alspach.org

Design Quick Hit

2011-09-24T11:26:00.000-04:00

Let me be the one billionth person to use Apple as an example of good design.

Every time Apple releases a new version of one of their products -- say the iPhone -- I think "Wow... this is even more iPhone than the last iPhone." Apple knows exactly what their vision for the iPhone is (simplicity, ease of use, elegance and power in your pocket, optimized for mobile use), ruthlessly guards it and lets it inform every design choice they make.

Not everybody does this, I think basically because not everybody knows what their product is: and particularly what it is to the end user.

Take Facebook. I think the end user sees Facebook as a tool for finding out what's going on with their friends and then connecting with them. I think Facebook sort of gets this, but mostly sees Facebook as a platform to show you ads.

That's how I explain something like the recent changes to the News Feed, where it's now based on a Facebook-controlled algorithm that selects what stories filter to the top. That just seems like it's adding noise to the whole seeing what's going on with your friends and connecting with them thing.

You know what algorithm I want for my News Feed? The one that most directly connects me with my friends? It works liked this: ORDER BY created_time DESC. Show me all my friends' updates with the most recent ones first. You remember that one, right Facebook? It was the one you had back before people started complaining about the changes you made to the News Feed.

I know Facebook needs to make money and they do that by selling ads. More power to them. And any change where Facebook has more algorithmic control over what you see gives them more ability to steer you to the content they want you to look at. But I get why people are pissed off. It flies in the face of what they want and value about Facebook's brand.

To be fair, sometimes a change that makes sense for selling ads also creates a good experience for the user. I've had a chance to see a developer preview of the new Timeline feature and I think it's awesome. It really does let you see what's going on (and has gone on) with your friends in a new, interesting and spiffy-looking way.

Introducing Status Fight Beta

2011-09-21T20:59:00.000-04:00

I bet you've played the 'who posted this status update?' game with Facebook from time to time. You know: the one where you sit in front of your laptop and read a status update out to your friend / significant other / cat and make them guess which of your mutual friends said it. Sometimes it's obvious. Other times it's deceptive. But it's almost always good for a chuckle.

Well, now you can play it for real. As a real Facebook game. On Facebook.

I know. So meta.

It started out as little personal side project, mostly as an exercise to understand how to develop applications for Facebook, but who knows: there might be a real game here. Check it out if you'd like, and leave feedback here.

Play Status Fight

Puzzling

2011-07-31T07:37:00.003-04:00

My attempt to use some of the new mechanics we've recently added to Gamestar Mechanic to make a puzzler:

History comes to life

2011-02-11T18:57:00.002-05:00

Play what is surely the greatest video game series ever made about the Shackleton Expedition.

Part I:

Part II:

Cablevision v. Fox: The lesser of two evils

2010-10-29T15:04:00.000-04:00

Sometimes in life, it's hard to figure out who to dislike more out of a field of d-bags. As a Cablevision customer current embroiled in the ongoing Fox/Cablevision dispute that has kept Fox's stations off the air for 3 million people in the greater NYC area for two weeks, that's the boat I find myself in. Some disorganized thoughts:

I'm predisposed towards being on the side of Fox, as they are the content creator. They have the stuff people want and they have a right to charge what they want for it. People (and other companies) can chose to buy it or not.
That being said, it's pretty objectionable that they want to charge someone for content that they distribute freely over the air anyway!
On the other hand, it's becoming clear that Cablevision isn't serious about actually negotiating. No serious talks are going on. I find their current cry baby, appeal-to-the-government-to-intervene-in-this-dispute-on-our-behalf strategy to be highly distasteful. Seriously Cablevision: you have an obligation to do everything in your power to deliver a service to your customers with whom you have entered into a contract to do so. It's shameful that you let an agreement with a content provider lapse to begin with, leaving your customers without content they pay you for. That you've let it go on this long without actually seriously negotiating is a disgrace.

At the end of the day, I actually don't understand this whole model of distribution and who pays who. Cablevision has a pipe into my house. Fox, a content provider, wants to use that pipe to send content to me and show me advertising along with it, thus making money. And Cablevision pays Fox for the privilege of letting them use that pipe? Seems backwards to me. I mean, I get my Internet service from Cablevision. Does Cablevision pay Google for the privilege of Google showing me ads when I search for stuff?

Seems like a broken, 19th-Century utility model that's not well suited for the 21st.

Anyone have DirectTV? How's that working out for you.

Review: The Social Network

2010-10-17T09:08:00.000-04:00

A criticism you hear a lot of Ayn Rand's fiction is that her characters aren't really characters at all but are merely broad, improbable caricatures. I think this is based on mistaking 'romantic' or 'large-than-life' for 'caricature.' Romantic characters are larger-than-life embodiments of ideas, personality traits, psycholical attributes, philosophical positions, etc., carefully designed to help convey the author's theme.

Rand's novels work for me because her characters are spectacularly and romantically grand and, as others have pointed out, Rand -- perhaps uniquely in all of literature -- takes great pains to include the philosophical and biographical background details that illustrate how her archetypal characters came to be who they are.

The Social Network doesn't work for me because it actually does what people acuse Rand of doing. I don't know anything about the real Mark Zuckerberg, other than that he founded and grew Facebook when he was very young. I'm fascinated by people who achieve extraordinary success at a very young age, particularly when that success is the result of both extraordinary ability and extraordinary effort and perseverance. This man is the world's youngest billionaire, for crying out loud! I'd like to know what makes him tick.

Instead, we get an opening scene in which he acts like and asshole towards a sweet-faced girl. She calls him an asshole. He goes home and blogs about her in an assholic fashion. We get it. Mark Zuckerberg is an asshole. We're supposed to accept it at face value. I've met thousands of assholes in my lifetime. None of them created Facebook. There's got to be something more to this guy than that (other than the fact that he wanted to meet girls).

The approach extends through the whole movie in progressively more laughable and cliched scenes. My favorite was the moment in which a character who is being unceremoniously forced out of the company is literally left standing out in the rain. Honorable mention goes to a scene in which an unstable character with excessive appetites is shown with a group of people doing what... that's right: blow off of a co-ed's belly.

I will, however, give the filmmakers a free pass on the fact that two supporting characters (representatives of the monied, establishment Harvard student community) look so much like they just stepped off the pages of the Brooks Brothers catalog that a third character is actually compelled to comment on it because apparently that's exactly what these two douchebags look like. They also row crew. Some things you just can't make up.

And finally, as someone who has written software code, I would like to share the following public service announcement with the filmmaking community: coders very rarely pound on their keyboards with the force of a pneumatic drill. Sometimes if we need to count out a certain number of keystrokes (e.g. I need a string consisting of 37 spaces) we'll sort of bang on that one key a little as we count, but generally we just type like anyone else who is proficient with a keyboard. We're nerds. We know there is no correlation between how emphatic we are about something we're typing and the force with which we strike the keyboard. Only a n00b (or filmmaker) would think otherwise.

My review of Angry Birds

2010-10-16T10:54:00.000-04:00

Why do the birds need a slingshot to send them hurtling through the air? Aren't they birds? Don't they fly?

Also, why are the pigs green?

This has been my review of Angry Birds.

It's nice to be talked about

2010-10-16T10:46:00.005-04:00

Not sure how we only just noticed this, but here's a clip from CNN talking about the National STEM Video Game Challenge presented by E-Line Media (that's my company) and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center.

Looks like CNN has disabled embedding of the video, so click here to view on YouTube.

UPDATE: It turns out CNN will let me embed it directly, so it's now posted above.

Why I will one day closely monitor my children's television viewing

2010-09-25T10:12:00.000-04:00

A man carrying a shark through the streets of Mogadishu

2010-09-23T14:18:00.000-04:00

Today's non sequitur via msnbc:

Turkey: the official bird of alspach.org

2010-08-25T09:04:00.000-04:00

A flock of turkeys has recently taken up residence in our neighborhood. I'm vaguely pro-turkey, and it is kind of fun to have them around, especially since I've lived in the area my entire life and never seen them in a residential neighborhood.

Well, it seems cool now, but I'm not sure how well the first turkey-beagle encounter will go.

Here's a photo Leigh took yesterday morning of part of the flock on our neighbor's lawn:

Apparently the tom was off in another little grouping.

I'm reminded of Ben Franklin's thoughts on his preference for the turkey as a symbol for America over the bald eagle:

For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.

This is definitely not our beagle

2010-08-16T12:34:00.000-04:00

Via Leigh Alspach

Big2Show Fantasy Football Preview -- RBs

2010-08-11T09:33:00.002-04:00

Joe and Dan are at it again:

Possibly the Greatest Thing Ever

2010-08-10T13:41:00.000-04:00

Darth Vader riding a chipmunk. Enough said. Via Gizmodo.

Big2Show Fantasy Football Preview -- QBs

2010-08-10T10:02:00.007-04:00

This weekend, I helped my good friends Dan Strafford and Joe Pisapia over at The Big2Show with the first of their Fantasy Football preview vidcasts. Check out their coverage of QBs below:

Misanthropic Facebook observations

2010-08-05T09:23:00.000-04:00

Your child does not represent you in your profile picture, or in a court of law.

