Two Zero One Two - Here We Go!

I have been in the television advertising industry for nearly 22 years. I have been a data entry clerk and a VP of Operations. I have supervised a staff of 12-15 at my peak.

Half of my career has been spent in a managerial capacity during which time I spearheaded efforts to streamline agency operations. I know how to find ways to greatly improve efficiency resulting in a more pleasant "user experience." I have been the liaison between IT programmers and other departments in helping develop systems which allow more work to be done, and with greater accuracy, with the same staffing levels, and at the risk of sounding Romneyesque, sometimes with less staffing levels. And yes, I derived pleasure from it.

When I started in this business the amount of paper being used was unbelievable. The business of getting a broadcast-quality tape of an advertisement out to a cable network and on the air, as well as the subsequent tracking of effectiveness and reporting data to the clients, required a mountain of paper.

Back in the early 90s, media buyers (those who negotiate rates and arrange a schedule with national networks and local broadcast affiliates) would write up the schedules on paper forms. In a large agency with 10-15 buyers, these schedules would quickly become stacks of paper.

Buyers or their assistants would fax these orders out and then place the paper in bins. Data entry people would come and gather these stacks, take them back to their workstations and begin inputting the data on their DOS-based computers.

Requests for tapes to be sent would also be written up on forms and given to the traffic department. The traffic people would prepare a request, on paper of course, and fax it to the tape duplication facility.

In my branch of the industry, we were more about selling products immediately (think food dehydrators, miracle knife sets, or inflatable beds) rather than merely providing brand awareness for a client. This involved a need for toll-free phone numbers to appear in the ads which involved a need for large telemarketing facilities to handle the call volume. This meant more paperwork.

Media schedules would be faxed to telemarketers so they could plan their staffing levels based on when they would anticipate an influx of calls. Every morning the telemarketing company would return the favor by faxing over a shitload of call activity from the previous day.

The agency also had a staff to comb through this data and accurately attribute the calls to a specific airing of an ad on a specific station or network. My first job in the industry was to manually input this call center data from faxed pages which had been marked up with a pen by analysts. Media buyers and account managers would then print out stacks of reports in order to analyze the effectiveness of the media and make adjustments to future media as needed. Some even had weekly scheduled meetings to sit around a desk and read through these books together.

The process evolved to a point where the telemarketers would begin sending over data files rather than faxing the data. I worked with the IT department to design an efficient flow which enabled our system to take these data files and match up with our own data to automatically assign clusters to calls to specific ad placements. This was pretty cool in an era when we didn't even have email in our company, and if a fax machine broke down you were well and truly screwed. Imagine 3 or 4 people waiting their turn to fax out a stack. I've seen it and lived it.

[My sincere apologies to all the folks in accounting who have had their own mountains of paperwork. I didn't intentionally leave you out of this; I just think people reading this get the idea by now.]

The availability of email and office software began to flip this world upside down. From 1995 until around 2003 -- mind you, that's just 8 short years -- I witnessed my paper usage decline by at least 98% while efficiency increased by the same rate. In recent years I realized that many times I was still printing documents which really didn't need to be printed at all. It was habit coupled with the comfort of holding something tangible in my hand which would quickly become clutter on my desk. This clutter necessitated making file labels to keep things organized and neat, and insure that I would never see those particularly pieces of paper ever again.

Since 2008 I've made a conscious effort to stop all that. Files can be organized and stored on a hard drive. They can be easily retrieved when needed and I've never seen a brown ring stain from a coffee mug on any of these documents.

In the latter half of my career I have transitioned away from all the operations and management responsibilities to focus on what I love most: media buying and campaign management. It is far more satisfying for me than having to supervise the work of others, performing the dreaded annual reviews, being handed resignation letters because the employee's music career was taking off, having to begin the arduous interview process, or reprimanding an employee for pulling out a knife threatening a pregnant co-worker. Thanks but no thanks!

I get incredible satisfaction from making a few keystrokes and a minute or two later I've placed a $100,000 ad buy on a cable network. No assistant needed. No paper used. (At least not by me; I cannot vouch for what happens on the receiving end.)

I am extremely versatile or I never would have made it as far as I have. My experience is wide and varied. My career has taken me to several agencies with vastly different environments. The smallest had 2 employees when I started; the largest had over 500. Technology has allowed me to leave the cubicle environment, drop the commute, and work from my home which I have done for 11 of the past 12 years.

Thanks to so many similarities between the agencies (let's face it: after 20 years everyone eventually settles in to a similar set of procedures for doing the same work) I've never had trouble adapting to a new job. The longest was about 5 weeks at the aforementioned 500+ employee agency. I absolutely hated it during those initial weeks and then everything started to click. It was the peak of my career in so many ways.

After 2 decades in this industry, I'm pretty good at seeing trends and knowing when the waters are about to get choppy. I saw it in 2007 at the 500-employee agency when a large client (if you had an iPhone, you were signed up with that telecommunications giant!) announced they would be "reviewing" the agency at the end of the year. I expected the worst and had 6 months to prepare myself financially. In the end it was the bloodbath I imagined.

By the summer of 2008 I was fortunate enough to be rehired by an agency where I had worked at the beginning of the decade. Going back there was so easy because I knew the people, the systems, and the procedures. I told myself going in that it would be the last job I'd have before retirement. Well, assuming a steady course of business without any drama. You know what they say about assumptions.

Things began to slow down. I could see the writing on the wall and I knew some kind of instability was on the horizon.

During my career I have obviously known a lot of people. Almost all of my close personal friendships developed with people from my work. So when I started being coaxed to bail out and join a Dallas-based agency, I was reluctant at first. Despite the fact that I knew and had worked with 5 current employees of that agency during the course of my career, a number representing about 25% of the entire staff, it still was a difficult decision to make. Another job change, particularly one initiated by me, was not my preference.

