Update: Call to arms and Keyboards

I'm updating a post from last year, because it's still important! (updates in red)


Folks, I need your help.

In 1990 TNT produced a made-for-tv movie of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. It is the greatest adaptation ever. Ever.*

Plus! It stars Christian Bale as Jim Hawkins (and you know how good he is) and Charlton Heston as Long John Silver, and folks, I am not kidding you when I say that this was the role he was meant to play.

Better than Moses, better than Ben Hur, better than NRA president. Charlton Heston is Long John Silver, Long John Silver is Charlton Heston, Heston Silver John is Long Charles. - you get what I'm saying?

All of the performances floored me, this is the production I think of whenever anyone mentions the story. It is absolutely unthinkable that this movie has not been released on dvd.So, I need your help. Go here. Click on the "vote" button on the right-hand sidebar. They ask for an email, but there's no confirmation, so if you're not busy, vote lots of times with made up email addresses!

It's up to #3 in the rankings! We can push that over the top! #1! #1!

Let's make this happen people!

-t


* the notable exception being Muppet Treasure Island. I maintain the TNT version "best ever," but readily concede that the Muppet version is undoubtedly the best adaptation with music, the best adaptation not starring Charlton Heston and Christian Bale, and the best adaptation with Muppets. (jump back)

WNFL: Worldwide Neo-Football Leage

Sarcos has developed a motorized, computerized, human-sized, exoskeleton. Check out the video it's amazing.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/humanoids/sarcoss-exoskeleton-is-more-amazing-than-we-thought-326128.php

Now, I know what you're thinking: "Tom is going to incorporate this super-powerful piece of equipment into his plan to take over the world by strapping a rocket pack on it and arming it with taser-shooting shotguns."

Well, you're half wrong.

I will certainly incorporate this exoskeleton technology into my world takeover bid, but I won't be using them militarily, as we've all seen how bad things can get when space travel, genetic manipulation, cloning, species subjugation, and exoskeletons mix.

No, my plan is athletics, and economics.

If you've watched the video above, or finished reading this sentence, you'll know that the exoskeleton amplifies strength without sacrificing agility. They demonstrate the e-frame's benefits by loading ammo cannisters, but I say, imagine Tom Brady strength magnified 200%. Exo-Brady could throw a football 300 yards!

Clearly, with this mechanical upgrade our modern-day football stadiums will be too small to hold the enormous mechano-athletic potential of these future. Therefore, we will need to construct venues that are significantly larger to house the playing field, and this will provide, in turn, vastly greater seating capacity, providing vastly greater profit.

So, by harneessing the economic impact of F-frames (football frames), I will beecome the richest man in the world, and from my mountain of wealth proceed with the world takeover.

I've already got my order in for the first eighteen frames.

-t

Paper: In The Year 2000!

Amazon has released their brand-spankin'-new e-book reader, the Kindle. And it's dumb.

First, I applaud the name. "Kindle" is a great, rarely-used, related-to-interest word that has loads going for it (two syllables, begins with 'K').

I applaud the e-ink technology. Some really great stuff is being developed: low-power, high contrast, thin & lightweight devices.

I don't applaud the design. White is ugly, the keyboard layout is ugly, and the thing looks like an airfoil from a Rebel Snowspeeder.



It also costs $400, plus the cost of (non-transferable) e-books, plus the cost of subscribing to blog RSS feeds (that's right, the ones you get for free online!).

But, far and away, it is another mile marker on the way to a paperless world. (Not truly paperless, of course, there will always be important uses for paper, like origami.)

I'd originally conceived this post as an outline for a future writing career, making money by observing on the state of things and commentary on the way they used to be. Column headlines would run something like "Remember Paper?" and discuss the advent of e-book readers and their ilk.

I'll be sure to archive this post so me, a future columnist, can look back and harvest my early impressions as filler.

I'm also hopeful that in my future as a curmudgenly columnist I have an editor to cut things like the preceding paragraph.

Not literally cut, of course, because we'll be publishing on plastic screens loaded with a low wattage electric charge in shapes that look like letters.

Or, you know, beaming features directly into your brain.

-t

Left Brain

I used to be smart. Well, I used to appear smart, anyway. I'd go out of my way to stand up straight, enunciate, and ditch the Boston accent. This was around middle school (when I noticed my smart friends sounded retahded when they talked).

And for a while (high school and most of college) people bought it.

Then I graduated, and got lazy. Talk to me now, you'll hear me mumble, in a Boston accent, and surround every pause in my speech with "and...uh's."

Which is too bad. I also suspect my writing has suffered.

The culprit is, as always, my job. Demanding eight straight hours of focused attention doesn't leave room for me to worry (and correct) my own shortcomings. Focusing on numbers doesn't even light up the same side of the brain I want to improve! I'm not even gleaning ancillary benefits from this numbers job. (Only the non-ancillary kind: health insurance, retirement plan, income).

