent and filled with extraneous information. Without spin, we'd be bogged down by our troubles, uncertain if we can be the master of our domain. But with spin, instead of being victims of our insecurities, we can be the beneficiaries of self-fulfilling prophecies. Spin is what convinces others that your worth dating and what persuades employers that your perfect for that open position. Pure honesty is the hallmark of self-saboteurs.
Al Franken once wrote a book (which I actually have an autographed copy) called Why Not Me? the fictitious campaign journal of his ascendancy to the White House. Weirdly, a decade later, he's now a U.S. Senator. I can't help but wonder if the seeds of becoming a politician weren't planted in his head by that book...over even the title alone. Life imitates art, but art is the expression of the mind. If I believe it, then it can be possible, but I have to state it before I can believe it. Or as the popular maxim goes, fake it 'til you make it. Hell, look at Stephen Colbert who actually is faking it, yet he somehow has a mascot, ice cream, and NASA equipment named after him, not to mention being knighted. It's something to strive for.
This year I'm going to spin my way to success. Because in the words of another Franken book, I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!
Dec. 30th, 2009
12:26 am - New Year's Resolution
I need to read (and write in) LJ more frequently. I just caught up with two weeks worth of material and...let's just say some of my friends have had an interesting fortnight. I'm actually a little scared of what I've been missing out on in Facebook during this time.
Nov. 20th, 2009
09:05 pm - It's like a wedding....
All these comparisons that weddings are like Quest games makes me think the reverse must also be true. Except most weddings have a rehearsal. Quest games don't have rehearsals. It'd be nice if we did. I bet most Quest games would run a lot smoother the second time through. Though, of course, that would defeat the point. It's supposed to be spontaneous and confusing and unexpected.
I'm feeling oddly calm at the moment, though not really at peace. I feel like I've packed for a trip, but forgot something, though I'm not sure what it is. I don't really have anything to do right now, but I feel like I should be doing something. So, I'm at my computer writing this waiting for someone to inevitably cancel because they have the flu (already had 3 of those, but I expected this, so it's covered). I realize that it's actually been 5 years since I've personally run a Quest game, and this is the first one I'm really solo as a GM even though I acted as a driving force on the others and have had a lot of help with this one.
I realized too late that I organized things incorrectly. If I were to do it over, I'd have asked someone to co-GM who is good at throwing parties and told them, "Throw me a really cool party with a masquerade theme." That would have let me play around with characters and plot and leave the party details to someone else. I've never been good at directly organizing parties, but I think this one is coming together, even if it is a fictitious one. But that's the key: I don't want to pretend to be a masquerade; I want to be at a masquerade and then have this other interesting stuff happen.
Creative ventures make me moody: at some points I think a project is totally awesome and other times I think the same exact thing is complete crap. In truth, it's probably somewhere in between. I do tend to distrust what I write while happily taking someone else's words in the same situation as gospel. I know the food will be good as well as the music and the masks because I delegated those things to other people whom I trust. Hopefully these aspects and the great setting will make people forget the shortcomings I'm responsible for.
I think it's safe to say that this is the last game I'm GMing alone. Should I do this again I'll take on a partner to keep me sane if nothing else. See folks tomorrow!
Oct. 29th, 2009
02:10 pm - The Big Broadcast
My roommate, derspatchel, is the brains behind The Big Broadcast, coming soon to a theater near you (assuming you live near Davis Square). If you haven't met him, he's one of the funniest, most creative writers I know (and not a bad actor either) and what little I've gathered is that it's going to be a great performance at the Somerville Theater this weekend. Basically, I just wanted to plug his show (he didn't even ask me to, that's how great it is!) and encourage everyone who reads this and lives nearby to attend. I'm heading out right now to buy tickets for the Saturday matinee if anyone wants to join me.
Oct. 27th, 2009
11:55 am - When Galaxies Collide
I have to admit, I've been a little slow in hopping on the being a fan of Felicia Day bandwagon. I had nothing against her...just wondering what the fuss was about. Well, I've finally been converted. But I've always been a sucker for pretty girls talking about astronomy.
Behold the video that instilled in me solid respect for her. I had a professor who was one of the pioneers in researching galactic cannibalism (as she called it), so I know a little bit about the science. Ms. Day knows what she's talking about (though I believe stellar collisions occur more frequently than she does, but the jury is out on that) so it's actually educational as well as entertaining. But more importantly, I now understand why Felicia Day is awesome.
Sep. 24th, 2009
03:05 pm - Funny pages trivia
Did you know there's a Blondie novel? As in that fixture in the comics page of the newspaper that's been around since forever? This is news even to the wikipedia entry! Well, there is a record of a 1947 novel there, but I found an even older one from 1943. That I own, apparently. Or, at least, will now be living in my mother's basement. Until I sell it.
Sep. 15th, 2009
11:12 am - Mystery of the Day
Does anyone know why Google's logo is shaped like a crop circle today?