However, the warning signs at my agency continued to grow and my workload had diminished significantly. After several phone conversations over two months with the Dallas-based agency, I finally made the decision to take the leap and I started there on March 28, 2011.

It felt right, and I thought it was a pretty cool testament to my reputation that I was hired without ever having an in-person interview thanks in no small part to the word-of-mouth recommendations from other employees there who had personal knowledge of my work experience and ethics. I still haven't set a foot in the Dallas office.

After my first week, I had already been handed a number of projects, mainly building media proposals for perspective clients, in addition to my media buying responsibilities. Frankly, I was startled by the volume of work being throw my way. Suddenly I was feeling utilized and needed again, and I was being stretched professionally in ways I never thought possible. But I thrive on that and enjoy developing efficiency procedures for myself which enable me to turn projects around more quickly and hand them off upon completion.

It was not an easy transition though. Six weeks passed and my personal adjustments to this agency were still a work in progress. I had surpassed the previous record five weeks of love-hate squirming before the waters calmed. By the time 3 months had passed, I was seriously wondering if I hadn't made a huge mistake in leaving the prior agency. Maybe job insecurity was something I could have lived with in exchange for having clear workplace communication and logical, familiar procedures.

Shortly thereafter, Hurricane Reality hit the shoreline at the ex-agency and 16 people lost their jobs. My instinct was still intact apparently. Any fantasy I'd harbored of returning, or kicking myself for leaving in the first place, quickly evaporated. To be fair and honest, there is no such thing as the perfect job environment. When I would sit down and imagine everything I didn't like about the ex-agency, it suddenly made the current agency look pretty good. (Big perk: no electronic time sheets to fill out.)

I still struggled for months. At the end of August I had received a job offer with a more generous salary and compensation package, and I agonized over that decision for days before rejecting it. Despite the passing of 5 months and still feeling a sense of being blindfolded while working, I didn't feel right in giving up and moving on again to the perception of another greener pasture. This situation would either improve or I would figure out a way to adapt.

It seems ludicrous that I was even having this adjustment dilemma. I have always thrived best in a smaller agency environment. Being one of two media buyers in my department makes things pretty simple. Business was heavy and brisk. New clients were coming on board. What more could you ask for?

The volume of work was such that we needed a third buyer. It wasn't essential, in my opinion, but helpful. In the event that one of us was out, the entire burden fell on one person. It wasn't impossible but it was a load for sure.

For me, the idea of adding this 3rd buyer was equally important in that it would force the opening of communication a bit more in addition to spreading out the workload. After all, if two of us are raising the same issues, that has to get someone's attention!

Barely a week or two had passed before I started to see warning signs flying about like arrows on fire.

Communication did not improve. Basic standard operating procedures did not suddenly materialize. Questions and suggestions continued to vaporize into the electronic ether. My workload and responsibilities started to disappear. The almost daily calls with requests for media proposals just abruptly stopped. It wasn't because things had slowed down so much. The work simply shifted to the new buyer. For all my years of experience and highly developed intuition, I didn't need a shitload of perception to notice I was suddenly being phased out passed over.

The rationale for adding a 3rd buyer was supposedly to lighten the load from the two of us doing the work. Another of those "arrows on fire" was when I realized the 60/40 workload split between the two of us evolved into more of a 60/30/10 split after the new addition. Gee, thanks! I no longer had an excuse for waiting until 5:30 to scoop cat shit out of the litter box.

It was quite clear that my issues and concerns were mine and mine alone. I could either drive myself crazy with the notion that maybe someday this agency would perform at the basic operational level as every other agency, providing clear directives, and create a sense of teamwork and camaraderie, or I could adapt and just learn to work within the framework of what was given.

As 2012 neared and finally rolled around, I made a conscious effort to stop feeling a sense of personal failure whenever I was given directive on a Friday to get something on-air or worse, off-air, the following Monday. Under such circumstances you do the best you can do and some factors are out of your control. But I was getting there. I had accepted the fact that suggestions at improving communication and streamlining processes were not likely to be entertained, that even basic minimal operational enhancements would be an uphill struggle, even if they made perfect sense in my mind. The lights would remain off and I could adapt to working in the dark, or not. So, darkness it was.

Earlier this week we finally got the long-awaited server upgrade. I was happy with any flicker of light at the end of any long tunnel. On Thursday I worked exclusively from my home PC while connected to their server -- checking email, managing my Excel documents, and placing media buys. I no longer needed the company-supplied PC to comfortably do my work efficiently.

I got all my work documents transferred from that PC to a public folder on the server and by Friday I never even needed to turn on the company-supplied PC. It was a rare breath of fresh air, a sense of moving forward into a new year with a newer way to work. Cleaner. Less clutter on my desk. I was even wondering whether I should box up the company PC and send it back or hang on to it as a backup just in case anything happened to my PC down the road.

I have boxed it up, along with the printer they supplied which I never have needed to use thanks to being 100% paperless in my work. What a contrast to the old days when I'd go through a friggin' case of paper every few months! This equipment sits in my kitchen ready to be carted off to Fed-Ex on Monday.

I marvel at the sleek and minimalist appearance of my workspace now. Emphasis on "space" rather than "work" because on Friday the 13th at around 5:05 in the afternoon, I was dismissed from my job.

At that moment, my access to the long-awaited awesome new server was permanently disabled. But hey, it was rockin' my world for a day!

The only reasons cited in my termination were "bad fit" and a "cultural" differences. Oh, the irony.

