Brand new cords

November 24, 2007


I’m still recovering from Black Friday - and I even did a good job of it, with only 90 minutes of actual contact with the real world.

Sierra Picture Day was yesterday. But you get your picture today: our darling daughter showing off her new corduroys and shirt.

Sierra's new outfit

If there’s anything I’ve learned about becoming a parent, it’s that guys get a chance to live out any closet dress-up desires they had when they were younger. I mean, it simply wasn’t acceptable as boys to play with dolls. Those feelings were repressed. But now, they’re required - in fact, you get in trouble if you don’t take part in clothing your child.

So yeah, I thought the cords were cute. I picked them out.

Maybe I’m saying too much.

Tags: Baby Pictures, Sierra |

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None more black

November 23, 2007


Thousands of people converge, scratching and clawing their way through just opened doorways, scrambling to put their master plan to work. The singular focus is finding a deal; on a conscience-easing gluttony, whereby expensive items are justified by their lowered price tag, an inordinate amount of cash dropped when penny pinching might have otherwise been exhibited.

Everyone is in the same line. You turn around and it seems as if everyone has moved into your scope of vision. Everywhere you look: red faces, fingers grasping for their credit cards, exhausted eyelids slowly closing over bloodshot eyes.

Some had mapped out a campaign the day before, spending more time being resourceful than thankful. Others camped out - two days ahead of time! - to bring home an item to which little emotion will be connected in a month or two.

Need! Want! Have! It’s not consumerism or a product-driven kickoff to the holiday season that’s so horrible - it’s the sense of entitlement, that these people deserve the best deal and no one else can possibly stop them.

I’ve been in the business before. I’ve stood on the other side of a teeming mass of shoppers, staring at them through the glass doors as a Best Buy opened, my blue shirt and khaki pants prepared for the worse. My eyelids were equally heavy, my eyes equally bloodshot. And in watching from the other side, I discovered how truly despicable humanity can be when you step between the entitled and their prey. I’ve seen pushing. Shoving. Items stolen behind another shopper’s back.

For me, the end of the magic came in 1996. At 6:00 AM - the typical opening time before this 4 AM ridiculousness came to pass - I watched people rush for a free scanner. The numbers were not equal - there was one fewer scanner than there was people. A middle-aged man, beginning to gray, seemingly middle-class, with a tucked-in golf shirt and a wife elsewhere in the store.

The man turned to the older woman next to him - a woman who couldn’t be any younger than 70. He sensed opportunity, grabbed the scanner from her hands, turned and walked away.

My faith in humanity - during this, the beginning of this country’s most intimate time, a holiday that causes each person to give a little more and dig a little deeper - was soiled.

So to me, Black Friday is more than a day to brave the throes of consumerism, ducking your head and barging into the mix with little regard for anything but your needs and your safety. To me, it’s the worst of our culture. It’s over the top, mob-like hooliganism, sponsored by Target and underwritten by Best Buy. Everything is uphill once the day has passed; it’s the season’s lowest point.

And yet, I find myself in that mix. Every year. Muttering to myself, wondering what the hell I’m doing, participating in the hooliganism, as if I was tipping over rubbish bins in order not to be outed. This year, a broken television was to be replaced. And replaced it was.

Black Friday is necessary. It kick starts our economy every holiday season. It’s as much a part of Thanksgiving as turkey and the Detroit Lions. Really, as much as I hate to say it, it’s a crucial part of being an American. It’s a train wreck, a bloody, gory mess on the side of the Interstate, a horrible sight that you’re both repulsed by and driven to. I hate it. I love it. Most of all, I’m frightened by it - by what it means, by what it exposes in each of us, by the different people we become. Some are strong enough to resist it. They’re smart. But they’re also missing all the fun.

Really, when you stand back and take a look at it - peer at it through a magnifying glass and examine each pore and follicle, it’s a phenomenon that can never be contained.

In other words - it’s a horrible day to have your television go out on you.

Tags: On..., Sioux Falls, Television, Vilhauer |

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Misc. Asst. is officially back.

November 22, 2007


I’ve gathered some troops and doled out login IDs and passwords. The formation is set.

Ready. Aim. Fire?

Misc. Asst. is back up. Officially, it was never down - but it WAS neglected, ignored and stagnant. Now, it’s none of those things. I’ve written a new post - the first in 18 months!

What is Misc. Asst.? It’s a blog I created for my blogless friends - a place for them to write and post and grab a piece of the blogosphere without actually having to do any work on their own. I like to think I have brilliant friends. So naturally, I also like to think they’re willing to write a lot.

And they were, for a while. But a new job and new priorities curbed my momentum,and with my momentum went everyone else’s.

