I’m soon to be a co-author on this blog

Why are we supposed to suddenly care so much about the MTV Video Music Awards? It seems to be everywhere this week, appearing on blogs, ridiculous presence in theYahoo! News Top Stories and more, I’m sure. Amazing PR or something more specific?

In this article about protesters headed for NYC for the RNC next week, the Times offers this interesting description, “For Mr. Gibson, 24, a part-time college student who sometimes works as a test subject for pharmaceutical research, the trip had many unknowns.”

So, being a test subject is “work?” The Times is willing to put that as the man’s occupation? I’d describe panhandling as work before I’d describe “test subject” as work. I don’t know if that’s sloppiness or some kind of pro-slacker bias, or some too-subtle winking. Mostly, it’s just poor editing, IMHO.

This guy is a shining example of crappity-ass businesses like we seem to find here on the Coastside, where mediocrity is more than tolerable. His print ad mentions Golf Club Regripping and Internet Web Site Design. Nice combination? Anyway, check out the site - if you didn’t know what it was for, you would have no idea from the site, which was obviously done using some template in some program, with missing files, no explanation, errors, and just general rampant stupidity.

I was hoping to be charmed, based on the idiosyncratic notion of the print ad, but bleggh. Lame.

Update: the site has been redesigned to focus more clearly on golf stuff.

Thoughts on this post - it’s an interesting example of the limitations of globalism - we always hear stories about what happens when the West exports its culture outwards without understanding the local destination. Oh, you’ve got product names, colors, symbols etc. that somehow are offensive. Well, here’s the opposite, and it brings home a major truth - that elsewhere in the world - these toys are acceptable. This is an error of distribution, not of design.

The new boombox style HP Instant Cinema Digital Projector ep9010: front projection box with built-in DVD, 2.1 speakers (20W stereo speakers facing front and rear, plus 30W subwoofer) with every input and output imaginable…Available September 04 for around $2499.

I did some of the upfront strategic user research on first prototypes they developed for this. Neat to see it hit the market.

Technorati: projector, hp, hewlett+packard, digital+cinema, user+research, design, strategy, ethnography

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Small toys showing an airplane flying into the World Trade Center were packed inside more than 14,000 bags of candy and sent to small groceries around the country before being recalled.

QuickTime link to a “Crazy Train” heavy metal belly dance video clip. Just go watch it. Part of METALGODDESS.NET

“The classic band Queen, fronted by gay icon Freddie Mercury, has become the first rock act to receive an official seal of approval in ayatollah-strong Iran. Western music is strictly censored in the Islamic republic, where being gay is considered a crime.
Mercury, who died in 1991, was proud of his Iranian ancestry, and illegal bootleg albums and singles made Queen one of the most popular bands in Iran.

Anyone else have a binding error in their Aug 23 New Yorker magazine? I didn’t get all the pages, so no fiction for me this issue. Weird - haven’t seen that in a magazine that I can ever remember…

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist who revolutionized the way the world looks at terminally ill patients with her book “On Death and Dying” and later as a pioneer for hospice care, has died. She was 78.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist who revolutionized the way the world looks at terminally ill patients with her book “On Death and Dying” and later as a pioneer for hospice care, has died. She was 78.

…sigh…
:(

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist who revolutionized the way the world looks at terminally ill patients with her book “On Death and Dying” and later as a pioneer for hospice care, has died. She was 78.

Isn’t there anything we can do?

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist who revolutionized the way the world looks at terminally ill patients with her book “On Death and Dying” and later as a pioneer for hospice care, has died. She was 78.

Damn!

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist who revolutionized the way the world looks at terminally ill patients with her book “On Death and Dying” and later as a pioneer for hospice care, has died. She was 78.

No way!

NPR had a bit today about the NEA report on reading that came out earlier this summer.