I can only hope when they sent out the email announcing my departure they utilized the industry-standard closing line of "we wish him well in his future endeavors."

Work used to happen here.

Questions having immediate answers:

Do I need to toggle my monitor back and forth between work and personal PCs? No.

Should I de-clutter and send back the company equipment I don't need? Yes.

Do I need to use a personal day to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday? No.

Do I need to worry if my lunch breaks run longer than an hour? No.

Should I alert someone in the office if I'm running late? No.

Do I need to scan my internet bill as a PDF and email to anyone for reimbursement? No.

Should I fret over dysfunctionality? Give that a rest.

Will I need to visit the Dallas office? Not in the foreseeable future.

Do I have any excuse for not resuming my Rosetta Stone Spanish lessons? No.

When will I be able to take some extended vacation time? Now would be ideal.

When Facebook Fails

You get your message out in another way. And then post it to Facebook!



Fine then. I'll post it this way. I am a resourceful man used to circumnavigating IT bullshit.

I even had trouble getting this far. Must be solar flares.

We Are Ancient!

This is embarrassing but I'm telling it anyway.

Sheldon was just telling me about his computer at our first job together, and he said it didn't have a mouse.

What?

How can a computer not have a mouse??

Then I had to think back for a few seconds and remember that we were using pre-Windows units. All data entry, and tab over to the next field.

Could I cope with that now?

Might I also admit that I have enjoyed FM AM radio, 8-tracks, and the beautifully immediate editing capabilities of cassettes.

I'm not sure if I ever owned a recordable 8-track. How much do you think those might have cost?

Living in the Digital Age

I've been scanning a lot of 35mm slides from my early years which predate digital photography and it has got me really appreciating the current era.

I'm in the process of creating Facebook photo albums of my early travels and I'm putting myself back in those shoes and it's incredibly frustrating.

Today the photo album was my Middle East trip when I was 17 and I was so disappointed that the only photo of me in Petra, Jordan was blurry. Had digital cameras been around, I could have had several shots taken until I had a good one.

There's also the upcoming European photo album in which I have a great photo of an older gentleman on a train in Switzerland smoking a pipe. He agreed to let me take his photo if I'd send him a print. So I had to get his mailing address, have a print made when I got home, and send it to him.

Good Lord, don't we have it easy these days? Now, he'd probably have an email address or a Facebook page, I could take the photo, upload to my page, and send him a digital print in a matter of seconds.

Film was also weird because I'd come home from a trip and have an unfinished roll in my camera. It might be 3 months before I'd shoot up the last 8 or 10 photos on the roll, send it off to be developed, and then get the slides back in the mail.

We have it so easy these days.

Photography has been a beneficiary. Not so sure about music.

Video Comparison Test

I decided to spend my Saturday afternoon trying something fun and a little different. I got out the old Digital 8 Handycam and shot about 35 seconds of video at kona ranch, and then shot the same video using the iPhone.

I won't tell you which is which. I can tell you which one I prefer holding and using!

If the iPhone is indistinguishable from the Handycam, the latter will be getting donated to Goodwill.

Video #1:


Video #2:


Cast your thoughts in comments.

Here's what is funny. By the time I got these uploaded to YouTube and got this post ready, I had gotten confused about which video belonged to which device. Having seen them side by side, there really is no doubt.

Technologically Obsessed

Sometimes I send emails to myself.

Targeted Advertising

What? Because I wanted to hear some New Order, I'm suddenly a drug addict needing help?

Read the Manual

I was being ridiculed this weekend by txrad because I had not read through the short little manual which came with my new iPad. He asked me what the warranty was and I had no idea.

All of the good user information is online so there really isn't much need to read what came with it. The Information Guide certainly would not have prevented me from spending hours on the phone with tech support to address the issue of why my iPad wasn't connecting to the internet.

However, I did read through it last night and I'm glad I did because there are some tips on handling the iPad, things to avoid, etc., which never would have crossed my mind.

Do not drop, disassemble, open, crush, bend, deform, puncture, shred, microwave, incinerate, paint, or insert foreign objects into iPad.

Whew! You know, as soon as I was done reading the New York Times on it, I absolutely would have dropped it into the paper shredder for the compost pile without even thinking! Still not sure why it's a bad idea to paint it a different color though. It would cut down on the screen glare.

Check and obey the laws and regulations on the use of mobile devices like iPad in the areas where you live or drive.

And if there's no law against it, well then, it must be fine to steer the car with your knees while composing an email on the iPad. Just be careful, OK?

Oh, wait, they must be referring to usage of the iPad as a music device. They do address email in the next paragraph.

Do not email, take notes, look up phone numbers, or perform any other activities that require your attention while driving.

Pity all the others who didn't bother to read the handy Information Guide. How will they know what to do and what not to do?

It has maps on it! Surely it must be OK to use it while driving to refer to maps!

Monday Morning Musings

I'm not sure when I started obsessing about life and how quickly it seems to pass as I get older. It has definitely been a bigger blip on my radar since I turned 40.

When you are 20, you feel immortal and the world awaits you. Yet, if you can manage to make it through four consecutive average cat life cycles from that point, you are indeed lucky.

The unfortunate event on March 1st when I broke a number of bones in my face, the resulting surgery a bit more than 2 weeks later, and then my 50th birthday a month later, have all had an impact on how I view life. It seems so much more fragile now than it ever has before. The reality is that any of our seemingly stable lives can be turned upside down in the blink of an eye. Moreover, it is inevitable. The older we get, the greater the odds that we are on the cusp of a shattering event.

This understanding, which bears down upon me without my approval, is truly maddening sometimes. I see other people carrying on with their happy lives in what appears to be blissful ignorance of reality. I wish I could be like them. But are they all really unaware? Do they just have a more effective method of dealing with it and suppressing the associated emotions and anxiety?