You know those people who post things like "Life is so hard right now. Everything seems dark and I wish something would happen to turn on the lights and make everything ok."? Those people are always looking for a response from someone specific (via Joey Manley).

True fact: 94% of all pictures posted on Facebook include at least one person who regrets doing what they are depicted doing in the picture.

I do not care about your child's bowel movements, even if they occurred on the potty. Like that's some big accomplishment. I've done that for years and only have an accident 2 or 3 times a month. Tops.

If you're so bored you feel compelled to post about it, it's probably because you're spending too much time on Facebook.

It's weird that your siblings appear above your spouse in your profile info.

True fact: Dan Rather is the person responsible for deciding what qualifies as 'Top News.'

I will never repost this status message.

I'm pretty sure it is a violation of federal HIPPA privacy guidelines to post information about your medical condition on your wall.

We had a Farmville once. Then the rains stopped. We headed for Californie looking for work, but there was none to be found. Now we have a Hooverville.

True fact: No one has ever responded 'yes' to a Facebook event invitation.

I will wind up with fewer friends than I presently have as a result of this post.

The Business Bestsller: A Recipe

2010-07-17T08:30:00.000-04:00

Introduction

Hey, you're a highly successful, awesome executive, right? Like a lot of highly successful, awesome executives, you probably have this problem. Not to fear: I've worked as a management consultant for 25 years and have developed techniques to deal with just this sort of problem. They will not only make you a more effective manager but will also let you achieve that illusive state of work/life balance and wicked, screaming project planning orgasms.

Interstitial 1

Out-of-context quote from an historical figure that seems to be eerily supportive of the author's thesis.

The Insight

My [careful and exhaustive study / perusal of a Wikipedia entry] has lead me to the surprising conclusion that [the martial art of karate / thought of the Logical Positivists / ancient folkloric practice of Tibetan Yak Dancing] has surprising applications for the contemporary human resources professional.

Interstitial 2

Out of context quote from a well-known author or sports figure that seems only tangentially related to the subject at hand.

The Method

Never more than three core principles, each of them seeming just obvious enough that it feels intuitive but phrased in such a way that it appears terribly unique and insightful. Intersperse these with testimonials from ordinary people who have practiced these techniques with great success but do not, in fact, exist.

Interstitial 3

Highly relevant quote from someone the reader has never heard of and turns out to be the author's collaborator on a prior book.

Conclusion

Extended case study of the most successful and widely-known adherents of the author's approach, demonstrating that you too can be the CEO of a major airline if you religiously practice the techniques you've just learned, attend Harvard Business School and are born to a father who owned a majority stake in a major airline.

Following Guest

2010-07-01T13:10:00.000-04:00

It used to be when you were the next person on line and suddenly it was your turn, the person behind the counter said "May I help the next customer, please?" I liked that. It was succinct, accurate, polite and respectful.

Somewhere along the way it became simply "Next customer!" Now it was a command, not a request. No longer polite, but still clear and accurate.

Then we got "Next guest!" That's when I started to have a problem.

I'm not your guest. We are conducting a business transaction. I have different expectations of someone who is providing me with a good or service in exchange for money than I do of someone who is providing hospitality to me out of a spirit of friendship and benevolence.

In the last couple of months, I've detected the beginnings of a transition to "Following guest!"

First of all, what a complete 180-degree flip of the perspective of customer service. From my perspective, I'm about to be served: I'm next. It's only from your perspective behind the counter that I'm 'following', i.e. I'm the new schmuck after the previous one in the uninterrupted chain of schmucks that marches up to your counter. I guess that's the message the people in management who came up with the customer service script wanted to send. OK: duly noted.

Secondly, I'm not being lead to you by the random stranger who happened to wind up on line in front me. Our relative positions in no way imply a relationship of leadership or stalkerism. I don't follow anyone.

I don't care about you, World Cup

2010-06-07T13:22:00.000-04:00

Sorry soccer, I don't care.

Sorry rest of the world, I hope you enjoy it. I wish you well. I just don't care.

Many years ago, you calibrated the game wrong. The field and goals are too big relative to the size of a human being. It just looks like a bunch of guys running around for an hour and occasionally something threatens to happen.

You won't be hurting for my lack of intrest. Godspeed.

Steve Jobs introduces the Death Star

2010-06-03T12:54:00.000-04:00

It's been making the rounds but I couldn't resist:

Black Coffee

2010-05-30T09:30:00.001-04:00

My standard coffee order is light and sweet.... way way too much milk and sugar (or, nowadays, Splenda).

Today, there was no milk in the house, so I'm having my coffee black and really enjoying it. It may have something to do with the method of preparation, which involved freshly ground beansand a French press (one of the nice things about getting married is being given all these cool kitchen gadgets I'd never buy on my own. The Rabbit Wine Opener Tool Kitis also the balls).

At any rate, I'm enjoying the bitterness, which is something I'm in the habit of producing rather than consuming. It's a nice change of pace.

Netflix Diary: Brothers

2010-05-29T13:30:00.000-04:00

Going to completely parrot Mr. Manley's Netflix Diary meme and generate some blog posts from my incessant moving watching.

If you've seen the trailer, you know what's up with this film. Good son Toby Maguire goes off to war leaving behind wife Natalie Portman. His perpetual screw-up brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) starts to nose in on Portman after Maguire's chopper is shot down in Afghanistan and he's presumed dead... or is he?!?!? It's all melodrama that I could take or leave at the end of the day. Certainly more smartly observed melodrama than one might expect, but melodrama nonetheless.

What really surprised me was the difference in quality in Maguire and Gyllenhaal's performances. I've always thought of them (and countless other actors of their generation) as basically interchangeable. But even though he had much less to work with here, I thought Gyllenhaal absolutely smoked Maguire. His performance was pleasantly understated and he communicated a lot while doing very little. Maguire's role, on the other hand, called for a certain gravitas that he just wasn't able to pull off. You can tell that Maguire just doesn't have it in him while Gyllenhaal, much to my surprise, does.

Still, they're neither of them Mare Winningham.

iPad Reflections, Week 2

2010-05-29T13:09:00.001-04:00

I am left a little more disenchanted after the second week of my iPad experiment than I was after the first. Further observations:

There is a noticeable dearth of quality iPad-optimized applications in the App Store. No iPad optimized Facebook (though AIM for iPad with its Lifestream feature is a decent alternative). Similarly, no Blogger support (either an app or a version of the Blogger web client that works on the iPad).
The Gmail iPad interface is quite well designed but performs poorly. The Inbox doesn't refresh properly half the time when you navigate back to the page and often gets into some weird loop where it keeps redirecting until Safari finally barfs.
Not really great for using on a bus. It's just hard to use without sufficient elbow room, so if there's anyone next to you, you're constantly clocking them in the ribs or contorting your body and fingers into odd positions.
The heaviness bothers me more and more. It really makes the difference between a go-to device you can use at will and something you have to dedicate yourself to using, and it's really not functional enough to rival something like a laptop if you're going that far.
I've fallen into a nice pattern of leaving my laptop in the office and carting the iPad home with me at night to do email, web and document reviewing at home at night. It's nice not to have to lug my MacBook home every night, but there's no way I would attempt this if there wasn't another real computer at home that I could use in a pinch.

I'm left wondering if there is an audience I would recommend this to. It can't replace the utility of a laptop or the use-it-anywhere quality of a smartphone for the road warrior. It certainly does not replace anyone's primary computer (laptop or desktop).

Perhaps it's an alternative to a smartphone for someone who does a lot of note taking or media consumption in situations where the ultra-portability of a smartphone is not important (e.g. college students, frequent coffee shop patrons). I could see where a dumbphone plus iPad is better than a smartphone for these folks. This is allegedly the market for netbooks, so in the final analysis, the iPad may just be a netbook killer. I'm just not in that demographic and never 'got' netbooks anyway, so while it's an occasionally fun toy, I'd get along just fine with only my laptop and smartphone.

iPad Reflections, Week 1

2010-05-23T08:06:00.001-04:00

I've got an iPad. Well, not exactly. My company has an iPad. We're a gaming company and it's becoming an influential platform for games. So we got one. And it syncs with my computer, so possession being 9/10 of the law, it's been mine for the last week.

Before we got one, it just seemed like a tweener to me. There's space in the world for a device that fits in your pocket, can be used anywhere in any position, connects to the Internet, plays music and makes phone calls (smartphone). There's space in the world for a robust productivity device that has to be carried around in a bag and used in a constrained number of positions (laptop). I'm skeptical that there's room in the world for a media consumption device that has to be carried around in a bag, offers a lousy content creation experience and has to be used in a constrained number of positions. It's why I (and Steve Jobs, kind of) don't get netbooks.

After a week, I still believe all that, it's just that I don't think the iPad really meets with that description. I'm not convinced it's a useful device yet, but here's what I've observed so far.

