Kerfuffle

From interloper to inspiration: Remembering Trinket, our three-legged Newfoundland

This post is long overdue.  I've been writing it in my head since December 8, the day we had to put Trinket down after she seriously injured her remaining front leg somehow. 

Trinket was about eleven and a half years old when we said goodbye. She managed to get through the last five years missing her front left leg, having lost the limb to osteo sarcoma.  A brave and patient dog, she endured months of chemotherapy and two years of follow-up medical treatments and tests to be sure the cancer didn't come back.  The fact that she did survive well past the expected year following the diagnosis was simply amazing, and placed her in the rare 5% of dogs that enjoyed longtime survival.

We first came to know this wonderful Newfoundland dog when I brought her home on a "trial" basis.  She was three years old, and belonged to a distant relative that loved her very much but was unable to devote the time and attention to her that any dog deserved.  It was an act of love on Marci's part to give Trinket to us, and I know it was a hard decision on her part.  Knowing I didn't have full buy-in from Tom, I went and got her anyway.

Things didn't get off to a great start.  We were living in Frankfort, Illinois at the time, with our original two Newfies, Shadow and her daughter Savvy.  Shadow was a very apparent alpha dog, and Savvy didn't take kindly to Trinket's apparently play for "beta" status.  Within minutes of her arrival, Savvy and Trinket were going at it in a major way.  It actually took both Shadow and me together to break up the fight.  Over time, all three dogs learned to get along, although for months it was an uneasy peace between Trinket and Savvy.

When I took a job in Madison, and moved to a temporary apartment while we were deciding whether to make the full move to Wisconsin, Trinket came with me.  She often accompanied me to the little ad agency where I was working, and she became an office celebrity.  She was so gentle, and had such a great disposition, that even people who didn't really like dogs seemed to like her.  She and I walked Madison's State Street at lunch, and hung out at the Memorial Union terrace at the University of Wisconsin on Friday afternoons in the summer.  I'm not sure which one of us loved that more.

Unlike Savvy, who also lost a leg to bone cancer, Trinket was diagnosed early.  That probably saved her and allowed her to live a full life, albeit one missing a leg.  She adapted quickly, and in a lot of ways it seemed as if she didn't know she was missing anything.  She could move pretty fast when she felt she had to (like when she knew she would be getting a bath, or she was offered a ride in the car).  She even caught the occasional mouse, something I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it on more than one occasion.

As Trinket got older, and slowed down like any old dog, we continued to make accommodations for her as necessary.  When she could no longer jump into the car, we'd give her a boost.  When she could no longer get up on to the bed, I'd lift her.  Every night, without fail, she asked for -- well, demanded -- a pig's ear treat.  Her sidekick, Bosco the mutt, would stick by her side, knowing he'd get some of whatever she was able to cajole from us.  He looked after her, cleaned her ears, played with her, and would come running whenever he heard her bark. 

Trinket was inspirational.  That's the best single word I can think of to describe her.  She adapted well to being abruptly removed from her original family, and after a few skirmishes with Savvy, fit so well into our Newfie pack that most people figured she was one of Shadow's puppies.  When she lost the leg, she just soldiered on as if nothing was different.  When Shadow and Savvy were both gone, and Bosco joined the family, she didn't bother with any alpha behavior; she just rolled with it.

It's been an odd month around here since she died.  Her passing was totally unexpected, as she was fine at 4pm and in a world of hurt at 6pm.  We can only guess that she either did something to the remaining front leg in a fall, or that maybe the cancer had come back and weakened the leg to the point something broke.  Either way, we knew we owed her a quick and pain-free end.  Our wonderful vet, Elaine, was here at 5:30 the next morning and shortly after, Trinket was gone.  We buried her at sunrise next to Shadow and Savvy.

Independent from Trinket's death, through an odd set of coincidental circumstances, Gracie joined our family just two days after Trinket died.  A month earlier, I had set up a visit with someone who was trying to place an adult Newfoundland.  Tom was rightly reluctant to bring another dog into the house while Trinket was still with us, but he agreed that we could at least meet Gracie.  Suddenly, Trinket was gone.  After some soul searching, we decided to go ahead with the visit.  Sappy as it sounds, we wondered, "What would Trinket do?"  We decided Trinket would like us to pay it forward.  We should give her spot in the family to another Newfie who needed a new forever home, just like we did for her eight years earlier. 

I'm not sure if this is an upside or downside to adding Gracie to the mix just two days after Trinket died, but doing so left us little time to mourn and to dwell on the loss.  Make no mistake; the loss was huge.  But we had a new dog to socialize into the pack.  Gracie was not and is not a replacement for Trinket, but in some ways she is kind of a tribute to how important a place Trinket held in our hearts. 

