For those interested in hearing a conversation, the first of a new Penguin Salon series, about two seemingly competing ideas about connectivity in the digital age, Eric Klineberg and Clay Shirky will be speaking at 192 Books in Chelsea. I hope some of my students from fall’s New Technologies class can attend. RSVPs are required.
The Penguin Press Presents: Together Alone: “The Penguin Press Presents celebrated public intellectual Eric Klinenberg, author of the forthcoming GOING SOLO: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, and Clay Shirky, author of the seminal HERE COMES EVERYBODY: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, coming together to discuss what it all means and where we’re all heading.”
Thinking about Softball
Earlier today, one of my teammates from the Ball Busters sent me a video of me getting a base hit through the right side (the 3.5 hole, no less). It’s not that the hit was unusual—I regularly hit the ball that way—but in late January, softball seems so foreign. It was nice to remember seeing a sunny day in New York, my wearing shorts, and of course, playing softball in Central Park.
Thankfully, softball is only about 10 weeks away.
Snow then Slush
The first significant snowfall since late October brought a relatively minor amount of accumulation, but here in the city, the snow went through an accelerated pace through its usual steps. First it snowed, leaving a thin blanket of powder, which was quickly turned to slush. Now, it looks like it snowed three days ago and the grey sidewalk slush is going to make crossing streets an adventure.
Winter is here. Groundhog Day is about two weeks away. But for now, we got slush.
Groupon received the 60 Minutes treatment last night. The report was a primer on what Groupon is and an explanation on what it does, meant for a national television audience who may not know anything about the Internet except that it runs on computers. It mentions the biggest issues that Groupon is facing, such as the caustic relationship it has cultivated with retailers, its troubled IPO, its even more troubled balance sheet, and the challenge of emerging competitors.
As someone who has bought several of these “daily deals,” and more than a few offered by Groupon, I can say that I have been reluctant to buy a Groupon deal simply because their deals are not very good. When I first used the service in 2010, Groupon regularly offered deals that were 50% off at places that I would like to go. In a one-month period, for example, no fewer than four restaurants in my nook of Long Island City offered excellent 50%-off deals. But in the last year or so, the deals have been less impressive. They deals are at places that I wouldn’t want to go, in neighborhoods I never travel to, and the discounts aren’t very good. The problem seems even worse when for their Groupon Now deals.
In the morning, when the deluge of “daily deal” emails arrive, I don’t pay much attention to the Groupon offers. It’s not because I have anything against them per se, but it’s really the deal that is going to make me take action. The same goes for Gilt City, Travelzoo, Living Social, and Thrillist.
However, Groupon has insisted that one of the things that sets it apart from its competitors is the “Groupon Voice,” the punchy blurb included with each deal. I’ve considered these little else than poor attempts at humor, filled with a lot of impenetrable references. Take for example today’s featured New York deal at the Village Pourhouse:
Microbrews are lauded for their craftsmanship and distinguished by the tiny medals draped from their every molecule. Sample the finest of particles with today’s Groupon to Village Pourhouse
Where’s the humor?
The joke is supposed to link beer with chemistry. I get it, but I don’t see how it’s funny. Is it because medals are bigger than molecules? Is it, because since it would presumably take a lot of molecules to make a glass of beer, that there would be medals everywhere? These blurbs would be better if they explained how a friend and I can taste good beer, not just yellow, American-style corn swill, for cheap. And that they wash down all kinds of savory snacks.
60 Minutes devoted a ninety-second web extra clip to the “Groupon Voice,” without posing any skepticism. Instead, we just let Editor-in-Chief Aaron With insist that the “distinct, unusual, unique” voice is a competitive advantage for the company. This was the same subject in a May 2010 New York Times article about how Groupon’s “funny” words set it apart from its competitors. When I read this article, it was the first time I had thought about those blurbs because I deliberately ignore them. No one I know ever mentions those blurbs, and I doubt that any in my peer groups reads them or looks forward to reading them in the daily email.
Nope! We just all want a good deal.
