In the World

I really probably shouldn’t blog this, but it’s too funny not to share.

There is a woman–let’s call her Mabel–who has been calling Destiny Image over the past couple of months.

She started out calling the sales line, but has graduated to the general office number and punches in random extensions.

“Mabel” seems like a nice woman. She has a strong Boston accent. And she is very inquisitive.

In fact, she asks so many questions that today one of the employees dubbed her “Our Very Own Corporate Stalker.”

Every time Mabel calls she seems to need different information. Today, she was asking for the official job title for one of our Acquisitions Agents (it’s “Acquisitions Agent”) for “correspondence.” Previously, she has asked to speak with the heads of certain departments, she has asked who the managers of certain sales representatives are, and has asked probing questions about our authors and attempted to get personal contact information for them (which, really, is not that unusual).

I can only imagine that she is trying to build some kind of organizational chart of the company.

When asked her name, or queried for contact information, she politely declines to answer or ignores the question completely and continues to ask her questions. A staff member once began to pray for her over the phone, and Mabel began screaming “moron” into the phone.

One of these times, I’m hoping that she gets through to me. I have a whole list of fake names and positions (such as Dr. Green in Trauma Counseling, Westley in Wardrobe, and Asuka in Angelic Warfare) that I would like to add to her list of Destiny Image employees. I’ve also got some choice jokes involving caller ID and reverse name lookups that I’d like to share with her.

It’s rather entertaining, really. I think though that Mabel may need a hobby. Or a pet. Maybe I’ll send her a kitten after the next time she calls. Everyone likes teh kittehs.

Organizing links to new music I need to buy for Rock Band night:

Tribute by Tenacious D
Kryptonite by Three Doors Down
So Cold by Breaking Benjamin
I Will Not Bow by Breaking Benjamin
Ironic by Alanis Morrisette
Head over Feet by Alanis Morrisette

I need more Microsoft Points. Again.

I posted on twitter/FB today that I had some really strange dreams last night. A few people asked me about them, so I’ve relented and will post it here. I apologize in advance for the blank spots. Dreams are like that: They don’t have to make sense.

//start dream//

I’m sitting in a train station, on a bench on the platform.

A train passes through the station, and stops suddenly. Over the loudspeaker, it is announced that there was an accident, and that Dora the Explorer is trapped under the engine guard.

For some reason, this really upsets me, and I determine that I have to go save Dora.

I run to the end of the platform, and in moments find myself lost in the middle of an endless swamp crisscrossed by sections of rotting wooden platforms. I begin jumping from crumbling dock to dock, trying to make my way to the front of the train, which is nowhere in sight.

After a while, I am overcome with emotion and collapsed, crying and screaming. For some reason, Dora being trapped under the train still has me greatly upset.

Eventually, I see some birds circling overhead. I stand up, and the birds fly back towards the platform, which has reappeared. In the distance, I can see that the train has started moving again.

Suddenly, I find myself running through a store. I pass several clothing racks, and stop at a shelf full of large plastic spaceship models.

And then I woke up.

//end dream//

So, did I make anyone’s brain explode?

I am a big science fan. Our universe is full of things that we cannot even begin to understand.

I’m reading a book right now called 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense by Michael Brooks. It’s a very interesting little work on some of the persistent mysteries in the various fields of science.

One of the most interesting issues (to me at least) is a controversy that I hadn’t even heard of until now, called the Pioneer Anomaly. Google Pioneer Anomaly for an in-depth look. In a nutshell, though, the Pioneer Anomaly appears to disprove more than 400 years of accepted Newtonian science concerning gravity. It gets its name from NASA’s Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft, whose trajectories through space don’t line up with what the accepted science says. In other words, the math that says how gravity will influence their flight is wrong.

The answer could be something simple, like “some NASA scientist forgot to carry a one”, or something complex like “everything we know about physics is wrong”.

In any case, it’s fascinating to read about. A real science detective story. Exciting!

Oh, and there’s new pics from everyone’s favorite orbital observatory! The Hubble lives!

So my blog is here now, rather than where it was before. Pardon the mess. I’ll have the graphics and themes sorted out soon.

Until then, READ THIS!

Last week saw the premiere of the orchestral arrangement of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

The premise is pretty simple: Show The Two Towers, but without the musical soundtrack. The music is all performed by a live orchestra, while the movie is playing.

I saw The Fellowship of the Ring last year, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was very surprised, however, at the sheer number of people who had never actually seen the movies. Okay, not surprised: shocked, dismayed, and aghast. To me, not having seen Lord of the Rings is very nearly one of Paul’s unforgivable sins, ranking up there with not having seen Star Wars, Back to the Future, Aliens, or The Princess Bride.