I miss Trinket.  I especially miss her late at night when I am in the den reading.  That's the time she'd look at me, waiting for her opportunity.  As soon as we'd make eye contact, she'd bark.  I'd try to ignore her.  She'd keep it up, knowing eventually I'd cave and give her a pig's ear.  She loved those things.  And I loved her.

[Photos, from top:  This spring, pausing before chasing some chickens out of the hedge. Christmas 2010. My study buddies, Bosco and Trinket.  Trinket with Gigger, our miniature donkey, in one of my favorite pictures.  Gracie on the study buddy couch.  Video, below:  Trinket loved to go for rides in our old convertible.  This happens to be from what I believe was her last ride this past summer.]

 

Iowa Nice versus Iowa Stubborn

All the more reason I want to move back to Des Moines to teach at Drake University...

 

By the way, the above video replaces the previous attitudinal video benchmark for the state:  Iowa Stubborn...

 

"Sometimes when God closes a door, He opens a window... And sometimes standing outside that window is a circus peanut wearing a badger."

With Herman Cain's exit from the campaign, Donald Trump takes his seat in the clown car. Comedians rejoice!

As hilarious is this is, is says a lot about how Republicans view the eloctorate and our country.  Pretty sad.

Proud to be a Badger!

 

What a game!

Congratulations, Lt. John Pike! You're now an asshat AND a viral Internet meme!

Lt. John Pike, the UC Davis campus policeman who so casually pepper sprayed peaceful protesters, has earned himself a whole lot of Internet attention.  And that means PhotoShop is working overtime...

A whole lot more after the jump...

Asshats of the week: UC Davis Chancellor and her Campus Cops

Art imitates life... and not in a good way.

In this particular piece of visual satire, the artist(s) comment on the way one presents oneself in a leadership role as part of the UC Davis Campus Police Department.  Perhaps you recognize Lt. Pike.  He's been all over the internets ever since his video went viral. [h/t John Roach for the art find]

Unfortunately, Lt. John Pike is a real person, who really used a chemical weapon, spraying it into the faces of non-violent student protesters because the protesters were a threat to him and to fellow officers.  That would be the fellow officers in riot gear, who stood passively by and let their leader do this, as the photo below so unfortunately illustrates.  Look!  Look how threatened they appear.  Those kids on the sidewalk:  so violent and threatening! 

What kind of man does it take to pepper spray students sitting on the sidewalk because they were a threat to you as you strutted by.  It takes an asshat.  And this asshat's name is Lt. John Pike.

What an embarrassing display.  It's no wonder  students, faculty and alumni of UC Davis are completely dismayed, and are seeking the resignation of the school's chancellor, Linda P.B. Katehi.  The chancellor saw no need to criticize the actions of Pike and his officers... until photos and videos of his shameful display went viral, giving the rest of the nation -- the whole world -- a chance to see how badly she and her team managed this relatively low wattage protest action.  Chancellor?  You, ma'am, are an asshat as well.  Congratulations.

The Los Angeles Times reports the president of the University of California System, Mark G. Yudof, said he was "appalled" at what took place on the UC David campus... and he wasn't talking about the students sitting on the sidewalk, either.

“Free speech is part of the DNA of this university, and non-violent protest has long been central to our history,”Yudof said. “It is a value we must protect with vigilance. I implore students who wish to demonstrate to do so in a peaceful and lawful fashion. I expect campus authorities to honor that right.”

If anything good comes of this (aside from the officers' suspensions and perhaps the resignation or firing of the chancellor), it is that this fiasco has brought forward questions about the role of police who introduce violence into otherwise non-violent protest actions.  As Phillip Kennicott of the Washington Post writes, it's not just the use of chemical weapons... it's the seemingly indifferent attitude of the offending officers and their disregard for the victims.

It looks as though he’s spraying weeds in the garden or coating the oven with caustic cleanser. It’s not just the casual, dispassionate manner in which the University of California at Davis police officer [Lt. John Pike] pepper-sprays a line of passive students sitting on the ground. It’s the way the can becomes merely a tool, an implement that diminishes the humanity of the students and widens a terrifying gulf between the police and the people whom they are entrusted to protect.

This is the American way of life that the members of our armed forces fight to preserve?  No.  No it is not.

 

 

I'm pretty sure Yellow Cat's not coming back, but I still look for him almost every day

When we moved to Cambridge, the couple who sold us our farm was great about telling us about the idiosyncrasies of the house and barn. They made sure we had a Rolodex full of contact information for any of the contractors and other service people who they used over the years. They left us the stools that looked so great with the breakfast bar.  And they told us about the yellow cat.