As I come to Bobst Library during the intersession period, the lower level study area looks wonderfully deserted. During the last week of the semester, there were people in these seats throughout the entire day. Some were studying, but a good number of them were sleeping.
Bobst Library will remain calm for another week, until classes begin in the third week of the month. At that point, the spring semester will begin again and the bustle will return.
Remember when I thought that I recognized the house in the 1959 film The House on Haunted Hill? It turns out that the house is famous for a few reasons. Although it has appeared in a ton of films, including Bladerunner and L.A. Confidential to name but two, I “recognized” it because it looks like the Hollyhock House, which I toured with Sarah and my mom in May 2010. The Hollyhock House and Ennis House, the house from Haunted Hill, were both designed by Frank Lloyd Wright are both sited in Hollywood.
Since seeing House on Haunted Hill, I made visiting Ennis House one of my priorities when visiting Los Angeles. On the day after Christmas, my parents, Sarah, and I drove to the Hollywood Hills to see the house. Regrettably, one cannot tour the house. It was sold to a private owner in July 2011. The house needs a lot of work, but it’s not clear when the house will be open to the public once the new owner takes possession.
Visiting the house is easy with a car. Take Vermont Avenue north past Los Feliz Boulevard. Turn left on Cromwell Ave, then a quick right onto Glendower Ave. Follow the winding road up, up, and up, and then after about a quarter mile you will see the house. Mind the parking signs and take a walk around the house and, obviously, don’t disturb the adjacent properties.
After gawking at Ennis House, we drove back down the hill and stopped at Barnsdall Park to show my dad Hollyhock House because he had not seen it.
A day after we visited the Ennis and Hollyhock Houses, we stumbled on another Frank Lloyd Wright property. This was the Kundert Medical Clinic in San Luis Obispo. Unlike the other two properties, this was still in full operation. It sits along a creek on Santa Rosa Avenue, which was a main road connecting some important towns in San Luis Obispo County. After running around Hollywood looking at two (of many, many) Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Los Angeles, it was nice to find one by accident en route to our next destination.
Do You Know the Way to Morro Bay?
As part of our Christmas–New Year’s vacation, Sarah and I spent about a week traveling to a few spots in California. One of our stops was in Baywood Park, which is technically in Los Osos and adjacent to the Morro Bay. We stayed at the Back Bay Inn, on a friend’s recommendation, and found a comfortable inn, and our room had a great view of the bay.
One of the novel things about this trip was that we took the train instead of driving. We surprised everyone when we told people we met at the inn that we got there by just taking two buses. You can do it, too.
We took the 7:45 AM Pacific Surfliner from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo. The train arrived just before 1:00 PM. We walked to the transit center, which is about five blocks away. If you take Santa Rosa Road, you can see a Frank Lloyd Wright house along the way. We had about an hour layover between our arrival in San Luis Obispo and ate lunch at Luna Red in town.
At the Transit Center, you can take the 12 bus to Morro Bay’s transit center, which takes about 20 minutes. From there, connect to the 13 bus that goes to Los Osos. The stop on Santa Maria Ave and 2nd St stops about two blocks from the inn.
Getting back is just as easy. You have to catch the 11 bus from Los Osos, which becomes the 12 bus and continues to San Luis Obispo. From there, we caught the northbound Coast Starlight. We had about an hour layover and ate lunch in town. Also, if your train is late, you can go to Meze, a wine and cheese shop, that is about a five-minute walk if you follow the rail tracks in the southbound direction.
This was my first time taking this trip with the train, and you can count me as a convert. Yes, the schedules are limited and it takes a lot more time to ride than it does to drive, but I’m on vacation. I’m not in a hurry.
Five States in One Day
It was supposed to be a pretty straightforward trip to Paducah, Kentucky, originating in Newark with a long connection in Chicago.
We started the day in New York as we do every day, but we had to cross the Hudson River, into New Jersey, for our flight departing Newark. A classic “I-95″ rainstorm, running up the entire eastern seaboard, delayed the incoming aircraft by over two hours. That, in turn, delayed our Continental Airlines flight to Chicago and our long two-hour-plus layover turned into a very risky connection. Although we ran from our arriving gate to the Paducah gate, we missed our United Express flight. We were automatically rebooked on the last flight of the following day, which would put us into Kentucky a full day after than we had planned.
