From the category archives:

Money

2WO G2N G2Y UPDATE

by Brian on June 11, 2009

2-gun-guy1 Occasionally I get asked whatup with 2WO G2N G2Y.

Here’s the deal – I won’t do anything with it, because there are people who worked on it who haven’t been paid yet.

Details are unimportant and avoid the bottom line: the proverbial buck stops with me on this project, I take full responsibility for it, and the fact that it’s unresolved sixth months later is an unfair, embarrassing, and ugly situation.

These are the initials of everyone who hasn’t been paid:

DG, JM, NJ, CS, SS, CS, JC, and AT.

I’ll link to this up in the 2GG tab above, and knock people off the list as this is taken care of. If you’re one of these people and you have to vent, go ahead and do it right here – I (and I alone) deserve to be bad-mouthed until it’s a closed case.

I learned a couple producering lessons on 2GG for sure, and unfortunately the good and talented people who helped make it have felt a trickle-down effect.

(For the sake of transparency, I also owe my parents about $6,500,000 in “metal anguish fees” for pretty much my entire high school experience.)

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Some Adjustments for the NBA on Twitter

by Brian on May 10, 2009

in Girls,Money,NBA,Twitter

Here’s a mind-bender of a post for you, since a lot of you wish I would write about the NBA, and a lot more of you wish I wouldn’t write about Twitter.

(This is weird to me, since I usually am just pointing out girls I meet there.)

Alas, you know if you watch the basketball on the television, that often they’ll pop up with a little note to go follow the NBA on Twitter. So you do so, and are rewarded with exclusive nuggets of info like this:

Rockets jump out to 29-16 lead over the Lakers after 1 in Houston. Shane “Who’s Your Daddy?” Battier leading the charge w/12pts.

Apologies for drilling down to the obvious, but why, if you’re watching a game on TV, do you need a score update, let alone one that’s (as of this typing) 25 minutes old?

(This is a long one – I’m gonna use the “more” tag so as not to clog up the front page. Click on, friends – it gets pretty tank-toppy.)
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Texas, Obama's Trains, Oprah

by Brian on April 17, 2009

in Girls,Money,Politics,Super Airplane,Twitter,Will Smith

UPDATE SAT 4/18: If you’re looking for Cavs/Lasers predictions and thoughts and such, they’ll be on my Twitter feed. “Cavs in 4, with no less than 7 Sheed technicals” sums it up.

To follow up on the whole Texas thing quick – this map is my solution for fixing the entire financial crisis.

1) Sell Montana to China for cash.

2) Agree to let Texas secede, but Trademark the name “Texas” before they do so, while forcing them to agree to my alternative supplied here, then sell the name Texas back to them for cash.

3) This isn’t totally crucial with all the cash we’ll have after steps one and two, but if we can also find a way to move Alaska and Hawaii to those locations shown on the map, I can’t help but think we’ll be a stronger nation.

The big news yesterday was actually this high-speed choo-choo train system Barack Obama wants to build with his own two hands.

If I were smart, I’d go do a find/replace and write myself Prelude to a Super Choo-Choo Train – the media could be all like, “Ooh, he’s so precious with his mind predicting abilities regarding technology and transportation in the near future…ooooh…ooohh…oooh…oo. Look at his muscular arms.”

Fast trains from the future are the way to go, especially if they make that bubble sound like a shuttle pod. Even if they don’t technically make that sound while running, I’d recommend putting in an external speaker system that broadcasts the sound.

It may sound dumb, but I’d be 75% more likely to ride these things if they did this.

Oprah is all about Twitter today – she’s making her first Tweet, after which she’ll hand the account over to a show intern, who will Tweet each day’s guests in a lawyer approved fashion.

Hopefully the show will cover the phenomenon of current and ex-basketball bloggers from Los Angeles interviewing girls from Orlando about the NBA.

The No-Look Pass did a lengthy piece with @alexiskn yesterday, and hit up @ColleenBurns today, who provides a link to a picture worth looking at for sure.

I have my piece with Colleen sitting here, but will probably save it for Monday, because I only ask her one thing about the NBA. Mainly I cover different scenarios in which we would watch Bad Boys II and hold hands.

(Follow me on Twitter here.)
(Download the first 55 pages of my epic, pretentious, and stupid book, Prelude to a Super Airplane, here.)

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Tablet iPod Touch, eBooks, Apple

by Brian on February 28, 2009

in Apple,Misc,Money,Politics

(I got this conceptual picture from here.)

I don’t have too much to say about this, I just want to say something, because it opens up so many possibilities when it happens.

