Sunday, June 26, 2011

News Tip

So far as I can tell, there is only one good source for nightly news on TV: PBS Newshour. One hour of commercial-free coverage of the top 4 or 5 stories of the day, plus a special report on something. They preview all of this for you in the first 30 seconds, so if nothing strikes your fancy, you turn it off. Also, don't miss Shields & Brooks on Fridays. The best weekly conversation on politics on TV.

As Adam Carolla noted, all cable TV news options are horrors. They are not worth your time. All network TV news shows are lacking in depth (partially due to time constraints) and easily distracted by stupid political stunts. My wife and I were proud to say a few weeks ago that we had no idea who Casey Anthony was. Such is the power of watching PBS Newshour: you can stay blissfully ignorant of incredibly stupid things.

Now, I don't begrudge people watching other news sources. I do think it's a waste of your time, but I also waste my time on things (see: baseball). I just think we should all recognize what's actual informative news and what's just a diversion. I'd really prefer not to be an NPR/PBS San Franciscan who considers people who don't follow what I follow to be inferior. Note the use of the word "prefer"; it is very easy to be sucked into the SF superiority vortex. Patting oneself on the back is a more popular physical activity than yoga here. Thankfully my abundant self-awareness keeps me from such self-congrat . . . shit.

Monday, June 13, 2011

8 Blog Facts, Courtesy of Google Analytics

1. Twice as many visitors use Chrome to visit this blog than any other browser.

2. People spend about 90 seconds on the site.

3. Android and iPad are tied for the most popular mobile means of visiting the site.

4. 80% of visitors use Windows.

5. There are a decent number of French, Russian, and Spanish language visitors.

6. Traffic comes almost equally from my ad and organic search traffic. Clearly the ad is useful!

7. Besides "that's news to me," "bankruptcy" and "google lawyer" are popular search terms that lead one here.

8. That being said, sometimes weirder stuff leads to traffic. Like "91 toyota pickup 38s behemoth" and "any narrative skit for a poor wretched man with biblical lessons to draw as a lost son who finally comes home".

Fun!

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Going to Vegas Tomorrow

A colleague asked today about appropriate Vegas attire for a club. Goodness knows I'm no expert, but the funny thing about Vegas clubs is that shoes are key. They won't let you in with tennis shoes, even nice black ones. Gotta be leather, gotta be fairly nice. You can go jeans, you can go no jacket at most places if you have a collared shirt. But if the shoes could be used to hit a forehand winner, you have no shot of getting in short of paying-off the bouncer.

I know this rule well, as I brought the jacket/Adidas combo 7 years ago to LAX at Luxor. I was on the list for a birthday party that rented out a good part of the club. It didn't matter. Note that I was, and probably still am, too cheap to buy shoes on-the-spot to resolve the situation. I went back to my friend's house.

I half-expect that someday even a jacket and good shoes won't be enough. Some bouncer will tell I don't value the club experience and don't have the face of a clubber (is that what they call them?). "You look ok, but I can tell this is not for you." And homeward I will head.