GlitchNYC.com

New Batman Prequel Sports Dark Mood, All Star Cast

There's a new Batman Prequel on the horizon, and it looks like it's going to be good.

The first Batman movie was, almost by definition, cool. They had distilled the concept of Batman down enough to be palatable to movie audiences, but retained his conflicted nature, brooding introspection, and almost guilty enjoyment at dealing out his brand of vigilante justice. The sardonic twist that he'd created his own greatest super villain was not lost on the screenwriters, and Jack Nicholson's Joker was the perfect foil to the Dark Knight.

The movie also gave Gotham the real grit and grime of a city desperate enough to allow and even call on a vigilante for protection, and the Gotham of that era was a very plausible "what if" reflection of the then deteriorating pre-Disney New York City.

The sequels came and went as many sequels of the 80's and 90's did, riding simply on laurels of the title and built-in audience, while forgetting everything the original movie and concept were about. Batman became, once again, as two dimensional as the comics he was derived from.

Finally, Hollywood has woken up to the real worth of franchise films. Bringing familiar characters and stories back to a willing audience and then doing them justice will not only pull in your original audience, it will also boost DVD sales of the original and grow a bigger core fan-base.

X-Men, LOTR, and Spiderman are but three recent franchises built on this premise, and it seems all the major studios are finally beginning to take notice. The idea of bringing true fans of the original work in and giving them some control over the project is also taking hold in the wake of Peter Jacksons lucrative devotion to the spirit (if not the letter) of Tolkien's work.

Batman Begins has, so far, differentiated itself from the Batman sequels by returning to the humanity of the characters, and making the casting (and budgetary) decisions to back that up. Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, and Michael Caine are among the A-List cast. Each (including even Holmes) has an impressive string of dramatic roles under their belt and they all stand poised to bring the Batman story back to life, resurrecting it from the POW, BANG, and ZOOM that it had been reduced to by the recent sequels.

Of course, casting isn't everything, but the mood of the piece already seems suited to the story. Take a look at the teaser trailer and see for yourself.

2:31 pm | permalink | /technology/film | 0 writebacks |

What the Hell (hell being the operative word) is Going on in Sicily?

All sorts of things are apparently bursting into flame with a surprising regularity over in Italy, and the best explanation anyone can come up with so far is that the Earth's electromagnetic nucleus has may have spikes, much like sunspots, that reach all the way up to the surface.

Either that, or as the Catholics there are claiming, it's really, truly, hell on Earth.

Whatever it is, scientists and other experts in the pseudo sciences have descended upon the town, as the incidents have apparently started back up again.

Crazy.

Stolen from LVX23

Check out the full article at Seed Magazine

1:45 pm | permalink | /life | 0 writebacks |

Hotmail Misses Its Own Deadline.

Years ago, Hotmail was awesome. You could sign up for a free email account that didn't change with your ISP, and access it from anywhere. You could even link your Hotmail account to other pop3 accounts and read them all in one web enabled spot! One of the survivors of the dot-com bust, Hotmail stayed afloat by offering great service and and using it's first rate status to bring in advertisers and eventually get bought by Microsoft.

After the bubble burst, Microsoft, to its credit, did not shutter the free email service and switch completely to paid accounts. However, over the years it has severely limited the space and functionality of its free accounts, finally squeezing free users down to 2 megabytes of space. At that small a threshold, everyone has to clean out their account regularly and keep signing in to make sure they don't get cut off and miss important emails.

It was time for a successor to the free email throne to appear, and Microsoft's able rival in the "search engine wars," Google, stepped up to the plate with an audacious offer: virtually unlimited storage for free, keep your email forever and search it quickly and effectively.

Not willing to be trumped by Google's new free email offering, Gmail, which is now in the process of a slow and steady roll out to new users via "invites" to join the beta test, Hotmail has announced that they are making storage a "non-issue" by allowing their free customers 250 megabytes of space. The announcement comes with promises of better spam and virus filtering and other upgrades to the service.

250 megabytes isn't great, but to be honest, it's enough to get me to keep my account. If they come through with it before Gmail comes online, that is.