"There's this feral yellow cat that lives in the barn.  We put food out for him, but he's not too friendly and he won't let anyone get within 20 feet before he'll run away," said Jennifer Miller.  "But he's part of the farm, and so be on the lookout for him.  He's been here for at least two years."

Sure enough, we spotted the yellow cat a few times a week.  Usually he was cutting across the  yard, or eating from the community cat bowl we put out for our own cats, Laverne, Shirley and Lucy.  As soon as he sensed the presence of a human, he'd bolt.  But I started trying to talk to him.  His name simply became the formalized Yellow Cat, as in "I saw Yellow Cat today hiding in the hay loft."  One horrible winter day, when it was snowing and the wind chill was well below zero, I saw him fighting his way into the wind to the shelter he chose in a drain pipe that ran under the driveway.  The next morning, the snow plow had effectively blocked both entrances to the pipe.  We ran out to dig out the openings, but couldn't see whether he was in there.  He showed up a few days later in the barn, proving he had some of his nine of lives left.

Before we ever had dog doors in the house, we had a cat door into the garage.  We put it in so our own cats would have somewhere to go if they were left outdoors while we were away.  Yellow Cat figured out the cat door and took up residence amidst the boxes in the garage.  He found on open box with an old packing blanket and made it his bed.  I began putting food out there for him, and we began working on trust.

The breakthrough came when we thought he was a goner.  We found blood all over, including where he was sleeping.  He apparently had a serious leg wound, though we couldn't get close enough enough to do anything about it.  But we did start putting antibiotics in his food.  He got better... another of the nine lives used.  Tom built him a box, and we set up a heated bed and water bowl in the garage for him.  He moved in.  We still couldn't get too close, but he no longer would run away.

Yellow Cat began to be more friendly toward our other cats.  He also began sunning himself out in the open, either on the deck or in a chair.  He'd hang around and wait for us to give him some food.  And eventually he discovered the dog door into the porch, where we had a water bowl.  He was a smart cat, and a brave one.  When we were out of town, according to the neighbor who would take in the mail, he used the other dog door to come into the house.  Eventually, he even came in when we -- and our dogs -- were home.  He was not intimidated in the least by Trinket or Bosco, and was more than willing to let them know that with a swat to the face.

As he became more comfortable being in the house, he began letting us pick him up.  He'd purr loudly, and let us pick the burrs out of his coat.  He was pretty ratty looking, didn't smell too good, and always seemed to have a few scrapes or scratches, ear mites or some other malady.  But he worked his way into being almost a house cat, and worked his way into my heart in the process.  He knew that all he needed do was ask and I'd give him a slurp of half and half.  He loved half and half.  He became relentless in asking for it.  And then he'd purr so loud as he lapped it up.

About two months ago, he started looking more sickly than he generally looked (he definitely looked like he'd had a hard life, even though he was now cared for and loved).  He was losing weight, and didn't have as much energy. The last week of September, he stopped eating.  He would only sniff his half and half, and sip some water.  He was failing.  On a rainy Sunday, I saw him just standing awkwardly in the front lawn.  I brought him in and dried him off.  He didn't look too good.  I took him down to the warmth of the basement and put him on the bed we have down there.  But he climbed back up the stairs, and walked with an unsteady gait to the dog doors and outside.  He sat upon the woodpile in the rain.  I decided that the next morning I would take him to the vet and send him over the rainbow bridge.  As I left to go to campus, I looked at him sitting there, called his name, and he looked back at me.  It was the last time I saw him.

When I came home, I asked Tom about him.  "Oh, he's on the chair in the living room.  I tried to feed him, but he didn't eat."  We looked in the living room, but he was gone.  I think he knew I what I was thinking.  Being put down, though, was not part of Yellow Cat's exit strategy.  He took his leave, went outside, and essentially faded into the landscape.  No one has seen him since, and I have to guess he just went out to one of his many spots, fell asleep, and never woke up.

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a month now.  After he was gone for a week, I pulled together a few pictures of him.  But I also kept looking out for him.  There was a part of me that thought he'd prove us wrong, rally once more, and be back looking for half and half some morning... yet I knew that was rather unlikely.  I truly hope I don't come across his remains... and have been mindful of not looking too hard around the grounds for that reason.  Instead, I look at the places he would often be found... the garage, the rug in the kitchen, a chair in the dining room, the front porch.  But I know he's gone, and he's not coming back.