We spend our lives gathering stuff: material possessions, friendships, and memories. We stuff our brains full of music, films, books, travels, sports scores, work experiences, Excel spreadsheet functions, HTML code, user IDs, passwords, credit card numbers, and expiration dates.

Our closets are packed with clothing and boxes in which stuff was delivered. Most people can't even use their garages because they are overflowing with possessions. And this is a relatively new phenomenon. My mother still remembers a time when she only had what was truly needed. She remembers her father telling the story of the first time he ever saw a motor car. He was so frightened he hid in a ditch. Running water and electricity inside the home were new luxuries, and still out of reach for many.

In that short span of time we have evolved into a people who have been born into such luxuries and take them for granted. We no longer need to hunt and gather for survival. Millions of us sit in a chair each day, tapping our fingers on plastic to manipulate data. And millions of us are paid well for it. But not in cash.

Someone else is tapping their fingers on plastic buttons to transfer "money" from one place to another place. When my place receives this transfer, I can then tap my fingers to move it from my place to the place which owns my house. Never having to lay eyes upon currency is a luxury.

I buy my food by swiping a piece of plastic through a chunk of plastic. That's how I get my groceries, my housewares, and fuel for my car so I can drive around and buy all this stuff. Quite amazing.

I don't even need to leave my house for a lot of the stuff I get. Tap tap tap on the plastic, select something you desire on a screen, type in a few numbers which gives instructions to computers to transfer a bunch of numbers from one place to another, and voila! A few days later, stuff comes to your door in a brown truck. And all of this is achieved by data passing through the air, or wires, at the speed of light.

Even in my lifetime, I remember how labor-intensive it was to gather information. I actually had to get up, get in the car, and drive to another building which housed thousands of books. I had to flip through drawers packed with thousands of little cards that contained directions to find the book which would contain the information I needed. And that was all well and good as long as someone else hadn't borrowed the book. There was even a human there to help you, if you needed it. Free of charge!

Now it is possible to gather data on a little chunk of plastic that you can carry with you, and tap on, or so I've read on this big piece of plastic I'm staring at as I tap these thoughts on my plastic buttons -- soon to be available for reading by anyone in the world fortunate enough to have a similar plastic device and viewing screen. You can even do this while you are driving around, buying shit you don't need, and swiping plastic to pay for it. Amazing!

What a world we live in, however briefly against the longer timeline of existence.

In this world of wonder and achievement, I am truly baffled that I can be so depressed. I don't just see the beauty and the wonder; I see everything. While this world in which we live would be unrecognizable to my grandparents in their youth, a few things haven't changed at all. Things like greed.

If we were truly immortal, or even if we could live 500 years, or 300 years, I could understand the concept of greed more easily than I can from my perspective of life at 50.

I am truly aghast that greed remains as pervasive and unevolved as it is. Greed is what compels us to do absurd things like drilling a mile deep -- underwater -- for fuel to power these moving boxes of steel we need in order to drive to a bigger, fixed-position box and punch plastic all day so that we can acquire a bunch of other (much smaller) numbers which get shifted around in the ether. After accruing enough of these numbers we call our own, we can drive around and buy stuff.

Greed is what allowed us to come here, take this land, and call it ours. Greed made us establish arbitrary and artificial boundaries, staking poles in the ground, adorned with absolutely meaningless pieces of patterned cloth in order to have what is essentially a meaningless and hollow identity.

Now that we have that, greed is driving us to destroy it. And we're no longer content to take advantage of people from outside our artificial boundaries with identifies different from our own; we seem eager to screw the life out of anything and everything we get our hands on in order to get more personal numbers stacked in our favor, whether it's our neighbors, the fields which grow the food to keep us alive, the water we need to quench our thirst, or the air we breathe.

We seem to have become completely uninterested in the numbers of our brothers and sisters who have had their equally short and fragile lives ended sooner than necessary by greed.

If nothing else, life is about adjusting and adapting to changes. Life is about caring and understanding. Life is about overcoming selfishness and greed. Life is about understanding that we are of the world and not vice-versa, and behaving accordingly. Failure to comprehend these simple facts is criminal. And we seem to be a nation and a world of criminals.

I have my own issues with comprehension. I cannot comprehend how, in this wondrous short time of bounty and achievement, so many of us cannot be content and enjoy our own personal experiences. Instead, we feel a necessity to exploit and control others, and often to focus on the most asinine of restrictions, while allowing all manner of other profligate atrocities to run rampant. I cannot comprehend how this path of greed we have chosen can be sustained much longer, nor can I comprehend how those of us who never ponder the ramifications of our enormous footprint will deal with the reality when it finally does deliver the ultimate smackdown.

On this day, arbitrarily set aside by some authority, in which we are asked to remember those who have fallen (some of whom still were not even allowed to be open and honest about who they were), and as I also include those who gave up a portion of their life, perhaps the best portion of it (and in many cases, a limb or two, if not their entire life), in their gift of service to this relatively recent nation of artificial boundaries conceived of, and awash in, greed, I have to ask myself if it was a truly necessary and noble cause, or simply a more short-sighted exploitation to fulfill a craven lust before casting them aside like spent fuel rods.

Sorry. I know I can come across as a major downer sometimes. But I think a lot. And I will honor our veterans today by saying we need to do everything in our power to stop creating so many of them for unjust causes. Those numbers (a trillion or two) piled up in someone's account which were used to fund the recent and ongoing wars could have been better transferred elsewhere in our relentless pursuit of stuff.

Live and let live, gently, and with responsible awareness and compassion.

