The O.J. Bar Is Closed

Donald Westlake, a prolific author considered one of the most successful and versatile mystery writers in the United States, has died. He was 75. (More...)

Donald E. Westlake was a great writer because he went from the gritty Parker to the comedy of Dortmunder with apparent ease. Fifteen of his stories were turned into movies, including Payback, The Hot Rock and Cops and Robbers. His screenplay for The Grifters earned him an Oscar nomination (which almost makes What's the Worst That Can Happen forgivable).

I passed Jimmy the Kid and The Hot Rock to my kids to read, the same way that I got the books from my Dad.
Dortmunder and his crew saved the O.J. in Watch Your Back. The single bare bulb hanging over the table in the back room is off now.
G'night, Rollo.

Order it from chapters.indigo.ca

It'd only be fitting if Westlake's funeral procession went up Rockaway Parkway and across Eastern to Grand Army Plaza, then right up Flatbush to the Manhattan Bridge. Traffic will be light on Third Avenue at 79th, especially compared to the West Side Highway. Get Real will be released in April.

Tags: [Donald E. Westlake]
[The Parker Series] [The Dortmunder Series]

Do Not Create False Drive Thrus

A recent survey showed that more Americans can accurately list the ingredients in a Big Mac than recall the ten commandments.

In a study of 1000 people, 80% correctly identified the seven elements of the Big Mac; less than 60% remembered 'thou shalt not kill'. Read more...

The survey was completed at the request of the producers of the animated movie The Ten Commandments (Oct. 19).

Kelton Research also found that "survey participants had an easier time remembering the names of the six children on the old TV series 'The Brady Bunch.' "

Imagine how much more dismal the results might have been if Moses hadn't dropped a tablet, reducing the commandments from 15 to ten!

Tags: [Ten Commandments]   [Big Mac]   [Kelton Research]
[The Bible]   [McDonald's]
[Mel Brooks]   [History of the World Part II]

Very Random. Mother Approved.

Use of hurt(2); breast(1)

Mingle² - Online Dating

Dammit! If I swear a little more or reference some body parts then maybe I can get a PG Rating and draw a larger audience!

Too bad the rating is only available with a link to the dating site.
Note: No diligence performed on the dating site. The link to the site is part of the code to display the sticker. I can't get the Rating Sticker without providing the link.

MPA (Canada)

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Tipped to the site by H.

Tags: [Motion Picture Association] [Copyright Use]
[Blog Ratings]

Silent Treatment

Recently, I hooked up with Yahoo!^®'s online radio service, LAUNCHcast. Michelle found Yahoo!^® radio 2 years ago and claims that her personal station is the coolest around, but that's just because she hasn't heard mine.

It's not just an online radio station, it's a personalized and customized station.

The listener suggests some artists whose music he likes. LAUNCHcast starts with that and then suggests music by similar artists to add to the station. The listener rates the new music, from Don't Play it Again through to Can't Get Enough, and more music suggestions follow. The more ratings you provide, the sharper the tuning of the playlist. What you end up with is continuous streaming of music that you like.

Today, in protest of changing royalty rates, online radio stations are off the air. According to the Savenetradio Coalition "the future of Internet radio is in immediate danger."

The Copyright Royalty Board decided to increase the royalty fees paid by radio webcasters between 300 and 1200 per cent and make the increases retroactive to January 2006. (MSN Music, June 2007)

Web radio offers promotion to the artists, the same as land-radio. Online listeners are more loyal to their artists and the personalization feature of web radio generates tight market targets. Why wouldn't you want that?

In the U.S., terrestrial radio doesn't currently pay the artist for a spin. Webcasters have been paying 7/100^ths in digital performance royalties for their spins. We want that.
I absolutely believe that artists deserve to be paid for their work. That's why I pay for music instead of downloading it from a P2P site. Webcasters are paying royalties that land radio is not. It's pretty unclear to me the justification of an increase of 300%- 1200%.

Today, I'm craving radio.

"Do you believe in Rock and Roll?
Can music save your mortal soul?" - Don McLean, American Pie (1971)



Read RAIN for a better explanation of the changes and their impact on webcasting.


[Savenetradio] [Don McLean]
[LAUNCHcast] [Radio and Internet Newsletter]

Fluky Tidbits

Christopher Buckley's
Latest Lampoon
Blogger Cassandra Devine introduces Voluntary Transitioning as the solution to the U.S. Social Security crisis as Baby-Boomers retire.