It's hard to win the trust, let alone the love, of a feral cat.  Yellow Cat taught me it's possible.  Close to four years ago, a big gray tomcat showed up.  Two years ago, a mouthy and assertive black cat took up residence in the barn, then left the following summer only to return that fall and stick around permanently.  Only Yellow Cat had the distinction of being named for his color.  Bob (gray) and Betty (black) have also let us befriend them.  Both they and I have Yellow Cat to thank for that, for I knew if I could make friends with him, and I was really patient, I could be pals with Bob and Betty too.

Yellow Cat will forever be a part of our farm, and forever be in my heart.  Godspeed, my little yellow friend. I'll neither forget you, nor forget the lessons you taught me.

Of pork products, the economy and a perrenial special fast food item: The McRib is back

When I started working at Needham, Harper & Steers in 1982, the agency had just lost the McDonald's account.  The fast food giant was such a big part of the agency's culture that there was even a McDonald's right in the lower level of the building, part of the massive Illinois Center development at Michigan and Wacker in Chicago.

The McRib with food stylist help

Having this franchise an elevator ride away was a mixed blessing.  We were kind of pissed off at them, but it sure was convenient.  So we ate there, but we also made fun of them.  A lot.  And one thing we found especially amusing was the introduction of the McRib.

It was definitely an oddity in the fast food business:  a sandwich made from chopped pork, pressed into a patty shaped like ribs but boneless, drenched in sugary (well, high-fructose corn syrup) BBQ sauce.  Yum.

The McRib, naked

One a particularly slow day, we decided to get a McRib and do a little taste experiment.  We took the pork patty and ran it for several minutes under warm water to rinse off the sauce best as possible.  Our suspicions were confirmed:  the meat itself -- grey in color and amazingly well bonded so as not to come apart -- had absolutely no flavor, and standing alone and naked it looked nothing short of disgusting.

This thing has been a perennial "special limited time only" menu item for going on 30 years now.  I cannot for the life of me understand why, except to speculate that there are a lot of people in the country who have never had real BBQ in their lives, and somehow think the McRib is the real deal. Philistines.

The McRib as actually served

I never thought of the McRib as anything else but a crappy fast food sandwich until I read a piece this week by a blogger named Willy Staley, who posts at The Awl, a site with the motto "Be less stupid."  His article, A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage, suggests in a rather humorous but astute way that the relatively random appearance of the McRib on McDonald's menus is actually arbitrage at work...

Arbitrage is a risk-free way of making money by exploiting the difference between the price of a given good on two different markets—it’s the proverbial free lunch you were told doesn’t exist. In this equation, the undervalued good in question is hog meat, and McDonald’s exploits the value differential between pork’s cash price on the commodities market and in the Quick-Service Restaurant market. If you ignore the fact that this is, by definition, not arbitrage because the McRib is a value-added product, and that there is risk all over the place, this can lead to some interesting conclusions. (If you don’t want to do something so reckless, then stop here.)

I'm not sure if Staley is correct, but it sure makes more sense than the counter argument that this is a delicious offering for people who love BBQ pork, given that I think my coworkers and I proved that wrong in our warm water McRib experiment way back in 1982.

Read the who article here... it's worth ten minutes.

[cross-posted on my course blog, J646 Overtime]

Saying goodbye to one of the best people I've ever met: Remembering Patti Doane

[Naperville, Ill.]  When my mother died, years and years ago, a family friend gave me a book by Harold Kushner called, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.”  It was first published in 1981, with subsequent editions coming as recently as 2004. Kushner, a rabbi, wrote the book after dealing with his own personal tragedy involving his son’s illness.  The book’s jacket offers it as a “…straightforward, elegant contemplation of the doubts and fears that arise when tragedy strikes. Kushner shares his wisdom as a rabbi, a parent, a reader, and a human being.”

Perhaps one of the best things the book has to offer is the affirmation found in the title.  Bad things do sometimes happen to good people.  Sometimes they are really bad things.  And sometimes they happen to really good people.  People like our friend, Patricia Maddi Doane.

We buried Patti today.  She died this past Sunday at the much-too-young age of 51.  She leaves behind three great kids, Jimmy (17), Maddi (16) and Patrick (14) in addition to her husband of 18 years, Jim. 

Patti lost her own father when she was in high school, and lost her mother several years ago as well.  Both her parents died of cancer.  Since she was considered at risk for breast cancer given family history, she took the unusual step three years ago to undergo a prophylactic double mastectomy.  It proved to be a wise move, since biopsy work found two different types of cancer in the removed tissue.  Doctors were confident they got it all.

A year or so later, it was discovered the doctors were wrong.  And at this point, the cancer had already been doing what cancer does… spreading.  Patti underwent various kinds of treatment over the past few years.  There were good periods and not so good periods.  A few months ago it became apparent the cancer was winning, and winning big.

