Archive for April, 2008
An Open Mid-Life Crisis
Monday, April 28th, 2008
Sometimes it is better to just accept where you are at. That way you don’t pop off and do something stupid.
Truth: I feel old. My weekend beard is shot with salt; sadly, there are no kids; everyone I work with in the office is a decade younger than me; and my wife’s in the middle of a very long six+ month stint in the United Arab Emirates.
All of the sudden things are appearing:
And more is in my head… Like this super-phat Ducati Monster!
Yes, I miss the thrill of watching the looming Shenandoah Blue Ridge develop, then screaming up the mountain on the hairpin curves of Rt. 211 at 60 miles an hour. Whew! It’s been a few years now.
Of course I could just settle for a Harley:
I’m not sure a return to motorcycling is a great idea. But when it really started pre-occupying me, I realized that something was up.
Fact: This seems to be a mid-life crisis. Either that or my creativity is really peaking right now. I’m returning to things that I did when I was single, things that make feel alive. And it’s working. Spring feels vibrant this year like it hasn’t in a long time.
No, I’m not too young, either. In fact, I’m about to be 36, at the younger side of middle agedom, but still there. Best to embrace it openly.
I can’t wait for Caitlin to come home from the UAE.
Popularity: 21% [?]
Posted in Me, Myself and I | 11 Comments »
DC’s Social Media Future
Sunday, April 27th, 2008
Not a lot in the way of show notes from last week’s District of Conversation but we do have the video and the extracted audio is here. This was a lively conversation live from PodCamp DC about DC’s social media future, and it was hijacked by the crowd – a very PodCamp thing to do.
Popularity: 24% [?]
Posted in Podcasts | No Comments »
jetBlue Adds Insults to Injury
Saturday, April 26th, 2008
Adding insults to injury from my bad flight experience on Thursday, last night on the flight back from Long Beach, the outside baggage handler for jetBlue asked me for a tip. Wow! What are you supposed to do, right? have your bag mislabeled and lost.
Then my baggage really was lost in transit to Dulles (somewhere in Oakland). I still have not received my bag, which has my car keys in it, costing me an extra $70 cab ride plus another day of parking. Not to mention the inconvenience.
The one saving grace has been the interaction with @jetBlue on Twitter, who is trying to help me out. We’ll see how he does.
Popularity: 31% [?]
Posted in Rants | 3 Comments »
Boo! jetBlue
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
I booked a flight on jetBlue to Long Beach a few weeks ago. That flight was mis-booked for the 10th. I rebooked the flight and paid an extra fee for at that time. This never occurred as an issue to me, as I have done this before with jetBlue, and actually have done it since then, changing my Monday departure this week to Sunday.
Oh, so wrong.
Today, I was informed that I did not have a flight booked, and would be required to spend $125 on a new ticket. Immediately, I asked for a manager, who was very anti-customer and did not believe me when I told her I had rebooked my ticket. This was in spite of my accompanying ticket back to DC tomorrow night. Really I just was going to magically appear in Long Beach tomorrow for the flight back.
At this point I threatened to blog the experience up and began tweeting furiously. She reacted, then managed to finagle a $50 rebooking fee. How nice. The whip cream cherry on top of the sundae was another chastising for trying to rebook my ticket day of flight, AND getting marked for additional screening by said manager (a supposed result of day of flight changes).
Too bad. I really enjoyed flying jetBlue, but I’ll think twice before booking with them again. And you are talking about a guy who flies every or every other week.
I was screwed by jetBlue.
Popularity: 26% [?]
Posted in Rants | 6 Comments »
What It’s Like to Be a Social Media Rock Star
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
As reported by Social TNT’s Chris Lynn…
Popularity: 22% [?]
Posted in Me, Myself and I, Video | 1 Comment »
Thank You, Hillman Curtis
Monday, April 21st, 2008
“Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all,” Stanley Kubrick… The opening quote in “Hillman Curtis on Creating Short Films for the Web.”
Thank you, Hillman Curtis for your excellent book, Creating Short Films for the Web. It’s so cool to read your book and see how you learned video, then go and watch these fantastic videos on your site. And special thanks to Director Tom for referring me to Curtis.
See, I am walking around these days with a Sony PDX-10 just trying to figure out this video thing. It’s really hard, yet incredibly exciting. Since my book came out, I’ve been in a whirlwind of blogging and speaking… Yet though I am a writer, blogging has lost a lot of soul for me.
Off Hours has helped. But really it’s video that has re-ignited my creativity like a dying fire that three new logs thrown it with a healthy does of kindling, too. Reading Creating Short Films was the kindling. The fire blazes now. There’s joy and excitement to go out and learn film. It feels like Spring, not only in the air, but in my veins. Blood rushes when I think about writing a script, imagining a shot, or learning how to edit.
The book came at the right time, too. With all the hub bub from folks like Loren Feldman, Matt, and even my buddy Ike Pigott about how amateurs shouldn’t even pick up a camera. I was starting to feel a bit afraid.
This June I am taking a class on how to make a two-three minute feature that’s being given by the American Film Institute. Now, after reading Creating Short Films it is my hope to put together a real college try or two before the class. Perhaps I’ll try a couple of portraits like Curtis’s “The Visitors” series.
This week I am at NewComm Forum and I intend to really start figuring out this camera and what it can do. Fortunately, “New Media” Jim Long will be there, too. I hope to pick up some tips. I need to go buy a boom mic, too.
It seems fitting to end this post with Hillman’s first words in the conclusion: “I write a lot about the importance of reinventing oneself as an artist. It’s the path I’ve followed, and it’s part of the deal…”
Popularity: 21% [?]
