stefblog, yo

An excuse to make another button.

Lovely Rita

Was watching CNN about the evacuations ahead of the approaching Rita, and the emphasis of the report was an accident involving a bus. There was fire, and I think one or more were killed. Tragic? Yes. But they were presenting it as if it was someone's fault that there was an auto accident. I mean no disrespect (except maybe to CNN) but how can that possibly be the main story? 10 people injured, 2 dead out of what, 2 million fleeing at one time? That's 0.0001%. But CNN wants to titillate, god forbid we flip over to fox or cbs or game show network.

Like Katrina, they're focusing on the anecdotal for the purpose of audience retention. It was a horrible situation for 10,000 or so people in N'Oleans. But that pales to the 1 million people that were displaced, and will be for a long time. But our eyes (media) are drawn to the desperate, easily photographed 1% stuck in an awful fix. Who's to blame? Who's fault is it? I have an idea. Maybe the category 4 storm that came through had something to do with it. I think they give them names like Katrina for a reason: so we can blame her.

Dubyah

Someone at work told me about this, and I didn't believe it til I tried it. Go to google, type in "failure", and hit the I'm feeling lucky button.

Hilarious, and kind of eerie at the same time.

Operators Are Standing By

I am sick and tired of advertising.

The average american is exposed to around 3,000 individual marketing impressions each day. Of course this depends on how you define impressions, along with many other factors. But the conventional "wisdom" in advertising bears this out. Look around you right now; personally, I'm typing on my Gateway keyboard, looking at my Dell monitor, next to my Scotch tape dispenser, drinking from my Thermos mug, making Post-It notes with my Bic pen... It's everywhere. Makes me think of the line in the Terminator movie:

"Listen. And understand. That [advertising] is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."

Logos, signs, commercials, pop-ups, t-shirts, billboards, blimps, matchbooks, newspapers, junk mail, video games, PBS, hats, maps, buses, flyers, movies, milk cartons, tattoos, and spam...to name a few. It will never stop, because it can't. A free market system must be free to market. If america is an organism then advertising is the synapses firing the heart pumping commerce to all the nooks and crannies. Hell, it's the whole nervous system. Everything we feel-taste-want-need-fear is marketed. Our whole culture is reflected in, and simultaneously driven by, advertising. We reek of it.

For the record, I work in advertising.

September

A graphic I made in 2001 for my old website. I also made a little flash movie based on a common email 'joke' that was going around.

Peace... yeah, right.

"Music" Television

Does anyone remember music videos? Artists would take their songs and have a visual presentation produced to go over top of it. Was an interesting concept. What does the "M" in Mtv stand for anyway? At least you can catch a video on VH1 occasionally, as long as it's one of the twenty they're choosing to show this year.

In 1981, I was living in the middle of the desert in Southern California. I was in a community that had cable pumped in because we were too far from anywhere to pick up a braodcast signal (which is why cable was created). I remember one day there was this new channel that showed mostly rock and pop videos, all the time. I remember there was some kind of ban from local advertisers, so all the commercials were muted for the first several months it was on. Yes, the videos could be repetitive sometimes, in fact we usually turned down the tv and up the stereo until there was a video we wanted to see (including a rare Red Barchetta!).

Anyway, I may be dating myself, but I turned on Mtv today and for some reason thought of Martha Quinn. Oh m'gosh.

N'Oleans

I watched yet another CBS special on hurricane issues, and it ended with a look at New Orleans music and culture. Kind of weird to think of it as city that I always intended to go to, as if it was too late now. They will put it back together, no doubt.

And as I sat there watching the program, dousing my Zatarain's rice with Tabasco sauce, it occured to me that maybe I should check on the effect of the hurricane on my favorite condiment. Their site is down except for a page explaining their status.

I entered the twilight zone for a second.

Button Factory

I'm addicted to making buttons. Especially the 80x15 "antipixel" variety, like the ones on the right (I made about half of those). Not sure why I'm getting such a kick out of it, there's really nothing in it for me. I have posted some I made for my site, and I'm thinking about putting together a more comprehensive gallery of any others I might make, nothing like this though.

Here's one to get started:

Go Agassi

Not-so-young Americans at US Open
Agassi rolls into US Open fourth round

Being the huge sportsfan that I am not, I still like to see Agassi doing well. An inspiration for balding 30-somethings everywhere.

katrina and the waves

Satellite Images from NOAA

Interesting page indexing post-hurricane images. Gives you a sense how BIG the situation really is.

damn fine looking site

Ctrl+Alt+Ben

I think it's coming together nicely. Apparently I'm more interested in learning CSS than dispersing any actual information, useful or otherwise. Stay tuned.