But enough about my life as The Critic.

What I really wanted to post about was this car I saw while leaving the Wolf Trap center:

Notice the sticker above the brake light, and then notice the license plate. There were large door-sized posters on each side of the car, but I was already embarrassing everyone who was with me, so I settled for this one crappy photo.

So yes, I’ll agree with the sticker, but with the caveat that church is spelled with a lower-case “c”. “Church” with a big “C” is something that true believers can’t “come out of”, because the “Church” is the body of believers. A “church” is just a building, or a grouping of like-minded people, or any other “Christian” event where Christ is not present.

And on to the license plate: KJV only. Really? Of all the positive, encouraging, life-affirming, Christ-affirming messages you could preach, THIS is what you get a vanity license plate for?

What happened to peace, love, and justice? [Insert your own "In the name of the moon" joke here]

I’m going to go out on a limb here and bet that the driver of this car wouldn’t find my current favorite translation of the Bible to be very, well, “canonical” isn’t the right word…but I’m not going to re-write this sentence to be able to use the word “heretical”.

I would imagine that this translation would also be unsuitable. And this one. And especially this one.

Oh, and if you’re the owner of the car in the above photograph, shoot me an e-mail. We can get together, throw back a few beers, and argue over who has the best translation. Or we could duel it out in Rock Band.

This is my new house. At least it will be in about 24 years, after I finish paying the bank back for it.

It will be most appropriate for hosting Rock Band Night.

And no, I’m not going to post the GPS coordinates or the Google Earth link. It is my Undisclosed Location. Although it is very nearly line-of-sight to Destiny Image, and I may need to build and try out a wifi cantenna.

I’m looking forward to moving in.

Admittedly, it’s not terribly raptor secure, but it could be made such with the addition of a few steel panic doors.

It seems odd to be writing a half-book review. I feel like I should at least read an entire book before judging it–and especially before sharing that judgment with anyone else.

But in this case, I can’t help it.

Last week, shortly after I returned from a very enjoyable week in Duck, Outer Banks, North Carolina (where I wouldn’t mind spending a another week, two weeks, or forever) Tyler stopped by my office with a book called Content by Cory Doctorow. He said that I should read it; that it was pretty good.

While enjoying a beautiful afternoon, I decided to sit down and start reading it. And I found out that Tyler is a horrible, rotten liar. I read half the book in a single sitting. Content isn’t just pretty good. It is excellent.

It’s also terrifying–at least to someone like me who makes a living managing intellectual property and placing it into purchasable packages.

You see, Content is about the future–or a couple possible futures–of the content management industry. This includes music, movies, books, and the roles that studios, recording companies, and publishers may (or may not) play in the very, VERY near future.

Imagine, if you will, living as a blacksmith around 1910. You walk out of your forge in downtown Manhattan one morning, and among the hustle and bustle of horses and carriages and wagons you see something a new: A carriage that isn’t being pulled by a horse or a person. You stare for a moment, curious about just how this strange contraption works, and then you turn and return to your small foundry and continue to shape and bang out horseshoes, carriage wheels, and even pots and pans.

How many of the thousands of blacksmiths (remember, if it was made of metal it came from a blacksmith) making their living in New York City do you think saw the end of their entire industry coming the first time they saw an assembly-line manufactured Model-T automobile? How about the second time? The third? Maybe it took a decade? Two decades? Today there are fewer than a dozen operating blacksmith forges in New York City.

The media industry has been in danger of a similar supplanting. As blacksmiths were once the gatekeepers of the transportation and metalworking industries, so have publishers and the like been the gatekeepers of media availability and consumption. And like those blacksmiths in 1910, there’s precious little the established industry can do except find a way to stay relevant.

You see, it’s not so much a matter of the fact that the media consumption model is changing. Rather, the fact is that it has already changed, and companies like Destiny Image (or Thomas Nelson or Random House or “insert company name here”) have a very limited window in which to figure out how to stay relevant.

In Content, Doctorow asks a lot of hard questions, and makes some very valid observations, and even offers a few answers. Refreshingly, he doesn’t claim to have all the answers, and alternately even offers a few solutions, but admits that industry, when not embroiled in attempting to control content through legislation or ridiculous content controls, is absolutely brilliant at inventing amazing new ways to make money from what they produce.

For a free (yes, free) copy of Content, click here. And enjoy the read; it’s well worth the time investment.