The Power of Twitter (and Irony)

After spending more than a few minutes this past weekend and yesterday playing around with Twitter, I still wasn't seeing the allure. I understand how it can be used for networking as you can put in keywords such as "microbiologist" which brought up 5 tweets from just within the past 2 hours. Useful. But I wasn't seeing the real power of Twitter.

After taking yesterday off from work, I arrived at my desk this morning and started checking office emails. One was marked urgent.

I am in the television and radio advertising business, and many of you know. And there's a wee bit of irony in the fact that I handle a network that is no friend of the left, and I'm about as left as you get.

I had placed an ad campaign to start yesterday on that network. As is usually the case, I was given a list of networks on which to place a buy, along with the time period. I immediately recognized the time period as being a program which is ridiculed on an on-going basis for being extreme. I made a mental note to check with the account manager to see if she wanted to reconsider, and then promptly forgot.

The urgent email I received this morning was asking me to "get out" of said program. Apparently the client was getting bombarded with emails protesting their sponsorship of the program, and the Twitter was abuzz with noisy tweets after a blogger who specializes in protesting sponsors of this show had posted about it.

[I apologize for being intentionally vague about the specifics here but that link should shed some light on all this.]

My questions about the usefulness of Twitter, and its power, were answered.

While I was in the process of relocating the client's ads to other programming, I noticed another client which had been placed in the same time period yesterday by my backup. (This was an "oh shit!" kind of morning!) That campaign wasn't scheduled to start running until May 31. So I got that one moved out as well. I learn fast!

Much to my surprise, this additional client was also listed on that blog under the tab labeled "Remaining Sponsors." Since the television ad hasn't even started yet, I couldn't figure out why that client was on the list. I emailed the blog owner -- very discreetly using my konagod address -- to inquire.

Shame on me for being so focused on what I do -- primarily television advertising -- that I forget this guy also has a radio show and a website, both of which are being sponsored by this 2nd client. Kudos to the blogger for being as good and thorough as Maude Lebowski's doctor. But as I don't have anything to do with radio endorsements or website banners, I've done all I can to protect client #2 from the wrath of tweets.

Twitter suddenly has my respect and attention.

I'll Take Breaking News, Please!

This past weekend I decided to give Twitter another shot. Installed the Tweetdeck which makes the experience a bit more fun. Just not sure about the column of Tweetdeck recommendations to follow. For now, we'll see how Breaking News works out. Pass on that other option.

But I swear to you, if Breaking News tweets crap like this, I'll be unfollowing:

Question of the Day: If you could follow only one band or artist on Twitter, who would you choose?

I actually haven't given it much thought. I am currently following only one band: Radiohead.

Monday Morning News InDigestion

Disclaimer: I've been in a pretty foul mood since mid-afternoon on Sunday, and I'm unlikely to find a lot of news to alter that situation.

First, let me say this: cable set top boxes have long been a technological pet peeve of mine since the early 80s. This dinosaur should have died off in the late 80s, or early 90s at the latest.

But, I have satellite. Cable can bite me. That's not to say I don't have issues with the satellite receiver but at least it serves a purpose other than decoding.

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A Jonesboro, Arkansas atheist group is cleaning up a stretch of a major highway leading into the town. The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department will provide signs indicating that the group has adopted the stretch of highway.

Two Four aspects of this story I find deeply disturbing to the extent that they grate on my last raw nerve.

1. Without a doubt, any town referred to as Fort God because of the number of churches, probably shouldn't have any litter.

2. Odds would dictate that much of the litter is being generated by people who would refer to themselves as Christians.

3. I wonder how many Christian groups are out cleaning the highway instead of bitching about atheists doing the grunt work.

But some religious leaders are already concerned about the image it could paint for Jonesboro. "I'm not excited about it," said John Miles, senior pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Jonesboro. "Not many of us want to be known as the town with the organized atheist group."

4. Oh, grow the hell up and deal with it! Garbage along the highways is preferable to having atheists clean it up if the atheists get any recognition for the effort?

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Then there was the stench of rotting eggs emanating from the Vatican on Easter Sunday.

Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square, the Catholic church's most joyous celebration, began with a senior cardinal defending Pope Benedict XVI from what he called "petty gossip" and hailing him for "unfailing" leadership and courage.

But the pontiff himself ignored accusations that he perpetuated a climate of cover-up for pedophile priests, even as sex abuse scandals threatened to overshadow his papacy.

[...]

Jewish leaders, and even some top Catholic churchmen, were angered after Benedict's personal preacher, in a Good Friday sermon, likened the growing accusations against the pope to the campaign of anti-Semitic violence that culminated in the Holocaust.

The preacher, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, told Corriere della Sera daily in an interview Sunday that he had no intention "of hurting the sensibilities of the Jews and of the victims of pedophilia," expressed regret and asked for forgiveness.

He was quoted as saying that the pope wasn't aware of what the sermon would say beforehand, and that no Vatican officals read the text before the Good Friday service.

The apology satisfied one Jewish leader, Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants.

"Now that he has apologized and the Vatican has distanced itself from those remarks, the matter is closed," Steinberg said in a statement.

Whatever. Elan Steinberg is such a pushover.

Honestly, this has gotten to the point where apologies are meaningless. Only actions will carry any weight.

As much as I oppose aggression and violence though, I will confess to having a bit of disappointment in not being able to locate a video of the broom handle incident, not to mention the incense bowl used for (testicle?) protection.

Separately, in Germany, where the church is facing intense criticism about the widening abuse scandal, a man attacked the Roman Catholic Bishop of Muenster with a broom handle during an Easter service in the city's cathedral, police said.

