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4. July 2008 by Ben.
I love a fireworks display that’s so intense I can literally feel my walls shaking 4.5 miles away.
This is why the woman sitting next to us at the Pops the other night explained, after we prompted her (by saying absolutely nothing and never once looking in her direction) that she comes to Boston every year. She passes up New York City’s fireworks, which Wikipedia says are the largest in the world (and why would it lie!) just to camp out on the Esplanade and watch Keith Lockhart.
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3. July 2008 by Ben.
I’m not sure which should be more surprising: that I showed up to work this morning in the back of a police cruiser or that I was disappointed none of my coworkers were around to witness it.
(I may have given a demo for the police first thing this morning and then accepted a ride back to the office. At least, that’s the story I’ll be telling.)
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2. July 2008 by Ben.
Tonight’s Boston Pops concert (part of the ongoing OoP day celebrations) featured music from the Baseball Music Project, including a 1969 novelty song called Van Lingle Mungo. Far funnier in theory than in execution, the song’s lyrics consist entirely of the names of 1940s baseball players – particularly those that sound funny. The first verse:
Heeney Majeski
Johnny Gee
Eddie Joost
Johnny Pesky
Thornton Lee
Danny Gardella
Van Lingle Mungo
The author, David Frishberg, got to perform the song for Van Lingle Mungo himself, who griped that he wouldn’t get any money despite his name being the title and the refrain:
“When he heard my explanation about how there was unlikely to be any remuneration for anyone connected with the song, least of all him, he was genuinely downcast. ‘But it’s my name,’ he said. I told him, ‘The only way you can get even is to go home and write a song called Dave Frishberg.’”
They also performed a far more entertaining song titled Let’s Keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn, accompanied by slides of the team. Tip for the future: don’t show slides of a Brooklyn team wearing what is, in the end, the Red Sox insignia on their caps. We’re easily confused about that sort of thing.
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26. June 2008 by Ben.
I went to tour an apartment recently in a brand new building. When I arrived the leasing agent took me into the office and gestured for me to sit in front of a large plasma screen.
This immediately conjured memories of the BU Experience video – a 25 minute video designed to appeal to would-be undergraduates touring the BU campus. They also show it at employee orientation. Nobody gets to talk about health insurance until we’ve all listened to the immortal words of Martin Luther King (which, according to banners outside Marsh Plaza back in February, included the phrase “lorem ipsum“).
The Experience was a $3 million experiment that ultimately proved nothing more than that people are capable of editing segments of video into a presentation. It carries graphics on par with Fox News, and flashy integrations of interviews and inspirational music. It’s really the same video colleges have been producing for years, but instead of sending it out on DVD to students’ homes BU shows it in a theater dedicated to the purpose. Promotional material and uncomfortable seats. It’s a bargain.
Only students at Appalachian are really envious of BU’s approach. Watch that video for even a few seconds and you’ll understand why.
In the leasing office of my potential future apartment, I saw a far more effective use of high technology as a marketing tool.
The plasma screen was mounted at an angle, with chairs in front of it. At first, it just showed a 3D rendering of the floors in the building. Touch a floor, though, and it expands to show the layout of apartments on that floor. The layout is color coded by price range, and labeled with the basics (e.g., how many bedrooms are in each unit).
Touch a particular apartment and it expands to show the floor plan inside. Touch a secret spot (hint: it’s the corporate logo) and the screen adds the monthly rent to the display. Touch buttons at the bottom of the screen and you can see views inside the space and perhaps out the window – features that I couldn’t use, since there were no photos available yet for the brand new building.
Nothing about this display is inherently novel. Anybody in the world can download the same floor plans from the building’s website, and can explore prices for available apartments. Touch screens have been around for decades, when their most public use was to order roast beef sandwiches at Arby’s. Semi flashy animation is ubiquitous even on the web now.
What makes it exciting is that it organizes information in a way that makes sense, perhaps for the first time in the history of apartment leasing. It generates the desire to explore. I might want to check out the price differential between similar apartments on different floors of the building. That takes just three taps per apartment.
You might be interested in comparing the views and floor plans for different apartments in the same price range. Check out the dark blue apartment on one side of the building and you’ll see a small one bedroom with gorgeous Boston views; check out the dark blue apartment on the opposite corner and you’ll see a spacious two bedroom with views of the railroad yard.
It doesn’t take a lot of energy (just a lot of creativity) to put technology to good use. An overproduced video? No. An interactive apartment finder? Yes.
