Lindy's Leftovers

hello again..

2011-07-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

Is it weird I haven't posted since I left for the Middle East last year? Too much to say? Too little time? Not sure what to share? Those are all good excuses. I'm even staring at the white space now and saying..."what do I say?"

It has been a crazy 11 months and I don't really expect it to calm down. The last 7 has been a whirlwind with the Arab Spring. I could say so many things but it wouldn't even do it justice. I just want to share that I am very proud of our work here at Al Jazeera and when I travel around the world people tend to like what we do.

I was in Thailand this last week and this girl told me I was her Idol...I thought that was weird coming from an American who had just spent the last 6 months traveling 12 countries. I'm not sure how much AJE she had even seen but apparently it had made an impact. When I turned on my TV in our tiny bungalow on phi phi don there were 5 channels total...one of them was Al Jazeera English. I was in France Last month, they had 3 Al Jazeera channels, Germany as well. I was able to watch AJE in Beirut, Amman, Istanbul, Samos, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem in the past 11 months. The only place I haven't was the USA. It's weird going home (NYC/Denver/Tulsa) and not being sit down on the couch and watch what I do. Or even share. I get that the online product is there. It's being wildly watched in the states. But i'm still unsure if its being accepted or routine.

I hope you're watching. And yes, there will be more to come. I promise.

Post Bathhouse Tea. In Heaven.

2010-09-02T13:25:00.001-07:00

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Turkish Bath House

2010-09-02T13:24:00.001-07:00

We have been in Jordan for
Less than 8 hours and we have managed to become best friends with the owner of our hotel who in turn introduced us to the owner of a turkish bath house who invited us over closed down the bathhouse and let us roam around the saunas steamrooms hottubs and get massages. It was incredible. Women are not usually allowed. We were so lucky. Off to the Dead Sea tomorrow for more massages!

An iPhone Compass is Not a Compass

2010-05-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

Also while visiting Australia, I had a chance to hear some great war stories from my grandfather. He served heroically on a submarine with the Dutch Navy in WWII off the coast of France and in a covert mission against the Japanese in Western Australia. He then went on to be a commercial ship captain, later a tugboat captain and later a fisherman. He has spent the majority of his life out at sea. I decided to show him my handy-dandy compass on my new iPhone. Maybe its not a nautical compass but it should at least show me East! He told me an iPhone Compass is not a Compass.

Peter Describes Underwater Welding

2010-05-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

Last December I had the rare opportunity to spend a month in Australia with my mother's side of the family. Most nights were spent out on the back porch story telling. On this particular night my uncle told some stories of his days as an underwater welder. He was a diver who spent a majority of his career welding on oil pipelines and rigs. I wonder now what he would say about the disaster in the gulf.

Here is a story of him welding off of a ship stuck in a tropical storm.

The Dry Cycle

2010-04-22T11:36:00.000-07:00

"I want my quarters back" I said to the laundromat lady.

"but u clothes wash." she said.

"Yes, but without water. That does not count." I said staring into the machine at my soap covered dry clothes.

This was the end of what has become my quest to wash my own clothes so they smell good when they come out of the dryer. I have been living in New York for some time and I have yet to figure out the secret formula for that "fresh-straight out of the dryer" smell. I'm pretty much convinced it does not exist unless you own your own machine.

I have tried several different laundry places, even in different boroughs. I have tried different detergents, dryer sheets, wash cycles, you name it.

I had one ray of hope recently while visiting my sister in Colorado. I noticed her clothes smell overwhelmingly good. and strong. I asked, "what is your secret?"

"Dreft."

"Never heard of it."

Probably because I don't have babies. Its a baby detergent. The #1 choice of Pediatricians.

But I thought, I'm on to something. When I got back to New York, I searched for this secret detergent. My friends with babies were like, yeah I've heard of it. You can find it most anywhere.

Well, not if you live in Chinatown. I finally found a bottle at a Duane Reed on the Upper West Side. There just happened to be a really cute guy in the aisle at the same time and I fumbled with the bottle. This is awkward. I turned to him and said. "I don't have kids...I ..I just like the smell." I have to admit it wasn't my best pickup line but. It didn't work.

Anyway, having thought I had finally found the secret to good smelling clothes, I excitedly waited for laundry day. (wednesday..sometimes Thursday depending on motivation).

Thursday, I marched over to the laundromat threw my clothes in the washer, with a certain sense of satisfaction mind you. Turned the machine on. Returned 28 minutes later to find my clothes spinning with no water in the machine. That's it! I went over to the Laundry lady which resulted in the above conversation.

I'm not sure if this is some wicked attempt at making me celebrate Earth Day with an absurd round of water conservation but I wasn't celebrating.

I'm done. I have given up. I surrender. I'm waiving the white sheet.
P.S. It's dry and its covered in Dreft.

Obama signing HC Bill on every TV

2010-03-26T16:02:00.001-07:00

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Rethink Afghanistan

2010-03-05T08:25:00.000-08:00

I was doing research for my own documentary about Afghanistan and I came across this 6-part series called "Rethink Afghanistan". Really powerful stuff. I recommend watching all 6 parts --free online.

Part 3 is below on the cost of this war which could be upwards of 3 trillion dollars. It will cost 17 Billion for New York tax payers alone. I wanted to embed the clip on the Soviet Lesson Not Learned but it wasn't availble. It was definitely an eye opening history lesson. You can take all the articles in the 80's and replace the word Soviets with the word Americans and the articles mirror each other. Interesting case study at the least.

Don't Ever Play Scrabble with this Guy.

2010-03-03T20:04:00.000-08:00

Test

2010-02-24T11:08:00.000-08:00

Iranian Heritage Night in DC

2010-02-24T10:47:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine produced this video for Iranian Heritage Night in DC. A team is headed now to DC from NYC right now to make it happen. I wish them all the best.

who's story is it?

2009-09-23T16:40:00.000-07:00

I'm in a documentary of social practice class, in which we had to do a short portrait of a fellow student. I was assigned to a guy named Alex Culter, a native New Jerseyan, turned LA actor, turned UCLA grad, turned law student, turned Australian film producer, turned history teacher, turned grad student. Alex calls himself a "career career transitioner." I agree.

It was a short project but I learned a lot because not only was I documenting Alex but someone was documenting me. A sort of documentee-documentor drama unfolded. The person doing me had a lot of technical issues with tapes and editing. I had a lot of storyline structure issues with length and precedence.

We screened all the short films today and I saw the same struggle with all of the other students. Some with sound issues, some with storyline. The guy I documented's piece was 20 minutes long. The assignment called for 3.

It made me realize that documentary can be done is SOOO many different ways. I was surprised to see some very artistic renderings and some very cinema verite pieces. It has all to do with the subject AND the author. It is a two way street.

So now I see it as, a project can be very much driven by a subject matter but it has everything to do with the documentarian and if you are pitching it as social practice whose to say what you are trying to portray?

We had a short discussion about whether to narrate, or to have titles, or to have a sort of "host" of the documentary like Michael Moore. I had said you shouldn't "star" in your own documentary. My professor disagreed and said there needs to be more documentary "stars." Her reasoning is it brings more awareness to the medium. She encouraged me to try it.

She is no slouch. My professor did a documentary on her father. “Doc” is the story of H.L. Humes, a famous writer, talker, literary thinker, and troublemaker of the 60’s, a contemporary Don Quixote. Chased out of New York, Doc moved to France to start the “Paris Review” a literary magazine devoted to the thoughts of authors. Writers writing about writing. Doc experimented with a lot of drugs at the time and began accusing the CIA and FBI of following him. He was put in a mental hospital but later released by his family due to the prison like conditions.

His family moved away from him back to New York to get on with their lives.

Full of paranoia Doc stopped writing and moved back to New York a few years later. He showed up on many ivy league campuses (to a sort of cult following) to “preach” about big brother, marijuana, massage, among many many other things. He died of cancer in 1992 at the age of 83. My professor, Immy, filed a freedom of information act request and received a large file. It turns out the US government was keeping tabs on him from 1948-1977.

You can see a clip of the Film here.

The documentary was looking at some major issues of loss and abandonment, as a daughter and as a father, mental illness, drugs, government control. It ran the gamut. It was fascinating.

Immy was the documentor and had complete creative control over her subject but I also feel "Doc" had this story. It was his story to tell. It just so happens he had a film making daughter to tell it.

It's all Geek to Me

2009-08-03T13:42:00.001-07:00

"It sounds like a geek project ," that was my dad's chief computer guy, Michael, to me after I asked him to advise me on reinstalling my operating system.

"Does that mean I can't do it?" I replied questioning my own geekiness at this point?

Even the Geek Squad at Best Buy had advised I NOT do it. My inner-geek ego was faltering a bit.

"No. I just think you may have better luck paying somebody who is geekier than you and can put this computer in recovery mode and babysit it"

Is he attacking my babysitting skills? I am very attentive. Okay, one time my cousin I was babysitting, dropped off a swing and hit his head. One time. I was like 12. It was a high swing. Not my fault.

Okay, I also severely dehydrated my best friend's dog. We went for a run. It was hot. It was August. It was Houston. How was I supposed to know. He's a great Dane for Pete's sake....That Dane got me back though. He tore a whole in the upholstery of my dad's new boat.

Which I was babysitting....

Anyway, computers I can babysit. I babysit one everyday at work..watching the wires ..waiting for something to break. I also babysit-- Twitter, Blogger, Outlook, Dotcom (part of a web producers job)...they are very needy...but I knew that my idea of "locating drivers" was looking in the garage.

I consulted a computer guru at work.

"I'm going to re-install Windows XP on my laptop." I said to Bob.

After the laughter subsided. Seriously, it was almost 2 whole minutes of laughter, he said "Do you have all the disks?"

"Yes." I lied.

All I need to do now is recover my windows recovery disks. I'm sure they're somewhere...I keep them in a file called "disks u will always be able to locate... until your computer crashes." Filed somewhere next to bin 13.

While In Recovery mode ( of recovery disks) I can look for other things like all the backups I've made over the last few years. I'm sure I've done one backup. I mean at least one in the last three years?? One? Sarah please tell me you have done one?

My parents OWN a data storage company for keeping backups. They have for..I don't know..my whole life and I still have yet to figure this out.

Michael's back on the phone. "Maybe you SHOULD restore this computer. Maybe it's time to learn how."

He's right.

Off to babysit...

First step...Partition configuration?

And then I read this...

2009-06-03T13:02:00.000-07:00

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CompanyFocus/how-your-undies-track-the-recession.aspx
your undies tracking the recession?

http://nymag.com/daily/food/2009/06/obamas_endlessly_fascinating_d.html
Obama: a food book already?

http://nymag.com/daily/food/2009/06/yet_another_sweets_truck_rolls.html
more of these trucks coming out...recession trend??

http://www.dailycandy.com/new_york/article/43452/The+Fabulous+Biker+Boys
build your own bike from bamboo??

http://smokezip.com/index.html
electronic cigarettes...why we need them...why the FDA doesn't want them??

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-bucket-boys-03-jun03,0,4477244.story
getting rid of street performers...and are there more??

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE55171K20090602
opera out performing iphone?? whats next in mobile browsing??

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10253924-56.html .. windows 7 out oct 22
what is taking so long for Windows 7?? Heard Beta version is AMAZING...

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/real-time_cellphone_data_emerging_world.php
What our cell phone data is saying about us??

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=107214
a to do list for Bing: how to beat google...

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090602/LIFESTYLE/906029934?Title=Is-Napa-s-wine-auction-recession-proof-
"video snacking"...that is what we call consumers when they watch videos at random on the web.

http://ow.ly/aQm3
miley new clothing line..by BCBG and Walmart and Herve Leger??? yuck.

http://imjustcreative.com/claim-your-twitter-account-with-technorati-for-statistical-pleasure/2009/06/03/
you can claim your twitter account with technorati???

http://www.fathead-movie.com/?page_id=2
is fat head movie just more of the same b-sing of nutritional b-sing...

My first recession "cavity"

2009-06-01T08:55:00.001-07:00

I saw an ad for $1 teeth whitening and I was intrigued. I got on their web site and then yelped them. Seemed they had good reviews so I made an appointment. They are electronic online reservations which I liked. I show up the day of my appointment and they are very very nice. It's a tiny place the size of my apartment probably smaller. A guy comes out of the exam room to take my chart. Intern I think. I go get fitted plastered for whitening trays and then they call me into the exam room. And the intern is my dentist. He examines my teeth and xrays and informs me I have a cavity. What?!?, I said" the last time I had a cavity was like 7th grade."

I've been getting my teeth cleaned by this guy in soho for the last 3 years and he's never even mentioned any thing that even resembled a cavity. In fact the hygentist often comments that I have perfect teeth. Perfect. So you can imagine my surprise. I come from a long line of dental hygenists and I'm pretty sure they would have even mentioned I had a cavity over Easter.

I had the guy show me it in the xray. But he said it was on the surface you can't see it. Then I had him point it out in a mirror. Nothing.

So my 1$ whitening turned into a 144 dollar "cavity." Ug.

Oh and ps the intern just happened to have time in his schedule to fill it. Today. Right now. Cash or check?

COME ONE, COME ALL.

2009-04-25T22:55:00.000-07:00

It's the weekend. It's 85 degrees. It has been the coldest, longest, snowiest, winter in New York I have ever seen. This just happens to be the perfect formula for a day in the park......with 8 million of your closest friends. No one likes to defrost alone.

I'm not sure what Central Parks maximum occupancy is..but it was hovering pretty dang close to a fire hazard today. It was sort of like there was this party in the park and everyone was invited and everyone decided to come.

Today was the perfect opportunity to meet everyone of your Manhattan neighbors.

Here is the good news...if you missed today word on the street is there is another party tomorrow. See ya'll there.

P.S. It's BYOCS. (Bring your own cell service)

The Germans are coming

2009-04-21T19:57:00.003-07:00

Things I've learned from the Germans who are visiting us in New York

"we love the American food"

"we love the barbeque the meat the portions and the ranch dressings."

"we love the ben and jerrys"

They will watch 4 hours of "cooking channel" (food network) but not one frame of Gossip Girl. They also think the word gossip stands for Gospal and missy elliot sang Gospal music in "gossip folks"

After explaining that I had jury duty on Thursday they asked me "if I had signed up for this because I had seen the crime."

They think Tivo is magic and I can fast forward live Events while they are happening in real time.

When we take a cab they press every single tab on the taxi tv screen repeatedly until we reach our destination.

We went to ground zero and they asked if the freedom tower would have rental apartments available.

More later...

The Germans are coming

2009-04-21T19:57:00.001-07:00

Feel free to unfasten those belt buckles we aren't going anywhere

2009-04-04T03:29:00.001-07:00

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Gate 9 and 10

2009-04-04T03:25:00.001-07:00

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Gate 8

2009-04-04T03:24:00.001-07:00

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Family in Queens turns on sprinkler, every flight at LGA cancelled

2009-04-04T03:21:00.001-07:00

I'm living in a third world country. Today due to low ceiling my flight to Memphis was delayed by 8 hours and eventually canceled.

Yes, it's frustrating but LGA holds the guiness book of world records on flight delays followed closely by JFK and Newark. It's incredible. Not sure but that's probably not a distingush you are looking for. Who does these airports PR? what exactly is there to brag about.

"New York city is full of museums. Including the airport!"

People have actually fossilized while waiting to depart.

My favorite part is that my gate was number 8. I looked around and around and realized there is no gate number 8.

But not to worry a piece of notebook paper had gate 8 written in magic marker to relieve the lost flyers. Thank you LGA.

To all those headed out to Detroit making up the vast majority of stranded flyers today.... Hope you at least get a "all my friends went to the final four and all I got was this t -shirt because I was stuck at la guardia." shirt.

Don’t Throw the Beach out with the Bath Water

2009-03-24T19:25:00.000-07:00

I’m was at home tonight having a nice polite conversation in the kitchen with my roommate who just got back from Philadelphia. (without a tan.) She casually turns to me and asks.

“Have you seen what’s in our bath tub?”

“OhMyGod.” I am now standing in the living room. “WHAT. IS. IN. OUR. BATHTUB.” My eyes glued open.

“Just go look,” she says.

“IS IT A TARANTULA?” I scream.

“No, just go look.” She is annoyed.

“IS IT A REPTILE?” I am still in the living room. "IS IT A SHARK??"

I then do that bug in your hair dance where you shake every part of your body while jumping up and down. I become nauseous. I am sweating.

“Stop freaking out. It’s not that bad.” She says pushing me into the dark WC. Yeah but it depends on your definition of bad. A bathtub full of gin. Not so bad. A bathtub full of leeches. Bad.

I flip the light on and find…. a beach. A beach in our bathtub.

“What in the hell.” I cry out the bathroom door.

“I know, what you think it is?” she asks.

Either Philadelphia just got really tropical or she went on a beach vacation without telling me.

“Um, did you go to Mexico sans Sarah? Was shaking out your towels in our bathtub your way of breaking it to me?” I asked annoyed staring at the mess.

But as I looked closer I thought Mexico doesn’t have sheetrock and crown molding.

This is almost an inch thick spraying of debris throughout the bathtub. I scanned the walls and ceiling very closely and there was no signs of a puncture, a drill whole, or even a dent. Where did this come from?

My roommate was now standing back in the bathroom asking where I thought it might have come from.

“The cat dragged it in.” referring to a cat that had broken into our apartment once. She rolled her eyes.

I didn’t know, but now I was pulling on the faucets on the curtain rods climbing up on the tub to look at the water heater. Nothing. I couldn’t believe it. No holes in the ceiling. In the walls. The window wasn't open. It was a mystery.

My roommate asked what we should do about it. She wanted to take a bath.

