Sunday, January 30, 2005

Crosswords for JAPS

I was sitting today with my wife and kid at our local Coffee Bean Shop enjoying a cool Ice Blended in the beautiful California sunshine. One of my favorite things to do in these times is the crossword puzzle, and now with family, I can make it an group activity. That was, until today.

Clue: Six letter word, starting with an "R" -- "A Way Overpriced Item"
My Wife's Answer: "Retail."

Looks like it's just me and the puzzles for a little while....

Drunk Dialing

Ever get a message from someone who's obviously had too much to drink and decided to reach out and touch someone? Well, my friend Bret found this little gem of technology-gone-wild.

Slackertown

WARNING- Some items contain material not appropriate for the wee ones.

Research vs. Action

As I have mentioned earlier, I have decided to begin another book. Throughout my days (and sometimes at night), I come across pieces of characters or plot points that somehow will fit into the grand scheme -- though, at present, I have absolutely no idea how.

Some writers begin the process by just sitting in front of a computer or piece of paper and getting the thoughts out; others take time to research and structure each piece, and don't put finger to key until it's all laid out.

I find myself in a battle between the two. There's a part of me that just wants to jump in and start telling the story from the beginning, without having an idea of where it's going or how it's going to get there; in fact, not even an idea of where the beginning is. Then there's the other side of me that wants to get all the chacters and facts straight and have a structured plan of action to lead me through the process. The latter certainly appears to be the safer route, though perhaps not the most enjoyable or productive.

I find myself in this predicament in other areas of life. I'm not sure if our society has contributed to a need for validation-before-action, but I certainly see its evidence all around. On the Internet we have "users opinions", Ebert and Roeper have practically bought a small nation sharing their feelings about movies, and advertising leads us toward a sense of common choice and security, all the while selling a few items along the way.

I'm not so sure that this approach is good for us or our country. With the threats of foreign competition and terrorism, we have spent so much time on research and positioning in an effort to give ourselves a sense of structure and security. In fact, we have lost a sense of who we are. We lack an overall vision that comes not from testing, but from instinct.

But can we trust that instinct? What if it leads us down a path of failure? What if it draws attention to the fact that we didn't really know where we were going or how we were going to get there? Well, I guess that would make us unique -- and human.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Sick Serenity

My son has a cold. Runny nose, red eyes, drooling everywhere. He's in good spirits, but at 10 last night he woke up all stuffed up, eyes puffy slits, nuzzling into my shoulder. Even with the lights out, I could see his face alternate between expressions of pain, as if he was being pinched - to calm and complete relaxation.

In this moment, at such peace, rocking slowly back and forth in my chair, Daniel Lanois and Emmylou Harris' song "I Love You" floated into my head. Hypnotic swells of intensity and feeling washed away any conceived beliefs of what was important and replaced them with nothing - and everything. A moment of pure clarity.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Whole Paycheck

Many of you may know of Whole Foods Markets. For those who don't, they are an upscale "organic" grocery store. Their mission statement: "to sell the highest quality foods we can find at the most competitive prices possible." More on this later.

They also have changed the idea of a deli counter from globs of mayonnaise potato salad to "tangy sesame-crusted salmon."


But wait, they're just getting started: "With each new store or renovation, we challenge ourselves to create more entertaining, theatrical, and scintillatingly appetizing Prepared Foods Departments." Now, I must say that I have, more than once, picked up a Thai Rotisserie Chicken and some Grilled Artichokes from the "PFD," but isn't it a bit pretentious and a tad antithetical to talk about organic food and theatrical, entertaining presentation in the same sentence?

Still, I could shop in a slightly confused, glitzy supermarket that doesn't know it's a supermarket if they had fresher lettuce than my local Ralphs (and they do; in fact, the dumpster behind the Burger King has fresher lettuce than Ralphs), but there's something else that's pissing me off.

Wild Oats is another organic market that was moving into L.A. around the same time as Whole Foods. They made a killer Sonoma Turkey Wrap and always seemed like they really cared about the community. Their stores were not as "entertaining" as WF, but I always had the feeling that the food there was fresh and organic, like a neighborhood grocer. I never thought of them as a supermarket.

Over the years, WF opened in many of WO's neighborhoods and, slowly drained customers away from there stores. In fact, at first glance, you can see how Whole Food's business acumen has propelled them to new dizzying heights while Wild Oats closes checkout lines due to fewer shoppers. (Whole Foods income last year was 137 million on 3.8 billion in sales; while, Wild Oats had a loss of $2.5 million on sales of 1 billion.)



