Patrick

unscripted

My susceptibility to marketing is most clearly exemplified by the soap I purchase: Green Tea and Cucumber. Yes, I like cucumbers (on salad or in tzatziki) and green tea (preferably warm), but under no circumstances would I apply them topically, simultaneously or otherwise.

Tea is becoming a health fad, and I hate to admit that my predilection for steeped Camellia sinensis leaf did not precede this fad by an appreciable amount of time. It’s hard to stay ahead of trends when you’re isolated from normal society for weeks at a time. Which brings me to being in a Starbucks in Atlantic Beach, Florida. A blond girl in her twenties is trying to pronounce prestidigitation while her greying male companion conspicuously hits on her. She is from New York; her elocution is rapid but clear, and loud enough to be heard across the coffee shop but not so loud as to annoy, just to distract.

In any case, eavesdropping is my Starbucks pastime. Caitie and I recently amused ourselves with appraisals of various customers’ employment status and if they were sleeping (or in repose, as Alex says in Everything Is Illuminated). And if you read this, Caitie, I’m still waiting for that Easter basket.

Stole this from Katie. Use Wikipedia to find three events, two births and one death that happened on your birthday.

Events: 1979 — C-SPAN begins broadcasting with a speech by congressman Al Gore; 1962 — Bob Dylan releases his first album; 1915 — Pluto is first photographed, but not recognized as a planet.

Births: 1947 — Glenn Close; 1848 — Wyatt Earp (d. 1929).

Death: 2005 — John De Lorean (b. 1925).

In college a friend introduced me to the strangely addictive NationStates, an online game loosely related to Barry’s previous novel, Jennifer Government. I had enjoyed Barry’s humorous capitalist dystopia, so when I saw Company, emblazoned with a partially-consumed doughnut, upon the new fiction shelves at B&N, I had to read it.

The author takes his predilection for corporate intrigue to new heights, limiting the novel’s scope to a single company, and aside from a few anecdotes, to a single employee. Although the office humor doesn’t stand up to genre leaders Office Space or The Office, Company is a fun (and quick) read; Barry’s writing is concise and clever, and his characters are enjoyably quirky. The novel is best, however, when it leaves the mundanity of normal office life for the conspiracy and scheming of Zephyr Holdings. Unfortunately, just when things are getting thoroughly bizarre, Company abruptly ends without a satisfying denouement to bring closure to the protagonist-antagonist relationship.

Though a sketch of a novel, Company, along with Barry’s other work, is a welcome addition to the underrepresented genre of business fiction.

I wonder if we’re related.

I wish we had a Qdoba or Chipotle in Norfolk. My life is somehow less meaningful without a upper-class fast food establishment within walking distance. Instead I am drowning my sorrow in Taco Bell, which was produced much too rapidly to be fresh. Those of you that remember me from high school may not believe this, but I am getting fat. It’s true. I have an unnecessary bit of myself that protrudes around my waist when I am not standing perfectly upright. It’s quite gross, really. I guess I either need to get more exercise, less stress, or looser-fitting clothes. The next party is at my place, because I have extra beer. It’s in no danger of being drunk (I always think of Douglas Adams when I hear that expression) as I don’t drink alone (at least not yet). Forthcoming will be a review of several good books and movies I have digested recently, as well as an exploration of demographics and converging technologies.

Get ready for another format war! Microsoft, Toshiba and Intel are backing the HD-DVD standard, while Sony, Dell and Apple support the Blu-ray specification. There will be some overlap in available movies, since a few studios have signed up for both formats.

HD-DVDs hit stores this month, but most should consider the following reasons to wait for Blu-ray:

• Capacity. Blu-ray packs in 25GB per layer, ten more than HD-DVD. This means higher quality video and the ability to adapt to future storage demands.
• Scratch-resistance. Whereas HD-DVD uses the same scratch-prone coating now used on optical media, the coating developed for Blu-ray has purportedly stood up to brutalization via screwdriver.
• Compatibility. Dell and HP are the two biggest PC manufacturers, and Apple is (naturally) the only Mac manufacturer; nominally 40% of computers in the US are sold by Blu-ray backers (not all companies have taken sides yet, and HP intends to support both formats, though a dual-media player does not appear imminent). Furthermore, Blu-ray will run Java, making the development of interactive media much simpler.

HD-DVD is cheaper, but Blu-ray is more innovative and extensible. Both formats will provide appropriate video quality for HDTVs, and both formats will employ onerous copy-protection. So in the long run the difference to most consumers will be minimal. Let’s hope this format war resembles DVD-R vs. DVD+R and not VHS vs. Betamax.