Posted in Video | 3 Comments »
Nationals Stadium Leaves You Feeling Empty
Saturday, April 19th, 2008
Well, the team is horrible. Let the fire Bowden meme begin, he certainly deserves some blame after three+ years of ineptitude. Yeah, Austin Kearns. Wow. But perhaps even more disappointing is the new Nationals stadium (image by StunningMonochrome).
Yes, it’s get every amenity, including funky corners in the outfield. The seats are great offering outstanding views throughout. Standard amenities, Build-a-Screech workshop, Five Guys and Hard Times, even a place to play Guitar Hero. Another thing of note is the huge scoreboard.
But the ballpark has no soul.
Sorry, I’ve been to enough ballparks to know. New ones like Camden Yards, PNC Park the Jake (yeah, I won’t call it anything else) and AT&T park are all superior. Even the second tier of newbies like Coors Field, Tiger Stadium Citizen Bank Park are better than this. Let’s not even get into Wrigley or Fenway.
The problem is the lack of character. It’s supposed to be a ballpark, not a bad rip-off of a second tier Cooperstown museum. The painted all stars from yesteryear just show that the city doesn’t have any baseball nostalgia of its own. And the reflection of Washington in the architecture is just bland. Maybe that facade is an accurate depiction of a federal building.
In short, Nationals Park is a functional place to entertain someone for a few hours, but no place to stir your soul. As bad as RFK was, at least it had a sense of fun to it. I miss that old dump.
Popularity: 33% [?]
Posted in Sports | 1 Comment »
Apple Mania: I Don’t Get It
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
I just bought my first MacBook Pro. It’s my fourth turn as an Apple user (IIe, iMac original, iBook), this time so I could get my hands on better software for video editing.
Here’s the thing. It’s beautiful, sleek and pimping. Definitely a trophy PC (Image by Steve Parker).
But when it comes to actual function, well, I find it lacking. In most cases it’s oranges to oranges, which for twice the price does not mean much to me… For example, this post is being written in MarsEdit, the Mac version of LiveWriter. It’s just not as good, making blogging harder. Email is the same. Office, well it’s Office.
There are some advantages. OS X rocks, and is much faster and more stable than Vista. But for all of the knocks, I do like Vista (once it finally boots up). And I keep finding myself migrating back to my Dell. That will change as I migrate my Dell to the office (in turn, surrendering the current work Dell to our newest employee, person X) and this becomes my full-time home PC.
In the end, twice the price for video capes, basically, sexy packaging, and membership in the uber-apple fan club. Ah yes, to be part of a fan club with a master that doesn’t listen and doesn’t participate in the conversation. It reminds me of when I owned a Road King. All Harley riders gave respect (and a surprising amount of female attention, too), but the bike wasn’t all that.
OK, fine. But I’m not doing it again anytime soon. The trade-offs aren’t worth it.
As an educated consumer with experience on both sides of the equation, Dell keeps me as a customer. Because dollar for dollar, metal packaging ain’t worth it. It’s like slapping a Caddy badge on a Chevy.
This is particularly true on the business front. See we do laptops at Livingston, and you can’t do a 15-inch laptop with Apple for less than $2k BEFORE software. To get a reasonably priced MacBook regular, you have to suffer with a 13 inch screen. Nice way to force MacBook Pro purchases. That means a no go. It’s just not a smart economic decision for a better, but not vastly superior OS.
And another factor against Apple… They’ll never know I wrote this, because they won’t play in social media. That tells me Apple doesn’t care.
Popularity: 14% [?]
Posted in Me, Myself and I | 6 Comments »
Calling All Rock Superstars
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
Rare is the music video worth sharing. This happens to be one of them. Cypress Hill and Velvet Revolver do “Rock Superstar.” Only in LA.
Popularity: 15% [?]
Posted in Video | No Comments »
District of Corruption Episode 15: Loren Feldman a Shock Jock?
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
Kicking off Episode 15 with an announcement that Aaron is one of April’s sexiest geeks.
Then we got into the show with a discussion surrounding the AOL acquisition of Sphere. Sphere provides a widget that pulls related content from around the web. Aaron doesn’t like AOL so, on principle, he removed the Sphere widget when this announcement was made.
Then, a long discussion about Loren Feldman and his puppet disparaging of Shel Israel with sock puppets.Aaron notes that Loren creates conversation in his own way and he has a whole body of work for context. I framed the opposing view around the concept of “shock jock” – probably a fitting analogy. Aaron notes that shock jocks are effective, and notes that Loren has done the same thing to Jason Calacanis and to this day, Calacanis and Feldman are good friends. I thought Loren was just one messed up dude (note: I used harsher language in this podcast).
Caller Jim Turner calls in for Macbook Pro advice. /methinks he called the wrong show but we gave him Flip4Mac hat tip nonetheless. 
Jim weighs in on Loren, as well. Agrees to the shock jock analogy, but doesn’t take offense. He groks the message Loren sends. From chat, a users asks, “If I’m in business and reading Twitter, why should I engage Loren in business?” I totally agreed with this guy.
Aaron admits that he wishes Loren would take a stab at him, and also wants to be on Valleywag. Sado-masochist, apparently. I personally could avoid such events, though I probably earned my own puppet mimicry the way I ranted.
Announcing, also, that we will be doing a live 45 minute recording of District of Corruption (Episode 16) at Podcamp DC. We will be on Blog Talk Radio at 3pm ET on Saturday, April 19. There will be no Tuesday show next week.
Caller Phil Bundy calls in to say hi.
Aaron rants about distributed content, a story that many people are talking about including Brian Solis. Content is increasingly distributed. Get over it!
Popularity: 34% [?]
Posted in Podcasts | 2 Comments »