New York, N.Y. - Literary reading is in dramatic decline with fewer than half of American adults now reading literature, according to a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) survey released today. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America reports drops in all groups studied, with the steepest rate of decline - 28 percent - occurring in the youngest age groups.
…
Reading also affects lifestyle, the study shows. Literary readers are much more likely to be involved in cultural, sports and volunteer activities than are non-readers. For example, literary readers are nearly three times as likely to attend a performing arts event, almost four times as likely to visit an art museum, more than two-and-a-half times as likely to do volunteer or charity work, and over one-and-a-half times as likely to attend or participate in sports activities.

The way it was being spun on the radio was a little nervy - implying that people who read did more volunteer work BECAUSE they read - there’s nothing in their findings that offers any evidence of causality, but somehow it makes for good sound bites. Note that it wasn’t the NPR people who were making this claim but the poet dude that now heads the NEA who was being the doctor of spin.

I just got a warning that Ofoto would delete all my photos in October if I don’t make a purchase. I’ve had pictures up there for years, and never encountered this (although I think they did lose some of my pictures in a crash at some point. I read their Terms of Service that reads in part:

22. Storage Policy. Ofoto provides free online storage of images to its members for an initial period of 12 months from the date you first upload an image to your Ofoto account. To maintain free storage, you need to make a purchase from Ofoto at least once every 12 months The 12 month period will restart with each purchase. If you do not purchase any product or service from Ofoto for a period of 12 months Ofoto may delete the images stored in your account. In addition, if your account becomes inactive for a period of 60 months, Ofoto may, at its option, terminate access to the account altogether including deletion of any account information held by Ofoto%. Ofoto may change this policy at any time, upon reasonable notice to you.

It is reasonable, but it’s a bummer, and of course I’ve never been notified, that I’m aware, of any of the changes to the policy.

Guess I’ll be ordering something as a way to “pay” for the use of their storage.

I guess when they launched that navigation bar, it was optional for some of us (ie, if you don’t have an ad up there already) but they defaulted to turning it “on” - I just turned it off. So I’m sure most people who are reading this didn’t even see it the first time.

Kinda lame.

The Bill Dulmage Radio & Television Archive is a pretty cool site with lots of info about radio and TV in the Southern Ontario area (or at least the broadcast area, including Toronto, Buffalo, and beyond). Lists of the various on-air staff over time, and images from various radio stations as well. Neat bit of nostalgia for me, since I spent many years living in that area and listening to rock radio.

Blogger/Google started putting this damn ad bar on the top of their blogs - including this one, I noticed just yesterday, that cover up all sorts of content - what is this Tripod/Geocities crap all about?

I’ve only read lauding plaudits for this thing, so I’m not sure why no one is bitching about the lame implementation that covers up your blog!

Yuck.

A Malaysian woman is trying to reclaim the world record for the longest stay in a room full of scorpions, news reports said Sunday.

Isn’t the key word here “reclaim”???

This piece from the NYT was a nice bit of cultural anthropology, but the writing style confused the hell out of me - there are some awfully square references in an article about hipsters, it made me wonder if I was just so un-hip that I didn’t realize how hip being square actually is, or if the journalist is like someone’s grandpa trying to use the term “Daddy-O”

What do you think?

—
Todd Fatjo has moved out, and Williamsburg may never be the same.

New York neighborhoods do not announce their sea changes. There is no news release or banner draped across the street. Sometimes there is just a certain guy, and a thing that guy does, and before you know it the neighborhood has made one of those subtle shifts, the sort that keep New York City fascinating.

Remember when Bill Clinton opened an office in Harlem? Or when Miguel Algarin founded the Nuyorican Poets Cafe on the Lower East Side? Or when Harvey Lichtenstein started spreading the Brooklyn Academy of Music facilities around Fort Greene?

Todd Fatjo is no former president or renowned poet, but for Williamsburg he is a tiny bellwether. In this neighborhood, bohemianism begat or gave way to hipsterism in the blink of a decade, and Mr. Fatjo was right there.

