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Scott Walter Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States |
A good friend of mine was killed this weekend in an act of utterly senseless, pointless, non-directed, moronic, stupid, childish, pathetic violence. I don't even know where to start. It's hard to rant in multiple directions at once. Al ... I'll miss you. We all will.
... there's someone that want's to capitalize on it, and some government agency that enables said capitalization.
For example, take U.S. patent No. 7,000,180. While it was originally filed back in 2001 (well before AJAX became the "acronym du jour"), it was finally granted this Valentine's Day by the beloved U.S Patent Office ... and it could well screw up web technology innovation as we know it, as it's broad enough to (potentially) require any AJAX-like technology to pay a license fee back to the patent owner.
Woof. For the second time this year (once last month, and now this month) a predicted "wicked snow storm that will blanket the Twin Cities with at least 6 inches of snow" ... never happened. Last month, the storm missed us by a few dozen miles to the north. This time, a few dozen miles to the south ... and all they really got was "a dusting". Man ... I'm in the wrong line of work: You get paid, yet are consistently wrong. On the other hand, they got the temperature right ... once again, Minnesota temperatures are more what we all expect up here this time of year: low double-digit, single-digit, or any-digit as long as it has a '-' in front of it.
Living in Plymouth, on the west side of Minneapolis, for the past 8 years, I've become fond of a local establishment: Grandma's Restaurant and Wine Bar. Grandma's is a Minnesota original, with restaurants in only 5 cities in the state, and the Plymouth location (being close to home) I've grown especially fond of. I started out down the path of "becoming a regular" at the Bloomington store, which is long since closed (I may write about the stupidity behind that sometime ... someday) and migrated to Plymouth, along with a collection of both regulars and staff. Over the years, I've seen a lot of things ... a lot of people. I've seen good times, bad times ... and some really, really crazy times (good thing no one had a camera ... at least, no one who's come forth with pictures ... yet). And, I knew that all good things, no matter how good and packed with potential, must come to an end ... and Grandma's Plymouth is no exception. On March 31, 2006, the Plymouth, MN, store will close ... and I have to admit, I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I'm not surprised. From a customer standpoint, the store isn't doing stellar business. Traffic ebbs and flows with the booking level of the adjacent Comfort Inn. On the other hand ... frankly, I'm pissed off. The Grandma's line is Duluth-based, and watching the way the Plymouth store has been handled tells me that their corporate office doesn't have a clue about how to make money in the Minneapolis market. Granted, they're doing ok business in their downtown store ... which is located in the "Seven Corners" area of the East Bank of the University of Minnesota. I mean, come on ... how hard is it to make it when you're in a prime location ... where all you really need to do is open the doors, serve decent drinks, and have one of the local radio stations play live music once a week. A near-sighted Rhesus monkey on crack could make money there ... case in point. No. The real challenge of making a business is going after something new ... something different ... and making it work. From what I've heard, they want out of their lease big time. The price they're asking for the property is a steal, especially with you factor in the rate of growth of the western suburbs. So ... if anyone is interested in partnering in what could be a very exciting venture ... ... let me know.
Extended holiday weekend ... a chance to catch up on a variety of things. Given the options of:
I find myself increasingly moving in the direction of #'s 3, 4, and 5 (with 5 becoming the fast favorite). Frankly, regular TV blows (duh), and has for some time. Lame concepts, rehashed plots, and commercials ... those flippin' commercials that you see every 5 minutes (if you're fortunate, you won't see the same commercial every single break ... if your fortunate). Same companies pushing the same crap over and over and over again. I know, I know, I wrote about this before. I can't help myself ... I find the entertainment industry unbelievably frustrating these days.
Sadly, cable channels are beginning to follow in their footsteps at a more and more irritating rate. I used to really enjoy watching the SciFi Channel (which is sad, because now that they're doing their own B-rated movies, I'd enjoy a mindless film from time to time ... but ...), the Food Network (it's my personal chef side), Biography, The History Channel, and others ... until they took the concept of commercials and cross-bred it with cross-promotion. Now, you have the same number of repeated interruptions to whatever you're attempting to watch. But, rather than pepper you with spots for floor wax, spot remover, or the latest and greatest in SUV technology ... they run ads for other shows on their own networks, and they do it with even more idiotic frequency than the major networks run "traditional" spots.
Even public television is beginning to go overboard. Granted, you don't get commercial interruptions during the program (unless you're watching during a pledge drive ... and there seem to be more and more of those happening nowadays, too), just between shows, where you see one "underwriter" mentioned after another. And the "mentions" now take the form of 15- to 30-second commercial spots (but they're not "commercials" ... because public television doesn't do "commercials" ... you say toe-MAY-toe, I say toe-MAH-toe, doesn't matter what you call it, it's the same damn thing).The folks from the premium networks (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, etc.) must watch their fair share of public television, because you now see the same over repetition of "ads" promoting other shows on the same networks. And now that there isn't just a single HBO, Showtime, or whatever channel there are entire networks of them (HBO Family, HBO Latin, Encore, Showtime Family, etc.) they can cross-promote shows from one channel to the next, providing an even broader selection of spots to assault us with.
Pay Per View (PPV) and Video On Demand (VOD) can aleviate commercial overload, assuming that you either:And heaven forfend if you should opt out of television and want to listen to music. You can:
In a word ... make that two words ... no thanks.
I love what's happening in the podcasting and videoblogging world right now. New content ... fresh content ... niche content ... things you'd never see through other commercial channels (because they wouldn't be able to figure out how to monetize it sufficiently) ... and, most important, content created by regular people for regular people. Plus, because it's "time shifted", you can listen watch what you want when you want to. Save shows for later and listen/watch them again. Got an idea for a show of your own? Grab an iRiver (or similar player w/ a microphone) and dive right in.
It's giving the regular media channels a headache they so richly deserve. They can't control it ... the can't monopolize it (in spite of Apples iTunes 4.9 launch which, initially, pushed "indie" podcasters out of the limelight as the networks rolled shows out ... until people realized that the network's "shows" were just the same crap they've been slinging in a new package with a pretty pink bow) ... they can't even figure out how to monetize it (making some of them question the viability of the medium: "If I can't figure out how to make money with it, it'll never be popular enough to worry about." Wrong).
But enough of the rant. Check it out, it's worth exploring. To start "casting your own web", check out some of the following places:
Me? Yeah, I'm working on a couple shows (completely different genres). When they're ready for prime time ... you'll be the first one to know.
