My country right...

...or wrong.

"...patriotism...involves a disposition to fall into a kind of bad faith and that this is a reason to think that patriotism is certainly not a virtue and is probably a vice...."

[Simon Keller, Patriotism as Bad Faith, Ethics, Apr 2005; 115, 3, pg. 566]

Interesting blog on NZ newspapers and the Internet

this guy who calls himself Newsosaur, wrote an interesting piece on NZ newspapers and the internet and how NZ newspapers had better rattle their dags and make some smart, strategic steps if they're to build the sort of online franchises that their american counterparts failed to do. it's an interesting read with a very graphic description of the term "rattle your dags" which i'll leave to you to read. also, you may have to scroll down to get to the story as this guy doesn't use permalinks...he really is a dinosaur.

Why?

Pretty much everyday I go to the following sites: Foxnews.com, abcnews.com, msnbc.com, cbsnews.com, cnn.com, huffingtonpost.com, crooksandliars.com, and scoop.co.nz, http://independent.co.uk/ and others...

The reason I go to these sites (especially the american ones), besides for the tech and media and advertising stories, is that I keep hoping to see a headline to the effect that Bush/Cheney have been fired. Seriously. And yet, that headline never comes.

Instead...every single day, one of the main stories on each of the major US media websites (fox, msnbc, cbs, abc, cnn) are apologies (read: support) for the Bush/Cheney White House and the Iraq War (like this little prize from msnbc). Perhaps along with an obligatory recount of the latest scandal (gonzales, walter reed, etc...), today's death toll in Iraq, etc... but these are always short-lived and are rarely the lead story. Rather, the lead stories are either weather or animal-related.

I seriously begin to question my sanity--why are we still in Iraq? Why do news organisations cover anything besides Bush/Cheney and Iraq? When will this madness end? Does anyone else care?

Even though I see people comment on stories on huffpo and crooksandliars and others, I can't help but doubt that these people are real or that their concerns are real. In effect, I begin to think I'm alone in how much I want this madness to end.

And then I see someone as Republican as they come, as establishment as they come saying things like this. And it gives me the strength to click through my sites just one more time...with the same hopefulness that I felt the day before.

Some kiwis going to NY

pretty cool--several kiwi ad creatives are gonna be judges at the New York Festivals. a bit disappointing that interactive barely gets a mention in the campaign brief story--but nevermind...still cool!

Why I HATE LOST PART II

I forgot to mention that substory about the Lady Doctor which in the space of about 10 minutes explains the whole reason she and the others are on that goddamn island. And all of it is so awfully telegraphed that you know what's gonna happen a few commercial breaks before it does.

Good Lady Doctor tells Company Shrouded in Mystery President (hmmm, wonder if Company Shrouded in Mystery is going to turn out to be the reason she's on the island?) that the only way she can get away from her husband is if he gets hit by a bus--enter loud music: DUM DUM DUM!!! (could it be that Company Shrouded in Mystery is so powerful that they'll be able to have her husband get hit by bus? could it be...?)

Well the answer to both questions is revealed about 5 minutes later and the answer just happens to be DUHHHHHHHHHHHHH....(yes).

Just so we're on the same page--they explain why she and her whack job friends are on the island (THE FUCKING ISLAND for christ's sake) in about TEN MINUTES.

Now here's the real problem with this show in a nutshell--it's too GODDAMN POPULAR! if it weren't so popular i wouldn't care...but the fact that it's SO GODDAMN POPULAR is the reason that the writers and producers cynically know that they CAN GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING AND THEIR MINDLESS FANS WILL JUST GO--"COOOOOOOL." (or... that was cool, dude)

So they do--they write whatever they want whenever they want to without thinking about it for even a second--cause they've got to get back to their coke and hookers straightaway.

You know, maybe the real problem i have with the show isn't that it SUUUUUCCCCKKKKSS, but that I'm jealous. What a great job: writing whatever garbage falls out of your ass, having that garbage be wildly popular and snorting coke and fucking hookers all day and night. What could be better?

P.S. My list of top ten jobs in the world to follow sometime soon...

Why I Hate Lost

I know this goes against everything that's good and right about America, but I hate LOST. I HATE LOST.

And here's why.

The last two seasons I hated LOST because it was a show where nothing NOTHING ever happened--and yet people I knew, people I know, would debate what happened on the show as if SOMETHING happened. But NOTHING ever happened. NOTHING. In fact, I can guarantee you that the writers of that show never had a clue as to what they were writing. NOT A CLUE. (and they were laughing all the way to the bank)

But now in the third season the reason I HATE LOST has changed. Now I hate LOST because, I'm sure due to pressure from network suits, they started to write episodes where things happen. The problem is--the writer you hire to write about nothing is not the same writer you should hire to write about something.

By that I mean to say that the people they've got writing Lost couldn't write their way out of a paper bag. In this third season, "The Season Where Something Happens," the crap they've been throwing on the screen would be LAUGHED at LOUDLY if it appeared in a movie or even a TV show. For example, Jack is operating on that GUY and then says he did something so that the guy only has an hour to live. The guy is bleeding to death but somehow, as long as he starts operating within an hour, the guy will be okay. What about the massive loss of blood? Isn't that a wee problem? But let's not dwell on that ridiculousness...in the middle of the guy bleeding to death, he wakes up "because Jack is a surgeon not an anaesthesiologist." The guy WAKES UP!?! WHAT?!? Is he Zeus?