One moment, there were industrial lofts illegally housing art students who spent days at the L Cafe. The next, there was not one but two cavernous Thai restaurants, and the neighborhood kept them both busy.

And there was Mr. Fatjo, in an expansive loft far from the main drag, Bedford Avenue, knee-deep in the hoopla. He had a job at a record store, gigs as a D.J., an untamed Afro and three roommates. They held five parties during their tenancy that Mr. Fatjo would later describe as major, defined as involving three separate sound systems blaring away in different parts of the apartment.

“It was just insane,” Mr. Fatjo said.

The telltale sign that the party was ending came in the hipster equivalent of semaphore: a flier on a wall. Inside the shopping mall on Bedford Avenue, below the flier for the dance band seeking a musician, Mr. Fatjo posted notice earlier this summer that the party-ing-est loft in all of Williamsburg was on the market.

He wrote with a simple yet passionate eloquence, speaking directly to his peers in a parlance that showed him to be of the place and moment.

“If you’ve ever been to my duplex loft you know how truly dope it is,” Mr. Fatjo began. He listed some conventional real estate amenities, such as wood floors, 14-foot ceilings and skylights for a monthly rent of $2,400, then moved on to recount others that only a steeped Williamsburg hipster could appreciate:

“Popeye’s and Dunkin’ Donuts on the corner, about four 24hr bodegas on the corner, 2 Chinese food places next to both entrances, and it’s above and across from two $.99 stores,” he wrote.

If you have to ask why proximity to multiple 99-cent stores might be an advantage, you will never know. Mr. Fatjo’s truly dope duplex loft is not in the gentrified Williamsburg of investment bankers and corporate media types. Those 24-hour bodegas he mentioned have bulletproof glass, and one sells Marlboros with Virginia tax stickers. This is the Williamsburg where a spoonful of party helps the squalor go down.

There are other things you will never know if you did not live in Williamsburg through the heydays of bohemians and hipsters, and Mr. Fatjo invoked that secret knowledge in his flier.

“Every party we’ve had was one for the books,” he wrote. “If you’ve been to one, you know, if not you missed out.”

Again signaling his connection to the heart and soul of modern Williamsburg, Mr. Fatjo concluded his flier with a tone of solemn inconsequence, of utter detachment from the whole matter.

“So I guess if anyone is interested leave a message or call me,” he wrote, adding his cellphone number and e-mail address.

Lest the neighborhood be left in confusion and suspense, Mr. Fatjo tacked on a postscript hinting at what the future might hold for the young and insufferably hip.

“BTW:” Mr. Fatjo wrote, abbreviating by the way, “The only reason I’m leaving is because my girlfriend and myself want to get a place to ourselves and this place is too big.”

Love is a funny thing. It can spin a cynical hipster around like a record (baby, right round, round, round), and it has done a number on Mr. Fatjo, who is 28. He quit the music store this year and took a job showing apartments in Manhattan. He is working toward a broker’s license, and this month he had the Afro shorn to a nice, respectable wave.

Mr. Fatjo and his girlfriend took up residence in the South Bronx, but despite all the changes in his own life, he was surprised to find that the party seems to be ending for his generation of Williamsburg hipsters. He had written the flier to help find a new tenant because he was fond of the landlord, but the hipsters he had expected never showed interest.

“I was trying to get some friends in here who were D.J.’s or artists, because you can do whatever,” Mr. Fatjo said. “The demand for it wasn’t what I thought it would be.”

Last week, the landlord rented the loft to a tenant from another apartment in the same building, a man who had never joined the hipster parties.

“He’s just some guy who has a job,” Mr. Fatjo said.

The fate of the truly dope duplex loft may be a sign that the hipster scene is fading in Williamsburg, or who knows? Some new generation could reinvigorate the neighborhood with its own brand of cool. As for Mr. Fatjo, who is fast becoming just some guy who has a job, the end of the party is bittersweet.

“It really kills me to leave Brooklyn, especially this place,” he said, dwelling on a last look around the empty loft. “But doing something with my lady, that’s good.”

