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photoshop album unlockJuly 30, 2006
the great taco hunt
Wish we'd known about this in time for the last couple trips out to LA, but still happy to have found The Great Taco Hunt, an excellent blog devoted to finding the best Los Angeles area taco stands, which was mentioned in a NY Times story by Cindy Price.
(via Ed Levine, who wants to know if rich people eat tacos.)
Posted by tshey at 06:26 PM
sunday paper reading
In today's NYTimes, apparently Floyd Landis is saying his high testosterone levels may have resulted from a beer or a few shots of Jack Daniel's after stage 16; we read about hipsters, heartbreak, and Latino Goths in the Bronx, and apparently modern Americans would be nearly unrecognizable to their ancestors. There's also an interesting trends piece on youngish professionals hiring teeneage interns for their cache. On the left coast, The LA Times kicks off a weeklong multimedia series on environmental crises in the world's oceans.
Posted by tshey at 11:22 AM
July 26, 2006
Steve Case Is "Sorry" For AOL-TW Merger, Sort Of
I'm torn between thinking former AOL Chairman Steve Case can't apologize enough (maybe he could put it on a button and just wear it all the time) and wondering what anyone gains from it. It might be a different story if the apology came with a refund. Case discussed the AOL-TW merger on "The Charlie Rose Show" Monday night. (Still looking for a linkable transcript.) He didn't just blurt out a confession and it came with a lot of qualifiers, as though Case still can't quite figure out why such a brilliant idea went AWRY; Rose pushed hard for him to acknowledge the failure in direct terms, asking bluntly, "Are you sorry you did it?" Case: "Yes, I'm sorry I did it. I thought it was the best course for AOL to make sure it was ensured a bright broadband future, and as part of that agreed to step aside as CEO. To make sure the deal would happen. And AOL`s broadband future has not been, obviously, what any of us would have hoped."
- "Actually, the idea of the merger, of bringing AOL together with Time Warner, having AOL have access to Time Warner`s broadband infrastructure through cable systems and multimedia content, having Time Warner access to AOL`s expertise in the digital area, made tremendous sense, which is and why when I think when we announced the merger everybody agreed. Obviously after we announced the merger, our stock went up more slowly than other Internet companies. So, there were some who actually criticized me at the time hey thought we made a bad deal. But ultimately what it comes down to is execution. One of the lessons learned, I think is is that (the ) idea is important, but leadership and execution is really... what matters."
- Most of the interview with Rose focused on his new ventures in health care. His entry in the burgeoning online health care field, revolutionhealth.com, is slated for a fall launch.
- Case: "Revolution Health could end up being bigger than AOL in my opinion, if we're successful, just given a nature of that industry." (Insert appropriate merger-related wisecrack.)
this one's for my friends who were at Time Warner companies and I imagine still want to kill this guy. -- ts
Posted by tshey at 09:22 AM
July 25, 2006
where are they now?
coleslaw coleslaw coleslaw coleslaw coleslaw...
great one by amanda, mario, and friends. boy, but do we miss them.
Posted by tshey at 10:14 PM
July 24, 2006
mr. gore goes to wal-mart
The most surprising recent stop on Al Gore's enviro-blitz was not the cover of Wired, or even Entertainment Weekly (although that was pretty awesome), but a rockstar standing ovation at Wal-Mart headquarters from over 800 employees. Grist magazine covered Gore's adventure at the unlikely epicenter of evangelism and environmentalism.
Mid-afternoon brought a screening of An Inconvenient Truth; more than a few audience members could be seen dabbing teary eyes as the documentary drew to a close. Then the entire crowd erupted into a standing ovation when the lights came back on and Gore trotted up to the stage, Tipper in tow."That's a larger round of applause than we gave for Wayne Newton!" joked Scott while introducing Gore, who, in turn, showered the audience with reciprocal cheer: "Doesn't it feel good to have this kind of [environmental] commitment? Don't you feel proud?"
Have you ever felt like you're living in the alternate universe, after the main one went off in the true intended direction? This is where we live now: Earth-Two.
