snatch'd off

I just had an epiphany. Rachel and I watched a British movie, Brassed Off!, a couple weeks back. Not overly memorable unless you can't get enough of the plucky British working class, using their grit and quirky determination to overcome their dour lot (see: The Committments, The Full Monty, et al). Or if you really like marching bands. Or Ewan McGregor's butt.

Anyway, a bit non-speaking player had looked familiar, but I couldn't place him. Two weeks later, my unattended brain figured out that the quiet brute from Brassed Off! was also the slow-witted brute, Gorgeous George, from Snatch. IMDb says both roles were played by a boxer-cum-rugby player named Adam Fogerty. So how about that.

Why this processing power isn't dedicated to important things like world peace or a unified theory is beyond me.

battle of the recycled concepts

If you wanted to find a single show that changed the landscape of television, it might be All In the Family. But that would be boring, so I'll say it was Battle of the Network Stars. In the Good Ol' Days, TV stars were pretty much untouchable icons who played their roles and maybe showed up on Mike Douglas every once in awhile. Then ABC Executives had an epiphany that people might want to see Lynda Carter and Adrienne Barbeau jumping around in swimsuits. But how to make it happen? Ah yes ... the American staple of athletic competition. And thus was born a TV institution that paved the way for reality TV and further entrenched T&A as a viable ratings booster.

In Hollywood, no idea (good or bad) goes uncopied, so we now have, not one, but two new versions of this classic show on the way. The less interesting doppleganger is spat up by Bravo Network. In its continuing bid to alienate its core audience of smart people with taste, Bravo is promoting Battle of the Network Reality Stars. This makes no sense, because there is no cross-over appeal; we've already seen these "stars" in their "real" persona, so the voyeuristic component is mild compared to seeing Farrah Fawcett mucking about in a muddy tug-o-war for the first time. Most of these competitors have already appeared naked in their shows or Maxxim magazine, so the T&A novelty has passed as well. My only curiousity is how they're going to juggle the multitudes of network teams, now that we're dealing with substantially more than the Big Three.

Slightly more intriguing is a movie concept based on the show. According to CHUD, it goes like this:

The film is being seen as a comedic Ocean's Eleven, filled to the brim with comedy stars. The plot would center on a disgraced network executive who must win the Battle to get his job back. Which makes no sense.

So there you have it; two non-sensical interpretations of classic celebrity exploitation. And this time, Robert Conrad won't be around to keep things real.

mini tools

C|Net recently posted a story claiming that the $499 Mac Mini is composed of only $283.37 of parts and manufacturing costs. That's quite a mark-up, although that's always been Apple's game. Whether it's the original all-in-one Mac or the iPod scroll wheel, Apple places (and earns) a premium on design. The Mac Mini, described as "one of the most cutting-edge systems iSuppli has ever dissected," is a nice continuation of that tradition.

But what really caught my eye was a comment orphaned near the end of the article, seemingly tossed in at random:

Analytical teardowns are one of the few jobs at research firms that require pliers.

Obviously written by someone who's never had to deal with fielding vendors.

barfday gifts

The weekend commemorating my aging ephemerality, along with its accompanying mental and physical deterioration, is nearly over. Damn, it's been a good one. Music, movies, stiff drinks, scrumptious food, social interactions both planned and spontaneous, and above all else some quality time with Rachel, all conspired to form a memorable and fulfilling birthday.

One of the highlites of the weekend was a luncheon with Ren & Stimpy creator John K. organized by the Alamo Drafthouse. Since John K. and I were seated at opposite ends of the table, I actually spent most of the lunch talking with Alamo owner Tim League, which was a nice opportunity to meet someone whose labors I greatly appreciate. Alamo chef John Bullington treated us to a fantastic meal featuring crab cakes, duck breast, and LOG for dessert (i.e. a tongue-meltingly rich cake cooked in the shape of a tree stump).

While everyone relaxed and digested the LOG, John K. came around and drew caricatures of each attendee. Drawing is something I used to do a lot of, but it never came naturally. My method was to painstakingly etch, erase, and re-etch slow and exacting lines that ultimately never quite came together how I wanted. But someone like John K. clearly has spent his life drawing from instinct, and he quickly put down a series of caricatures that manage to nail each person's distinct features while retaining a cartoony simplicity. Rachel and I were blown away with the result.

Turns out that there have been a recent spate of John K caricatures posted in other blogs. Two cartoonists have posted a series of sketches that show John K's unique take on various celebrities. The Tom Cruise / Katie Holmes portrait really hits the mark, and most are better than bad ... they're GOOD!

blog readers: UR young, rich, and beautiful

comScore Networks just released a study that attempts to profile the blog audience in much the same way that Nielsen measures TV viewers. comScore's approach is different from the ratings offered by Technorati and others who typically count links in that they are observing online behavior directly through panelists.

Based on the habits of 1.5 million US surfers in Q1, comScore extrapolates the total domestic blog audience to be 49.5 million people, which represents about 30% of the total US Internet population. And they conclude that it's not just any 30% of us, but it tends to be the younger, wealthier, and more connected users who support the blogosphere. Oh, and most importantly, the blog reader is more likely to shop online (51% vs. 39%) and spend more money online ($199 vs. $145) when compared to the average Internet slob.

Fatted calf, thy name is blog reader!

But it's not all peaches and cream for us blogger ilk. As you might expect, readership is highly concentrated among a few blog sites. Only a few sites, such as the freepers, drudge, and fleshbot, drew over a million unique visitors between January and March. Things quickly tail off from there, meaning Joe Blogspot is relegated to a pretty small and segmented audience.

