AlphabetSoup

This is a headline from Time.com.

When you have to clarify the year of the election, perhaps the poll is a bit premature. If I were called and asked who would I vote for in the next Presidential election, I think my response would be: “No clue.” I have 19 months to decide.

19 months. 1 year and 7 months. That’s 586 days from today.

I think there are more pressing issued to deal with today, than what people think about an event in 19 months.

Most polls, including the headline I stole from a Time magazine article, include Rudy Guliani. He hasn’t even announced he’s running for President, and yet you are asking people if they will vote for him in 19 months?

Not a single primary has occurred. The conventions haven’t even gotten their money yet (that was included in the pork-filled Iraq War funding bill that includes all those time lines for withdrawal that our elected officials spent so much time crafting, and pork-filling so our “well-respected” President can just veto the damn thing, thus wasting more time in DC… more blah, blah, blah, less action)… I digress…

So from here on out, I am not discussing the 2008 Presidential election. Not until the above headline can be run without the need to specify the year.

That will be 278 days from today.

STIFF: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.

I bought this book from Simply Books at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport before my trip to Phoenix in March. I had heard good things about the book from a friend.

Holding the book in my hand at the store, reading the subtitle, and then the cover quote: “One of the funniest and most unusual books of the year . . . . Gross, educational, and unexpectedly sidesplitting.” — Entertainment Weekly. I decided to buy it.

Granted it isn’t an endorsement from the New York Times Book Review. But “funny” and “sidesplitting?” This is a book about human cadavers. Dead people. What is so funny about death and dead people’s bodies? I had to find out.

Now, my wife, Meghan, is an anatomy of physiology teacher. I am aware that she uses cadavers for some of her lab classes. We have an agreement: she doesn’t tell me what days those labs are on, and we never talk about them. So learning about what happens to the human cadaver piqued my interest.

Mary Roach’s introduction takes the time to tiptoe around the issue of death and the remains of the dead. She explains that cadavers are no longer your loved one; they are merely a placeholder for the living. When you can get past thinking about cadavers as people (not so easy, even for gross anatomy students), you can really begin to understand the important role they play for the living.

(more…)

SYNOPSIS: In this thriller based on James Ellroy’s novel, Los Angeles cops Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) and Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) uncover corruption and conspiracy within the force while searching for the killer of Tinseltown hopeful Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner). The film follows Bleichert and Blanchard as they venture into Hollywood’s darker side to piece together Short’s secret life in an effort to crack the 1947 high-profile case.

My review:
STAY AWAY. Stay far away. This movie was almost unwatchable. Sure with Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson it should be visually appealing for all parties. But the movie’s plot jumped more than a Mexican bean. And the transition from one scene to the next left the viewer (me) wondering “what the F!” By the time the ending came around, I was so disinterested, I went out to walk the dogs.

Not even worthy of a star.

Yesterday I went to a nice luncheon sponsored by this local group called the Web Association (www.webassociation.org) on the growing impact of social media.

Since I am trying to learn, understand, and work with “social media” for Gray & Company (i.e. this blog), I decided to attend the event at Windows on the River in the Powerhouse, on the west bank of the Flats.

It was a very interesting panel: George Nemeth from Brewed Fresh Daily; John Ettorre from Working With Words; Dan Hanson from Great Lakes Geek. Jim Kukral from ReveNews played the role of moderator.

Each of the panelist shared specific examples that demonstrated how social media such as blogging, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, Digg, etc can offer businesses an opportunity to reach new markets, customers, and revenue streams.

I learned about a lot of great sites, but I think the general concept I was already aware of. A lot of people where there to hear the basics, and I think they did a good job of explaining something, being comfortable with the jargon associated with web-speak. But the overall problem with the concepts is that there is no real definition of social media, or web2.0 as it is being called. The landscape for these tools and outlets is expanding at an exponential rate, and not many will be able to keep up.

So I think what I took away from the luncheon is try it. Most of this stuff is free. Be creative. If you are trying to promote yourself, your company, a product, go get a free myspace page and yell from internet rooftop. Start a blog and have a conversation about your company, or create a video promoting yourself and a proven leader and upload it to YouTube.

The costs are minimal, the potential is unimaginable.

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
– Theodore Roosevelt