And as for the Williamsburg hipsters, whose messages are expressed in pop culture references just as surely as they are immortalized on fliers, some might say the moral is that getting older is like skateboarding: it is not a crime. Others might just say we built this city on rock ‘n’ roll

I quite enjoyed the negative review of the latest Exorcist prequel from today’s NYT.

–

Spinning heads, cascades of pea soup and your mother’s Army boots are nowhere to be found in “Exorcist: The Beginning,” but lovers of the ridiculous may be delighted to know that the specter of little Linda Blair a-twitch and a-tremble is not entirely forgotten. A prequel to “The Exorcist,” William Friedkin’s 1973 shocker in which Ms. Blair played a child hijacked by Beelzebub, this new film comes gussied up with some fine talent and its very own bag of cheap tricks. But when push comes to demonic shove, hell apparently hath no fury like a woman in green pancake makeup just as surely as some producers have no shame.

“Exorcist: The Beginning,” which opened nationwide yesterday and given its doleful prospects may soon be known as “Exorcist: The End,” is the third feature film to be squeezed from the pulpy remains of Mr. Friedkin’s original. (That film spawned two less-acclaimed sequels, and four years ago it was re-released in theaters with some padding and tweaks.) Based on the William Peter Blatty best seller, the first “Exorcist” mostly entails the efforts of two priests trying to beat the devil out of Ms. Blair’s 12-year-old with the aid of pop metaphysics and some exceedingly dated special effects. A monster hit and very effective for a certain teenager who must remain nameless, Mr. Friedkin’s film has not held up well, but compared with this latest effort does vaguely resemble the classic of 1970’s cinema its fans tout it as.

“Exorcist: The Beginning” was directed by Renny Harlin, whose previous efforts include a solid “Nightmare on Elm Street” sequel, a bad “Die Hard” sequel and the diverting thriller “The Long Kiss Goodnight.” Slick and devoid of any obvious personal signature, Mr. Harlin’s directorial style is serviceable enough for a movie like “Exorcist: The Beginning,” which exists solely to rake in cash during its opening weekend and settle into a long shelf-life in the DVD hereafter.

As it happens, the DVD release will be more interesting than the theatrical one if, as floated in Variety, it includes the version of this prequel shot by the director Paul Schrader. Mr. Schrader was fired from the project on grounds that his prequel was not scary. Mr. Schrader, in turn, had replaced the film’s initial director, John Frankenheimer, who died during preproduction.

All this background noise, alas, turns out to be more interesting than what has managed to finally make it on to the screen. Written by Alexi Hawley, who was brought in to revamp William Wisher and Caleb Carr’s earlier screenplay, “Exorcist: The Beginning” opens centuries ago with a priest stumbling through a landscape littered with bloodied corpses and the writhing bodies of the soon to be dead. From there it’s a fast cut to Cairo circa 1949, where amid the putatively exotic third-world sights and sounds the Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard sits in a bar wearing the rumpled white suit and anomie of a B-movie hero. This world-weary traveler is, of course, Merrin, the same character played by the Swedish actor Max von Sydow in “The Exorcist,” but now without the sanctity of the priestly collar.

What ensues essentially conforms to the movie horror manual, though the production does benefit from the talents of the Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who has given the film a nice nicotine-stain patina. Wrapped in this burnished orange glow, Merrin, having taken a mysterious assignment, creases his brow and tries to discover what a Catholic church is doing buried in the sand in northern Kenya (actually Italy’s Cinecitt� Studios), which is where most of the film’s 117 draggy minutes play out. Along for the ride are the usual movie suspects, including a beautiful doctor with peek-a-boo d�colletage and a fondness for late-night showering (Izabella Scorupco), a young priest straight from the Vatican (James D’Arcy), a helpful local with a bull’s-eye fixed to his forehead (Andrew French) and various other sacrificial lambs, including children, all of whom are lovingly skewered with graphic detail.