Sep. 9th, 2009
01:33 pm - Well, that's wierd
As derspatchel just noticed, our front steps are demolished. They were fine at 10:30 PM last night. And I don't recall hearing anything that might have been someone chopping up our stairs. I honestly can't tell if it's part of the landlord's plan to re-do the steps or vandalism. Both don't make much sense, since the steps were just renovated a couple months ago (and I would expect some sort of notice), but it seems incredibly thorough for random vandals.
12:05 pm - Some things you never outgrow
In my school district growing up, the first day of school was always the Wednesday after Labor Day (which is why I thought it a little weird that Obama spoke to students yesterday since I wouldn't have seen it were I in grade school). My subconscious decided to remind me of this fact by giving me anxiety dreams about pop quizzes taken on the first day on things we supposedly studied during the summer. And, for the life of me, I just couldn't remember what the equation for time travel was.
Stupid Brain.
Aug. 26th, 2009
09:52 am - Observations of the last 5 days in Haiku form
The YMCA
is much more fun than prison.
I guess you knew that.
Aug. 24th, 2009
11:34 am - The Magicians
A couple of weeks ago, I found myself browsing Salon, as I am wont to do, and came across a review for The Magicians, which caught my eye. I was intrigued enough, that I decided to see if the author was doing any readings in the area as part of a promotional tour. By coincidence, he would be at the Borders in Downtown Crossing the next day. Having nothing going on at 1:00 PM, I decided to head down there and see if my interest held.
Let this be a lesson to any authors out there: there's a pretty good chance I'll buy your book if you personally urge me to. Lev Grossman and I chatted for a few minutes after he gave his spiel, and I eventually became convinced that a purchase would be a good investment. And, I'm happy to say, that I was not disappointed.
Some people are more sensitive to spoilers than others, so while I'm not trying to spoil anything, I will hide the rest of this review behind a ( cut )
Aug. 13th, 2009
11:22 am - Despite my intense dislike of driving...
...this weekend is one of the few weekends in my life that I really wish I had a car.
Aug. 11th, 2009
10:41 am - My new definition of a planet
So, the International Astronomical Union is meeting in Rio de Janiero at the moment. You may remember this body of esteemed scholars for demoting Pluto when they last met three years ago in Prague. It's interesting to note that now that they aren't tackling any controversial issues, there's practically no news coming out of the conference that the mainstream media has taken up.
I guess the Second Realization of the International Celestial Reference Frame just isn't all that exciting to most folks. And the group of scientists that compose the IAU seem quite content to let things be without igniting another furor.
Which, I think is a shame, actually, because I feel there is some unfinished business regarding Pluto the IAU should deal with. At the time, I was pleased with the decision. But whether it's a sign of maturity or a sign of senility, my thoughts have evolved since then. The thing was, in order to demote Pluto, the IAU had to actually make up a definition of a planet, which, oddly enough, no one had bothered to do before (well, no one who could command the authority to have everyone else actually respect the definition). According to the IAU, a planet:
1. is in orbit around the Sun,
2. has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (a nearly round shape), and
3. has "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit.
And this is where the IAU began to lose me. Because this really is a terrible definition, which I figured was just thrown together at the last minute and would be re-worked when the IAU next met (i.e. now). It has all the attributes of a camel, i.e. a horse put together by committee.
The first part manages to exclude all the extra-solar planets out there we've been discovering over the past decade. The second part has an ambiguity problem which doesn't help classifying fringe cases. And the third part is the one that specifically demoted Pluto (it was actually written in as a footnote). To conduct a thought experiment for moment, if we were to somehow yank Earth out of its orbit and put it in Pluto's orbit, the Earth would be demoted too. That said, if Earth were put in orbit around Jupiter, it wouldn't be considered a planet either, but just the largest of many moons.
While compromise may be well and good in political situations, hedging when it comes to definitions just muddles things. Either the definition should be expanded or reduced. A few years ago, I was in the radical reduction camp, and would have been happy to have only four planets in the solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune). But I didn't have a good idea of what to call the terrestrial planets, so now I'm in the radical expansion camp. Thus my definition (and no one listens to me) is any object that is not a star, but larger than 100 kilometers in diameter is a planet.
It's a first draft and may take some polishing, but I think it's better than the IAU's current definition. Thus everything in the solar system would be considered a planet, except for comets, centaurs, and all but the larger asteroids. As a consequence, Pluto would be re-instated, but the moon would be promoted. This might be a little weird, but ages ago, astrology once considered the moon a planet so maybe it's not that strange after all (of course, it also considered the sun a planet, but let's not go there). This would suddenly increase the number of planets by several hundred if not a few thousand. But I'm okay with this.
The way I see it, big round celestial bodies can essentially be grouped as either stars or planets. Stars already have a detailed class system (e.g. the sun is G2V); why not simply create a whole bunch of sub-classes for planets? Jupiter would be in one, Earth in another, the Moon in a third, and Pluto in a fourth. The only problem I see is that we simply don't know enough about planetary science yet. That's fine, but at least we'll have the beginnings of a framework. We can simply add new classes as we make new discoveries.
Aug. 7th, 2009
01:28 pm - Titan
In case you're wondering what may have inspired today's xkcd today, it might be this press release from the IAU triennial meeting in Rio.
Navigate: (Previous 20 Entries)