-t

recommended download (that's right! it's back!):
Journey, Wheel In The Sky

Happy Dan Goldin Day 2007!

Happy Dan Goldin Day everyone. I've already played three hours of Halo (then accidentally erased my progress, d'oh)

Later, I might go see a movie.

Eventually I'm going to sucker someone into paying me 1.4 million dollars to celebrate this holiday.

-t

Also, if you're in Milwaukee, the DGD07 fest is in full swing including the annual sold-out brewery tour.

Lesser of Two Distractions

I skimmed most of the agenda for the staff meeting:
Aged Items - doesn't apply to me
New Clients - doesn't apply to me
New Staff - doesn't apply to me
Negative Interest Errors - happen less than 1% of the time, I'm not interested
Upcoming Vacations - does apply - DGD, Friday, move on
Internet Usage - definitely applies.

Apparently they've started tracking internet usage, the usual sitetracker type stuff, and additionally, time spent online. Unfortunately for our manager our group was at the top of the list for "excessive internet usage" because the program they're using to monitor the stats doesn't distinguish streaming radio. Two guys in the group listen to sports radio online while they work all day every day. Their "internet usage" is through the roof.

In any case, the manager isn't worried, but recommended we stay offline for a while and try to find a different groove. So, I tried it. As it turns out, if I'm not online, my productivity goes way down.

Which is counter to the company's reasoning, certainly.

They think "online => distractions => less work being done" - but it's not the whole picture.

See, I'm going to find ways to distract myself regardless of internet access. I'm surrounded by office supplies. I can spend hours wasting ink and paper doodling abstract geometric figures. I'm not kidding, hours.

Online is a distraction, but at least it's a distraction that keeps my attention focussed on the computer screen, which is where my work is. If I'm surfing the web then I'm also alt+tab-ing to the trades panel every time a new webpage loads, because it's easy to do, because it's right there! If I'm scratching out a complicated celtic knot pattern on printer paper I'm going to get lost in the design and not look up for ten or fifteen minutes of my time.

Online distractions are more productive than offline distractions.

So bring back AIM.

-t

Dan Goldin Day 2007

I was a little down on Monday, seeing as it's the start of the week, and my job isn't the greatest thing going right now, and I'd really, really, really, like to keep playing Halo (btw, I just bought Halo - the original - and I'm dying to finish the campaign), and, plus, it's Monday morning. Five days to freedom, right?

WRONG! Because I quickly realized that it was Monday the twelfth, which, as we all know, is only four days away from Friday the sixteenth! Which, as we all know, is the day we will observe DAN GOLDIN DAY 2007!!

Four day work week! Wooo!

I celebrated this realization last night by playing more Halo. Friday Samantha and I are going to see American Gangster.

Dan Goldin Day is like, far and away, my favorite holiday for which I am responsible.

DON'T FORGET! DGD '07 celebrated THIS FRIDAY, 11/16/07! Take the day off, take half a day, have a beer at lunch!

-t

Nightmare on Stupid Street 2?

This isn't so much a return in the sense that a particular person is coming back after having been absent, so much as it is a return in the slasher/horror tradition; in Scream 2, Scream 3, etc the killer returns, but it's not really the killer, because the real killer died in the previous movie, it's an honorary. They inherit the mask, the knife, what have you, and they assume the mantle.

It turns out we've got a contender. Nothing definitive, I don't want to get anyone too excited, but he doesn't seem overly bright, is all I'm saying.

Please read the email exchange below, and let me know what you think:

Updated cxl/rbks

Hi Simon

I found two trades booked with an incorrect price, I have cancelled and rebooked them. Can you please settle the trades to clear your cash breaks?

Thank you,
Tom

RE:Updated cxl/rbks

Hi Tom,


Will do. If I have any questions I'll be sure to let you know once I am completing this.


Thank you,
Simon


He's still got some work to do, no doubt, but he's heading in the right direction. Also, I'm not as worked up about this as some of you might anticipate, because Simon isn't in my group (limiting my contact with him) and I am not responsible for the quality of his work (limiting my frustration), so I can enjoy the stupidity from a distance.

-t

Achievements. And Martians.

What fuels the compulsion we humans have to make lists? Why do we torment ourselves?

I'm not talking about grocery lists, or "people to contact in case of emergency" lists. I'm talking about unnecessary lists. The lists we make up, spontaneously, for no reason: "greatest Red Sox outfielders from 1960-1983" or "favorite songs of 2007." There is no reason for these lists to exist. None. And yet, there they are. People are compelled to list things.

The most worrisome is the great achievement list.

"Things to do before I die"

How depressing is that? "Things to do" by itself is pretty cheery, right? That list is a great way to fight boredom. Play a video game. Visit Grandma. Stage an all-you-can-eat-pasta contest. Write a letter to an old college friend.

