Closing the books
So, I've closed the books on 2005 everywhere except here.
I have been surprised with how frequently I have blogged here. Today is the 11-month anniversary of the brianshrader.com blog, and I believe the 102nd post. I was fairly certain in January 2005 that I'd forget all about the blog within a couple of months, but I've been pretty good about remembering.
We had a big site redesign, but I'm not happy with it. So, look for a new one -- coming soon.
2006 is going to be a year of innovation and delight here at brianshrader.com. This will be the outlet for so much material, in words, pictures, video and sound. "Multimedia joy"is the keyphrase for '06.
To that end, we're bringing back the original slogan from brianshrader.com's inception in 2002 -- "Where fun rarely ceases."
We shall endeavor in 2006 to make that truer than ever in this happy place.
Here's looking at you, kids.
2:24 PM
A thousand cuts
I got a haircut last night, and I feel vulnerable today.
2:02 PM
A great lead
From the AP state wire today:
A part owner of an Asheville insurance agency says he always liked the company president -- at least until the president shot him during a business meeting.
10:05 AM
A dangerous lunatic
I was making copies at Staples this afternoon as a disheveled, 50-ish man groused at the copier next to me. He literally growled at the machine and complained, "Out of f--king staples?!" as he read the display.
He turned around to me (a complete stranger) and said, "This f--king technology! I can't get the g----m, motherf--king thing to work!"
The man obviously was a classless idiot-boob. I pressed two buttons and made his copies.
He grumbled, "Thank you."
I smiled and said, "Merry Christmas."
I then noticed the button he wore on his insulated vest -- "GEORGE W. BUSH IS A DANGEROUS LUNATIC."
Merry Christmas to all -- and to all, a good night.
5:59 PM
Package Shark
4:22 AM
Christmas joy
It was all very nice. We had a great feast and did Secret Santa (Thanks for the cookbook, Secret Santa!).
We did not do "Nasty Santa" -- a phrase I heard for the first time this year to describe the whole stealing-somebody-else's-presents thing. I dislike the phrase. It seems coarse, as does the practice. A Secret Santa program is far superior and more meaningful.
Anyway, fun times at the Big 11.
2:28 AM
Laborious
As it was for Mary, Christmas seems so laborious to me this year.
I have no real desire to participate. It is expensive and tiring. I preemptively apologize to everyone who will be affected by this. Better luck next year.
10:16 PM
Wine and ham
State Sen. Ham Horton, R-Forsyth, is leaving the General Assembly next year. He's got cancer.
Here's a fine passage from the AP story about his decision not to run, and it accurately reflects my view of wine and ham:
When state inspectors shut down sales of sliced country ham at a
Winston-Salem store in 1999, Horton won passage of the Country Ham
Preservation Act to exempt small markets from some meat preparation
rules.
"In the pantheon of North Carolina food, up there with
soft-shell crab and barbecue is bound to be country ham," he said
in a floor speech.
"The older, the better," he said. "The texture, the color,
the odor all come together. The only difference between tasting
wine and tasting ham is that you spit out the wine, and no one has
been known to spit out ham."
8:02 PM
A day that will live in infamy
2:05 PM
Get a pushpin and...
...add yourself to the map!
2:10 PM
The market speaks
Ohhh, I'm feeling my free-market, libertarian oats! Hang on!
So, these newspaper editorial cartoonists are belly-aching about how newspapers are cutting their jobs. Of course, the newspaper industry is stumbling downhill. Circulation is plummeting, revenue is drying -- times are tough.
Apparently, these cartoonists believe newspapers should keep them on the payroll at all costs. They depict themselves as the sole defenders against evil government. Judging from their cartoons about the downsizing, evil rich people who invest in their newspapers are demanding obscene profits, and because the evil rich people want to maximize profit from a business, they are cutting the cartoonists' jobs in an effort to "stifle dissenting voices."
But for the presence of those crucial, daily editorial cartoons buried on the next to last page of your morning paper (What? You haven't seen your local paper's editorial page in several years?! Impossible!), the wheels would come off of the country and we'd all be goose-stepping in time with the Bush Administration in a matter of days.
In the 105 cartoons the artists concocted for "Black Ink Monday," a non-violent protest of evil newspaper corporations getting rid of cartoonists, there are plenty of potshots at capitalism. I can only deduce that the cartoonists:
A: Understand capitalism and simply resent that demand for their services is becoming unsustainable...
OR
B: Do not understand capitalism and believe their important work must supersede the existence of money with which to pay them.
Industries grow, mature and die. Newspapers seem to be nearing death. The work of editorial cartoonists has not died. Thanks to the Internet, there are massive new opportunities -- dare I say, the most in history -- to get your cartoons out to the masses. If you're really good, you can charge money for them, and the free market will support your great ideas. If you aren't really good, the free market will reject you. You'll have to go find something else to do.
So, I left a little message-poo on their comment board. If you don't care to click on the link, read below!
If people found editorial cartooning so desirable and necessary in their lives, they'd continue to buy the newspaper -- but they are buying fewer newspapers.
It has nothing to do with evil corporations stifling free speech, as some of these outrageous cartoons imply. People don't get their news from the paper anymore. That's just the breaks.
Learn Flash and do some animated work. They are popular. People forward dozens of them to me. It's the medium of the age. Use it.
