“Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.” – Bonaparte
A friend suggested this weekend that we go to the street fair for the Tribeca Film Festival. Little did we know it was the Tribeca Film Family Festival. Other than a few MILFs, there wasn’t too much going on. I did manage to snap a few pictures of some breakdancers. Here are some of the better ones:
You may notice some fuzziness in the right hand corner. I took this shot on my tiptoes, no one would let me get a clean shot and that is the corner of some lady’s hat. Ah well.
There are a lot of things that are out there that are specifically made for Suckers. For example, the Gizmondo. Another example: working hard. I could give a million examples.
And I will, as part of my multipart series on Things For Suckers. I came across the following article at the NYTimes titled: “Someone Has to Pay for TV. But Who? And How?” Dear non-existent reader, I will tell you the answer. 1. Maybe. 2. Not me. 3. I could care less. The article talks about how 70 percent of DVR users skip commercials. Well duh. That is because 99% of all commercials suck and aren’t worth watching. Watching TV in real time with commercials IS FOR SUCKERS. The article is definitely worth a read, and I thought this perspective was actually quite innovative:
James Boyle, a law professor at Duke University, said that broadcasters offer a program knowing that only a fraction of the audience watches the commercials. Advertisers, he added, buy nothing more than “an option on a probability,” and the viewer is no more obligated to watch every commercial than a driver is obligated to read every billboard.
An option on probability. I like that.
In my view, the advertising industry is taking too many cues from the RIAA. The solution is not to battle against the erosion of your business plan using technology. As the RIAA and MPAA have learned painfully, that is never going to work. What advertisers should be doing is looking internally, for a way to make their generic car commercials suck less. Beer commercials. The old Volkswagen commercials. Even the new Burger King commercials. Those are funny. I’ll watch ‘em. The latest Mercury Merkur commercial? I’ll pass, thanks. Just try and stop me.
Follow up: Here is an example of someone doing something right. Whoever came up with this at Warner Bros. should be promoted.
People ask me this question all the time. Now I can just point them to this handy tutorial: How To Back Up A DVD. This is almost exactly how I do it myself, though I use a two step process for the burn. The ripping process is the same, but then I use IMGTool .93 and DVDDecrypter to complete the burning process. I say two steps because once you install the two supplementary programs, DVDDecrypter integrates into IMGTool, and so the only two effective steps are 1. Rip with DVDShrink, and 2. Burn with IMGTool. However, I like the one step process in the tutorial, and I may try that for next time. My two step process would obviously be better if you want to rip now but burn later.
I love my camera.
But my camera does not love me because I never take it out. But this weekend I did! I used it for about thirty seconds in Central Park. Here is a pic of some tulips. What do you think?
Welcome to Virtual Obscurity. This website follows in the hallowed footsteps of my many other false-starts, unfulfilled goals, and all-around half-assery. Let’s see how far this one goes.
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