Entries from May 2007 ↓

BookWise is an interesting marketing concept for selling books. Very interesting.

I just received a press release that says the following, and this is all it says.

“The San Antonio Spurs organization has been fined $50,000 for failing to make its players available for a required media session on Monday, May 21 during the NBA Western Conference Finals, it was announced today by Stu Jackson, NBA Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations.”

Why the fine?
I don’t know. I do know that the NBA is very serious about its relationship with the news media, and the amount of publicity lost because of this antic by the Spurs was probably worth millions in equivilent advertising dollars.

“If you’re intimidated and you don’t think you want to go out there and compete, then stay in the locker room,” said Jerry Sloan to the Jazz during halftime on Sunday while the Jazz were playing the Spurs in game one of the Western Conference Finals.

ESPN’s DJ Gallo quipped “That’s the best you could come up with? Every athlete has heard that clichéd speech countless times.” True. But, not every athlete has heard it from the lips of Jerry Sloan.

Sloan isn’t cliche, and his players know it. He’ll yank a sub-par performing superstar at the drop of a hat if he isn’t doing his job on the court. He does it all the time. Just ask Kirilenko about his pine time during the first two games against Houston.

- Engadget gets an email saying the iPhone will be delayed until October and that Leopard will also be delayed.

- Engadget writes about it saying it came from a “trustworthy source.”

- Apple’s stock drops $4.47 per share in eight minutes ($4 billion off the market cap).

- Oops. The email was fake.

Engadget says “Presumably Apple is now on the hunt for whomever was able to spoof its internal email system.”

Engadget Screwed Up
In my opinion, this was bad journalism by Engadget (Ryan Block) and not a good thing for blogs. It would have taken them a few minutes to call and let Apple know what they were sitting on and that they were planning on running it. Apple could have at least had a second to say “this was a fake.” I think Engadget may have hurt its relationship with Apple here.

My guess is Engadget realized they weren’t the only ones who received the email, and they wanted to put it out as fast as possible. So, about that “we have it on authority” part . . .

Connor Boyack is a real statesman, and he’w written one of the best articles I have ever read about the problem with the media in this country. Here’s a snippet:

I present to you Connor’s five-step program to actually figuring out what is going on in the world:

1. Turn off your TV. No Fox News. No CNN. No local news.
2. Embrace the godsend that is independent journalism. For starters, see News With Views, Lew Rockwell, Project Censored, and World Net Daily.
3. Develop a strong sense of distrust and skepticism for anything promoted, reported by, or opined upon by the establishment media (or worse yet, the government).
4. Look hard for the truth. Chances are, it’s far different than what your favorite journalist believes it to be.
5. Open your eyes, shake off partisan politics, and like Mr. Keating suggested in Dead Poet’s Society, rise high to see things from a different perspective.

This one deserves a standing ovation.

Bo Jackson qualified for the 60-yard dash in his freshman and sophomore years of college. He considered joining the U.S.A. Olympic team, but was informed sprinting would not gain him the financial security of Major League Baseball or the NFL, nor have the time to train. According to Bo, he would rather have done track than any other sport.

via Wikipedia.

What would you have done?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. It’s easy to tell stories about people who leave behind the obvious money to follow a dream and then become successful. This poses the question. Are you living a dream? That is, are you currently involved in something right now that you’ve always dreamed of doing? It doesn’t have to be your full-time career. It could be taking photographs, teaching a class at a college, etc…

Please share.
My dreams?
Working in professional baseball - check. I’m working for the Salt Lake Bees doing play-by-play on the computer. If you’ve ever watched a game online where it tells you each pitch, play, etc… I’m the guy on the back end entering it all in. Like anybody in baseball, I wouldn’t mind getting called up to the majors someday.

Owning my own restaurant - I don’t own a restaurant. I don’t even know for sure what type of food I would serve, but I have ideas. I love to cook. I love good food, and I love to see people enjoying good food.

Al Sharpton:
“As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don’t worry about that; that’s a temporary situation,” Sharpton said during a debate with Hitchens at the New York Public Library.”

Mitt Romney:
“It shows that bigotry still exists in some corners,” said Romney, who spoke to reporters after a campaign event. “I thought it was a most unfortunate comment to make.” . . . “I don’t know Reverend Sharpton,” he said. “I doubt he is personally such a thing, but the comment was a comment which could be described as a bigoted comment.”

via Deseret News

My cohort Clayton Blackham has a great post over at Spinjas.com about knowing your customer. He got an email inviting him to a “women’s only” event that includes “bra fitting.”

by doing this you might be burning a bridge that needs to be crossed in the future. In this case, though I wasn’t a frequent shopper at this store, I’m less inclined to shop there in the future.