I have another theory why Whole Foods is doing so well. I walked in today to get some cookies for everyone at the office. They looked really good, all brightly lit and laid out on their little shelves. Price: $1.50 Not even Bob Barker could announce that without a chuckle. For $1.50, I want my cookie to mate with other cookies and make little morsels. I want them to heat themselves in the toaster and invite their friend Mr. Milk over for a play date. I mean, come on.

It doesn't stop with the cookies. Sandwiches start at $6.00 for a slice of turkey on an over-sized roll. Sushi starts at $6.50 for a sliver of fish. Don't even get me started on the meats.

Point is, if you have a neighborhood market near you with friendly employees and good, fresh items (and even some mayonnaise potato salad), visit them instead of a hip place trying to sell you more than just food.

You'll feel better for it.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Steve Jobs


jobs
Originally uploaded by loomiswatoosi.
Funny what 20 years does to a man.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

High Def and Changing TV

After 3 service calls by directv (where I had to tell them how to solve the problem) and 2 messy visits by me under my house stringing RG6, I finally have HD working full-tilt with all of my local (free) channels. I have a few observations:

1) HD is as significant a development in TV-land as stereo was in radio-land. It's not just that the picture is better. It's that the experience is better. M and I were watching "Chefs Afield" on KCET-HD and one of the hosts picked up a head of butter lettuce in a beautiful field. It looked so good it actually got me craving food. They then cut to a kitchen, where the same woman was grilling a steak. I could taste the garlic, chili pepper flake, olive oil spread she was basting over the meat. It didn't look like TV -- the image skipped by that part of my brain and attached itself to a strange sense of reality.

2) HD has changed the types of programs I watch. We were a Tivo family before HD came along, and though I love the ability to pick WHAT I want to watch WHEN I want to watch it, there's something magical about giving up control to someone (or something else) and discovering something new. Of course, this flies in the face of most market research clustering and quantitative equations. It also flies in the face of my current business venture, but that's for another day. Let's just say that when I finally do get an HD Tivo (perhaps when the price comes down from the current $1,000 robbery), I'll be both happy and sad.

3) HD has made me really wonder how George Kennedy ever got away with doing a love scene in Airport 79.


4) HD (and digital TV) will be THE next big technology, especially for the Hispanic population in the U.S. Forget about all of the crazy concepts out there, this one makes sense.

5) Bikini Destination and NFL football: I dare not say more, except that I probably would never watch these shows regularly (well, maybe BD, once...or twice).

6) The quality of HD will lead to a renaissance. It reminds me of an old Walt Disney quote from the 50's: "It is a curious thing that the more the world shrinks because of electronic communications, the more limitless becomes the province of the storytelling entertainer."

Thursday, January 20, 2005

CPR (Completely Paranoid Response)

Just got back from a baby CPR class. I never realized how many different ways there were to damage my child.



Tomorrow I'm going to pick up some baby football gear and a plastic bubble like John Travolta had. That should do it.

New Page

I've moved the blog to http://watoosi.blogspot.com. Easier to read to people.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Customer Service and the Bottom Line

I've dealt for years with computer and technical support departments, probably wasting days of my life on hold. Now I know how they say that India will overtake the U.S. because of their schooling and attitude, but I'm not so sure given the chat below with Linksys' technical support. I contacted them because of a problem with a wireless router.

Hi, my name is Legayada, Rodney. How may I help you?
lou: did you get the description of my problem?
Legayada, Rodney: Yes
lou: sounds like a hardware issue. Problem does not occur with ethernet connection, only on wireless side
Legayada, Rodney: Okay
Legayada, Rodney: What router are you using?
lou: hello?
Legayada, Rodney: Did you see my question?
lou: yes.
lou: i am using a BEFW11s4 v.4
Legayada, Rodney: Have you tried upgrading the firmware of the router?
lou: yes. i upgraded to the most recent version...twice. i also did a hard reset.
Legayada, Rodney: Have you forced your card to G?
Legayada, Rodney: I mean to B?
lou: do not have that option with this card. Have tried with other B card and it works.
lou: are you looking something up? i don't see a response to my last comment
Legayada, Rodney: Try adjusting the rate.
Legayada, Rodney: of the card
lou: i just told you i can't adjust the rate of the card. it is a macintosh airport extreme card
lou: have tried adjusting rate of the router
lou: works perfectly fine with another one of your 54 routers
Legayada, Rodney: That's all we can do for the router. I suggest you check out with MAC what other properties you can configure with the card. There's no problem with the other wireless connection.
lou: i would suggest that there is a HARDWARE failure with the router since it was working perfectly well with the MAC and then did not. Please give me a case ID for RMA. this is not a problem with the MAC card. It is a problem with the LINKSYS router
Legayada, Rodney: But it works with another card right?
lou: it connects with another computer that has an 802.11b card in it, but it still drops the DHCP IP
Legayada, Rodney: Have you done a firmware upgrade?
lou: have you been reading our chat? I did it twice.
Legayada, Rodney: With the modem connected while upgrading?
lou: both connected and disconnected
Legayada, Rodney: For you to speed up the process of your RMA, try calling us 18003267114 and ask for RMA for your device. They will be giving you a case number at the end of your conversation
lou: I thought we were having a conversation. Can't you give me a case number?
Legayada, Rodney: Thank you for chatting with us
lou: i will be sending a copy of this chat to your customer service department. You have wasted 30 minutes of my time.
Legayada, Rodney: disconnected
 