“I’m sure it will make a nice exfoliant.” I said.

I always wanted to live on the beach.

Hey, You Guys!!

2009-03-20T08:27:00.000-07:00

vs.

A US Submarine and US Ship crashed into each other early this morning. They were conducting routine security operations off the coast of Iran. The USS Hartford and the USS New Orleans collided around 1 a.m. in the Strait of Hormuz.

One interesting thing to note about the US Submarine is this isn’t her first dance.

The USS Hartford has had trouble in the past with navigation. Rewind to October 2003 when she crashed herself on an Island in the Mediterranean. The accident cost 9 million dollars to repair.

Here is a partial transcript of what happened please note what the Executive Officer says at 12:36.

October 25, 2003:

11:55 The Hartford eased away from her tender and moved into the channel. within minutes the boat's Voyage Management System, which provides the navigation team with electronic navigation charts and automatic fixes of the boat's position, crashed.
12:09 The navigation team noticed a four knot difference in the speed readouts of the navigator and the electromagnetic log, two other key pieces of navigation equipment.
12:22 The captain ordered the boat to increase speed to 12 knots from the planned speed of 9.5 knots. At approximately the same time, the assistant navigator and an electronics technician left the control room to try to determine what was causing the equipment failures. The captain was never notified that key members of the navigation crew had left their stations.
12:28 The bridge ordered the turn almost 500 yards early. As a result of the equipment failures, a waypoint was entered into the GPS incorrectly, putting the turning point several hundred yards off the correct location.
12:30 The navigation team makes an attempt to fix the boat's position on the charts. The investigation found the boat was about 400 yards closer to Bisce Island than the position the crew plotted.
12:34 The Hartford turns into the fourth leg of her course out of the harbor. It is not clear who ordered this turn.
12:36 The navigation team makes a tentative fix on the boat's position but are unable to confirm it. There is growing concern on the bridge about the lack of a plotted position: the executive officer asks the navigation team,
"Nav, where the **** are we?", the captain asks the XO "do we have anything at all working down there?".
12:37 The sailor watching the fathometer warns the depth under the hull is decreasing, and was now just 100 feet.
12:37:30 The fathometer alerts the depth under the hull is now just 83 feet
12:37:45 Again the fathometer watch warns that the water level is down to just 50 feet
12:40 Hartford strikes the bottom about 1100 yards off Bisce Island. The boat begins to slow. Afraid that the boat would be stranded on the rocks, the squadron commodore, 22 year old Captain Greg Parker said "Speed on."
The first collision is followed by two more impacts, the second of these is the worst, rolling the boat 10 to 12 degrees onto her port side, and lifting her out of the water
13:40 the assistant navigator suffered a panic attack and had to be removed from the control room

Most involved with the grounding were fired. It seems crashing a submarine is not a resume builder.

I’m not saying the two accidents are related but also… not resume builders.

“What did you do today?”
“Oh I crashed into another US vessel.”

The collision this morning is still under investigation. The USS New Orleans suffered significant damage to its fuel tank and dumped around 25,000 gallons of oil into the strait.

In any case, it’s not everyday when a US submarine collides with one of its own.

Woops…didn’t see you there.

Cause for arrest: Lost Her S#*!

2009-03-19T18:33:00.001-07:00

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Leftover Walks

2009-03-19T18:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just need a walk. I’ve been taking a lot of those lately. I’m not sure if it’s related to the weather or whether I just need to let off some steam. At any rate, I’ve decided to document my walks in a new segment called: Leftover Walks.

I got off the train coming home from work yesterday. I made a right turn and went into my bank to argue overage charges. My bank likes to give themselves “retention bonuses,” when I go over in my account. I give them lots of money.. and they keep my money.. and then the account goes in debt and they give themselves a nice bonus because they offered protection on my account. They call this an "insufficient funds fee." I call it “sort of like AIG”. But I digress, problem fixed. Back to my walk.

I went to Quickly on Grand Street who just happens to have some pretty good bubble tea. They also have a student discount. Quick tip: any card in your wallet will work as a student ID, business cards, library cards, AARP cards.

After bubble tea I took a right on Christie and headed south. I saw a commotion in the park. I walked over and saw a very large group of people watching a women being arrested. She had apparently lost something in the park and went crazy. So she quiet literally lost her &#it. Why this drew a large crowd of over 200 people? I’m not sure, but I stayed for the duration of the arrestation to find out.

There was a park attended shouting something over a bull horn to the masses but I didn’t know what he was saying because… I don’t speak mandarin.

I then took a right on Baxter and landed myself right in front of Bangkok Station…my favorite place to get bubble tea. I didn’t realize they had another location. I was only aware of their store on Elizabeth Street. And seeing as I had just had a bubble tea….I decided to get another one.

Two bubble teas later, a walk down Bowery, a stop in the park to read a magazine, I decided I wanted Chinese food. There is this Buffet place down the street from us that looks interesting. There is a sign in the window that says 3.99. I don’t know what that is advertising. I was hoping it wasn’t the buffet. I have this rule that you should never eat Chinese food if it’s under $4.00.

So I walked in and said to the lady “One” and she said “3.99” and I said “For the buffet?”

“Yes,” she said.

“All you can eat???” I said, like I was at CiCis Pizza. What was I thinking??

She said “Five Item.”

She handed me a Styrofoam box and a tray.

I sheepishly walked down the sides of the buffet to find a wide array of food I had never seen before. I pointed to things I thought were possibly chicken in some kind of sauce with some kind of vegetable. Different dull colors with different stews. I wasn’t sure on any of them. Where was the shiny pink sauce with the fired chicken? There were no signs. I tried to avoid things like raw fish heads and what might have been an animal I wouldn’t want to eat.

The woman shoveling the food into my box was unenthusiastic and a little too generous with her portions. I couldn’t believe that 5 dishes were piling up in my box one on top of the other weighing between 5 and 10 pounds.

For 3.99.

I walked to the end of the counter and this woman bagged it up and then put a carton of soup in my bag. Seriously? More?

The soup might have been a fish stock. The aroma was causing my eyes to cross. I had to get out of there.

I had plenty of leftovers from this walk and needed to lay down.

I exited the buffet restaurant and found myself in front of a Bubble Tea place. Humm? Maybe just...

Who burried the beer?

2009-03-14T16:13:00.001-07:00

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Who burried the beer?

2009-03-14T16:11:00.001-07:00

This morning I awoke to the enlightening sounds of a trash compactor and beer cans being opened.

I looked out the window to make sense of it all. Blurry eyed and pissed, I saw a large dump truck with two guys in mr. Rubbish. Shirts hauling dirt, fiberglass and beer cases into the compactor.

About 5 feet away was the neighborhood baglady shotgunning beercans.

Except for one minor detail. She was not drinking them. She was emptying then into the street.

Cases and cases of beer surrounded her. She would take one can pierce a hole in it and empty the contents on our sidewalk and throw them in her shopping cart. The cans were covered in dirt and not distinguishable from my distance.

I had to get a closer look. I got dressed and went down there.

The beers were apparently unearthed under our appartment during construction today ...possibly dating back to 1991.

They are TsingChuen , a beer that underwent a hefty legal battle agsinst tsingtao in the early 90s. Due to copyright infringement.

At any rate I don't think they survived.

During brunch my friends coworker asked if they had a born on date?

No. Possibly 1991.

"the year of the rat". He said. "no good."

Killer interview.

2009-03-13T13:43:00.001-07:00

One of the greatest things about working at west 57th is the neighboring meth clinic.

Always an opportunity for a good soundbite.

My photog was setting up on the corner for a standup, he had his tripod up with the camera and he was setting up some lights.

This guy walks out of the meth clinic and stands infront of the camera and proceeds to interview himself.

Most people on the street almost always think if they see a camera they assume , without fail , it is on. Most wave ,some laugh ,some run.

One time I took a red rainbow lightup little tikes mic into a bar and interviewed people "on air" and most everyone was really nervous but provided good commentary for my "viewers".

Same thing here. This guy thought he was on air and proceeded as usual with his biopic in front of the camera.

Until he decided to ask my photog. " yo is this thing on" to which my photog said... " only if you've killed somebody."

He said "oh yea s#%+ I've killed lots of people."

Oh yeah, you're good then.

No Data on Tulsa Newspapers. Yep.

2009-03-12T17:40:00.000-07:00

This is a map that was in the New York Times today depicting the US and how newspaper circulation has declined. Yes, we all know this, but do we all know that...upon further investigation the Times could provide no information on the Tulsa World.

If you look at the map the Tulsa World is the ONLY circle that is grey providing the fact that they found "no data" as indicated in their key. There is currently no data on the current state of the newspaper industry in the state of Oklahoma according to the Times.

Thank you New York Times for this very helpful information. I was worried. I thought maybe there was some unexplained business model that would revolutionize the way we see print today. But alas, I am relieved, just nothing to report. Business as usual.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/12/business/20090312-papers-graphic.html

One day I was at the new York stock exchange and the Dow was up. I know. Crazy.

2009-03-12T14:22:00.001-07:00

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Thanks for the Latte, Tweet ya later.

2009-03-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

I'm following Dunkin Donuts on Twitter. I have no idea why except that they have 99cent lattes that are really too good to be true. I see a lot of people following Starbucks, which is stupid.

Why are 80,000 people following Starbucks on Twitter and only 9,000 following Dunkin Donuts. When was the last time Starbucks gave you a 99 cent latte? Yeah, that is what I thought. or what about a 99 cent Cheese Danish? 99 cent Hashbrown? Thank you very much.

SBUX is now offering breakfast pairings for 3.95. Are they kidding me? 4 Bucks...is that the best you can do Starbucks?? 4 dollars for a cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich? At Dunkin I can get a whole meal for that and AT LEAST 70-280 more calories.

Txs for the Latte @dunkindonuts, tweet ya l8er.

Crossing the Border =Crossing the Street

2009-02-26T08:50:00.000-08:00

In this economy it makes me wonder how our block can survive with not one, but two, Mexican grocery stores.

Don Juan grocery is like a little slice of Tijuana. A lot of weird food, trinkets, cheep beer, drunk immigrants standing around and homeless people. Every time I go over there it is a 30 minute adventure. The Bodega/Deli/Convenience store (depending on your part of the country) is about 10 steps from my door and what would be a run in and run out 1 minute trip almost ALWAYS turns into a nail biting crescendo of confusion at the cash register.

First of all Don Juan grocery has the most random items found at a grocery store. Pinto Beans, Chex Mix, fake chardonnay, pre packaged cups of ice, and lots and lots of jars of olives. Where this stuff comes from, I have no idea, but chances are the expiration date might have been scratched off.

People at the DJ Grocery range from your typical shopper; chips, soda, coffee with 8 sugars- to that guy with the eye-patch. There is also the orange hair homeless guy, short Dominican grey haired dude who stands between aisle one and two and people who often need change.

I want to stop on this subject for a second. Seriously how many people could need change in one night? I was at the competing grocery store across the street creatively named Mexican Grocery Store, where one night, I was in there buying coconut water and one yellow onion and a guy walked in and DEMANDED 60 $1 dollar bills in change for three twenties. What is he going to do with those I wonder? I'll leave it to your imagination, but this happens at least 20 times a night. I know, because every time I am in there 2 or 3 people ask for change.

The Mexican Grocery Store is not too bad. I only go in there because they sell Pace Queso in a jar and pre-zippy bagged cilantro! The woman behind the register with red-purple hair reminds me of the sister from Ugly Betty crossed with Cindy Lauper. She is always chewing gum and probably on her cell phone. One day I was in there to buy queso and it came in a three pack with two salsa jars. I asked her if she sold them separately. Without hesitation, she got out a pen and stabbed the cellophane holding them together, pulled them out and said..."yeah", chew chew chew. “Um...thanks” I said.

I mean, that is customer service if you ask me. Both stores always have a lot of people standing around coupled with VERY loud mariachi music and lots and lots of shouting. I almost always look like a deer in headlights trying to run across a 50 lane highway under construction.

Speaking of construction, Don Juan actually just remodeled. When they closed up the windows, I thought that was it, they are going out of business…..but no, they were closed for remodeling. I thought, oh nice maybe they will put in a legitimate freezer section, not just pinacolda mix and cool whip. I was then thinking maybe they will put in a coffee bar or even a fresh food section, rather than one tomatilla sitting on the counter.

Well apparently, "remodeling" means putting in stainless steal stackable wire kitchen racks, a place where they can store their Cotton Candy and Coriander.

The color is called Dark Recession..

2009-02-02T12:14:00.000-08:00

I’ve cheated on my hairdresser only once in the last three years. It was a disaster. I answered an ad on Craigslist that said it was a FREE haircut from a “top salon.” Feeling adventurous, I thought I would try it out. It was terrible. It was some Ukrainian guy, fresh off the boat, cut my hair in zigzags.

Vowing to never do that again, I suddenly folded last week when I looked at my roots and gagged. I needed hi-lights fast.

But as Dolly Parton says “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”

I’m out of money and I needed a discount. I get on Lifebooker.com. I wanted to see what salons were offered in the Lower East Side.

After scanning quickly I decided on Pimps and Pinups…sounds reputable.

I checked out there Web site to find they are a London based salon that is trying their hand at New York. They’ve only been open a few months. They have snuggled up in a tight little space over on Ludlow and Stanton and look more like a dive bar with Hollywood neon green lights than a hair salon.

I booked my appointment for a half a hair of hi-lights for 7pm. I know it seems strange to get your hair hi-lighted on a Friday night at 7pm, but given their name, I thought this might be when they get their most traffic. I don’t know… when do Pimps get their most traffic?

I tell my roommate that I’m going over to Pimps and Pinups and she said..“Hey it’s gotta be better than the Chinese lady down the street I went to.”

At that point I didn’t know what she was referring to.

She reminded me she got her hair cut by a Chinese salon that had chopped her hair to pieces with a meat clever…. But hers was 18 dollars and included a hair cut, wash, 15 minute massage and blow out. I LOVE YOU CHINA TOWN.

But my roomie reminded me that I was blonde.

“Remember how you always walk by those China Town Salons and you say all the posters look exactly the same…that is the point…they all look the same.”

Ah thank you, I felt good about her observations.

So I walk down to Pimps and Pinups and its hoppin’ on the Lower East Side. I’m not surprised; I mean it’s a Friday night.

I walk into the salon and its…crickets. The nice receptionist at the door exclaims..”Sarah!” I’m like “yes.. that is me.”

I look around and it’s a bunch of bored stylist reading magazines.

The receptionist takes my coat and walks away. I think she looks familiar in a very strange Samantha Ronson kind of way. She tells me to go sit in the chair, at which point a guy walks over and I’m thinking to myself, please god let this be the hair-sweeper guy.

“Hey..yo.. I’m Kenny and I’ll be your stylist,” said not the hair-sweeper guy.

GREAT.

Kenny is tatted out like you wouldn’t want. I think they are called arm sleeves. This is when you have your entire arm tattoed. He also had a gold tooth and sported a Jordan Knight hairdo circa 1988.

Oh God, was all I could think. He starts playing with my hair and asks what I want and I’m like, “well a half a head of hi-lights, that seems easy enough.” He continues to feel my hair. Creepy. Flipping it one side to the other, one side to the other, up down, like he had never seen hair before. He is also mumbling incoherently. I asked him if something was wrong to which he replied.

“No, I just can’t put it into words….”

Words? Words, I’m thinking. He is looking at my hair like he is planning to perform open heart surgery on my ear.

Finally, he tells me he is going to mix the color and runs away. Fast. I am CONVINCED I am on a hidden camera show. I start looking around and into the mirror. Where is the camera? Seriously?

The place is completely painted black. Black floors, black ceilings, black chairs, black towels, black shampoo bottles and I want HI-LIGHTS.

Someone offers me a few magazines, at which point the familiar-face receptionist comes over and offers me a drink. I agree. I NEED a drink.

Kenny is gone FOREVER. I am convinced he is smoking a bowl in the basement. Almost 20 minutes and 2 glasses of wine later, he comes back upstairs.

“Ragtop” Kenny starts working on my hair and asking me the most bizarre of questions. We start talking about gangster movies and Tulsa.

I’m assuming we got to this point in the conversation because I may have mentioned Bruce Springsteen playing at the Super Bowl on Sunday which led to “The Wrestler” Song he wrote for Mickey Rourke that won a golden globe. (Kenny loves Mickey Rourke. ) Which led the Larry King’s Interview with that Chris guy from WWE Wrestlmania talking about how he was going to give a smack down to Rourke, who challenged him to a bare-knuckle brawl. Well, he didn’t really challenge him. He just said he would go in the ring with him. Kenny informs me that Rourke is a really good fighter and could probably take him on. I’m convinced he couldn’t. I mean this guy is like 25 and talks menacingly but Kenny says Rourke knows how to fight, and he was a former boxer and he’s dirty. I agree. Which leads to Rourke being in some gangster movie that reminds Kenny of the “Outsiders” which was shot in …Tulsa.

So yea, apparently the manager at this store really likes gangsters and the movie the “Outsiders.” So he joins in the conversation. Kenny and the Manager start talking about how they could “take” any of the other salons in the area. In my mind at this point I’m thinking of Hair-Dresser Brawl 2009 on the corner Ludlow. Lots of scissors, really over-processed hair, bleach being thrown on black clothing to wild girlish screams…. And then every 30 seconds everyone would stop and use conditioner.

The cute manager is pretty cool, but if I were a bettin’ man I would NOT put money on him taking anyone down to China Town. I mean, China Town is really close so that metaphor doesn’t really work but let’s just say he has a British Accent and he was wearing a cardigan.