The difference between BMOWP and MA? BMOWP is my personal journal - my thoughts on the things that mean a lot to me. MA is my sludge pile - my thoughts on things that mean nothing, but trip my fancy at the time: Jesse Camp, former Full House stars on meth, my hatred for Bill Walton’s announcing.

It’s a fine line, really.

So yeah, it’s back. Enjoy. If you’d like to join, let me know. There’s always room, if you’re willing to be semi-active. The address will be changing soon, as will the look (hopefully).

(In fact, if you have a better design in mind, please let me know. The Misc. Asst. site shows you how basic my skills in html/Wordpress theme design were 18 months ago. Any help would be appreciated.)

Go check it out - and thanks!

Tags: Blogging, Misc. Asst. |

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Like change in headlights

November 21, 2007


As I was getting into my car today after work, something caught my eye - a deer, bounding through the residential area, past the neighboring spa and through several back yards. There were no antlers, so I assume it was female. It looked frightened, yet free – as if it was escaping the humdrum of suburban life, frantically running from television and pavement and man-made lakes.

It ran north through several more yards, crossed 69th Street, and faded into a new development.

It made me think. Just five years ago, most of the land south of 69th Street was fields. Farm land or, better yet, the pure plains that existed before any of us did. It was the dead outskirts of town, the bare minimum of civilization; worms, birds, grass and deer.

Now, it’s city. It’s the center of growth in one of the fastest growing counties in the United States. We aren’t seeing the end of Sioux Falls at 69th Street anymore – we’re looking out to 85th. And beyond.

For some of us, it’s natural. We’re a bustling city, expanding at will, devouring the land around us like a flesh-eating virus. There’s no need to move up when we can just as easily move out – bigger, wider, further away from the center of town and, in essence, further away from the town we used to be.

Sioux Falls is a city, though, not a town. At least, now it is. Our growth has been beneficial, but the stretch marks remain – the scar of no cross-town route through our city’s center, the increase in crime, the bleak forecast for north-central Sioux Falls and the ugly thoroughfares that have been driven into disrepair. For every Southeastern Drive there’s a bleak, over power-lined Cliff Avenue; for every Phillips to the Falls there’s seven empty downtown buildings.

We look around and realize that our city is no longer what we thought it was. Classes are becoming more divided, neighbors more disconnected. Traffic worse, life faster, commutes longer and businesses more competitive.

When I think of how much Sioux Falls has grown around me in my short 28-year stay, I can’t imagine what someone who settled here in the 1950s thinks. For better or worse, this is no longer the town they arrived at. These aren’t the same streets. The same values. The same friendly wave across the way. Life has progressed, and Sioux Falls has progressed with it. It happens everywhere; this is no different.

Sioux Falls is still a great city. It’s clean, it’s respectful, and while it’s set back in it’s thinking, it’s still varied and somewhat diverse, considering the area of the country we’re in.

But it’s hard to think of that deer and not commiserate with her, staring around at what was once familiar, bounding away, discovering that the place you grew up is no longer the same. You lose yourself in trying to find your way back, until the realization alights: the way back is no longer there. And when that happens, the only thing we can do is hope we haven’t gotten so lost we can’t find our way back to the present.

Tags: Sioux Falls |

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More ads (some assembly required)

November 21, 2007


I love IKEA.

And, I love their ads. For example:


Ikea Create
Ikea Live

Tags: Advertising and Marketing |

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Skydiving = great education!

November 20, 2007


Saw the following commercial for Dakota State University – a smaller state school about an hour or two north of Sioux Falls - on a random local channel

ANNCR:
The world moves pretty fast.
An adequate education is not enough when it’s time to be a leader.
Dakota State University offers you the edge you need to stay ahead of the game.
You only live once. Make it count!
Dare to do, at DSU. Dakota State University, Madison, SD.

VIDEO:
ANNCR always talks to camera.
ANNCR in suit, inexplicably on top of building, holding arms in air. Cut to shot of ANNCR walking through computer server room. Cut to generic campus shots. Cut to ANNCR sitting behind a random, nondescript desk, pointing at camera. ANNCR gets up, dives through doorway…
…and cut to gratuitous shot of ANNCR skydiving. ANNCR gives thumbs up. Cut to DSU graphic. End.

My questions.

1. Does the degree come packed with as many clichés as you see here? I hope so. This is worse than a half-time interview with Bill Belichick. “We played hard and gave 110%, and we have a lot of respect for those guys, but we’re just taking the season one game at a time.”

2. Do shots of a desk signify your ability to secure a high paying job? Does a computer server room signify the school’s dedication to high technology? Does a shot from on top of a roof show limitless potential? I hope so, and not that these shots came at the whim of the announcer character. “Hey, let’s take a shot on top of the roof! Whoa!”