It's heavy. Much heavier than you think it will be. Much heavier than a Kindle. When you hold a Kindle, you think "It's almost like there's nothing there. This is way better than a book!" When you hold an iPad, you think "Wow, this is really heavy. If I've got to hold something like this to use it, I'd almost rather sit down at a desk with a laptop."
Consequently, you can't really hold it with one hand. You can hold it with two hands. You can rest it on one forearm and operate it with the other. You can rest it on your lap. You can sit semi-recumbently on a couch and use your knees as a little stand. But you can't hold it with one hand for any extended period of time.
The landscape keyboard is really good. Amazingly good. I'm able to do a sort of half touch typing / half high speed hunt-and-peck thing with it sitting on my lap or a flat surface and type almost as quickly and accurately as I can with a physical keyboard.
The portrait keyboard is crap. The device is too big to hold it like an iPhone in portait mode and thumb type. Utter waste. They'd be better off with the big landscape keyboard and then a portrait keyboard the same size as the iPhone one offset to one side of the screen or the other so you could thumb type with one hand.
Note taking is the killer app. Because the landscape keyboard is so good, I've been brining it into meetings instead of a laptop or paper notebook. It's unobtrusive and with software like Evernote (which still needs work in the iPad version... no formatting, really?!?!?) syncs to the cloud. I could very easily see this becoming the device of choice for, e.g., college students to take to class and have a desktop or laptop back in the dorm room.
No multitasking? Seriously? I know it's allegedly coming, but being able to jump back and forth between, e.g., Evernote, Safari and Mail is going to be key. It feels hobbled without it.
$500 for the base model seems reasonable, but $830 for the top of the line with Wi-Fi and 3G?And AT&T 3G at that (at least in NYC)? No way.
Not directly an iPad comment, but the Incase Neoprene Slip Sleeve Plus for iPad is a piece of garbage. I don't know how this product got greenlit. I mistakenly brought it thinking it was the zippered version. Instead, you slide the iPad into it from the top and then have to fold a flap over maybe the top 10% of the device. This is impossible to do without getting your fingers caught, pushing the wake button so the screen turns on or dropping the thing (and frequently all three).

The provisional verdict is that it's much more useful than I thought but maybe not useful enough. I strongly suspect I'm going to tire of it after another week. I'll keep you posted.

Wedding Favor-It

2009-06-30T08:13:00.004-04:00

When I reflect on our wedding planning process, the single biggest source of disappointment is the treatment we have received from an unfortunate number of potential wedding vendors. This is an industry that is all-to-frequently characterized by high levels of dysfunction. For example

Vendors who believe that just because the word 'wedding' is attached to something they are justified in charging ridiculous prices for stuff. We looked at one venue that wanted to charge us $10 per chair to set up chairs for our ceremony -- chairs they already own, mind you. For 120 people, that's $1,200. Let's say it took two people an hour to set up 120 chairs and you paid them $10 each. Let's also say it took the same two people another hour to break them down. That works out to $40.
Vendors who are clearly working off a rehearsed script that defines their interactions, prices and level of service. These guys treat the wedding experience like buying a box of Fruit Loops at Stop and Shop.
Vendors who just plain suffer from severe personality disorders.

I've run successful service businesses. You need to offer people a level of service commensurate with the price you're charging and the importance of the experience to them. If I've just spent three hours in your store picking out wedding invitations and am about to drop close to a thousand dollars on them, don't tell me your bathroom is for employees only and send me across the street in the rain to a (locked) public restroom.

So that's a long-winded way of setting up how pleasantly surprised I was to finally encounter -- well over a year into our planning process -- a vendor who actually went above and beyond the call of duty. The set up: we were planning on addressing our invitation envelopes using my office's super beefy solid ink printer. This thing has handled worse, but for some reason decided it didn't like our envelopes. Jam city. Invitations had to go out Monday, it's Saturday and we're SOL. Dialing for dollars commences.

Fortunately, we found Paula. Paula is the proprietor of the Favor-It Shop in East Brunswick, NJ. She sells and prints invitations and other stationary, as well as favors and gift items. She had just gotten back from her son's wedding the prior night, but when we called told us to come right over. She sat down with us right away and started picking out fonts and importing our list. We do a test run on her printer: the envelope feeds perfectly but the printer is randomly dropping ink (smudging) and we can't figure out why. Burns through two sets of ink cartridges. Still no dice. Unboxes the back up printer and burns through another set of cartridges and print heads. Finally success. Envelopes printed and ready by 10 o'clock the next morning.

Again, Paula didn't sell us these invitations (I wish we had known about her a few weeks ago!). She'd never seen us before. She was trying to land our business, which in this case amounted to a relatively modest sum of money. But she spent well over three hours on a Saturday afternoon just trying to win that business, to say nothing of the additional time of actually doing the printing. She could not possibly have been kinder, more pleasant or more fun to be around the entire time. For the first time in the entire wedding planning process, we finally felt as if our big day was as important to one of our vendors as it is to us.

What Honey now wants for her birthday

2009-06-29T09:44:00.002-04:00

Sculpture Dog Cake Incredible - The best free videos are right here

It is a pleasure to do business with me

2009-06-03T16:18:00.005-04:00

An open letter to anyone who I have been, or in the future will be, a potential customer of:

Dear [Sales Associate / Shopkeeper / Service Provider / Human/Animal Healthcare Specialist]:

Congratulations! My current [presence in your establishment / telephone call / perusing of your website] indicates that I am strongly inclined to favor you with the privilege of having me as a customer. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but -- if we can just make it through the next few minutes -- I think you will find that it is a pleasure to do business with me.

First, a word on just how fortunate you are. With almost no direct or immediate effort on your part, you have stumbled into a situation in which you are dangerously close to making a sale. Completely unbeknownst to you, I have arrived at the conclusion that it is in my best interests to exchange a portion of my hard-earned income for a good or service that you provide. Consider that against all the other possible uses of said funds -- savings, investment, other purchases, etc... -- I have decided that I want to use them on what you are selling: even in the midst of these challenging economic times. Moreover, my independent analysis has suggested that yours is the right enterprise from which to obtain my desired purchase, as considered against every other similar business in the entire world.

At the risk of hyperbole, even this may be understating the extent of your good fortune. You see, of all the people in the world who could have shown up on your doorstep quite out of the blue with not only the means but also the inclination to purchase your product -- again, if you will indulge me -- you've really hit the jackpot, because I mean business. I am a thoughtful, pleasant, polite individual who is interested in consummating a fair and mutually-beneficial business transaction. Because I am deeply respectful of your time and effort, I am also interested in consummating it with the minimum amount of delay and fuss. In addition to this, I am highly susceptible to rational argument, meaning that if you can succinctly and logically convince me of the value of what you are selling, you will sell it forthwith.

More than anything else, I truly believe that you and I are in this together. As such, I'm going to go the extra mile and offer you a few pieces of concrete guidance on what to do to win my business:

The Greeting -- "Hello" is an excellent choice. "Good morning, "Good afternoon" and "Good evening" are also fantastic. Adding "sir" to the end of one of these is beyond great: it's a little stodgy and old-fashioned, to be sure, but it lets me know right off the bat that you are as respectful of me as I am of you, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. "What!?!?" is to be avoided: it creates the impression that my desire to give you sums of money is something of an imposition, and the last thing I would want to do is impose. Ditto on willfully ignoring my presence while conducting a personal cellphone call.
Listen -- Now that we've started a conversation, please listen carefully. I'm going to tell you exactly what my needs are and how I think you might be able to fulfill them. I'm not an expert in your particular field, so I may not be able to express myself as clearly as you or I would like. I am reliant on you to interpret what I need and translate what I say into a plan of action.
Focus -- In situations where people have approached me in a state of inferior knowledge or confusion (as I am approaching you now), I often find it helpful to give them my undivided attention, lest any key or subtle detail of what they're saying slip through the cracks. If a source of distraction (e.g. a telephone call, another customer, a colleague, etc...) should manifest itself once we have entered into our interaction, may I suggest the phrase "I'm sorry, I was just helping this gentleman. I'll be with you as soon as I'm done." It has the effect of both eliminating the distraction and demonstrating to me (and the third party) that you are a polite, serious, focused individual who is proactive in attending to the needs of his customers.
Special note to cashiers -- Kindly familiarize yourself with the operating procedures of your point-of-sale terminal, basic arithmetic and the United States monetary system. It makes me very uncomfortable when I receive only a bewildered response when I hand you $21.10 to pay for an item costing $16.06. Oh, and on the subject of change: first hand me the coins, then the bills, then the receipt. This way, I can use gravity to my advantage and place the receipt in the bag, the bills in my wallet and the coins in my pocket without having to reshuffle.
Special note to medical practitioners -- From time to time, sick people may call your office requesting appointments. By 'sick people', I mean individuals seeking medical care in response to an unexpected deviation from their baseline state of health. At one time, it was common for medical professionals to examine, diagnose and provide care to sick people, often in a timely manner. Many ordinarily healthy individuals still operate under the assumption that, on those rare occasions when they do experience sudden (though not life threatening) illness, they will receive an appointment sometime within a fortnight of their reporting the condition. Please be prepared to explain to such individuals that your scheduling practices no longer anticipate the emergence of sick people and to provide suggestions as to what they should do under these circumstances (e.g. go to the emergency room, apply leaches, quietly suffer/die, etc...). Alternatively, you might consider reorganizing your schedule in response to the emergence of a new, high-priority item, as is routinely done in other industries.
If you screw up -- I probably shouldn't tell you this, but at the end of the day, I'm going to forgive an almost unlimited number of errors provided i) they appear accidental and non-systemic; ii) you seem generally contrite; and iii) you go out of your way to make right.

