You knew for FIVE years you were losing your late-night gig. Then you pushed anyway to remain on TV in a later-evening fashion. I do not buy into the “not my fault” “everyone’s angry” bullshit coming from you. I buy into you being happy being paid, and no matter who gets hurt, Jay comes out on top.
For the record, I stand with Conan O’Brien. Whee he goes, what he does — I’ll support him.
And as for Jay Leno? His humor has never worked for me – stand up, or as a variety show host. NBC shot themselves in the foot keeping him out of fear about what he’d do with a rival. They ruined their own late night schedule because of it.
About 14 months ago, Albertson’s at Boot Ranch Plaza closed shop. Just before it happened, I lamented in nostalgia about that happening. Having had worked there in the past and what not.
But one thing that was not said was the fact I was excited about the upcoming change of the store from one brand to another. I was thrilled that the retail location at 400 East Lake road was going to get the traffic that the site had long deserved.
That’s part of the reason I began chronicling the renovation at the location. Because what was a caterpillar would be a butterfly soon enough. So twice I’ve posted about the cocoon that was the dormant retail space in Boot Ranch. What I failed to do was actually announce when work crews started to show up at the address in May. What I failed to address 0 with pictures and what not – was when the fences were put up, when the stucco facade was stripped and repainted over the summer.
Publix should be rising from the ashes of Albertsons the second week of December. A year after I observed the in-waiting voidness of the location. Painted, with untold renovations having happened inside and trees actually planted in the parking lot (which has long, long needed some shade trees), the building’s transformation is all but complete. It looks splendid and I’m eager to check things out.
For a- long, long while I’ve been trying to get off my chest a little issue I have with the business world… well, something that was showing up to anyone who was paying attention that is.
And then again, who pays attention? The fact people don’t pay attention is why the proverbial wool keeps being pulled over society’s eyes. But I digress, different rant, different time…
My issue isn’t about money being paid out in the rescue plans… no, it’s how we’d gotten to the point where “too big to fail” actually existed, and how that issue is still causing grief on the US economy even after all the trillions handed out to financial institutions and other companies in the USA.
A Spectra-22 speech processor is a bulky piece of hardware, that’s all I can describe it as after eight years of toting one around.
For those who are unaware (and the general web-cosmos out there), I’m deaf. Stone deaf. Lost my hearing by way of genetic disorder and lost my hearing at 18. I was implanted with a version of Cochlear’s Nucleus-22 processor (known as the ABI) but didn’t go through with having it “turned on” (so to speak) until October of 2001.
…and if I knew how well I would hear with this implanted device, I would have gone through with it much sooner.
The thing is, with the implanted device, you have had to wear body-worn equipment to make it work. Stuff on your person. And for eight years, I’ve been wearing what essentially is a obsolete piece of equipment. The Spectra-22 was originally state -of-the-art in about 1989 – give or take a few years. While the entire concept of a late-deaf person hearing again is fantastic, technology sometimes does limit as much as it enables. Like in my case. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, unless of course it’s trash tabloid-ism or an arrest warrant… But I’m not talking just-printed-on-paper but I mean a by-line of one sort or another. I can say that from experience as I’ve gotten that kick — seeing “John Fontana” linked to letters-to-the-editor, or being sourced/interviewed by USA Today, being quoted in The Hockey News, The New York Times Slap Shot blog and la-de-da.
But I can also say that wasn’t where I intended to go with writing when I started out as a kid. My intention wasn’t to be a face-in-the-crowd (though no matter what you write or publish, you are another face in the crowd of literature) in the newspaper. Not another source for magazines and what not. Not a weblogger. I planned on doing things creatively and having my own book. Or books — plural. Take your pick.
But that never happened. See, when i was a teen I got away from story writing so much and was writing poetry most of the time… a habit that’s followed me into adulthood. Lyrical verse more-so than deep observations and perspectives… Well, yeah they are perspectives but they are my perspectives. Sometimes just pop, sometimes inspired by events or people or feelings in my life.
Over the years, I’ve had some of them available to the masses through the web… Certainly you can find a couple of them on this site and probably elsewhere on the web… But they’ve never really been published in the sense of print. Never published in the sense of being out there for any traditional form of mass consumption. I haven’t bothered to take the time with sending out poems to magazines who have niches all of their own (and aren’t available unless you pay for a subscription or pay for a copy — while you’re not getting paid for your contribution).
I ought to put together a manuscript and do something with it. But I’m hesistant.
