Don’t hate them for trying
I have started an experiment. I’d like to see how many days I can go without being a hater. Sounds weird, but too much of my daily routine centers around ripping stuff that other people do. I’ve really noticed this happening a lot recently, even before starting to listen to the Joe Rogan Experience podcast which I must admit, has had a profoundly positive influence on my life.

Rogan always talks about negativity being something that clouds constructive or deep thinking. He talks about haters and the fact that they believe they can do everything better, that everyone else is a douchebag or somehow doing it wrong. I really don’t want to be THAT guy.

Something occured to me this afternoon. Ironically, it occured to me as I was silently crtizicing something I saw someone else do on YouTube.

The difference between the hated and the hatee is that the hated actually tried and succeeded. Now, they might not have succeeded in creating something great – in this case, I am referring to video content referencing a popular video game that I play. But, they succeeded at least in the sense that I even know their content exists, which in this day and age is a big accomplishment. There are so many people out there posting video to YouTube, writing blog posts, and generally looking for attention, that it is no small feat to get your name out there and your content noticed.

Sure, I happen to think that I do have more creative things to say than most people do, but if I never say them, or don’t succeed in getting those thoughts heard/read then I can’t really criticize what other people are doing. Therefore, the observations I should be making (or, the kudos that are deserved or should be given) is that someone succeeded in how they got their creation into the world, not that their creation was great or not to begin with. That, of course, is totally subjective.

Examples of this:

This Week in Tech – a show I find to cover extremely basic information. On the merit of its content I don’t find it that interesting, but it has amassed a large following – large enough that the guy who produces it has his own studio, at least. Everytime Leo LaPorte criticizes Apple my skin crawls, but there are many people out there that listen to him just for that.

Ashton Kutcher – a favorite punching bag of mine on this blog. I don’t find his acting very good, nor do I think he is the tech genius he portrays himself as, but he’s pretty well connected now in Silicon Valley and on a hit tv-show. Can’t really deny him that I guess.

Michele Bachman – alright this is getting harder for me to do. There is no love at all in my heart for this person, but she has made it pretty far in life. I don’t agree with anything she stands for, but its undeniable that people find her either enteraining or that some take her seriously, therefore I can see why she would be on the cover of Newsweek or whatever.

Just coming to grips with all of these things above is difficult, but hopefully will help me sort out some of my hater issues. It is going to be a slow process, but together (with me writing and you, reading) we’ll get through it.

I know what you might be thinking – there ain’t no way in here I am going to say something actually nice about this show. And, you know what? You’d be dead wrong. I am in love with this show, and the rest of this review is going to be praise for the cultural phenomenon known as The Jersey Shore.

Hooked from the start

Before I actually sat down and watched the first episode of The Jersey Shore (about 2 weeks ago, they are already filming season 4 so that should tell you something about how late to this party I actually am), the only things I had heard about Jersey Shore were negative ones.

Things like: The Situation named himself after his abs, what a douche bag. Or, Snooki is a whore. Or, Pauly looks ridiculous with his absurd hairstyle and tanning.

My actual experience watching the show though was a lot different than what I thought it would be like. Right from the start I found something to like in all the characters. Clearly MTV used the formula for “Real World” when they put the show together – that being to find explosive personalities that fit into neat little archetypes to fill out the cast, though as far as I know none of the guidos in the show are gay.

The show in a nutshell is about 8 italian “leaning” individuals (4 girls, 4 guys) getting together to stay at a shore house in New Jersey. I say leaning because they aren’t all Italian born and bred per say (e.g. Ronnie is part Puerto Rican) but they are people that on first glance you’d assume to be Italians.

While their personalities all initially seem the same, as the show goes on you quickly find that some aren’t as outgoing or outrageous as you initially thought, and on the whole are good hearted people.

Snooki

Possibly the most popular of the roommates, Snooki is the diminutive, loud mouthed Italian gal who is outgoing and fun, but often misunderstood. Snooki is one of the few roommates who is looking for a loving, permanent relationship. She makes a poor first impression, but get to know her and she is a sweetheart. This stands in stark contrast to the next roommate…

Sammi Sweetheart

I’d have to say that Sammi is anything but a sweetheart, despite that monicker she claims for herself. Sammi is one of the more attractive roommates, who immediately draws the eye of Mike (The Situation, more on him later) and to a lesser extent, Ronnie. Sammi is the quintessential bitch of the group – the kind of girl who thinks her shit doesn’t stink, who is girly and likes to control “her man.”