On the other hand, this was the same buildling that has a plasma screen in the mail room with little icons for apartments with packages waiting – 1313 with a little hanger icon means there’s dry cleaning waiting. My current apartment solves this organizational problem by leaving a little tag on our mailbox – a system that hasn’t crashed once since I moved in.
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24. June 2008 by Ben.
Imagine that you get off the T and find that although it is cloudy out it is not raining. You need to walk one block but it begins to sprinkle lightly. Describe the most appropriate emotional reaction to this situation.
If you’d asked me at 5:26 this evening, I would have answered, “You’ll get wet, and in 45 seconds you’ll be indoors and dry. Only an infant would complain about this situation.”
If you’d asked me at 5:27 this evening, I would have answered, “It’s sprinkling? If you value your life flee the streets for dry land with all the speed your legs can offer, sacrificing whatever possessions and money you must to secure the nearest shelter.”
I swear I am not exaggerating when I say that in the time it took me to walk one block the skies opened from “no moisture of any kind” to sheets of rain so thick that when I tried opening my mouth I had a very realistic fear of drowning right there on the street.
Then the leasing agent I went to see showed me apartment 1313. I can’t discount the possibility that some very powerful forces want to keep me out of this building. Besides, what happened to superstition (the jokes featured in the latter half that 1.5 minute video)?
Now, to make up for telling a story that, while admittedly very exciting for me at the time, basically reduces to, “I got very wet today,” I will balance it all out with a link to some of the best music ever written, beginning with the song And the Rain Crashed Down.
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15. June 2008 by Ben.
I spend a lot of money on theatre and concert tickets, since I find those activities particularly enjoyable.
By far, the best $104 I have ever spent on the arts transpired as follows:
Were this any other event I might have employed some Synthetic Happiness. “I’m glad I missed that rotten concert,” I would have said. “The music was probably terrible, and it would have wasted my time.”
This being the Boston Pops I can hardly convince myself there was so much as a mediocre musician on the stage. Instead, I’ll settle for declaring that I enjoy giving away money. Hence, tomorrow I will be throwing $100 bills off the roof of my apartment. Linger on the sidewalk all day for a chance to get rich.
Blërg.
* The orchestra seats are too low to see the whole stage. While I agree music is meant primarily to be heard and not seen, I find enjoyment in watching great musicians at their work. The first balcony is much better, affording a view of the entire stage.
Sitting in Row A eliminates the chance a tall man in a hat will sit in front of you. The first three seats are in an awkward corner, but seats 4 – 23 (the first two sections) are all excellent choices.
The left side of the balcony is marginally better than the right – partly because we all know the brass and string sections are all more interesting than the percussionists (silly percussionists!) but also because Keith Lockhart (or whoever the conductor might be) will enter the stage in your view. People on the right side of the balcony have to infer his arrival from the applause of others, thus making them feel left out.
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8. June 2008 by Ben.
It really hurts subscription sales when I leave a show and overhear someone say, “That’s the best I’ve seen them do in a long time!”
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7. June 2008 by Ben.
When I first moved in here I received (regularly) about two dozen catalogs in the previous resident’s name. These covered varied interests, but with a particular concentration in the field of “fluffy things.” I swear I got an entire catalog of pillows once – every page, nothing but pillows.
I of course dropped these subscriptions as the catalogs continued streaming in. This yielded conversations like the following (which I swear I am not making up):
Woman, Answering Phone: Women’s lingerie department, how can I help you?
Me: I’d like to unsubscribe from your catalog
Her: (beat) Err.. are you sure you’re not looking for the men’s department?
Me: (deadpanned) Nope.
This afternoon a new Dell catalog streamed in, so I pulled up Dell’s website to unsubscribe. Here are their procedures:
“To add, remove or update your mailing address from the catalog mailing list, you need to be registered on our e-mail subscription list. If you are not already registered, you can do so on the following webpage.” (emphasis mine)
That’s right. To remove your mailing address from their catalog list, you must first subscribe to their e-mail list. You can then unsubscribe from that too, but you have to be on it first.
Fortunately for all of us, they don’t do challenge-response validation of e-mail addresses, so I registered Mr. Not Gonna Happen (first name “Not,” last name “Gonna Happen,” no middle name) with his example.com address. He’ll probably enjoy the catalogs more than I.
Oh, and Dell? I did it all from a shiny 24-inch iMac. How do you like them Apples?
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2. June 2008 by Ben.
Netflix is currently recommending the following movie categories to me, in this order:
Can we just pause for a moment to reflect on number 3?
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1. June 2008 by Ben.
I’m not sure which bothered me more:
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