Category Archives: Uncategorized

Housekeeping, life updates and other bits without a natural fit

Reading and writing, no arithmetic

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Two important – to me, at least – announcements:

* I have been promoted to Editor and Director of Content at Playboy.com. It’s a tremendous opportunity and I’m really proud to be a part of an organization with both a storied legacy and a future that has the potential for tremendous growth.

* I’m doing a reading this Monday at the Hungry Brain, a bar in my neighborhood. I’ll be reading an original piece about how I’m getting old and loving it what it’s like to work at Playboy. I promise it will be funny. Details are as follows:

You, Me, Them, Everybody
Date: Monday, August 17, 2009
Time: 8:00pm – 11:55pm
Location: Hungry Brain (2319 W Belmont); Chicago
Price: Free

Readings from:
Aaron Cynic
Lindsay Hunter
Andrew Mall
Scott Smith

Hosted by Brandon Wetherbee

Hope to see you there.

UPDATE:For whatever reason, the “getting old” piece didn’t pan out, so I’m going with a collection of some amusing anecdotes from work.

Chicago ≠ The Cubs

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Really digging Mark Caro here:

Presenting sumptuous visions of Wrigley Field and Chicago itself, “We Believe” equates the team and city while tracing their parallel histories. But is that really how Chicago sees itself?

I don’t generally blow four-run leads. I try not to fall to pieces when the spotlight is brightest. 

I’d rather view us as the Michael Jordan-era Bulls: playing smart, working as a team, outhustling the other guys and hitting the clutch shot.

[snip]

I might even flirt with treason and suggest that we seek our collective reflection in the White Sox, who are scrappy, constantly rebuilding and perpetually overlooked. But most of us like to score on occasion.

Ooh, had me until the end. Because I’m pretty sure winning the World Series is like scoring with the hottest girl in school.

By the way, anyone know what the statute of limitations is on bragging about your most recent World Series win? Is it five years? That seems about right.

A momentary lapse of blogging

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Been feeling a bit overwhelmed by the day job lately – which always translates into a complete lack of interest in writing about anything related to the Web and other media – so the blog has been a bit quiet. But also, I’ve found myself using Twitter (follow me here) to talk about damn near anything that comes to mind. It’s strange: I’ve never really felt compelled to divulge a lot of personal details here, but apparently I have no problem spilling the minutiae of my life, 140 characters at a time. So having that as an outlet has probably resulted in less verbiage here as well.

So in an effort to get some momentum going again, I’m running a “best of” older OMIC posts. Enjoy.

Open letters to a guy at my gym, Marilyn Manson and Nine West.

80s metal, starring White Lion and Lita Ford

The day I decided to stop being quiet about my faith.

A deconstruction of the announcement that a guy in a Filipino Journey cover band would be the new lead singer of…Journey.

Is Amy Winehouse authentic? Related: I did not meet her at a Lollapalooza after-party.

My issues with R. Kelly, Parts 1 and 2.

1000 words on The Ultimate Coyote Ugly Search.

Avril Lavigne is not “sexy.”

Wood-Tang and I break down Kanye West’s Graduation album.

Don Henley is a douche.

The time I offered free non-alcoholic beer on Craigslist.

Thank you for your patience

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In a bit of a hiatus right now due to an abundance of personal matters to attend to, and a rediscovery of The West Wing reruns on Bravo. Hoping my holiday break from work allows for a bit more reflection and commentary here.

UPDATE: I’d like to make it clear that “an abundance of personal matters” is just end-of-the-year tasks, trying to get back in shape, and spending more time wrapped around the Mrs. Nothing worrisome there.

This week in work, vol. 2

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A roundup of what I’ve been writing about over at the TOC blog, for those of you who break my heart by not reading regularly, or leaving it out of your RSS feeds:

* Lots of people didn’t like this week’s episode of Mad Men. I did.

* Sadly, I didn’t like the Ben Folds show at the Congress, but I’m sure I would have if it had been anywhere but there. Someone bulldoze this place now.

* Local band Brighton, MA has a new disc out. I think it’s the perfect CD to calm your economically-frazzled nerves.

* Speaking of economic end times, I’ve been a “Weird Al” fan for as long as I’ve been listening to music. His new song is part of the reason why.

Still the best thing I've ever done in any workplace ever. *

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This has been a stressful week at work, due largely to a big online project I’m working on in conjunction with next week’s issue. Look for it on the site on Wednesday.

This package has a lot of video components to it, so I needed to grab a piece of code we used when I created the Indiana Jones vs. Megatron video over the summer. I ended up re-watching that clip, and decided to post the embedded version here. Enjoy.

http://tony.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/tony-pub01-live/current/toccenter1/tocCenter01/client/embedded/embedded.swf

Sometimes I think I have everyone fooled.

* Er, when I used to work on a crisis hotline that helped runaway kids get home to their parents? That was probably better in terms of making the world a better place. But this probably wins in the “Best Use of Video – Wanting Not To Laugh But Being Unable To Stop Yourself” category.

A.J. Pierzynski: Futurist

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From this New York Times article:

Pierzynski said that when people asked him about a possible Chicago-Chicago finale, he advised caution.

“I’m like, ‘You don’t really want that to happen because the city would just probably explode,'” Pierzynski said. “And no one would be able to go to work. No one would be able to do anything because there would be fights every day at work, and just because it’s so passionate and the fans are so amazing.”

Smart and punchy, that’s our A.J.!

I have a copy of When Chicago Ruled Baseball on my shelf, so I took a quick look at the index to see if past performance might be indicative of future events. There isn’t anything in there about fights or other workplace incidents, but I don’t think for a minute that A.J. is wrong. If your workplace is anything like mine, the election is already putting a drag on productivity. If both teams – or, frankly, even just the Cubs – get into the playoffs and/or the World Series, I think Chicago’s going to see its own economic slowdown.