Ronnie

Ronnie reminds me a lot of the kind of friends I had in elementary and junior high school. He is loud and boisterous. He is that kind of unsuspecting sensitive guy that has a gruff outer appearance that says “this guy could smash me into a million pieces” but has a heart of gold that you could break just by looking at him the wrong way. Sammi chooses Ronnie, partly I believe in order to spite Mike’s advances. Quickly (and I mean very quickly) the show as a whole becomes hostage to Sammi and Ronnie’s relationship.

Mike “The Situation”

Mike is kind of an asshole, not going to lie. He is an instigator, he loves to backstab people and play pranks, and like Sammi, has a very high opinion of himself. But the show just wouldn’t work without Mike. He is the self appointed “father figure” in the house, though most of the roommates dismiss him. Situation loves to pick up girls, and party. He likes these things so much that everything else is pretty much secondary.

Jenni JWOWW

Jenni is definitely the most attractive girl in the house, and the coolest. She has a great personality, likes to party and for the most part, is drama free. Snooki is her best friend amongst the roommates, but there really isn’t anyone she doesn’t get along with, with the possible exception of Sammi (because Sammi is well, fake).

Pauly D

Pauly is by far my favorite character on the show. Pauly is just one of those kind of guys that everyone likes. He has a temper but its rarely seen, and gets along with just about everyone. I really wish the show was more Pauly-centric to be honest as he seems like an interesting person. All we really know about Pauly is that he is Mike’s wingman at clubs and that he is a DJ.

Vinnie

Vinnie, like Ronnie, feels like the kind of guy you might have been friends with in grade school. While he likes to pick up girls, go to the gym and party, he doesn’t really seem like the person who has ulterior motives driving his actions. Pretty genuine what you see is what you get. He also feels the most “Italian” of the roommates.

Angelina/Deena

I end with Angelina because, well, she isn’t worth leading with. Also there isn’t a lot to say. The house almost universally despises Angelina, and she isn’t a cast member very long. Deena, Snooki’s friend, takes Angelina’s place in more ways than one. They have a similar personality, and in my opinion not an overly likable character.

The show progresses much like you’d expect with young, Italian, testosterone horny guys and gals all living in close proximity with little to no responsibilities. They hook up – a lot. They bring back skanks (in Jersey Shore terms they are called ‘grenades’) back to the house. The girls try to get in on the action too. There is a whole lot of cock blocking, pranks and drama between Ronnie and Sammi.

The First Season

A general, overall feeling out of all the roommates. It came as a surprise to me (i don’t know why now that i think more about it) that the cast didn’t know each other ahead of time. Anyway, they check into the house, do some meaningless work at the Shirt Store on the boardwalk, and go out every night to clubs to pick up girls and guys. Snooki gets knocked out by some douchebag jock at a bar.

The Second Season

Its a show called Jersey Shore, but this one takes place in Miami. The cast works at a Gelato shop this time, and of course I use the term “works” lightly. More of the same from season 1, lots of hooking up. This one was almost excessively filled with drama between Ron and Sam.

The Third Season

Back to the shore. Full blown war between Ron and Sam. Mike gets punched in the face a few times, so does Ron. A new roommates joins the cast. Everyone turns on Sam.

The Fourth Season

Will have to report back later as it is still filming in Italy.

Used to be a witness

I remember being a witness.

It was a marketing campaign, Nike I think, with a photo of Lebron James dunking a basketball in a silhouette very reminiscent of Michael Jordan’s iconic foul line dunk. Back then Lebron was a Cleveland Cavalier. As a native Ohioan (him, not me), it was a great story. The young basketball prodigy who plays for his hometown team (well, near enough he is from Akron). The promise of an NBA championship for a city with very little going for it and a history of failure in sports.

That Cavaliers team eventually went to the playoffs, and then the conference finals, and the NBA Finals. Of course, it was mostly Lebron who was responsible. And yes, with some more help, Lebron may have been able to achieve a championship with Cleveland.

Once Lebron was eligible for free agency, it was virtually a forgone conclusion he’d leave Cleveland. But for many (including myself) the idea that he’d stay with the team that drafted him, that he’d finish what he started, was enticing.

