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A blog wherein a literary agent will sometimes discuss his business, sometimes discuss the movies he sees, the tennis he watches, or the world around him. In which he will often wish he could say more, but will be obliged by business necessity and basic politeness and simple civility to hold his tongue. Rankings are done on a scale of one to five Slithy Toads, where a 0 is a complete waste of time, a 2 is a completely innocuous way to spend your time, and a 4 is intended as a geas compelling you to make the time.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Rants of the week

Rant #1:  That guy on CNBC who has to go walking purposefully across the trading floor at 3:59PM and who almost knocked somebody over on Friday.  Are there actually people in the world who feel his reporting on the day's events is better because he's walking purposefully across the trading floor at 3:59 PM.  He's not interviewing people on the floor for the day's news.  This isn't the tracking shot at the start of Goodfellas or Touch of Evil.  I yearn for the days when these people were stuck in some booth overlooking the trading floor.

Rant #2:  People backdrops for political events.  I'm tired of having the stage behind the president or candidates for political office filled with people.  So during the campaign we can discuss why/how/who the guys were with the Abercrombie shirts at some event.  So President Obama can talk about his Iraq plans before a stage full of marines, or somebody else can talk about their tough on crime measure before a stage full of police.  Important note for really dumb people:  while the President is not the commander in chief of you or I or the country at large, he is the Commander In Chief of our armed services.  So if he talks in front of a stage full of marines or airmen, it doesn't mean they agree with what he's saying.  It does mean that their Commander in Chief ordered them to be there.  

Rant #3:  Why is Golden Corral taking advertising time on national TV?  I guess we're all talking about Golden Corral, the topic of "where is there a Golden Corral" was discussed without my bringing it up at my synagogue last night.  But, I'm thinking of it more as a broad business discussion of if it's really cheaper to advertise on the Australian Open on the Tennis Channel (or were they on the ESPN2 coverage...) to huge parts of the county that are nowhere near a Golden Corral, than to just advertise in the parts of the world where they actually exist.  Not that I have anything against Golden Corral, mind you.  I've only eaten at one once, and I liked it, but this is very scattershot marketing.

Rant #4:  Why is the sky blue?
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2 comments:

Maria said...

At least if it were a tracking shot, the camera would be steady--as it is, the guy is walking "purposely" to NOWHERE, for no good reason--and the camera wobbles and flits. When I watch it, I get queasy from the erratic motion.

CNBC: Save the moving shots and drama for when you have a real purpose. When you need to go from one end of the room to the other, how about you get there and then talk?

March 7, 2009 at 2:45 PM
Tim Akers said...

re: Golden Corral, we have a similar issue with Sonic Drive-thru here in Chicago. There's one, somewhere, way south of here, but they plaster the airwaves with their commercials. Every *wants* Sonic around here, but there aren't any. Maybe it's preemptive advertising, building up demand before they move in. Who knows?

March 9, 2009 at 10:09 AM

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