 

Monday, January 17, 2005

Desperate Mommies

Marsha and I went to the Nook Bistro with John, Susan (soon to discover the joy of the Rice Cooker) and Courtney. Pretty good food in a bare-bones space. Fried Calamari with a Wasabi dipping sauce was great -- Slow-cooked Ginger Brew Pot Roast good as well.

Marsha knows the girls from the Baby Group she goes to. John and I are the "husbands," but we also get along pretty damn well, having had plenty of time to talk at such events.

When I was a kid, we talked about skateboards, Pacman or Wacky Packs. Apparently, girls talked about other things. In fact, I am utterly convinced that women not only talk about different subjects, but they actually speak at a different frequency -- kinda like dolphins. Men hear them talking about babies and work and such, but when a group of 3 or more get into their communal catty comments about other women (meeee-ooooww), my eyes start to glaze over at the speed and efficiency of their pointed attacks and I believe they're actually sending ancient messages of death and destruction meant to wipe out rival cave-chicks from other clans. Makes "Desperate Housewives" look like the airplane version of "Bambi."

Of course, I could be wrong.



A New Chapter

I'm starting another book. It's been 13 years since I wrote the first one and I find myself thinking more and more about the current subject matter. It seems to weave in and out of my thoughts, my conversations and my dreams. Technically, I'm quite rusty, and I do wonder if I'll be able to capture all of the nuances and get them on the page in a way that is real and engaging.

We'll see.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Rice is Nice

I like rice -- with Chinese food, in Sushi -- give me a bowl with a dash of soy sauce, some sliced ginger and some toasted sesame seeds on top and I'm good for the afternoon. So, I was quite excited when a Japenese gentleman from Toshiba told me about the fuzzy logic rice cooker. Now I'm not a lazy person, but I always thought a rice cooker belonged behind the bar at Sushi House -- that is, until I got this as a present.


The Panasonic SR-MM10ns is quite simply, the sweetest piece of equipment in my kitchen (next to the Solis 70 Espresso maker). Clean the rice, pour in some water and with the press of a button, you've got fluffy, soft, yet meaty rice in 20 minutes.

Even better, Marsha, whom Julia Child once referred to as a "a personal scar on the face of the culinary arts" (but is getting much better) has figured out how to make 1-dish meals with the thing. She throws all the ingredients in and when she pops the top open, out comes a masterpiece. It's dinner ala Jetson's. Tomorrow I think we're having "Steamed Chicken Breasts with Warm Mango Sauce and Coconut Rice." Move outta the way, Jean-George, my wife's in the kitchen.

If Microsoft Made Pens

I attended a Microsoft event in October where they gave out promotional swag, including a cute little pen with a Windows logo on it. Now I don't mean to be a serial party-pooper, but today, after having used the pen a few dozen times to jot down market lists and to-do's, it froze. Dead. No ink on page, just a deep trough in the paper where an "a" should have been.

Unfortunately, the pen did not have a control, alt or delete button on it. But, like other Microsoft products, my wife quipped "Damnit" and threw it across the room.

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

New Car Smell

I was in a brand new cab last week that had not yet absorbed the scent of the driver and it had that great "new car smell." I went from this idyllic environment into the musty, slightly stilted smell of my own car. It got me to thinking: What is it that make new cars smell so good and why does the smell go away, like a torrid affair gone awry?

According to one study, car manufacturers add scents for different reasons, including:

"One of the first of these scents developed was the smell of treated leather, the spokesman notes. Tanned leather tends to give off a slightly rank odor, he says, so tanneries typically add artificial fragrance to the leather to keep it smelling fresh--think of the smell inside a shoe shop. The idea apparently caught on with some automakers, which have been known to add leather scent and other fragrances to cars."

