Robot Journal : With Smiley for a last name, it's gotta be good

12/15/2004

See ya Tavis Smiley
You may not be familiar with Tavis, but he has a news magazine type talk show on NPR (as well as PBS).

Senor Smiley is apparently not renewing his contract with NPR and sent out an email to participating stations stating that he is let down with NPR's lack to "meaningfully reach out to a broad spectrum of Americans who would benefit from public radio, but simply don't know it exists or what it offers".
radio blogware

OK. That may be true, and attracting more people of color to NPR is a good thing, but I also have read editorials that are defending Tavis as some sort of great radio personality and interviewer

During Smiley's time at NPR, the network and its stations reportedly questioned his openness with his liberal political views, his irreverent style and his willingness to ask challenging questions, as well as to allow a few arguments to break out on his show.
NewsDay

I'm sorry. Tavis Smiley, who I really wanted to like, was a pretty lousy host. The show, on paper, always looked good. His guests were often interesting people discussing interesting topics - but so often I found myself thinking "he totally missed the point" or "he doesn't get what the guest is trying to get at".
This was, of course, when he actually hosted the show.
He also came across as the dorkiest black man in the country (oddly enough, that was my nickname in high school).

Tavis.
Part of me hates to see you go. I'll miss your constant calling of everyone "brother" and how they would call you "brother Tavis" back. But I won't miss your getting riled up for all the wrong reasons or your almost cringe-inducing wanna-be sly bashing of the republican party (a NY democrat says Tavis is too liberal... go figure).

I also won't miss your 'blaming NPR for letting you down' reason for leaving. So, regular black folks (as you call them) aren't flocking to NPR yet? Um, well that might take some time.

Thanks for not sticking with it.

Braaaiiinnnnnnssssss

MSN Messenger has this goofball emoticon that is supposed to be someone offering a hug. I think it looks more like a guy walking around with this arms out like a zombie.
Looking for brains.
So, when I use this emoticon with you on IM, I don't mean, "Here's a hug" but "Braaaaaiinnns"

Poor Ukraine
Sure, all this election fraud stuff just stinks (that's a political science term BTW) and it's even worse that someone tried to kill the poor fellow who was running against Putin's boy.
This is all tragic stuff.

But, in my opinion, the most interesting thing is that the two presidential candidates have such similar names, especially to our American eyes.

Poison guy: Viktor Yushchenko
Pro-Moscow Monkey: Viktor Yanukovich

Then again we had John Kerry and John Edwards

Happy hollydays
Did I ever tell you about the holiday card that this executive/owner/financier guy sent out one year? This was during those heady dot-com days working with MattyJ and Liz.

I forget who the guy was. Maybe the president of the parent company?
Well, this I do know: he had a lot of money.
His Christmas card for that year was a photo of his home.

Not him in front of his home. Just his home.
Naturally this 'home' looked like a resort or hotel or state welcome center.
It really got me into that Christmas spirit.

Citysearch, you suck - Vindigo, you rock
Mr. Citysearch, tell me this: why do you suck so much?
My boss calls me on the phone the other day and he's trying to track down this Italian restaurant that is near our office.
"um, it begins with a 'c' I think. 'campa' something.."

So, like a good internets monkey, I instinctively pull up CitySearch.
Select restaurants.
Wait.
Browse by cuisine.
Wait for ads to load.
Sort by alphabetical.
Then I decide that I really should have started by selecting neighborhood, and somehow that clears everything and starts me from the beginning.
The site is so slow. It's badly designed, garish, and too busy.

My solution? I reach into my bag and pull out my 1999 Palm Vx, open Vindigo.
Restaurants. 32nd & Park. Alphabetical.
Done. 30 seconds tops.

What I want
I want Vindigo on the web in addition to my palm version. No ads. No stupid Yellow Pages features. No images. I am paying for Vindigo already.

I also think that a computer that runs the Palm OS would be a good idea for parents and other technophobes.
On the other hand, Vindigo on my phone is slow and pokey, but then again everything is.

Braaaiiiiins

comments[6] | 12/15/2004 | perma-link

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