Basically – Apple entering the eBook market via a tablet-sized iPod Touch.

(That link actually goes to a story on how it would affect the comic book market, but it’s a general article.)

Anyway, while Amazon’s Kindle has been great and moderately popular with hardcore reader-types, it’s not had a mass affect yet.

The eBook is a tough market, because there’s really no standard format or anything. Right now, my book PTSA sells as a secured PDF doc, and who knows where it can and can’t work right if it’s not on a computer.

I’ve tried to do formatting for the Kindle, but it’s beyond my ability and I’ve got better things to spend my time on.

Apple would force a more general format, or at the very least make it easy to buy/sell/read, and like with music, gobble up and/or create the market share. (I think I mangled that sentence.)

Really, I think it just opens up a floodgate of possibilities, not only for books and comics, but for those dying newspapers, as well. More specifically, for investigative journalism.

I have a few reporter/newspaper friends, and they’re all living with a perpetual “is this the week I get fired” hanging over them. I suggested the following based on the mythical tablet iPod Touch:

Like [redacted] – look at it this way.

Let’s say you did one hardcore, in-depth investigative report every month. Like really tackled something heavy, that only you could/would do, but with a broad appeal/interest. It’s your story – like the kind where you’ve dug up stuff on Senators and loans or whatever.

Would 10,000 people pay a buck or 50 cents a month to subscribe to that? And remember – you’re marketing to the entire WORLD here. 10,000 people is nothing. (Or maybe you do two/month – I don’t know how long these things take.)

There are certainly enough political junkies out there who would have interest in that. You might see 10K people in DC alone.

In any case, that’s 120K a year, before taxes and Apple fees and such. Basically a personal newspaper of sorts – what’s missing right now is the distribution method, and if Apple supplies it, we’ll see something like this.

Plugging in your Touch and having all your content appear every morning in an organized (and mobile) fashion is much more appealing than sending money via Paypal, lugging your laptop around, logging in to a website, etc.

The thing is, people will pay for things like news online, if you make it easy and user-friendly. Apple would be a company that could do that.

Remember that the music industry was a mess before iTunes came in and blazed a more definitive path.

Yes, music is not in the best shape, but it’s a better time than ever to be a musician, because you don’t need to go through the whole “get signed to a label” process to make it.

It’s the big labels who are hurting most, because their old business model no longer works. The artists have more opportunity than ever, and that should be exciting to creative types.

Anyway, I know this was kind of rambling, but the sky doesn’t have to be falling just because the Rocky Mountain News shut down.

(Follow me on Twitter here.)
(Download the first 55 pages of my epic, pretentious, and stupid book, Prelude to a Super Airplane, here.)

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Brett is the Cranky Flier

by Brian on February 9, 2009

in Airplanes,Blogs,Money,Super Airplane

In an effort to reach out to more people who think about airplanes, I’ve also been doing some interviews with people who run airplane-enhanced sites.

This means their sites are powered by and for airplanes.

One of these is Brett, aka The Cranky Flier. He has a squadron of 94 vintage WWII airplanes that do nothing but keep his site powered by battery-powered, solar wind energy.

He agreed to answer some questions about the airplane riding industry. Please go check out his site when you have a chance.

1) I noticed on your website that you used to go to the airport in your youth just to watch the airplanes do their taking off and landing. In my book, I do a similar thing, because my character thinks about airplanes all the time. Do you think you could beat me in a “who could think about airplanes more” contest?
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Prelude to a Super Airplane (Chapter 15)

by Brian on January 8, 2009

in Airplanes,Money,Super Airplane

(The following is an excerpt from my book, Prelude to a Super Airplane. It can be purchased by clicking on any of the roughly 400 banners adorning this site, or by clicking here. It’s also available on Amazon.

I’ve posted the first 20 chapters (roughly 55 pages of PTSA) on this site. Links to each of those are at the end of this post, or you can download all of them as a pdf by clicking here.

I’m not going to turn this book into an analysis of the various airplane ride companies, but I do want to take the time to send some business to my favorite one.

Surely you’ve heard of Southwestern Airplane Rides, but have you ever taken an airplane ride on Southwestern Airplane Rides? It’s not the most expensive or fancy airplane ride company – in fact, I think it’s the cheapest.

But they do one thing that I simply love, and that’s self-seating.

Being tall and deceptively muscular, it’s difficult to find an airplane seat that’s totally comfortable. The goal, therefore, is to get into either the front row or the middle row, where there’s more legroom for someone like myself.