When I would refer to Patti, I would say she was my partner Tom’s bestest best friend… and that if things were different (if he liked girls... in that way) he’d have married Patti long, long ago.  She was, indeed, his closest friend.  They shared a relationship that spanned decades, and was that rare type of friendship so few of us ever get to experience.  I suppose I could have been jealous, but I loved Patti way too much for that.  She became one of my best friends too.

As friends and family gathered for her funeral services this morning, I was reminded that she wasn’t the only good person to have something really bad happen when she got sick… when she died.  Her children, her husband, her siblings, extended family and her freinds all had a really bad thing happen to them too.  They lost a wonderful, huge part of their lives.

To know Patti was to know she was a planner… an organizer… a doer.   She was very good about making and preserving memories.  She thought ahead.  One of the things she did early this year was to sit down with a few of us with some recording equipment to read children’s books for the grandchildren she knew she would never see.  As part of the eulogy he delivered, Tom drew wisdom from one of those books…

“One of Patti’s favorite books was The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.  This is the story of a toy given as a Christmas gift to a young boy.  The Velveteen Rabbit lives in the nursery with all of the other toys, waiting for the day when the boy will choose him as a playmate. In time, the shy rabbit befriends the tattered Skin Horse, the wisest resident of the nursery, who reveals the goal of all nursery toys: to be made real through the love of a human. 'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

“As Patti progressed through the stages of her dreadful sickness, we talked about what her fears were about the disease.  She told us that she was not afraid to die – she had actually always pictured herself dying early.  What she feared most was what would happen to those she left behind, especially her children who she loved so much.  Sometimes in classic literature we can find messages through metaphor and philosophy.  Sometimes though the meaning may be right in front of you.  As the wise tattered skin horse told us, when someone REALLY loves you, then you become REAL.   Then if that is the case, Patti will remain as real in all our lives in her death, as she did in her life.”

Listening to Tom work hard to maintain his composure made my heart ache.  To lose his best friend is a huge tragedy.  To take this loss less than two months after losing his mother has been simply horrible.  Yet he perseveres.

Bad things happen to good people.  Cancer sucks.  For those of us who remain, of course, life goes on.

Do me a favor, if you will.  Set this aside, go to someone who you care about, and give him or her a hug.  Do it for Patti.  Do it for Tom.  Do it for all of us. 

There's a market for just about anything on the Internet, including old magazine ads

I am fascinated with advertising history.  I especially like old magazine ads, as they are very accurate representations not only of advertising technique from various eras but also offer great cultural insights.  That said, I'm not sure I like them enough to want to spend money to buy and collect them.  But apparently some people do.

Recognizing that wit the Internet there is a market for virtually everything, the people who run AdClassics.com are ready to sell you ad pages from old magazines.  Seriously. 

I have to give this seller credit, though.  They do see a market.  For example, they target people who own or just love old automobiles.  From their web site...

Vintage ads offer a fascinating glimpse of history and represent the archival documents of our consumer driven society. If you own a vintage or show vehicle, a print of its original publicity advertisement is the finishing touch to your investment.

Ready to frame or laminate, our authentic classic car ads provide a unique decor to your home, business or showroom. All our ads are guaranteed authentic, carefully cropped from original publications. Our collection consists of over 1,000,000+ vintage ads so visit often to view our constantly updated selection. Click here to view all our ads.

It seems like they really do have an extensive inventory of car ads.  They even have one for the obscure Datsun F10 coupe (1976)... the car my parents got for me when I was a high school senior.  Yeah, I was stylin'...

But they have more than cars. For around $20, you too can own gems like these...

 

Nice to know that druggists supply the large tubes.  Where did people think they'd get this stuff?  The cosmetic counter at Macy's? (1920)

 

I suppose that was then; this is now.  But today, nothing... and I mean nothing... about Greyhound says "vacation" to me... unless you mean a vacation to Hell. (1937)

 

I have to wonder about this Marlboro ad.  Does this guy look happy?  It looks like he's holding a martini glass in his hand.  A little gin, a cigarette, and the look of regret... hmmm... interesting lifestyle emulation.  Oh, yeah:  nice tattoo. (1957)

I kind of doubt I'd ever spend money on any old ads.  But I could spend a lot of time just looking through the archives on this site.

[cross-posted on my course blog, J646 Overtime]

All I need do to feel the impact Steve Jobs had on my life is to look around my home

Always the multi-tasker, I was looking at my MacBookPro whiie simultaneously presiding over the monthly meeting of our local library's board of trustees.  For reasons totally random, I opened Firefox and clicked on the Daily Kos bookmark.  It was on DK, of all things, that I lerned Steve Jobs had died. 

