July 2010
53 posts
Huff N' Stuff
I’ve been mocking HuffPo Travel, saying it will publish posts by Alec Baldwin about what he did on his summer vacation. Then I realized that I would read a post by Alec Baldwin about what he did on his summer vacation. Guess that sums up what I know, or care to know, about running a travel website that doesn’t pay writers.
Also, regarding press trips: HP that was founded on the...
“Of course, some shows are less coveted than others. When “Jersey...”
– WSJ
“On Aug. 4, Swann will auction off more than 400 posters, many of them travel...”
– NYO
“The bedlam of images is meant to evoke a modern history of New York. (Calvin...”
– As I care less and less about WHAT Sifton reviews, I enjoy his writing more and more. Somewhere, meanwhile, I want a “New York’s Historically Hottest Tables with the Worst Food” slide show to exist. After all, that was a McNally innovation—hard to get in and dinner tasted...
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Another Opening, Another Show
Here’s the inaugural ep of the travel podcast I’m doing with Mike Barish. This is my first experience with hearing my voice as it sounds on real recording equipment, and, well, I’m questioning my masculinity. Right now I’ve settled on “tipsy, closeted NPR host” as the best way to describe my sound.
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Hardly any elements of style here, I'd say
Katie wants to bring it with the old Internet writing nostalgia. Well, I see and raise! Here in full is my 1997 review of the PC Game Dungeon Keeper. I was even quoted on Gamespot’s best-of-the-year awards! (The game won the award, not my user review). Sadly, the whole post is lost in the Internet, but I found a copy:
“Did that imp just give that guy the finger? I can only get better from...
Wanna Be Startin' Something
A certain NYC-based website—which almost ended up fellating Jimmy Dolan forevermore the other month—made mock of my girlfriend on Monday. A slight, really—she was quoted in a Post editorial which used her quote as the kicker, a drone wrote it up and called her an “expert” with snarky scare quotes. I can only presume that the lack of baby pandas in the article confused...
“Simultaneously, back at the front of the room, Fost suggests that perhaps his...”
– The future of freelancing.
The reason I don’t get put in charge of the website design is that “I want it to look like a 1988 Lotus Esprit” and “What about the British Airways face commercial?” are not considered constructive suggestions.
“It’s about the feeling any traveler has returning to a place he once knew as...”
– T+L
“Do you think John T. Edge hangs out at home drinking artisanal moonshine from a...”
– Me. Sometimes I think I entertain myself in emails more than the recipient.
“It began 25 years ago when Gulf Air, a politically contrived joint venture...”
– Nice Economist overview of Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways.
"It doesn’t seem likely that a woman can increase... →
(via designage)
Let’s do more research to get a nice, firm handle on the truth of this situation.
“Orbitz’s product is part of the problem the ad highlights, not the solution.”
– Oyster CEO Elie Seidman firing shots at Orbitz over these ads. (via paulbrady)
” Our reviewers take took hundreds of photos at each hotel they visit visited, so the proof is in our pudding.” FIXED
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Go East, Young Man
Over the weekend a friend recommended a cafe in Prague to another friend visiting the city called Meduza, saying it was one of his favorites. It has a special place in my heart, too.
When I was a young lad, maybe between junior and senior years of high school, I had one of my first beers alone there. It all felt so adult! Here I was, drinking a beer at a cafe in Europe and scribbling furiously in...
“Dude. Bar room at Keens.”
– Sifton, who likes hard-boiled eggs, apparently.
“Call me a grumpy old codger, but I liked the old way better. For one thing, I...”
– WP
Is there an intern-free RSS feed for the Awl that I’m just not seeing? Kthxbai.
“Not all Americans are English. Some of us are Scottish, Irish, and even...”
– Andrew Evans, kicking ass and chewing bubble gum in the Gadling comments section. Clearly, he’s already out of bubble gum.
“Not that Balazs wants to be associated with other nightlife hotels. When I ask...”
– Shots Fired! (Or whatever Brady is using these days to replace shots fired. Streets ahead?)
Rupert Murdoch, Neel Shah, and the Short Pants
rickyv:
Last month, my friend Neel Shah left his job at the New York Post’s “Page Six” and moved to LA to write for a network sitcom. Neel’s new gig marked not only the end of his time in New York, but the end of a year-long fascination with the management style of his boss’ boss’ boss, Rupert Murdoch. Let me explain. Last July, on a Friday afternoon, then News Corp executive Jeremy Philips and...
“I’ve never gone near gin in my life. It’s bad stuff. You...”
– Slate on Kaplans real and imagined.
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My attempt at being like Tom Freidman
Cabbing it across town the other week, I had a lady cab driver who was particular chatty. Turned out she was a bit of a foodie and also knew a lot about New York’s hotel scene (Enough to be able to recognize Todd English, at least). Pretty much unprompted, she goes, “Hey, what’s the name of that hotel all the way on the West side in Midtown, been around a little while, kinda...
“Here we are at the end of season two. (It only took me, what, two years to get...”
– I’m enjoying the AV Club recaps of the X-Files, which, looking back, was the catalyst for me becoming interested in the Internet in the first place.
Pickwickian, even
I really should pay closer attention. The Times’ legman on the BP Oil Spill story is named Henry Fountain. How friggin’ Dickensian!
Day for Night
Even though the Final was designed expressly to showcase what is frustrating about watching soccer—only penalty kicks could have made it worse—I will miss the World Cup. One thing, in particular, stands out: sports during weekdays is so much fun! Baseball execs would be loath to lose the revenue at the games themselves, but why not have more day games during the summer? Kids are out of...
“With scalped Finals tickets hovering near $2,000 late Saturday—and that...”
– WSJ
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In other John Hancock related news, the John Hancock observatory called me yesterday to pitch me about some upgraded facilities up there (new drinks y’all). However, and this was a first for me, getting called by an observatory, but: when someone from an observatory calls, it’s impossible NOT to imagine they’re calling you because a meteor is about to hit the earth. Obviously,...
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In my current shared office space, someone has an alert that sounds exactly like the IM messages in the John Hancock ads. You know, where two olds talk via the Internet and scratch their heads about whether they have enough saved to keep them in Ensure for the rest of their lives? Every time I hear it, I just think, “Crap! I don’t have any savings, just leave me alone about it,...
“They cured Old Yeller’s hide in a tree trunk full of tannin-rich rainwater, and...”
– Return of Ray’s advice column at Achewood!
“I should know—I tried to write one, having pitched and reported a story that was killed for its narrative drift, its lack of hook”
Here, see for yourself: a total lack of hook, and because it’s about Ivy League students, it’ll just make you angry!
Kidding, everyone knows that talking about how kids from CU and Brown were able to put together interesting summers using...
Young, Dumb and Full of, er, Job Issues
Sigh.
So: if you want your “dream job” instead of a “job job,” either create the damn thing yourself and resign yourself to poverty until it gets off the ground, or do it during nights and weekends while you work a perfectly acceptable 9 to 5. Is there a wikipedia page that just lists ALL the day jobs of famous writers? For Pete’s sake, how long did it take Girl Talk...
“I’m actually going to add this to my bio: “Chris Jones is a...”
– ESPN. Best contribs bio EVAR, unless Esquire sends him to Paraguay.
“This raises an existential question: When you celebrate yourself online, are you...”
– Wired
