Posted to Pool by its lovely lifeguard, the following translation of the Adobe/Macromedia merger FAQ…
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Gaming, sleeping, gaming, eating, and more gaming.
A milestone was reached last night, after many months of playing City of Heroes: With Dawn’s help, my main character (a sword-slinging scrapper who goes by the improbable name of Woods Cutter) reached Level 26, which allowed him to get the Stamina power. (Yes, I know you can get it earlier than that. My build required that I get some other powers first.)
Why is this so special? Well, Stamina helps you recover Endurance faster… and (almost) everything you do costs Endurance. Once I slot up Endurance a bit, I’ll be able to fight more effectively and keep my defensive toggle powers running more reliably. This is a very good thing.
I celebrated this achievement by getting my butt handed to me by a very nasty boss. Ah well. Them’s the breaks.
Today, I rolled out of bed around ten o’clock, and for some reason decided that trying out my recently-purchased (go ahead and laugh) Civilization III would be a good idea. One install and two patches later, I was in.
Three hours after that, my phone rang. Oops, I’d totally lost track of time, and there was a get-together at Mari and Doug’s to go to. So a quick shower and bit of packing later, off we all went. And by “we all” I mean Lilith and Geoffrey and the demonspawn and the boyfriend of one of the demonspawn. (Yes, it was quite a carload trekking west today.)
We had a lot of fun, including watching of DVDs, dining out on Chinese food, and playing Carcassonne. Yes, I’ve suckered even more people into playing my new favorite non-electronic game. Today we tried out the “Traders and Builders” expansion that Mari gifted me with a few weeks ago, and once we got the hang of it we got quite a kick out of the game. Geoffrey made a very good showing out of his first couple of games, while Mari absolutely obliterated us in our first go-around.
Obliterated, I say. As in, there are 50 points on the score card, and the Meeple in your color indicates the score by position on that card. As you lap the score card, the general practice is to change the position of the Meeple to show how many laps he’s done. He starts out standing, then goes face down, then sort of sideways (“flying like Superman” is one phrase heard during that first game) and then… well, we decided that once Mari had done enough laps on the score card we just went ahead and stood her Meeple up again. Yes, that’s right: Mari racked up over 150 points in a single game. Nobody else even came close.
In the future, I’m definitely seeing about finding some better way to keep score. Yes indeedy.
Anyway, it was a fun afternoon and evening full of laughter, food, good-natured competition and all of that good stuff. Thanks to Mari and Doug for inviting everyone over!
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Sorry, Charlie.
(This entry is pieced together from things I’ve said in chats, private emails and comments to other websites, edited together with some new material and reworked phrasings. It is but one insider’s opinion, and should not be taken as gospel, let alone an informed view of how the business actually works. In other words, take all of this with as large a grain of salt as necessary.)
You know the adage about how only a fool fights a multi-front war? We’re now fighting ourselves (on the FM and AM dials, no less) and at least two other FM signals in town, one of them rather well established.
It leaves me shaking my head, wondering what the hell the Powers That Be were thinking. This is a questionable, if not just-plain-bad, idea and it’s being rolled out by several large companies nationwide in a great big hurry. Basically it’s a race to “establish” this new “anything-goes (as long as it’s all-hits)” format in every market in America, and whoever gets their signal flipped first, wins. Did I mention that every single one of these stations apparently must be named as if they were guys? Anthropomorphize much?
Henceforth I’ll be referring to this as the “$GUY” format, where $GUY is a variable you can fill in with the likes of Charlie, Ted, Bob, George, Steve or any number of other options and you’ll probably find a station with that name somewhere in the country by year’s end. I’m not kidding.
The format itself is strikingly, staggeringly uninteresting. It’s chart-topping hits from a wide time range. That, and only that. There’s no such thing as “deep cuts” (that is, partly-forgotten musical gems) in this format. So, music I got sick and tired of ages ago, on continual repeat? Thanks but no. I’d almost rather listen to the country station. (I said, “almost.” No offense, folks, it’s just not my cuppa.) Our CEO says, “It is not too strong a statement to say that each of these brands has already begun to electrify their respective cities.” Uh, yeah, the electrification here? It’s in the form of cattle prods, sir.