Two weeks ago, on July 8th, Hotmail Staff sent out a message to all users detailing the changes. It also promised more communication "within two weeks." Today, two weeks later, I eagerly opened my email and was excited to find another message from Hotmail.

Dear MSN Hotmail Member, Your MSN Hotmail account is approaching the 2 MB storage limit. You need to take immediate action to avoid losing messages!

If your e-mail account reaches the 2 MB limit, you.ll be sent a second notification. You must then reduce the size of your e-mail account within five days. If you do not, some of your messages will be automatically deleted and cannot be recovered.

Increasing user storage space by nearly a factor of 8 is no small feat, and I understand that it will take time for Microsoft to upgrade its underlying systems appropriately, but they themselves promised communication within a certain time frame, and then failed to deliver.

In the meantime, they've successfully rolled out the new 2gb storage limit to at least some of their paid users.

Although I'm excited for my Hotmail account to be useful once again, Microsoft has a history of making the service subtly more and more annoying to use, and then offering to "fix" those problems if I just pony up the cash.

Although that may make for a viable business model when you're the only real player in the market, when there's other choices, annoying people isn't going to get them to buy a real account, it's going to get them to leave.

3:19 pm | permalink | /technology/microsoft | 2 writebacks |

Ravi The Scorpion Mystic

This past weekend, I was down at the Siren Festival at Coney Island.

I've wanted to go for the past few years, but I've never been able to get out there and the one day event always came and went as one of those great "things I wish I'd gotten to do."Finally, I was able to find my way out to the far southern reaches of Brooklyn this year for the event, and I was to meet friends a few hours into the event.

The morning started out rather ominously, and rather than heed the warning in the sky, I simply packed my umbrella and started out on the 2 hour journey. Along the way, I finished reading Just a Geek, and started to pour over the latest issue of Linux Journal, and still found time to be bored during the 2 hours of stop and go on the subway.

While in transit, I'd found out that a few of my friends were already on their way back out of Brooklyn. Apparently, beer and coasters don't mix (a lesson I'd learned at 10 years old with chili-dogs and the Gravitron, but not everyone gets to grow up a few miles from Great Escape.) I'd also never tried the experiment with an intoxicant, and apparently, it works quite the same way as funnel cakes and fried meats on a stick.

After meeting up with a few other friends and trying to see a band or two, we all agreed that it was too hot, stressful, and crowded to stick around for the rest of the bands and they decided to head home. I was now stuck with a dilemma, as I didn't live anywhere near as close as the rest of them did to Coney Island. I'd spent two hours getting there, and I was going to get my travel's worth, dammit!

I'd been very good about spending money so far, and I continued being frugal, catching free bands and letting my stomach slowly digest the wonderful and huge sausage hero I'd had around 2:00 over the course of the 6 or 7 hours I was there.

I tried very hard to like Blond-Redhead and They Will Know Us by the Trail Of The Dead, but both bands were fairly weak, and Trail of the Dead's "rockstar" on-stage drunkenness made for a crappy show on top of what would have only been mediocre music.

At some point during the night I realized I'd covered the boardwalk and the whole of Coney Island a total of 5 times, and I was beginning to recognize people as I passed them. Afraid that one particular group would think I was stalking them after the 10th time I walked by, I decided to take a detour into the famous Coney Island Circus Sideshow.

The show itself was interesting not so much for the amazing acts, but for the traditional showmanship of the event. Between the Barker standing outside, the comedic Penn and Teller pairings of mute "act" with vivacious announcer, and the brilliant ways they got you to "see inside the box for just a donation of 1 dollar more," I felt like I was in a very different decade, and was amazed to see how well the show still ran even in our culture of cable re-runs of fear factor and Ripley's Believe It Or Not. As for myself, I had a great time watching them put on the show even though I could figure out most of the tricks.

Many of the acts were shim-sham, such as "electro-girl" who, although differently dressed, also happened to be the pretty young 'contortionist' in the box you had to pay to see inside. She sat on what was obviously a low-voltage static electricity generator, and then passed that electricity over her skin to light up a fluorescent light bulb, and ignite flaming sticks with her tongue. She squirmed convincingly to make you feel as though she was really taking a good dose of electricity to perform the feats, but you got the sense that you could simply sit in the chair and do the act yourself. Fun, but not amazing.

