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November 27, 2004
D.C. by phonecam
As promised, here's the photos from D.C. last weekend.
The last is from a series by Nikki S. Lee at the Hirshhorn Museum that I really liked.
Posted by sam at 01:38 PM
November 25, 2004
Happy Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
We're taking it easy this year - precooked turkey and gravy mix. Real mashed potatoes, naturally. Last year we spent a lot of time cooking a big meal. It was delicious, of course, but not worth the time for just the two of us. So this year I'm thankful that we don't have to cook.
Posted by sam at 12:22 PM
November 23, 2004
Succession planning at Mickey D's
Remember way back on April 19, 2004 when the CEO of McDonald's died of a heart attack? We wondered if ailments due to poor nutrition is something their succession plan takes into account.
COO Charlie Bell took over as CEO at the time. Here we are, just seven months later and Citing Cancer, Chief Resigns at McDonald's. Apparently the the diagnosis came just one month after being named CEO.
Let's see if the "more health-conscious and light alternatives" now on the menu help the new CEO, James Skinner, last any longer. This doesn't bode well for Mr. Skinner:
Both Mr. Skinner and Mr. Roberts, like Mr. Bell, are lifelong McDonald's employees. Where Mr. Bell started his McDonald's career flipping burgers and mopping floors at the age of 15, Mr. Skinner, 60, joined in 1971 as a restaurant manager trainee in Carpentersville, Ill.
Posted by sam at 02:39 PM
November 22, 2004
Mileage Plus sucks
Why did I bother accumulating all those United miles if they never let me redeem them? Between the blackout dates and the limited seats they make available it's essentially impossible to plan award travel on United.
Forget it, they lost me as a loyal customer. Those stupid reward programs are the only thing keeping the "legacy" airlines alive. If they can't even manage those to customer satisfaction they have no chance in hell of surviving. United has lost my business.
Posted by sam at 05:54 PM
More on moral values
NY Times: Many Who Voted for 'Values' Still Like Their Television Sin
But with "Desperate Housewives" and "C.S.I." leading the ratings, television shows are far more likely to keep pumping from the deep well of murder, mayhem and sexual transgression than seek diversion along the straight and narrow path.
Posted by sam at 09:28 AM
November 21, 2004
Civilization, again
This weekend I flew to the DC area for an interview with a small tech company involved in digital media. Friday they put us through five interviews and a half-hour test, which they called a "survey." Saturday we played laser tag - I came in second - had lunch and saw the usual DC suspects (photos soon).
Posted by sam at 07:46 PM
November 16, 2004
FCC is out of control
Turns out that the FCC's record $1.2 million fine against Fox for the "suggestion of sex" on Married by America was prompted by an entire 23 people and only three unique complaints [from Jeff Nolan].
This is ridiculous. I'm going to complain about all the crap on tv, maybe then they'll fine ABC for According to Jim.
Posted by sam at 08:54 PM
HBS volleyball
We didn't win the tournament, but we played well and we had a good time. We were one point away from the final four but lost 24-25 to Tuck. Breean enjoyed her shopping, apparently.
Posted by sam at 10:47 AM
November 15, 2004
Powell resigns
Colin Powell "resigns". Not a good sign for the next Bush administration. Bush is cleaning out threats and moving in loyalists like Alberto Gonzales.
Posted by sam at 11:29 AM
November 12, 2004
Boston this weekend
We're traveling to Boston this weekend. Me for an MBA volleyball tournament at (the hated) HBS, Breean to visit her friend Amy.
Can't remember the last time we saw civilization. Maybe way back in the summer...
Posted by sam at 04:46 PM
November 08, 2004
First snow of 2004
The first snow last year was on November 9. Here we are today, right on target:
Posted by sam at 10:24 PM
Hacked vote?
From Cookie: Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked
As much as I might want to believe... smells a little too much like wishful thinking.
Posted by sam at 02:38 PM
Fox News
Dunno which is worse, that Bush won or that Fox News "clobbered the other cable news networks" on election night.
Posted by sam at 07:35 AM
November 07, 2004
Getting over it
From one of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell: Getting Over It:
Wilson and his longtime collaborator, Daniel T. Gilbert, argue that a distinctive feature of this resilience is that people don't realize that they possess it. People are bad at forecasting their emotions - at appreciating how well, under most circumstances, they will recover.
The aritcle is not ostenisbly about politcs, but I'm going to file it under /politics just because of the timing.
Posted by sam at 03:39 PM
November 06, 2004
Andy Goldsworthy
I saw an interview with Andy Goldsworthy at Cornell last week. He's my second favorite artist. The interview mostly went through his history as an artist, which seemed to consist entirely of un-understanding teachers and men with shotguns catching him working on their property.