There it is. Not an exhaustive list, but I think it lays the groundwork to get our relationship off on the right foot. Earlier, I said I was highly susceptible to rational argumentation, but the truth is I'm also highly susceptible to being treated well. If you're capable of at least appearing to acknowledge the fact that I exist and want to do business with you, and even showing a little appreciation for it, I'm sure we're going to get along just swimmingly.

Now, let's get down to brass tacks...

Best plot summary ever

2008-08-15T07:47:00.002-04:00

From the New York Times review of the new animated Star Wars film

...the plot concerns the efforts of Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, his neophyte sidekick, to secure a fragile alliance by retrieving Jabba the Hutt’s baby son from the double-crossing clutches of Count Dooku, blah, blah, blah. Exploding robots!

Open letter to Macys

2008-06-17T08:50:00.003-04:00

Dear Macys,

Just wanted to let you know that I entered your Freehold, NJ store on Saturday with every intention of purchasing a bottle of cologne. Sadly, I was left with little alternative but to beat a hasty retreat from the Men's Fragrances section when approximately two-dozen sales people stepped into my path and assaulted my senses with a barrage of testers.

Spiritual Advisers

2008-05-30T11:58:00.004-04:00

So Obama's spiritual adviser du jour has gone and said some new inflammatory things, this time about Senator Clinton.

Am I the only one who is less put off by the comments and more put off by the fact that modern presidential candidates have something called "spiritual advisers"? Sounds like something a king would have.

It makes me think of the pharoh's magicians from Exodus who turn their staffs into snakes, only to have them be devoured by Aaron's staff. Those guys were spiritual advisors. Plus they could do magic. All these current guys can do is blast the world's easiest target.

Things there should be words for...

2008-05-30T11:50:00.001-04:00

When using a public restroom, the series of sounds made to alert one's fellow bathroom-goers to the fact that your stall is occupied.

Low Definition

2008-04-05T07:54:00.003-04:00

When you're watching SportsCenter and a highlight comes on from a game that was covered only by standard definition cameras, don't you feel a little bit bad for the athlete who did the highlight-worthy thing? The whole thing seems low-rent.

It's 3AM...

2008-03-04T07:21:00.003-05:00

CBS radio personality Dave Ross pointed out something this morning that I'm glad I'm not the only one to have noticed with regard to Hillary Clinton's "It's 3AM..." television spot. This is the one that's supposed to convince us that she's tough and experienced and best equipped to deal with foreign policy issues:

Like me, Ross noticed that the telephone rings a total of six times in the course of the ad. I know it's 3AM and all, but I'd like to see my president answer the red phone before it goes to voicemail.

Form factor

2008-02-25T08:37:00.004-05:00

I was looking at the newest crop of PDAs and smartphones over the weekend. The trend here is towards these flip or slide phones where the screen (usually a touch screen) rotates when you open the phone to reveal a full, (comparatively) large QWERTY keyboard. Examples include the AT&T Tilt, Verizon Wireless XV6800 and Samsung SCH-i760. I played around with a couple of these at the happiest place on earth (aka Best Buy) and came to the conclusion that I'm not a fan of this form factor.

The concept of a bigger keyboard seems like it would be a good innovation in an abstract sense, but when I atually tried to use it, the weaknesses immediately became clear. First of all, the size of the keys doesn't work for me. If you use, e.g., a Blackberry or Motorola Q (which, for my money, has the best keyboard of any smartphone), you develop the technique of thumb typing using the very tips of your fingers (or even the nails). This works for me, and I can do it with reasonable speed and accuracy.

My expectation with the new breed of devices was that you could adopt the technique of typing using the pads of your thumbs, rather than the tips. I could see where this would lead to greater speed and a little more flexibility with being able to hit a key off center and still getting the right character. But it turned out that with my average-sized fingers, the keys were still too small to do this with any degree of accuracy.

As a result, I had to switch back to the the tips-of-the-thumbs method, but this doesn't really work either. Because the devices are so wide, I found myself having to shift the way I was holding them in my hands in order to comfortably reach all the keys with my thumbs. This is in contrast with the Blackberry or Q, where I can just cradle the device in my hands and hit all the keys comfortably without having to adjust my grip.

Also -- and this is coming from an admitted Microsoft homer -- I feel like we should be able to do better than Windows Mobile 6 on these devices. In the post-iPhone world, I don't think it's too much to ask that these phones offer an attractive, clean, simple UI; a desktop-like browser experience and touch screen functionality that can be easily used without a stylus. I don't really get the cartoonish appearance of the UI on a business-oriented operating system (especially when the UI appearance in recent MS products like Vista is so attractive), and Mobile Internet Explorer isn't in the same sport (let alone the same ballpark) as the iPhone's browser.

Sensitive Man

2008-02-21T14:26:00.002-05:00

Today's Bushism of the Day:

"I'm oftentimes asked, What difference does it make to America if people are dying of malaria in a place like Ghana? It means a lot. It means a lot morally, it means a lot from a—it's in our national interest."—Accra, Ghana, Feb. 20, 2008

People I am glad I don't work with

2008-02-12T06:51:00.001-05:00

From MSNBC's article about yesterday's Blackberry outage. I'm removing the jackass who said its name and company so as not to publicize them.

"I'm mad — it's enough already," said a frustrated [name redacted], who said he gets 1,000 e-mails a day as director of field marketing for [company name redacted]. and can't afford the downtime.
[Name redacted], who worked most of Monday on a laptop while traveling, plans to ask his company to buy him a backup smart phone from a rival like Palm Inc., which makes the Treo, in case BlackBerry service goes on the fritz again.
"I don't know what happened, I don't care what happened. They need to save their excuses for someone who cares," [he] said.

Oooooh, pardon me, your majesty: Do you want your new Treo in hot pink or purple, you fancy man you?

What a total prima dona. I hope for his sake that this wee girl sells a lot of business, because if he worked for me I'd have a mind to fire his ass for being a jerk in the press and bringing bad publicity down on my company.

The service was down for three hours. It shouldn't happen, it's inconvenient, but give me a break. Take a deep breath, pop into a Starbucks, turn on your laptop and check your email while sucking down a venti white hot chocolate, you stupid drama queen!

Tell us what you really think

2008-01-30T21:36:00.000-05:00

From Josh Levin's review of Meet the Spartans:

This was the worst movie I've ever seen, so bad that I hesitate to label it a "movie" and thus reflect shame upon the entire medium of film. Friedberg and Seltzer [the directors] do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it. They are not filmmakers. They are evildoers, charlatans, symbols of Western civilization's decline under the weight of too many pop culture references.

Make with the cash... then we'll talk

2008-01-30T10:32:00.001-05:00

So here's another one of the innumerable things that piss me off about the remaining candidates for President: if you go to the official candidate website for a number of the remaining candidates, the section of the site requesting donations is more prominently featured than the sections showing, you know, where they actually stand on the issues. Here's a rundown:

John McCain: going to johnmccain.com lands you on a page featuing a large black and white photo of McCain with a prominent red button that says "Donate Today." Below this graphic (which takes up about 2/3 of the page) is a small hyperlink that says "Click here to continue to JohnMcCain.com," where you can actually see what he thinks about stuff.
Mitt Romney: This is the one that pisses me off the most. Mittromney.com takes you to a splash page. The left side of the page features a video on Romney's economic stimulus package. The right side of the page features a photo of Romney and his wife with another big red "Contribute" button. Down in the bottom right corner is a a gray button (about 1/3 the size of the "Contribute" one) that says "Skip to Site" -- as if the donation page was the main attraction and you're out of line for skipping over it.
Mike Huckabee: Mercifully, navigating to Mullah Huckabee's site takes you directly to the main content page, where a prominent link to "Issues" appears in the top navigation banner. There's a link to contribute in this same banner, as well as one in a little "Help Mike Today" panel. This strikes me as a reasonable way to handle this issue. Too bad he's a theocratic, squirrel eating nutcase.
Hillary Clinton: This one is very borderline for me. On the plus side, there's no splash page and an "Issues" link is featured in the navigation banner. At the same time, there's that tacky red "Contribute" button again in the main header section, right below the featured headline (today's headline: "Hillary Wins Florida!", which, in my opinion, is disingenuous given that there were no delegates at stake and the state was essentially boycotted by the Democratic party and the other candidates, but I digress..). Generally speaking, I find the design of Hillary's site to be the most attractive of all the candidates. It's very clean and Web 2.0.
Barrack Obama: This is the strangest of all. You go to a splash page, which asks you to register your email address so as to "join the movement." There's a link to go to the main site without joining, and that's where you get the standard "Issues" link and "Donate" button in the top banner.

What's interesting about the sites that give you a splash page is that they use a cookie to disable it on future visits, which strikes me as the exact opposite of what the rational thing to do would be. If it's the first time I'm visiting your site, presumably I'm not going to give you any money (or join your movement) until I've seen what you think about the issues... so send me right to where I can get at that information. Conversely, if I'm a return visitor, it's more likely that I'm already familiar with what you think and (since I'm coming back) it's also more likely that I'm sympathetic to your candidacy, which makes me more likely to join up or donate -- so give me the splash screen on my return visit.

