Professional driver on closed course.
Thursday, January 18th, 2001
So…when did PI spots come back? PI spots, also known as ‘direct response’ spots, are those annoying commercials, often for ‘best of’ albums, which chop together even the most recent hits into an easily purchasable CD. I thought MP3s were supposed to wipe this scourge off the face of the earth! Ah, the promise of the Internet, so much is possible, so much hasn’t quite made it here yet.
So..it’s been three months plus since my last update–forgive me readers, for I have neglected–what do I have to say for myself? I guess I could explain the convoluted Le Mans course that is the meander-path of my life. I guess I could talk about the boom and bust cycles of the internet, and make a case for hunkering down during tough times.
But naah, it’s just that my attention has been elsewhere. Good thing I don’t have a weekly column to write–I mean what kind of mess would I have made of that?
Besides, others have shown up full of that new-new-thing enthusiasm for having a personal website, part journal, part weblog, part confessional.
Now it’s the very last of the twilight of the Clinton era, the true dawn of a new millenium, and I’m sitting here in my comfy chair, up past my bedtime, trying to crank on a document I promised my friends at AOL Time Warner…uh..earlier this evening. I know what I want to say, it’s all swirling around in my head, but no, what did I choose to do? Work on this.
There’s practically an infinity of things I could free-associate about–from the latest spins of Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field (yes, I think the new macs are cool, but don’t I always?) to the problems our Explorer had with its clutch during our subzero Christmas visit to Indianapolis. I could talk about our Airport-networked Powerbook and how it becomes the morning paper at our breakfast table. I could talk about our new old car (with 140,000 miles on it) or the most recent film we’ve seen (set in Vermont, shot in Massachusetts!?) or how we spent our New Year’s Day (allez cuisine!)
But it’s late, and I digress. And this is just the place to do it.
Since my earliest days flailing away in the service of journalism at the Ohio University Post until four in the morning (on a school night!) I’ve had great respect (and have identified with) those who did that for a living on television. ABC’s World News Now has had quite a run now (uneven though it may be) of producing eccentric yet responsible TV shows under the influence of caffeine and a full moon. I proudly display my WNN coffee, tea, or soup mug in my office.
But the program that started it all—the one that truly is my favorite—is the fabled NBC News Overnight, hosted by Linda Ellerbee, Lloyd Dobyns, and later, Bill Schechner. I could go on for quite some time about the details of the show, and hum for you the distinctive waterfowlesque theme song, but fortunately, someone else has already gone to the trouble. This show got me through more late nights of cranking television than it probably is safe to admit. I salute them again.