Sarah insisted that we not lose the entire day so we asked if we could be rerouted on a United flight to Nashville, and Sarah’s family would pick us up and drive to Kentucky. The agent promptly rebooked us and issued boarding passes for a flight to Nashville.
The new flight required an overnight stay so we asked if we could get vouchers for a hotel. Since it was the Continental flight that caused the misconnect, we had to ask them for accommodation. Continental doesn’t have much of a presence at O’Hare so it was a bit of a challenge to find someone, but we eventually found someone at the baggage claim office. The Continental agent obliged us and handed us complimentary hotel and meal vouchers. Thanks!
My experience with weather delays and missed connections is pretty limited. It only happened once before, when I flew on a different airline, and I was offered a discounted room, which is an airline’s standard practice. I am fairly certain that because our Newark-Chicago flight was late due to weather, we were not entitled to the hotel and meal vouchers, but I suspect that elite status might have helped in this case.
In either case, Sarah and I made the best of it. We used our meal vouchers for the Tortas Frontera at the B terminal at O’Hare and had one of the best breakfast tortas east of the Colorado River. (Note, if you have one of these $12 vouchers, get a breakfast torta and a coffee.) It also worked out because while we were at O’Hare, a reasonable one-way fare from Chicago to Los Angeles became available. Since I was using some travel credit certificates I received in September for giving up my seat, I had to redeem them in person at the airport. It would have been very difficult to redeem had we not been at O’Hare.
Although it was unfortunate that our plans turned out a bit different from we had originally planned, it helped to keep our cool and ask politely for help. I hope everyone remembers that this holiday season before screaming at an agent.
Want to Ruin a Building? Paint it Blue!
As I walked around Long Island City this afternoon, I noticed that the building housing the former Jackson Avenue Steakhouse has made a little change to its exterior. The first story of the building, including the new sports bar and even newer Caribbean restaurant, is now blue. I guess they chose that scheme to clash, as much as possible, with the red awning. Or figuring that since so many flags use the red-white-and-blue combination and are pretty successful, it should work just as well for a sports bar.
I haven’t been to this spot since the old Steakhouse was temporarily closed for health violations, then abandoned its $8 “burger and brew” special, and then changed its name to Al’s Steakhouse. I noticed that it had reopened as a sports bar some months ago, but I never felt compelled to go in. Take a guess if I’ll be going there anytime soon.
Most of the Apple-branded Mac OS X applications, such as Mail, GarageBand, iMovie, Pages, and Keynote, have a Media Browser that you can use to place photos into your messages, projects, or documents. It can sometimes be a handy way to include an image or audio file without opening another application, exporting the file and importing into your new document. The Media Library will show images from iPhoto and Aperture. I would recommend that Apple add the Photo Stream to this list of photo sources.
This morning, I took a photo with my iPhone and wanted to include one of those photos in a lengthy message I had composed on my Mac. I opened the Photo Browser, pictured above, hoping that Apple had perhaps made the Photo Stream as one of the sources. Sadly, that was not there. I had two options. The first is to open Aperture to synchronize the new Photo Stream additions. The Photo Browser will then show a Photo Stream from my Aperture library and I can add the photo from there. The second is to save the message on my Mac as a draft. On my iPhone, I would go to the Camera Roll and copy the photo. Then I would open Mail and retrieve the draft. I would then paste the image in the message composer and send it. The first is a much easier process than the second, but I think including the Photo Stream in the Media Browser would make this process a lot easier.
To implement this, Apple would have to move the access point of the Photo Stream from the desktop apps, specifically iPhoto and Aperture, to the OS, presumably through the iCloud System Preference pane. This way any application can use the Photo Stream, perhaps even non-Apple applications. Personally, I would really like it if MarsEdit could tap into the Photo Stream so I could add Photo Stream images to a blog post.
