Email

Have U.S. Americans become too reliant on the exclamation point in electronic office correspondence? A common email I send looks like this:

Hi XXXX --

Yakitate 25 misc text is done! I've left final pdf in your folder for approval.

Thanks!

I don't remember always using the "exclam" in my sign-off and I'm not sure when it became a habit. Anyhow, their response usually looks something like this:

YAKITATE 25 misc text is approved!

Thanks!

Other times it will be like this:

YAKITATE 25 misc text is approved.

Thanks

When I get the last one, it does seem to affect my mood considerably. It makes me feel sullen and unloved. I feel betrayed when they're not sharing in the excitement of this good news. I know it's ridiculous that this one character can make such an impact, but that's where we stand today as a society. Perhaps it's to atone for the lost art of the handwritten letter or the look-you-square-in-the-eye handshake; email can be cold and impersonal--the exclam brings it to life. I feel like I've been to a marvelous party when I get one! Don't you have the same feeling now?

In your inbox
This one ticks me off. Is there any way around saying "I've left the proof in your inbox?" I don't like the two "ins" right next to each other. You can't say "at your inbox."
"At your desk" might work but not if it really is in the inbox. Call me a pervert but you can't say "I've left the proof in your box;" it sounds sexual. You can just leave it on someone's chair, which a lot of people do. But I hate when people do that. It's presumptuous to impose an additional urgency on a project like that. If you put it on my seat, I have to work on it or at least think about it before I even sit down!

Dog show

Went to a dog show at the cow palace ages ago--think it was like '06. Anyhow, been meaning to throw these photos up. This guy was crazy. He loved Star Trek and his dogs so much that he fused his two loves together--what a showman:This fastidious young man was a gentle soul:So was his dog:DP getting silly:These ladies don't look too nice--but they were nice enough to let me photograph them and their dogs:Love this lady:Gotta have the one pic of the guy that resembles his dogs (sorry for blurriness):Getting artsy with the kitsch:I was big on the long-and-short in 06:

New font obsession: Eurostile extended

I spend a lot of time looking though font books while I'm at work. Came across the listing for Eurostile extended and was floored by how dope it was. What's weird is that because it's so ubiquitous, it's never really registered or been on my radar. Two words come to mind when looking at this typeface: futuristic and serious. Take a look at how it's being used today:See what I mean? Serious. Def-Con 4. The Terminator never fucks around. He's totally serious:The venerable granddaddy of newsmagazines, 60 Minutes, is serious: As is the local news and the Guardian:The tone of the Geico ad campaign isn't really serious--but the nature of their business is:Futuristic:Sometimes you can't explain why a font has been chosen:This photo is exposed perfectly (thanks anonymous Flickr person! Don't sue me!):Love this:

New Yorker cartoons

My wife just got us a subscription to the New Yorker. We'd been talking about it for some time. We already take Newsweek thanks to my dad. We also used to get The Economist. That was way too overwhelming and dry. We desperately needed something between Newsweek and The Economist. The NYer fit the bill. Gives you a little bit of this and little bit of that. It can get overly high-brow but it also covers pop music and youth culture; albeit from a 40-year-oldish perspective.

Anyhow, beyond the writing, I always enjoyed the cartoons. Very simple one-panel and one-sentence cartoons. Always very topical and clever. But never really that funny. Wasn't there a Seinfeld that dealt with this? To get to the point, I've been reading a book on
meditation--and the point the author always come back to is that meditation is about blocking all the bullshit out and focusing on one thing--whether it be your breath counting, or your mantra or whatever brand of meditation you're practicing. And there was a quote by a famous Jewish holy man Baal Shem Tov that stuck with me. And I could just see that particular line being used in a New Yorker cartoon. So here you have my lame attempt at a New Yorker cartoon. How many more times can I say New Yorker in this post? New Yorker, New Yorker, New Yorker.

Tim McGraw laughs, cries and makes meatballs

shout to J. Kaplan for photo

Been on a Mr. Show kick

Mounting an Effective Pass Rush

I'm a huge sports radio fanatic. After I drop Vicky at work, I'll flip on Colin Cowherd or Jim Rome for the fifteen minute drive from her office to mine. Or sometimes I'll catch Dan Patrick later in the day. Ex-Warriors-great (wink nudge) Tom Tolbert is entertaining too. I hate it when they interview people though. Super boring. I prefer the long, ranting monologues when they tackle the hot topic of the day. So I flip on Dan Patrick yesterday on the drive home and he's talking about Rush Limbaugh's failed bid to buy the St. Louis Rams. He says he's getting all these angry emails saying stuff like Congratulations--you and the rest of the ignorant liberal media trampled free speech and the constitution and got Limbaugh dropped from the bid--you must be proud! Dan called bullshit; he said it's not about left or right and it's certainly not about free speech. Nobody stopped Rush from saying the things he did. You have the luxury of saying whatever you want but you're still held accountable; there's consequences.

Businesses seek to mitigate risk as much as they can. The NFL is no different. Unless you're Jerry Jones, the NFL prefers a low-profile owner. Mark Cuban breaks it down:

The problem with Rush is that it's his job to take on all of life’s partisan issues and problems. Not only is it his job to take on these issues and problems, its key to his success is that he be very opinionated... Given that we will never know what the "next big issue" Rush will be discussing on his show is, its impossible for the NFL to even try to predict or gauge the impact on the NFL’s business if something controversial, or even worse yet, something nationally polarizing happens. The wrong thing said on the show, about a sensitive national or world issue could turn into a Black Swan event for the NFL.

That's a huge risk that is not commensurate with the value a minority investment in a franchise brings.

This isn't about Free Speech. It's about the NFL protecting their business.