You are currently browsing the archive for October 2003.




A work of art

Thursday, October 23rd, 2003

From ESPN.com: Office Space 2: Redskins Park.

Trevor

Thursday, October 23rd, 2003

Trying to find out what Jeanne Zelasko did before Fox Sports, I came across her husband's Web page.

But, to the point, their son's name is Trevor. I could never name my son Trevor. Every time I hear the name Trevor, I think of Trevor from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Remember when Trevor died bungee jumping? Remember how Will gets Hillary out of the poolhouse? Whisper with me now, "Trevor! … Trevor!"

Extra credit: Where's Trevor now?

The show's Jump the Shark list is classic: "Will keeps making jokes about Carlton's height. I do not think Carlton is short. They cannot think of new jokes besides Carlton's height."

Fresh Prince fit so many of the JTS categories that it's hard to pick just one moment. Same character, different actor (twice); birth; very special everythings.

But I'd go with breakup on this one. When Lisa left the show, what could fill the void? Who knew her middle name was Beulah? Some good episodes followed, and it's hard to get the true effect in reruns (where I mostly saw the show). But show fans at the time must have been disillusioned.

Obvious extra extra credit: Where's Jazz now?

Gotta love the door throw.

Away message of the week

Thursday, October 23rd, 2003

From Mike DePilla: "Astronomy midterm: the only way I'll pass is if the planets align…or if I know how/why that happens."

Love me, cries Crushlink

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2003

New e-mail today from the site. Subject line: "We apologize." Opening line: "Some people have told us it's too hard to find out who likes you, so we've made it a lot easier to find out who likes you – only 3 steps!"

Unrelated, via Fark, read educated speculation on how deviled eggs got their name.

Related, the NYT comes up with the headline of the week, for their review of the new Rolling Stones oral history book, 'According to the Rolling Stones': Please Allow Us to Introduce Ourselves.

Related again, how appropriate is it that the Stones did an oral history?

RIP Elliott Smith

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2003

The singer-songwriter reportedly died Tuesday. Most reading this will remember him best for the sad Northwestern "fingers" show of April 2002. But even on one of the worse nights of his career, it said something about him that the Riviera crowd never gave up on him. As many songs as he aborted, they were still rooting for him.

The Chicago Game lives on

Tuesday, October 21st, 2003

My capstone team pitched Tribune Interactive a year and a half ago on the Chicago Game, a print- and Internet-based scavenger hunt. Next week Tribune launches Where's Hubert?, a print- and Internet-based scavenger hunt.

Death before Atlanta?

Tuesday, October 21st, 2003

The Southern dandy fails to make an appearance in the new book, "1,000 Places to See Before You Die."

Strip tease

Tuesday, October 21st, 2003

One can be expected to encounter sporadic theme days in the funny pages, supporting a cartooning cause or mourning a beloved cartoonist or the like. In Sunday's paper, we found the theme of gonad-thinking.

Back in 10th grade, scripture teacher Mr. Richards would chastise the all-male class whenever the class reacted as expected to Biblical innuendo or Biblical phrasing begging to be innuendoed. "Stop thinking with your gonads," he'd say.

Now I'm not saying the cartoonists got together and suggested a theme of suggestion, but there had to have been something in the air. Considering most comic strips are drawn four-to-six weeks in advance, what was it about mid-September that brought out lust between the lines? Does the changing of seasons bring out the pheromones in the funnies?

If so, here's your autumn action:

Sunday's Big Nate. We begin at the tame end. While playing goalie in a soccer game, Nate is distracted by his longtime crush Jenny. Gazing at her, lost in thought and jealousy, Nate lets the ball in the goal. Middle-schoolers all over the world sympathize.

Sunday's Baldo. High schoolers Baldo and Cruz cruise for young ladies at the local shopping mall. But they act like decent young men and come up empty. Middle-schoolers all over the world sympathize.

–Sunday's Sally Forth, not published online. A casually dressed Ted Forth examines the family finances at the kitchen table. He raises his eyebrows and leaves the kitchen. He approaches Sally in the living room, as she sits reading a magazine next to the cat. Ted then implicitly suggests divorce and wife-swapping for money. "What if both of married rich people but stayed together as a couple?" he asks. Sally replies: "Checkbook not balancing out again?"

–Sunday's Spiderman, not published online. Spidey springs to the window to go searching for The Hulk. Wearing earrings, makeup and a pink teddy, wife Mary Jane asks him to stay and have coffee. "There's something better than coffee," Spiderman says (emphasis his). "What do you mean?" she replies, feigning innocence. "Come here — I'll show you," he growls and kisses her. "After I find The Hulk, we'll have our coffee," he says. "Mmm… I think I prefer your better idea," she purrs redundantly.

Sunday's Zits. A festival of ogling. At least the protagonist is adolescent. The same cannot be said for…

Sunday's For Better or Worse. A 54-year-old man and an 82-year-old man leer at young women.

Rookie Cookie isn't mixing martinis yet, and there's no sign yet of "Meet Jenna Jameson." But could the creation of "The Maxim Page" be that far away?

Trend identified; comment retracted

Tuesday, October 21st, 2003

Linz sends along an appropriate Toothpaste for Dinner cartoon. (More cartoons are linked here.)

She also points out that, at one point in time, I offered a negative view about the Pearls Before Swine strip. I don't remember these comments — I've written positively about Pearls here previously — but I officially retract anything bad I've ever said about the strip. Today's is easily the best in the paper.

Final bleats of the Crush Master?

Monday, October 20th, 2003

The Crush Master may be close to calling it a day. The e-mail overlord of Crushlink.com appears to be getting desperate. So much so that he's making it easier to find out who likes you.

"Only 3 steps," he touts in his latest message. Only three companies to whom you'll have to give your personal information. Only three steps, some from a certain region of the country might say, toward the door.

This de-escalation is almost as amazing as Crushlink's continued existence. The site started in 2000, back when pointless Web sites made money, and has retained all the trappings of its breed.

Despite the industry threshing, Crushlink has stayed content-free, e-mailed based and contact information-lite. No names, no address, no phone numbers. The anonymous "info@crushlink.com" e-mail address harkens back to the days of Mahir, earn-as-you-surf and jobs.

But this new ploy suggests a chink in the armor. Dizzy-era dot coms have followed a similar pattern:

1) Launch with unsupportable business premise.

2) Discover premise doesn't support costs.

3) Increase ads to support costs. Repeat.

4) Find drop in users negates more money per user.

5) Look to increase base, so drop some ads.

6) Now balanced, site sinks or swims.

Crushlink seems to be at step five, attempting to lure in users on a second earnest try, also known as earnest scared stupid. A good example of a similar situation is the Web mag Salon — the publication that once tracked down the Crush Master, a Harvard student named Greg Tseng.

After Salon found it had to move to subscriptions to support itself, the site has been making every accomodation possible to increase its base. Lots of swag, sponsored one-day subscriptions and ad-free pages. We'll cut you some slack, the offers imply, if you help our creditors cut us some slack.

The Crush Master could be in the same spot of trouble. There's no way to know for sure; Tseng's been running quiet ever since his Harvard days. His San Francisco-based company keeps its own site bare bones, and its new venture trades on personal info as nakedly as the crush sites. This time he offers movie tickets in return. Perfect for a date with your crush!

Maybe this movie ticket venture is going better, and Tseng wants to put his time to better use. But look at the change in the subject lines. In early 2001, I received "NEW! Get a THIRD HINT!"

So full of optimism, yes? Today the subject line was "Last chance! We'll just tell you who likes you!"