I won't even discuss all the pummelling of people in the head which resulted in nothing more than a few minutes of sleepy time, and all of the shooting at close range and missing (because most shows/movies do that), but how about that daughter lady showing up just at the right time to save Freckles and Long Hair Dude? Huh?!?

And then to top it off, Freckles recounts the story about Jack saving that girl after counting to five and she's balling her eyes out and then she leaves with long hair dude and Crazy Boy. Was this supposed to be a moving scene? If so, why? What the fuck was so moving about hearing a story for a second time that wasn't moving the first goddamn time? Did we have to hear that lame ass story twice?

You know, the writers really ought to stick to the stuff where nothing happens--they're way better at nothing than something.

What's new about new media?

as we hurtle faster and faster towards an eventual permanent virtual existence, it's important from time to time to take a breath and ask ourselves some fundamental questions. like what's so new about new media? this essay from the book New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003) is a good place to start.

The Blogging Nun

just to show you how personal and specific the blogging community has become--check out this article on the blogging nun. sister julie tells it like it is and what that says about web 2.0 is there's something for everyone...

It's Like I Died and Went to Heaven

when I heard about the movie, Wild Hogs, my heart skipped a beat.

Now there's a movie with the ultimate Dream Team of Stars: crazy whack job scientologist, John Travolta! Tim "The Homicidal Drunk" Allen! William "I actually used to have a soul" H. Macy, and Martin "the drugged out sexual harasser" Lawrence!

Boy, I sure can't wait to see Wild Hogs! Boy oh boy! What more could anyone ask for then a movie with four bloated failures riding motorcycles! Nothing more. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

UPDATE March 8, 2007

Just to ensure transparency here, I want everyone to know (and by everyone I mean me and the little old lady from Kamchatka who claims to read this blog--btw, hi, natasha!) that I wrote "crazy whack job scientologist" before I knew whether or not anyone had written anything on that topic. When I googled "travolta crazy whack job scientologist", I got 639 hits. The one I picked just seemed to capture that phrase the best.

Fire the Intern

Whenever I open my hotmail account I get this little summary of the news message along with some feature stories MSN.com is running for the day. So today I get the message above. I've conveniently circled the part that's pissing me off.

Does the Intern who added the thumbnail of those two guys with red clown noses on their faces really think those guys are a good iconic representation of what it means to be funny?! Are you fuckin kidding me?! If someone ever wore a red clown nose to work he wouldn't establish himself as the "funny guy at work"...he'd establish himself as the "asshole at work who wore the red clown nose."

Usually Microsoft gets their icons right--you know the ones in Word with the two hands shaking or the picture of the world with arrows pointing heavenward or the dollar sign with an arrow to a pot of gold--I mean those are classics! Who hasn't used those awesome icons in some report they did for the boss or some school project? Of course you have. We all have for christ sake's!

The clown-nose-wearing dickheads, however, don't represent funny.

Fire the goddamn Intern!

News flash: Mommies are turning off TV!

a report from the States indicates some moms are clicking on blogs aimed at issues specific to families rather than watching the morning shows. in fact, it could be as much as 10% according to Nielsen...which is a sizeable chunk.

is this surprising? not really. it captures the essence of web 2.0--what Ross Mayfield described in this way: "Web 1.0 was commerce. Web 2.0 is people"

One of the key reasons the internet can compete with Old Media is this idea that people are now able to collaborate, to participate, to interact with one another in conversations that matter to them--they don't have to sit through an hour long program to get to that one 5 minute segment that sort of touches on something they kinda care about. on the other hand, it is 10% (at the most) and it's difficult to say that number will increase in the foreseeable future. but eventually, as people age, television will be only one of many sources of information and entertainment. it might even become an afterthought.

Yahoo/Xtra

meant to post on this a few days ago...

anyway, yep the deed is done. It's now Yahoo/Xtra instead of Xtra/MSN. It's a pretty big deal. geekzone has a pretty good post on it. check it out here.

The Horror, The Horror

My wife (or partner as they say in New Zealand) dropped me off at school today and in my haste to get out of the car I accidentally grabbed the diaper bag she had packed for our two children--she was taking them to the Auckland Zoo for the day.

As she drove away, I noticed the bag and instantly realized this was not good. Not good at all. So I started running after her car in the middle of Queen Street (a very busy street), waving the diaper bag, screaming for her to stop. But she didn't see me and kept going.

I quickly grabbed my phone and speed dialed hers--but then I remembered something she said to me on the way out of the house that morning ("my battery's dead so I won't be able to call you from the zoo today"). Crap!

Her car disappeared around a corner and with it, my marriage.

Okay, not my marriage...but those of you who have kids will understand the importance of the Diaper Bag. If I had all the money in the world, fame, political power, high social status--none of that could have compensated for the fact that my wife was going to the zoo with our two small children in tow without the diaper bag. Understand, this is less about the bag itself and more about what's in it--diapears, of course, and wipes. But that's hardly the end of it. It had small pieces of bread and fruit and carrots and my son's shoes and socks and bibs and changes of clothes and milk in a bottle and the water bottles and sun screen. It was and is the equivalent of that knife Rambo carries around in those First Blood movies.

No amount of money could have replaced that tattered, old bag along with its critical contents. The president himself (assuming he weren't the current president, but one with an ounce of competence) or the prime minister herself couldn't have rescued her.

No. The diaper bag is everything. It is all powerful. In it are the secrets to a good and happy life.

And I had no way of getting that magical accessory item to her. In only a few minutes, she would realize it wasn't in the car and that Hell was just around the corner.

My God, I thought. MY GOD! Horrors to great to imagine. Forgive me, my sweet. Forgive me!