The New Jersey Nets are now 0-13.
What the heck, Cleveland?
Ditto Pittsburgh.
Lawrence has a good post up about tonight’s Texans – Oilers Titans game.
Archive for the ‘Media’ Category
A brief loser update: week 11.
Monday, November 23rd, 2009Food and the decline of newspapers.
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009The Statesman has an article about grocery price wars in Austin. Our city is currently dominated by H.E.B. and Randalls (owned by Safeway) with some additional competition from Whole Foods, Wal-Mart, and the warehouse stores.
And if she thinks that something is too high at Randalls, she’ll go elsewhere.
“If it’s something I’m not willing to pay for, I’ll check and see if H-E-B’s got it cheaper,” Scott said.
Brilliant strategy there, ma’am.
Signs of the new Randalls initiative were all over the 35th Street store recently.
A case of 24 bottles of Ozarka water was selling for $3.99, down from $5.49. Boneless chicken breasts were $1.99 per pound (with a Randalls Remarkable Card), down from $3.99. Bottles of Gatorade were 10 for $10 (also with the loyalty card), down from $1.69 each.
You know, a real newspaper would have provided size information, and compared those prices head-to-head against H.E.B. A newspaper that wanted to be worth what the Statesman charges might even do something daring. For example, they could put together a standard grocery cart (or even several of them in a rotation), send interns out once a week to do actual comparison shopping at H.E.B., Randalls, Wal-Mart, and even Whole Foods, and then publish the results. (They could even donate the purchased groceries to the local food bank.)
But this is the Statesman.
The case of 24 .5 liter bottles of Ozarka water I found at my local H.E.B. was $3.94. (The H.E.B. only had one case on the shelf, and that case was a “bonus pack” with 28 bottles instead of 24. All the other Ozarka water was in packages of less than 24 bottles.)
H.E.B. boneless chicken breasts were $6.99/pound for “all natural, no preservatives or antibiotics” etc. breasts, $3.99/pound for Sanderson Farms breasts, and $2.99/pound for the Hill Country Fair (house brand) breasts which were also promoted as “natural”/preservative/additive free.
Gatorade was $6 for an eight-pack of 20 ounce bottles, $9.82 for a 15-pack in the same size, and 2 for $2 in the 32 ounce size.
H.E.B. does not have a “loyalty card”.
Edited to add: As long as I’m talking about the Statesman, let me point out their latest series of bizarre TV commercials. The one with food writers Addie Broyles and Mike Sutter is just misguided and dumb. But I don’t know what to make of the John Kelso commerical.
Edited to add 2: And hattip to the Scalz for inspiring my grocery blogging.
High weirdness by radio.
Thursday, November 19th, 2009Austin has a decent radio station, KGSR, with a strong concentration on local and Texas music. That station has been at 107.1 FM roughly since Jesus was a second lieutenant.
At least, until today. According to the Statesman, KGSR is moving to 93.3 FM effective this coming Friday, replacing the hip-hop station that was on that frequency. The old 107.1 frequency is going to become yet another Spanish-language, “Regional Mexican” station.
The new station, whose name and line-up will be announced at 5pm on Monday, November 30th, will include personalities already familiar to Austin’s Spanish-speaking community, as well as dynamic, new talents. Advertisers will be able to reach the active Hispanic market of Central Texas beginning Wednesday, December 2nd via 107.1 FM.
As Lawrence put it, “Why not just go ahead and print the press release verbatim, you farking ho?”
The Statesman‘s questionable journalism aside, there are some interesting things going on here.
- Is it really worth changing your long-time frequency and risking the loss of existing listeners in order to gain an estimated “100,000 more” prospective listeners? I will be interested in seeing how the ratings change after the switch.
- The parent company of KGSR, Emmis Communication, has an interesting history with the Hispanic community over the past few months. Back in July, two hosts of a talk show on one of the AM stations were suspended for two weeks, and the show cancelled, after one of them repeatedly used the term “wetback” on the air. Oddly enough, Emmis announced on Tuesday that they were bringing back the show and both hosts after everyone goes through diversity training. As the linked article notes, another pair of hosts on one of the FM stations were also suspended for one week after using the term “wet vacs” “in suggestive and insulting ways“.
I’m not a radio expert, but all of this seems odd.
“This America, man.”
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009Lawrence suggested that I blog this; I think he wanted it as a bookmark to watch later. (Warning: contains language.)
They got most of the quotes I like, though some of them are cut short. (Stringer Bell’s “Later for that gangster bullshit” speech, Rawls’ “gaping a–hole” speech to McNulty (in context, the whole speech is actually pretty unexpected and moving), “…then we fight on that lie”.) How could you not pick up anything from Snot Boogie, though?
(I can understand not using the Bunk-McNulty crime scene investigation – that stands by itself.)
Instead of actual content…
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009….here’s something I whipped up quickly using Pages, inspired by Reason’s Hit and Run fundraiser, and because I can’t actually find that bumper sticker elsewhere.