What a nice list.

Then you go and tack on "before I die." Way to kill the mood! Not only have you just introduced death into an otherwise happy thought, but you've managed to put a deadline on it - (wow. "deadline" I'm going to have to do some research into the etymology of that word. it's this line, right, and when you reach it, you're...dead. how ominous) - so right away you're running out of time, trying to cram things in to the few precious moments you've got left on this green earth.

Not to mention the list is almost always depressingly unaccomplishable tasks:

Get elected US president
Fly a plane
Walk on Mars
Get married
End hunger
Write a detective novel

Maybe you cross one off. Maybe you even get two. But if you care enough about any of those to put them on the list, then you're looking at disappointment any way it's sliced.

For the vast majority of list makers the time, energy, and luck needed to train for a pilot's license, fall in love with your instructor, be accepted into the astronaut program after your beer-and-mary-jane-heavy college lifestyle, while simultaneously campaigning for the Oval Office where you can effect the budgetary, philosophical, and R&D changes necessary to make manned flight to Mars possible, get there, discover a clean, renewable source of food and energy, fly back, and then find a publisher for your Hammett knock-off, is unreachable.

So, sorry. Forget the list. Right?

Wrong. Because, reason though I must, that it's a dumb idea, I am still compelled. I've got a list jotted down right here in front of me. And I hate disappointment.

So I've decided to make the list a little easier. Real goals, that I actually care about, the unattainable, they'll go on the list. But I'm broadening my perspective, the list is going to be more than just the "climb mt. everest" caliber goals. Here's a rough draft:

THINGS TO DO (before I die)
1. play Halo the whole way through
2. visit Alaska
3. buy a house
4. coach little league baseball
5. get a law degree
6. do the crossword everyday
7. visit all 50 state capital buildings
8. win an election
9. get published
10. finish the book I'm currently reading

That's for starters.

Hard goals. And easy goals too. Any potential big disappointment will be mitigated by the sum of the smaller accomplishments, each valuable in their own way, no throw-away goals. "wake up" "brush teeth regularly" and "watch NBC thursdays" aren't making the list.

You may notice I left myself some room on the loftier goals. "get published" is easier to achieve than "write the next A Tree Grows In Brooklyn," and "win an election" isn't as hard as "get elected world president."

I also intentionally left off any "funny" suggestions like "start a religious cult." While they're good for a chuckle now, I'd certainly hate to stumble across the list when I'm old and senile and think I actually meant to do it. Because even old and senile I'd be charismatic enough to lure people into a cult. People are easily lured. look at Forrest Gump. Or the Mormons. And then one hundred eighty years down the road some yokel who believes whatever the senile old me decided to write down will be a front runner for the Republican Presidential nomination....

Ok, I'm changing my goals:

1. Get a believer of my wacky religious cult elected President of the United States of America

2. Climb Olympus Mons



-t

Dan Goldin Day '07!

Less than a day after I mention lasers in a blog post someone goes and invents one that does something totally useful: kills germs.

The Virus Eradicating Laser!


But on to the real news:

Dan Goldin Day is only two weeks away! Since November 17, 2007 falls on a Saturday, the holiday will be observed November 16, Friday, two weeks from today!

I hope everyone has made plans to take at least a half day from work, checked your local newspapers for details about the Dan Goldin Day Parade in your area, and is pretty well along in construction of the traditional Dan Goldin Day costumes. Also there are presents...and turkey. Ooh! And the traditional (political) fireworks.

For those of you celebrating in the Boston area (Erin, Jenny, Eileen) or those of you (John, Donny, Adina...) who are planning on coming to Boston for the festivities, I will have the day off and plan to celebrate with a beer or two over lunch - to start.

I've left comments open so you can recount your favorite Dan Goldin Day memory, or especially great plans for DGD'07

-t

Banana Lasers And The Robot Monkeys Who Eat Them

I've noticed recently that this job is sucking away my will to live; I am no longer interested in anything.

I can barely get myself to post, and now there is blank space where there used to be space aliens, super magnets, monkeys with lasers, robots eating bananas, and colors of (literally) every hue imaginable.

Now it's a great, grey, sucking void. And Time is the culprit. Time has been absent in my life for almost seven months. Instead of free moments to exult in flights of imagination and my waking hours are filled with constant chatter, noise without substance, static.

If Time would get off his lazy ass and find his way back into my life I would even refrain from punching him squarely in the nose and maybe offer to buy him a beer. There are some no-good friends you're angry at until the moment they show up on your doorstep.

The point is this: While here at work under a barrage of trades, a deluge, an unstoppable pitter-patter against the window of my sanity (a window that is closing fast, now), nothing else can make any noise.

I, quite figuratively, cannot hear myself think - and there is no way to tell if I'm just not thinking loud enough, or if I'm just not thinking at all.

-t