With Southwestern Airplane Rides’ self-seating, they make my task that much easier. I just have make sure I use their online internet website to check-in from home, absolutely as early as it’s permitted.

This gives you an “A” designation, which means you get on the airplane first. Following the logic – if I get on first, there are more seats open, often including those I desire.

Simple, yes?

Perhaps I’m easily pleased, but being able to do this outweighs the mountain of corners Southwestern Airplane Rides cuts in all areas of the airplane ride experience. These are too numerous to list here, and you could probably write an entire book just about these cut corners.

Oh, the other thing I love is their slogan, because it doesn’t try to fool or dazzle you – it is what it is:

Our Airplane Rides Are Good Enough, and Get You From Point A to Point B, Safely and On Time

What more or less could be said than that?

Southwestern Airplane Rides also has celebrity endorsements, with straight-to-the-point commercials featuring those celebrities. They go all out on these, and get famous movie directors to bring their unique concepts and sensibilities to them, and I admire that.

So, they get you where you’re going in one piece, let you pick your own seats, and support the arts. That’s all I could ever want from an airplane ride company.

Brad Radby’s Foreward, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 31

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Marketing of PTSA

by Brian on January 5, 2009

in Books,Brad Radby,Bruce Willis,Money,Super Airplane,Vegetable Trivia

Okay, here’s the most important thing – this book is good, and you can go buy it at this link.

Feel free to be patient, though – I’d much rather seduce you into buying it than have you blindly spend your money on a short description.

Things that will be happening as I attempt to get every single one of you to buy this:

1) Starting tomorrow, chapter excerpts.

2) After the excerpts are done, I’ll be posting bonus material. These will be pieces about characters that are inside the Super Airplane Saga, but don’t drive the primary story of this particular book.

This will give you a continued idea of the tone/quality, and also be a fun thing for those of you who have (or eventually) read it. It’s not throw-away stuff, either – it’s just that the forty characters that are in PTSA are the only ones that were absolutely necessary to tell this story.

3) Fifteen (15) people have read this already, including a few readers of this here blog. Reviews are forthcoming.

4) The banner ads stay until I have verification that all of you have bought it. The nice thing is they’ll be rotating with short teases on each character, drawing you in until you have no choice but to push the “purchase” button. An example:

5) I know nothing about the publishing business, so I’m doing short interviews with authors and other people, including, but not limited to, a construction foreman. He knows nothing about publishing, either!

6) Vegetable Trivia Game is going live, and its a chance to win free copies of PTSA. But you can only play on Twitter – I’m not bringing it here yet. Rules are in a forthcoming post.

So yeah – go buy my book!

(It’s also available via Amazon, but if you go through my site I make a lil’ more…he said humbly. Should be out on Barnes and Noble, Borders, et al next month. Furthermore.

And seriously – if anyone is savvy in eBook stuff, please let me know. I’d be happy to cut you off something to help get that done.)

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LeBron, Ultra Flirt, VTG

by Brian on January 3, 2009

in 2GG,Books,Cleveland Cavaliers,Girls,LeBron James,Money,Politics,Super Airplane,Vegetable Trivia

LeBron better get his stuff together before I accuse him of spending all his time at the movies again.

Yes, he had a triple-double lasterday, but only because he went out of his way to try at his doing rebounding at the end, in order to get said triple-double.

The rest of the game he was acting like Tracy McGrady.

Z being out for a month (my estimate) stinks, so maybe it’s time to do the Wally-for-Brad Miller trade. All goes well, and Wally can be back with CLE by this time next month. He looks like he could use the rest anyway.

I see a lot of music videos at the gym that I’ve never seen before – probably because the gym is the only place I watch music videos.

Anyway, below is where some German chicks called Ultra Flirt try to trick a man into giving them a Ferrari.

I like this because it completely fools you into thinking the girls are hot, plus the whole thing seems like it’s from 1985, but Germanies are really doing this today.

Oh, and it’s a remix of “Heaven is a Place on Earth”, but I don’t think there’s any irony involved in this concept.

I like the part where the robot voice goes, “Let’s go!” and it says “Let’s Go!” on the screen at the same time.

Speaking of the 1985, here’s another video from last year where Doc Brown helps rappers dance with girls.

Catchy in its own way, plus at some point, Doc apparently dropped the wife, kids, and choo-choo train. It’s like a continuity mystery.

Okay, so Monday two things will happen.

1) The full lowdown on my book. Excerpts start getting posted Tuesday. If you’re clever enough, you can buy it now.

