The Stiffs strikes again

This time with homespun tales of hooky, and animated sparkly vomit.  I really want to write a more serious post.  I really do.  But I’ve been so slammed with work this week that it’s all I can do to copy/paste the embed link on this from youtube.  If you want to read something more interesting, check out my friend Brian McNitt’s blog.

Another nail in the coffin of photograhic veracity

Before I get started here, I want to admit that, as a painter, photographer, and designer, I find the sheer ability to do what this software does incredibly cool.  Matrix cool.  Minority report cool.  John Travolta cool.   And there, the admiration must end.

The Stiffs – Television ads for, uh, more television

Go local television whackos. These have got the most hilarious, self-mocking scripts on TV. And great voices.

Leave OJ Alone!

They repossessed his Bronco! I love it.

Looks like poor OJ Simpson just can’t catch a break. Did’t Capone finally go to jail, not on charges of killing 1000’s, trafficking illegal substances, extortion, etc, but on tax evasion charges?

My favorite part about this latest OJ eruption so far was OJ’s assertion that he was “conducting a sting operation,” to get his stuff back. Is that what they’re calling armed jackings in South Central LA too?

This is not an engraved iPod

In honor of René Magritte, I’m ordering my iPod Nano, pictured below today. I’ll be sure to load it up with a convincing image of a cracked LCD monitor, and work tirelessly to find a hack to make it display all the time.

Private dick work and the exquisite corpse

Local Shane scores.

When: Thursday, Sept 13, 2007
Where: 9th St. Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA
What: (1) Puralator automotive air filter replacement cartridge, (1) 3-pack of Trojan lubricated condoms, dozens of fresh jalapeno peppers, feces
Why & How: That, dear reader, is what comments are for. Go.

Don’t look now, you’re being redirected.

How much Amazon.com stock does Southwest Airlines or CNN hold, anyway?

Though I’m loathe to admit it, I found myself looking up the term, “halter-style dress” today while reading a CNN.com story on Southwest Airlines recent altercations with two different women who were admonished to cover up before boarding flights run by the carrier. Apparently, Southwest’s “The Love Airline” image is shifting from its hippie 1970’s incarnation to a version updated to fit the times. Huh?

At first blush, I thought less of Southwest. What business is it of theirs who wears what for a plane ride to wherever? I tried to imagine Greyhound imposing a dress code – de facto or written – and laughed. (Before you get upset with me, think for a minute about your last bus ride across country.) A plane is just public transportation, after all, even if the ticket to ride can run you some big bucks.

Or maybe, I thought, there’s a deep thought here regarding public appearance, social respect, and etiquette in a civil society. A cursory reading of the yahoo! message boards and CNN’s “sound off” module cleared up that misconception in a flash. It seems pretty self-evident that there’s always a push-and-pull between individual freedom and collective accommodation. Nothing new here. Just a couple of emblematic incidents whipping up the tiniest bit of public discussion.

No, I don’t think it’s about the debate, and I don’t think there’s anything insidious going on at Southwest (or at least if there is, it’s not being reported on CNN). But you can bet there’s something going on somewhere. Someone I respected once said, “Every time someone tells you to look up at the sky, he’s got his hand in your pocket.” Don’t look now, there’s a Southwest plane flying overhead.

iPromise

How’s your iLife going?

I’m asking because I’m curious. I’m curious about whether or not your iLife is what you’d imagined – what you’ve been promised.

Mine isn’t, but I’m not surprised. Consumer advertising, after all, promises us far more in regards to products and services than what any product or service is capable of delivering. Deep spiritual satisfaction from a walkman? Social fulfillment and a permagrin from a hard drive full of jpgs? Become the toast of your friends (which of course, number in the scores and consist of supermodel geniuses and dapper playboys) thanks to your German engineered car? I learned fairly well to look through the veneer of consumer advertising when I was a freshman in college and read Ways of Seeing, by John Berger. But consumer advertising is an adaptive beast, relentless and ever more persuasive.

In a world where massive, empty promises are routinely made, what are the consequences for our expectations of the world – most specifically and critically of the other people in our lives? After all, people make and keep (or don’t keep) promises. Implicit, explicit, marriage, work, etc. If any number of 1,000’s of things in the world can be promoted as panaceas for a yearning in us (a yearning I’d say has been amplified and manipulated to respond to the promises of advertising), what kind of fulfillment expectations arise? Am I likely to work through a difficult stretch in a relationship when I’m pretty well conditioned to believe there’s a newer, better one out there that will require less work and will provide greater – if not complete – fulfillment?

iWonder, if we stripped our world of the context of accepted empty promises of fulfillment, would we re-adapt and learn to nurture our relationships better? Would we still have a 50% divorce rate? Consider this passage from an article on Askmen.com, wherein the author plainly argues that women and men change after marriage (for the worse) and that doing so is fundamentally unfair:

Why shouldn’t one have a say if their wife or husband puts on too much weight from sitting on the couch and eating nachos all day? When you buy a car, a BMW for instance, you expect it to remain a BMW. The car won’t become a GoodYear blimp with time, it will inevitably get old but will always remain a BMW.