The decision

Ever since I can remember first hearing about Lebron, back while he was still in high school, the one thing that always stood out about Lebron was his ambition. This is a guy that from a young age set a goal of being the first billion dollar athlete. He wanted to be known as a global icon. He welcomes the monicker “King James” and wore the number 23, the same number Michael Jordan wore.

I guess when you are young and super talented (and for anything negative I might say about Lebron the one thing that is undeniable is his talent) and people have always told you “Yes” you have those kinds of dreams. And, dreams are good. We all have them, and if those are his then more power to him.

All of that said, The Decision (as it was called by ESPN, a highly produced television show to announce Lebron’s intentions) was a total disaster for everyone watching with the exception of Miami fans. “Taking my talents to South Beach” I think sounded good to Lebron as he must have rehearsed it back at his crib, but sounded pompous and again, arrogant. It was a slap in the face not only for Cleveland fans, or those who were in cities wooing him to come to their team in free agency, but also for basketball fans who just wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, this guy WAS the second coming of Jordan.

He isn’t Michael Jordan

I remember watching Michael during all of his championship runs. I used to draw the Chicago Bulls logo on my grocery bag covered books (do kids still need to do that to their school books anyway?) during class. I had newspaper headlines with “Bulls Win!” pasted to my room wall.

Whether Michael was a saint, or not, most people believed he was and saw no evidence to the contrary. He was a consumate teammate, and leader. He seems to be everything that Lebron isn’t. Never shying away from the final shot, or one to make an excuse about his play. Never one to jump ship to another team to take the “easy way out.”

Taking my talents to shit beach

Having grown up in Florida, you’d think i’d be a Miami fan but I’m not. I found Miami to be a dirty, disgusting city with lots of fake people and fair-weather, disinterested sports fans. Not to mention, owners of teams which are quick to blow up their rosters once they win a championship.

What I am trying to say is, it didn’t really matter to me where Lebron played, so long as it wasn’t Miami. He could have gone to Charlotte, New Orleans, San Antonio – you name it. Just not Miami.

Posing

What is up with Lebron and posing after scoring the basket? Act like you’ve been there before, even if you haven’t (I guess). Can you imagine posing at work after absolutely killing it on some deadline to get a budget report out? Or, standing back to admire your work after replacing a valve on a bathroom faucet? Don’t get me wrong, sport is spectacle, but I am talking about the really excessive posing James does during just about every game. Technically, Lebron hasn’t really accomplished anything yet. Until he does, acting like a bad ass instead of “being” one is just kind of sad.

Mostly negative

At the end of the day, Lebron made a decision which was totally selfish. He admitted it, he wanted to play with his friends and win multiple championships. Thats his right and I actually don’t have a problem with that. The problem I have is that it would really be nice, just once, to idolize people and root for people who have virtuous qualities. Lebron just doesn’t have those. He isn’t the kind of person I want to even relate to. Sometimes, being a winner as a person means being part of something bigger than just yourself. Maybe that says more about the idolizer than the idolizee.

Lebron would rather be rich and despised than poor and loved. I don’t think i could say the same.

Let there be no mistake or confusion, Donald Trump was never going to run for President. Besides his total lack of qualifications to be the Commander and Chief, people close to him always said he was just flirting with the possibility for attention. Its a great day for America that we don’t have to actually worry about him running, because it would be a major distraction.

Just today, Trump posted a video to his You Tube channel talking about the reasons why he decided not to run, while not running out a future bid for the White House. This video perfectly illustrates why Donald Trump could never be President, and backs up my total belief that he is a douchebag.

You’re fired

Who would even want to work for Donald Trump? I think the people he fires on his show are being done a huge favor, to be honest. I mean, it’s really hard to lead people when you are a megalomaniac. Could you even imagine Donald Trump in a Presidential cabinet meeting? Or in any kind of an international negotiation?

His attitude and self importance are exactly what the rest of the world hates when they look at the United States. Contrast that with Barack Obama, which represents compromise, hope and a better future. Whether Obama has delivered on those things is to be seen – I still think he came into a horrible situation with our economy and foreign affairs that requires more than a couple of years to fix. But Trump epitomizes the stereotype that is pervasive across the world about the US – that we are arrogant, elitists who care nothing for anyone but ourselves.

