Think Different

Here’s to the crazy ones.

Here’s to the crazy ones.

The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a
work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been
written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Previously posted on Apple.com

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Indie Hipness

As much as I try never to be too cool for anyone or anything, I sometimes fail. It’s just fun to be an “indie kid”. Too have some snobbishness about yourself.

I hardly ever listen to the radio anymore, and if I do, it’s NPR (what can I say, i’m a news geek). Thus most of my music recommendations come via word of mouth or music given to me by friends. Therefore I might be the last person on earth to find out about an artist or I might be one of the first, just depends on who I know and when i talk to them.

My original introduction to the Shins came last june, on a roard trip up to Virginia. I thought they were good, but when you’re in a vehicle with 5 other people, you don’t really get to listen to the music.

Time passes, and Garden State comes out. The soundtrack is on fire, the movie is pretty cool, and The Shins take off, because Natalie Portman (who is probably the cutest actress today, imho) says they’ll change your lives. And immediately the Shins lose their indie appeal… bummer. But I’m still not too cool for them.

Unfortunately some people are, behold as Cinecultist talks about the shins, hip movie soundtracks, and indie appeal. It’s a pretty funny and true read.

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Millions

This was a wonderful film. Takes you right into a kid’s imagination, and you know I’m all about that! I can’t do it justice, because I’m not really a good movie critique writer.

But it has my full-hearted recommendation – it’s hilarious, sweet, inspiring, and just look at that kid. I mean he’s cute.

Plus St. Peter’s retelling of the feeding of the 5000 is hilarious!

“I said ‘Miracle’ and for a minute I thought I fooled ‘im, but then I realized that a miracle had really taken place that day… do you understand what I’m saying?”
“No, not really”
“I’m talking about you, you’re that boy.”
“Now I’m really lost.”

5 stars at the moment 🙂

[edit: i could care less about C2, the new new coke, but I absolutely LOVE their advertising. I want to Break Free by Queen, while adults ride through school halls on bicycles? There’s something just invigorating about that. But I still don’t care about C2.]

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Pimp My Ride

You know, I’m not a really big fan of Xzibit (the rapper)… and I could generally care less about the cars with all the jazzed up paint jobs and kickin’ speakers.

But I have to say MTV’s show “Pimp My Ride” is brilliant. Behold:

1) Brilliant self-promotion for host Xzibit

2) Brilliant promotion for West Coast Autos, the shop that does all the pimping

3)New or completely updated car for someone who can’t afford one. And they are usually completely crap cars, for people who aren’t necessarily bums.

4) Engaging to watch, because the people’s reactions are genuine. Actually the whole show just has a genuine feel to it – even though it can be corny and cheesy and some of the additions to the cars are completely ludicrous.

Needless to say I’m addicted, but I’m not hooked…

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Get me there…

Can someone get me to the GodBlogCon?

That would be beautiful. I already have friends to stay with out there… as quite a few of my friends are students in the Torrey Honors Program 🙂

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Some discussion regarding the Catholic Church

A friend called today asking about can there be a Catholic Christian? I really had to give her my best answer, but I am not up to date on church history and theological differences. My failing.

However I have been reading about what’s happened today. As you may know, a new Pope was chosen yesterday.

Andrew Sullivan had some reactions there were umm… liberal?

Have no fear though, the conservative blogosphere is all over it. Dr. John Mark Reynolds has a brilliant (witty yet right on) response to Sullivan, as does Professor Bainbridge entitled “Andrew Sullivan is an Ass”.

Pretty much Andrew Sullivan is pissed that the church elected a Pope that actually believes in what the church believes. Damn Catholics.

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Arrested Development

We expected more from creator Mitchell Hurwitz – he is, after all, the man that brought us Golden Girls – and no one knows better than executive producer Ron Howard how well tried and true formula works. And yet, they expect us to watch a sitcom without a laugh track? It’s like, every single line is potentially funny, and some of them are funny in three or four different ways – how are you suppossed to know when to laugh? They can’t all be jokes … right? And even if they are, what are you suppossed to do? Watch the thing over and over again to glean jokes that flew past you the first time? It sounds to us like Arrested Development wants to reward viewers who are smart enough to remember old details and have the tenacity to careful pay attention to new ones. That’s elitist. We don’t like that.

TV Squad in a fake cry to cancel the tv show Arrested Development, one of the most brilliant tv shows in years.

I just bought the first season on DVD 🙂

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Who Needs Brands?

With so much choice and information available, why don’t shoppers simply ignore brands and make a purely rational, economic decision about what to buy? Because that is not human nature, says Jez Frampton, chief executive of Interbrand, a London brand consultancy. “Brands offer trust,” he expands, “and they enable people to navigate through complex markets.” There is something in that. In the old Soviet Union, where all products were supposed to be the same , consumers learnt how to read barcodes as substitutes for brands in order to identify goods that came from reliable factories.

-The Economist, April 2nd, 2005

There is something to that. That’s what blogging and marketing are all about these days.

At work yesterday we were discussing corporate videos. We’ve only made a few of them, but all of them have been top notch quality. Right now though I”m afraid we highly undercharge compared to other Video Production studios. A client came in yesterday to see about having us do a video for them, and shared that for his last 9 minute promotional video, he had paid $35,000. Nine minutes for the cost of a really nice car. We would probably charge about a 7th of that, for the same quality. Why?

Two reasons, the first economical but the second more topical. The first is that studios that charge 35grand have insane overhead. They are located in upscale offices (my dad said that the big studio is one of his firms clients – he works in an Architecture and Interior Designing firm), have editing suites that cost tens of thousands of dollars, multi-thousand dollar cameras, etc. etc.. But as with nearly everything in the internet age, there is a cheaper and easier method, that works just as well.

At our office, we have 5 editing suites – each of them costing about $3,500. Our editing software is Final Cut Pro from Apple, $1,000 per license. Each suite also has complete DVD authoring capabilities, titling capabilities, and graphics capabiilties. Any of the 5 editing computers in our office can do anything we do. And all for under the cost of that one 9minute video.

But that doesn’t help in our branding does it? The bigger thing that needs to be done, is the building of trust and credibility. And we do that by one by one gaining clients, creating excellent videos for them, and thereby developing a talk-worthy portfolio.

Brands = trust. It’s interesting to be apart of that, and to see it happening in many areas.

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New layout

It’s pretty satisfying. It makes it easier to change my header graphic, and this one actually looks good.

Any thoughts?

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Blogging with a Purpose

Over the college Christmas holidays, while I was still working but my friends were out of school, a friend caught me reading Hugh Hewitt’s “Blog”, and asked about it. And thus I began introducing him to the wide and fun world of blogging.

I was actually attempting to find some useful thoughts to teach at an upcoming speech and debate conference, where I was a guest instructor. Instead I was dreaming lots of fun dream: I was going to be a big blogger – I knew it. Unfortunately I also work full time, and being of the sanguine temperament, I much prefer real people to blog people. So my blogging has been of mediocre to poor quality.

The friend that I introduced to blogging however, had different goals in mind. He started this company, and is very much looking to be not just another For Sale By Owner company – but a cutting edge and ground breaking company. A good goal in my mind.

With that in mind, Michael (that’s my friend) has started a really nifty group blog aimed at the real estate (and specifically For Sale By Owner – FSBO) sector of business. It’s goal is to help people who are looking to sell their home, or are in the market for a new house.

You can check out the new blog here: The FSBO Blog

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