Nice Weekend

As far as I'm concerned, snow is really cool only when it snows enough to shut things down. And this last storm certainly did that. I spent most of Saturday working on my quad in preparation for the storm. The battery was dead and not taking a charge, so I ran out to Riverhead Honda and got a new one. While I charged that up, I figured it would be better to be safe than sorry (and out of commission), so I stripped the quad down, got rid of the old gas that was sitting in the tank, put in a new spark plug, and put the machine back together. The machine started right back up after I got the new battery in. The snow didn't start until late, and there wasn't enough on the ground early in the evening to shut the roads down. Craig, Dennis and I didn't get out until after midnight. It was a cold night, but we got in some amazing riding. Craig broke his aging sprocket and had to head back to get another quad, but we still had a great time riding around, blowing donuts on the street and sliding around parking lots, streets and trails.

I even got some riding in Sunday morning. Most of the streets didn't get plowed until this morning, so there was a good deal of fun to be had Sunday. I took a cruise around the neighborhood a couple times. One of the roads in the next development over was unplowed through the entire storm and the quad could barely get through the deep snow, since it was at least 15 inches deep. Thankfully, my tires have some nice paddles on them and I was able to skim over most of the deep drifts without getting too bogged down.

Sunday night I went over to Lauren's. She cooked dinner and since I had the quad in my truck, we took a spin around her block. There were some kids down the block trying to tow a sled with a Yamaha Raptor. We didn't stick around long enough to see if they were successful.

This morning I decided to work from home because the LIRR was so screwed up and I had an early conference call. In a couple minutes, I have to leave for Islip and go pick up my Mom at MacArthur. Hopefully, her flight will make it in on time.

Space Curses and the FCC

My latest media addiction is watching Battlestar Galactica episodes on my iPod. I love it in a different way than the 9-year-old me enjoyed the cheesy original series. Something that they picked up from the original series is the use of the word "frack." What's funny about the new series is that they use it as a direct replacement for the word "fuck." Whereas Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch used to occasionally use it as a general expletive in the original series, with the new series, they're flagrantly using it as a placeholder for "fuck."

For instance, Sharon says "Motherfracker," and numerous other characters say things like "You're out of your fracking mind" and "Quit fracking around." In one scene, which I've replayed four or five times on my iPod, Helo says "frack" but it REALLY sounds like he's saying "fuck." The first time I heard it, I quickly rewound it to hear it again, to make sure I wasn't hearing things.

I'm no fan of censorship, so I'm the last guy who would make a fuss about this. But what if the PTC or one of these other citizen watchdog groups that hounds the FCC decides to say, essentially, that "frack" is close enough? I wonder what would happen.

The real question is whether someone could actually try to argue that "frack" is just a placeholder word.

The PTC website (no link due to a desire to not give them Google Juice, but try parentstv dot org) doesn't have a review for Battlestar Galactica, so I'm not sure what their stance on it might be. I suspect if they've seen the show, they're probably upset about it. After all, isn't it the meaning of the word that hurts people and not the actual word itself?

:-D

The "Corrosive" Cluetrain?

I disagree intensely with this statement:

Doc and Dave and Chris Locke thought they were writing something that told marketers how empowered, networked individuals made their messages and methods obsolete, powerless. Instead, they merely furthered the aims of marketers by blurring the lines between the social and the commercial spheres. "Markets are conversations," is one of the most corrosive ideas ever popularly embraced, in my opinion.

The result is "corrosive" only because marketers aren't yet marketing correctly. Many of them translate "markets are conversations" as "I should throw several million ad banners on blog networks and hope the 'cool factor' rubs off on my brand." Many others translate it to mean "I should pay people to shill." It is going to take a LOT of work to get marketers back on the right path. Along the way, we're going to see a shitload of aborted attempts, embarrassing gaffes and worse.

One of the things I've learned in recent weeks is that a conversational media idea can quickly be derailed by overzealous marketing types. Many ad agencies are happy to let the idea go awry if it means they get paid a commission to sprinkle blogs with advertising fairy dust. I've found that the best way to keep the idea from being polluted by broadcast model thinking is to say, in no uncertain terms, "We are not interested in faking this on your behalf. It will hurt both of our reputations. We're not prepared to take this assignment on if you're uncommitted to real, meaningful conversation."

Sometimes it makes the client kill the project. Other times, it makes them take things a bit more seriously.

Shorter Tom Hespos

For those wondering what the point of today's Online Spin is, it's that digital media has made it incredibly tough for people who produce content to prop up crappy stuff with good stuff. So the following tactics are dead or dying:

• Putting out a "Greatest Hits" or "Best of..." album with two good songs and 18 crappy ones.
• Relying on good TV shows to provide tune-in and relying on "lead-in" to bolster ratings for crappy shows.
• Shrink-wrapping a good DVD with two crappy ones and calling it a package deal.
• Shitty albums in general. Long live the single!

I'm sure you can think of more.