Delusional

Because this is my site, with my own opinions, I feel justified in saying things based on feeling rather than always looking up facts. I will concede (and I don’t really need to but will anyway) that The Apprentice is a popular show. Hell, everyone tells me that 2 1/2 Men is a popular show, yet I don’t know a single person who watches it. Same with Apprentice – who watches it? I tried, and it was horrible. B level actors and minor celebrities who “work” for Donald, even though his kids shoulder far more of the burden of managing the actual contestants than he does. Trump lives in this fantasy world where he is a king, where people love him and where his show is actually good.

Where is the self-critique?

I’ve never heard Donald Trump admit a failing. I’ve never heard him say “I was wrong.” Even after it was clear he was making up stuff about Obama’s birth certificate (that he knew beyond a shadow of doubt that the President wasn’t from this country), Trump simply claimed credit for “making” Obama release proof.

This guy needs to learn some humility – even a teensy bit, if not for us (the public who has to listen to his garbage) for himself so he can improve. There’s not a person alive who is perfect, yet you wouldn’t know it listening to this guy talk.

What did we learn about Trump from this video

So based upon his own words, in the video I’ve embedded above, we have learned the following things.

• Trump would rather critique a plan than come up with his own.
• Trump would rather “take the money” even though he is rich, than serve any type of greater good.
• Trump couldn’t even get along with Republicans, the party he says he belongs to and wants to represent.
• Trump would have preferred to see the government shut down than forge any compromise with Democrats.

For example, I consider myself an expert on Internet marketing, the game World of Warcraft, and on many Apple related topics. You, however, might be more skilled than I am and decide that I’m not in fact an expert. What I can say though for sure is that most of the things I will review on my site I am not an expert in. This include the game of basketball, pop music, parenting (unless it concerns parenting of dogs and cats) and politics. With this caveat, I give you my review of:

Grantland

This is a new site that was created by Bill Simmons, presumably in conjunction with ESPN. Bill is named “the Sports Guy” and has a podcast and an online column on ESPN.com. It’s my opinion that he does an exceptional job with his podcast, but is somewhat mediocre at writing for online mediums, where he has a tendency to write 10,000 word blog posts that are virtually impossible to read in a sitting. They also feature few, if any, photos which makes for pretty brutal online reading. I think there is an art to blogging, and Bill hasn’t mastered that yet. His stuff reads well in book form, though, and I own his “Book of Basketball” which was pretty good.

So lets talk about Grantland.

What’s in a name?

First, what the hell is with the name? Maybe it is an homage to something, or an inside joke. I don’t want to have to spend a lot of time figuring out what the hell your site is about based on the name of it, you know? Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to figure this out even after looking around the site. The site carries a picture of some person hitting a baseball in an unknown field. Based on Bill’s reputation as being a Boston sports aficionado, I will therefore assume the person hitting the ball is in Fenway Park?

So, this is a sports blog because that’s Bill’s background and his affiliation with ESPN, right? And it is sufficiently different than his existing blog on ESPN.com that necessitates a totally new site? Not entirely.

Sports and Pop Culture?

I don’t really understand the connection that Simmons likes to make between sports and pop culture. I guess you can say that athletes are also in the public eye and often do stupid things which put them in the crosshairs of a TMZ, Entertainment Tonight or some other magazine/show. I just know that Simmons has a fascination with both topics, as evidenced by his podcast (which again, for the record I mostly like). Alas, the only time I turn off his BS Report show is when he brings on David Jacoby to talk about The Real World, which might have been a fun topic to banter about but is now about 15 years too late.  So, alright he is interested in multiple topics. So am I – I guess i can understand and let this slide, even though this is supposed to be a professional production whereas, say, my blog is not.

So about this site..

Disregarding my opinion that Bill’s qualifications to talk on pop culture can be questioned (as in, what are those qualifications anyway?) I am going to examine the site itself.

After showing my friend at work who is a big fan of Simmons (even his columns) the first impression he had was.. WTF? This is just a blog, right?