Unfortunately, there's a whole bunch of other stuff that makes up the magic potion. Here's more from a depressing study that makes me appreciate my musty car.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

MacWorld

Apple released a whole bunch of new stuff, all of it cheaper, faster and smaller. More of a move to HD and re-inventing the concept of a computer to more closely resemble a CE device. Very exciting moves. MacGeeks here are all foaming at the mouths.

Sunday, January 09, 2005

Consumer Electronics Glow

The CES show in Las Vegas is one of the more strange things I’ve seen in America. The show is HUGE, spanning 3 convention halls and engulfing 120,000 people.
ALL hotel rooms in the city were booked up. I could not even imagine the number of TVs and computer monitors in the halls, but I know that I received the equivalent of 50 Xrays worth of radiation while there. Walking from exhibit to exhibit, you actually feel the heat of each space change depending on the number of screens they have. Some exhibits actually have portable air conditioning units for the interrogation-style meeting rooms.

I started off in the home theater pavilion, partly because I have a personal issue about getting HD programming in my house, but mostly because I was lost. This hall had a mix of pretty normal looking people: installers and theater designers, the digital plumbers of our time. Nothing really new here, unless you know (and care) a whole lot about cables and impendence and power conditioners.

It took me 2 hours to get through this hall, stopping at a few exhibits where I thought they would be able to help me out with the migration to HD land. Nope.

I moved on to the main hall, not even looking at the signs to see which exhibitors were there. I wanted to be surprised. Straight in the door, you walk into two HUGE exhibits by Microsoft and Intel. Granted, Microsoft had already decked their corporate cross-of-arms on many outdoor shopping centers on the Strip, and Intel had huge banners as you arrived at the airport, but here, well….this was over the top, especially given that Microsoft’s stuff doesn’t work. I wonder who’s gonna lose corporate jet privileges over that little snafu.

Samsung had a beautiful exhibit and I was struck by the nice balance they are posing between form and function. I snuck into Sony’s Qualia room, which was for “special guests,” (bouncers at the door) and got a view of some truly magnificent, yet ridiculously expensive TVs and assorted electronics. If Sony can bring this kind of quality of design to the masses, they will blow everyone else away.

The big attraction for many of the visitors to the convention is Swag. Companies give away more free stuff – from Tic-tacs to pens to tee-shirts to computers to bags – than anywhere else. I got a host of useless junk, and actually stood in line behind a nerdy programmer who yammered on about a video game and downsizing for 10 minutes to try and win a computer. I got a pen.

Just as there are the HUGE booths, there are also the smaller guys just trying to sell a couple of Batman USB drives. They try to draw attention with flashing lights and mirrorballs, like street vendors in Bangkok. All part of the ecosystem.

It snowed on Day 2. It looked so pretty coming down, highlighted by the dull background of the desert hills.

Met Buzz Aldrin. He was hawkin' Palm Pilots. Really interesting, vivacious guy, but kinda sad to be seeing him push things you know he would never use in a million light years.

Food was awesome. Dinner at Prime and Picasso, both excellent. Sandwich in the convention pretty much sucked.

Had five minutes to gamble and I went to the slots. I used to think they were a rip-off, but now I REALLY think they’re a rip-off. You don’t even deal in coins anymore. You put the money in, like you’re gonna buy a coke, you play, and when you want to cash-out by hitting the button, the machine plays a WAV file of coins hitting metal and prints out a ticket, much the same as the one you get when you park a car in a garage. Takes all the fun out of gambling (what fun there was) and makes me think they control the whole game now because they don’t have to service the damn machines anymore, just change the ticket roll and collect the bills. Ouch.

At the end of it all, I felt even more dubious about figuring out the HD equation. The problem with these shows is that you see all the things that are coming down the pike, and, all of sudden, what you just got seems, well, crappy. Ah, consumerism.

More pictures here

Thursday, January 06, 2005

USC vs. Delta

I'm sitting on the Delta flight to Vegas after 2 hours of waiting for them to clean the aircraft. The USC football team, fresh back from their win in some bowl game, chartered the flight before it got to us. Pilot said it was delayed in the hangar because USC didn't have enough handlers to offload all of the band equipment. Given the smell of alchohol-drenched carpet mixed with cheap deoderizer, I would say the problem lay not with luggage. Dare I say that Delta is full of caca.

It's an interesting mix of people -- your usual Vegas crowd and cheap looking women mixed with asian businesspeople -- older men in suits and vests, accompanied by younger, petite women who laugh at their jokes. This will be an eye-opening trip.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Battle Plans

There’s a war going on. Over the past year, we’ve been subjugated to a never-ending, multi-pronged, malicious attack on our most treasured sites. I cannot open my eyes without seeing a reminder of my bitter enemy’s path of destruction, and despite the fact that our response has been merciless and forceful, I still go to bed at night with an uneasy feeling.

