Monthly Archives: November 2008

Okay, listen up. For a couple years here, I've been hectoring you to tune in Stu's Show, a weekly two-hour chat about classic television, hosted by my buddy Stu Shostak. Many of you have written to thank me for the tip since Stu puts on a great show. He's usually able to get great guests and when he can't, he has me on. So either way, I'd like you to listen…which you can do on your computer, assuming it's hooked up to the Internet, which it must be or you wouldn't be reading this.

Well, tomorrow is Stu's one hundredth show. That's a big deal all by itself but he's celebrating with a great guest…everyone's favorite actress, the legendary June Foray! That's right. The voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Natasha Fatale, Granny (Tweety's owner), Jokey Smurf, Witch Hazel and so many others will be in Stu's studio to be interviewed and take questions from those of you who call in. It doesn't get any better than that. Animation expert Earl Kress will be co-hosting and I'll participate via phone.

It happens tomorrow (Wednesday) live on Shokus Internet Radio. To listen, go to their website at the correct hour and do what it says to do. The correct hour will depend on where you live but on the West Coast, it's from 4 PM 'til 6 PM, which works out to 7 PM 'til 9 PM on the East Coast…and you can figure out other places from that. The show will rerun all week but it's better to hear it as it happens — and of course, you can call in when it's live.

This is a rare opportunity to hear and maybe even chat with one of the animation field's true living legends. And if you've never experienced the fun of Stu's Show, it's a good time to start.

The Circuit City chain has filed for bankruptcy. Many of its stores will be closing and the ones that hang in there might not be there for long.

Anyone who's ever shopped at one knows the reason they're in trouble. It's the same thing that doomed the Good Guys chain. And Egghead Software. And caused CompUSA to close most of its outlets. It's the same problem that destroys most chains that sell technology. Someone says, "We have to keep labor costs low," and doesn't realize or care that this invariably results in too many employees who — I'm going to put this in bold — don't know a damn thing about the stuff they sell.

I don't know that much about computers and technology but it's been a long time since I encountered someone in one of those stores who knew as much as I do, let alone more. In fact, every time I'm in one, I seem to wind up correcting something I overhear. Last time I was in the Circuit City near me, a salesguy was telling a lady the difference between DVD+R discs and DVD-R was that DVD+R was the "deluxe" version of DVD-R. I felt I had to intervene.

Management in these stores doesn't seem to realize that all they have to offer is personal expertise. If you know what you want, you can always find it at a lower price online. If you want to take the thing home today or touch it before you buy, you can go to a "big box" place like Costco where no one knows the product but it's cheaper. The only way a place like Circuit City can possibly compete — and I'll bet there'd a big market for this if they could deliver it — is by giving you someone knowledgeable to talk to. Usually though, there's no such person on the premises…or if there is, there's only one and he's eternally waiting on someone else. In some of these stores, it's even hard to find someone unknowledgeable to talk to. You might as well go to Costco. They have better prices, plus there are ladies in hairnets who offer you free samples of teriyaki chicken.

Now, you might say, "Hey, Radio Shack's still in business and no one there knows anything." This is true…but Radio Shack serves a function, much the same purpose 7-Eleven or some other convenience store serves in relation to a real market. It's a quick place to run in and buy a patch cord or a headset. You wouldn't do your serious grocery-buying at the Quik-E-Mart and most folks don't do major purchases at Radio Shack, except maybe of cell phones. Oddly, the last few times I've been in a Radio Shack, the only thing the staff seemed to know about was signing you up for Sprint. I asked where a certain cable could be found and the guy didn't have a clue…but he did ask me about my wireless plan.

Circuit City's downsizing probably won't help. People in record numbers are buying computers and high-def TVs and PDAs and digital cameras and even things we don't yet know we can't live without, and you'd think it would be a golden time to operate a chain of stores that sold that stuff. But crummy service has killed the brick-and-mortar end of that market. Everyone's learned that if you're not going to get personal attention from a salesperson who knows the product line, you might as well buy it on the Internet. It's cheaper and you don't even have to carry it out to your car. I'd wager good money that within two years, the Circuit City near me is a CVS Pharmacy. I base that prediction on the fact that the Circuit City is badly run…and also on the fact that we don't seem to have a CVS Pharmacy on that block.