I believe Charlie won’t remain automated. Major radio companies are putting a lot of weight, in a very big hurry, behind this “new format” (they’re seriously thinking of it in those terms, I kid you not, even though it’s what back-country small-town stations have been doing for decades). They’re going to pour money, and therefore talent, at this thing hand-over-fist. At least, that’s my take so far. Mind you, I just heard that there are stations that have been on this format for months and haven’t yet added DJs. One can appreciate the appeal for the Powers That Be of not having to pay jocks’ salaries. I have absolutely no idea how they’re going to make these stations stand out without personalities, but what do I know?
So, the changeover. I heard about it at about 12:30pm yesterday, from my (local) boss. Mind you, I’d predicted it about three hours beforehand, based on bits and pieces I picked up over the last week, and the news that the sales managers responsible for KKSN-FM had been meeting with the GMs the previous night until 10pm. Various people obsoleted by the two station changes have been saying their goodbyes and cleaning up their stuff (physical and electronic) for the last 24 hours, and I expect a steady stream of “goodbye” emails for a few days yet to come. That part’s never fun, and after over a decade it still saddens me, every time. Maybe I’m just a SNAG at heart, after all.
Hmm. Naaaah. I’m just a softie.
In other news, Seattle’s seen its own format shakeup today. The station that formerly competed directly with KNDD “The End” has flipped to $GUY, thus ending a competition for the lead “classic alternative” (don’t get me started, just don’t) station in that town.
They’re calling theirs Jack, eh? Oh, the comedic possibilities! Of course, they’ll “sell” the format change to clients as being a “bold move into a hot new format” instead of “giving up on fighting KNDD.” Heh. I love this business, I tell ya.
Mind you, the spin from our side is equally insane… so, Entercom wants to win nationwide with the $GUY format, but when Infinity gets there first in Seattle it’s a “big win for Entercom,” solely based on the fact that The End no longer has a direct competitor? Riiiiight.
Radio. Come for the illusion of glamour, stay for the regularly scheduled insanity.
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Another example of perfect timing.
So you may have heard (or may not have cared) that what was “Kisn” FM has changed format. Okay, to be more accurate, it’s jumped from FM back to AM, back where it started lo the many years ago on 910-AM. What’s taking its place is something called Charlie, which is (as near as I can tell) a super-MOR format consisting solely of songs that’ve been played to death decades ago. (But that’s just my opinion, don’t let it stop you from giving it a listen to make your own judgement.)
As an aside: They actually voted on “Charlie.” The other options included, and I am not making this up, “Ted,” “Bob,” “Dave,” and a number of other male monikers. No, seriously. Laugh if you want, but it’s true.
You may or may not have known that we recently came up with a new logo for that particular FM station. As part of the branding process, we printed it on all sorts of things. Apparently, one of those things was coffee mugs.
The shipment of mugs arrived… on the very day we made that new logo absolutely obsolete.
I swear, you just can’t make some of this stuff up. This, folks, is part of the joy of working in radio. Heh.
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Voicemail We Don’t Respond To
“Hello, this is So-and-so, my number is blah blah blah, yadda yadda, extension such-and-such. It’s very important that you call me back. This is not a sales or solicitation call.”
Here’s a clue, people. If you don’t tell me either who you represent or what the call is about, preferably both, you are not getting a call back from me. Period. Have a nice day. (And by “nice” I mean something else entirely.)
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A not-exactly-timely PSA
Via Redsugar Muse…
It didn’t take long for the tree to light up like a torch. This is why you don’t want to keep live Christmas trees in your house for too long. At this point, several of the bottle rockets have already gone off.
Go read (and view) the entire extravaganza for yourself, eh?