Knowing I would be admitting to the rest of the people in the meeting that I was not looking at library circulation spreadsheets, but rather was surfing the internet, still I felt I had to say something.

"This has nothing to do with anything, but Steve Jobs died." 

It brought the meeting to a halt.

After a little bit of Apple talk, the meeting resumed, and I went back to multi-tasking.  Google+ was alive with thoughts about Jobs and expressions of sadness.  My Twitter feed was ripping by, and I noticed a lot of these: .  Once I remembered how to find the  (shift+option+k) I tweeted  :(

Steve Jobs died.  Fuck.  The meeting dragged on, and I found myself thinking of how many hundreds of millions of lives this man had impacted.  How much this this guy impacted my life.  (Not to mention how much money he cost me.  All worth it.)

I just did a quick mental inventory of Apple stuff at our house:

 A MacBook.

 Two MacBookPros.

 Two iPod Nanos.

 An original 64GB version iPod Video.

 An original iPhone.

 An iPhone 4.

 An original iPad.

 Two Airport Extremes.

 One Airport Express. 

Additionally...

 I leave the house most every day with a MacBookPro, an iPad and an iPhone.

 My iPhone spends the night on my nightstand.

 I have over 36 days of music stored on iTunes.

 My email address ends in @mac.com

 I subscribe to MacWorld, MacLife and iPhoneLife (really)

Yes, I suppose one could describe me as a fanboy. But a more accurate description would be that I am someone who appreciates the confluence of form, function, style, quality, integration, innovation, imagination and magic that is found in nearly every Apple product.  Simple as that.

It's more than fair to say that Steve Jobs had and will continue to have an impact on my life.

Godspeed, Steve Jobs.

Amazon's Silk, their new Kindle web browser, may just be a game changer

Yesterday, my friend and former colleague Harvey Briggs included a post on My View From the Shore that asserts Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet will "torch everyone but Apple" in the tablet game. 

This is a classic disruption strategy. While everyone else is battling for the same customers at the top end of the category, Amazon found a way to open the market to a huge swath of people for whom a $500 tablet just doesn't make sense.

Very few people who "need" an iPad will trade down to get one of these. But those tablets stuck in the middle will see their volumes fall to a product that's just good enough but a whole lot cheaper. The fact that Amazon is being launched with an integrated multimedia ecosystem guarantees it.

I totally agree with Harvey.  Essentially there are those people who will always want the high-end Apple product, and for them cost is not considered a barrier.  Others want something that costs a lot less and offers the key functions of content delivery, web access and email.

Both Apple and Amazon understand and offer something besides price that is key to category success in tablets: content.  Both have vast collections of content that they continue to grow by the minute.  All of the other tablet manufacturers and marketers out there simply don't have that.  They rely, essentially, on others (notably Amazon and Apple's iTunes) for content.  They're not even re-sellers, just also-ran conduits that make no money on the real product (aforementioned content).  How key is content compared to hardware? BusinessInsider.com opined yesterday, we may see Kindle devices actually be free some day soon... since it is simply the last link of Amazon's content delivery chain.

From my survey of two (my partner, a Kindle-user and me, an iPad user), content access and its portability are the primary if not only reasons we use those particular devices.  We both have laptops for all our computing needs, and smartphones for all our mobile needs.  The Kindle and iPad fill this in-between need that is, for us, totally about content.

But that's not the only reason Amazon is will rock the tablet market in a huge way.  They are going to do what others -- except, some might say, for Apple -- have not been able to really do:  use cloud computing to do the heavy lifting of browser functions, making browsing fast, easy, and (most importantly) invisible.  The best thing for complicated technology is for it to work really well without you knowing it.  I hope I am correct in thinking Amazon's Silk browser will deliver on this in such a huge way as to dramatically change the way web surfing technology works.

Here's a group of Amazon geeks to explain it, and they explain it quite well...

I love my iPad.  But something tells me that we'll be getting one of these in the house this Christmas.  If I order it early enough.

[cross-posted on my course blog, J646 Overtime]

Don Draper introduces Facebook Timeline

UPDATE: As is often the case for some of the best videos that borrow from copyrighted material, this one got yanked down.  I found alternative links and recoded this post twice but they also have been shot down.  Understandable.  Too bad the Mad Men producers don't realize that videos like this actually promote their product.  A lost opportunity for them, I suppose.

............

An excellent mashup...


From Mashable:

In this Facebook Timeline and Mad Men video mashup, Donald Draper pitches the idea of a nostalgia-infused social network that “lets us travel the way a child travels — round and round, and back home again to a place where we know we are loved.”