2) You can start playing Vegetable Trivia Game for real, and it’s the only way to win a free copy of my book, and it can only be done on Twitter. If you’re not following me now, maybe you should go start.

I’ve almost got it figured out, and I knew that was true when I started using it to hit on girls.

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LeBron, LeBron, Twitter

by Brian on December 21, 2008

in Blackberry,Cleveland Cavaliers,Fashion,LeBron James,Money,NBA

You’ve read it by now – LeBron says he’ll bring apocalypse upon The New York City Knicks, as well as the media, by possibly signing an extension with the Cavs this summer.

Let’s break down the reasons he may have chosen to say this now.

1) He’s really, really loves toying with the media.
2) Someone asked him a leading question and this is taken out of context.
3) Giving the media LeBron James talking points in the build-up to the Christmas Day games.
4) Doing PD reporter Brian Windhorst a favor, further cementing him as the go-to LeBron scooper.
5) Legitimately wants to do this. Why? Further breaking down the outline:

a) Has realized that basketballwise, there’s no better franchise for him, unless a bunch of guys take less money to meet up in one place, which will never happen.
b) Concerned Summer 2010 will be too big a distraction next season, destroying the type of run and chemistry the Cavs are enjoying now.
c) Money. Remember, another reason he wanted to be a free agent in 2010 is because the collective bargaining agreement is opening back up. With the way the economy is projected to be for the next few years, it’s possible he could lose money under the new CBA. All signs say the owners are going to ask for major rollbacks.
d) Knowing LeBron is locked in will make it easier for Danny Ferry to go sign a few solid “vets looking for rings” in Summer 2009.

I really don’t know, but I suppose anything is possible. If he does this, I’ve completely misjudged his character, and/or let the media influence me too much. I’ll apologize if so.

Hopefully if it happens, Austin Carr will be present to say, “The L-TRAIN, signing the paper with a pen!”

On another subject altogether, I’ve had a Twitter account for a long time, but never used it. Am considering – thoughts?

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Cavs, Auto Bailout, Reader Interviews

by Brian on December 20, 2008

in Cleveland Cavaliers,LeBron James,Money,NBA,Politics

Hopefully that counts as the “road win against good team” everyone has been asking the Cavs to demonstrate the ability to achive.

I don’t think we saw the best the Nuggets had to offer lasterday, but that doesn’t change the fact that CLE blew them out.

Love what Brian Windhorst had to say here about the timeout in the third – I think that sums up that Coach Mike can coach. I give in.

Little known secret though – the Cavs actually hired the “offensive coordinator’ type assistant I’ve been asking for since “Coach Mike Year One”.

It’s very realistic, looking at the schedule, for CLE to head into that January 9th BOS game with another 11-game winning streak.

By the way – the Celtics actually have to play on the road at some point this year, right?

I’m not trying to take too much away from what they’ve accomplished, but both BOS and the Lakers have played an extremely unbalanced number of home games.

Anyone else think the league wanted to see both get off to amazing starts to pump up the attraction of the Christmas Day game?

President Bush went ahead and gave a bunch of band-aid money to Chrysler and GM. My guess is he just didn’t want to add “let auto industry collapse” to his legacy.

“Collectively, the automakers have asked Congress for $34 billion, but they are getting $17.4 billion and that will only get them to March 31,” [some smart person] said. “This is basically a football that the Bush administration is punting to the Obama administration; it lets the automakers avoid bankruptcy, but it doesn’t provide them with enough money to get through 2009, so they’re likely to need more money from the next administration.”

Can one plan out and implement an entire overhaul of the auto industry by late March?

Of course not – especially when by the first week in February all the work will be going into lobbying for more money.

And these might technically be loans, but they aren’t loans – not when everyone is in general agreement that there’s no way in hell the companies will be able to afford to pay them back.

Analysts say this opens the doors for basically any industry feeling a crunch, or pressure, or boredom to start asking the government for money.

You know I’m a fan of Atlas Shrugged, and I’m telling you right now, we’re starting to live it in this country. It’s happening. That’s bad.

Nobody is even sure if any of this stimulus (read: charity) will do anything, because of the ill-at-ease feelings here and there among the populace, etc.

“It is going to be tough to get out of this. People are scared,” said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s in New York. “How do you restore confidence when the markets have lost it?”

I’d say that more than any of these actual financial moves, the #1 thing that will help the economy is for the media to stop scaring the hell out of everyone.

Anyway – your interview questions are on the way, just be patient. Also, if you have a website or blog or something you want linked to in your interview, please let me know, and I’m happy to do it.

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