The one act that really stood out for me was the real contortionist, Ravi "The Scorpion Mystic".

For all the showmanship and trickery of the other acts, there's no substitute for the real thing. Ravi is the real life equivalent of a character from X-Men. He can bend, twist, and compress his body in ways that hurt if you even attempt, and the only showmanship involved in his act is making it look like it's not the easiest thing in the world for him.

Strangely, I caught him again late last night at the "Disgraceland Family Freak Show" at Korova Milk Bar, and he performed his Coney Island act with a few added twists and props. I was floored again by his performance, and he made the others acts (some of which were more of the extreme nature than Coney Island's) again pale by comparison as he did things with his body that shouldn't be possible.

After his act, I shook his hand to congratulate him on his show both in Coney Island and at Disgraceland that night, and his skin felt like rubber; like if i squeezed his hand hard enough, his fingers would simply swell and squeeze out the front of my grip. It was a strange sensation, and it made me acutely aware of the fact that he's the real deal.

I'm dying to know more about how he got into the business, if he trained his body or was born that way, and how he got picked up by Coney Island. It's such a different life than many of us lead, like a twisted Olympics where you have to be the best to succeed. Fascinating.

2:49 pm | permalink | /life | 0 writebacks |

The Legacy of Alexey Pajitnov

While visiting Aeriesstars for her wedding shower up in Rochester, we were treated to several hours of "Tetris Worlds" on the XBox. We all sat transfixed, each racing to complete the level we were on before the other players completed theirs. Smartly, the game only advanced the winner to the next level, but you all continued playing. In essence, you were competing against yourself, but it's fun to play together since only the first player to finish will advance.

In order to understand my appreciation for this game, you have to know that I'm no stranger to multiplayer Tetris. Years ago, my friends from back home and I squeezed 4 of us in front of a single PC keyboard, each reaching an arm in to claim our keys and battle it out in tristix. Later, my college buddies and I transformed the 3 PCs of the Wagnerian Newspaper office into tetrinet terminals, and dueled online, shouting late night obscenities back and forth as we sent weapons like "block bombs" back and forth at each other.

While both of these iterations were fun diversions, playing via the keyboard isn't quite as satisfying as utilizing the years of hand-eye training we all have with the NES gamepad and similar controllers. Tetris Worlds is available for all modern gaming consoles, so now you can play with the controller of your choosing, and the game is retailing for about $20, or cheaper if you find a used copy on ebay.

The update of the classic puzzle game is excellent not only for its brilliantly engineered multiplayer modes, but also for its subtle fixes for some of the great problems of the original. Dropping a piece in the wrong "column" is no longer as frequent, thanks to a "ghost" image of the piece you're about to slam down. The "hard drop" is also a part of the official game now, meaning that you can hit "up" to put the piece down in place instantly, or hit "down" to slide it down and then sideways if you choose. New game modes add extra fun to the game, and I recommend it to anyone who uses their gaming system to entertain. Everybody knows how to play Tetris, and of all the versions I've tried my hand at over the years, this is the best for casual gaming fun.

The game, which is officially licensed and written by Alexey Pajitnov, the original Russian creator of the game, also includes a 4 page long "History of Tetris." I had always wondered about the legality of the thousands of "clone" games and there's a apparently a long and sordid tale behind the mess. At the heart of it, the rights to the game were improperly licensed by a British company for years, and even when "Elorg" established official rights and licensed the game to Nintendo (and forced Tengen to pull it's arguably superior but unlicensed version) Alexey waited behind the Iron Curtain of Communism while the Russian government absorbed whatever profits he would have acquired.

Since then, the USSR has fallen, the venerable Mr Pajitnov has moved to Seattle and started working for Microsoft, and he still has yet to see the wealth creating the world's most popular video game should have garnered him. Surprisingly, Alexey himself says he's content to have created a piece of our culture. It's an interesting story and worth a read.

I wonder if there will be a movie or book deal some day. Imagine "Tetris: The Russian Puzzle" with Robin Williams as Alexey and Matt Damon as Vadim Gerasimov, his young hacker friend who ports it to the PC. Throw in Tom Hanks as the hard edge KGB agent who keeps them from getting their money while evil villain Mirrorsoft sells licenses worldwide without owning them itself!

