STFU
Feb 26, 2007 in Elsewhere
I’m doing a lot of sales lately for my new venture, and I’m rediscovering something I learned before, both selling and being sold to. It’s an important lesson — one that made me more successful in sales in the past — but it’s easy to forget, because it’s so counter-intuitive. That lesson is to just keep my yap shut.
Read on…Letters From Iwo Jima
Feb 23, 2007 in Reviews
I don’t see many movies these days. Sure, there are a bunch that look good — heck, even Ghost Rider has my girlfriend Eva Mendes in it — but I never seem to get around to seeing them. Not only are movies too expensive, but they’re in the the theaters for such a short time, and so many of them are complete crap. Expensive, hard-to-find crap is no good. So, the highest praise for a movie might be that it makes me want to see another, specific movie. On that scale, Letters From Iwo Jima scores quite high — if Flags of Our Fathers, which I had intentionally skipped seeing before, were still in theaters, I’d rush over to see it. Read on…
Five Things You Might Not Know About Me
Feb 20, 2007 in Memememe
I’ve been tagged to do a meme like twice before, and I always say I’ll write something for it, but then I never do. Maybe I should start. So, as much as I hate Milla for tagging me,1 well, maybe it’s good for me too. Well, good or a source of relatively free writing ideas. So, without further ado, five things that I think none of my regular readers knows about me. Read on…
Chrysler, Ford, GM, and the Dark Side of Sales
Feb 20, 2007 in Elsewhere
It’s not a good time to be an American automaker. Ford is undergoing yet another restructuring, only two years after starting their last one. GM is about to become the #2 in the industry — passed, embarrassingly enough, by Toyota. And Chrysler may be sold by Daimler-Benz’s for the fire sale price of $5 billion.1 It’s like the ‘80s again, this time without Lee Iacocca and his K-Car or Michael Keaton running a US auto plant in Gung Ho. How did they blow it so quickly after saving US car companies once? The surprising truth seems to be: sales were too good. And, even more surprisingly, good sales can be trouble for all of us, especially entrepreneurs like me (and maybe you).
Read on…Blues
Feb 18, 2007 in Otherwise Uncategorized, Writing Practice
I need new clothes for the new season coming up. To be frank, I needed new clothes for the last season, but, in true LA fashion, summer seems to have come already and obviated the need for sweaters and layering. Nonetheless, I need new clothes for the new season. And I’d like it if some weren’t blue, although most often that’s the color I end up wearing. Read on…
A Free Business Model For the Music and Movie Industries
Feb 11, 2007 in Elsewhere
Mark Cuban thinks that the music labels should get together and start a company to stand against Apple’s iTunes and Microsoft. I agree that the music labels, and, for good measure, the movie and tv studios need to get out from under the thumb of the tech industry, which so far has controlled the next-generation distribution channels. But for the music industry to start its own company is risky and expensive. Instead, the music industry needs to leverage this country’s great capital markets and reservoir of mobile knowledge workers to get someone else to do the hard work for them. That is, they need to outsource their risk, and they - and the movie industry - can do this without losing their returns.
Read on…At Least Eli Still Sucks
Feb 6, 2007 in Spurts
Darn. Well, the Colts won. Evil has triumphed in the world, not least because good appears to have been incompetent. What else is new? Thanks to the magic of gin and barbecue, I was able to make it through all three-and-some hours of depressing football, interspersed with remarkably mediocre ads1. It’ll be ok. Actually, the whole Super Bowl experience kind of showed me where I need to set my expectations and plans in life. Read on…
Go Bears!
Feb 4, 2007 in Spurts
Well, today’s the big day. We have the forces of evil against the forces of… Chicago. We all know what side I come down on! I’ll be rooting hard the whole game, and I believe that Da Bears! can win. I do! They’ve got the tough defense, and Manning crumbled against Baltimore’s D. They’ve also got the tough running attack, with a good up-the-middle runner and a competent edge runner too, which Baltimore didn’t have. It’ll be a tough game, but the Bears will win in the end. We all need to get on the bandwagon and root for good over evil, and I know just the thing to get you there: Read on…
Will Somebody Please Explain to Me to Whom to Complain About My Health Insurance Premium
Feb 1, 2007 in Will Somebody Please Explain To Me...
I am Annoyed Consumer. The people at Blue Cross — normally I would say fine people, but not in this case — have raised my rates. Now, I’m aware that there’s this thing called “inflation” and this other thing called “progress” and that, sometimes, these conspire to make health insurance premiums go up. But somehow I don’t think that a 20% increase is representative of the core health care inflation rate. Read on…