Beginning some time next year, TiVos in Australia will have a new feature which we'll probably see soon after in this country. They'll be able to use their TiVos to order pizza. This article doesn't say but presumably they mean that a delivery person will bring your pie to the door, not that it will somehow come to you via cable. No word on whether it'll let you take a Season Pass.

Sorry I'm not posting more lately. Lots of stuff to do here and every once in a while, I succumb to this strange urge to actually sleep.

I find myself unable to turn loose of the election. I should look away until such time as Obama is in office and actually doing things but it's hard. And of course, parts of the election are still not over. Some but not all have called Missouri for McCain…and then you have things like the Senate race in Minnesota where Norm Coleman is, at last look, only 221 votes ahead of Al Franken with a mandatory recount ahead. I've met Franken and think he's a smart, serious fellow so, above and beyond the fact that it would give the Democrats a tad more clout, I'd like to see him win it.

But of greater interest to me is yet another piece of evidence on how sloppy our voting procedures are in this country. They're still finding votes that weren't tallied and the recount hasn't even started yet. When it does, thousands of ballots that weren't counted because the optical scanners registered "no vote" on them may yield even more votes.

Sadly, no one ever looks at these situations and sees anything more than their guy winning or losing. I wish someone would react by saying that regardless of outcome, we oughta do a better job of counting votes. You wouldn't put your money in a bank that days after people made their deposits was still finding checks that hadn't been processed…and which then said it would take weeks to get you an accurate balance. But we trust our votes to a system with that low a level of precision.

Protests are erupting all over California over the outcome of Proposition 8. I'm dismayed at it too but apart from blowing off steam, I'm not sure what the protests can accomplish. What might be meaningful is to use that anger to jumpstart fund-raising efforts to put this matter on the next ballot, whenever that is, and vote again. The previous time Californians weighed in on same-sex marriage, it lost by 22 points. This time, it was four — and in an election where, some claim, the loss was due to an unusual number of Afro-Americans turning out to vote for Obama. I dunno how much of a difference that made but it seems to me that if you lose by 22 and then by four, the next time is more than likely to go your way.

John McCain will be on with Leno on Tuesday. The Republican nominee needs to rehabilitate his image with some Americans so it'll be a lot of self-deprecating remarks and Good Sport platitudes about how "the voters have spoken" and "we all need to get behind our new president." I'm sure he'll be charming and funny and he may even be the "old" John McCain (as opposed to the old John McCain) who some of us might have supported if he'd been on the ballot. What would really impress me is if he sat down with Jay and said, "You know, I hope America will understand that all that stuff we said about him being a terrorist and socialist was just crap we made up to try and get votes." Somehow, I don't expect that to happen.

I think Sarah Palin has a huge future catering to the Fox News audience — TV deals, book offers, speaking engagements, etc. There's a lot of money and fame to be harvested there…certainly a lot more than you'd ever hope to realize as Governor of Alaska. There may even be more influence over the directions in which America heads. I don't think she has any future in being elected to any office voted on by non-Alaskans but it may advance that other career path to maintain her '12 candidacy for a while, and maybe even to get into the Senate if Ted Stevens gets elected and then expelled. But the G.O.P. leadership is not going to allow the ascendancy of a candidate they couldn't even trust to give a press conference or to sit down with any interviewer more challenging than Sean Hannity. Sixty-some percent of Republicans say they'd like to see Palin head the 2012 ticket but that number will plunge as soon as someone emerges who can offer her agenda and answer questions without providing monologue fodder. And don't think there won't be someone.

By the way: I'm not writing this stuff for your benefit so much as mine. Putting it up here seems to help me to stop thinking about it, which in turn enables me to focus on that which needs to be done in my life. I'm going to post another video link, then go try to do some of those things. Happy Sunday.

As part of the Bush administration's ongoing efforts to kick the poor and middle-class in the groin at every possible opportunity, they've just taken steps to reduce medical services available under Medicaid. It's never bothered them when a large corporation overcharged the government by zillions, or when vast sums simply disappeared into that end of the budget. But money spent on health care for the poor in this country? Can't have that.

This is just being mean. Obama and the Democrats are committed in the opposite direction and will presumably undo it all, and then some. But in the few months before that can happen, someone's going to suffer.