The market is speaking. If there was sustainable demand for your work, the market would respond to meet the demand.
Industries change or die.
Sorry.
11:56 PM
What kids like
A live Webcam is one of the features that supposedly indicates the mall's understanding of "what we kids like." I think this underscores the mall's fundamental misunderstanding of what kids like.
In 1997, a Webcam might have been a curiosity.
In 2005, it is not.
7:42 PM
Bad bellies
I was heartened to read this story.
Pregnant Mom Miffed When Studio Refuses To Take Belly Picture
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Sarah Morgan's Christmas cards were going to be a little different this year -- until she got to the portrait studio.
Morgan is seven months pregnant. To mark the occasion, she wanted a family portrait with her 3-year-old daughter's hands on her swollen belly. She bought a special top that exposed her stomach and made an appointment at a Charlotte studio.
Portrait Innovations said no. Morgan says the people told her they don't take that kind of picture. Company president John Grosso says his studio is very open with people standing and watching, and that some people may be offended.
Morgan's story prompted dozens of angry messages to an online forum for local mothers from moms who pledged to cancel appointments and write the company to complain.
I have long opposed bare pregnant abdomens. I think it's repulsive. I agree with the business on this, not the baby-crazies.
If being "offended" means having a desire for civility in public, then I would be offended.
7:20 PM
Pipeline
I've been impressed so far. It's very raw and unfiltered. The video quality is good. The Pipeline application, which I downloaded, also includes an alerter which will pop up during breaking news. I dislike CNN. It's too boring. But this is only the CNN brand. Pipeline is like having access to the raw feeds.
I like it, and it has me a step closer to canceling cable. Spend 99 cents and try it for a day.
2:05 PM
Rabid Bugs Bunny
11:00 PM
Congratulations
11:30 AM
Life imitates art
Just when you thought KRAP-TV had beaten everyone with "Pinpoint Doppler 40,000" radar, WCBS-TV in New York comes along with Live Doppler 2 Million.
Seriously!
5:26 PM
Enough already
So, John Lennon was shot 25 years ago tonight. Who cares? All of these aging baby boomers are treating it like Easter. Looking at the live feed from the vigil tonight in New York, I just see a lot of bald spots and grey ponytails. Enough with the 1960s. That was a long time ago, and there's very little positive to show for it. Stop being mired in the too-near-to-be-interesting past.
A TV news producer who was injured in a motorcycle accident 25 years ago tonight and treated just outside Lennon's hospital room was interviewed on TV today. He said, "I felt part of my youth was ripped out of me and was lying on the hospital bed and was bleeding to death."
It's just sad that your own youth could be defined in the commercial enterprise of a pop singer. Pop idol worship of any kind is pathetic. But there's something about John Lennon/Beatles worship that's seems especially repulsive to me. I can't explain it, except that it's just a natural revulsion with me.
Anyway, the producer then called his people, who the passed it up the chain -- and eventually Howard Cosell on "Monday Night Football" announced Lennon's death over ABC. The reporter in the story referred to the announcement as "something that changed the course of history."
What?
Enough already.
12/12 UPDATE: After getting some feedback on this, I want to clarify that there's a difference between being a big fan and idol-worship. Being a fan is much different from believing all world history that preceeded him was simply leading up to the manifestation of John Lennon in human form.
8:03 PM
Charming!
Note: In case you didn't know where I worked and now you do, let me emphasize that this site and everything on it has nothing at all to do with them. Period. At all. Nothing.
4:40 AM
12/7 correction
Reportedly heard on KENS-TV in San Antonio, Texas, this morning during the news: "We'd like to make a correction to a story we reported earlier. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor -- not the Chinese."
8:52 PM
Political strategy
The stylized Hillary-face projected on the screens at the fund-raiser seems menacing to me.
8:13 PM
Whole-brain blogging
I received a brochure today from N.C. State University's Continuing Education department, detailing their "Project Management" seminar series.
The seminars include topics like "Whole-Brain Project Management," "Mastering Project Management," "Team-Based Project Management" and "How to Communicate, Influence and Negotiate in Project Management." The fee for each seminar is about $1,300. The cheapest is "Fundamentals of Project Management for Everyone," which will set you back $695.
I was wondering what people did with big projects in the days before $1,300 seminars about the topic. Some major projects that came to mind:
- Writing the U.S. Constitution
- The Civil War
- World Wars I and II
I won't belabor the point.
8:34 PM
Falls Park
12:36 AM
Greenville, SC
As I blogged earlier, I spent Friday night and Saturday in South Carolina. We stopped in lovely Greenville, SC (pop. 56,000). It's a wonderful place with a great downtown area on Main Street.
12:36 AM
Surreal store
12:35 AM
South Carolina
1:57 AM
Lethal enforcers
1:41 AM
KRAP Action News Update
Good news for you KRAP Action News fans...
We're busily working on the next episode and hope to have it produced in a couple of months. E-mail me if you'd like a note when it's ready.
Thanks for spreading the word! And, if you'd like to offer me an anchor position, I'll listen. Eleven years in news! Right here!
11:10 PM
Fox News Alert
My cousin as she appeared while I visited my mother this week.
1:46 PM
Offer expired
It also offers a chance to send in and get a "Mortal Kombat 2" comic book. The offer's expiration date is pictured.
1:45 PM