May 2013
1 post
April 2013
3 posts
Been an exhaustingly long day, but I finally got the car I’ve wanted for years-upon-years: a Jetta. I’m so happy.
March 2013
2 posts
February 2013
6 posts
“Red Wings suck.”
—George Washington
January 2013
7 posts
you are so good looking.
My first anonymous compliment on Tumblr! Have I finally made it?
Thank you, though.
Fortune Favors The Bold: I thought Richard Lawson wrote beautifully about his appreciation for... →
brianvan.tumblr.com
I thought Richard Lawson wrote beautifully about his appreciation for the Gawker Media ethos. But, please, someone let him know that some journalistic outlets have “fearlessness” without all of the assholery and yammering and Kardashian coverage that goes on over there.
I mean, I get it, you don’t get to pick your family and sometimes your family is a bunch of dickheads. Gawker is family to good ol’ LolCait. But we should all feel free to not circle the drain on Denton’s Rube Goldberg pageview-generating machine just to hold out for the few occasional moments of basic competence or amusement. The rest of us can take or leave Gawker as it is.
That’s one of the big weaknesses of Gawker, and mainstream outlets, and a lot of brands nowadays; they’re NOT family, they’re NOT community, and as a matter of fact they have such a shitty track record on that stuff (in the few cases where an opportunity presented it self), you’d think they were trying to shoo people off.
I don’t think Richard sees it from that perspective, and few if any of their writers do, because everyone’s so busy being a WRITER, just as it was printed as a recipe in a book in the 1960’s, and no one is around to actually think about what’s going on from the user’s perspective in 2013. They don’t know what users consider think to be of value in a site, and they certainly are in no position to figure out what would be value-added features that the users AREN’T thinking about. They seem to just measure those could-come-from-anywhere clicks and views, and that model is swiftly diverging from the user value curve. Hey, that’s what advertisers pay for (and for less every day!) but ultimately someone’s going to kick everyone’s asses moving us onward from 2002-era blog setups, isolated user experience flows, and the arms race of assholery and yammering that you have to try to win in order to stay on top of the pay-per-clicks game. It would probably move along a lot quicker if people who worked in this industry were less inclined to fully buy-in on what their employers and competitors are selling. Sometimes there just aren’t any good deals out there, even if everything’s on-sale and gold-plated.
And BTW I think these big “scoops” that come out of these blog “journalism” houses are mostly high-school-level stuff, basic shoe-leather phone-working journalism. The real irony in the back-patting and self-fellating is in the idea that we’re supposed to praise them for doing “great work” but we’re also supposed to be shocked at mainstream outlets for “not doing any work” but basically what happened is that Deadspin did the “you’re-supposed-to-do-that-everyday work” that the traditional outlets didn’t do themselves. With that premise, how can you make the case that we are supposed to see it as a serious accomplishment? It’s competence, that’s all. You get credit for that, but just that.
Oh this is good. That last paragraph kills.
Milwhockey.
Out of utter desperation to watch some Preds hockey, a few friends and I drove 1,126 miles in two days to watch the Milwaukee Admirals (Baby Preds) play a back-to-back weekend set of games. It was a fantastic trip. Things I’ve learned:
- Milwaukee’s downtown architecture is fantastic. I love old, German-inspired architecture, and this city is full of it.
- It’s really cold in Milwaukee in January.
- Be sure to wear layers because it’s really cold in Milwaukee in January.
- It’s so cold in Milwaukee in January that their river freezes.
- The river that freezes runs through downtown Milwaukee, and because it’s so cold, the downtown is pretty desolate.
- In this frozen tundra that is known as downtown Milwaukee, there is a bronze statue of the Fonz from Happy Days. Of course he is giving the thumbs up, “Ayyyy.”
- To take shelter from Milwaukee’s cold, drink beer.
- There are lots of great local craft beers in Milwaukee, and I’m not talking Miller.
- Milwaukee craft brewers know how to make a great Amber beer. I tried three different local breweries’ versions on Amber ales, and they were all fantastic.
- Vegetarian options aren’t really a thing in Milwaukee.
- If you have a Milwaukee accent, I want to have a long conversation with you.
- Milwaukee loves the Packers. Like, in love with the Packers. Literally. Especially in the playoffs.
Hockey things I’ve learned (If you don’t like hockey, stop reading now):
- The Admirals apparently love shootouts. Both games over the weekend were decided in the shootout.
- I like the best-of-five shootout better than best-of-three because shootouts are fun.
- I really like a lot of the Admirals players, but you can tell they’re young. The future is bright for the Preds, but it may take some time.
- Preds fans, remember the name Kevin Henderson.
- Austin Watson is a big guy, but he was practically invisible both games.
- Ryan Ellis and Jon Blum should have a good fight for the final D spot on the Preds roster.
- The
Edmonton OilersOklahoma City Barons were good because half of their team are current top-level NHLers. - I don’t understand how the Oilers still can’t make the playoffs.
- The Oilers should be really excited about Justin Schultz. He’s the real deal.
- I’m still a big Jordan Eberle fan despite his goal being the late game-tying goal against the Ads.
- Oilers fans, Mark Arcobello is good. Maybe not NHL ready, but I think he’ll be there eventually.
- Oklahoma City Barons fans think my friends and I look like professional hockey players.
- Detroit’s farm team (Grand Rapids Griffins) has very little depth. There are a lot of life-long AHLers on that team with a few NHL-probable players (including Nyquist, Smith, Jurco, and Tatar).
- Nyquist and Tatar are really fast. I mean, crazy fast.
EDIT: It looks like a Milwaukee blog (OnMilwaukee) reblogged this with a few misconceptions about this post. Anyone from Brew City that sees this: please know that the comments about the city are mostly sarcastic and that I really enjoyed my time up there. Hope to make it back sooner than later.