Bishop Felix Genn, 60, defended himself with an incense bowl and was unharmed. After the incident, he continued celebrating the Easter service. The man's motive was unclear, police said.

How exciting was your Easter?

Glen Beck Addendum and More

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, it may be awhile before I can post my results from the quiz.

If ultra-conservatives ruled our land, is this what we could expect?

And in other mind-numbing news, my brother received this from a member of the Sheriff's department in his county. It was a reply to my brother in a chain of emails about gays in the military. Quite amusing.

I sit and read e-mails about different issues and never respond, but this one I had to. Most people who have a fighting bone in their body will side with me on the fact that gays have no place in the armed forces, or any type of job that you have to make a life or death decision in seconds. I've never been in the service but I do work for the Sheriff's office, and I have been in those situations where my life was hanging on the decision of my partner. Now who would you rather have making that choice, David Carter, 100% man, who is not afraid to pull the trigger to protect his partner or whatever else it takes to take you out of harms way, even if it means his own life. Or would you like to have someone who, because they made a choice to be gay, apparantly has a clouded judgement and cannot make a hardcore, survival, heat of the moment decision, which could cost you your life and possibly theirs. I may step on toes, so be it, but I could not put on my uniform, leave my beautiful wife and children and go to work knowing that my backup was to worried about coming out of the closet or who might find out, instead of focused on their duties. David Carter, Todd Harris, Bruce Drope, Patrick Lenderman and several others, who would go to hell and back with you or a so called man who knows what scarf goes best with a dress!!! You make the choice! GOD made it very clear where he stands on the issue of homosexuality and I stand behind him 100%!!! Leave the hardcore stuff to real men, the others, well we can always use more interior designers and dress makers.

Glad to know I'm just a "so-called" man. Wow. The extent to which these people lack a clear understanding of any given set of issues is simply astounding.

Count Me As a Dismayed Safety Advocate

Honestly, people! Have we taken leave of our senses? It's bad enough that only 90+ percent of people think texting while driving is a bad idea. Do you really feel safe on the roads at 50, 60, or 75 MPH knowing that every tenth car you encounter has a driver who feels that texting while driving is a good idea?

Apparently, that activity doesn't provide ample entertainment and distraction, so next up to the plate is full-frontal internet access.

To the dismay of safety advocates already worried about driver distraction, automakers and high-tech companies have found a new place to put sophisticated Internet-connected computers: the front seat.

Technology giants like Intel and Google are turning their attention from the desktop to the dashboard, hoping to bring the power of the PC to the car. They see vast opportunity for profit in working with automakers to create the next generation of irresistible devices.

This week at the Consumer Electronics Show, the neon-drenched annual trade show here, these companies are demonstrating the breadth of their ambitions, like 10-inch screens above the gearshift showing high-definition videos, 3-D maps and Web pages.

I have no problem with internet access in cars. Hell, I'd love to have it just to listen to Austin radio while I'm in southeast Arkansas, or 93XRT Chicago, or the great jazz station in Long Beach. But it doesn't belong in front of the driver! Hell, why not just pop a 25-inch HD monitor on the dash! Sure beats having to look at the boring world around you.

Not once have I ever been driving and wished I could be reading Pam's House Blend or Crooks and Liars while cruising down the Interstate at 85 MPH. I've got other things on my mind like deer crossing the road. And cops needing to meet a revenue quota. And people reading web pages instead of driving! I know I'm stretching things a bit for humor.

They prevent drivers from watching video and using some other functions while the car is moving, but they can still pull up content as varied as restaurant reviews and the covers of music albums with the tap of a finger.

OK, not once have I ever been driving and wished I could read a restaurant review and catch a glance of Sticky Fingers.

In the list of bad ideas, this has got to be near the top. Fine if used responsibly. I remember when cars started getting outfitted with those head rests and some people surely thought they were meant to be used as a head rest, literally. How convenient! On a long 600 mile trip, I can put on the cruise control and catch a quick nap. What will they think of next?

3-D TV Excites Me Like a VHS Player

I don't always embrace new technology by bringing it into my home right away, but I do track new products and often find them exciting. I still haven't made the upgrade from my old outdated RAZR to an iPhone. As interesting as they are, I simply don't feel a need right now to use my phone for anything except phone calls, and even then I primarily have it for the convenience when out of the house, should the car break down or something like that.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that I have not the least bit if interest in the development of 3-D televisions. Zilch. Nada. I can't be alone in my feelings.

A full-fledged 3-D television turf war is brewing in the United States, as manufacturers unveil sets capable of 3-D and cable programmers rush to create new channels for them.

Many people are skeptical that consumers will suddenly pull their LCD and plasma televisions off the wall. Beginning at around $2,000, the 3-D sets will, at first, cost more than even the current crop of high-end flat-screens, and buyers will need special glasses — techie goggles, really — to watch in 3-D.

[...]

Anticipating this coming wave, ESPN said Tuesday that it would show World Cup soccer matches and N.B.A. games in 3-D on a new network starting in June, and Discovery, Imax and Sony said they would jointly create a 3-D entertainment channel next year. The satellite service DirecTV is expected to announce its own 3-D channels at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where every major television manufacturer is planning to announce 3-D televisions and compatible Blu-ray DVD players on Wednesday.

I can see where this would have major appeal with sporting events but aside from that, I can imagine hearing a great big flopping sound. Then there's the issue with needing glasses for the enhanced 3-D experience. I already wear glasses. Am I expected to get excited about needing a second pair just to watch a friggin' TV show?

Manufacturers have developed two technologies for 3-D glasses in the home. In so-called polarized glasses, which can cost under a dollar, each lens blocks a set of images transmitted in certain types of light. “Active” glasses, which are better suited for LCD screens in particular, have battery-powered shutters that open and close rapidly, so each eye sees different views of each frame. These glasses can cost up to $100, but television makers are expected to package at least two pairs with each monitor.