Less is more

2008-01-29T07:33:00.001-05:00

As a sometimes digital filmmaker, I try to learn a little something from every film, TV show, Internet feature or commercial I watch. One such lesson is that less is almost always more. Here are two very different examples.

Example #1:

I finally got a chance to see No Country for Old Men this week. Putting aside my usual issues with the Coen Brothers' dramatic films (aggressive naturalism was once again out in force) and my praise for the performances (Javier Bardem in the scariest SOB alive), this has to be one of the most effective horror films I've ever seen. Of course, it's not primarily intended to be a horror film, but it builds suspense and tension so perfectly that I don't know if I've ever been more disconcerted while watching a movie.

It's all about threatening violence. To be sure, it's a violent movie -- it's tough to watch -- but, particularly early on, all of the scenes that depict actual violence are pretty quick and straightforward. It's the scenes where Bardem never actually does anything -- the scenes where he just talks, watches or listens -- that create the sense of dread. Roger Ebert's review has a good discussion of the coin flip scene, which is probably the best example of this. This scene should be taught in film school: the dialog and editing is so perfect. You're on the edge of your seat the whole time, expecting the other shoe to drop... and then, it never does.

The use of silence is also brilliant. There are numerous long shots of deserts, highways and urban settings where nothing is said and no music plays. Similarly, many of the dialog scenes include long pauses as the characters (and the audience) contemplate what's going to happen next.

In many ways, it's the anti-Hollywood blockbuster: nothing whiz bang, no quick edits, no special effects. Things are just allowed to unfold, very deliberately, and the audience is left to fill in the blanks as they do.

Example #2:

Thanks to John Swansburg at Slate for extolling the virtues of my current favorite series of TV adds: the Bud Light "Dude" spots. I love these commercials! The concept is so simple and the execution is perfect. Every choice in these commercials is right: the piano music, the documentary-style cinematography, the performance of the "dude" Dude. And the best part is there's only one line of dialog: but it's used to convey so many different meanings (Swansburg counts 6 distinct connotations of "dude" in the first spot).

My improv inspiration Brandon Beilis talks a lot about "finding the game" of a particular improv exercise. By this, he doesn't mean "game" in the sense of the premise of the exercise (e.g. "this is the one where we speak only in questions"). He's talking about the unique hook or catch to the particular exercise you're now performing that makes it interesting or compelling: it could be the relationship between the characters, it could be a particular line or catchphrase, it could be the central conflict of the scene. In improv, Brandon stresses the importance of identifying the game early on in the scene and then ruthlessly focusing later choices in the scene around playing to it and strengthening it.

The game of these Bud Light spots is so simple and the attention to it is so singlemindedly focused. What an object lesson for aspiring directors.

The most wonderful time of the year

2008-01-21T09:43:00.000-05:00

While spending Sunday afternoon exploring the stacks at the local Borders whilst sipping on caramel mochas, I came across the first sure-fire sign of spring. Others had insisted it had not yet arrived, but I slipped over to the periodicals and had a look, perhaps inspired by an unrealistic and naive optimism.

But there it was... The first fantasy baseball guide of the season.

And so begins another year of the obsessive nerdery, frustration, exhilaration and clever team names that is OBFBL. Well, I supposed by some measure my obsessive nerdery began last week when I created an official statistics website for the league.

In fact, it's probably more accurate to say that my obsessive nerdery is without beginning or end, but what the hell: Kurt says I'm the "the coolest guy I know" because of it.

Pitchers and catchers report in 24 days.

Mike Huckabee actually said this

2008-01-18T14:05:00.000-05:00

WARNING: This is a serious post.

In setting up this blog, I made the choice to keep the content on the lighter side: silly observations, sports, my adventures in the world of improv/film/theater, etc... I've intentionally avoided posting on politics and philosophy, despite having strong opinions in these areas. I now feel compelled to make an exception to this principle in response to the following comments made by Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee in a recent speech in Michigan:

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the Living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

If this seems surprising or unlikely to you, here's the video:

Please understand what this man is saying, especially if you, like many voters, believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and increasingly lacks a moral center or code. Understand it most especially if you are sympathetic to the idea that Christianity is right and this country would be a better place if more people adhered to its teachings.

He isn't just saying that he doesn't like the way things are going. He isn't just saying that Christianity is good. He isn't just saying that Christianity has something to offer our culture. He isn't just saying that Americans would do well to embrace or "return to" traditional Christian values and ethics.

He is saying that your Constitutionally-protected right to freedom of religion should be repealed and that the government should legally require you and every other citizen to adhere to certain principles or practices of the Christian religion.

There is a name for a political system that forces its citizens to adhere to a particular religious doctrine: it's called a theocracy. Just think about that for a minute: you and I and every other American now live in a country where a major political candidate just publicly and explicitly advocated the establishment of a theocracy: not in the Middle East, not in the Third World, but here in America. Ask yourself if that's something you ever thought you would see in your lifetime.

I acknowledge that there are a lot of people in this country who think Huckabee probably has the right idea: they were instrumental in electing our current President (twice!). I'm not interested in talking to those people. If you agree that this country would be a better place under a fundamentalist religious dictatorship, please do the following for me: on Election Day, don't vote. Instead, have the courage to demonstrate the strength of your beliefs by staying at home and praying for your candidate to win. If you're really serious about what you believe, you should be honest enough to acknowledge the outcome of the election is in God's hands anyway and that He is much more qualified to decide who should be President than you are.

If, on the other hand, you believe that individuals should be free to make their own decisions about religion according to the dictates of their own conscience -- even if you have personally made the decision to embrace Christianity or any other particular doctrine -- I urge you to go back and read or watch Huckabee's comments again and again until you fully grasp the implications of what he's saying. Then, decide if you're comfortable with the idea of supporting a candidate (or political party or faction thereof) whose platform includes the concept of forcing every man, woman and child in this country to adhere to the same religious beliefs -- even if they are beliefs you happen to personally agree with.

Thanks to NoodleFood for bringing these comments to my attention.

The last zoo post... I swear

2008-01-16T22:40:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know I've been posting a lot on matters related to zoos lately, but some of this stuff is just too good.

So I happened to make reference to Jack Hanna in an email this morning and went to Wikipedia to get the correct spelling of his name. There, I found this nugget of information:

Though unable to secure zoning as a zoo for his father's farm, the two [Hanna and his wife] opened a pet shop and petting zoo. In 1973, a three-year old boy was mauled by a lion at Hanna's farm and lost his arm. Hanna settled the subsequent lawsuit out of court, shut down the petting zoo, and moved his family to Florida.

Despite my total lack of experience in caring for exotic animals, I'm thinking of changing careers and becoming a zoological management consultant. I'm full of such good ideas that apparently haven't occurred to these people. Lions -- probably not the ideal animal for a petting zoo.

The Mitchell Report: American Gladiators edition

2008-01-15T22:27:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while, Slate gets it right:

When the commissioner of television asked me to investigate the alleged illegal use of anabolic steroids in American Gladiators, I did not take the assignment lightly. If America can be said to have a national sport, it is this: jousting on platforms with oversized Q-tips, dodging tennis balls fired from a cannon, and scuttling like spiders across a Velcro ceiling. The men and women who call themselves gladiators are heroes to every child who dreams of one day wearing a codpiece on television.

Sadly, my investigation concluded that the veined, grotesque physiques of these mystical warriors were built by needles and pills instead of hard work and warm milk. Most of the illegal substances were procured from Laser, a former gladiator who currently lives upstairs from a Rite-Aid. I conducted four interviews with Laser, during which he was warned that failure to tell the truth could result in jail time, fines, and confiscation of his Atlasphere...

Tiger postscript

2008-01-04T08:40:00.000-05:00

The truth finally comes out:

Zoo officials say the tiger likely climbed out of an empty moat that separated the public from the animal's enclosure, which had a 12 1/2-foot wall, making it 4 feet shorter than the recommended minimum height for U.S. zoos.

4 feet shorter than the recommended 16 1/2-foot height, huh? That's 25% too short. That's not what I call a little bit too short. That's a fairly significant deficiency. 25%... wow. That's like seeing a 6-foot tall man and estimating that his height is 4' 6".

Tigers and doubt

2007-12-27T16:58:00.000-05:00

If I may wax philosophical for a moment:

There are certain subjects that are not appropriate objects of doubt. For example, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to doubt one's own existence: if you don't exists, what's doing the doubting?

If I may wax philosophical about large jungle cats for a moment:

Here's a quote from MSNBC's article about the recent tiger escape/attack at the San Francisco Zoo:

Experts doubt tiger could have leapt

One zoo official insisted the tiger did not get out through an open door and must have climbed or leaped out. But Jack Hanna, former director of the Columbus Zoo, said such a leap would be an unbelievable feat and “virtually impossible.”
Instead, he speculated that visitors could have been fooling around and might have taunted the animal and perhaps even helped it get out by, say, putting a board in the moat.

Ron Magill, a spokesman at the Miami Metro Zoo, said it was unlikely a zoo tiger could make such a leap, even with a running start.

“Captive tigers aren’t nearly in the kind of shape that wild tigers have to be in to survive,” he said. He said taunting can definitely make an animal more aggressive, but “whether it makes it more likely to get out of an exhibit is purely speculative.”