Bake Sale bumper sticker (PDF).
I haven’t tried printing these yet, but Office Depot apparently sells bumper sticker stock. I may give that a try in the next day or two. If anyone does try it, please leave feedback in the comments.
Edited to add: Here’s a Word version that I’m actually somewhat happy with.
“It will be a great day when the Pentagon has enough money to bomb public schools having bake sales.” (Word .doc)
The Office Depot inkjet bumper sticker stock may have been a waste of money; the ink came out more grey than black, and smeared all over the place when I handled it (even after about 15 minutes of drying time). I printed another sheet and am going to let that dry overnight; we’ll see what happens.
Random notes: November 9, 2009.
Monday, November 9th, 2009The NYTPicker has an interesting post up related to the whole Brighton Beach Memoirs fiasco; what they’re reporting is that the failure of this revival may have had a great deal to do with an unusually restrictive advertising deal the NYT made with the producers of the show.
With the understanding that both of these people are good friends of mine (can you say “blogrolling”? I knew you could.) I’m linking to Lawrence’s interview with the actor we’ve hired to play Karl Rehn of KR Training.
Consider this an official endorsement of Child’s Play. I have donated money to them in the past and will do so again this year if I have any to spare. (I just checked: Yes! The Desert Bus guys are doing it again this year! November 20th; mark your calendar.)
Edited to add: by way of Jimbo, who killed Chicago crime reporter Jake Lingle?
Edited to add 2: I forgot that I wanted to note this LAT story, mostly because I don’t know what to make of it. The headline and sub-head imply that the main concern of the article is “Private citizens can fly high-performance jet aircraft? Oh, noes!” However, buried towards the bottom of the article is a more interesting story; allegations that the FAA investigation into this case was sandbagged. (I was wondering where a convicted felon gets the money to purchase one of those planes; however, Google tells me that a 1973 L-39C Albatros goes for around $269,500. Or somewhat less than a house in LA.)
Everlasting cogstockers.
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009By way of Jimbo, we learn that two WP employees, Henry Allen and Manuel Roig-Franzia, had a bit of a disagreement over the merits of a story co-written by Roig-Franzia. The Honorable Mr. Roig-Franzia allegedly called the Honorable Mr. Allen a “c—sucker”, at which point the Honorable Mr. Allen allegedly attempted to give Roig-Franzia high cause to seek out a periodontal reconstructionist.
This story has been covered here and here; in addition, Gene Weingarten of the WP (and a writer whose work I have a complicated relationship with) weighs in here. It comes as no great shock that Weingarten weighs in on the side of
Hooray that there is still enough passion left somewhere in a newsroom in America for violence to break out between colorful characters in disagreement over the quality of a story.
I understand Weingarten’s point of view. I grew up on Mencken and Liebling. There’s a big part of me that supports the whole “Break it up, you two, we’ve got a newspaper to put out. You can settle down at the pub after deadline.” side to this story.
But. I work for a company that’s close in size to the Washington Post empire. I’m pretty passionate about my job. I’ve had disagreements with people in other departments, too; disagreements that were serious enough for me to consider inviting them down into the parking lot for a frank and open exchange of views about the nature of the social contract. The key word there is “consider“.
If I called one of my co-workers a “c—sucker” (or, for that matter, a “bony-a–ed b—h”) I would expect to be fired. I would consider myself lucky to get merely a serious reprimand from HR. If I took a swing at one of my co-workers, I would be fired. Our visions of Hildy Johnson aside, why should newspapers be any different from any other business?
(I also wanted to call this out because Allen apparently called the story in question “the second worst story I have seen in Style in 43 years”, leading to much entertaining speculation about what the worst story was. The official answer appears to be something about Paul Robeson that was so error-ridden it was never printed. However, there’s lots of entertaining speculation at the links above, including multiple mentions of Sally Quinn.)
Random notes: October 28, 2009.
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009The NYT has an interesting article about Thomas Keller (of French Laundry fame) and how he’s changed after the death of his father.
This has been linked elsewhere, but I wanted to throw this up mostly for Andrew: local coverage of the SF Bay Bridge closure.
I’ve also been meaning to note the unfortunate incident on I-40, mostly because I’ve been somewhat baffled by it; however, the linked article helps make a little more sense of it. It looks like the slide is in an area that’s not easily accessible to the heavy equipment needed to remove the rocks; it also looks like NCDOT is going to want to spend some time stabilizing the slope, and then you’ve got to make sure the road bed is in good shape…
Tim Page has been popping up a lot recently as I make my rounds; first (by way of Jimbo) on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, then in an online chat at the WP. For those who are unfamiliar with Mr. Page, he’s a former classical music critic at the WP (and winner of the Pulitzer for criticism in 1997) who briefly became notorious for going off on Marion Barry’s aides after they kept spamming him. (“Must we hear about it every time this crack addict attempts to rehabilitate himself with some new and typically half-witted political grandstanding? “)
Page has a new book out, Parallel Play
(Before anyone asks: I have Look Me in the Eye
Random notes: October 22, 2009.