So manager keeps asking “canitopyaoff?” I just say yes and he gets me like 4 more glasses of wine and we engage in a thrilling conversation about how to manage a hair salon.

By the time I was done processing I was squinting out of one eye. It hadn’t seemed very long. Kenny unfoils me, drys and straight irons my hair like his high depends on it. I look in the mirror and ….

Well, I looked the same, except I was drunk and my hair was as flat as aluminum siding.

This was a clever ploy but it was never going to work. I asked what he had done. He was confused by the question (not hard to do)… I said, ”well I look exactly the same, so my question is ..what did you do?”

I was going to KILL Kenny! I suddenly had this urge to be in Hairdresser Brawl 2009. I was ready for a beat down. Where is Mickey when you need him.

I grabbed my coat and went to the register. I actually paid. I have no idea why. I didn’t tip him and I walked out. I was so pissed.

I cursed all the way home and repeated mantra…never cheat on hairdresser, never cheat on hairdresser, never cheat on hairdresser, never cheat on hairdresser.

The next morning I woke up, went to yoga, I was trying to meditate all my pent up hair-raising anger away when my phone rang… during dolphin pose. I un-dolphined and went over to my coat and grabbed my phone.

“Yes?!” I shouted forgetting my inner yogi.

“Hey Sarah… It’s Kenny, look ..yo…I know you were pretty pissed yesterday. …and I understand…It’s Okay….I want to fix it..soooo..if you could just give me another chance.”

Fine, I said. I mean, what could go wrong?

The appointment is tonight and if anything goes wrong I’m just going to go home and dye my hair Dark Recession.

The Swimming pool is fixed.

2009-01-30T08:52:00.000-08:00

I feel like telling you some things I have learned since living in my new DREAM apartment.

To have heat:
My roommates and I went the entire month of November without heat. I supplemented with a tiny space heater that would probably warm a hot pocket if placed on it for about 20 minutes. The problem is, the heater turns off after 20 minutes. It is not as reliable as it should be when freezing through the night.

I complained so frequently at work about not having heat my Secret Santa this year gave me a space heater, this is when I fully realized “maybe we have a problem here”.

My roommate just happens to be a genius and she set up some excel sheet with multiple formulas to determine when we were in violations of a heating code in the apartment and when they weren’t…. based on an outside temperature and estimated (thank you meat thermometer) inside temperature. ( my old formula was …I can’t feel my face….this was not as scientific).

Well, she set up this scary looking chart and then a g-mail acct. She then posted it on the front door. Meanwhile, I called 311. (a side note on 311..I have no idea what I accomplished by calling them expect that I found out 11 other people had called to file a complaint) Anyway, 311 said they would “investigate.” Thank you 311.

So to make a long story short, we had an excel spread sheet, we had organized with in the building. We had filed a city complaint and we were freezing our asses off and then one day the heat came back on. It was like when you are in an elevator and you are going to your floor and everyone is silent and you are doing that shifty eye thing… then you hear the ding and you have that brief...very brief…feeling of satisfaction. Then you move forward. That is what it felt like to have the heat come back on. DING. Shifty eyes. Brief feeling of satisfaction. Then you move forward.

Due to some crafty footwork by my roommate we had our rent knocked off, which is nice. I did wake up Thanksgiving morning to go to work in the freezing Antarctica. At that exact moment I had nothing to be thankful for. BUT in December, when we had heat…I was thankful for …well I was thankful for my roommate …and then heat…until THE FLOOD.

The Hot Tub:
It was so nice to have heat again; I almost did not even notice that my room had one day turned into a hot tub. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I would love to have that amenity, but I just felt cheated I was not prepared with a better raft. My BRAND new bed that I had spent 47 hours putting together was damn heavy and did not float in my new hot tub of a room.

If I had known sooner, I would have foregone the beautiful plat formed, 8 drawer, painted mahogany bed and gone with a more suitable IKEA plastic blowup raft with cup holders!

When I first moved to New York I slept on an Aero bed with 47 other people in an apartment in Brooklyn. I envied those days.

I called Alberto, our super, who may be Haitian. He speaks Hatilish. Some maybe Haitian…some Spanish..some English from what I can gather.

How you make appointments with Alberto is this. You call him. He says “ALO”. You say “hi this is sarah from Apt 6.” You state problem. He says. “WHA TIE” You say. 4 O’clock. He says. “uhhhh ahhhhhhhhhh” long pause. He says “ I can(inaudible) 4 O’clock”. You can’t decide if he said 4 O’clock. He can’t or he can. So you say. 4’ O’clock. He then repeats “4’Oclcok several times in a row.

The next day. You go to your house. It is 4’Oclock and he is not there. You call him. He answers. You say “Hi alberto it’s sarah from apt 6. It’s 4’Oclock…” He interrupts you….”I be there in ‘teen minutes.” You are not sure how long that is. So you wait.

He shows up maybe an hour later. Rings doorbell. You open the door. He comes in right past you to the Radiator (or said problem). He takes the valve off of the radiator and sprays water all over the room. He does not seem concerned. He says it’s the “valve” He replaces the “valve” and says. “is fixed”. Thanks Alberto.

Two hours later you are swimming off the coast of Broome Street once again.

The process repeats itself for 2 or 3 more weeks. Call Alberto “4 O’clock” Wait one hour Ring Doorbell. “Is Valve” replace valve. “Is fixed.” Swimming at 9pm.

One day you decide to call the management company. They schedule a plumber.

I show up at the apartment the day of my plumber “appointment”. The plumber says I am late. Alberto is there. He says I’m late too. But if I show up at 4’Oclock and my appointment is at 4 how am I late? They will not argue with me. The plumber tells me “whoever” pays the bill will have to pay the overtime for this. OKAY. GOOD START.

We go into the apartment. I shove dirty clothes under my bed as plumber….“Pablo,” plumber’s assistant… and Alberto RUSH into my room to FIX this radiator ASAP.

I begin to move the bed over and plumber yells at me for attempting to move the bed over. I’m reverting back to the image of Alberto spraying my whole room down last time. Thanks Alberto. The plumber says it’s not necessary. I move it anyway.

He then glances down at the on/off valve and does a 180 degree turn, glares at me and yells “HAVE YOUS BEN TOUCHIN THIS?” in a thick Bronx accent. I look at the valve. I look at him. I look at …Alberto has disappeared at this point. I’m not kidding. He was in the room and then he was gone.

“No…(I lied)…well yes…I mean …we’ve been having problem with the heat…so…I mean….when it is necessary…well…see we didn’t…” He cut me off. “YOU CANNNA TOUCH THIS” There was then a long soliloquy about touching radiator valves that I had a hard time following.

"dONT EVA… EVA touch the RAD- E- ator" (not pronounced RAY-Dee -Ator …as I so ignorantly have been calling it for some years).

Apparently touching the valve will ruin your life. So the plumber opened the valve unscrewed the RAD-E-ATOR from the pipes and asked Pablo to drain out the water. Radiators are heavy and I’m not sure how he was going to do this but he kept complaining it was hot. When he did this the plumber would then yell at him. “YOU’RE THE ONE THAT DECIDED NOT TO GO TO COLLEGE.”

Ouch.

So he drained it out and took a scolding in more ways then one. The plumber also added a “pitch” to the radiator. He said this was very important and blamed Alberto for not adding a “pitch” earlier.

Okay, so here are some rules to follow for RAD-E-ATORS:
1) DO NOT TOUCH
2) Needs said “pitch”
3) If you do not go to college you will be forced to drain scolding radiators with your bare hands

Silicon can fix everything:
One day my roommate mentioned the cabinets in the kitchen were falling off the walls. I went and checked it out and noticed this to, in fact, to be true. I thought about DIY, get out my drill and put some anchors in the wall and taking care of it with some heavy screws, but then decided there are probably more professional ways to do this and the management company probably doesn’t want me screwing with this cabinet.

I called Alberto. Usual procedure. “4 O’clock”….

He came by a few days later. I had moved everything in the kitchen out of the way, because he may be taking the cabinet down. He said it wasn’t necessary.

He screwed 14,000 screws into the cabinet and through the corresponding dry wall. He says it will hold until next week. Thanks. Alberto. He also added he will come by and put "silicon" around the outside of it, if it doesn't. I'm not worried...I feel like it will hold.

He also did the same thing to the bathroom fixture but said it needed "silicon" as well.

Alberto has this really great ability to fixate on one word. Last month it was "Valve". "Valve" this "Valve" that. We fix "valve." Now, it is "Silicon', “Silicon” this “Silicon” that. We fix with “Silicon.” Thanks. Alberto.

Gray Hair:
Living in New York will give you gray hair whether your Super dyes it or not.

The sink in the bathroom was not draining. I called Albert. Same procedure “4 O’clock”. …

He came by a week later with a gigantic bottle of bleach. He asked me for a coat hanger. Remembering the line “NO WIRE HANGERS”. I went into my closet and found plenty.

I gave him the hanger and I’m going to spare you the details because it was gross. He told me to not fix my hair over the sink. I said “THAT IS NOT MY HAIR!!! IT IS GRAY!!!!”

He said, “It’s the Bleach.”

Goodbye News Media: Don't Forget to Write

2008-12-15T09:54:00.000-08:00

Traditional news media is about to write its own obituary. In the last few months Time cut 600 employees, US News & World Report, and Christian Science Monitor went online. Hearst, Conde Nast, McGraw Hill, all recorded deficits. CBS posted an 11.8 Billion dollar loss this quarter, CNBC announced a 10% budget cut and NBC Universal is cutting their budget by $500 Million dollars, ABC has a hiring freeze and the list goes on and on and on. I would like to look at the decline of traditional news media, what are we doing with new media, a look at embracing the audience and how this affects democracy.

News organizations are tied to the very life blood of democracy and the economy. Is it possible to have a democracy bailout? Many would say democracy suffers under a declining news media but with new media, new horizons for citizen journalists open everyday and a chance for a new democracy. Robert W. McChesney argues in Rich Media, Poor Democracy a new democracy is not possible without a corporate media explosion and a corresponding implosion of public life (McChesney 3). At this time we are facing a corporate media explosion due to the failed economy and looming depression. If you read any media blogs they are inundated with media “deaths” every day. The grim reaper of the magazine industry has its own blog. It is an entire site dedicated to the demise of the medium titled magazinedeathpool.com. Spend five minutes on the site and it makes you ill but provides a pretty good indication of the state of advertising and what is to come. More death.

The Old Media obituaries have already been written most notable by Marshall McLuhan predicting the electronic age and supplying us with the tetrad in the book posthumanously published by his son; Laws of Media: The New Science . If we look at these four questions he poses with new media in mind, one question of which asks “what is pushed aside or obsolesced by new media?” We can see that it is Television and Print.

NEWSPAPER DECLINE: THE BLAME GAME

In his book Super Media, Charlie Beckett quotes a study by Shakeup Media, for every one percent of broadband growth, newspaper circulation goes down two percent. At this rate, newspaper would be dead by 2090 with no more advances (Beckett 21). Technological advances come every day and it only eats away at that 2090 number. My prediction is newspaper won’t last until 2010. This gives newspapers 2009 to get their act together.

In the wake of an economic collapse, fingers come out and are pointing everywhere. According to an article from the American Journalism Review “Don’t Blame the Journalism” Paul Farhi writes newspaper are not declining because they aren’t adapting to new media and better journalism, but because of the newspaper business. Farhi says 50 million Americans buy one everyday and nearly 117 million read one. Secondly, newspaper readers are more affluent than TV news viewers citing Mediamark Research. Thirdly, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, ratings are lower for local TV newscasts. They took a dive this past year that marks a faster decline than newspapers. Farhi argues if it isn’t readership that is declining or undesirable ones it is advertising that is killing it. Classified ads make up more than 50 percent of newspapers profits. They have declined 25 percent in the first half of 2008 and erased $1.8 billion in revenue according to NAA research. Newspapers desperate last ditch effort to move online in the past few years is now flat lining. Farhi says web revenue is down. Sales at newspaper Web sites fell 2.4 percent in the second Quarter of 2008. Farhi who writes for the Washington Post argues the demise of newspapers is inevitable but it’s not the journalists fault and it’s not the readers, it’s the business and the economy (Farhi).

Jeff Javis of Buzzmachine.com has taken a lot of fire these past few months for claiming the decline of journalism is their fault. The journalists are to blame. A former television critic, columnist, creator of Entertainment Weekly, and associate publisher of the New York Daily News and now professor turned blogger, says journalists, including himself, did not see the change coming soon enough, readied their craft and exploit the relationships new media provided with the public. He also blames journalists for not taking back journalism. It was just left to the dogs or as Jarvis says “business people” (Jarvis). “It is our fault that we lost readers and squandered trust. It is our fault that we sat back and expected to be supported in the manner to which we had become accustomed by some unknown princely patron. Responsibility and blame are indeed ours” (Jarvis). In response Adrian Monck, a popular British Media critic and author of Truth or Lies: Can You Trust the Media said in his blog “the crops did not fail because we offended the gods” (Monck). He also claims that if we start blaming the journalist and the journalist start blaming themselves, then the public loses trust which is the very cornerstone of readership and democracy. I agree, but I think the journalists need to recognize their failures as well. The point of a journalist is to listen to the public and the public made a very large battle cry for online news this year, most evidenced by the Obama campaign who capitalized on New Media and when I say capitalize I don’t only mean campaign contributions but I mean bodies, viewership, expanding the electorate. Newspapers have to do the same thing, they have to expand their electorate and according to my prediction it may be too late.

NETWORK DECLINE:

Where do we get our news? Not at the Network. Television news is suffocating under the banner of the networks. The old network model is suffering in an ad deficiency affecting programs across the board. The relationship between the affiliates and the network is strained with low ratings and declining ad sales. As Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky point out in “A Propaganda Model,” for a television network, an audience gain or loss of one percentage point in the Nielsen ratings translates into a change in advertising revenue of from $80 to $100 million a year (Chomsky 268). Ratings are dropping across the board and this is an anomaly year with the election and the Olympics. As Michael Schneider from Variety points out “It’s D-Day for the Broadcast Networks” saying they have been living on borrowed time for the better part of two decades (Schneider). Already hit with the writers strike earlier in the year and now the economy slump, Schneider points out a few possibilities: when desperate times call for desperate measures. One of the big three could drop an hour of primetime. But that would mean giving up prime real estate to the affiliates. In a network first, FOX having two hours of Saturday programming to be sold for infomercials. Schneider also says networks might just dump out of the old network model completely and turn themselves into a cable station (Schneider). Another possibility is selling off TV stations and getting out of the TV news business. He proposes NBC and ABC both got out of radio, why not Local TV? Schneider cites many network execs who think they are a long way off from extinction (Schneider). They claim to have bored through the tough times and they will bear through this. I disagree. I think Schneider points out some good alternatives but it isn’t going to stop the Internet or Youtube or Hula or Netflix or DVR’s. If Networks think they can grin and bear it. I think they have another thing coming. Charlie Beckett credits this fragmentation and loss of audience to an “explosion” of choice (Beckett 25). This could be the same “explosion” Robert McChesney was calling for back in 1999, leading to a more stable democracy.

Joe Trippi vehemently writes in his book The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, TV is the cause of the declining democracy. News is not being reported. Political ads are distorted and over his lifetime he has seen, working as a campaign advisors for decades, television’s mind numbing effects. In 2004, he wrote a very compelling argument for democracies salvation. The answer is the Internet. Trippi worked on the Howard Dean presidential campaign of ’04. He passionately describes his experience of politics and technology, “they are about to converge, to crash together and reverse 50 years of political cynicism in one glorious explosion of civic re-engagement (Tripppi xix)” He watched as his grass-roots campaign created what he calls a “dot-com” miracle. Dean was born out of the internet and died under the network. Everyone remembers the clip played over and over and over again of him screaming which states he would take next. Trippi’s argument seems not only for the revolution of the internet but rabid denouncement of television. In the past four years he has been writing a lot about open sourcing and was the senior campaign advisor on John Edward’s campaign. The campaign failed but it’s interesting to note he then became a CBS News Consultant converging both his blog and analysis on-air. He was making an argument against television but now he is finding a wider audience due to television.

JUST SHOOT THE MESSENGER:

I wouldn’t stray too far from Trippi’s views when I look at Herman and Chomsky’s “Propaganda Model” it provokes me to say, “shoot the messenger.” They describe five filters for news where worthy victims are humanized portrayed prominently and dramatically where unworthy victims will be dehumanized and merit slight detail (Chomsky 282). Everything is done politically ??? and serves domestic power interests. This just adds to the argument of moving away from corporate news sources. The citizens don’t want their news filtered for them. In the most sickening way Chomsky points out our anti-communism filters as a control mechanism of the past (278). “It is the mass media who point into the limelight a Joe McCarthy, Arkady Shevchenko, and Claire Sterling”(278). This article was written in 1988 and it would be sad to say this type of radical filtering is still alive today with the fear mongering exposure of William Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Reverend Wright and ACORN.

Nick Davies writes in his book Flat Earth News, there’s no real reporting about reporting, dog doesn’t eat dog (Davies 1). This is a problem with the business in general. There are no watchdogs of the media, only the grassroots kind that have there very beginnings online. Dan Rather, taken down by the blogosphere is the prime example of this. Davies demands in the future media products should be treated like food products which would require them to reveal their contents. He refers to a study done at Cardiff University that shows the most respectable news institutions are recycling unchecked material. I notice this in my own work at CBS News, where we routinely use wire copy that seems to be the all be all when it comes to content. We also use APTN video without even thinking twice. The study found 69 percent of stories were whole or mainly wire copy and only 1 percent admitting the source (52-53). They also found a staggering 70 percent relied on a statement of fact that had not been checked. Davies sites a study done by the Columbia Journalism Review on the Wall Street Journal that found more than half of their news stories “were based solely on press releases. They were reprinted verbatim or in paraphrase” with a WSJ byline (97).