Yeah, I don’t know. It looks like a blog to me. I don’t have a problem with the site being based off a blog, but I do have a problem with it looking like a very uninteresting blog. I do have a problem with you taking basically a WordPress or Tumblr blog, and not even bothering to customize it. I mean, there was a budget to this project and some thought process about how it would sustain itself, right? Maybe sell advertising or subscriptions? Even if there wasn’t, Grantland really could use some sprucing up. Maybe I am especially sensitive to this because I’ve spent the better part of three weeks totally customizing a WordPress site to look like a corporate site for a billion dollar company, but I know for a fact I could have designed Grantland in a weekend and to me that isn’t a good sign.

Coming soon

Lots of coming soon’s on the site. Please tell me that as consumers of the Internet now for, I don’t know, the past 10-15 years (some of us longer, hollar!) that we have moved past placing “Coming Soon” or “Under Construction” on our web sites. Especially with no indication of what “soon” means. How woefully amateur this all looks, and that leads me to the next gripe.

I’d like to read yesterday’s content please

Today on Graceland we talk about X, Y and Z. Oh, you want to see what we talked about yesterday? Nope, no way to do that! Well, you could always click on “Features” at the top, but since there are no dates on when the articles are posted that is an exercise in excessive clicking. Maybe the web guy at Grantland figured, screw it lets make the navigation nondescript, lets force people to click through a bunch of shit to get to what they want – it’s all good for clickthroughs so we can show more Subway ads.

Alternatively, i could click on the columnist link at the bottom, and those snippets include a date. But, those links only show the latest post, not a full accounting of all the articles written by the columnist in question.

Sigh.

I could go on longer, but needless to say I think Grantland needs some help. I don’t even really see the potential of the site. I’ve heard Simmons talk about it on his podcast – about how it was going to be a site about sports written from a fans perspective. Why then did he recruit a bunch of sports journalists? Wouldn’t it have been more interesting (and genuine) to have solicited sports stories and commentary from non-professionals? Recruit some of the top sports bloggers in the country? Or hell, just “bloggers” in the country to talk about their love of sports.

Also, Simmons and ESPN really should hire someone to help them redesign the site. It is really miserable and uninspiring as it stands now. Make the content easier to read online (this is not a newspaper), add some interactivity, bring in new voices who aren’t professionals that we can already get daily content from on other sites/mediums and focus on sports. Grantland with its split “sports and pop culture” nature reminds me of one of those Taco Bell/Pizza Hut combos you can find in an airport or college food courts. Sure, you CAN eat burritos and a personal pan pizza at the same time, but it is kind of ghetto.

Civil enough Vimeo?

For the second time, I have had my account summarily deleted from Vimeo’s web site – each for stupid reasons. Keep in mind, I was also a paying customer at the time. Also, keep in mind that paying for video hosting when YouTube is readily available, has a much MUCH larger community, where you can earn money for your creations AND upload unlimited amounts of HD video, is basically idiotic in the first place.

So for those who don’t know, Vimeo is a web hosting provider. Back in the day, they were one of the only ones which had HD video upload and embedding. However, you needed a Plus account, which i purchased for not only my own personal use but for business purposes. In fact, when i worked at an advertising agency, i would routinely buy Vimeo Plus accounts for all of our clients. Why? The HD embedding plus player customization (e.g. it didn’t look ugly like YouTube’s).

The thing is, the administrators (or the community, or both) are hypocrites. They flag videos for deletion that every other site on the planet finds perfectly acceptable. For example, I like to record World of Warcraft videos of myself playing. Some of them, include helpful guides for improving your character. Personally, i see no difference in this and people creating guides to do other things, like cooking, or taking better “photos and videos” which are all over Vimeo. Are those removed? Nope.

You can visit Vimeo’s home page and find tons of copyrighted content. Just yesterday a featured video included ripped scenes from almost every natural disaster movie of the last 20 years. The video in question was poking fun at the impeding “rapture” which is “scheduled” for tomorrow.

So, this morning I got an email from Vimeo informing me yet another account of mine was DELETED. Not a warning. Not that the videos I uploaded were removed. That my entire PAID VIMEO ACCOUNT was deleted. In so many words I was told if i wanted to argue this with them I could email them back (by the way this notice came from an anonymous account “rights@vimeo.com” they aren’t even comfortable putting their name behind their actions). They also include a disclaimer that the argument needs to be “civil” which is idiotic coming from a company which just deleted month’s of my work.

Here was my response:

“Refund please. You guys are terrible. Civil enough?”