Despite the body count and Mr. Harlin’s reliance on shock cuts and loud noises, “Exorcist: The Beginning” singularly fails to deliver any palpable shivers. Perhaps more expectedly, given the torturous production history and the unceremonious introduction of the movie (the studio didn’t screen the film for critics until the night before it opened), it does afford the occasional and presumably unintended laugh. Still, despite the risible dialogue, the bulging eyeballs, the heaving bosoms, the digitally rendered hyenas and squirming maggots, the movie fails to achieve the status of the instant camp classic. That’s partly because the vibe of the film is too torpid. It simply doesn’t have the buoyancy of camp, but mostly because it’s deeply unpleasant to watch children, even fictional children, murdered on the altar of greed. Thrills rarely get cheaper or more loathsome.

‘’Exorcist: The Beginning” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) for graphic bloody violence, including images of young children being shot and torn apart by animals.

Yu Zhenhuan’s claim to fame for now is that he is the hairiest man in all of China. Hair covers 96 percent of Yu’s body. The 26-year-old Yu is candid and unembarrassed about a condition that has made him a phenomenon in China since he was born.
A stringy black fuzz mats every inch of his lanky frame, save for the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. And Yu has chosen to make use of his unique physical appearance, placing photos of himself on his Web site www.maohai.com — or Hairboy.com — as part of a drive to land a recording contract and become China’s newest rock star. He recuperated in a hospital ward from ear surgery. He had the operation in Shanghai recently to remove hair that was impeding his hearing, doctors said.

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Is there some recent change to Blogger’s software? Yesterday and today all the text I’m quoting seems to be filled with characters like %3F %2F %0D%0A for spaces, commas, quotes, etc. Annoying!

In Nanaimo bars are superstars — who knew the San Francisco Chronicle presents dramatic evidence of the impact of globalization.

Some requests seem like a long shot but we give them a try anyway. That’s what we thought about a recent message seeking a recipe for Nanaimo Bars. We were wrong — very wrong. By e-mail and snail mail recipes and anecdotes started pouring in almost as soon as The Exchange ran two weeks ago. It seems that this cookie created in the pretty port city that is the gateway — by ferry or air — to Vancouver Island off the west coast of British Columbia has become a Canadian icon. We received about four dozen recipes. Not bad for a long shot. All the recipes from various sources are similar though some involve uncooked eggs which some cooks don’t like to use. So we are going with the recipe from a Canadian cookbook. The Complete Canadian Living Cookbook - Random House, which Judith Miller copied for The Exchange. Thanks to her and all the other contributors — including one who copied a recipe printed on a souvenir dish towel.

I got my most recent Verizon Wireless bill - it covered a period where I was travelling in Vancouver, and so there were so roaming charges. All I saw was a total - no info about how many calls, when, to whom, etc. I was quite surprised since the last time I had any actual usage charges on my bill (i.e., since before I signed up for one of those plans that is nationwide long-distance all inclusive etc.) there was a lot of detail available just for verification, etc.

I knew I could get that info via the website, but man, it takes a long time to go to the computer, find the site, remember your password, get the bill, go to the detailed page. Versus just looking quickly while you have the bill in your hand? A pain! I decided to write Verizon - this shouldn’t surprise anyone, I guess. I figured if they get enough complaints, they might think about changing it back.

I could not be more surprised by the response:
The wireless phone number referenced does not currently have Detailed Billing. With this feature you will have the ability to view information about each call. Once this feature is added, this information will be available on the paper copy of your bill.

Detailed Billing costs $1.99 monthly per line with your calling plan.

Wow! Verizon wants to charge me $1.99 PER MONTH to get information about what it is they are billing me for? So, I have to pay for the services and then I have to pay extra for the info about the services I’ve paid for? As if anyone really thinks they could spin “billing” into a value-add. It was rather disheartening to read that response - the sheer chutzpah of a company asking me to pay extra for information in the bill - information, incidentially, that they used to provide for free. I imagine the prime target is people who need to bill the detailed info for the calls back to their clients or employer and so it’s a business expense. But they’ve manufactured a product-to-charge-for out of something that is just basic customer service.