If a majority of all our news is coming from wire or PR services, how healthy do they look right now considering the economy? In an interesting move this last week of November, the News Media Guild, the Associated Press’ largest union, sent out a press release saying more than 500 employees of the AP have signed a petition urging the AP to reverse course in contract talks with the NMG, saying the AP’s bargaining stance threatens quality journalism. First reported in an article in Editor & Publisher, Joe Strupp published the letter from the petitioners to NMG. The new contract proposed by the AP has a wage freeze, weakened job security, eliminated overtime and reduction of sick leave for new mothers (Strupp). This is terrible news for journalists. It’s providing evidence of stagnant talks of previous negotiations and proving the AP is, in fact, struggling. If a news organization of this magnitude and located in all 50 states and around the world are making cut backs you can only imaging how this is effecting smaller news organizations. This bad news comes on the heels of a much heated battle between Newspapers and the AP over their high rates forcing some to drop the AP all together. This has opened doors for other news services hoping to jump in the market. CNN recently announced its cheaper wire services to lure newspapers away from the AP. They are also holding a “CNN Newspaper Summit” ( Arango). CNN the Newspaper?? This would mark a major convergence between television and newspapers. It is interesting move on their part to not be investing more on the new media side rather in a dying medium.

With a bigger news hole to fill and a lack of wire services, tighter deadlines and even tighter budgets newspapers may go for it, but who is fact checking CNN. Davies suggests a parallel news organizations that would sample the output of each newspaper and broadcaster, check it for mistakes and then produce a rolling average of their accuracy and make it mandatory to be displayed by them (393). Davies says the most dangerous thing about the internet is news organizations are using it to cut costs but not giving that money back to journalism. (394)

NETWORKED JOURNALISM:

If we do shoot the messenger, pull the plug on Evening News and cancel the Gray Lady, what are the implications of a disappearing conventional media? Charlie Beckett estimates in his book, Super Media: Saving Journalism So it Can Save the World, we have five years –perhaps ten- to save journalism (Beckett 5). “In the short term, news businesses will survive if they make the right decision about staffing and marketing, but in the long term …They have to know what kind of journalism is wanted and needed and how to deliver it” (12). He suggests the only way to do it is by what he is calling “Networked Journalism”. A term used to describe what his “Super Media” will do. The need for networked journalism is a concept of connecting journalists to the public to contribute facts, fact check, link stories, post blogs. The stories are always green and continue on. The Journalist is the facilitator not the gatekeeper (52). A form of this is being done at new news websites such as VoiceofSanDiego.org. It’s a web-based news organization that is rising as a Watchdog in San Diego uncovering many different scandals. At this point they are nonprofit like ProPublica but it’s catching on in other places and the public is interacting with them (Perez-Pena).

Beckett argues it’s impossible to separate the old media from the new media and in fact there is a growing need for the way journalists can filter and package information (Beckett 19). Beckett presents the old media problems such as unresponsive, expensive, deadlines, linear, to new media solutions like interactive, cheap and multi-dimensional (47). There will still be uses for the broadcast and print in the future. It has to be integrated into another model. In Paul Bradshaw’s Online Journalism Blog he creates a “Model for the 21st Century Newsroom.” In this newsroom all medium come into play. First, an alert is sent out via text or Twitter or Facebook feed, showing ownership of the story and speed of information. Next a draft is written this comes as a blog and can spread the word. Next, is a tangible article or package, this shows editorial decision. Next is reflection and interactivity. This goes back to blogging and live chats. The final stage is customization. This is a subscription or database driving journalism (Bradshaw). This is a great model but it doesn’t explain the profit of it. How do you make money off of this model? There are also editorial problems with this because it doesn’t explain how the original information is received and what would be deemed rumor worthy and who would be at fault for a speed vs. accuracy dilemmas.

NEW MEDIA, NO MONEY:

In regards to making this new media model work, Paul Farhi wrote in the American Journalism Review about “Online Salvation.” Newspapers that think they can make it work online need to think again. Farhi states Nielsen’s Net Ratings show an audience plateau and the ones that are visiting these sites aren’t staying around for long. The average view time of the nytimes.com was 68 seconds per day. Local newspapers are the most at risk for failure. But even if some of these disappear and the newspaper industry continued to lose about 8 percent of its print ad revenue and online revenue continued to grow at 20 percent a year, Fahri points out it would take more than a decade for online revenue to catch up to print. Another problem with online news is the ability to steal it and call it your own, even if you source it, you are still getting the web traffic. This leads advertisers to stray away from online ads on news sites. Rupert Murdoch is making subscribers pay for the journal. It’s also being done in some local newspapers around the country. Eventually somebody has to pay for the journalism. If the ad revenue can’t keep up it will be the people.

Craig Newmark of Craigslist.com says paper is a luxury item, Craigslist, the online classified advertising giant, taking blame for failed profits at Newspapers, chimed into the debate last month. Newmark visited the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times for a meeting with its editors and writers. The LA Times posted the partial transcript online in an article entitled “Paper or Pixels”. Newmark calls himself a “community organizer.” Newmark says he feels that way on a local level and in the future newspapers will be either very local or very national. He mentions this because he recently subscribed to the New York Times, because he thinks people want to have a connection to a national newspaper for big stories they want to read more about (Newmark). A professor of mine posed the question to our class the other day, if the Times decided to make customers pay for their material online would you subscribe. The answer was a resounding yes. Young people would PAY for the Times online. The newspaper of record is still the newspaper of record and its content is not something you can get anywhere else. If I had a choice between being better informed and slightly poorer or less informed and richer. I would choose poorer. Do people out across the country value the Times and its content? Would they pay? Newmark says yes but for the upper middle class and above. He also thinks we will turn to the sponsorship model that we saw in the 50’s and 60’s. We will also see the public service model and philanthropy model (Newmark). The public service model much like the VoiceofSandiego.org mentioned earlier, or one of my personal favorites devoted to polls and projections FiveThirtyEight.com who recently looked at the retention percentage of political Web sites. TheAtlantic, Drudge, Huffington are all over 100 percent (Silver).

DEMOCRACY DOUBTS:

What does it all mean? Robert W. McChesney writes in Rich Media, Poor Democracy people are more intoned to media then ever before. They are not jumping ship to go to another medium they are just consuming more media. But, he argues, media have become a significant antideomocratic force in the US and it’s due in-part to the corporate media explosion. McChesney argues, “behind the lustrous glow of new technologies and electronic jargon, the media system has become increasingly concentrated and conglomerated into a relative handful of corporate hands” (McChesney 3). He says we must restructure the media and reconnect with citizens (3). He proposes a media system that promotes democratic rule which means creating a nonprofit and non-commercial component. This is opposite of Schneider’s model but similar to Beckett.

McChesney wants to reenlist the public in the debate over media issues. I find this problem in our own society to be the most daunting. The only ones talking about the decline of the media are the people in the media. McChesney explains in his book the need to organize politically to enact structural media reform. He argues the only way to do it is by an “emergence of a broad-based democratic left that makes media reform one of the core elements of its platform.” (11) I challenge this notion of a “left.” This term today is very vague. He speaks about media radicalism and the downfall of neo-liberalism. I don’t think you have to be a contender for the left to challenge the media. I think websites even like FiveThirtyEight are challenging the media. They are providing a product that others aren’t. I beg the question: is Obama left enough? Will he have the platform that changes the corporate media today? He has already established his new media presence and has created the White House Daily Briefing Channel on Youtube. He wants to move his conferences online and speak to the public with feedback. I argue he is already contributing to McChesney’s media reform. In The Business of Media: Corporate Media and the Public Interest. David Croteau and William Hoynes’ call to action is to exercise choice, and to engage in civic activities. There are many forms of content on many different mediums and with that an opportunity to branch out from the corporations. The authors conclude media overshadows other important social institutions integral to our democracy. The decline of church groups, labor unions, consumer organizations has lead to a more consumerist society. They advise the revitalization of civic life will not occur from the restructuring of media but through a renewal of civic culture (Croteau 258).

The project I want to do is chart the decline of the news media in this economic crisis. Will this be the year conventional media died? I would like to create a website that follows the daily battles of TV News, just like mediadeathpool. There seems to be a lot of literature about print but not as much on the broadcast decline. One thing I have noticed in my own research is there is exhausting amount of research on the media in general and journalists are not afraid to write about journalism. The more books I looked at closer to this date the longer their works cited pages were, citing lectures, websites, blogs, packages, print articles, books, soon we will be quoting Twitter comments in our works cited pages. The information is overwhelming and infinite and I find it hard to weed through it all. It only adds to the argument that journalist or “community organizers” or “networkers” are essential in this movement. By the time I have finished writing this sentence media will have changed and 10 new blogs will have been created. It’s impossible to keep up.

I also would like to look at online social networking sites and if they are causing a decline in audience to news and journalism. My generation spends a great deal of time on these sites rather than watching news or picking up a paper or reading the times online and some of my research suggests network journalist will use these sites to research stories gather comments and network with other journalists on information. If people had to pay for facebook and Myspace would they still use them? They have built up such a user base, I argue they would. Can these be turned into news sites? If they are used as news sites is there a way to monitize the content. Adage.com says "That's perhaps summed up best by Ted McConnell, Procter & Gamble's interactive guru: "What in heaven's name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?" (adage.com).

A lot of research out there is lacking the business perspective. This utopian belief that we can start up some Networked Journalism and all move online and have this perfect news media, non profit journalism is just that: utopian. The news media has to make money just like everybody else. I think where this comes down to is free. We as a society feel so entitled to everything for free. Yes it is a “free” press but that doesn’t make it FOR free. If advertising is failing we have to turn to subscription based programming/print and online content. Yes, media conglomerate corporations will fail that base everything on big time advertising but smaller media companies that employ real journalists will succeed. Isn’t that what we want, a poor media, rich democracy?

Works Cited:

Arango, Tim. ""CNN Pitches a Cheaper Wire Service to Newspapers"" New York Times. 30 Nov. 2008.New York Times.Nov. 2008 <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/business/media/01cnn.html?pagewanted=1&ref=business>.

Beckett, Charlie. SUPERMEDIA SuperMedia : Saving Journalism So It Can Save the World. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2008.

Bradshaw, Paul. ""A Model for the 21st Century Newsroom"" Weblog post. Online Journalism Blog. 17 Sept. 2007. Nov. 2008 <http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2007/09/17/a-model-for-the-21st-century-newsroom-pt1-the-news-diamond/>.

Chomsky, Noam, and Edward S. Herman. "" The Propaganda Model"" Manufaturing Consent. Pantheon Books, 1988.

Croteau, David, and William Hoynes. The Business of Media : Corporate Media and the Public Interest. New York: Pine Forge P, 2005.

Davies, Nick. Flat Earth News : An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media. London: Chatto & Windus, 2008.

Farhi, Paul. ""Don't Blame Journalism"" Nov. 2008. American Journalism Review. Nov. 2008 <http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=4623>.

Farhi, Paul. ""Online Salvation"" Jan. 2008. American Journalism Review. Nov. 2008 <http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=4427>.

Jarvis, Jeff. ""It Is Our Fault"" Weblog post. BuzzMachine. 8 Oct. 2008. Nov. 2008 <http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/10/08/it-is-our-fault/>.

McChesney, Robert W. Rich Media, Poor Democracy : Communication Politics in Dubious Times. New York: New P, The, 2000.

McLuhan, Marshall, and Eric McLuhan. Laws of Media : The New Science. New York: University of Toronto P, 1992.

Monck, Adrian. ""The Decline of Newspapers - Nothing to Do with Journalism"" Weblog post. Can You Trust The Media? 17 Feb. 2008. Nov. 2008 <http://adrianmonck.com/2008/02/the-decline-of-newspapers-nothing-to-do-with-journalism/>.

Newmark, Craig. ""Paper or Pixels?"" Interview. Los Angeles Times. 25 Nov. 2008. Los Angeles Times. Nov. 2008 <http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-newmark-ps25-2008nov25,0,1635100.story?page=1>.

Perez-Pena, Richard. ""Web Sites That Dig for News Rise as Watchdogs." New York Times. 17 Nov. 2008.New York Times.Nov. 2008 <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/business/media/18voice.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp>.

Schneider, Michael. ""Needed: Network bailout?"" 23 Nov. 2008. Variety. Nov. 2008 <http://www.variety.com/vr1117996347.html>.

Silver, Nate. ""Friday eCommerce Interlude"" FiveThirtyEight. 21 Nov. 2008. FiveThirtyEight. Nov. 2008 <http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/friday-ecommerce-interlude.html>.

Strupp, Joe. ""Guild Claims 500 AP Staffers Signed Petition Against Contract Proposal"" Editor & Publisher. 25 Nov. 2008.Nielsen Business Media.Nov. 2008 <http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003915997>.

Trippi, Joe. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised : Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything. New York: ReganBooks, 2004.

Boomer Sooner Cupcakes!!

2008-12-10T11:41:00.001-08:00

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In the Heights!! = amazing

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Audio test

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Can TiVo Survive?

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TiVo is the world’s first digital video recorder (DVR). It revolutionized the way we watch television by allowing a viewer to pause live television. Virtually replacing the VCR, the new technology was inviting to consumers because it puts the power in the palm of their hands. Users can digitally record their favorite shows, store them on a hard drive inside the device and watch them whenever they please. It allows the users to fast-forward through commercials, customize their content, and manage their entertainment by ones own specifications. TiVo first came on the scene at a Consumers Electronics Show in January of 1999. Originally intended by Jim Barton and Mike Ramsey of Silicon Graphics and Time Warner’s Full Service Network as a home networking device, the two changed direction when they began first public trials of the product in the San Francisco Bay Area. They had developed the idea to record digitized video on a hard disk. It was wildly successful forcing Ramsey to announce they would be shipping them to homes in March of that year, way ahead of schedule. Although TiVo was originally incorporated on August 4, 1997 as “Teleworld, INC,” after launching the DVR in March, the company renamed itself and made it’s Initial Public offering in September of 1999.

STRENGTHS:
TiVo has many strengths in the marketplace. It was the first one on the scene allowing it to cement it’s name as the leading provider of digitally recorded television. It has even created its own language. The word “tivo” becoming a verb used in many parts of speech. People would talk about how they had to “Tivo” something or they hadn’t “tivoed” this show yet or to not ruin the out come of a game because they were “tivoing” it. By doing so it further established it’s brand, much the same way we say “do you have a Kleenex” instead of tissue or I’m going to make a “XEROX” instead of a copy or “just google it” instead of “look it up.” The language around the device was designed that way. I suspect TiVo did not want it’s users to even know it was a DVR. It didn’t even market itself that way. A “digital video recorder” was too confusing a concept for a viewer. They wanted to establish themselves in the marketplace as something easy and fun and anybody could do it, not loaded with technological jargon.

TiVo built it’s empire of being very user friendly and fun. It seems like its idea was to make television viewing like being at an amusement park. It’s corny but it works. In the beginning when the system is starting up it plays this animated TiVo character, which is a television with two legs and an two antennae, running around in what looks like a Mouse Trap game until it finally lands on your screen in the top corner. It has a soundtrack. You can’t fast forward through it, so you are forced to watch it. The little guy is so cute and friendly you can’t take your eyes away from the screen. It’s like the Pillsbury Dough Boy for DVRs. This is all part of managing the brand and connecting the consumer with the product. Even the TiVo sounds are iconic. When Tivo switched over to the DirecTV version there were sound issues causing a firestorm on online chat boards and Tivo support was flooded with calls of how to get the sounds back. My friends and I, when we are watching a show and I want to fast forward, I don’t even say fast forward, I say “Buboop.” It in itself created its own subculture of television viewing. It became such a household name providing a bit of notoriety when people were spending endless amounts of time watching shows they Tivoed or even laughably admitting they had to “catch up” on their TiVo on the weekends. “Sex and the City” even had an episode where Miranda was having a relationship with her TiVo. This type of branding and technology made TiVo what it is today: an icon. An icon in technology.

Because it was first in the marketplace to develop this type of software it also holds the keys to many patented features, one of which, is the “trick play” allowing a user to pause live tv and even go back 30 minutes in time. It will also record 2 or 3 shows at a time. TiVo also created the Season Pass Manager, allowing you to create programs you want to record all the time when they are on. You can select first run or repeats for even the quality you want to record them at. TiVo created the Wish List, which allows you to record all shows according to search criteria. You can type in Brad Pitt and it records all movies with Brad Pitt.

TiVo also prides itself as being the DVR that can go anywhere. TiVoToGo allows you to move recorded material to your home PC, laptop or mobile device. They have also partnered with Yahoo TV to allow you to record shows anywhere on the go. One of TiVos recent strength building moves was the partnership with NetFlix. This allows you to watch over 12,000 movies and TV episodes streamed to your box. You can also rent or buy movies with Amazon’s Video on Demand feature through your broadband-connected DVR. They have also partnered with Jaman, which has thousands of international and independent titles in it’s library and have also joined forces with Walt Disney Studios and CinemaNow for the latest rentals. TiVo has patented the Swivel Search which let’s its users look for programs to record by the process of association, a director directed this movie with this actor who produce this film who has another film coming out. It’s really neat. You can also look up movie times in your area by the director, actor, opening night, top box office and see what is playing around you. You can check show times and purchase tickets. If you are staying in, they recently partnered with Dominos to deliver pizza to your door.
TiVo has always been on the forefront of creating a way to manage your home entertainment. The system links to your music library on your PC or Mac and you can play out songs, download free music video and access Rhapsody. They also link to radio stations and podcasts. This has been a big weakness with other DVR systems, accessing and streaming music. TiVo has lead in all the DVR markets on this technology. In the same way they have lead with linking your photos and videos to your television. It will even let you link with online pictures on Photobucket and Picasa to view other peoples Web Albums. In a recent addition they have teamed up with One True Media Service to allow the user to create their own home movie. You can edit them and add music and then share the private channel code with family and friends and they can download the home movie to their DVR.