Posted by tshey at 04:04 PM
Bullrun blog
Ever wonder what it's like to see the continental U.S. zoom by in your gorgeous, absurdly expensive car, with only a vague idea of where you're going each day? The Bullrun 2006 blog is laying it out day by day. Damn them, damn them all for daring to play out our inner nine-year-olds' Burt Reynolds-movie, Matchbox-car fantasies.
Posted by tshey at 10:41 AM
July 22, 2006
shey.net asks: kid rock or floyd landis?
Today, we're going to play a little game: Kid Rock or Floyd Landis?
We'll start with a warm-up:
OK, another easy one for you:
Now we'll try to make it a little harder:
Here's another one to try:
I think you had some trouble with those, so let's do another easy one:
And finally, bonus question -- let's see if you can get this one right:
Sorry if you didn't do as well as you hoped, but as you can see, telling these two men apart can be hard. Congrats, Kid and Floyd, you've both had a big week.
Posted by tshey at 02:33 PM
July 20, 2006
nice get, chuck.
Seriously, nice get, Chuck. I hope you don't think this is any big deal.
Posted by tshey at 10:44 PM
youtube+napster
Let's see how many people are comparing YouTube to Napster. Ah, hey, look at that -- quite a lot.
Today's example: last night's great Daily Show piece on net neutrality, already conveniently available for your pleasure, (mostly) ad-free. Thanks, YouTube!
Posted by tshey at 10:40 PM
videoblogs on huffpost
The Huffington Post has begun videoblogging... Check out the third video post to date, where Paul Hipp sings a theme song for George Bush that I really hope will stick.
Posted by tshey at 12:47 PM
July 09, 2006
LATimes on Lance Armstrong allegations
The LA Times today has a detailed report on doping allegations against Lance Armstrong, obtained from confidential records of a contract arbitration earlier this year that was settled in Armstrong's favor.
All the evidence is circumstantial and unverifiable, but is getting added attention now that many of the top riders from last year's Tour were disqualified this year for alleged blood doping, and ratings in the U.S. are down over forty percent. The article has a detailed explanation of how the banned substance, synthetic EPO, works, and discusses sworn testimony and disputed scientific findings that were supposed to be sealed after the proceedings ruled that it could not be proven that Armstrong had used EPO, so he is sure to be particularly upset that he's being tried all over again now in the press.
Posted by tshey at 12:31 PM
July 03, 2006
chaos reigns in the movie biz
Writer and physicist Leonard Mlodinow writes for the LA Times about the role of randomness and chaos -- from a mathematical perspective -- in deciding Hollywood's hits.
Posted by tshey at 01:13 AM
July 02, 2006
choices in underwear
The Washington Post has a funny little article about the way comic book fans typically split between the Marvel and DC houses, with Marvel as the rebellious, Mac-like upstart, DC as the staid, PC-like conservative -- which is perhaps historically accurate, though both companies are now mainly devoted to servicing and trying to find new ways to refresh trademarks more than thirty years old. It also mentions Big Planet Comics, Washington, D.C.'s excellent comic store (certainly better than any in Manhattan), where I overheard plenty of people arguing about such things over the years. I was a Marvel kid growing up, for the record -- I was way into the classic early 80's Chris Claremont run of the X-Men, and didn't care much for DC comics (besides some not-very-DC 80's characters like Blue Beetle, The Creeper, and Booster Gold). But the DC kids didn't seem any more or less cool -- I mean, we were all reading comics, which was a common reason to get beat up, and they had all these great, gritty Batman books even Marvel fans were reading, like The Killing Joke and the one where DC's readers actually voted for Robin to die.
The Post article might be an entertaining read if you didn't know such levels of geekery existed, though thankfully, there are tons more choices in comics now than either company's superheroes, and Big Planet devotes more than half its shelf space to those alternatives. I'm looking forward to getting out to Rocketship in Brooklyn sometime soon, which seems to be the only NYC shop I've heard of so far with a similar commitment to pushing the indies.
Posted by tshey at 11:57 PM
vienna smile stripe
Cory Arcangel has made "a horizontal rule of gif smilies" for the Wein & Co. building in Vienna, which has hosted a series of artists' work in an ongoing Vienna Stripe exhibition.
Posted by tshey at 12:40 PM