Do people really want another battery-powered gadget sitting on the coffee table which is already cluttered with five or six remotes? If this idea gets your techie juices surging, be my guest. I definitely won't be standing in your way at Best Buy when you go to make your big purchase.

Would the beer commercials be in 3-D? If not, would you get a headache from watching them with the glasses on? That could get annoying having to remove them at each commercial break. Even worse, what if some commercials were in 3-D and others not? This could get nauseating.

But wait, there's more! Sooner or later, we'd have the first 3-D infomercial. Oh, joy. Sorry, I'm just a 2-D kind of guy.

Dish Network Is The Man

I've been a Dish Network subscriber for close to 14 years, dating back to Los Angeles. I've been a happy and loyal customer until they introduced these PVR pieces of shit which allow you to record programs and pause and play.

We've had this happen twice before we upgraded to an HD receiver. Both times I called in to report problems with the PVR functionality and they immediately sent replacement units.

Within the past year we upgraded to HDTV which required a new receiver and now we are having the same problems with pictures freezing up while audio continues, and only while in PVR mode - that being where you hit pause and come back 5 or 10 minutes later to continue watching.

This has been happening to us for months and finally in mid-August I called Dish Network to report the problem. The agent told me to call back the next time it happened, without doing anything to fix it, so they could witness the situation.

Tonight it happened again. I quickly jumped on the phone hoping for a quick resolution (i.e. replacement unit). I was on the phone for nearly 47 minutes being instructed to select this and that, unplug and restart, etc. At the end, I was told that detailed notes had been taken and to call back within 72 hours if the problem persists. That's the problem. It doesn't happen that often. But I'm hellbent on recreating it in that time frame.

After I explained to this Dish Network agent that I'd been a customer for close to 14 years and that I'd had 3 receiver replacements, and that I was grasping at my last straw (Hello DirecTV), she agreed to credit my account for charges since my last complaint. But I still need to report my next problem within the next 72 hours.

I will replicate that problem, you can bet your ass. But what happened to the old Dish Network which valued their customers and replaced shit no questions asked?

What's really funny is that before I started protesting, she was trying to upgrade me to a "better" receiver and she needed a credit card number. Fuck that shit.

That's when I launched into my tirade and got my service credits, but still no new receiver. I'm wondering if there is such a thing as a decent PVR. I'm almost ready to go back to a "use it or lose it" receiver. Fuck.

Do they even offer those?

Whatever. I lost 30 minutes of Countdown with Keith as well as a good portion of Rachel tonight.

Politics had been scheduled as my next rant. Corporate greed supersedes. Again.

New Blogging Accessories

I really shouldn't be splurging on such things during the current economic climate but sometimes a boy needs new toys. I recently got a KVM switch so that I can have ONE monitor on my desk, one keyboard, and one mouse, but two computers: one for work and one for play.

All was well except that neither of my keyboards are USB which is required by the KVM switch. However, after living a year with two monitors, two keyboards, and two mice on my desk, I figured two out of three isn't bad and I could handle two keyboards, at least for awhile.

Here's the problem: I would be switching back and forth between PCs and forget to swap out the keyboards, and I'd start typing away and wondering why nothing was appearing on the monitor. For someone who works in a lot of spreadsheets, this could potentially cause a major data disruption if I'm not careful, so it was obvious a keyboard correction was in order. Especially after I shoved my personal keyboard off to the right one day, right into the slightly elevated edge of the higher printer table between me and txrad, and broke a leg off it.

I'm on a big ergonomic push right now due to some back troubles and I'm trying to correct all the wrongs in my work desk environment. No more twisting to the left for employment duties and then twisting to the right for blogging or other personal work.

This keyboard might not fit the ergonomic definition but I really love the quiet notebook-style keypad and the backlit keys.

Also love the ultra-slim design! This baby is almost wafer-thin.

I'm rather embarrassed to admit that I've never used programmable function keys before now. And I love that I can use the keyboard to mute sound, increase and decrease volume, and jump directly to my email with one keystroke.

Best of all, I took a gamble that there wouldn't be a huge difference in price between Amazon and Fry's Electronics here in Austin. I saw this at Fry's today and bought it for around $58 plus tax. I told myself I was not going to check the price on Amazon, but while shopping for a cordless mouse (by the way, the keyboard is corded and I'm fine with that), I ran across this keyboard for $69.99 and because it is shipping through an outside vendor, not Amazon, there's an additional $6.89 shipping charge. So I got quite a deal.

Interestingly enough, the Logitech mouse I have ordered is $99.99 at Fry's, plus sales tax which in Austin would be another $8.25 for a total lof $108.24. I ordered the mouse on Amazon for $66.36 with free shipping and no sales tax.

It pays to shop around.

I am definitely happier with this keyboard than I am the one I ordered from Amazon a couple of weeks ago... one of those pliable, roll-up keyboards. It is fine for very light typing, but at my usual typing speed and finger pressure, it would have produced a very cryptic blog post. I wrote a review of that gadget at Amazon.

Facebook Has Malfunctions

Well, this could be good or bad.

Intoxicated by Texting

Can we please do something to stop this insane practice of texting while driving? The time is way overdue to examine this phenomenon and get serious about reducing the occurrences. And even cellphone use should be mandated by law to be hands-free while driving a vehicle, at the very least.

Mr. Hill, a diligent student with a reputation for helping neighbors, also took pride in his clean driving record. “Not a speeding ticket, not a fender bender, nothing,” he said.