TiVo has a new video feature that allows you to view content provided by over 75 partners that are not on cable or satellite including the New York Times, CNET, The Onion and Vogue. The downloads are free and only available to TiVo users. TiVo has also partnered with YouTube to provide the best of the web video to your DVR. You can search the YouTube Channel or just look up todays favorites. TiVo Desktop software allows for hundreds of extra titles from internet feeds and even video podcasts. They are the only DVR that has Broadband connectability. The system is THX certified and also has an imbedded Kid-safe TV chip with TiVo KidZONE. Tivo also made a deal with Nero, a german based digital media company to enhance user experience on a PC. For those users who watch TV on their PC they now can pause and record live TV on it.
TiVo Suggestions is one of there biggest strengths because the device takes notes on what you record, don’t record, thumbs up or thumbs down and gives you suggestions based on that. TiVo is the only DVR that does this. Their remote is also unique in how it was designed and is user friendly for rating videos. TiVo is also quickly becoming an icon in audience research. TiVo has the ability to compile audience research like no other DVR system. They can essentially predict the future by telling the mass media about the past. Viewing patterns of the audience are essential to any advertiser. This is a huge strength for TiVo considering they are working with and develping StopWatch Ratings Services. A new rating system developed in 2007 based on DVR viewing. They have increased their sample size to 100,000 homes in the last year and are proving ratings that are 25 times more accurate. They have the ability to look at second by second viewing, enabling a rating for each specific commercial. It shows how fast a viewer fast-forwards through a commercial and viewing behavior. All of this is a great strength but also leaves a great deal of opportunity for the company. TiVo has established itself so far as the best overall software for manipulating video and managing content. Many have tried to emulate the TiVo formula but lack the software engineers. But competitors are hot on their tails.

WEAKNESSES:
Tivo is not a source. TiVo has to connect to two things in order to receive information and a picture. It either has to connect to a phone line or to an internet signal to receive information. It has to either connect to an antennae, cable box or satellite receiver in order to receive a picture. This has been a great weakness since it’s inception. It has forced TiVo to rely on other companies in order to provide their product. One such tumultuous relationship over time has been DirecTV, the leading satellite provider in the country, which may eventually lead to TiVo’s downfall of being a leader in DVR’s if it doesn’t nurture it’s current relationship. TiVo originally could connect with any incoming source but in 2000 it united with DirecTV to create DirecTiVo. It allowed subscribers to access all of DirecTV’s satellite channels and record them on a TiVo model integrated into a receiver. It was a great partnership until DirecTV cut ties with TiVo after News Corporation took a controlling share of the Satellite provider and switched their operating system to NDS, which by the way News Corp own a majority of. However, the partnership did not disintegrate completely, they still used each others customer support system and just last year they announced they would be distributing a new HD DIRECTV DVR with TiVo service, which comes out at the end of 2009. Many TiVo users are breathing a sigh of relief because the original HD units did not work very well. A weakness that comes from this is a loss of many customers. People that were linked to TiVo through DirecTV lost their relationship to TiVo because they didn’t switch satellite providers they just switched DVR’s. Theses weaknesses were caused by there relationship with DirecTV, a relationship they now know they need in order to continue doing business. Many have complained TiVo’s software integrated with other cable or satellite systems do not work as well. For instance, the original Comcast + TiVo relationship didn’t work as well but they are currently working to provide better integration and arrival in new markets.

Other customers who stayed with DirecTV were allowed to keep their DirecTivo’s but when they upgraded they upgraded to a DirecTV DVR with no relation to TiVo. In the process the customers got a taste of the competition and it proved fruitful for DirecTV resulting in many upgrades of their platform. Upgrades people liked over the old TiVo model. TiVo was slow to make these adjustments and is still lagging behind in some improvements. For instance, when a viewer is watching a show or game and they don’t want to know the ending. In the TiVo model when you switch from the main page to the guide it shows you the channel you are currently watching. The problem with this is, if for instance you were TiVoing Tiger Woods at the Masters Golf tournament and you are watching the recorded version and he is on the 12th hole. If at that moment you would like to see what else is on TV and you switch to the guide you may catch Tiger holding the trophy in real time. It’s a flaw in the system. In other DVR models the guide takes you to a different page. There is no video behind the guide.

Another weakness is TiVo does not have as many channel options. In the DirecTV model you can choose a news feed or a sports feed or a specific event feed. This allows the user to watch 8 channels at a time. In television, networks often have a “switch pool” at sporting events. It’s what you would watch say on USA when you are watching the US Open for Tennis. They are watching and commentating on one central “more important” match but switching every so often between courts to show you other matches that are going on. In the sports feed it allows you to pick your content. So you can actually watch the other courts and monitor all the courts if you want at time. Or on gameday if you wanted to watch 8 different college football games at a time. They do this with news also. You can watch CNBC, FOX, Bloomberg, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, FOX-Biz, ABC, CBS all at the same time. With your remote you channel up and down for the sound you want to listen to.

People have also complained that TiVo is slower. There is a longer lag time between gaining information. They have said the new system out next year will fix that. Also when you are fast forwarding through shows there is only three speeds as opposed to four, although a particular strength for a while was TiVo’s ability to jump through programs which now other DVRs have added.

A weakness with the original models was the price. They were very expensive to begin with but have since come down. There are other DVR’s out there that are more competitive in price that you aren’t charged for. For instance, if you are using TiVo service but you have and HD satellite you will be charged for the HD satellite and then you will be charged for Tivo and their HD service. Another problem is hardware. Many of these receivers that are also DVR’s are just one box. With a TiVo you have to buy and maintain one more piece of hardware, if you aren’t integrating into say a DirecTiVo. DirecTV, Comcast, Dish Network or Time Warner/Cox Cable will give you free hardware that runs their software. These are all problems TiVo has with not being a source. Tivo also has to live on a phone line or an internet connection, these other devices do not.

OPPORTUNITIES:
TiVo has many opportunities to improve itself which it is doing on a day to day basis as I mentioned earlier TiVo has great software engineers, marketers, developers which makes them a force to be reckoned with. TiVo’s partnership with NetFlix to download movies directly to your TiVo box will help grown their movie library and they can compete with video on demand services. When you click on the NetFlix icon on the Now Playing screen it brings you to a list of movies from there you pick a title and stream the movie to your TiVo box. In time I suspect you will be able to buy these movies and store them somewhere on a separate hard drive. You can also access your Amazon account for Video on Demand and buy movies. You can connect your Amazon account to access Paypal to pay for the movie. I’m sure in the future you will just be billed directly to your TiVo account if they can work out some agreement where they take a share of the profits. TiVo is trying to compete with VOD (video on Demand) offered by DishNetwork and DirecTV and other cable companies. The obstacles remain which titles or database you are pulling from. NetFlix does not have all the licensing agreements with all the studio and therefore cannot provide all the movies but in time they are building their library and this looks to be promising relationship. When downloading movies there are always bandwidth issues and you do have to have an internet connection. It also means more hardware that you will have to probably buy from TiVo. They may make more money off of hardware then movies. TiVo has also made a great deal of money off of rebates, people that buy hardware and do not cash in on their rebates.

Other opportunities for TiVo in the future could be completely pulling away from a satellite or cable provider and pull video and information directly from the internet much like we see with such programs as Pandora or Hulu where you are only connected to the internet and listening to radio. They have the YouTube channels and NetFlix but it’s not everything that is on Television.

TiVo also has great opportunities in mobile technologies. They have recently partnered with RIM (research in motion). This originally was a partnership to bring access to your TiVo device to your mobile phone in terms of programming a show to record or looking up program information, or transferring recordings to your phone, but they are now researching and developing a way to bring that content directly to your device. I believe this is the future of television it will all be on the internet much like what TiVo is doing with Nero. If you have an internet connection you will be able to watch LIVE TV from anywhere including your mobile phone and even record on your mobile phone. The storage space has just not been developed. The screen is small and not as inviting but in time they will make bigger screens that fold out and hopefully TiVo will be working on software to integrate into these screens.

I believe they should work to put a player on the iPhone immediately. There is not a TiVo application and you can’t watch LIVE TV. You can stream from YouTube on the iPhone but if there was an application to move video you recorded on your TiVo to your iPhone that would be a step in the right direction. AppleTV looks to be a big commetitor in this department and may get there before they do on the mobile device.

TiVo’s biggest Strength as well as opportunity is research and development. Like NetFlix, they hold an incredible amount of information on the television viewing public. They know what shows you watch, when you watch, how long you watch, and by establishing their own internal rating system with the thumbs up and thumbs down remote they are gaining invaluable information of what you like and what you don’t like. Other DVRs are not doing this. TiVo picks programs for you based on what you program it for you to like. It’s learning. With every click forward or backward, it’s learning. TiVo has the opportunity to be the Nielsens of the future. They can sell all this information to advertisers for a lot of money. Also, if they work with Netflix and combine databases the possibilities are endless. They may get out of the DVR business altogether and do audience research.

Tivo has already started playing around with advertising on the screen and in between ads. Comcast does some of this on its guide page but TiVo has a new version where there is an ad that pops up when you are fast forwarding. A display ad or banner. There is a great opportunity to develop software that does this sort of subliminal advertising. This may also be why DirecTV has kept their relationship open with TiVo. The advertising possibilities as well as the software engineering that is not being done any place else. Investors are holding on with these prospects.

THREATS:
DirecTV is nipping at their heels. As soon as they figure out technology and figure out advertising they may leave them. They are also Beta testing new software for music and photosharing on the DVR which TiVo was known for and also a reason DirecTV has kept them close. Dish Network Corp was creeping up on them but then TiVo sued their manufacturer EchoStar Holding Company for patent infringement. They were awarded $104 Million dollars. Dish Network has still developed the technology they just have to tweek it a bit and they will be back in business. Dish and Direct tried to merge at one point but were not allowed by the FEC due to monopoly concern but future talks of mergers are still possible with other companies, which is a treat to TiVo. The biggest former competitor for TiVo was ReplayTV but because they quit producing DVRs they have little share in the market. They developed a software that skips commercials but they were then sued by advertisers and it bankrupted their company. TiVo has to be very careful not to disrupt the television industry too much otherwise it will come to the same fate.

News Corp NDS has developed a DVR that has Peer to Peer content and the ability to share content around the home. This is the direction I think the market is going, where you can game as well as record and share all your files. TiVo has yet to develop these gaming technologies but DirecTV is Beta Testing some software. This is a huge threat to TiVo. TiVo’s numbers are also dropping as of October 2008, TiVo had 3.45 million subscribers compared to 4.36 Million in January of 2006. This means there is more competition and people are using other DVRs. TiVo has also been lowering their prices and offering more deals on the HD receivers. According to Businessweek.com they also had a higher churn rate that was worrying analysts.

COX is extremely competitive and offers there machine for free. They are also steadily catching up in Hi-def channels which was originally a concern with cable. The cable companies can compete with satellite DVRs when they have as many channel and you can watch 3 or 4 at a time which you cannot do with TiVo. Apple TV is also putting a lot of pressure on their content, you can rent HD movies, buy HD TV shows, listen to iTune and watch podcasts or show off your photos, this is much like TiVo except it doesn’t record LIVE TV. But the more and more they add to Apple TV the more and more of a threat it becomes. It’s also user friendly and Mac users naturally gravitate toward it where TiVo wasn’t as Mac friendly at first.

CONCLUSION:
Today Tivo has rebounded closing at $6.67 up from $4.43 about two weeks ago. The stock hasn’t performed this well since the beginning of November. It could be that we are going into Christmas and TiVo’s 3rd quarter reports were better than expected. This year, TiVo has recorded profitability for the third quarter of 2008. There service and technology revenues were $51.7 million, compared with $58.3 million for the same period last year. If you look at their adjusted EBITADA it was $95.3 million which included the $87.8 million of money that came from the EchoStar battle, this figure is down about $22 Million dollars from last year. According to their annual report they had a net income of $100.6 million but excluding the EchoStar case they would have posted a net loss of 0.9 million. There is another hearing in January of 2009 to determine more damages beyond those rewarded in October. Overall it looks like a very healthy balance sheet with current assets more than double what they were last year. Their Cash Flow at the end of the period was $189 Million. It’s interesting to note also that their research and development is $16.5 Million out of their budget. Tom Rogers, the

President and CEO of TiVo said this in a press release:
"This was another solid quarter for TiVo, our fifth straight of Adjusted EBITDA profitability and we are well on our way to delivering our first Adjusted EBITDA positive year. Our strong balance sheet, consisting of over $200 million in cash and short term investments and no debt, along with our continued solid financial performance and the progress we have made on our strategic content and distribution relationships, positions us well for the future. “

TiVo has a strong hold in the market and doesn’t look like it is going anywhere soon. It is also important to note that during these tough financial times people are more likely to stay in rather than going out. Home entertainment hasn’t seen a huge leap this last quarter but maybe in 2009 heading into deep dark depression people will be spending less of fancy dinners and movies and travel and more on Video on Demand. Only time will tell.

Also, in this rough economic time more and more traditional media outlets are feeling the weight. They are losing advertising revenue streams and profitability is down. The New Media and new technologies are pulling ahead and TiVo might just be leading the way to the eventual collapse of the medium (television), the machine that helped put it on the map. Charlie Warner spoke in our class the other day about “Disruptive technologies” referencing Clayton M. Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma, I believe TiVo is one of those disruptive technologies. The idea was not to ruin the marketplace for advertising on television or to put cable or satellite or local television out of business but that is where it is heading. TiVo is a perfect example of listening to the audience which is why conventional media needs to have their ears perked up.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
www.tivo.com
www.directv.com
www.comcast.com
www.cox.com
http://www.gizmolovers.com/2008/09/03/tivo-and-directv-reunited-and-it-feels-so-good/
http://www.pvrwire.com/
www.apple.com
http://investor.tivo.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-07-81563
http://www.zibb.com/article/4451990/TiVo+Reports+Record+Profitability+for+the+Third+Quarter+Ended+October
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D94MKM0G0.htm

What am I missing here?

2008-12-04T08:23:00.000-08:00

I just finished writing my Graduate Lit Review, 4 days ago, and now I feel a bit nostalgic. In preparing for a paper of such massive proportions I spent much of my day online reading or with my head in some books over at NYU's Bobst Library.

Today, I have plenty to write. I DON'T miss writing. I have a case study due on Monday on TIVO and I'm working on a package on "Cadillac Records," the new film on the birth of rock n'roll opening tomorrow. I am also working on a piece about Walter Benjamin's "Unpacking My Library: A Talk About Book Collecting" for my understanding class. But I miss the Lit Review. It's disgusting, I know.

A good friend of my dad's came into town not to long ago, we were talking about grad school and what's easy and what's not. The friend said, "I could do research all day long, it's just sitting down to write it that kills me."

At the time I disagreed. I said "Oh no no no, I love doing the writing, I just don't want to do the research."

What was I thinking?? I completely agree. I hate putting my thoughts together, that is what writing is. It's putting a bunch of thoughts together on a page, so it all makes sense. I have found through writing this Lit Review, well...I don't think I'm very good at it but I like the research.

I assume this is the point of all this research, to put it all together. If you can't put it all together then what was the point?

For example I was up in the lab yesterday teaching myself how to do Final Cut Pro. I am a professional after one session with ...myself. I was researching on some tech site how to do everything. It had a little web tutorial and after I watched the tutorial, I went back to FCP and practiced. There you go. Research in motion..no not the Blackberry. The actual act of carrying out research. I was using my research to successfully accomplish something. Did I miss it?

In graduate research you have to accomplish something otherwise you are wasting their time, your time and your (parents) money. I struggle with this everyday. I can't write about anything because I don't know what I want to research? What do I want to write about? If I were to enter into a thesis tract what would I dissertare?

I am currently caught up in this idea that journalists of the future will be "Community Organizers" (see Buzzmachine.com) Although Jeff Jarvis blames the fall of newspapers on journalists, I still think he has some valid points about re-thinking how we journalize. Journalists of the future won't be doing all the researching and the writing, they will be helping people organize, helping the public set up blogs, mediating chat rooms, scanning comments for news, facilitating twitter comments, linking, bridging and collaborating with other journalists.

In a lit review the writer is looking for holes in the current literature on a given topic. The author argues a need for more research on an idea for a study. I didn't do that in my lit review. I didn't challenge the Jarvis' of the world and I didn't come up with any new ideas. All I did was talk about the decline of traditional media and the convergence of new media.

It's been done.

I'm writing this blog post because I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated with my lack of critical thinking. I did the research. I did the writing but I didn't do the thinking.

Yes, I miss the lit review but its not because of the research. Its not because I can or cannot write or because I can't organize my thought. It's because I have no thoughts. I miss the lit review because of the critical thinking.

Media Projects

2008-11-18T12:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.ifc.com/on-ifc/mediaproject

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/business/media/18voice.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g&feature=channel

Intellectual Autobiography for Graduate Class

2008-10-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

I remember my first camera. My grandfather gave it to me along with it a life of inspiration. It was this beat up old thing that he dragged from Shanghai to Sydney. It had a crankshaft that had to be manually dialed and was best loaded in the dark. I loved that camera. My first print off of it was an empty Coke bottle with a cowboy hat tilted on the top of it. I shot it in black and white in front of some garbage cans on my back doorstep. I don’t know how, at that age, I was able to capture classic Coca-Cola and capitalism at its best but am amazed at my own observations. I continued to shoot a lot through middle school and high school. I applied to a highly competitive photography program at a technical school my senior year and was accepted. I learned black and white and E6 processing, portrait photography, hand-painting and digital restoration. It was a busy year but there was something that happened in that class I will never forget.