Posted by sam at 07:57 PM
November 04, 2004
Blue clothing
Responsible clothing for blue state citizens:
Posted by sam at 03:49 PM
The Day the Enlightenment Went Out
From the NY Times, The Day the Enlightenment Went Out:
This election confirms the brilliance of Karl Rove as a political strategist. He calculated that the religious conservatives, if they could be turned out, would be the deciding factor. The success of the plan was registered not only in the presidential results but also in all 11 of the state votes to ban same-sex marriage. Mr. Rove understands what surveys have shown, that many more Americans believe in the Virgin Birth than in Darwin's theory of evolution.
This might be called Bryan's revenge for the Scopes trial of 1925, in which William Jennings Bryan's fundamentalist assault on the concept of evolution was discredited. Disillusionment with that decision led many evangelicals to withdraw from direct engagement in politics. But they came roaring back into the arena out of anger at other court decisions - on prayer in school, abortion, protection of the flag and, now, gay marriage. Mr. Rove felt that the appeal to this large bloc was worth getting President Bush to endorse a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (though he had opposed it earlier).
Posted by sam at 01:39 PM
More red-state bashing
From Jerry Colonna:
Posted by sam at 01:24 PM
November 03, 2004
I need to vent
I guess the rest of us on the coasts don't care about #$^%#$^#$% moral values.
Hey red states: I'd like to see how well your economy functions without California and New York. How much money would be left for stoopid wars in Iraq without the blue states?
You can have your intelligent design, we'll take stem cell research, thank you. You can have your rigged voting machines, we'll take paper. You can have your Patriot Act, we'll take the ACLU.
Take your faith-based presidency and shove it.
Posted by sam at 01:05 PM
California needs to secede
It's time to take our toys and go home. Remember back in elementary school? If you brought the basketball and you didn't get picked, you could always threaten to go home.
Well, all those damn red states in the middle of the country don't seem to want us to play. They think we're a bunch of liberal weenies - draft dodgers and "economic girly men."
Well what do we need them for? It's time to start thinking about seceding from this stoopid country.
I know I'm not at all comfortable being associated with a country 50% full of people voting for Dubya.
Posted by sam at 12:17 PM
Moral values?
Moral values?? Can someone explain to me what that means? Cause I don't get it.
My suspicion is that it's a code phrase against abortion and gay marriage. Is that not the case?
Posted by sam at 08:06 AM
Difficult to sleep tonight
It's not looking good, is it? They're calling Florida already and Ohio doesn't look good.
Posted by sam at 12:23 AM
November 02, 2004
I want it Thursday
Here's my new favorite quote, which seems variously attributed to JP Morgan and Henry Ford:
I don't want it perfect, I want it Thursday.
Posted by sam at 04:35 PM
I voted
After seeing my polling place today I am glad to know that we have OSCE observers monitoring the process.
My "ward", which I assume is just some fraction of the city of Ithaca, is divided into two districts. My polling place had one line for each district, with a map and a person to help people figure out which district they are in. Of course everybody is in my district, leaving one of the two voting machines and 50% of the workers idle while the other line nears 30 people.
As this line backed up, the two older women with the voter registration books showed no sign of hurry. Not only were they not hurrying, they were some of the slowest moving people I've ever seen.
Imagine the scene like this:
------- line of people ------------- [voter sign-in] - [voting booth]
The [voting booth] only holds one person at a time and clearly is the bottleneck. With 20+ people waiting in front of the [voter sign-in], you might think they would add a buffer of even one person between the [voter sign-in] and the [voting booth] to ensure that the [voting booth] (which is the bottleneck, remember?) operates at 100% capacity. No. The [voting booth] appears to be idle about 30% of the time because the two older women at the [voter sign-in] are so slow and do not recognize the need for a buffer.
We were joking around in line about how they might actually slow the process even further. When... some guy in an NRA hat starts complaining that the voting machine is broken. Fortunately he was referring to the other machine but we had to laugh.
Oh yeah - it sucks to know that my vote doesn't count for anything. That's so stooopid.
Posted by sam at 12:51 PM
My prediction
CNN has a good election results dashboard for real-time monitoring today.
I'm going to go out on a limb and call Kerry based on unprecedented voter turnout. Never underestimate P Diddy.
Posted by sam at 07:19 AM
November 01, 2004
Another electoral map
Penni, you'll like this. The LA Times has an interactive electoral vote map. Lots of fun to play with.
Consensus these days seems to be that Kerry needs to win either Ohio or Florida, neither of which is convincing.
Posted by sam at 01:12 PM