Truthiness
Mocket Research: Reasons for purchasing Sarah Palin’s new book
Nov 25th
[among those buying "Going Rogue" (Q11=1)]
Q12a. What was your primary reason for buying this book? (please select one response)
- 27% Looking for the tough cliches the MSM doesn’t want you to read
- 13% Cutting out photos to spruce up tattered Anita Bryant calendar
- 10% Researching next Russian history term paper
- 8% Nervously searching for veiled personal threats
- 6% Hoping to find definitive spelling of “youbetcha” to settle Scrabble argument
- 6% Able to exchange unread copy of “Faith of My Fathers” for Palin credit
- 5% Saving $99,971 in speaker fees for my trade group
- 5% Learning tips on how to score with professional snowmobile racers
- 5% Delighted to find folksy frontier wisdom printed on something besides beaver pelts
- 4% Mistaken for Tina Fey’s SNL tell-all
- 4% Throwing the bums in DC out, one revenge book at a time
- 3% Protecting our Constitutional rights to buy shit we don’t need
- 2% (Various chants / slogans ending in exclamation points)
- 2% Don’t Know
[among those not buying "Going Rogue" (Q11=2)]
Q12b. What was the primary reason you decided not to buy this book? (please select one reponse)
- 30% Not fully vetted by Oprah’s book club
- 14% Fully expect MoveOn.org to email line-by-line quotes from now until 2012
- 11% Following Sarah’s lead to be well read by avoiding reading
- 9% Waiting for the movie … not the porno, but the other “Going Rogue” movie
- 7% No index, no ego browsing, no dice
- 5% There can be only one “Maverick,” and Tom Cruise had me at Top Gun
- 5% Holding out for a REALLY batshit crazy governor’s memoir from Blago
- 4% Reading a political autobiography feels dangerously like becoming informed
- 4% Already sold out at my compound
- 3% Currently outsourcing all my reading to India
- 3% Jealous that another pretty conservative is more popular than Noam Chomsky
- 2% Book sales are for closers!
- 2% (Various expressions of solidarity with wolves)
- 1% Don’t Know
Warren Buffett: Be Like Flea
Jun 26th
In a letter written in liquified gold ink on the back of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Warren Buffett yesterday pledged billions of dollars to charity in stock donations from his personal fortune. Buffett has long been lionized as an investment guru, having amassed a personal fortune worth $44 billion through decades of shrewd market moves. That titanic sum will now be distributed annually, with 5 percent of his Berkshire Hathaway stock donated to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation each year. Based on current stock value, next month’s gift of 500,000 shares should be worth more than $1.5 billion.
The weekend announcement came as something of a surprise, partly because most Americans had no idea that people accumulated wealth other than going to ATM machines. It was also assumed that the world’s 2nd-richest man would disperse his wealth posthumously, rather than dump his portfolio into the 1st-richest man’s lap. This unexpected generosity has generated speculation about Buffett’s newfound motivation for charity. But one need look no further than his letter to the Gates Foundation.
Working through the foundation, both of you have applied truly unusual intelligence, energy and heart to improving the lives of millions of fellow humans who have not been as lucky as the three of us. You have done this without regard to color, gender, religion or geography. I am delighted to add to the resources with which you carry on this work. How come everybody wanna keep it like the kaiser?
This last line has received a great deal of attention for its non-CEO vernacular, and seems to confirm that Buffett’s charitable conversion is at least partially related to a newfound appreciation of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Buffett himself seemed to lend credence to this theory during the post-announcement press conference when he was overheard murmering “what I got you got to get and put it in you” several times in succession. Melinda Gates appeared noticably shaken at the riff, but Bill laughed it off as an old Nebraskan aphorism akin to yelling “soo-ey” at pigs.
The Chili Pepper-Buffett connection would appear extremely improbable were it not for the billionaire’s other bizarre characteristics, such as voting Democratic and maintaining modest living standards. Berkshire Hathaway has declined any comment regarding the stock donation, clearly wishing to avoid the Chili Peppers issue.
mostly harmless
Apr 20th
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about film adaptations:
Film producers are the least creative individuals in the universe, second only to real estate developers in lacking insight or innovation. Thus, producers are keen to adapt popular works from other mediums rather than actually sit around and confront their utter dearth of creativity head-on. Adaptations take one of two routes – a slavish rendition intended to satisfy core fans of the original work, or a complete re-invention intended to inject sensational elements that pander to “the youth market.” Neither approach is typically successful, since the former crumbles under the weight of expectation, and the latter is appealing only to the brainless herds of Testosterone Mules that roam the fetid plains of Betelgeuse IV.
Ironically, the film adaption of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy seems to suffer from both issues. I hope this is simply a case of the BBC being non-plussed by a Yank bastardization from their native son’s prized work, because I really, really want this film to be insanely great.
UPDATE: Saw H2G2 last Friday at Alamo. Wow, what a disappointing mess that was. If you haven’t read the books, there is basically no shot of fully appreciating the wit and creativity behind the well-meaning sheen of this film. And if you have read the books, you’ll be left wondering “um, wasn’t there a lot of funnier material they could have used?” Nice Guide animations, tho.
diary of a record executive
Apr 13th
The following entry was surreptitiously forwarded to my inbox by “an unnamed source” at Capitol Records …
Argh! It’s a bitch being a senior executive at Capitol Records these days. My years of sucking consumers and artists dry have been rudely interrupted by this thing called the Internet, which frankly I still don’t understand. It seems that people who really love music don’t really love our highly-structured and profitable distribution model, and this whole digital thing keeps slipping through our fingers. Damn freeloading technophiles.But I get it now. The Kids like digital things; MP3 players, cell phones … hey, are digital watches still cool? Better have someone write me a memo on that. But anyway, it came to me on the crapper last night, that what better way to tap into those new media lovers than by launching Coldplay’s new single as a ring tone? And get this: it’ll be available as a ring tone before the damn song even gets released across the airwaves. I’M A GENIUS!!! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA …
Wow, this is the least compatible music cross-promotion since iTunes went inside Pepsi bottles. Let’s think about ring tones for a second. A ring tone becomes popular / effective because: a) it’s annoying [attention-getting], or b) it’s familiar [pleasing]. As a Coldplay fan I doubt the tone will be the former, and any completely unknown song can’t be the latter. Just because popular music ends up in a ring tone download doesn’t mean that the fascination works in reverse. The Mississippi River only flows one direction, bubba.
And even if I’m wrong, what are the benefits of introducing a new song as a ring tone? Last I knew, Coldplay tunes aren’t exactly ripe for 15-second riffs pushed through low-quality polyphonic sampling. It was hard enough to evaluate Yellow from the 30-second iTunes clip, so don’t expect a frothing demand-side pull based on .mmf distribution.
Better luck next time old-timers …