I’ve got good news and bad news . . .
The good news is there’s a new TV network just for dogs called DOGTV!
The bad news is the only thing I like to watch on TV is hockey and DOGTV doesn’t have hockey. 🙁
— Lightning 
DOGTV
Aside
ideasspotter: 75 Startup Tools and Apps
MOCA Cookie Crumbles
Ed Ruscha has resigned as a MOCA trustee, as have John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger and Catherine Opie, leaving no artists on the museum’s board.
“Art” and “artist” are words that get tossed around pretty lightly. Ruscha‘s work — and the same goes for Baldessari and Kruger — consists of modifying photos and other images, often by writing words on them.
It’s like lolcats, minus the occasional wit.
Opie is a photographer whose work is less interesting than the average high school yearbook.
Yesterday, the image below was posted on the MOCA Facebook page. It’s an actual museum piece called “Earthwork aka Untitled (Dirt).”
Yes, it looks like a pile of dirt, but if you click the image to enlarge it, you can see that it’s actually — a pile of dirt!
This is risk-taking art, the risk being that the cleaning crew may accidentally sweep it up and throw it in the garbage.
No doubt the four retiring geniuses can put forth a critical theory, based on “the process of creation,” to explain why a pile of dirt becomes “art” when placed within the walls of a museum. I say good riddance and take your dirt with you.
Customer Undertone at the Furniture Store
If we spend enough money on home decorations, maybe we’ll finally have a chance to be happy . . .
The Game Blame Game
My boy is playing NBA 2K12 and points out that my Where’s Waldo shirt looks like the Washington Wizards (nee Bullets) throwback uniforms.
“Where’s John Wall-do?” he says.
Ha ha. I get my comeback opportunity a few minutes later when his game player passes to a teammate, who scores, but his player doesn’t get credit for an ssist.
“HOW CAN THAT BE ANYTHING BUT AN ASSIST FOR ME?!” he shouts in disbelief. “That’s bad programming.”
“Oh I doubt that,” I say. “The people who program video games are a lot smarter than the people who play them.”
Goin’ to Bangalore
I’m spending a couple of weeks in Bangalore at the end of the month. Travel is the most depressing thing in the world, beating out listening to other people talk about their travels.
Bangalore has been called the Silicon Valley of Asia. It’s like the Silicon Valley here in California, but with monkeys and malaria.
My boss has cautioned me to drink only the bottled water from the hotel, never the bottled water at the office.
“They refill the bottles at the office with their own water,” he said. “The hotel will give you two bottles a day, but I tipped the staff a dollar a day and they left extra bottles in my room. That’s a lot of money over there.”
I’m seriously thinking about tipping two dollars a day just to see what the heck happens . . .
Look Out, You Rock ‘n’ Rollers!
My bizness is taking me to Bangalore, India, at the end of the month. I got vaccinated for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, polio, typhoid, tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis.
I’m now immune to everything, including your consultations.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbnJo88kuP8]
Aside
Richard Feynman: Cargo Cult Science — a commencement speech from 1974 in which Feynman explains in a clear, entertaining way what real science is all about.
Satan on Walmart Heirs
6 Walmart Heirs Hold More Wealth Than 42% of Americans Combined
Everyone gets what they deserve, that’s my motto.
Of course the Walmart heirs have a lot of money. They’re fortunate enough to be the descendants of a man who got a $20,000 loan from his father-in-law, plus five grand he’d saved up in the army, bought a store, turned it via a lifetime of hard work into a retailing empire and left his estate to his family.
It’s a great American, Horatio Alger, rags-to-riches story. Meanwhile, 42 percent of Americans don’t work, don’t pay taxes and collect entitlement checks, and Mother Jones gives us the absolutely priceless information that they don’t have as much money as the Walmart heirs.
Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in 1962. By 1980, Walmart had 276 stores, 21,000 employees and $1.248 billion in annual sales.
If, over the course of those 18 years — 1962-1980 — you or someone in your family had recognized a good thing when you saw it and bought some Walmart stock in 1980, every dollar you invested would now be worth . . . hang on, let me pull up Google Finance on my iPad . . . over $500! So $1,000 would get you $500,000 . . . $2,000 and you’d be a millionaire without working a day in your life.
Sam Walton is in heaven now. I’ll see the rest of you whiners in Hell . . .
Sadly, Nation Knows Exactly How Colorado Shooting’s Aftermath Will Play Out
“The calls not to politicize the tragedy should be starting in an hour, but by 1:30 p.m. tomorrow the issue will have been politicized. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if the shooter’s high school classmate is interviewed within 45 minutes.”
“It’s like clockwork,” said Gerson, who sighed, shook his head, and walked away.
Dog Talk
I know a lot about dogs. I can strike up a conversation with anyone, but only if they have a dog with them.
Stephen Covey, 1932-2012
Stephen Covey, the author of the best-selling book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” died early Monday morning at 79 years old, according to The Associated Press.
Here are the seven habits:
- Be Proactive
- Begin with the End in Mind
- Put First Things First
- Think Win/Win
- Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
- Synergize
- Sharpen the Saw
One way to assess the value of advice is to ask, “Would anyone advise the opposite?” If the answer is no, then all you have are platitudes and truisms.
Let’s try it:
- Let Life Wash Over You Like a Big Wave
- Go Off Half-Cocked
- Proceed in a Frivolous, Undirected Manner
- …
You get the idea.
By selling more than 25 million copies of this book, and becoming known as one of the leading business thinkers of his time, Covey revealed the vacuousness of the modern mind, although I don’t think that was his intention.
R.I.P. Stephen Covey
How Did Civility Die?
There’s no sense in being precise when you don’t even know what you’re talking about. — John von Neumann
Let’s Get Drunk and See How Fast We Can Drive My Expensive Car
According to the California Highway Patrol, [Kurt Duncan] Naegele, [Ryan Robert] Doheny, Doheny’s brother-in-law Darren William Dahlman, 38, of Pasadena, and Christopher H. Pennell of Los Angeles, had been drinking as guests invited to a birthday party on the San Simeon ranch on Sept. 18, 2009.
They drove to the airstrip to find out how fast Naegele’s Range Rover could go, something a CHP investigator claims Doheny later told him was a bad idea because it was pitch black out and Naegele was driving very fast and erratically. Around 11 p.m., the Range Rover rolled several times
before falling down a steep embankment 300 feet off the runway on the north side of the airstrip.The crash killed Dahlman, seriously injured Naegele (who had to be extricated from behind the steering wheel) and also injured Pennell and Doheny. Naegele and Doheny estimated to officers that they had been traveling 35 mph at the time of the crash, but CHP investigators who examined the skid marks and other evidence at the scene determined they were going more like 105 mph.
Here’s where things get strange: Naegele maintains that Doheny was actually driving the vehicle, but rather than take the case to trial, he cut a plea deal for a year in custody and four years of probation.
Footnote: I was on jury duty in a similar case, where a drunk guy drove a car full of drunks into a tree, pinning himself behind the steering wheel, then claimed in court that he wasn’t the driver. You gotta say something, right?
Result? Hung jury. You can always count on three idiots out of 12 who believe that anything’s possible.
Theological Question
And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up . . .
So why did the Lord make the sick person sick in the first place?
Penn State Death Penalty?
College football — Penn State Nittany Lions earned wrath of NCAA — ESPN
Forget the NCAA death penalty . . . Penn State University should be burnt to the ground, plowed under and sown with salt.
Open Letter to a Politician
Via Cafe Hayek:
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once. — Einstein
