Showing posts with label one off. Show all posts
Showing posts with label one off. Show all posts
Monday, May 16, 2011
One Offs: mustaches and scuba mask seal
Turns out mustaches make it difficult to get a watertight seal with a scuba mask. I've been snorkeling and diving a bit lately and kept noticing water pooling in the lower half of my mask. Without any introspection I chalked it up to flaws in the mask until an older, mustachioed gentleman on my last dive boat asked me if I wanted some silicon gel to help the mask make a seal around my mustache. He had a little jar of it, kind of like the old Carmex compacts of yore, and with a light application in the furry upper-lip area I was able to maintain both my mustache (technically part of my total facial hair package, or, beard, more commonly) and my watertight scuba mask seal.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
One Off: the limitations of skinny jeans
1) Friends of mine report from Brooklyn on the fate of a mutual acquaintance from college who transformed himself into a pretty serious hipster. Seeing him at a party he had a flowing gypsy scarf tied around his locks so to channel the more feminine end of the spectrum along the lineage of Louis the XIV, Purple Rain-era Prince and now Russell Brand. After the party, waiting in line to get into a club everyone decides to leave and merrily steps over the velvet rope stanchion to find a more inclusive event. Everyone that is except said hipster, whose pants are so tight he can't raise his leg high enough to step over the rope.
2) This morning at the local Starbucks I witnessed one of the barrista boys in painted-on black jeans (still not sold on this as appropriate for a man, even, or especially, considering the precedent of European swimsuit tastes) attempting to carry a table outside to place on the sidewalk. Was he the least appropriately attired Starbucks employee for the physical demands of this job? I'd argue so. Because I saw him waddling like a penguin with a popsicle stick clenched between his nethercheeks while 'maneuvering' the table through the double doors up on edge like a wheel. Constrained by his pants and grappling with the physical challenge of opening door, propping door open, rolling table, he lost his grip and the table rolled out the door and did one of those twirling routines like a runaway coin, turning a few pirouettes before belly-flopping down decisively on its side and nearly crushing a small dog on its way down.
2) This morning at the local Starbucks I witnessed one of the barrista boys in painted-on black jeans (still not sold on this as appropriate for a man, even, or especially, considering the precedent of European swimsuit tastes) attempting to carry a table outside to place on the sidewalk. Was he the least appropriately attired Starbucks employee for the physical demands of this job? I'd argue so. Because I saw him waddling like a penguin with a popsicle stick clenched between his nethercheeks while 'maneuvering' the table through the double doors up on edge like a wheel. Constrained by his pants and grappling with the physical challenge of opening door, propping door open, rolling table, he lost his grip and the table rolled out the door and did one of those twirling routines like a runaway coin, turning a few pirouettes before belly-flopping down decisively on its side and nearly crushing a small dog on its way down.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
One Offs: Omniture Summit 2011Edition
3rd day in Utah and haven't had much down time to report on a few things I wanted to share from Summit 2011:
*No Josh James this year diminished the opening night star power of previous years and some of the enthusiasm. Omniture was a bit of a cult of personality with James at the center so it will be interesting to see how the 'business group' (part of Adobe for about a year now) and its attendant culture starts to change. Summit was a big part of that and may get softened by Adobe, whose California-based players seem to like making jokes about Utah.
*Another slight against Utah was the presentation of Vail resorts as the ski industry examplar of good web-marketing practices (as crowned by Exact Target, their enterprise email vendor). With the Utah ski culture playing a big role at Summit, I wonder if Exact Target thought that through before presenting Vail as the finest ski area in the world. And, uh, meanwhile let's get excited about the Canyons on Friday.
*Flouting rumors ranging from the Black Eyed Peas, Kings of Leon, Muse or even Bon Jovi, Lenny Kravitz was the entertainment this year. The announcement was met with little initial fanfare and you could count me among those only mildly interested. BUT, Lenny rocked it. He and his band were pumped and tight and gave a terrific show with some unexpectedly groovy extended funk jams. His back up band kicked ass, routinely, and I give Kravitz a lot of credit for pulling out the extra effort for a corporate gig.
*I can't remember the exact stat, but someone said that something north of 90% of the web pages on the Internet have some form of advertisement on them. That media used to be content consumed in the presence of ads, and somehow we've got to the place where now it's ads viewed in the presence of content. This makes me feel good and more resolved to not have ads on my blog.
*Which also reminds me of the time I did try to monetize my now dormant College Football blog with AdSense. After about a year, I was somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 in accrued click revenue. At this point Google upped the automatic payout amount to $100 and I guess I never got there. I burned out on the blog and the few users it's still getting are apparently ignoring the ads.