It was a darkroom day for me in school, which means I would spend all day making prints. I started early and made a decision not to listen to any form of music or radio. I actually work best in complete silence. A few hours had elapsed and my professor came in and shouted the twin towers had been hit. I wasn’t sure what she meant by this. It sounded important. I left the dark room and went down the hall where the rest of my class had convened. I watched as the second tower fell. I knew at this point it was New York and 2 planes had flown into the World Trade Center. I didn’t know where it was in relation to anything. I didn’t know who was to blame or where the attack came from. According to the TV it was one of the darkest hours of American history and I had been in a dark room.

I spent the next weeks engulfed in news. I watched the towers fall over and over again. I enrolled at a journalism program at the University of Oklahoma and received an internship at The Oklahoma Daily. I wanted to do photojournalism. I wanted to tell a story with my images. I started at the photo desk testing the waters in print journalism, unsure of my abilities. I spent quiet a bit of time in the newsroom. I became eager in my photography and wanted to add a writing aspect to it. We had such a strong staff and excellent set of writers and copy editors it was difficult to really grasp what could be done differently. In a newsroom the only way to get your voice heard was to have a louder voice then everyone or a more creative one. The podium was the paper. Day in and day out writers proved their place.

The great thing about a student publication is white space. It had to be filled and an editor needed inches and not just ideas. One night I was sitting out with my managing editor discussing my next step. I had been throwing around the idea of a food column for sometime now. I knew a lot about food having grown up as a chef’s daughter, raised in a cooking school. The Managing Editor suggested I go and speak with the Entertainment Editor and “pitch” this idea of mine. I asked him what I should call it and he said “well how ‘bout Lindy’s Leftovers.” And it stuck. The food column became a relative success. The Editor of the paper really liked it and suggested I expand on it. I did expand and eventually became the Entertainment Editor a few years later. I wrote for multiple sections of the paper and took photos at football games to court appearances. I had a very good run at the paper and it molded a lot about what I feel journalism is and should be today. I met many interesting people and most of my closest friends today are people from that paper.

One Semester I decided to study abroad in Spain. A few weeks before I was to leave there was a terrorist attack on the train system in Madrid. The trip was cancelled. I quickly found a trip to Costa Rica in its place. I finished my minor and traversed most of Central America on that trip. I fell in love with the culture and the people. When I came back I enrolled in a class called International Relations in Latin America taught by Charles Kenney. This class forever changed the way I look at US intervention. We read Talons of the Eagle by Peter H. Smith. Since the Monroe doctrine, the US has intervened in almost every country in Latin America. They have intervened almost 3 dozen times (Smith). I look at those events and I wonder if they were covered by the broadcast media. Crisis in Latin America doesn’t make the evening news today. Did it then? What have we missed along the way? And what else isn’t being covered. I found out more on my next trip.

I enrolled in a study abroad program in London focusing on British media studies. This trip positively changed my life. I spent the summer focused on the disintegration of American media. Our class had a meeting with Tom Fenton author of Bad News: The Decline of Reporting, The Business of News and the Danger to Us All where he talked about tracking stories about Al Queda for more than a decade and not reporting it because network news execs didn’t think it was news worthy (1). He believed Americans had been suffering from a “news gap” and 9/11 was the result. Fenton said journalist could be held just as accountable as any government agency (3). He believes we need more and better news. “Our lives depend on it,” he said.

We also traveled to Paris and met with Jim Bittermann, Senior European Correspondent for CNN News. We gathered in his apartment on one of his days off and discussed a myriad of topics but mostly the downsizing of foreign correspondents and News bureaus abroad. The numbers were frightening. CNN used to have close to 300 corespondents in Europe and now they are lucky to have Jim and a few others. Bittermann shared experiences with us of covering two papal transitions, the gulf wars, NATO Air strikes on Kosovo, and the death of Princess Diana among many many other things.

I spent some time at the British Broadcasting Center (BBC) in London where we went over story structure and video synthesis. The BBC doesn’t put a time limit on a story some pieces can be 15 minutes long. In America news packages range from one to three minutes and have very fast cuts they usually don’t stay with one image for very long. They take the time to tell the story and let the video do the talking. Our group also spent some time at Associated Press Television (APTN). They are largely becoming more and more responsible for all the worlds’ video. This puts a fierce monopoly on the market and has caused some strain in the industry. This trip really made me think about the decline of the American news media and its effect on society.

One of the other students in London and former Daily writer introduced me to television. He had decided he was going to do an entertainment show on public television in Oklahoma. He asked me to be his co-host and producer. At the time I was manage editing and writing at a local magazine (another former daily writer asked me to come on board). I had a lot on my plate but agreed. I fell in love. I spent the next year in front and behind the camera producing local news and entertainment pieces. Shortly there after, I applied for on camera job down in Texas as a small town reporter. I wanted to apply everything I had learned in Europe for my tiny broadcast. It turned out it wasn’t everything I had hoped for. This was a good thing though because it pushed me to move to New York and apply at CBS News.

I wanted to see how an American network functioned and be “embedded” with what many in fly-over country would call the “liberal” media. My time at CBS has been my second education. I worked very hard as a broadcast associate to get on the foreign desk. I felt I had something to offer and was very interested in international news. Coincidentally my job was to monitor feeds from APTN and cut video of important international events. I became a filter for our own video we put in pieces and delivered to affiliates. For example, I would work with the network desk to get video out of Pakistan when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. I was instrumental in our own accusation of the video of Saddam Hussein’s death sentence being executed in Baghdad. I’ve seen countless hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, weddings, funerals, elections and roadside bombings.

At one point we were covering several roadside bombings a day. It became so familiar it almost went unnoticed in the news. I decided to take a class at NYU, Iraq: Anatomy of a Conflict. It was taught be Michael Soussan who was a whistleblower at the UN for the Oil for Food Program. This class was really unbelievable. We had such a diverse group of students who really were set out on understanding why we were occupying Iraq. I took away a lot from that class and one in particular was an interest in graduate school. I thought about studying politics or international studies but I find that my mind always goes back to media.

My father, son of my camera weilding grandfather, who is also a great inspiration in my life gave me a book once by Hugh Hewitt In, But not of, he said “recognize that the choices and habits of your school years will become those of your life”(Hewitt 43). I feel like I generated positive habits in my undergraduate years and plan to accomplish more in my graduate years. I would like to study corporate responsibility to inform the public on issues that effect their security and compensation. My time abroad and in the newsroom has made me more aware of the treats our society faces due to a lack of information. I’m hoping to research these ideas and develop a project to visually show these Fenton “News Gaps”.

Bibliography:

Hewitt, Hugh. In, but Not Of : A Guide to Christian Ambition. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, Limited, 2003.

Fenton, Tom. Bad News : The Decline of Reporting, the Business of News, and the Danger to Us All. New York: ReganBooks, 2005.

Smith, Peter H. Talons of the Eagle : Dynamics of U. S. -Latin American Relations. New York: Oxford UP, Incorporated, 1999.

Q moves into the neighborhood

2008-09-25T15:02:00.001-07:00

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Let us in! Let us in!

2008-09-21T14:32:00.000-07:00

Summer is coming to a close and Washington Square Park is not coming to an open. Phase 1 of the reconstruction process will not be done until Spring of 2009.

Thanks...New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Thanks for ruining my summer. This park is a fixture for the community and the village just doesn't feel the same with out it.

Where else am I going to listen to folk music from a ten member band one of which is playing a salt shaker? Where else am I going to see a warrior sword fighter slashing at the air? How am I going to be in over 20 student films as background at the fountain. Where esle am I going to longboard if I had a longboard.

Listen NYCDPR.... I see your trees of green... red roses too. I see them bloom for ME and for you. So let me in!

I feel like a caged animal out here, behind bars stuck in this gotham city... and you and your new light fixtures and grassy meadows taunting me with every blade. Let us out let us out! And in to the park!

I smell construction.

2008-09-21T14:21:00.001-07:00

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Behind bars

2008-09-21T14:17:00.001-07:00

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The view from the outside

2008-09-21T14:15:00.001-07:00

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Checkmate!

2008-09-21T14:12:00.001-07:00

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The arc of the park

2008-09-21T14:10:00.001-07:00

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West 3rd and MacDougal

2008-09-21T13:17:00.001-07:00

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elephant in the (bath)room...

2008-09-14T15:08:00.001-07:00

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Every breed recognized by AKC

2008-09-14T14:53:00.001-07:00

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Today I ...

2008-09-14T14:40:00.001-07:00

-Ran race for the cure with Daisy where we walked and talked about standing up for something...if not for ourselves.
-Had brunch with Tara where she very scarily explained to me why the government MUST bail out these companies.
-Spoke to my good friend in Houston via extended texting due to reception loss and power outages about the war zone that has now become Another new Orleans. Houston we have a problem.
-Read about Innovation in my new favorite grad school book(there are only 7) "the art of looking sideways".
-Oklahoma please google: Elmer McCurdy.

DNC Day 2

2008-08-24T20:25:00.003-07:00

I'm tired. It's day 2 and I can't feel my brain. I'm so glad I got a PHD in perfection...otherwise how would I cope? I have a lot to say but will post again next year.

DNC Day 2

2008-08-24T20:25:00.001-07:00

I'm tired. It's day 2 and I can't feel my brain. I'm so glad I got a PHD in perfection...otherwise how would I cope? I have a lot to say but will post again next year.

This isn't what I signed up for

2008-08-24T16:40:00.001-07:00

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Here's the Oklahoma delegation way up here

2008-08-24T07:19:00.001-07:00

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Wire are you?

2008-08-23T15:12:00.001-07:00

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DNC Line up media LINE UP

2008-08-23T12:33:00.001-07:00

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DC=Clean

2008-08-06T09:10:00.001-07:00

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Decapitation doesn't phase newyorkers

2008-08-01T16:25:00.001-07:00

I thought the perfect day to take a greyhound bus would be the day after that guy got decapitated in Canada.

Aparently I'm wrong. I've now waited for my bus to DC for 2 hours. About half the time I waited for my iphone ...but the people waiting on that line were way cooler then these losers.

Boltbus doesn't have a phone service. So I emailed them instead.

"hey I'm here. Where are you?"

Good morning iPhone I love you.

2008-07-31T06:39:00.001-07:00

I've been doing a lot of red carpets lately and it's only fair I post at least one photo of my misery. Carpets are fun but bloodsuckingly loud and often obnoxious.

I also wanted to show off my new shiny iPhone ap. Cellspin. My coworker says it's stealing all by valuble information but I say who cares? It's awesome.

On the carpet...

2008-07-31T06:30:00.001-07:00

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shakin' that tree boss

2008-03-07T06:38:00.001-08:00

Journalist Takes Redundancy to Illogical Extreme.

Posted on Gawker: http://gawker.com/364706/journo-takes-redundancy-to-illogical-extreme
Gawker thinks she is possibly covering for 5 of her colleagues on a smoke break.
But my favorite comment on the board was:
"That's how the Times gets multiple sources."

Anatomy of the Finger....point

2008-02-20T18:10:00.000-08:00

This war is about Oil and it’s the media's fault. Section 1.

That could be the title of the class I am now enrolled in courtesy my fellow students.

It is your average run of the mill NYU course. Except, these are not your average run of the mill NYU students. We had a few state department employees, a few people from the UN, some investors (you can probably guess why they are there), a couple marines, a DOD backgrounds inspector, a refugee humanitarian and that is just to name a few.

The real title is "Iraq: Anatomy of a conflict." Section 1.

Tonight was class one. It was our job as a student body to come up with a boilerplate as to what we wanted to discuss this semester. A boilerplate it was. A heated emotional and utterly confused boilerplate.. You can imagine the cross firing slodgefest that erupted.

Within two hours the media had been attacked seven times, Bush four, The UN three, Congress three and Saddam a disappointing two.

Oil was mentioned five times, Electricity eight times, Iraq’s admiring neighbors four times and WMD’s zero.

Our instructor, whether he wanted to or not, mediated a two-hour random and often times directionless spattering of Iraq debate. He proved his point at the end.

“What drives our assumptions about Iraq? What fuels the fire? What do we really know?”

Nothing.

At least, I said nothing. I have nothing to say. The only thing I can remember about the Gulf War is sitting on my couch in front of our then projection screen TV. It is the one with the three primary colored bulbs disguised inside a table. There was a large map on the screen and a voice over. It was a map of Iraq and the voice of Tom Brokaw. Something had happened. I didn’t know what but I didn’t really care. I interrupted Tom to exclaim something to my dad. But my dad did care. It was met with a loud authoritative shushing.

I’ll never forget that shush. It was serious. It was ominous. It meant something. So much so that it has stuck with me to this day.

This conflict has struck a chord with the American people. Even in my small survey class of 15. I see confusion and a whole lot of finger- pointing but no clarity.

Iraq won’t be solved this semester and probably not next semester. But the least we can do is graduate to a level of understanding. Understanding a conflict that could define our generation.

In the meantime Let’s all just shhhhhh and listen. We may learn something.

No Country For Any Shorts

2008-02-17T07:26:00.000-08:00

One of the joys of living in the West Village is the various art houses, cinemas, jazz clubs and comedy clubs within a stones throw.

I was heading home on Friday and I stopped in at our local IFC center on our block. I was checking the listings to find anything good for the weekend. I noticed opening tonight was the Academy Award Animated and Live Action Shorts for 2008. It was starting in five minutes. I bought one ticket and headed in.

I have never actually seen Shorts listed at theaters, although I am a big fan. My question is who actually ever sees these things besides the Academy?? This was the first year the Academy paired with Target and Magnolia productions issued a somewhat wide release of these films.

I sat through the entire thing with my eyes glued to the screen. I was amazed. They were all truly unbelievable and all… foreign. Not one of the 10 nominated shorts this year is from America. There is even a live action short about a Tonto women that is Canadian! They were quirky, funny, ingenious and uniquely un-American.

Here are a few of my favorites.

Animated:
“My Love” A Russian short by Aleksandr Petrov. It’s a hand-drawn pastel animation depicting 19th century Russia. It was wildly imaginative and told a beautiful story of a Boy that is love torn. The picture moved as is you were watching a painting come to life. By color and hard strokes you literally felt every emotion that the hormonal boy passed through. It was a journey that made me actually sway in my seat at times. This is the winner if my vote counted.

“Madame Tutli Putli,” This was a stop motion animated film from Canada. It was about a hellish night one middle-aged woman spent on a train. It was sarcastic, quirky and over the top. The characters were all a bit disturbing but that could be attributed to my genuine fear of moving dolls. I didn’t exactly understand the storyline at the end but I could relate to the overall drudgery of travel, which was uniquely represented. No Disney story here.

“Even Pigeons Go to Heaven” An animated short from France about a priest that tries to talk a dying man into buying a machine that will take him to heaven. The digital animation was unbelievable. It was very fun to watch and you couldn’t help but fall in love with the old man who has his own interpretation of heaven.

And my honorable mentions go to “I Met the Walrus”, a Canadian animated illustration about a brief interview with John Lennon on Peace. It was a neat short on a topic that still feels politically fueled today. And last and probably least was “Peter and the Wolf.” The stop animation was great. I thought it was a bit long in spots.

I wasn’t over the top excited about all the Live Actions shorts so much so that I am only going to mention two here.

The one worth the almost 42 minutes to tell the story is the Danish (not so) short, “At Night” about three young women dealing with cancer. Bring the tissues. It is a tearjerker. A heavy topic covered very eloquently by Christian E. Christiansen and Louise Vesth. I think this one may be favored at the awards due to its compelling nature.

If it was left up to me I would pick the loveable Belgian “Tanghi Argentini.” It was short and sweet. It did exactly what I want a short to do. Make me laugh. I loved it. It was about internet dating. It was very well written and it speaks volumes that I would probably youtube this right now. Right now. Unless of course you are finding someone to tango with right now.

out of this world?

2007-12-22T11:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, I have said for hundreds of years I wasn't going to weigh in on the frozen yogurt debate. BUT..I just can't take it anymore!

WTF Red Mango? What were you thinking. Building a "yolato" store in the heart of the west village across the street from your arch nemesis PINKBERRY???

You are ridiculous and I am embarrassed for you. When I saw the signs go up in the middle of summer advertising a coming soon sign for Red Mango...I thought okay this HAS to be some sweet new pacific rim foreign fare. But no...then you open in the middle of friggin winter as a FROZEN yogurt restaurant. and that would have been fine. ...If you had not opened ACROSS THE STREET from Pinkberry!

Note to investors:
When investing in a new property do the research on competitors. Find out if your red hot new mango is going to be able to compete with the most fashionable yogurt of 2007.

Let us recall the MANY celeb endorsements of that other berry restaurant.
---Lindsay Lohan
---Britney Spears
---Leonardo Di Caprio
---Kate Hudson
---Kirsten Dunst

and that is just to name a few. The pap have well documented this fact. Just google..pinkberry slash celebs and you have a laundry list of A-listers.

Google...Red Mango and Celebs....nothing.

Today I decided to put this whole mind boggling experience to bed. I had to try Red Mango. It is 23-C outside but today was the day. My only thought was if Red Mango was going to compete with its other Fro-yo friend it had to be ----out of this world.