Until last Sept. 3. Mr. Hill, then 20, left the parking lot of a Goodwill store where he had spotted a dresser he thought might interest a neighbor. He dialed her to pass along news of the find.

Mr. Hill was so engrossed in the call that he ran a red light and didn’t notice Linda Doyle’s small sport utility vehicle until the last second. He hit her going 45 miles per hour. She was pronounced dead shortly after.

Later, a policeman asked Mr. Hill what color the light had been. “I never saw it,” he answered.

If these people who crash their cars while using a device simply smash into a tree or a concrete barrier, I probably would not be as outraged. People who do stupid things and take risks will pay the price when something goes wrong. I don't think we need a law against cellphone use or texting while jumping from a plane with a parachute, for instance. The only person likely to die in this situation is the person jumping, and it would probably have nothing to do with cellphone use. And wind noise might be a problem, but I digress.

A driver distracted by texting or other cellphone use could be as much a threat to the rest of us as an intoxicated driver. [Emphasis mine.]

Extensive research shows the dangers of distracted driving. Studies say that drivers using phones are four times as likely to cause a crash as other drivers, and the likelihood that they will crash is equal to that of someone with a .08 percent blood alcohol level, the point at which drivers are generally considered intoxicated. Research also shows that hands-free devices do not eliminate the risks, and may worsen them by suggesting that the behavior is safe.

A 2003 Harvard study estimated that cellphone distractions caused 2,600 traffic deaths every year, and 330,000 accidents that result in moderate or severe injuries.

Yet Americans have largely ignored that research. Instead, they increasingly use phones, navigation devices and even laptops to turn their cars into mobile offices, chat rooms and entertainment centers, making roads more dangerous.

So, during the time since the 9/11 attacks, we've lost possibly 20,000 or more innocent lives, and possibly 2 million+ injuries, and we've done almost nothing to prevent the carnage. By contrast, we lost a fraction of that number in the 9/11 attacks and allowed a cowboy president and Congress to basically run roughshod over the US Constitution.

Police in almost half of all states make no attempt to gather data on the problem. They are not required to ask drivers who cause accidents whether they were distracted by a phone or other device. Even when officers do ask, some drivers are not forthcoming.

The federal government warns against talking on a cellphone while driving, but no state legislature has banned it. This year, state legislators introduced about 170 bills to address distracted driving, but passed fewer than 10.

Where the hell are our priorities?

Make note of the research mentioned above regarding hands-free devices. I suspect it depends on the person, the nature of the call, and traffic conditions. But without a doubt, there are plenty of situations where that is equally unsafe.

I think about my own phone conversations while I'm sitting at my desk in my home, or on the sofa. I notice two patterns develop: either I'm observing something going on around me and the person speaking has uttered an incomprehensible sentence or two, or I'm paying close attention to the speaker and engaging in conversation myself, and the world beyond the tip of my nose becomes a blur.

Even when I'm in the car with txrad, I occasionally find conversation to be overly-distracting when I'm in heavy traffic. I often need my complete attention focused on the cars around me, being aware of the person tail-gating me, or the idiot who is about to dart across three lanes of traffic directly in front of me to make the exit.

Here's my suggestion. Before sending a text message or having a conversation while driving a vehicle, ask yourself: is this text message or call really worth the possibility of a hospital emergency room visit? Is it worth possibly killing someone or being killed? Is it even worth the possibility of a fender-bender with the resulting hassles of auto repairs and insurance issues? Are you really that hooked on it?

Scientists are grappling, too, with perhaps the broadest question hanging over the phenomenon of distracted driving: Why do people, knowing the risk, continue to talk while driving? The answer, they say, is partly the intense social pressures to stay in touch and always be available to friends and colleagues. And there also is the neurological response of multitaskers. They show signs of addiction — to their gadgets.

John Ratey, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard University and a specialist on the science of attention, explained that when people use digital devices, they get a quick burst of adrenaline, “a dopamine squirt.” Without it, people grow bored with simpler activities like driving. Mr. Ratey said the modern brain is being rewired to crave stimulation, a condition he calls acquired attention deficit disorder.

“We need that constant pizzazz, the reward, the intensity,” he said. He largely dismisses the argument that people need the time in the car to be productive. “The justification for doing work is just that — a justification to be engaged,” he said.

Auto accidents will continue to happen and innocent people will continue to die. But we need to move beyond categorizing as an accident the blatantly careless selfish obsession with new freedoms to "stay connected" at all times and in all situations.

In a world where one or two seconds can mean the difference between life and death, there are important questions. The person who rammed into this vehicle should have asked them. The mother who was driving this car would still be alive.

Take a look at the Patchwork of Policies compiled by the New York Times. There are only 14 states with a total ban on texting while driving!

If you feel you simply must text while being in motion, then I suggest you take a walk. At least the damage you may cause will only be to yourself.

Survival of the Fittest

I know this isn't funny, but I'm sorry; I'm grinning like a opossum.

Put down the gadgets before you're hit by a truck. Jesus. H. Christ.

A Staten Island teen trying to text while walking fell into an open manhole - and city officials have launched an investigation.

Alexa Longueira, 15, was walking with a friend along Victory Blvd. on Wednesday when she suddenly dropped underground.

"She's all scraped up on her back, under her arms and her shoulders," her mother, Kim Longueira, said

Apparently it tweaked Pam’s sense of humor with her post title which also cracked me up.

Maybe a lot of people are more coordinated than I am. I don't even like to walk while talking on a cell phone, must less texting. I don't text actually. I find typing on a full-sized keyboard tedious enough. And all this time I've assumed it's just me and my old age less than youthful vitality. Thankfully, I've been proven wrong by a 15-year-old.