Ballet Recital 2009

It is times like this that make a Daddy proud. And also make a Daddy want to throw his crappy camcorder out a window and get something like this.

Cartwheels

Dorothy Claire rocks some cartwheels for your entertainment.

Skynet = Offline?

This has bugged me for years now. Being a big fan of the Terminator movies - well, the first two anyway, I have a passing interest in T3 and the new Terminator Salvation - I have long pondered the Machines’ biggest flaw. Anyone familiar with the story knows that “Skynet” is the big, interconnected computer brains behind the whole thing. Skynet saw humans as a threat, and set off a series of nuclear strikes that decimated the human race - which it perceived to be its biggest threat. What humans were left banded together to form a resistance and fight the Terminator robots and other mechanical nasties that Skynet was able to self-create.

So here’s the thing. In every movie, the Terminator robot goes on its mission, and has to rely on physical proximity or accessing some computer terminal in order to locate its targets. The bulk of the movie is this hide & seek game where the relentless robot tries to locate its target. If Skynet is so all-powerful, why don’t the robots have constant access to the Skynet network? Uplink and downlink? Skynet is supposed to be part of every device with a computer chip inside. We saw Skynet manipulating planes, missiles, cars, robot assembly plants, phone systems, etc. But it is remarkably “offline” when it comes to its field units. The Terminator robots were about as “connected” as a toaster. Not only were they not in touch with the main Skynet servers (apparently each Terminator had to carry its mission data on local hard drives - “detailed files”), but when the humans managed to decommission a Terminator, the Skynet servers were never notified. Hell, even I get a notice when my web server goes down. When a Terminator acquires a target, it relies on visual confirmation. Why not track credit card transactions, traffic & security cameras, passport activity, cell phones? Reason - it’s not connected to the network.

Skynet seems to be the lamest network ever constructed. And it was constructed by the U.S. military. The same military that invented the internet many years ago. It sends its field agents, the Terminators, into the field with no network connectivity, and all their sensitive data stored on local hard drives. Just have to smoosh one of these toasters in a hydraulic press, crack open the drive enclosure, and you have all the data you need to stage your own rebellion. Or reverse-engineer the robot to work for you.

If you wanted to make Skynet REALLY scary, there would be high speed wi-fi worldwide. All earth’s surveillance satellites would be tracking and processing target information in realtime. All the systems would be working in concert to track targets and coordinate the field operatives - all of whom would be getting this information in realtime. As soon as a target was acquired, all resources would converge to make life a living hell for that target. Waves of robots, building security systems, HVAC, lighting, everything would be used to incapacitate the target. Or, the Terminators just need to locate the target, and a missile comes from out of the blue and boom - game over.

In the meantime, I will go see Terminator Salvation and see if man vs. toasters is actually going to be a real contest. But please - don’t try to convince me that Skynet is worth a damn. AOL was a better network.

Hernando’s Hideaway

Very proud of my little girl’s performance of a dance routine to “Hernando’s Hideaway”. It was fun to help her work out some of the “attitude” in the routine, which she put together with her Mom. We watched the tango scene in “Scent of a Woman” for some inspiration. Nothing compared to the thrill of seeing all her practicing come together on the stage. While the other kids were trotting out the predictable Hanna Montana and Blues Brothers routines, she comes from left field with this.

Dear Fashion Industry,

I am a heterosexual male executive with a successful career. How is it possible that in a newsstand full of men’s fashion magazines, there is not a single one that caters to me?! Am I that much in the minority? Does my demographic really draw so little water from the well that it doesn’t merit a single magazine? A pamphlet, even? Judging from the newsstands and the stuff on the racks at Macy’s and Nordstrom’s, the only people buying men’s clothing are armies of insanely wealthy gay men, 22-years old, wearing size 8 shoes, with 28 inch waists and fitted medium shirts with 15″ collars. Have a look at the cover of the latest GQ magazine and tell me the last time you saw a heterosexual man that stepped out of the house in an outfit like that. Answer: you haven’t. Even Prince wouldn’t wear that shit. Who are these mutants?