On my way to Red Mango I passed by Pinkberry. It was packed. It's a Saturday afternoon and hip villagers are downing their probiotics. People are actually sitting in the store hats, scarfs('scuse-me pashminas) bound shoveling ice between the gap.

Red Mango is dead. I walk in and notice a pin drop would have been thunderous. I don't remember if I was greeted and if I had been I didn't notice. I walked to the counter and stared at the small assortment of fresh fruit and cereal. I asked what the charge for fruit was. The girl behind the counter said one dollar and it's one twenty-five for 2. Great! I thought.

I asked for a small with Mangos and raspberries. Then the girl asked for my name. I quickly glanced around. Is she kidding? Are they going to call my name?? I am the only one here. Surely it's impossible to lose my order amongst.......noone.

I gave it to her a little reluctantly. I have given my name at pinkberry but that is because it's such a jamfest in there you are lucky they write down Lindy instead of Cindy Mindy or once..Candy.

The girl handed the printout receipt to the guy next to her. I stepped down 4.5 inches to my left. He looked at me with a blank stare. Then he stared at the receipt. Then he asked the lady what I had ordered. He had forgotten the last 10 seconds of his life in a room full of nobody. She reminded him. Raspberries and Mangos. He looked at the receipt. Jesus. This was getting painful. So then I reminded him. Raspberries and MANGOS..MANGOS.

He made the order by picking up one berry at a time and placing it on the rim. (is he counting..I wondered) He didn't know whether to put a lid on it. He had to ask me. The girl asked me if I wanted a bag. I didn't. Then out of nowhere he hands me one. I felt like my life was in slow motion. I couldn't stand it. I had to get out of there.

Back at my apartment, I opened the contents and examined. Time for the truth. What were these people thinking? Could they oust the fashionista of fro-yo??

Well, it was out of this world.

By world, I mean U.S.

Red Mango is the original Pinkberry. It has been operating since 2002. It has over 140 locations in Korea. It made it's US debut in Culver City CA in 2007. It's rich and creamy and filled with live cultures..unlike its Pinkberry competitor.

I like it because it is actually sweeter and not as icy. It has that original yogurt flavor that can not be copied. And nutritional experts are saying it is less in calories, 20 per oz as opposed to Pinkberrys 25 per oz.

Okay Red Mango, you did it. I'm impressed. Now, let's pay some celebrities to eat you that way you won't get bullied out of the neighborhood.

Wait this just in....Leo D. just requested a Red Mango machine for his home. O. Pinkberry it's so over.

Vanguard Valentine's

2007-02-14T23:26:00.000-08:00

It’s Valentines Day. It’s actually 75 minutes past Valentines Day. I don’t miss it, but I won’t forget it either. It was my first Valentines Day as a lonely New Yorker. There are 21 Million people living here and I wonder how many spent this day alone. A lot.

A lot of people have lost out on the companionship of this city. I’m not talking about the people anymore. I’m talking about New York. I’m talking about the history, the sites, the sounds, the energy and the view. People start viewing it like a post card and forget they are living in a real city.

I was feeling a little bit down tonight. I was going to meet up with my roommate and finish off a nice Bordeaux we have been waiting to crack open. It snowed in New York today. Several inches. I haven’t seen snow in New York yet. The streets were a bit of a mess and caused problems for parked cars stuck behind walls of plowed snow. My friend offered me a ride. I accepted hoping I wouldn’t have to shovel.

We had a little trouble getting the car out but after a little coaxing the snow finally gave in and let us out of our snowbox. We drove along talking about regular work stuff. Our usual complaints about people and every news story we hated. I followed with my usual sentiments towards New York—the transportation, the dirt, the cold. Mind you it has been snowing.

My friend finally interrupted me and said let me show you something. I was hesitant because I knew I had that Bordeaux and I forgot to mention the box of Godiva chocolates my mom sent me waiting at home. I said “fine but it better be quick.”

“You haven’t been down to the promenade have you?” He asked.

I always hear people mention it, like it just might be the greatest thing, but strangely only Brooklynites have.

“Yes, it’s like a secret. We want to keep it all to ourselves. It has the best view of the city,” he gushed.

Fine. I didn’t have a problem going. I just didn’t want to get out of the car. The promenade might be nice, but this wasn’t the night to be hanging out there. I mentioned it was snowing and it was also midnight, not exactly the conditions for waltzing around the promenade.

We made it to the upper level. I got out of the car and walked to the sidewalk. I couldn’t tell it was the sidewalk. It was covered in 6 inches of snow. I had to sort of guess. I had rain boots on, not SNOW boots, so my feet were freezing. I was looking down the whole way. It was cold out and the snow had turned to ice. It made for a rocky trip. I rounded the corner and was caught by a gust of wind. I had to button my hood on. I was so lost in the process of staying warm I had forgotten to look up.

“So, what do you think? Have you seen anything like it?” He asked.

My eyes quickly moved from the snow to the skyline. I was taken aback. Maybe I had seen it on postcards or in movies. Maybe someone once spoke of the New York skyscrapers or I had glanced at in a taxi or an airplane but it wasn’t what I saw tonight.

I was standing IN the postcard. I was IN the movie. It was the most amazing site. I felt like I could reach out and touch it. The empire state building, the Manhattan bridge, the Chrysler building, and if you looked closely the Statue of Liberty waving from the horizon. The sky lit up like a separate city. The Hudson was lapping up against the pier but even hid a city in it’s reflection.
It wasn’t cold to me anymore. It had unusual warmth to it now. It had a visceral glow that was inviting. I wanted to be apart of it. I wanted to get to know it. How can you be lonely in a city like this?

Living in a Crime Scene

2007-02-10T23:48:00.000-08:00

Every night when I get off the train and walk down my quiet street to our apartment the least of my thoughts is terror --until I started living in a crime scene.

I awoke this morning to barrage of cell phone calls. It was around 10a.m. and I knew no one in their right mind would wake me before eleven.

Before I could check my messages or answer my roommate’s third attempt to get a hold of me there was a knock at my door.

I NEVER answer the door. I live in constant fear of my landlord. He doesn't know I live there along with like ten other people. Today was different though. He was out of town and I thought it might be our neighbor concerning the doorbells down stairs. They are broken.I swung the door open and was met by two gentlemen in long overcoats and NYPD badges. All I could think was… great we've really done it this time. Can they even arrest you for not being on the lease?

"This is detective so and so and I'm detective so and so with the NYPD. We don't mean to startle you" too late "But we just want to ask you a few questions regarding your neighbors."

I'm really wishing I had picked up my phone earlier.

"Okay, I don't know them, but okay," I said.

"Are you aware of what happened last night," They asked.

"No...I was asleep," I said. "What happened." My mouth was gaping.

"Did you hear any noise or see anything suspicious here last night through early this morning?" They asked.

"No...why what happened?" I asked starting to worry.

"Mam...did you see any suspicious cars parked outside your door lastnight?" They asked.

"Uh ..No excuse me what happened?" I asked.

"We can't release that at this time, but if you can think of any thing further please come and let us know."

Are they kidding? They are just going to leave me hanging here. Was there a shooting, a stabbing, was I in immidiate danger, forget immidiate. Was I EVER in danger? Are they going to actually act like.."good morning, how do you like your coffee, did you know you might be living next to a killer."

I closed the door and ran to the window. Cops lined the street. There was yellow caution tape marking off our building from the rest of the world, orange markers, sat trucks, reporters, cameramen, photographers.I took a moment and closed the shutters. Am I dreaming?

I grabbed my phone and dialed numbers. No answer. Dialed other numbers. Icouldn't think. What the hell? I called myself. I knew some kind of answer would lie in my voicemail.

"Damnit Lindy answer your phone.” It was my roommate. “I know you’re there. Look something’s up. There are cops everywhere, reporters… the whole nine. I was on my way to work this morning and I had to be escorted to the end of the block. Call me.”

I went back to the window and pushed the glass up. I squeezed my head up against the screen in hopes of catching any lingering conversation below. No luck. It didn’t produce any new information. I knew I had to go down there.

I’m a reporter. This would be easy. I could at the least pry something out of the other news junkies. People talk at crime scenes. It’s how you get leads. I threw on my coat and a fresh coat of lipstick and left my apartment. I descended my steps to our landing and paused.

I’m not sure why I hesitated. I wanted to think of some good questions to ask people. I was wondering if other neighbors had said anything. I wanted to know what police were telling the reporters. Was there a press conference? Should I look for our Sat truck and if I saw anyone from our newsroom should I say hi? What if they think I know details? Should I pretend like I know nothing? Should I show the officers my press pass? I was still standing at the door. I shook myself out of it and turned the knob.

Clicking of camera shutters was all I heard next. There were reporters yelling over reporters tuning each other out. “Did you know your neighbor?” “Did you hear gunshots?” “How did you find out?” “Have you seen the car?” “What was your reaction?” “Can you tell us the last time you saw Riviera?” Detectives turned. On-lookers stopped. I was standing on the podium of the crime scene poised for a news conference. My mind went blank.

I had to get out of there.

I ducked under the yellow tape and faintly said, “I don’t know anything.” I scampered down the block. One reporter actually followed me to the next avenue. I finally had to tell him, “Look, that’s enough. I don’t know anything.”

My dry cleaner sits at the end of my street. I knew going in there was a poor excuse for hiding but at this point I needed a little comforting.

“Sarita, como estas? Que Sabes?” my dry cleaning lady asked.

She is this short fiery Dominican lady with a thick accent and a big heart. I would be lying if I said she only knew people by name. She could tell you their name, their address and what shirt they wore to church on Sunday. Lets just say she kept her ear to the ground all day.

“Can you be-live” she said.

“No actually I can’t? I can’t believe anything because I don’t know anything.” I said.

So, there I was in my dry cleaners about a hundred yards from the crime scene. A hundred yards from my apartment listening to my dry cleaner tell me the whole story.

An unmarked police car with three undercover cops stopped two men this morning a few blocks away. The driver opened fire and shot one of the policemen three times. Once in the neck. The other policemen then fired 13 times. The suspects and the car sucessfully fled the scene.

A short while later the vehicle in question was spotted. Police pulled the car over.

The driver-- a NYPD police woman.

The police escorted her to her Apartment. My building.

Waiting there was her husband, suspected shooter, and the other suspect.

Officers deployed to the scene. Helicopters circled the sky. NYPD shut down the whole block. No one in. No one out. Detectives questioned everyone. They set up orange markers up and down the street from broken glass to shell casings.

All of the policewoman’s weapons were quickly accounted for. But when it came to the weapon of interest it was missing. The search continued behind our building. It’s an unattended yard between two brownstones overgrown and messy. Although there are no fruit trees back there the search did not prove fruitless. Stashed under some knee-high weeds—A gun.

The three were taken into custody and escorted to the precinct. Melendez-Rivera, who was suspended from duty, was charged with obstructing governmental administration and unlawful possession of marijuana. Her 31-year-old husband was also charged with reckless endangerment, defacing a firearm, tampering with evidence, menacing and criminal possession of marijuana, according to police.

I also found out that they are known crack dealers in the neighborhood but that is all speculation.

Enough speculation to make me think twice before coming up the steps of the platform.

So, I’m not sure what was going through my head when I came out of the trains tonight. I live in New York. It’s what you can expect. But with headlines like “Hail Of Gunfire Blankets Park Slope With Bullet Casings” Its hard not to be skiddish.

I woke up in a crime scene and now I’m scared.

Trash Causes Crash

2007-02-10T19:20:00.000-08:00

A bizarre accident in Cape Cod Saturday (02/10), where police say trash caused the crash.
Police in West Yarmouth say there was so much trash in 53-year-old Ann Ann Biglan's Ford Focus that some of it fell onto the gas and brake pedals causing her to lose control.

While losing control, Biglan backed out speeding from a post office parking space, over the curb and across a freeway.

She then hit a Ford Explorer and backed over another sidewalk before finally crashing into a flowerpot in a gas station's parking lot.

Biglan was charged with negligent and impeded operation of a motor vehicle, failure to use care in backing, and operating with a rejected safety inspection sticker.

Panda's Top 10

2007-01-30T22:53:00.000-08:00

This is a list compiled by my favorite Panda and roommate of 2006.

top 10 lindy 2006 memories:

10. pondering how many copies of "an inconvenient truth" we need to get for our loved ones. (10? 20? it IS the best holiday gift of '06)

9. coming home to the lindy thanksgiving dinner! (I SET THE TABLE!)

8. covering my face when lindy walks out with three dozen roses from the Valentino party!

7. asking that random man to take our picture next to the Valentino screen (and having him say "no," followed by Lindy yelling at him.)

6. reaassuring lindy that i DID NOT care about her borrowing that damn shirt!

5. the following convo after every day at work:
(when lindy got home at midnight...or 5 p.m....or 8 p.m...)
me: "what's wrong?"
lindy: "nothing. i'm just tired."
me: "are you suuuuure?"
lindy: "YES!"
me: "i think something is wro..."lindy: "nothing is wrong! i don't want to talk about it anyway!" me: "TELL MEEEE!!!!"

4. our pedicures! (me and my ticklish feet and you, taking the recent issues of People for the ENTIRE time!)

3. taking our christmas pictures outside random strangers' doorsteps, and trying not to get embarrassed by the lindy st. marks ave photo shoot.

2. the following conversations:

lindy to nurse 1: "do i have e. coli?"
nurse 1 to lindy: "no, we don't think so."
panda to nurse 1: "does lindy have e. coli?"
nurse 1 to panda: "yes, we think so."
lindy to nurse 2: "are you sure i don't have e. coli?"
nurse 2 to lindy: "probably not."
panda to nurse 2: "are you sure she has e. coli?"
nurse 2 to panda: "probably yeah."

1. "I CAN'T READ!!!!"

honorable mention: losing the tivo, the bachelor, macys at closing time...so many memories!

In case you make a misssteak

2007-01-30T22:34:00.000-08:00

I was on the way home tonight. I was taking the ever-punctual 2 train. I notice as I stepped off the platform of the 1 train that the last 2 train whizzed away with blatant disregard for transporting anyone else. I LOVE that feeling. The one where you SEE the train you need to catch about 4 yards away. The only thing that is stopping you is a pair of glass doors and that conductor that can’t wait THREE more seconds before dashing your hopes of EVER getting home.

The next train would be 20 more minutes. I had nothing to do but wait. A middle-aged woman was standing in front of me equally perturbed. I can see why. Okay, she told me. …several times. She had to go home and study. She was carrying several armloads of books and notepads.

“Big test tomorrow?” I asked.

“No, just lots of work. Lots and lots of work. I had two classes today, two tomorrow three the next day and two on Friday,” She said.

She was very anxious to talk about her work, and her hernia. So, I let her. I thought, it will pass the time.

Little did I know. ….

45 minutes later this woman had officially talked her way through a 20-minute period on the platform and 7 stops on the two train.

Jesus, I thought.

She might keep talking to Kentucky if you let her. But I shouldn’t be silly.

The 2 train doesn’t go to Kentucky.

I should give her credit though. She was excited. She was in school. She was doing something she was proud of. She was accomplishing something. Something I had done a year ago. Something I used to feel wasn’t that big of a deal, but now feel differently about. Graduating IS a big deal. Getting a degree IS a big deal. Education IS important. And here I was with a woman that had spent 45 minutes telling me EVERY detail about EVERY class and EVERY assignment. Do not kid yourself. She got out her syllabus. She got out her books. She showed me her notes. She showed me her schedule.

Then I realized, why she was gushing. This was her first day. Her first day of college. And she just couldn’t stand it. She wanted to tell someone. She wanted to tell someone every detail. And that lucky someone was me.

I let her. Sure, I had plenty to read on the way home. My eyes were tired I could have slept. I had my cell phone. I could have listened to music, but instead I listened to her, an entire 2-train ride. So much so, if she missed class tomorrow I could have filled in for her.

I looked over her Spanish work. Told her the difference between Spanish 101 and 102. She showed me her sociology book and as soon as I saw the shrink wrap, I said “take it back.”

“Take it back,” I said. “You have got to buy your books used. How much did you pay for that?”

She took me seriously and said she would return it tomorrow. We went over her work schedule program and just about everything else. Before long I was nearing my stop. I could tell she wanted to ask me one last question.

“Do you think I should use a pencil?” She asked.

“A what?” I asked.

“A pencil, do you think I should use a pencil for my homework? I don’t have any.” she said.

The glass doors were about to open right at my stop. Except this time, I wasn’t hurrying to get off. I was fumbling through my black purse. I knew I had thrown a few in my bag at work once. I’m not sure why, I never use them. I’m a journalist I use pens. I just had them in there waiting to be taken out.

Finally, I laid a hand on one.

I handed it to her as I stepped out the glass doors.

“Yes, use a pencil. Incase you make any mistakes,” I said.

I heard a muffled thank you as the train whizzed away.

a lousy attempt

2007-01-30T22:30:00.000-08:00

I am going to try to explain why I haven’t written in this blog for a little too long.

a. I forgot how to write.
b. I write too much during the day.
c. I think no one cares
d. I am afraid of making mistakes
e. I am tired
f. All of the above.

Read the following except from my non-existent blog to determine some type of answer that might resemble one that is next to a letter above.

“No really, it's unfair to the people (both of you) that I don’t write in here anymore.

Mom, Dad, I am just really busy. (Damn, did I include that as a multiple-choice answer? It should have been one.)

Okay, I am tired. There I said it. I am young and I am tired. Sometimes I feel like I write too much during the day, but then I realize I haven’t written anything ALL day. I have been just reading ALL day. So then I always feel I forgot how to write. I don’t really know if I forgot how to write, I just don’t want people to read this and think I am an idiot (someone muffled “too late” I know I heard it.) I am afraid of making mistakes.