UPDATE: Wow - I just did some research, and it turns out the BBC just ran a documentary on all this. I'll have to try to get my hands on it! Anyone around here get BBCAmerica?

1:22 am | permalink | /technology/games | 0 writebacks |

Hunting a MythTV Bug

For MythTV users having trouble recording:

See more ...

6:22 pm | permalink | /technology/linux | 0 writebacks |

One Night In Geeksville.

Last night I think I threw the best party I've ever thrown.

I'd gotten the idea for holding a "Geeksville" party in my head a few months ago, but had never had the courage to put it together.

Here's the idea: get a group of people together and then do nothing but hang out and do stuff we all did as 14 year old geeks. For some it would be a nostalgic throwback and for others it would be a chance to see what we were all doing while they were off being cool. Basically, playing video and board games, drinking soda, and watching Star Trek: TNG.

Told ya it was "Geeksville."

I'd declared it a booze free event ("like before you could drink!", the invite read) unless people wanted to bring their own, and everyone played along. Lots of friends surprised me and came out for the party, and I was suddenly very glad that I'd gotten food that scaled well for a large group.

I was worried that the things that entertained me as a kid wouldn't hold up to adult scrutiny especially by friends who may not have come from the same geeky roots that I did. My worries doubled due to the fact that I'd nixed alcohol and we wouldn't have shared inebriation to help lower inhibitions and release the inner geek. I'd found myself fussing over food, preparing and perfecting so much that I imagined the Fab 5 watching me on a monitor somewhere going "Ooooh, he put a dash of paprika on the hummus, I did not tell him to do that!" The fact that I'd stolen the idea for the "Personal Pita Pizza's" we were serving from the episode where they make little pizza squares on flatbread wasn't helping matters.

In retrospect, I think it was people's expressions as each of their favorite old games materialized before them that completely vindicated the party for me. The beauty of having emulators and great game collections is that you get to grant people's video game wishes for a night.

Julie wanted to play Asteroids - it wasn't on NesterDC (because it predated the NES itself by 8 years) but sure enough, there it was under 1978 in M.A.M.E. and she sat cross legged for ages in front of it. Alexis' eyes lit up as Arkanoid came on the screen. Rick lost himself in Mike Tyson's Punch Out for hours, and even relived that pre-teen angst of not being able to beat the game and had to restrain himself from throwing the controller when Piston Honda II thwarted him for the 20th time.

It was like being back in 1993, and it was great.

We played some Cranium, and an attempt was made to play the horribly stereotyped 1970's "Bride Game," only to have Beth close it back up and remind herself to put a sticky note on it that said "Only open if extremely intoxicated."

Near the end of the night, people wondered aloud where the promised episodes of Star Trek: TNG were, and I fired up MythTV and put on "Deja Q," an episode that had taped recently featuring everyone's favorite omniscient mischief maker.

We all settled onto the couch and into our chairs, and before I knew it, the show was over and it was nearly midnight and people were leaving. We all jokingly commiserated about the (nonexistent) hangovers we would have in the morning, and I promised copies of NesterDC to anyone who wanted to buy a dreamcast.

All in all, it was a pretty great night in Geeksville. I can't wait to go back.

11:13 pm | permalink | /life | 1 writebacks |

That was Amaz(on)ing!

At noon yesterday, I clicked through the link to buy Just a Geek at wilwheaton.net

At noon today, it was on my desk.

I'm so impressed right now I can hardly express it. I didn't rush the order, and they expected it to get here between the 17th and the 20th. 24 hours is an INCREDIBLE turn around time. Kudos to Amazon!

I haven't had a chance to crack the book yet, but with an introduction by my favorite author on the back, it's looking very good already.

"Here's the gimmick: Wil isn't *just* a geek. He's a geek who's come from nerdvana - the Paramount lot where they dropped the first Trekbomb and forever changed the world - to tell us that it's not all that it's cracked up to be. He's also a geek who can *write*. Finally, he's a geek who's unafraid to sit and the keyboard and open a vein. There's a lot of scorching honesty mixed in with these convusively funny memoirs."