See, if your zoo finishes building its tiger enclosure and you take a look at it and there's doubt around the issue of whether or not it will, in fact, adequately contain the tiger, you know what: go back and redesign the tiger enclosure. Not an appropriate subject for doubt, zookeepers.

Early Christmas Gifts

2007-12-19T10:27:00.001-05:00

This is why my friend Joe is cool:

It really ties the room together...

The Mitchell Retort

2007-12-13T16:58:00.000-05:00

Disorganized reactions to a first skimming of the Mitchell Report:

It's short on new, revelatory information. I'd be a embarrassed to have turned up so little we didn't already know after 20 months worth of work and $20 million.
Roger Clemens has apparently been a bawdy little monkey. ESPN.com is reporting that there are over 9 pages of material specifically relating to him and 82 references to him by name.
Human growth hormone appears to have performed as advertised for Mo Vaughn.
As Rotoworld notes, HGH apparently does not help you throw to first base.
The willful turning a blind eye in the face of overwhelming and obvious steroid use by players on the part of ownership and management is really reprehensible. Giant's GM Brian Sabean deserves particular dishonorable mention in this regard. See the section on Barry Bonds starting on page 121 of the report.
Hey baseball teams, here's a suggestion -- when someone applies for a job with your organization as an athletic trainer or wishes to use your facilities while working with one of your players in the capacity of an athletic trainer, how about verifying that he is, in fact, a qualified athletic trainer and not a seedy gym rat who struggled to make the same middle school baseball team as your star player.
With all the Mets of the early 90s on steroids, how come they sucked so bad?
Players named in the report involved in trades or signing contracts in the last two weeks: Miguel Tejada (traded from Baltimore to Houston), Jose Guillen (signed with Kansas City), Andy Pettitte (signed with Yankees), Paul Lo Duca (signed with Washington), Eric Gagne (signed with Brewers). Nook Logan was also non-tendered by Washington on Wednesday.

Thanks to Mike Stein for those last two points.

Here are two marginally more organized thoughts:

1) Having reviewed the report, I think it was improper for Mitchell to have included player names, given the nature and quantity of evidence included and the level of cooperation he received from the MLBPA and its members. To be clear, I don't think it's improper or unfair towards the players who were named: they made their beds and now they need to lie in them. Mostly, I think it's unfair to the public by virtue of the impression that it creates.

The MLBPA clearly decided that its members were not going to cooperate with the investigation and, for the most part, they didn't. This means the only players who were implicated in the report were those who could be fingered by sources outside of the MLBPA that Mitchell et al were able to get in touch with. On any realistic reckoning, this surely represents only a minority of players who used performance-enhancing drugs. In the interest of justice and perspective, I think this fact needs to be made abundantly clear, because if you don't do so, it contributes to...

2) The report succeeding in doing a pretty clever job of what I'm sure MLB would like very much for it to do: laying the groundwork for moving past the issue. Less than half of the 88 players mentioned in the report are still in the majors, and all of the specific incidents described took place 2 or more years ago. It's easy for baseball to spin this in such a way as to suggest that the problem isn't really an ongoing one (or has at least been greatly diminished).

But if you read between the lines, you get a sense of the culture of indifference (if not tacit support) that pervades baseball when it comes to performance-enhancing substances. There are so many stories of fellow players, clubhouse employees, training staff and management choosing to ignore evidence of the use of banned substances (the nonsense at the Giants being the most clear example). That just doesn't happen unless their use is simultaneously widespread, widely accepted and deeply entrenched. You're not going to convince me that in a few short years, that type of culture has been totally turned around, especially when the current drug of choice, HGH, can't be detected by available testing methods.

MLB Cookbook

2007-12-10T13:53:00.000-05:00

In what is sure to be Bud Selig's finest moment as Commissioner, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association are proud to announce the release of Don Zimmer's Guide to Healthy Eating: A Baseball Cookbook.

Selig proudly announced that all 32 teams contributed recipes for the book, but admitted that only about 8 recipes had any realistic chance of being made coming out of Spring Training.

"We share our revenue, and, now, we share our recipes," Selig said. "Revenues and recipes: everyone wins. This will put fans back in the seats around their kitchen tables and allow small market clubs to regularly compete with the big boys, at least gastronomically speaking."

MLB also took the opportunity to announce that Rachel Ray will be the new spokesperson for baseball, following the departure of equally obvious choice, Dane Cook. Ray said she was excited about the opportunity.

"MLB and EVOO: I live for this!" she added.

A selection of the recipes found in the 162-page book follows:

Appetizers:
Blum-in Onion (Astros)
McCann-ed Tomato Soup with Chippered Hampton and Crab (Braves)
Casey Blaked Goat Cheese Dip with Carmona-lized Onions and Figs (Indians)
Split Pea-vy Soup (Padres)

Main Course:
Chicken Catch-a-Torre (Dodgers)
Baked Zito with Dur-ham and sausage in a creamy, clear sauce (Giants)
Spaghetti Colonese (Angels)
Slowey Cooked Chicken with Silva-red Almonds (Twins)
French Bread Piazza (submitted by the A's, but nobody wants to claim it anymore)
Cedar Plank Salomon Torres over Turnbowtie Pasta (Brewers)
Eggplant Rolen-tini (Cardinals)
Chicken/Beef Ojedas (Diamondbacks)
Spotted Dickey (Mariners)
Seared Hermidatlantic Marlin with Byung-Hyun Kim Chee (Marlins)
Pork Lowe Maine (Mets) (caution: small morsels may present choking hazard!)
Beef Kouzmanoff (Padres)
Riccota-stuffed Cattalan-oni with Saltalamacchia and Pepper crust (Rangers)
Chopped Matsui (Yankees)
Pasta Prima Rivera (Yankees)
Rocky Mountain Oysters in Holliday-aise Sauce (Rockies)
Duckworth a l'Orange and Sweet-ney Corn Pozole (Royals)

Sides:
Brocail-i and Cheese (Astros)
Carl Craw-fish Etouffee (Rays)

Desserts:
Rum Rai-Zaun Pie (Blue Jays)
Lemon Harang Pie (Reds)
Felix Pie (Cubs)
Assortment of Cream Huffs (Orioles)
Chocolate Lowell-ipops with Cinnamon Crisps (Red Sox)
Pudge Fudge with G-Inge-r-swirled Ice Cream (Tigers)
Chocolate Chip Mientkiewicz Ice Cream (Yankees)

Beverages:
Wily Mo Pena Colada (Nationals)
Dye-t Koner-coke (White Sox)
Mountain Dewitt (Orioles)
Sunkist Pete Orr-ange (Braves)

We also do breakfast!
Green Eggs and Hamels (Phillies)
Jason Bay-gel and Cream Cheese (Pirates)
Hash brown Po-theriots (Cubs)

Don Zimmer's Guide to Healthy Eating: A Baseball Cookbook is available wherever books are sold and features a forward by Sidney Ponson.

-- Thanks to OBFBL members Paul Cardillo, Mike Stein and Bill Barker.

I Topped This!

2007-12-07T12:51:00.000-05:00

Over the summer, my improv group friends and I made some videos for the Heinz Top This commercial challenge and then completely failed to hear anything about them again. (I happened to think our videos were pretty darn funny, but whatever).

Today in the mail, I received a plain brown package from "MyHeinz.com". Inside was a postcard saying:

Your debut as a director in the Heinz "Top This" Challenge helped to make our commercial campaign such a huge hit that audiences everywhere are demanding more!

They go on to talk about their new contest starting December 14th where they're offering another $57,000 prize.

But also inside the box was this little item:

I think that's pretty rad.

Amazing statistic

2007-12-04T13:19:00.000-05:00

On the second page of an article in today's Slate magazine about why the government should pay you to lose weight, there's an absolutely amazing statistic quoted from a study of heroin addicts:

One famous study asked heroin addicts and nonaddicts to tell a story by completing the following sentence: "I woke up this morning and I thought about the future and I thought ..." On average, nonaddicts described a future that was 4.7 years away, whereas the addicts described a future that was just nine days away.

What a profoundly telling example of short-term, concrete-bound thinking.

The really interesting question is does the heroin addiction cause the short-term mentality or does a propensity towards short-term thinking lead to heroin addiction?

No. 8 best play of all time: No. 1 experience

2007-11-30T09:10:00.000-05:00

I'm a huge believer in supporting the efforts of young people in the arts. Those of you who follow what I do (i.e. my mom) know that I'm very passionate about this issue, and I think that passion stems from a few factors:

I often think about the important role that working in the arts -- acting, music, film, theater craft, writing -- as a kid had on my own life; not just in terms of being activities I enjoyed and benefited from, but also in terms of helping to shape my values and personality on whole.
On that same note, I still feel very grateful towards the adults who worked with and mentored me when I was a kid (heck... I'm still working with some of them and treasure those friendships).
I think the values that working on creative projects offer to young people are tremendous, both directly and indirectly. Of course if you're planning on pursuing a career in the arts, the direct benefits are obvious. But even if you're not, I think that the skills and values you can learn from working together with a group of people on a creative project -- teamwork, leadership, critical thinking, self-motivation, treating others with kindness and respect -- are some of the most important in life. In my own life, no single experience better prepared me for managing large, diverse groups of people in my professional life than leading a group of my peers in producing a show or film when I was a teenager.

