This morning, Morning Edition (NPR morning news program) interviewed Jim Harbour, former executive at Chrysler, about the American automobile industry (listen to the interview here). He had nothing new or interesting to say, and overall seemed to repeat the same points that GM, Ford, and Chrysler have been saying for the past 30 years: […]
I got to take a prospective graduate student out for breakfast on Saturday. We ate at the Sun Room Cafe on State Street and then walked up to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and back down to the Chazen. Overall, we spent a couple of hours chatting about school, Madison, travel, art, […]
Microsoft has launched yet another new ad campaign targeting Apple. In this one, a “consumer” drives around searching for a 17″ laptop for under $1000. She has apparently done no research online, as she visits an Apple store and quickly walks out. Finally, she finds two models that fit her criteria and […]
The people are up in arms! Darn those investment bankers (unless they make me money, in which case I will fall at their feet) and their risky credit default swaps that I don’t understand or even want to try to! How dare AIG give out $165 million in bonuses (a tiny fraction of […]
I really enjoyed Chinatown Wars, up until I finished the story mode after just 10 hours of playtime. The missions were just starting to get challenging, requiring multiple attempts to beat them. The storyline was getting good (betrayals, rats who weren’t rats, even a twist!). I was getting the hang of making […]
No, not “tweets,” the irritatingly short burst of thought from users of Twitter, but “twits,” the people who waste their time on this inane site. You know how it works by now: you sign up for the site and can instantly start “microblogging,” putting out short, 140 word or less “posts” about anything […]
Dear Meghan,
First, let me say thank you for your willingness to stand up to some of the blowhards in the Republican party. You have demonstrated what your party will have to do in order to survive: ditch the hardcore elements and let them flounder on their own, embrace a more progressive agenda, and […]
After posting a link to my blog series “What Is A Cult” as a comment to an article on madison.com, I received a shockingly high increase in readership, specifically to that series, but to other posts as well. How high, you ask?
Figure 1: Blog views per day. Note the meteoric […]
While waiting to watch The Amazing Race yesterday (a thoroughly enjoyable show, if you haven’t seen it), Lauren and I got to see a 60 Minutes interview with President Obama. I still can’t get over how weird it is to have a real president. Barack Obama looked Steve Kroft in the eye when […]
I’ve been playing Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS for five days now. So far, it’s been a very enjoyable experience. Overall, the game feels very similar to previous incarnations: lots of stealing cars, police chases, guns, drugs, bombs, and criminals. That’s good news for the series, as […]
Here’s a story for you. Eight public officials in Kentucky have been charged with taking money to change votes on the state’s opaque electronic voting machines, affecting outcomes of elections on the local, state, and national level, for a period of years from 2002-2006. This is a carefully plotted crime designed to thwart […]
Views to my blog continue to skyrocket. Yesterday, 937 hits - setting daily, weekly, and monthly records with no difficulty at all. So far today, over 100 hits; previously, this number would have astounded me. It’s good news for the Capital Times. People still read their stuff, even if they scraped […]
Yesterday, Amos forwarded me a link to an article on the Capital Times’ website (madison.com) about my former employer. I read the article - a fluff piece about the company, the likes of which I had read before - and then started to scroll through the comments. Such vitriol! It seemed that […]
In 10 minutes, I will walk over to GameStop on State St. to pick up my copy of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS. Once I have the game, I will return to the Union, where I will unpack it and fire it up. My expectations are high, and I […]
I have heard many complaints from older people over the last few years, all saying that my generation doesn’t have any respect for work, but also wants more responsibility; doesn’t respect elders, yet expects to be rewarded for learning something new, doing something well; and overall, make terrible co-workers. Note the rampant contradictions. […]