Catherine Durkin Robinson, local blogger and Creative Loafing contributor, has written two book manuscripts. Her first one is being published, chapter-by-chapter, on a blogspot site. The other, a more recent work based on her life as a teacher in Hillsborough County, is being sent around to literary agents in hopes someone will pick up the work and mass-market it. Sadly, that has not been the case and the rejections have been comical at best.
Their loss. I’ve read the book and it’s not only a good read, it’s provocative and controversial enough to be read widely by those fearing school-district scandals.
I also have another friend, in the Pacific Northwest this time, who went out and self-published her first novel. The book, Steel Goddesses, is currently available on Amazon.com for purchase. It takes a lot of courage to go out on a limb like that and self-publish any work… But it sort of cuts out the middle-man of having to appease literary agents who tell you what a proper market for your writing is-or-isn’t and tells you to change your work to fit that niche. At least that’s what I’ve seen with rejections served up to Catherine.
So the idea I am kicking around is actually putting together a manuscript of poetry I’ve written over the past decade and self-publishing it. I realize that poetry is not exactly a hot seller and not going to lead me to riches… It’d cost me more to publish than the commissions I’d get in the long run from doing it… But it does what I have long sought to do — take the writings jammed in Mead notebooks that I’ve carried around since High School and take some of those verses and show them to the masses. Will people connect? I have doubts. Will strangers read what I’ve written? Even more doubts… But it’s mine, and it’d be out there. My claim. My piece of literature.
On the road of life, it seems like every time you hit a clear patch — something falls off the car.
Every time your car gets room to run, not as many obstacles, and the engine at least sounds like it’s starting to purr…. Well, a lug nut is coming loose and the entire engine block is about to come apart in a grand mess.
The point is — One thing goes right, something goes wrong.
It’s a yearly rite. Much like back-to-school shopping, or perhaps August thunderstorms (or even more appropriate, blown-out-of-proportion optimism for local football teams – be they high school, collegiate or professional): the Best of the Bay awards.
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The 2009 edition of said-awards is out there right now, with the opportunity to vote through August 31st, 2009. There’s a whole slew of subject matter to vote on, including best and worst local politicians, best restaurants, best local TV personalities, best sports figures and even more risque offerings.
Only catch is that you need to fill 20 of the items on your ballot. Ballots with less won’t be counted…. So look over everything – EVERYTHING – and vote.
Late 2004 I had a friend I met through Yahoo chat who only had images through this weird network type thing called MySpace… She had joined the network because of the indie music scene on there and socialized with both real and online friends through there.
This was before their was wider network access to MySpace and therefore I had to join in order to view any member’s profile information or photos. So in early 2005 I joined MySpace…
And hated it the entire time I was involved.
MySpace was like the AOL of social networks to me. Oh, it had a lot of bells and whistles you have seen copied and imitated by other networks… It introduced people to the web in general in a lot of ways (design wise – with customizable profiles where you could change every aspect of your profile with a bit of CSS know-how, which fathered an entire sub-market of web design sites). It was the forefather of other social network sites and catered to the mainstream while it’s “competitor” — Facebook — was aimed specifically at the college crowd and linking college students and alumni.
I connected with a few people on MySpace – old friends, new friends – but generally loathed the experience. MySpace was technologically obsolete, even if it’s vision was advanced. Social networking and it’s strength for marketing and message spread was something only just catching on.
The problem with MySpace was that it did not advance itself like most web properties do — no significant design changes, no huge additions or subtractions. Oh, there was one significant change that helped put it on the outs with me and others: More flash advertising. Videos, interactive applets and other intensive ads that belabored my browser and annoyed my web surfing experience. I don’t want to see a video for “Miss March” when I just want to see the message that was sent to em from an old friend! I just wanna’ log in and get it done.
Why did I stick around four years with MySpace? Friends who aren’t on Facebook (which I joined at the behest of hockey bloggers in 2006 or so, after the network started allowing the general public to join). Family as well. Just appeasing them because there was no way to stay connected to them without a Myspace profile.
But really, it’s over now.
I didn’t like the Web 1.0 design, I hated the crappy design jobs that people employed on personal profile pages, I hated (abhorred, loathed, etc) all the flash bullshit that was lumped onto people’s profiles (tons of youtube videos stacked on top of each other, tons of different photo album bells and whistles in the middle of the profile, etc) as well as the advertisements.
In the end, MySpace felt like a toy that had never had it’s packaging improved. A toy that’s never had it’s design flaws corrected besides the barest of changes. A toy that’s been improved-upon and leaped over by it’s competitors.
A toy that’s lost it’s novelty and wore out my patience early on. I endured. But no longer.
Publix should be rising from the ashes of Albertsons the second week of December. 