-Cory Doctorow, Author of Eastern Standard Tribe and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom; co-editor of boingboing.net

2:35 pm | permalink | /technology/web | 0 writebacks |

What Ever Happened to Predictability?

Here's a little mind-boggler for you.

First, recall the theme to Full House:

"What ever happened to predictability, the milk man, the paperboy, evening TV..."

Now, try to recall the theme to Family Matters.

This one had us stumped for hours the other day. See if you can do it without cheating - I'll give the answer here in a few hours.

1:34 pm | permalink | /life | 2 writebacks |

How to be a successful blogger in 60 steps

I just read through a very funny "60 Steps" list courtesy of Frank of dreamwill.net

A few of these made me feel like Ned Ryerson at the end of Groundhog's Day:

Ned: Where are we going?

Rita: Ohhh.. Let's not spoil it!

Ned: Oh.. Let's not.. I got that! Rrrreeoww! (listen [mp3])

1:27 pm | permalink | /technology/web | 0 writebacks |

The Difference Between Writing and Blogging

I've been blogging in this format for almost a year now, sticking to punditry and rants and backing off the personal stuff, for one main reason: I've always wanted to be a writer.

Not a writer just in the sense that I write this blog, but a writer in the sense that I weave stories, fictional or not, that people are interested in. In the world of nonfiction, this means finding the angle - finding the people behind the story or the undercurrent that led to the events you're reporting on. In the nonfictional world, it means telling a tale in a way that keeps the reader wanting more while painting your imaginary world for them in vivid imagery..

The problem with blogging is that I'm not doing this full time, and even saying that is an understatement. I'm doing it in stolen moments in the doctors office, on trains.

If I were a full time writer, I would have taken that Merck/Singular thread and followed it out, called people involved, gotten interviews and found out what it was really like to work on that project, what challenges they've faced.

Instead, it's hurriedly typed into the perfect little portable palm/keyboard pair I've gotten for myself, and slapped on the blog with barely enough time to run aspell -c on it.

At times, I've considered slowing down the pace of my blogs and really working on them like stories, releasing one or two well written pieces a month. The prospect of writing articles that are more fleshed out and interesting to read is appealing, but I'd have to give up the story-nugget/link format and the nice readership growth curve I've been nurturing with timely articles.

I'm interested to hear other blogger's takes on this. Which is better, lots of really fresh content bits, or a few well written pieces here and there?

3:21 am | permalink | /technology/web/blog | 1 writebacks |

Wil Wheaton's Just a Geek is Available

I wanted to hate Wil Wheaton.

Almost a year ago now, I couldn't understand why I was hearing the name of the guy who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation on my friend's blogs. I assumed, of course, that Wil was now out of work and in his 30's and looking to cash in on all the girls that used to have a crush on him.

Turns out I was partly right.

Wil is out of work - out of acting that is. These days, he's a writer, and a damn good one at that. His site is full of cleverly written anecdotes, musings about his life (with his wife and 2 step-children), and just about every topic I write about on this site, from politics to Linux.

Just a geek picks up Wil's story right at the "What?" that you just had reading the paragraph above. How does a young actor go from potential to passed over? What's it like both being a geek AND being on the other side of the "signing table" at conventions? How do you balance dreams with reality, and eventually, let them go.

Chapter 9 of his book is available from O'Reilly (of the computer safari book fame). It'll only take you about 20 minutes to read through it, and it really gives you the flavor of the book. Either you'll like it or you won't, but just from the reading a few things are clear: This is not a Star Trek book, this is not a sci-fi novel, and that is not self aggrandizing promotion.

Just a Geek is just a book about a guy trying to define himself, with healthy doses of introspection, self deprecation, and humor sprinkled in. The fact that he has a really interesting past and possible future just helps to fill in the gaps.

It just started shipping today, and I've already ordered my copy.

Stolen Right from Wil

3:14 am | permalink | /technology/web | 0 writebacks |

Singulair Asthma Medication Marketed as Allergy Med

I've been on Singulair for mild asthma for a few years now, and although it does control my asthma, its real power lies in the fact that it's more effective at controlling my allergies than any of my actual allergy meds, and combined with them, I am almost invulnerable to the dog dander, pollen, dust, mold, and cat sheddings that each alone have the power to make me miserable.

