Merely Compelling
The Economist weighs in on blogging in the new issue. Although it says blogging has "exploded from a cultish techie activity into a cottage industry churning out increasingly compelling content" it then goes on to wonder why mainstream newspapers would adopt it because there's no money in it.
- posted by Amy @ 7/06/2002 07:37:00 AM

 

Breaking Camp
Moving in progress. Still no phone.
- posted by Amy @ 7/05/2002 09:45:00 PM

 

Don't Cry for Me, WorldCom
Take a ride on the Jane Galt line and find out why no tears should be shed for the WorldCom employees who had almost all their retirement savings tied up in their company's now worthless stock. Here's an excerpt:

When this gent watched the Enron folks on TV who were contemplating trading the split level for a refrigerator box and a can of Whiskas, who found themselves, in late middle age, unemployed, in a town where their now-bankrupt company was the major employer, with few prospects for either finding another job, or funding their retirement. . . did this guy notice, "Hey, I live in Mississippi. WorldCom is the major employer around here. I'm middle aged, and I have 80% of my 401(k) in one stock. Maybe I should take steps to avoid the same fate." Nope. He left his holdings where they were, popped open a Colt 45, and sat down to watch Mork and Mindy reruns.

- posted by Amy @ 7/03/2002 08:08:00 AM

 

A Story Ripped From Today's Headlines
I called Verizon yesterday to get the phone hooked up at my new place in Brooklyn. But Verizon said they couldn't connect my phone because the previous tenants haven't yet disconnected their service. So I call the landlord, who thinks this is odd because the prior tenants had told him they already took care of it.

So I called Verizon again today and she said the same thing. But she starts this game of 20 Questions with me in which I finally figure out that the recently departed tenants had a different phone company (ah, the joys of competition) but she isn't allowed to tell me which one. She said as soon as that other phone company requests a disconnection, Verizon will take care of it. As part of the deregulation process, Verizon keeps control of the phone lines but rents them to competitors who want to provide local service.

So I call my new landlord again and he says, "Oh, I hope they didn't have MCI. Just this morning someone told me MCI said it will take several weeks to get anything done because no one is really working there anymore."

You know where this is going, don't you?

Landlord calls me back. He's just talked to the former tenant. The former tenant had service through WorldCom's MCI. A week ago, he called to have the phone shut off and his number moved to his new place. They had no idea if he could transfer his number given the circumstances.

Coincidentally, I happened to catch part of the WorldCom news conference this afternoon. I saw the CEO proudly state that they haven't lost any more major accounts, including government departments responsible for national security.

So I can guess how they are holding onto all those consumer accounts - they're just not getting around to disconnecting the service.
- posted by Amy @ 7/02/2002 10:33:00 PM

 

From the Fifth-Floor Window
Matthew McConaughey is sitting on car across the street from my building right now, filming a scene from "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days." It happens to be the exact location where another film crew was re-enacting the WTC attack three weeks ago.
- posted by Amy @ 7/02/2002 07:02:00 PM

 

Fire Fighter as Fire Starter
Ever since the U.S. Forest Service employee was accused of starting the Colorado wildfire (and now there's another firefighter accused in Arizona,) I've been trying to remember the name of the Glendale arson investigator who started a bunch of fires in California in the 1980s.

I just went a Googling and found his name is John Orr. Turns out Joseph Wambaugh (who penned one of my hometown's most infamous stories, The Onion Field,) has just published the story of John Orr, Fire Lover: A True Story.

I followed Orr's story while I was growing up because the crucial break in the case came at a fire in Bakersfield. Later, he was on trial for murder (resulting from arson) in LA while I was working for a paper there. The guy was an arson investigator and he'd go to these fire conventions and while driving home, he'd stop off and start fires along his route. When they started looking at him as the suspect, they found his manuscript, fiction of course, about (wait for it) an arson investigator who starts fires. Here's a book review from the LA Times that recounts the story.
- posted by Amy @ 6/30/2002 11:17:00 AM