Skip to main content
May 2003



The latest ramblings in Josh's mind...





  • Bill Simmons, aka "The Sports Guy," is one

    of the funniest, and observant columnists, ever. Don't be fooled by his

    title; he writes about some of the best cultural references of the 1980's

    and beyond. Two of his recent columns, Basketball

    Jesus
    , and West Coast

    Sports Watching
    , are some of his best.





    This man deserves more than just a writing gig on the Jimmy Kimmel

    Show
    . See

    his old columns for yourself!




  • Heading to Boston to speak for Altura at Boston

    Business: Outside the Box
    .


  • After struggling with the Siemens great dual base

    phone system I finally had to confront the static, and get a new phone. My

    friend Stephanie highly recommended the new 5.8

    GHz V-Tech
    ...we'll see how it goes!


  • I just finished listening to the Biography of Howard Hughes:

    what an insane man. Listening to Salt,

    right now: fascinating! Not much tops The Diamond

    Age
    , but I'm still

    trying...


  • Christine Fox, a friend of ours, just hosted a

    Zinfandel tasting party. The Markham

    was surprisingly good!






That's it for now...



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Loyalty Review: Kohl's Yes2You

 As some of you know, I've spent over 15 years in the customer loyalty space. So, when I come across a new retail loyalty program, I can't help but see the pluses and minuses. After this many years, it's kind of ingrained. Periodically, I'll share my thoughts with you. Today, it's Kohl's turn under the scope. Let's have a look, shall we? I've divided the review up into three sections: what's good about the program, what's bad about the program, and what I'd change about it. That last one has some actual value: I charged hundreds of dollars per hour for loyalty program consulting, and had over a dozen clients, before I moved to JustAnswer FT. But, being a pandemic and all, I'm giving it away for free here. Kohl's, you're welcome. Here we go! The Good Sign up is opt in Seems odd to praise Kohl's for this, but in department store loyalty, this is a rarity, and a smart one. It means the customers who are opted in are already prime...

Revisiting Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season 1

I recently started rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation from the beginning. I have nothing but fond memories of the original run in the 1980s, given how excited I was for a new Trek series in my lifetime (I had only reruns and the movies to stoke my Trek interest), and it recently occurred to me that, while I diligently consumed every TNG episode, I had not experienced the series since it's original run.  Why did I do this? Well, a few reasons: With the triumphant return of Sir Patrick Stewart to the smaller screen as the venerable Jean Luc Picard , I thought it would be interesting to contrast this version with the previous, and see how far he has come. It would add color to the character, as well as Sir Patrick. Frankly, with the COVID19 lockdown, the series I have binged upon have been intense, dark, and disturbing. Combined with the activity of the world, including insane politics, homicidal police who seem to view people of color as "prey," rather than their ch...

The Icarus Effect

This morning's news started with the latest grim proof of overdevelopment in a tough sector: SkyBus Airlines shut down , less than year from when it started. Never heard of Skybus? Not surprising; they chose to focus on trips from Ohio to the West Coast for ridiculously low fares. Yes, you read that right: the airlines' unique niche was that they focused on trips from Ohio . Was air travel such an amazingly profitable business that we needed that much segmentation and focus? Of course not. A year ago, when Skybus was just getting off the ground (har har), fuel costs were at an all time high. United was still in bankruptcy; Delta, a fellow airline with a major hub in Ohio, was just exiting Chapter 11. And yet, "irrational exuberance" led investors like Nationwide Mutual Capital, Huntington Capital Investment Co., and Battelle Services Co. to ignore the obvious signs of risk, and dive into what was a dubious investment. Today, they, and the passengers who were lured by ...