3. Skydiving? Seriously. What? Skydiving?

I wish you could see the spot. Alas, it’s not on YouTube. Just another reason you shouldn’t rely on your student editors to create your commercials.

——————————–

UPDATE: I seem to have upset someone - I’m guessing someone involved with the production of the spot.

My apologies if I’ve upset anyone. Please contact me in person next time - or at least leave an e-mail address that I can properly respond to.

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SECOND UPDATE: I realize I haven’t mentioned something - it is obvious by the comments and by people I’ve talked to that this spot wasn’t produced by students at DSU. This was done by an outside agency. So ignore the comment that says “Just another reason you shouldn’t rely on your student editors to create your commercials.” And apologies to student editors for the insult.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Annoyances |

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Paper or plastic?

November 19, 2007


A lot of stuff has been said recently about the Kindle, Amazon’s paperless literature machine. Is it worthwhile? Ed Champion has 10 reasons why it’s not. Is it practical? Condalmo says, at $400, not really - especially since the technology isn’t even complete. Is it even desirable? Not to Tim - he’s sticking with paper.

Here’s the common theme. While the Kindle, with a special paper-like screen and amazing capacity, may be a technological marvel, it’s still not a book. It’s just not the same. It just doesn’t have the same feel, the same interactivity, the same person-to-person connection - from one person’s printer to another.

It may be everything a book isn’t - space-taking, non-searchable, cumbersome - but that’s just it. It’s everything a book isn’t.

Reading on its own is a fully interactive experience. Interactive in the old way of thinking - in that you actually interact with the material. You touch it, you smell it, you carry it with you and it becomes a part of you. You take pride in holding it, knowing there’s a flood of words right there under your hand - real words, printed, with ink.

Maybe I run in a different circle of people, but nearly everyone I know is against reading for pleasure on a computer screen. Words are tend to be difficult to focus on. Computers need to render words and spaces and everything in between artificially, so the eye is unable to process it the same way as it does words on paper. Even with new paper-like technology, it still suffers from the same disconnect - those words aren’t printed on there, and you know it, and that makes it instantly erasable, temporary, not as important.

With the solid, wood pulp page, however, you’re getting something concrete, something with an infinite resolution, something that exists not just as code, but as cold, hard reality, as a manufactured bundle of matter, able to be held and transferred and stored and forever found exactly in its original form without fear of losing the content therein or finding it incompatible with the current program platform.

Ultimately, in things of aesthetic value, we go back to what we’re familiar with. We seek out things that are real. True. We want pure orange juice, real butter and pure maple syrup. We settle for the fake stuff, usually because it’s cheaper. But we’d rather have the full out real product. It’s perceived as better. It is better. Sure, imitation vanilla flavor is easier to make, cheaper, and more widely available. I’d still take the real stuff any day.

In other words, improved doesn’t always mean better.

Some people may want this. But I’m willing to guess that the people who are willing to shell out $400 to read books are going to be dedicated readers. I’m also willing to guess most dedicated readers are book lovers - people who covet the entire written package: dog ears, well designed covers, notations, bookmarks; the heft of the graspable, the mass of literature.

These people aren’t going to want to ditch their fixed batch of words, are they? They won’t move away from actually having the book in their hand, will they? They appreciate the solidity, the weight - as if each book was actually filled with potential, with promise, weighted down with thought and brilliance - and won’t settle for some 10 oz. glorified PDA.

Right?

The iPod succeeded because music is not visual. It’s auditory. We had suffered with portable, skipping CD players and warbling, low-quality tape players. It was ripe for improvement because the improvement was needed.

How can a book be improved? Books are already portable. They’ve been printed successfully for thousands of years. There is no need to carry 200 at a time - books aren’t like music - they aren’t infinitely shuffled, chosen for the exact mood, partaken of in groups. You can read one book at one moment in life - the one in your hand.

It’s as if we’ve all forgotten the roots of the written word. Written. Not typed, not beamed, not digitized. And while nearly all continue to write by typing, we are reminded of the tangibility of writing in each inked out word, by the words on the paper. If I could write this blog on paper and distribute it to everyone, I would. I think many of us would. The connection - while not as instantaneous - is more human.

It’s that connection that adds to the experience. The experience of reading someone else’s writing. And when presented with the option to rid myself of paper, to read my books on a screen, enhanced and notated and upgraded, I wonder what was wrong with my old dog-eared books in the first place. With everything that distracts us in life from the simple act of reading, why throw another filter in the way?

Tags: Books, Literature, Words, Writing |

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