Seriously, if you are a content creator/producer I “implore” you to stay as far away from Vimeo as humanly possible. First, they have a horrible community there, it is small, they have absurdly small upload limits even for PAID customers (Vimeo Plus), and they will not even hesitate to delete all of your content without even so much as a warning.

If you care at all about people seeing your stuff, you are so much better using YouTube. You can upload as much as you like, the processing of your upload isn’t slow (unlike Vimeo, again, even for paid Vimeo Plus customers), your content, even if it is in violation of some rule (a rule which isn’t “you can’t upload a video about a video game”) gets flagged but not deleted and YouTube actually allows you a chance to change the content to make it work with their network, unlike Vimeo.

In closure – it pains me to have to bad mouth a company, but Vimeo certainly deserves it. Seriously, how this company has any customers is amazing.

Dr. Drew seems to think so.

We are witnessing what I think can only be described as the first social media meltdown of a celebrity. That might not be the most descriptive term to describe what Charlie Sheen is doing to himself, because truthfully Charlie was melting down before he ever signed up for Twitter or decided to stream his life on ustream.

Clearly, social networks are providing a looking glass into Charlie Sheen’s unraveling and I can’t really think of another celebrity who has so brazenly opened up their disintegration to the world.

In the midst of being fired from his job today, having his children taken in the middle of the night from his home, and losing touch with reality as evidenced by his gibberish on his ustream and twitter streams, Charlie is still defiant.

This is only going to end really, really badly for him.

Thank goodness my bonus came in time from work, I can now afford to pick up the iPad 2 when it is released on March 11!

Many people were disappointed about the new iPad, expecting some type of huge upgrade. I kind of figured that it was going to be more like an “iPhone 3GS” level upgrade than an iPhone 3g -> iPhone 4 type of bump.

That said, Apple did address a couple of issues with the device, but only one of the improvements I was looking for in the iPad2.

Slimmer design? Less weight? Faster processor and 9x graphics speed? That all sounds good, and will be a very welcome change. People are hating on the iPad2 camera, but no one is going to use this as their main camera. I mean, the iPhone 4 does have a nice camera but it isn’t a serious replacement for your Nikon or Canon. The iPhone 4 camera is just really damned convenient to use. The camera on the iPad isn’t going to be convenient but it really isn’t intended to be. Facetime will be cool, but it isn’t a major selling point for me.

The comfort and ease of use of the device is what has me sold on plunking down $499 on an upgrade. The experience is what I am most looking forward to, not all the spec bumps. My current iPad runs great, looks great and is infinitely enjoyable to use. So, any improvement to the device makes the iPad2 worth it to me.

I really liked this quote from Engadget talking about the new iPad and Apple’s approach.

Josh Topolsky:

It won’t be a debate about displays, memory, wireless options — it will be a debate about the quality of the experience. Apple is not just eschewing the spec conversation in favor of a different conversation — it’s rendering those former conversations useless. It would be like trying to compare a race car to a deeply satisfying book. In a post-PC world, the experience of the product is central and significant above all else. It’s not the RAM or CPU speed, screen resolution or number of ports which dictate whether a product is valuable; it becomes purely about the experience of using the device

This is the thing that is hardest for people obsessed with Google, Android and other competing products to understand (hell, even PC users to an extent). Many of us chose the Mac, and now iOS devices due to the experience. Some call it the “ecosystem” that Apple has created. Apps which run on all of your devices. Apps which are beautiful and have an attention to detail and usability. When you design for experience sometimes you find that you don’t need the best processor, the most megapixels and the highest resolution screens.

I say it is alright to harbor a negative, or critical thought every once in a while. Some people do not, and I guess that is their right. But the truth is, if you never have a negative thing to say, or that you think EVERYTHING and EVERYONE is awesome, all the time, then something is seriously wrong with you.

Its perfectly acceptable to say that:

• Cameron Diaz is a terrible actress
• Jaden Smith shouldn’t have been allowed to perform at the Grammy’s
• HP is blatantly copying Apple with the ‘TouchPad’
• Ashton Kutcher is the antichrist

And a bunch of other provocative statements. We don’t have to agree. In fact, agreement is kind of boring most of the time. I’m an individual, I have my own opinions and readily accept that some people don’t share them. I just happen to not care if people disagree with me.