This, from an article categorized under “marriage advice.” Complete article on Askmen.com. Would anyone else read this and wonder why, oh why, anyone would compare a person to a product and expect a human being to behave like a car? Yet, I find this way of “philosophy” prevalent. And seeing its prevalence turns me away from marriage. It’s not the changing spouse I’m afraid of – it’s the likely expectation in her that I’ll be like that car. It’s the shameful recognition that, in me, there’s the same expectation of her.

It’s the knowledge that we all judge one another against the expectations made by impossible promises – iPromises, if you will.

constant entertainment

Speakers in every room. iPod in a pocket. Cell phones browse the internet. Television may no longer be on 24/7 – replaced by the computer.

Over Labor Day weekend, I went out of town to a cabin on a lake in Maine – to get away from civilization and relax for a few days – and getting there requires a plane trip to Boston, followed by a bus ride to Portland, followed finally by automotive extraction from the bus terminal by family members who brave winding back roads to take me to the undisclosed location. That final leg of the trip – 35 miles – takes an hour and a half. It is nearly as long as the ride from Boston to Portland, and almost double the plane trip. It is also the best part of the journey, crawling along the Maine back roads, looking for moose, gazing out at glistening lakes through dense forestation, and zoning out.

For the first leg of the journey, I flew Jet Blue. It was my first time on Jet Blue. I had taken Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death to read on my trip. Published in 1984, it is supposedly more relevant now than ever, and I’d long been looking forward to reading it. As I sat down in my comfortable leather airplane seat, cracked the spine, and started in on the introduction, I noticed a flickering light in my periphery. I glanced up to see what it was, and noticed (for the first time) that every single seat-back on the plane had its own little 9″ TV screen, and every single one was turned on. Wow, I thought, that explains the flickering. Apparently, among Jet Blue’s claims to fame is the fact that it graces passengers with 34 channels of Direct TV programming and 100+ XM Satellite Radio channels. Never a dull moment on Jet Blue. Nor, however, a moment to unplug. I tried to go back to my book, but the flashing lights of the televisions was relentless and distracting. I figured out how to turn my TV off, but the other 315 passengers were intently watching ET, The Sopranos, Who’s The Boss?, and a multiplying array of other junk food TV equivalents. I was physiologically overpowered by the lights. And after 20 minutes of vain struggle to read, I had to throw in the towel. Satellite Radio or Direct TV? That was my choice – simple and uncompromising. Yeah, yeah, I had options regarding what program to passively consume, but the option of unplugging was simply unavailable to me – and to all of us on that flight considering the enraptured stares on fellow passengers’ faces.

I didn’t even get far enough into the book, but the irony struck me like a cast iron skillet over the head. From Boston to Portland, the bus was nearly as bad. Multiple TVs playing a DVD to fill the minutes prevented dreaded lack of distraction. Why look out the windows when you can look into the flickering box of constant entertainment? I am deeply worried about us. And I’m saying so on a web log. Relentless.

iPoddy Training

It’s official: the “touch” revolution is expanding beyond iPhone. No longer the stuff of UI geek wet dreams, having moved beyond the Microsoft propaganda for “surface” (and all its satirical variants), beyond the Treo’s broken “keypad,” the “touch” interface made popular by iPhone in June has spawned a sibling. Or a cousin.

The question is not whether the touch interface is extremely cool, or whether or not the iPod Touch is a good product. The question is how fast user adoption of a touch-based interface paradigm is likely to spread based on the product expansion rate Apple’s apparently set to pursue. Your music is still just music. Your iLife is still just marketing. This is all about flash and glitz, but Apple’s moves in this area have consistently been indicators of broader market trends to come. Causal ones.

I do not want an iPhone or iPod Touch, yet I salivate over them. I do so not because I think they will do anything at all for me or my happiness, but because I recognize them as industry-shaping, paradigm-shifting, advances worthy of anthropological consideration.

That said, I sure do love them Nanos. If you want to send me one, I’ll use it every day – I promise. Silver or black preferred.