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009Today’s NYT continues covering the Sedona sweat lodge incident:
Dr. Bunn, who had signed up for the $9,695 “spiritual warrior” experience
It must be nice to have more money than sense.
A psychic in Waynesville, N.C., Page Bryant, who was among the first to claim in the 1980s that Sedona had several “vortexes” of high energy — the initial lure for the legions of seekers — said that she became fed up and left nearly two decades ago “because of the craziness I saw going on in the New Age community.”
Wow. When the crazy people think you’re too crazy, maybe that’s a sign.
…the comments of a self-described “channeler” who visited Angel Valley after the retreat. Claiming to have communicated with the dead, the channeler said they had left their bodies in the sweat lodge and chosen not to come back because “they were having so much fun.”
Also in the NYT, the latest “trend” story: the return of the restaurant matchbook.
On the “Art, damn it, art!” front, here’s the LAT on the art in front of the new LAPD headquarters building. I’m thinking #4 in the slide show looks a lot like someone with their head buried in the sand.
In local news, some folks in the neighborhood are trying to get TABC to pull the liquor and operating licenses for the Nutty Brown Cafe. I drive past the Nut on a fairly regular basis; it isn’t like there’s a whole lot out there. Additionally, my great and good friends Andrew and the actor we’ve hired to play Karl play live music at the Nut from time to time, and I do kind of like the food there (we had a dining conspiracy there recently, and I have to say my opinion was a minority one) so I’m not exactly sympathetic to these complaints.
Obit watch.
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009Howard Unruh finally died at the age of 88.
Unruh is mostly forgotten today; on September 6, 1949, he went on a shooting spree and killed 13 people before he was finally taken down. Unruh never stood trial; he was found to be insane and spent the rest of his life in confinement.
The Times obit does include a link to Meyer Burger’s story for the paper; that story won Burger the Pulitizer Prize for local reporting, and is also reprinted in the Library of America True Crime
Edited to add: Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind has an excellent (and far more thoughtful) post up as well.
Living on a prayer.
Thursday, October 15th, 2009NBC, the 4th place network, and the home of Jay Leno in primetime, has named Jon Bon Jovi “artist in residence“.
Over the next two months Mr. Bon Jovi, whose new album, “The Circle,” will be released on Nov. 10, will be seen exclusively on shows on outlets owned by NBC Universal. These appearances will include the “Today” show, “The Tonight Show,” “The Jay Leno Show” and “Saturday Night Live” — and even an interview on the “NBC Nightly News” with Brian Williams. Mr. Bon Jovi also will appear on “Inside the Actors Studio” on the Bravo channel of NBC Universal.
I haven’t had enough coffee yet, so write your own joke.
Random notes for September 26, 2009.
Saturday, September 26th, 2009Terrorism isn’t funny. But I do wonder how much of a sense of humor the FBI Counter Terrorism Task Force has.
“Hello, you’ve reached the Sprint PCS voice mail of The Federal Bureau of Investigation. Please place both hands above your head and refrain from any sudden movements.”
By way of Jimbo, David Brancaccio in the Santa Fe Reporter:
The bigger TV you have, the dumber you are. Smart people have TVs, often—but not very big ones.
Oh, yeah, Mister Smarty Smart Guy? What if I have a 56″ TV, but I only use it to watch my collection of classic films on DVD and Blu-Ray from the Criterion Collection? Who’s the dummy now, eh?
(For the record, especially since I’m expecting an influx of folks from Glen’s site; my TV is a 36″ tube TV that my great and good friend Andrew gave me for free. I haven’t even connected the converter box to it yet. I don’t, and won’t, have cable; if I had cable, I’d spend all my time watching it, especially the Things That Go Fast And Explode Channel. And that would interfere with other more worthwhile activities, like school, hacking, drinking seasonal microbrews, and arguing about Proust. I don’t watch Fox News, or any TV news except under very rare circumstances. Most of my TV watching these days is with an Elgato EyeTV Hybrid on the MacBook, or DVDs. I do confess to being a sucker for Cops, watching America’s Most Wanted, and anything on PBS that catches my attention; mostly Nova, and the occassional Frontline, Secrets of the Dead, or American Experience. And I keep football games on as background noise during the season while I work on other projects.)
Bulletin from the Department of WTF (#1 in a series).
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009WTF?
That’s just a hair under one billion dollars.
WTFF?
In which I prove myself to be a Philistine.
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009This Statesman story about food-related tattoos is not the dumbest thing I’ve ever read in the Statesman.
It is, however, easily in the Top Ten. Maybe even Top Five.
Quote of the day.
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009“It’s official. Microsoft has no shame. None. They should just stop paying rent on that storage unit where they keep their shame because they, as I said, have none.”