I spent a summer hanging out at a friends house which combined all of those elements before I was on Singulair, and literally had to wear a painters mask the whole time or suffer sneezing wheezing runny eyed allergy attacks.

I spoke with my doctor about Singulair's miraculous ability to make me allergy free back 2 or 3 years ago, and he confirmed that other patients were feeling the same positive side effect of the little squarish pill.

Now, as I sit in a D.O.C.S. Clinic to get my script filled, the little video-TV is playing health news blurbs and prescription drug commercials. Singulair came up first, not marketed as an asthma med, but pushed as a panacea for all allergy suffers.

Imagine having a hit asthma drug, nearly dominating that market, and then finding out that the drug your research team has come up with has a second positive effect! I bet there's a few very happy people at Merck.

7:13 pm | permalink | /life | 1 writebacks |

Creative Commons Novel "Lysergically Yours"

I just read the excerpt from Lysergically Yours, a novel By Frank Duff that's available under a Creative Commons License, meaning you can do a whole bunch of stuff with it including download it for free. It's licensed under the Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 1.0 license, so you can creative derivative works and distribute them so long as you let people know where the original came from and you release your work under the same terms.

Just reading the excerpt had me sucked into the novel, and I can't wait to read the rest of it. If you've got a palm, you can use Plucker to pull the book down and read it from this link, or you can just save it and read it on your screen.

Frank Duff's Site.

Stolen from LVX23

8:04 pm | permalink | /technology/web | 2 writebacks |

FireFox Usage Spikes to 23% and Keeps Climbing!

I hate when people present statistics without backing up the information, so before I show you this chart - here's the arguments against it:

The content of my site is aimed at and attracts a number of web-savvy early adopters as well as other bloggers and googlers.

I browse my own site with FireFox from 2 computers, accounding for around 2% of these hits.

My site has repeatedly advocated for Firefox, which may have affected the usage by its own readership

The sample is way too small, only covering 250 unique users so far in July.

With all that said, the preliminary results are in, and due in large part to the recommendations from CERT, M$'s own Slate, and others, Firefox is the new darling of the web.

Statistics courtesy of the Free and Open Source Web Statistics Package, AWStats

10:49 am | permalink | /technology/web | 1 writebacks |

Moore, Lion's Gate OK F9/11 Filesharing

I've actually yet to see this film, as I have certain issues with Michael Moore's presentation style, but I can't deny the inherent sense in his stance on filesharing, as reported by boingboing

So for all of you that want to take a closer look at certain parts of Fahrenheit 9/11, or don't have the $10.50 to shell out, you've got the official OK to get to the downloading.

Here's the link to the BitTorrent Tracker on Suprnova.org

3:24 pm | permalink | /technology/film | 0 writebacks |

Jews For Jesus

A few days ago, someone was handing out funny yellow pamphlets.

Now, you have to understand, I HATE preachers, pushers, and the like who hand crap out. You don't get to know what it is before you take it, and you're faced with a horrible choice each time you pass by - either take it and be stuck with what is inevitably a piece of crap, or snub the person, and walk on by (risking a shoulder check as they try to shove it in your hand.) After everyone gets sick of having it in their hand and they don't see a garbage, they just chuck it on the ground, and of course, these people on a "mission" don't consider it part of their mission to clean up the mess they made.

So the fact that I was intrigued by this little yellow pamphlet means it's cleverly disguised. I can normally tell what I'm looking at with cursory glance, and will just leave it where it is.

Each of these little pamphlets is a story or instructional brochure that has basically nothing to do with it's premise.

Catching a Cab

Ever get the feeling that when you don't need a cab they are everywhere waiting to swoop down on you?

You may be waving goodbye to a friend across the street and a cab stops. ... (3 more paragraphs like this)

Then there are those times when you really need a cab and you can't get one.

Either they've already got customers in them already, (cute, funny picture of people hanging out of cabs here) or they're off duty.... or its' raining and everybody else wants one too.

