vobios.blog

In their quest to reach to a broader range of students, colleges are trying a number of techniques. The New York Times reports:

Across the country, colleges are trying to reposition themselves to attract more high-quality students and raise their national profiles. But perhaps nowhere is this more challenging than in the South, where university officials often find themselves struggling to temper Confederate imagery without alienating alumni and donors determined to uphold their heritage.

It continues:

Some alumni were also angered by a report commissioned by the university last year by a marketing firm from Chicago that said that the word “South” often had negative connotations for students around the country; the weaker the connection between the South and the university’s name, the better, the consultants said.

That set off a fierce debate over the unofficial logo that the university has been using for at least a decade on stationery, business cards, campus maps and now its Web site: Sewanee: the University of the South. Often the word “Sewanee” is in large type, with the rest of the name in small type underneath.

What the marketing firm failed to notice is that Sewanee is in Tennessee. If you are uncomfortable with the South, why you would consider applying to a college in Tennessee is beyond me.

You had to have seen it coming. Even The Onion wrote about it. Then it finally happened. Gillette announced it will soon start selling a five-blade razor called Fusion. And, according to BusinessWeek, “Gillette managed to develop Fusion and Fusion Power for slightly less than the $680 million it spent on Mach3 seven years ago”. Sure it takes money to develop a brand new shaving system. You have to add the extra blades, adjust the angles, play with the spacing, and finally test the product. It boggles my mind how inefficient a company has to be to dump hundreds of millions into this process.

Money aside, the quest for innovation and development of new products is turning into a deadly spiral. You can keep adding more blades for a while, but there must be some sanity line that cannot be crossed. You can’t just add them forever. You’ll end up with some sort of a sandpaper-like device. Perhaps that is the final solution.

Bob Woodward, the journalist most known for uncovering the Watergate scandal, has made some new revelations. According to Woodward, it will be Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton facing off in 2008 elections. I suppose the sooner you start the hype, the more likely it will come true.

For some reason, though, something about this sounds familiar. There was some discussion about Hillary Clinton in 2000. That was just crazy talk. Happened again in 2004. That time, the Democrats found an incredible candidate in John Kerry. Can’t wait for the excuse in 2008. I should get ahead of the curve and become the first to announce Clinton for President in 2012. In case that one is already taken, I might as well claim 2016 as well. Take that America!

As far as Cheney is concerned, he was supposed to be the guy who hurt Bush’s reelection chances. All his tremendous accomplishments in the last year must have launched him to the top. Yes, that’s it.

TIME just came out with a story on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. There were comparisons between the current Administration’s policies in the Middle East and the Marshall Plan along with other topics of such pseudo-uplifting nature. However, there was one particular part that really struck me:

Rice’s forward-leaning approach leaves little space for formalities. She doesn’t e-mail because it is impersonal and indelible, communicating mainly through person-to-person calls.

Impersonal or not, this is 2005. You can’t just completely ignore one of the most important communication mediums.

As far as indelible goes, perhaps she has a point there. With all of the recent exposed email leaks in Washington, it might be a good idea to avoid anything that may to come back to haunt you.

From the land of I-saw-this-coming-a-mile-away, official statistics now show that Americans did not run away to Canada following the 2004 elections. It seemed like everyone promised to move north if Bush won. Turns out they all changed their minds. Reuters reports:

Data from the main Canadian processing center in Buffalo, NY shows that in the six months up to the U.S. election there were 16,266 applications from people seeking to live in Canada, a figure that fell to 14,666 for the half year after the vote.

Although statistically this is somewhat weak data considering it is possible that human behavior varies significantly during different times of the year, the point is still made. Just as I suspected, the hits on Canada’s immigration web site going through the roof in November were the result of the massive hype created by the media. With the amount of attention the topic was given, it’s surprising that even more people did not visit the web site just to see what all the talk was about.

The other day Larry Brown announced he would become the next coach of the New York Knicks. Obviously there has to be a press conference and a speech. Bloomberg (your top source for sports news) offered a nice summary:

“When I was announced as the Olympic coach, I thought that was the single greatest honor I could ever have,” said Brown, who regaled the hundreds in attendance with memories of riding the subway to Manhattan and then following the players to their favorite watering holes after games. “Standing here in Madison Square Garden, this tops it all.”

Well, it’s official. US Olympic Basketball is dead. Arguably the top coach in the nation picked the team that finished last in its division over the Olympic one.

No wonder they have trouble recruiting the top players.

I remember years ago I saw a video of some fat kid rapping in front of his computer. I found it mildly amusing. Well, he created more videos. It turns out that he was a big hit in some parts of the web. So was Hamsterdance, but that died soon enough. The kid would meet the same fate just like all the other one-hit wonders of the internet. Well, not quite. His name is Andy Milonakis and now he has his own show on MTV.

The Andy Milonakis Show is the worst piece of junk that MTV has ever put out. Some of MTV’s programming may not be all the great, but this is terrible. I can’t believe I am seeing something of this caliber on television.

That is not even the worst part. Andy got a big break and we all should be happy for him regardless of his skills. Whatever. So what’s the problem? A big part of the show revolves around him interacting with old people. The idea of putting a young boy and a senior together makes for better comedy. Actually, the entire show is based on stupid crap that the fat kid does.

What most people don’t immediately realize is that Andy Milonakis is no junior high schooler. He is 29, a fact he hides knowing it would mar his image. He claimed he was “between 10 and 30” in a recent interview with USA Today. How clever.

Further research reveals more information. In 2003, Andy admitted he had some sort of a growth-hormone medical condition, clarifying it was not “any liver or kidney disease like Gary Coleman.” While Gary Coleman has been trying desperately to transcend his adolescent image for much of his life, this punk takes advantage of it. Seeing a 13-year-old make a fool of himself could be comedic. Seeing a 29-year-old pretending to be 13 is just sad.

After a long break, I decided to give this blog thing another go. It seems I simply cannot resist the urge to run this little publication of mine. Despite how pointless and wasteful this is, I do find some joy in keeping it going. People have been keeping journals forever, so there must be something to it. I suppose it will be like a time capsule. I will look back at it in the future and get a pleasant feeling of nostalgia.