The video pulls from Mad Men‘s “The Wheel” episode — in which Draper conceives an ad campaign for the Kodak Carousel — and applies its dialogue to the Facebook Timeline. It was created by Eric Leist, a technology strategist with Allen & Gerritsen.

“The most compelling elements of Facebook’s Timeline are the ones that made Kodak’s Carousel popular,” Leist explains in the video description. “Reminiscing is a social activity. It always has been and now Facebook is bringing that activity online.”

I still have a Kodak Carousel.  In fact, I may have appropriated it from an ad agency I used to work for.  A cool machine if there ever was one.  And Mr. Draper is dead-on when he talks about the power of nostalgia.

What FOX and Google put on last night wasn't a debate...

This was a debate:

 

Fifty one years ago this coming Monday.

Back then, candidates took real positions, respected one another, and didn't bullshit their way through softball questions while crowd hooted, hollered, and booed.  There was still some honor among candidates and debaters.  Now it looks like some twisted reality show.  Ugh.

Madison: Be proud of your geeky self!

Tom and I moved to Madison from Chicago about seven years ago.  For as close as we had been before heading up here, we actually knew little about the city.  Sure, we had heard the jokes about the "People's Republic of Madison" and "77 square miles surrounded by reality."  But one visit to see how strikingly beautiful, fun and vibrant the city is turned out to be all we needed to know that we wanted to move here.

We quickly figured out once here that the local population has some interesting traits.  The locals are really friendly.  They are (no surprise) liberal and progressive thinkers (perhaps to a fault sometimes).  People here, for the most part, are very active and healthy compared to the rest of the state (and country).  And people here seem to be pretty smart.

On that last point, the numbers back it up. 

(Reuters) - Los Angeles is the entertainment capital of the United States and New York is the financial hub but Madison, Wisconsin gets the highest marks as the most educated American city.

The midwestern metropolis, which Men's Health magazine described as the city "where the average household has more degrees than a thermometer" edged past Plano, Texas and Raleigh, North Carolina to score the highest grades in magazine's ranking of the 100 cities with the best educated population.

:::

"It is all about education there," said David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief of Men's Health and editorial director of Women's Health, about Madison.

At times, people in other parts of the state -- and even our own governor -- complain about Madison and deride its citizens... often without the ability to back up their criticism.  Reminds me of how the jocks and stoners made fun of the geeks in high school.  Then, as now, I'm happy to be on the side of the geeks.

Well done, people of Madison!

In case you need a refresher in how magazines work...

Definitely easier than an iPad.  Usually a larger view too.

[click for larger image; h/t @ProfSpiker]

McDonald's gives a word to something Starbucks has been doing for years

I agree with the guy who blogs at copyranter:  I hate when advertisers make up words.  Erudite as it may sound, I think it diminishes the quality of our language.

In this billboard by the Leo Burnett Company, McDonald's is now claiming that your beverage is an accessory.

"Drinkcessorize!"

Really?

Sure, fashion is part of our self expression, our self definition, and our cultural interaction.  It's why people proudly wear merchandise with prominent brand logos, why they drive the cars they do, why one is either a Mac or PC user (mostly Mac, I'd say...), and why we share the music we do.  And that's all good.  Anything can be fashion.  Even beverages.  At its core, that's a lot of what Starbucks is all about.  It's a badge, a token of one's self.  That's why they (and most smart marketers) protect their trademark so aggressively.  That's totally fine by me.

But, jeez, don't make up stupid words.  It's already done too much.  As comedian Hal Sparks notes, "unsweetened" is a made up term.  "I want a plain iced tea."  "You mean 'unsweetended'?"  "No, I mean plain!  What kind of person would sweeten a beverage and then go through a process to take the sweetener out of it?  It makes no sense!"

Yeah, maybe I should let it go.  But it still bugs me.

[cross-posted at J646Overtime, my course blog]

Republican presidential candidate debate: short version

This is the best that's out there?

 

<sigh>

Selling a mild energy boost to your inner 12-year-old

Coffee is big business these days.  After all, how else can we get that jolt we need in the morning?  Don't really like coffee?  Well, there are all kinds of energy drinks out there.  There's old-school Mountain Dew too.  Too much to deal with when trying to travel light?  How about what these guys are selling...

Clever, huh?

These little things, individually wrapped and similar to those Listerine breath strips (gelatin based, dissolves quickly) actually started out as a patch, but people thought that was dumb.  So they changed to little sheets you slap on your tongue.  They offer a smattering of vitamins and 100 mg of caffeine... about what you'd get in a weak cup of coffee.