*But, it may have been a blessing in disguise. Last year I recall a notice from the City of Philadelphia inviting local bloggers to come to a cocktail reception/brainstorm on development opportunities to showcase the blogging talent of the City. Once they got the respondent bloggers together in a room, the City quizzed them on whether they'd tried to monetize their blogs with ad revenue. Those that replied in the affirmative were promptly slapped with a reconciliation request for the Philadelphia Business Privilege Tax of $300. At $40 of unpaid ad revenue (which I might add was earned before I moved to Philadelphia, so don't get any ideas Nutter) which could reasonably be par for the earnings course for most of us aspiring-professional bloggers, the $300 is a steep, relative 'privilege' to pay. But staying on point, shame on you Philadelphia for being predictably disingenuous and sneaky and cloaking this tax-revenue dragnet in the virtuous guise of fostering creative output from your citizen bloggers. Motherfucking money-grubbing. No ads on this blog.
*No Josh James this year diminished the opening night star power of previous years and some of the enthusiasm. Omniture was a bit of a cult of personality with James at the center so it will be interesting to see how the 'business group' (part of Adobe for about a year now) and its attendant culture starts to change. Summit was a big part of that and may get softened by Adobe, whose California-based players seem to like making jokes about Utah.
*Another slight against Utah was the presentation of Vail resorts as the ski industry examplar of good web-marketing practices (as crowned by Exact Target, their enterprise email vendor). With the Utah ski culture playing a big role at Summit, I wonder if Exact Target thought that through before presenting Vail as the finest ski area in the world. And, uh, meanwhile let's get excited about the Canyons on Friday.
*Flouting rumors ranging from the Black Eyed Peas, Kings of Leon, Muse or even Bon Jovi, Lenny Kravitz was the entertainment this year. The announcement was met with little initial fanfare and you could count me among those only mildly interested. BUT, Lenny rocked it. He and his band were pumped and tight and gave a terrific show with some unexpectedly groovy extended funk jams. His back up band kicked ass, routinely, and I give Kravitz a lot of credit for pulling out the extra effort for a corporate gig.
*I can't remember the exact stat, but someone said that something north of 90% of the web pages on the Internet have some form of advertisement on them. That media used to be content consumed in the presence of ads, and somehow we've got to the place where now it's ads viewed in the presence of content. This makes me feel good and more resolved to not have ads on my blog.
*Which also reminds me of the time I did try to monetize my now dormant College Football blog with AdSense. After about a year, I was somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 in accrued click revenue. At this point Google upped the automatic payout amount to $100 and I guess I never got there. I burned out on the blog and the few users it's still getting are apparently ignoring the ads.
*But, it may have been a blessing in disguise. Last year I recall a notice from the City of Philadelphia inviting local bloggers to come to a cocktail reception/brainstorm on development opportunities to showcase the blogging talent of the City. Once they got the respondent bloggers together in a room, the City quizzed them on whether they'd tried to monetize their blogs with ad revenue. Those that replied in the affirmative were promptly slapped with a reconciliation request for the Philadelphia Business Privilege Tax of $300. At $40 of unpaid ad revenue (which I might add was earned before I moved to Philadelphia, so don't get any ideas Nutter) which could reasonably be par for the earnings course for most of us aspiring-professional bloggers, the $300 is a steep, relative 'privilege' to pay. But staying on point, shame on you Philadelphia for being predictably disingenuous and sneaky and cloaking this tax-revenue dragnet in the virtuous guise of fostering creative output from your citizen bloggers. Motherfucking money-grubbing. No ads on this blog.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
One Off(s)
* I love sensations, but I hate sensation.
*Monterey Jack is in all ways an inferior cheese when compared to cheddar, unless your thing is rubbery texture. (Which, who wants to admit that?) Cheddar always.
*The thing you have to question about social networking is its intrinsic, paradoxical combination of courage-by-electronic proxy and undeniability. It used to take a lot of guts to pick up the phone and call a girl. Now you can just sleaze it up behind the mask of digital media. So the problem becomes the written record of stupidity following you around. Seems like it would have been easier when things weren't always recorded for cringe-induction come morning's sobriety but if anything people aren't deterred (as rationale would predict) but emboldened!
*Monterey Jack is in all ways an inferior cheese when compared to cheddar, unless your thing is rubbery texture. (Which, who wants to admit that?) Cheddar always.
*The thing you have to question about social networking is its intrinsic, paradoxical combination of courage-by-electronic proxy and undeniability. It used to take a lot of guts to pick up the phone and call a girl. Now you can just sleaze it up behind the mask of digital media. So the problem becomes the written record of stupidity following you around. Seems like it would have been easier when things weren't always recorded for cringe-induction come morning's sobriety but if anything people aren't deterred (as rationale would predict) but emboldened!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
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