Though you may not think so, you know our enemy well. A member of the Formicidae Family…that’s right, I’m talking about ANTS.

We’ve been plagued by the nasty critters since we moved into our house. I’ve tried sprays, mass squishings, vinegar – even the vacuum cleaner, but still, they keep on coming.

I knew I needed to get some extra help. Random attacks clearly were not working. I needed to understand my enemy -- get inside their little black heads.

I did a multi-criteria Google search on ant colonies and their cultures’ similarities to post-medieval battle tactics of dominant military powers. I know, nerdy. What I learned was that ants behave like many other large colonized beings. They act in both a defensive and offensive manner, and their offensive maneuvers are slow and methodical, utilizing an army of drone-like soldiers with very specific duties. In my case, these soldiers needed to feed and find shelter. I learned that my enemy was probably somewhere in my house, probably in the wall, and that like all colonies, they needed a supply line from their home base, where a Queen was popping out soldiers at an unGodly rate – and so on, and so on.

I took a lesson from the Huns and decided that what I needed to do was decapitate my enemy at the source, thus causing the rest of the army to fall apart. Destroy the enemy in my walls, but destroy the leaders located somewhere in my, or my neighbors, yard. But how?

My anything-but-wicked stepmother came up with the answer: Terro. Liquid Bait. You see, you put a piece of cardboard with a drop or two of this stuff near their tracks, and they come around it like wildlife around a savannah waterhole. They drink the stuff, regurgitate it to their friends, and slowly get it back to the Queens in their respective nests. After a certain amount of time, like a slow poison, they all go bye-bye.

Rule number one of warfare: Patience

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Rule number one of battle planning: Patience.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

A Commercial Break

Last week, I had the distinct pleasure of being confined to a house in the middle of the wilderness. For three days, I didn't turn on the TV, listen to the radio or drive by a billboard. No commercials, no magazines; just a good novel, my family and nature. At the end of it all, I was a happier man.

While on the plane back to L.A., I vowed to reproduce this feeling in my city life. Ten feet off the jetway, I was bombarded by billboards from Tommy Lasorda and Melissa Etheridge telling me how wonderful L.A. was; and the ads from McDonalds and Brookstone and that crappy-tasting pretzel place.

When I closed the door to Ruth's (sis-in-law, and a fine one at that for any of you single guys out there) car, I had some hope that the deluge would end. But the radio blared something about weight reduction as I read a billboard about sleeping soundly at night. In-and-Out tried to supesize me with a combo while a parking garage lured me with free stays and car washes.

By the time I got back home, the serenity and peace of time away was replaced with the clutter of time wasted.

I've vowed since then to try to introduce more of this back in. Screw radio, I've got my iPod. Screw TV, I've got my Tivo. Screw packaged food, I'll make it from scratch. And screw all of these people who are trying to sell me stuff I don't need.

There's a new paradigm in advertising: They call it "breaking through the clutter." There is so much pitching going on -- we are bombarded with so many ads and choices, from Internet pop-ups to urinal sanitizers -- that advertisers need to differentiate themselves to get in our heads. I have a few messages for them:

1) Don't try to sell me something. If I want it, I'll find you.
2) Just because you know where I live and how much money I make doesn't give you the right to barrage me with your senseless slogan-drool.
3) Don't get all quantitatively psychological on me, I'll buy your competitor's product (and even pay more for it).

So here's what I'm gonna do. Whenever I hear a commercial starting (or a DJ trying to sneak one in), I'm changin' the channel. When I see a billboard, I'm gonna look away. When I'm at the market and deciding what to eat, I'm gonna close my eyes and smell everything. I'm gonna get my wife to rip out all the adverts in my favorite magazines (except Playboy).

I feel better already.

Sunday, January 02, 2005

The Beginning of the End

The sad thing about vacations are that they eventually end. I've spent the last few days doing many things I've wanted to do for a long time -- long walks with the family, cooking and the annual rearrangment (new word) of the den.

But now I am at that place in time that I dread so much. The Night Before. It will all be gone tomorrow morning, and the gentle calm that took days to uncover will be replaced within seconds with the stress of everyday life.

Unless, of course, I don't go to work. Yeah, that's it. I can just stay at home and drink coffee in bed. Watch Judge Judy in the afternoon and eat Pringles all day. Skip a shower and lie on the couch. Hhm.

Maybe going to work's not such a bad idea after all.