There's certainly a convenience factor, in as much as you can throw a package of 10 in your backpack for $5.95.  Of course it takes more than three Sheets to give you the same buzz as the 330 mg of caffeine in a Starbucks Grande (almost the same price per mg according to my math).  By comparison, these are a bargain compared to those little bottles of 5-Hour Energy, which only offer a 120 mg jolt (twice a can of Mountain Dew).  So... cheaper than some things, more expensive than others.

What about the "cool" factor?  As it turns out, I found out by posting this video on my Facebook page that the brother of one of my friends is the one marketing Sheets.  And we just happened to be going to last week's Badger game.  So we stopped by one of the many pre-game gatherings near Camp Randall with some samples and did a little focus group work.

The porch full of Wisconsin students were impressed.  Well, I think they were impressed.  They were very receptive, liked the few "Take a Sheet" t-shirts we had to give away, and were more than happy to try the product.  I mean really happy.  Screaming happy.  One guy ate four of them, which we tried to discourage... mostly because we only had a single pack of ten.  (He claimed he was hoping to offset the effects of the liquid refreshment he was enjoying... since maybe noon.  Whatever.  All I know is the damn things were popular.  And they turn your tongue red.

I have to admit I love a good pun, bathroom humor, and anything that can make me laugh out loud the first time.  But I doubt I'll ever buy any of this stuff.

And yes, there is a Take A Sheet website.

[cross-posted at J646 Overtime, my course blog)

I'm going to miss my "not-exactly-mother-in-law." Remembering Eileen Wright.

This morning I drafted the obituary for Eileen Wright.  I don't normally write such things, but Eileen was my partner's mother.  I sometimes called her my mother-in-law, but that's not exactly accurate since the people of Wisconsin still have a bug up their collective behind regarding same-sex marriage.

Tough.  Eileen was my mother-in-law.  That term -- mother-in-law -- has so much negative baggage and comedic currency.  The stereotype, repeated in sitcoms, novels, movies and jokes, is well known.  Yet to have known Eileen is to know how very wrong mother-in-law stereotypes often are.

Eileen was wonderful.  In a lot of ways she was my surrogate mom, in that my own mother has been gone for almost 30 years.  Even my sister, who shares Eileen's August 28th birthday, felt that way about her.  It's not hyperbole to say that she was an amazing woman, a great mother, and frankly just a riot to be around.

The first time I met Eileen, it was to spend Christmas Eve with Tom and his parents at his apartment.  We'd only been dating a few months and I was so nervous I brought my sister with me... and made her go up the stairs first.  I mean, you know how it is... I thought Tom was "The One" from the minute I met him, and now I had to meet his mother?  All that worry for nothing.  She immediately put me at ease, and proved to be warm, wonderful and accepting from the get-go.  From that early point, I considered her to be a good friend.

More than a few times I told Tom -- and Eileen -- that had my mother still been alive, she and Eileen together would have been trouble.  Both had larger than life personalities, loved to be surrounded by friends, loved a good joke, and enjoyed cocktail hour. 

I have all these stories whirling around in my head right now about Eileen.  How she could make Christmas explode into whatever house she was in on that holiday.  How she was not above ripping a piece off an angel food cake and throwing it across the room at someone.  How she could venture out and discover fields of her prized morel mushrooms year after year when I have never found a single one.  How she thought she was fooling us sneaking cigarettes in our upstairs bathroom.  How she left to drive alone to Florida a day ahead of schedule so she could keep her kids from having someone ride down with her.  How she loved that we named our miniature donkey "Gigger," her childhood nickname.  How she would do anything for her kids. How she loved to sing... knowing she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.

Fact is, she was never expected to live this long... or even into her teens.  She had Rheumatic fever as a child, and back then it was considered a death sentence.  I guess it still was, in as much as her death can be mostly attributed to damage to her heart valves caused by the fever all those years ago.  But that's Eileen... she took a good long time to negotiate her departure.

Now she's gone.  In some ways, it was an extended goodbye.  Eileen had a major stroke about three months ago.  She regained mobility but communication was difficult.  That didn't stop her from making her views known... including that she did not want extraordinary measures taken to keep her alive.  And so that's how it went.  She stopped the meds, and spent the last month in her home, kept company day and night by a family member.  Yesterday was her 77th birthday, and all of her children and grandchildren were with her.

A devoted Catholic all her life, she had made peace with her God, and she was ready to go be with Bruce, her husband of 51 years who passed away in 2008.

Those of us who knew and loved this wonderful woman plan on raising a toast to her tonight at 6pm CDT.  Join us.

Cheers, Eileen.  I love you so much.  Godspeed.