It's also an uphill battle for readers if you're not pitching news commentary or current events. Almost half (43%) of readership flocks to kos, wonkette, and the like, but non-hosted visitation is otherwise highly fragmented among sites that are dedicated to "hipsters" (17% ... is that us?), tech (15%), women (8%), media (8%), and so on. Even further down the food chain you have your multitudes of moblogs, fetishes, and esoteric commentary that compose the vast personal miscellany of blogdom. In other words, the blogosphere is still very much a chaotic landscape of opinion, with relatively few properties that have mass on par with established media.

Blogs are clearly growing, but visitation is only one form of impact; it doesn't address content quality and the subsequent influence on readers or other media. For every big-time scoop that comes from a blog, there are innumerable red herrings or listings that resemble gossip more than news. And then there's the whole incestuous nature of blogging that tends to use inter-site links as a substitute for investigation and thought. There is value in aggregation, but at some point blogs need to be about more than communal head-nodding if we/they are to gain credibility and retain a meaningful audience.

And finally, it's important to evaluate the findings of this study (and any others) based on how it was conducted. The research may be based upon the web trails of 1.5 million users, but these are users who agreed to allow a third party to observe their online usage. comScore, like most market research companies, argue that their panelists "look" like the greater web audience demographically, and they go to great pains to include a wide variety of users in their sample. But no matter how many left-handed dentists or albino gamers you recruit, the nature of the recruiting itself attracts certain types of users who will participate and excludes others who will not.

In general, those who participate are more active and more interested in the Internet, but they also do not object to being "watched." Does this describe you? It certainly doesn't describe everyone who uses the Internet, and that has implications for the results that comScore is reporting. My guess is that their blog visitation estimates are elevated overall, based on an assumption of hightened awareness and surfing behavior of their sample against the general online population. I'm also willing to bet that most of their conclusions that pertain to relative (as opposed to absolute) usage are correct. Even if the overall sample is biased towards increased usage, the relationships observed across users (i.e. between blog readers and non-readers) are likely to hold true for the population in general.

You can read comScore's 11 page report here.

couldn't happen to a nicer site

There are very few big ideas that I could claim to having on my own, regardless of who ultimately got credit for it. I suppose if anyone starts selling a Diet Coke-flavored Pizza I'll have grounds for suit, but the closest I've come otherwise would be Metacritic.

Some movie reviewers offer consistently skewed perspectives. Or more accurately, their ratings are predictably high or low for certain types of movies. If you took a reviewer's entire catalogue, it would be easy to account for the persistent biases in their ratings; you could ratchet scores up or down based on positive / negative leanings, or go even deeper and adjust based on things like movie type, foreign origination, MPAA rating, or the presence of Brendan Frazier. Ultimately, you could create standardized movie ratings that give a "true" critical read across reviewers.

The main hurdle is that many top reviewers do not provide quantified ratings, which means you either exclude those reviewers from consideration, or come up with a process of assigning ratings based on their qualitative review. Hassle > payoff, so I tanked the idea.

Oh, that and I found out that Metacritic already does most of the work. They don't correct for biases or any such nonsense, but they did the tough part of quantifying the top reviewers, which really solves the bias issue because it comes out in the wash if you can consistently average across 25 national reviews. Despite my crushing disappointment and rampant jealousy, Metacritic has become one of my favorite sites.

More recently, they've expanded into ratings for music, games, and books using the same methodology. It's really a handy resource to get a quick read on the critical gestalt for any of those media. The site has apparently been rewarded for its insight and persistent, getting purchased by C|Net. Since I also read C|Net regularly, I suppose this is a good thing. Both sites offer consistently good content, although I'm not sure I see an obvious fit between them. I just hope that the "big money" of C|Net doesn't tarnish the pure heart of Metacritic.

Now if only we could get Paul Tatara in on the deal, things would be perfect.

fat hand on a little bike

One week ago, I got spit over the high side during a motorcycle race. The "high side" may sound like a hip club or urban lingo for artificial enlightnment, but it's an altogether less pleasant thing. While chasing another rider throught the last turn of the last lap, I spun up the rear wheel and broke the back end loose. When the tire re-affirmed its grip, the cock-eyed bike went from sliding to bucking, violently tossing me over the right side.

I landed hard; hard enough that I don't remember anything until I heard the EMTs pestering me with questions. What's your name? Can you feel your toes? Where are you? Can you breathe? What's the date? It was like a concussion / paralysis pop quiz, and I passed with flying colors.

And then came the prerequisite trip to the emergency room, which primarily meant hours of waiting and several inconclusive x-rays. At least I got to watch The Incredibles in between bouts of unconsciousness.

The good news is that nothing showed up on the CAT scan, which might mean I have no brains but more directly that I have no concussion. And while my right hand looks like it's been through the wrong end of batting practice, the ortho at Austin Bone & Joint confirmed that nothing is broken. So now it's a matter of pain management and recuperation.

After a week, it's been incredible to watch the improvement. My hand's gone from 200% normal size to a mere 25-50% swollen. The grip that seemed impossible is now within reach (ugh). And in the ultimate irony, the pain in my wrist has subsided to the point that my shoulder, back, and hip are KILLING ME. But it's all good.

Well, not quite all of it. The biggest healing has to take place between my ears. There's a gaping chasm between when I'm riding in control and when the red mist blocks everything else out. My last two laps were personal best times at TWS, but the lust for competition pushed me over the edge into a the last corner disaster. The exact same thing happened to me in a practice last year when I broke my scapula. In both cases my desire outweighed my skills, and the self-preservation governor got switched off.

Right now, my racing brain is strictly binary where I need to it be a rheostat. I'm not sure how to get that granularity, but it's clearly something that's gotta happen before I turn a wheel in anger again. Good thing I have many weeks to figure it out.