Here are some tips for getting cabs on rainy days:

(3 real/funny tips for catching a cab)... then: or you could PRAY

Cabs may be hard to get when you need them, but GOD is always available to hear your prayers... (more here)... His Son, Y'SHUA (Jesus) said, "...."

So there's a few things that strike me as weird about this.

First of all, it's a sneaky little thing. It tries to reel you in with something that affects your life, and then totally switches the subject at the end.

Let's try it another way:

"Ever have trouble with your iPod? Many people experience problems with their battery after extended use. To troubleshoot, please check your model number to see if your battery is under warranty, ensure your headphone cord is intact, or eat some diamonds."

"Diamond eating is a new crazy started by the prophet Y'EASISH (Steve Jobs) which will bring you great happiness and wealth..."

At which point you should go "WHAT?!?!"

Yet somehow, Jews For Jesus (which in itself seems to be a contradiction, but maybe that's just me) feels that bits like these are effective pieces of propaganda.

The Gallery at their site is a hoot too. The X-Files image above is more of their strange mix of pop-culture and and Jews for Jesus "bend your mind (to get around all that "logic")" preaching.

Want to know more about haling cabs or hailing Y'SHUA, call or write:

Moishe Rosen
Jews For Jesus
yshua4u@aol.com
Please Do Not Litter! (even though I've just shoved this piece of crap in your hand and you can't find a garbage!)

5:47 pm | permalink | /life | 0 writebacks |

The Economics of Free Comic Book Day

I'd made myself a note in my palm to go and get my Free Comic today as part of the nation-wide "Free Comic Book Day" promotion, and just did exactly that.

Having worked a few "Free Cone Days" at Ben & Jerry's (They've donated several PartnerShop franchises to Common Ground), I know the pros and cons of events like this.

The idea is as simple as the corner crack dealer's sales philosophy, AKA: "The first one's free, kid." Once they've tried it, they remember how good it was later, and they don't want to wait for next year to come around, so they come back again, and again, and so forth.

Free Comic Book Day is the same idea, except there's one crucial flaw.

When we're giving away ice cream, there's certain rules you've got to follow. The ultimate goal is to make the consumer so happy on Free Cone Day that they want that feeling again, so you really work to make it a good experience. You keep lots of people on staff to keep the line short and entertained. You hold giveaways to promote your catering. You keep your best flavors on stock, and plenty of them. You let them go through the line as many times as they have time for. You promote the event in your local neighborhood to up your awareness, and the free event works as amazing viral marketing, with friends telling friends.

All this adds up to a great experience for all, and great marketing for you as a business. Sure, you lose a bunch of money that day, but compared to a nationwide TV spot or equivalent print ad campaign, it's really not that big an expense.

Imagine now, the crucial failure of logic it would be for B&J to skimp on the ice cream they used that day to keep the costs down.

Sure, you cut your losses on that one day, but you don't get people to come back who may have been enticed by that freebie and you also dilute your brand in a major way and may even scare off loyal customers who think "wow, their ice cream has really gone downhill - maybe I'll start going to Cold Stone, etc..."

Only in it's third year, the Free Comic Book Day organizers have already questioned the logic of the event, but rather than cancel it completely, they've tried to cut their losses. Just like the hypothetical situation above, they've ended up with a lack luster event that stores resent, and speaking as someone who was looking to be enticed into reading again, an offering that scared me off rather than drew me in. It's been years since I've picked up a paper comic book, although I will admit to reading most of Ultimate X-Men online. Looks like it'll be a few more years.

Speaking with the local comic book store employee (who might also be the owner, I'm not really sure,) my feelings were confirmed. This years free books suck by all accounts. The major labels put out very few titles, paling in comparison to the Ultimate Spiderman and Ultimate Xmen releases of the past 2 years, and there were many more independent books out there. Normally this is a good thing, as I enjoy indie art, but the ones that were left by the middle of the afternoon were pure stinkbombs, like the pictured "Ballad of Sleeping Beauty" here.

The clerk at the store lamented the number of people who come in for the freebie each year and then don't come back, but I can hardly blame them. This isn't the type of product that gets you hooked, it's the type of thing that reminds you why you don't read comics any more.

Too bad.

4:24 pm | permalink | /life | 0 writebacks |