Buckley's satire is based on this:
In 1950, 16 workers' contributions to Social Security in the U.S. funded one retiree.
In 2032, it is projected that only 2 workers will fund a Social Security beneficiary. (MacLean's June 18, 2007)

Cassandra's suggestion includes incentives to Boomers who volunteer to die at retirement age. It's ridiculous (isn't it?) to offer euthanasia to a generation in the name of fiscal economics...Watch what happens to Generational Divide after her blog posts.

Scared of the Social Security side of the novel? Then, read Boomsday (Twelve, Hatchette Book Group, 2007) for its secondary characters - the Congressman with Presidential ambitions, the sleazy Chief-of-Staff, the out-spoken Pro-Lifer, the back-room politics...and some of the best lines are given to The President.

Tags: [Boomsday] [Christopher Buckley]
[Social Security] [Political Satire]


It's chilee in Chile

Anyone else find it odd that 47% of traffic to this site originates in the U.S., compared to just 34% from Canada?

The point of this pie-chart is just to point out the 2% of readers from Chile!


[Gideon Payne] [Riley Peacham]

Plus, P. J. O'Rourke

An explanation of Adam Smith's thrilling 3-volumes on the mercantile system and economics...part of O'Rourke's "Books That Shook The World Series".

Even O'Rourke's sarcasm can't dismiss the relevance of Smith's economic theories..more than 200 years after he published them. Let's just say that O'Rourke's interpretation is plenty different than my Econ profs at university!

You just gotta admire that someone read the original 900 pages and offered up such an amusing summary!

Tags: [P.J. O'Rourke] [Adam Smith] [Wealth of Nations]

Go, Go engadget Blog

Want to know the power of a blog?

Yesterday, a popular technology blog, engadget, put Apple investors into a panic.

At 11:49 a.m., the blog featured a post that declared it had information "from a trusted source" that the long-awaited Apple iPhone release would be delayed until the fall. It went on to state that Apple's much delayed new Mac Operating System, Leopard, wouldn't be ready until 2008.

Over the next 6 minutes, Apple stock tanked on massive selling. The sell-off trimmed an estimated $4 billion off Apple's market capitalization value. Market cap is just one indicator of a company's value (shares outstanding x current stock price).

It turns out the email engadget received was fake! Apple quickly notified engadget that the email "did not come from Apple. Apple is on track to ship iPhone in late June and Mac OS X Leopard in October."

engadget retracted the post, but insists the phony email originated at Apple.
Dr. Claw was unavailable for comment.

[engadget] [Tech Crunch]

[iPhone]

[Apple Computer]

[Most Widely Read Blogs]

[Market Capitalization]

[Inspector Gadget]

Breaking News

I'm on the leading edge. Ahead of the game. At the forefront of the news. By extension, so are you, fine readers.

The weekend paper featured information on measuring one's carbon footprint. It discussed offsetting industries. It referenced some of the same information sources I had noted in my earlier post on this topic. Coincidence, you say. Pshaw! Eerily, a particular online carbon calculator was described in one article as "watered-down"; exactly the way I had described it.

Over the past two weeks, measure your carbon shoe size has been among the most popular Google searches to lead a reader to my blog.

Google the phrase 'measure your carbon shoe size' and my post is the #1 result ! That's ahead of the Global Climate Change Research Explorer, a site that summarizes all research on climate change and global warming.

My post about the research on obesity and food addiction was published on this site three full weeks before the papers picked it up.

Stephen Colbert's new ice cream flavor - 10 days ahead of the game, and a month before he brought it to his show!

Luckily, I don't face the same editorial review processes of the print media. I can fill as many or as few paragraphs as I like. I don't intentionally fast-track stories, and I impose my own kind of censorship.

I am my own content editor. Two weeks ago, I chose not to publish a funny Google Maps error, because it just became too mainstream. Sure Google engineer, you swim across the ocean!

Context plays a role in my posts, but not nearly to the same degree as in the legitimate news world - I would never had gotten away with writing about pirated stem cells in the established media.

Want to stay current? Check out the Headline News section in the right side bar. Your choice of 3 news source headlines.

Want to be ahead? Keep reading my blog.


[Earth Day] [Stephen Colbert] [Stem Cell Research]

[Citizens' Media] [Breaking News] [Carbon Emissions]

Rapid-Fire IV : Crossfire

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