mixed media

Just received this email:

Dear Joshua:

We are creating a TV pilot about blogging. We want to bring this phenomenon of personal expression to television for the very first time, and have been scouring the web for appropriate sites. Your web site seems like a potentially great fit for the show.

If you would like to be a part of our pilot, you can do so by submitting a video that encapsulates you and your blog. Whatever you want to say and show in your video is fine. The key is to capture the essence of your blog in video format (etc., etc.)

While I was sincerely flattered, I don’t suspect I’ll end up doing it. For some reason, I just don’t imagine this overtaking, say, Joe Millionaire, in terms of viewer potential. But perhaps that’s just my own, cynical, newly Hollywood-ified viewpoint. Perhaps blogTV will, in fact, sweep the nation, finally merging micropublishing and mass media to hysterical audience response, forever changing the very nature of television, the web, nay, written and visual artistic expression itself! Or, on the other hand, maybe not.

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re-released

After several days of intense yet amicable discussion, I am now officially returned to the world of caddish bachelorhood. My long-time readers, distraught by the recent lack of dating exploits, may now rejoice in the mess I’m likely to make (and chronicle) in the next few months.

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in-depth reading

One of my favorite things about the internet: whatever the assertion, someone has already gone through the trouble of fact-checking it obsessively, then posted the results. Point in case, an interesting look at the much-discussed Universal Democracy Peace Formula (essentially, the claim that no two democratic countries have every waged war on each other). From the conclusion, by far the most interesting part:

“Although there is no undisputed case of two democracies at war, the evidence certainly casts doubt on the thesis. In fact, the thesis is not nearly as strong as the statement that no two countries with a MacDonald’s Restaurant have ever gone to war with one another, so why do you never hear distinguished international diplomats expound on the need to sell more beef patties in the world?

At first, this MacDonald’s factoid seems enormously trivial; however, when you stop and think about it, the MacDonald’s Peace Formula can be quite interesting. It seems to indicate that as countries are incorporated into the global economy by trans-national corporations, they stop waging war on one another (although it might be vice versa). Unfortunately, no one wants to go around saying that the best way to assure peace is to surrender your national economy to large heartless corporations. It makes a much better campaign slogan to say that democracy is the best path to peace. This is why we see so many people claiming that democracies never fight each other, and relatively few people outside of MacDonald’s Corporate Headquarters claiming the geopolitical virtues of burger bars. “

In other words: Want peace? Skip the protest and grab a Value Meal. Ah, the delicious, high-cholesterol irony.

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contrarian wisdom

People sometimes ask me how I’ve managed to squeeze so much into my short life. And while I’m usually at a loss for solid advice, I’ve recently begun to realize at least one rule I tend to follow:

If everyone is doing it, don

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budget tip

According to recent statistical research, the odds of winning the lottery are apparently so small that it does not significantly reduce them to not buy a ticket. One might, for example, with an equal chance of success, hope to find the winning ticket on the sidewalk and save the dollar purchase price.

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beard update

In response to reader emails: yes, I still have the beard. It’s filled in rather surprisingly well, and has thus far drawn nearly universal praise. “I normally don’t like beards,” people say “but I think, in your case, it actually kind of works.”

That’s where the consensus ends, however, as nearly every person I speak with also has a different idea of how it makes me look, including: French, Irish, Russian, English, outdoorsy, older, hipper, squarer, more serious, less serious, scruffier, preppy-er. The list goes on and on and on, and I rarely hear the same one twice. If I can get my digital camera working, I’ll post a picture and let readers decide for themselves.

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