For the past few weeks, I've been helping out the students and faculty at Old Bridge High School with technical stuff on their fall comedy, The Curious Savage. I had the opportunity to do the same thing last year when they did High School Musical (which is really less of a musical and more of an unstoppable cultural phenomenon), and, once again, I find that I'm learning at least as much from the experience as the kids are.

I don't know who decided that enthusiasm is a dirty word, but I find it disheartening that so many adults seem to be pathologically afraid of showing it. Apparently, everyone decided that if you want to be taken seriously, you have to act as if nothing affects you and that anyone who shows excitement is silly and immature.

In addition to being hardworking and dedicated, every single one of these students is intensely enthusiastic about being a part of the show. It's interesting how if you just give yourself permission to be enthusiastic about an experience, that experience instantly becomes a richer and more meaningful one. Somehow it just doesn't occur to most kids to be any other way. It's sad that as adults we have to work to achieve that, but it's nice to reminded of how important it is to do it from time to time.

So , to the cast and crew: I hope you are enthusiastically proud of your hard work and the wonderful job you did on opening night. I hope you're excited about being on the front page of the local paper. And I hope you continue to bring that enthusiasm to everything you do: it's what makes life worth living.

As an aside: according to the paper, the show was "voted the No. 8 best play of all time." I wonder who voted on that. I certainly didn't. I mean, let's be realistic here: there are some pretty damn good plays out there. I mean, speaking purely of the quality of the writing, I can think of at least 8 better plays written in Classical Greek. I could certainly name 8 better plays written by Shakespeare, and I'm reasonably certain I could name 8 better plays by Neil Simon.

What's wrong with this picture?

2007-10-19T07:56:00.001-04:00

This is what I get for dressing in the dark. Very Punky Brewster.

On improv and business: listening and committing

2007-10-11T09:02:00.000-04:00

As my improv group gets ready for our first big show, my consulting work has taken me back into an office setting on a pretty regular basis. This intersection of events has gotten me thinking about a subject that much has been written about before: the lessons improvisational comedy has for the businessperson. In particular, I want to talk about what I'm starting to think are the most important facets of being successful in either arena: listening and committing.

We'd all like to think that we're smart, capable, funny and talented. And the fact is that many of us are: some of us can be downright brilliant and the rest of us are capable of great things given the right approach and a little hard work. But the truth is that very few of us (and I'm not one of them!) are capable of being consistently clever/inspired/brilliant/effective all of the time. Unfortunately, too many of us think that we are, and there's nothing worse than someone who's convinced that they can do no wrong.

The great benefit of working with other people to accomplish a goal -- be it to close a business deal or put on a comedy show -- is that you don't have to depend solely on your own (inevitably inconsistent and fleeting) brilliance. When you work effectively in a group, either as a leader or an equal participant, you benefit tremendously by fostering an atmosphere of openness and collaboration and by being willing to genuinely, deeply and honestly listen to what others have to say.

The other day at improv, we were playing a scene and asked for a suggestion of "something people might be getting ready for" and got the response of "a party." I immediately thought of doing a scene involving an awkward office party, including ideas about the plot, characters and even a few one liners. Before I could even begin, one of my scene partners jumped right in and established a scene about a group of nerdy frat brothers getting ready for a kegger. He went in and established the environment and several good strong characters: better than anything I could come up with. So guess what: when I entered the scene I was no longer an insecure accountant with a crush on his coworker: I was a clumsy Computer Science major carrying a case of Budweiser.

When I started managing large numbers of people at my old job, I had a lot to learn. About twice a day, someone would walk into my office with complaints and concerns that I thought were ridiculous, misinformed or distorted. Initially, I would decide right away that this stuff was nonsense and dismiss it out of hand. Eventually, I figured out that if someone felt strongly enough to take the time out of their day to come into my office and pour their heart out, then buried within all the things they were saying that I didn't agree with, there was probably something real and important there that if I just listened I could draw out and learn from.

One of the other things I learned (yes... the hard way) was that indecision kills. One of my former bosses was fond of saying "The second best decision quickly made is better than the best decision never made," and I think there's a lot to that. The human brain needs direction and goals. It doesn't matter if it's your brain or the brains of a group of people you're leading, they need to be working towards something specific, attainable and concrete to function optimally.

On stage, even very good improvisers make a bunch of bad choices: they take the plot in a direction that limits what can happen next; they make a decision that fails to build upon something their scene partner offered. I'll often play a scene and look back on it and say, "Boy... if I had just done this instead of that, the scene really would have been great!" But some of the best improvs I've ever scene began with a mediocre premise or choice and ended up being hysterical because the players accepted it and threw themselves behind it 100%. So someone just set up a scene about buying a loaf of bread at the supermarket (scenes where you purchase something are always death) -- get behind it: make the cashier and the customer turn out to be a recently-divorced couple and let the sparks fly. The really terrible improv scenes (the ones that aren't funny and don't go anywhere) are the ones where the players fail to throw themselves behind a strong choice.

Similarly, in the world of business, you have to trust yourself. You and I may not be capable of being brilliant all the time, but we're not stupid either. Chances are that if you make the best decision you can and follow it through to its reasonable point of conclusion, you'll probably end up somewhere in the vicinity of success. And if you're honest enough to take a good, hard look at where you're at when you get there, you'll probably learn something useful for next time.

Actober at Yankee Stadium Update

2007-10-11T07:52:00.001-04:00

According to sources close to the Yankees (i.e. a friend of Mike's who happened to be at the game), "Everyone Needs a Little Jeter" was also played between innings during ALDS Game 3 at the Stadium on Sunday (10/7).

Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle... Alspach, Stein, Pisapia???

2007-10-09T11:08:00.000-04:00

Last night was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. There we were at Yankee Stadium, watching the Yanks pitching getting lit up by the Tribe, feeling kind of defeated... when all of a sudden...

Everyone Needs a Little Jeter plays on the Yankee Stadium Jumbotron!

We had no idea that was coming.

Of course when you enter the Actober contest, you agree that Major League Baseball can use your video for promotional purposes... but we had no idea that our film would be played on the big screen at The Stadium in front of 55,000 people! And we never would have known about it either if it wasn't for the fact that Leigh and I just happened to be at the game that night.

I managed to take a couple of camera phone pictures of the screen, but you can't really make anything out:

I'm particularly surprised since our video -- as proud of it as I am -- didn't even win in the fan voting for our weekly contest.

Thanks again to everyone who supported us by voting in the contest, and thanks to whoever it was at the Yankees and/or MLB who liked what they saw enough to give us such a tremendous vote of support and confidence!

New website of the day #2

2007-09-25T10:30:00.000-04:00

I was busy spilling out new websites yesterday. Website #2 is for my comedy troupe, The B-List. Check it out.

Currently, we're preparing for our show on October 19th, entitled "No Refunds." The show is a benefit for the Old Bridge High School Theater Arts scholarship. Tickets available at the door. Tell the kids.

Ireland

2007-09-24T14:15:00.001-04:00

Here's some video of our trip to Ireland

Hiatus

2007-09-24T13:58:00.000-04:00

Back from our fun trip to Ireland (video to follow).

I had the pleasure today of working with the amazingly talented Brandon Beilis on his new website. Brandon is a gifted actor, writer, comedian and improviser. The site is in the early stages of construction, but you can check it out here.

Confessions of a One Man Sideshow Rules!

2007-09-02T13:02:00.001-04:00

Over the last few months, I've had the privilege of helping David Smith develop his all-new show for the Philly Fringe Festival, Confessions of a One Man Sideshow. Last night, I got to view the results of all Dave's hard work, and I can honestly say that it was the most enjoyable night at the theater I've experienced in a long time.

Dave is a renowned sideshow artist and variety entertainer. He is active in the Philadelphia arts community and was a semi-finalist on the first season of America's Got Talent. Dave's performances interweave juggling, sideshow skills and even acrobatics and dance with storytelling that is engaging, humorous and frequently touching.

As a friend of mine who joined us at the show says, great theater makes you do three things: laugh, cry and think. Confessions does all three, and beyond that, it astounds. Though I am an admittedly partisan observer, I would encourage everyone to make a point to see the show. It plays in the Fringe for the next two weeks. Tickets can be purchased online here.

Totally frustrating nonsense from the world of programming

2007-08-31T08:31:00.000-04:00

This is the kind of thing that makes developing software take twice as long as it should.

So I run the function to test if a certain value is NULL (i.e. empty) and this is the error message I get:

"Data is Null. This method or property cannot be called on Null values."

Got that: the function to check if something is a Null value or not doesn't work if the value is Null, which you can't tell unless you run the function.

Actober shoutout to Kurt!

2007-08-29T16:40:00.001-04:00

Much respect to OBFBL webmaster and all-around awesome guy Kurt Morris for encouraging his colleagues to vote for our video in the Actober contest.

Actober Finalists

2007-08-27T16:39:00.000-04:00

"Everyone Needs a Little Jeter" is one of five finalists in this week's Actober contest. Here's what you can do to support us, its creators

1. Go to http://www.actober.com/Vote.aspx . Here, you can view our video (as well as those of the other finalists, but why would you want to do a thing like that anyway?) Ours is the fourth video on the page.