So I cracked open the GQ magazine in question, and here’s the breakdown of that little ditty on the right:

• Silk suit: $4,375
• Shirt: $480
• Tie bar: $250
• Tie: $95
• Pocket square: $60

That’s $5,260 before you get to the shoes.

Got a few questions for you guys. How’s the recession treating you? Who’s buying all this shit? Is it really such a huge market and target demographic that it supports over twenty magazines chock full of advertisers selling more ridiculous outfits like this? I have almost 20 years experience in my field (the media and entertainment industry) and have met literally thousands of other professionals in my career. And not once have I run into anyone who looked or dressed like this.

Seriously. Where’s my magazine?

Santa Barbara Day Trip

One of my favorite things to do on a weekend is to take a road trip. The perfect road trip involves “just” enough driving to not wear you out, but takes you far enough away for a complete change of scenery. I prefer the kind where you go someplace slower, quieter and relaxing. This weekend, I had the pleasure of being joined by two of my favorite people for a great day trip to Santa Barbara. We enjoyed some sun, loud road music, cartwheels, sightseeing, “bike” riding, beach combing and a wonderful late lunch on an outdoor patio next to a group of people with cute little doggies in tow. Made me want another Pomeranian - the pom was DC’s favorite as well.

Enjoy the video recap from Veronika and some pictures I took along the way. Heard the rest of the family is getting snowed on in Atlanta. That sounds fun too, but this was heaven!

The Best “Best Actor” Acceptance Speech Ever

This is the speech I was hoping for from Mickey Rourke in tonight’s Oscar’s, but Sean Penn got to say things that needed to be said to the religious frigtards who clutch their bibles in one hand while voting to deny gay people the right to marry in the other.

Dear Conservatives,

If you can really call yourselves that. Have you looked up the definition of the word? I’ve heard all kinds of complaining about the “tax and spend” Democrats and this crazy-expensive stimulus plan. From the same people who were all for “no tax and spend” funding of our wars and hiring all those dingbats who make us take our shoes off at the airport yet ignore our shipping ports and other public transportation like buses and trains.

The stimulus plan is an investment. One with a means of tracking disbursement and progress.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not investments. We’re never seeing that money again in any shape or form. If we are, please post the link to the website where I can track it. I know how much these wars have cost so far, but these wars have never had defined objectives or metrics of success - yet we keep dumping money into them blindly.

If there were objectives or metrics, we could put a price and timetable to them. Its how my job works. I’d imagine its how yours works too. We know how much it costs to keep these troops deployed each month. Map it over time. Define objectives that can be measured. Put a milestone for completing these objectives at the end. Count the months and tell me the number. Spend that amount. Have a milestone review. Were the objectives met? If yes, great work, stop spending, mission accomplished. If no, you have to define the plan to fix it and hit it. If you screw that up, you’re fired.

At some point, you have to pull the plug. There’s no more money to spend.

It’s the conservative thing to do.

TED 2009

Had the good fortune of attending TED 2009 in a remote location suite that had a live feed. In the suite were a bevy of very sharp people. During lunch breaks, we’d head down to mingle with the big brains wandering the halls. TED is like the NFL for nerds. I definitely want to go again next year - truly a workout for the mind and imagination.

Somewhere, a Sony PR Executive is Being Fired

This is Sony’s CES keynote featuring Tom Hanks. It comes across funny at first, then you realize that at $20M a picture, Tom doesn’t have to give a flying flip about the words on the teleprompter, the company he’s talking about, or the Chairman he embarrasses in front of the audience and (thanks to YouTube) the world.

It culminates with Sir Howard Stringer thanking Tom for giving the keynote, and Tom saying sardonically, “You keep writing it into my contract! Can you take the hold off my check for Angels and Demons now?” It would be funny if it weren’t very likely true.