You probably aren’t reading anymore because you don’t care.

Rule #28

2006-08-29T19:37:00.000-07:00

I didn't get the job. I told them my dreams, but failed to mention how I would follow them.

Most people when starting out don't know how to lie about what they really want to do. They just go right ahead and say it. Lay it out there on the table for everyone to gawk at. As if it might actually happen.

But I found that rule #28 in my new finding a job ..RULES.

Never EVER be so candid as to tell them what your hopes and dreams are. God forbid if they think that is what you ACTUALLY want to DO. and not actually this job you are applying for.

I know you can't jump from a lily pad to the top of the tree.

I am just saying at what point do you say............."I will do ANYTHING in this business as long as there is some slight chance..and I mean slight like Simon Cowell's 'celebrity duets' surviving one season..slight chance that it will get me to where I need to be."

If you are applying for a job, is it completely asinine to say...I will do "this" to get "here" or I will do "that" to get "there?"

It shouldn't be.

Employers don't actually think that you are going to stay in the mail room forever.

Do they want you to say (and I hate to quote for my old children's book collection, but I will) "I WANT THIS, I NEED THIS, I HAVE TO HAVE THIS."

But in the back of your head there is some ulterior motive. You don't really HAVE to have this, but you'll take it just to be in the business.

I mean, are they really in the business of making dreams come true? Are they suddenly the MADE coaches for MTV? Are they waiting for that special candidate that THIS is their dream.

Do the candidates say that in the interview?

"Oh god this is my dream!"

......

Maybe that's where I have gone wrong.

I haven't been in that interview yet.

Caffeine Overdose

2006-08-07T09:27:00.000-07:00

Dad,

If you are wondering what that sweet aroma of Foldgers is in your office, I did not install a coffee maker in there, I used it as an astringent for your magoganey desk.

Well, I sortof "spilled" coffee on your desk. It wasn't so much ON your desk as it was on your computer, but really it wasn't on your computer, so much as it was in between that gap from the desk to the computer, so technically it didn't flood any ONE area.

Alot of it landed on the nice plastic floor mat and everything from G over on the keyboard. Okay some of it splashed on the number 8 and 9 key, but that was only when I tried to juggle the cup of coffee in my hand. My hand-eye coordination got the best of me and I managed to save some of it....okay little of it.

So, if you notice your whole office has been dusted and is in fact somewhat clean, which is how I thought you might notice in the first place I spilled coffee on parts of your desk, don't worry. I also plan on retyping ALL of EVERY important sticky note, pin number, business card, account number and passcode you store in the general area I spilled all of the coffee.

Once again I am sorry, I will never go in your office again. Get well soon.

Sarah

Going Postal

2006-07-24T12:40:00.000-07:00

Why is the post office so damn confusing?? but before I get to that. .....

Attn: People With Kids. STOP bringing your kids to the post office. For some reason they find all the pens chained to the countertops very fascinating and will not let me have one to write with. So I can send something.

Suggestion: chain pens to your countertops at home and let them play with them while you go to the post office. Thank you.
....

I feel like I have spent the last six months trying to figure out the post office.

Trying to be a reporter it is a necessary hell to have to send tapes to news directors. I have sent out plenty of tapes...huhummm(throat clear) 26...Okay that is not a whole lot, but it at least counts for something.

Every time I go to the post office I feel like I do not have a system. If I were to go to Sonic I would say a grilled cheese sandwich and a diet Dr. Pepper (for the record I don't like DP, only when it is from Sonic) See, I have a system because I know what is on the menu.

I do not know what is on the post office menu. I think it has something to do with if it doesn't have an email address, I don't send it.

Have you noticed they have a menu? All these things to consider: express, priority, first class. Why can't they just have numbers, like combos.

"Yes, I will take a number one with a side of confirmation, thanks."

Today, at the post office I learned a new term. Always learning at the post office. The term was Media Mail. Apparently, if you are sending something like a book or a tape, it is less expensive to send it as media mail. Well Bob's your uncle, where was this term six months ago.

As of today I have spent $ 146.27 on postage, mailers, overnights, expresses and this figure does not include the cost to actually make a tape. I wish I had heard of MEDIA MAIL sooner!

The postal employee who rang me up said "oh its a tape, well we'll send it media mail," as though this was as obvious as Miss Puerto Rico winning Miss Universe with her chain-link fence evening gown.

He said, "Oh you didn't know about this?"

I said, "NO, it wasn't on the menu!"

You had the wrong dream

2006-07-12T06:51:00.000-07:00

"You failed because you had the wrong dream."

That was what I wrote on a post-it note and handed to my father this morning after another one of our "life talks."

That was what Diego said to George in the movie "Blow" while they were sitting in prison talking about his life.

That was a quote I wrote down when I was at my last job. Funny it should come to mind now. Again.

My dad asked me if I could do three things right now (beside work for him) what would they be.

He filled in one of them for me, which I felt was a bit unfair. It was to take this insurance job down the street.

I was pressured to come up with two more. They had to be good.

Before I could answer he said. Maybe you should take one of those tests. The ones that tell you what you should do in life.

I nodded my head and thought , "god it is early." "Is it 8:30?"

"What, you don't believe in the tests?" dad said.

"No," is all I said.

"Well maybe it would help you figure out what you don't want to do," he said.

I said I already knew that. I can't be in the medical field. I WILL pass out. I can't be a vet, and I can't be president.

"Can you be an attorney?" he asked.

I don't mind law. I just like crime better. That is why I like the media.. Crime, Crime, Crime. Weather, Weather, Weather...isn't that the mantra.

"Why don't you take the GRE?"

I won't pass it. NOT a test taker.

"Well not with that attitude," he said.

STILL not a test taker.

"Have you thought about your MBA?" again.

Look, I don't want to go back to school. I don't like classes. I don't like tests or notes or textbooks. Why did I graduate in 3.5 years?

"Because you ran out of money?"

I did because I wanted to learn while I was out there, not because some professor said it would be this way. I did it because I ALREADY knew what I wanted. The reason people stay in school is because they don't know what they want. They can't make any decisions. I knew. I was motivated. I finished so I could chase the dream.

"Was broadcast the dream?"

Yes, that is what I wanted to do. That was the original option. That is the first option. It is also the second and the third to answer your earlier question.

That was when I thought of the quote.

Get Out of My Network

2006-07-11T07:50:00.000-07:00

I changed my network on Facebook. I had to change it to Tulsa. Otherwise I felt like I was lying to facebook.

Okay technically I have been lying to everyone for six months. My network used to be Dallas, but I didn't live in Dallas.

I didn't realize it would make such a big difference until people kept messaging me saying "hey we should hang out" and I'm like "K I'll be right over."

I was living in Ardmore. Okay, the cat is out of the friggin bag people.

I WAS LIVING IN ARDMORE!!.

Now that I am out of there. I can feel free to admit that. My friends were driving through town a few weeks ago to pick me up. They got to my house and called me. First thing they said was "Pop Quiz Sarah!" ..."What state do you live in?"

I live in Oklahoma. I haven't moved out of the state.

They said I used to say...."Oh you are driving through Dallas, well you should stop by." I was in denial.

So, I changed my network to Tulsa. I'm feeling good about it. I'm not lying anymore. People can now message me and say "how's Tulsa?" and I don't have to think in the back of my head...."I wish I knew" like I did with Dallas.

But at the end of the day, does it really matter what network I am in? Does it really change anything? Isn't the point of a network to be in touch with people? Can't we do that outside our network? If I had changed my network to Dubai would people really considered not keeping in touch...."Oh Dubai...that's a bit out of my network."

I would hope not. So, Tulsa it is. And I invite anyone in the tri-state area networks to contact me to go out. I feel confident I can handle the rejection of not being in the Dallas network anymore...even though geographically I was never really "there" in the first place.

And to avoid any further discrepancies, I actually live in Broken Arrow.

There I said it.

Lucky to be alive

2006-07-01T15:39:00.000-07:00

"i was sitting waiting wishing you believe in superstitions then maybe you'd see the signs. lord knows that this world is cruel and I aint the lord no i'm just a fool." - Jack Johnson

I'm at Lacey's house waiting to go to the lake. I would already be at the lake if I hadn't almost died last night.

I was on 1-44 heading south, four lanes, in traffic. The guy in front of me stopped on a dime and I swerved to miss him and instead of heading over the embankment, over corrected and headed back into traffic, my brakes locked and I spun one eighty to land my self in the center lane with traffic barreling head on.

Luckily a lady in a white pathfinder screeched her brakes and stopped before tunneling head on into me at 65 miles per hour. I could see her face through her windshield, I don't doubt that it was a mirror of mine.

Several cars had swerved to miss me. The others stopped.

A semi stopped, a jeep, and about 6 other cars, all four lanes were blocked and the Murano was staring everyone down like a sick game of chicken.

The lady and everyone else hopped out of their cars and came to my window and asked me to roll it down. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to roll the windows down.

I just sat stunned.

The lady asked me if I could drive it to the shoulder. I told her It wouldn't drive.

It wouldn't drive because I had my foot so firmly planted in the brake that it was going to take a crobar to pry it away from the pedal.

She asked if I needed someone to drive it to the shoulder. I said I could do it, as soon as I figured out how to drive.

I managed to get it to the shoulder. A black man in a straw hat waved traffic through while all the drivers who had jumped out of their cars got back in their cars.

The lady came over to my car and said she couldn't believe what she had seen. She asked if I was okay. Lacey was in front of me the whole time. She had watch the what she describes as Nascar events playout in her rearview mirror. She had parked her car on the shoulder and walked back to the scene. She was in shock. I thought I was going to have to drive HER car back.

We drove the Murano to Pep Boys and they said I had broken my tie rods, also some problems with the steering column. They said I was lucky to be alive.

I called my dad, he said I was lucky to be alive.

Today the dealership took my car in and they said I was lucky to be alive.

So I am at laceys, carless, jobless, lakeless, but damn lucky to be alive.

And the moral of the story is.

2006-06-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

Andrea and I went and saw the movie "cars" tonight. It was the only thing playing at our lovely Ardmore cinemark. So lovely that the bathrooms don't even have stalls. Who steals a stall? Honestly?

"Cars" was actually our third attempt to find a movie, first we went to see CLICK and walked out in the first 10 minutes. 10 minutes of my life I will never get back. Our second choice was Nacho Libre, can you really blame us for leaving that theater in 10 minutes.

Our third option was cars and at this point I was getting sick of going to movies I never wanted to see in the first place.

This was a movie they tried to tie way too many morals and values into that was ultimately shut down by the fact it was a cartoon about nascar.

I guess it was also proving that I-40 has officially made little towns extinct along route 66. Quick...name three towns on route 66 in Oklahoma.....ummm what's that one I stop at to go pee off of 44??? With the Subway?

The movie also proved you can't win a Piston Cup with out a pit crew.

That fame and money doesn't get you anywhere.

Anyway, I lost track of all the morals when I went speeding down Commerce to get away from the movie theater. Going 25 miles per hour over. I was promptly pulled over by Ardmore PD.

They recognized me from TV and let me off the hook.

2006-06-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

Question Mark Age

2006-06-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

Dustin Hoffman was on "Inside the Actor's Studio" tonight. The last line of his commentary to his class was about being in your 20's and not knowing what you are going to do with the rest of your life. He called it the question mark age.

"You have the luxury of not knowing and you will never have that again. And not knowing is a luxury. You can PLAY. You MUST do that. You must. It's your only way not to go crazy. Because if you are going to wait for the job then you will DIE."
-Dustin Hoffman on "Inside the Actor's Studio"

Drive Thru Syndrome

2006-06-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

I have Drive Thru Syndrome.

I get really really nervous in the drive thru. Make sense of this one for me. I have been on TV countless times, done interviews, been live, made nerve racking calls but when I get to the drive thru I'm as nervous at Katie Couric attempting to do primetime.

I feel like I have to be prepared with an order. Like there is a window of opportunity there and if you miss it you are wasting their time and everyone else behind you. I get nervous, really nervous.

My friend told me last night, why can't you just say "can you give me a second?"

Why do I need a second? Did I not already consciously decide that I wanted Taco Bueno. (I know it was toss up between Bell) I already had a food item in mind or I would not have gone there in the first place. It was the fiesta rice. Anyway, It's not like I sit there and say to myself "ahhhhhh Pollo Loco...never been there, Let's go sample something off of their drive thru menu."

NO we go through drive thrus because we already know what we want! And, I think I have drive thru syndrome because I don't know what I want. EVER. I'm just going through life guessing.

At the drive thru last night, I ordered a combination platter, chicken with no chips and extra rice.

the attendant responded, "DR PEPPER With NO ICE?"

"No" I said, " No chips and extra rice"

"Is that all" he said.

"um".... I said with clammy palms.

"PLEASE PULL AROUND."

As I pulled away from the final window I notice I had extra chips and no rice.

Life Challenged

2006-06-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

So, in this fabulous reporter world of job searching, technologically challenged people cannot exist. I know I do not come from the prehistoric world of actually just sending someone a resume on paper in the mail. Nope, I grew up in the information age in which everything is digital and employees are available at the click of a mouse. I HATE IT!!

I was talking to my friend mike on the phone he was trying to help me with my digital problems where I am life challenged. He kept saying you have to bring your self down to the machines level. Ummmm...doesn't he mean up to its level.

If you want a reporting job you have to make a tape, a reel of your work per say that a news director would look at and say ewwww this looks pretty. Well this involves an extensive knowledge of acronyms of which I am relatively unfamiliar...like MPEG DVCAM BETA DVCPRO VHS DVD+R DVD-R DVD+-RW CDR these all mean things related to my tape but are sooooooo different. If something is in one of these I have to put it in the other. To make a long story short I have successfully put all of my lives work separately on to one of all of these. And it is really fun to try and figure out how to get it on to a VHS for a news director.

I called mike because I had hooked up a TV in the back bed room with 2 VCR's connected to it. Easy enough, I want to copy one VHS to another VHS. Not that simple. All of the plugs in the room were geniously installed by an electrician who conveniently made only the bottom plug hot. So I have the TV in one Outlet and and one VCR in another and another VCR in another. all simultaneously hooked up to each other. It looked like a lifesize game of mousetrap from 1984.

I couldn't get anything to record to anything. I'm not cut out for this. I said to mike asking a reporter to take a DVCPRO tape and digitally copy their tape to a PC edit it burn it to a DVD and then put it back in VHS format, just to get a job, is like asking an IT Tech to do a song and dance in their interview.

2006-06-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day

2006-06-16T20:32:00.000-07:00

Wow, am I frustrated right now or what??

I think I could throw my computer through this glass window. I’m so pissed I can barely type.

I created a slide show video for my dad, for father’s day. I must say it looks excellent, but my apologizes --- no one will ever see it.

It will not burn to a disk, or send, or convert to an MPEG, or post online or even effin play on MY computer.

That’s how special it is.

Well I spent all day on it and all I have to show for it is this damn post explaining why he can’t see it.

Am I surprised?

Are YOU surprised? Wait, don’t answer that.

Through this frustration I have decided what I should do with the rest of my life which should make dad proud. I’m perfect for it:

I need to work for an I.T. troubleshooting department, where, I do not fix things…I break them. My slogan can be “There’s nothing I can’t break.”

I think this would be ideal and people all around the world would pay BIG money to figure out what all their problems COULD be.

I’m so unlucky when it comes to those things. I’ve also been thinking I could be a professional gambler except I would always bet against myself.

Like in sports you could bet on me to bet the losing horse or the golfer who didn’t make the cut (ie. I bet Tiger would win the Open)

Which brings me to another point; somebody asked me the other day, why I knew so much about sports, as I relayed lap by lap the final seconds of the Indy.

I answered, I had watched a lot of sports growing up with my father.

Sundays weren’t Sundays unless golf was on the television.

Bowl week wasn’t bowl week unless we tivoed every game and were surprised by every ending.
Summer Saturday mornings weren’t summer Saturday mornings unless they were accompanied by French onion dip and tennis.

Fall Monday nights weren’t fall Monday nights unless we heard the loud phrase screaming through the den “are you ready for some football.”

Then I reflected in my mind the last week in sports I had watched. I’ve been watching the NBA finals. I watched the Sox/Yankees, a bit of the Stanley cup, the French open and several of the world cup games.

But upon my reflection I noticed there was something missing every time.

It wasn’t the dip or the tivo, the nail biters or the sound of the lawn mower running. It wasn’t the lack of the Sooners or Tiger.

It was my father.

I miss him.

So, I guess since I cannot show him this slide show. I will tell everyone about it.

It was a slide show of the last six months or so, where everything got crazy. I wanted to show my dad how life has changed and how he has still remained a perfect father.

I graduated, His daughter had a baby, his mother beat cancer, I moved to ….Oklahoma, and Lori had her eleventh kid (I can’t keep count).

Ann came to the rescue, Kay moved out of her house, my parents settled into their house, I got a job, I got fired.

My parents had a new baby “the formula,” my dad found a new fishing hole, he moved an old friend to his part of town.

Tivo’s stock went up when my father bought seventeen life-time memberships, actually forcing them to stop selling them.

Allison got engaged, Karis got married, Hailey started eating cereal.

….. and Marco Andretti almost won the Indy 500, a fact I never would have known without …my dad.

Come fathers day I miss him even more.

Dad, enjoy the US Open and know that I am there in spirit and hoping to catch the next game, the match, the race with you again another day.

I love you, I miss you and I thank you for everything,

Happy Fathers Day.

2006-06-16T20:04:00.000-07:00

Things I should have done sooner

2006-06-16T19:46:00.000-07:00

Started a blog
Made some life goals
discovered how to make iced coffee (you actually just ice the coffee)