2. Once you've watched the video, check the "Select" box next to it and then click the "Vote" button at the bottom of the page.

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 many, many times, thereby expressing your profound appreciation for our artistic achievement (or, failing that, that time we lent you $20 / helped you with your 8th grade term paper / sucked venom out of your rattlesnake bite, etc...). As they say in Chicago, vote early and often!

4. If you genuinely enjoyed our little film, please forward this email to your family, friends, and co-workers (indeed, everyone you know -- we have no shame) and encourage them to vote for it too.

In addition to the vast reserves of good karma your vote will undoubtedly create, doing well in this contest will go a long way in helping us establish ourselves as a force to be reckoned with in the exciting world of Internet Video... or at least as "award-winning" makers of silly videos about baseball.

Actober Entry #2: Everyone Needs a Little Jeter

2007-08-26T18:36:00.000-04:00

I'm really proud of this:

Me Simpsonized?

2007-08-26T08:33:00.001-04:00

Kinda...

Dirty Tricks on Safari?

2007-08-24T19:18:00.000-04:00

So I've been working on a website development project for a client. To test cross-browser functionality, I've been running a copy of Safari for Windows.

Now the interesting thing is when the website captures the browser identity when I connect to it with Safari, here's what it says:

"AppleMAC-Safari 5.0"

Two things about this. First of all, browser identity shouldn't even include a reference to a platform or OS. Internet explorer reports "IE 7.0" Firefox reports "Firefox 2.0.0.6"). Secondly, it's not the right OS.

Safari for Windows reports that it is actually the "AppleMAC" Safari browser. And yes, I do know a separate part of the request header reports the actual operating system, but still... honest error by Apple or attempt to inflate statistics showing Macintosh/Safari for Mac's market share?

Here comes the warp drive

2007-08-17T11:56:00.000-04:00

Scientists claim to have made particles move faster than the speed of light. The interpretation of their data is in dispute, but I'm already lined up to purchase the first commercially available warp drive.

From baseball to football

2007-08-14T16:40:00.001-04:00

Well, it's official: I have been mathematically eliminated from OBFBL playoff contention. So end my 2007 Fantasy Baseball efforts. I'm still playing for pride (and hopefully to finish the season with an over .500 record).

Some random observations on my season:

I put way too much emphasis on trying to draft players who performed fairly consistently week to week. Overall production and potential upside are more important. I won't make the same mistake next year.
I'm going to lobby fairly heavily in the off season for some sort of injury substitution rule (in fact, I've already started). In a points league where accumulating the best record is paramount, it sucks when you find out that your best player will be going on the DL five minutes after lineups were do and you basically have to write off the week.
Here's another proposed rule change: no non-injury related free agent moves once you're eliminated from playoff contention.
Even though I am out of the playoff picture, it is still possible for me to finish with a better record than every team in the NL.

So it's on to defending my championship title in Fantasy Football's highly competitive (and relative-heavy) Alspach All the Time league. It's something to look forward to in the realm of fantasy sports.... but a poor substitute for baseball.

Actober Entry #1: Clemens vs. Piazza

2007-08-12T20:55:00.001-04:00

More fun with online video contents. This one is for MLB's "Actober" contest, in which they ask you to reenact a classic post-season moment.

Here's our interpretation of Clemens vs. Piazza from the 2000 World Series.

500 vs. 756

2007-08-08T12:13:00.000-04:00

Not too long ago, Alex Rodriguez was universally reviled by Yankee fans. Things change quickly when you're having one of the greatest individual seasons in the history of the sport. Having been there last Saturday to see ARod hit career home run number 500, I can honestly say that the outpouring from the fans was spontaneous, exuberant and genuine.

I didn't see Barry Bonds' record-breaking home run live last night, but based on the footage I've seen today, what a contrast. There was much excitement from the San Francisco fans, to be sure, but the sedate tone to the 11 minute break in the action that followed Bonds' touching home plate said a lot.

Hank Aaron's pre-recorded message struck the wrong note for me. It seemed so meticulously crafted -- so much care given to every word so as to avoid saying too much or too little. It seemed to me as less of genuine outpouring of excitement or respect on Aaron's part and more of an attempt to fulfill his obligation to posterity, lest his well-earned legacy of tremendous grace and class be tarnished.

Bonds' own remarks, too, seemed so by-the-book. I've heard commentators praising Bonds' reaction for being perfect -- the sort of thing you're supposed to respect regardless of your opinion of him. But that's the problem: it was just too perfect, too safe, too self-consciously trying to steer clear of the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

I just think about the reaction that an injury-free Ken Griffey would have received had he been the one to break Aaron's record. My sense is that it would be a lot like the one ARod got on Saturday, times a few thousand. In fact, ARod himself probably will experience that someday.

For me, the enduring image of number 756 will not be that of Bonds standing at home plate, extending his arms skyward, acknowledging his father. Instead, I will remember this photo of Bonds and Dave Roberts embracing as Roberts relieved him in the outfield later in the game. The gargantuan Bonds engulfs his average-sized teammate in an enormous bear hug, reminding us that something just doesn't seem right.

Sign seen at the gym yesterday

2007-08-06T08:49:00.000-04:00

"Bring a Friend for Free Month -- August 20-31"

August 20-31 has always been my favorite month of the year

We were there

2007-08-04T20:09:00.000-04:00

What a day to be at Yankee Stadium! ARod hit number 500.

Cry Havoc! (helicopter that is)

2007-08-02T21:28:00.000-04:00

So I just got one of these things as a thank-you gift and it's wicked cool. Highly recommended:

Optimum Online blocking YouTube uploads?

2007-07-31T14:30:00.000-04:00

So why is it that lately I can't upload anything to YouTube or other video sharing services when using my OOL connection but when using my Verizon Broadband Access connection it works just fine?

Life of ketchup

2007-07-29T15:57:00.000-04:00

Here's Heinz commercial #2: the Life of Ketchup

Ketchup commercial #2 in the can

2007-07-27T10:34:00.000-04:00

So on Tuesday we shot our second entry into the Heinz Top This TV challenge. It is now edited and we are working on music.

I'm excited about this one, I think it's even better than the first one. I will post it as soon as we're done.

Weekly Podcast

2007-07-24T07:36:00.000-04:00

I participated in the recording of the OBFBL Weekly Podcast last night. It's awesome that Kurt has put together the league's satellite website and takes the time to do these podcasts. It was great fun to work on this one with Mike and Kurt and hopefully I can do another in the future.

In this episode, the Droids assisted with a little analysis of the playoff picture, we talk about recent trades, upcoming matches and OBFBL: The Next Generation. The volume of my voice is a little low, but that's just the way it goes.

You can listen to the episode here.

Threes are wild

2007-07-23T12:33:00.000-04:00

I can't believe I just went 3-0 in the out-of-division-triple-header against 3 other contending teams and ended up only 3rd in line for the wild card spot.

Will It Blend... that is the question

2007-07-22T16:44:00.001-04:00

Will It Blend is a great example of a simple concept being successfully executed and resulting in a perfect viral video. This one is my personal favorite:

The all-quality-human-being-team

2007-07-22T08:16:00.000-04:00

So this year in fantasy baseball I've had the following people on my team:

Brett Myers (assaulted wife on a Boston street)
Elijah Dukes (admitted to smoking pot, accused of steroid use, has fathered five children by four different women, recently impregnated a 17-year-old foster child, threatened to murder his wife and children)

And now we have Scott Olsen:

AVENTURA, Fla.—Troubled pitcher Scott Olsen of the Florida Marlins was arrested early Saturday after refusing to pull over and getting into a fight with police officers.

Just horrible. I really need to start drafting a better class of people.

On the other hand, I know it's the wrong sport, but is Michael Vick still available?

New site up and running

2007-07-21T21:04:00.000-04:00

So the new website is up, running and populated with some content. Creating it turned out to be a more time and effort consuming thing than I expected, but I feel like I've got a solid foundation in ASP.NET AJAX as a result.

Nifty things to check out:

Photos: The photo page implements an ASP.NET AJAX control (from the toolkit) to display photos in a slideshow format. Right now, there's one for the improv group and a "greatest hits" one of Honey.
Videos: This page implements a couple of neat AJAX features. It uses an Accordion Panel to showcase the videos in groups and there's a neat little trick if you click on any of the "About This Video" buttons.

All of the pages implement a control to give the top banner a rounded appearance (through the use of a Master Page), as well as some embedded items for fun.

I plan on adding more content and features (particularly AJAX-based ones) in the future, but for now it's time to do something else with my life.

In other news, the Yankees are on the verge of winning two today... nice!

Heinz Contest Entry #1

2007-07-21T12:06:00.000-04:00

The Mental Pause improv and sketch comedy team (of which I am a part) has decided to produce some entries for the Heinz Top This TV Challenge, a contest sponsored by the ketchup people for user-created commercials.

Here's our first entry, entitled "Ketchup Dating":

Welcome

2007-07-21T10:25:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the very first post of the Alspach.org blog. I am developing this website to test (and learn about) ASP.NET 2.0 with AJAX. Please browse the site and check out the content. I'll post some more information about myself, what I do and what you can find here a little later on.