I guess it really reveals something about where companies like Verizon are at - despite their reputation as the best coverage and customer service, they really are operating like greedy bastards who know they have the power.

The Unofficial Borat Homepage - NICE! I like!

Calbee has relaunched its Sweet Potato and Red Bean Granola with a new package after good results from last year’s campaign. The new cereal includes roasted brown rice, oats, sweet potato, red beans and pumpkin seeds that contain a lot of fiber and iron. It goes well with either hot or cold milk.

In a recent post I described some problems I was having with getting into various Wells Fargo online sites for our mortgage account. So today when someone wrote me with a question about that site, I wondered if it came from that posting, but they indicated they got my info when they tried to log on.

I’d read (but can not find any of the articles) a few months back about university registration websites revealing data from previous users when new people would come to the site - the fields you’d be filling in would actually be already filled in with someone else’s data. Is this happening to me, now?

From: Nwriter7@aol.com
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 17:06:57 EDT
Subject: i tried too (lol)
To: steve@portigal.com

I just wanna know where do you get started to set up your account to pay your bill each month? Can you help? I’m getting kinda teed off now, and bill is due. I’m about ready to pay the $20.00 fee for telephone payment now.

Thanks for help
Elizabeth

Ps i got your info.from trying to get into EBPP.WellsFargo.Com/MortgagePay

I wrote back
I don’t understand - did you find my entry on chittachattah.blogspot.com or did you find something else?

and this disturbing response
From: Nwriter7@aol.com
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 18:33:01 EDT
Subject: Re: i tried too (lol)
To: steve@portigal.com

i found it on wells fargo site. i’m in now. thanks for responding though.

I’m in disbelief, but also frustrated at the AOLish response - not too much info, not particularly good at communicating the specifics of a complex situation by email.
I followed up:

Sorry to bug you - but you found MY info on the Wells Fargo site? How did that work? Is my info coming up when you try to log in?

and they responded
From: Nwriter7@aol.com
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 18:38:24 EDT

Yes, it comes right up. Funny huh

Well, it’s not funny at all.

I found a computer security forum and post the story here, but the only response is from someone who doesn’t seem to have dealt with the situation very well and then turns into a cranky complaint about mortgage rates.

I’ve written Wells Fargo, but not heard back. I’m fairly certain I’m going to get a brainless response explaining how to log onto their site or something. I’ve written a local columnist who follows privacy and security issues at local companies. Any other ideas?

In an earlier post I vented spleen about a gross ad; today Stuart Elliot responds to a reader with a similar reaction…

A Reader Asks: Has anyone other than me written to you to voice his or her gastric horror over the new Pepto-Bismol commercial? It shows five office workers doing a “macarena-esque” dance while moving their hands to act out the five body maladies that Pepto allegedly helps, including diarrhea.

Unlike the product itself, the spot is stunningly tasteless. But in a perverse way, it may actually help sell the product, as it upsets my stomach every time I see it.

Two words: Pepto-Abysmal.

Stuart Elliott: Dear reader, you are the first to weigh in on the television commercial, which was created for the maker of Pepto-Bismol, Procter & Gamble, by Publicis Worldwide in New York, part of the Publicis Groupe. The spot, in which the five dancers act out the symptoms the product is meant to treat - diarrhea, heartburn, indigestion, nausea and upset stomach - is called “Lineup,” and promotes a new cherry flavor of Pepto-Bismol.

And as you deduced, dear reader, the commercial may indeed be actually helping to sell the product. The trade publication Advertising Age reports that Procter believes a recent increase in dollar sales for Pepto-Bismol is largely a result of the commercial, which began appearing in January. There are even plans to create radio versions of the TV spot, featuring the hip hop artist known as Biz Markie