or how i learned to elevate the mundane

So the webosphere 2.0 has been buzzing about the Stewart takedown of Jim Cramer and CNBC. If you haven’t seen it, then I can’t help you.

Anyway. What’s interesting about all the buzz is not that a “comedian” actually put Cramer on the hotseat - after all, Stewart took down Crossfire a few years ago - no, the interesting thing has been the media reaction to it.

I’ve read article after article about how this was how ‘journalism should be done’ and that it journalists should ‘take note of this’ and how this was the canonical example of tough investigative journalism.

Huh?  This is news? This is a revelation to hundreds - maybe thousands - of print and tv journalists in this country and around the world?

You’d think the 24hr news cycle would foster a greater need for investigative journalism, if only to fill all the on-air time for the tv people and to find the really juicy stories first for the print guys.  But it’s not a motivating variable because news is a for-profit venture and megacorps hold the purse strings. And what passes as “news” these days is primarily a pick-your-bias editorializing a la The Huffington Post or Fox News or maybe an investigative piece on some local, state, or federal government agency or a corporation already hobbled by scandal.  BFD.  That’s a day late and a dollar short.

Stewart/Cramer was great entertainment.  And maybe it was journalism a bit, too.  But I’m willing to bet that Jon would love to be out of this kind of business.  All of us should be, too.

Dan Lyons calls out CNBC’s Jim Goldman for being played by the Apple spin machine.  Gets banned from CNBC.  NBC cable news channels have been a piece of work recently.

Man, when your computer goes down, it really throws a wrench into your life if by “you” I mean “me” and people like me.  I have been without a reliable, stable since mid-August (I do not count this mini9 netbook I’m currently using since it’s not my main PC and does not contain even a franction of my files. Also: Outlook won’t run on it due to its SSD HDD), and I’ve been discombobulated without it.

I’m hoping to shoot the PC in the head (again) and give it a new nervous system (again).  I think its brain is fine.

Amazing what you let go of online…..

Due to last week’s Snowpocalypse here in Seattle, the streets before Christmas were essentially unpassable.  UPS and Fedex had a particularly difficult time getting packages delivered, which resulted in a number of Christmas presents not being under the tree on the 24th/25th.

We made do with the Santa gifts by me going out and buying one more gift each for the kids.  So the “Santa Crisis” was averted, but only just barely.  Thankfully, the kids seem to like their replacement Santa gifts.  However, the gifts from us and my parents hadn’t arrived by then, as did various gift packages from my wife’s side of the family.  Some of those arrived on the 27th, so we ended up with a second Christmas then.

Since then, packages that should have been delivered a week ago have been trickling in and a FEW HAVE NOT YET BEEN DELIVERED.  It’s basically been a full week since Christmas and a good 4 days since the roads have been totally cleared.

The city plan for snow has been a total disaster.  And it’s almost acceptable NOT to have a plan in place for a situation like this, but what is NOT acceptable is to not put an emergency plan together that takes action when a situation like this occurs.  This is not about Christmas gifts (though, that is not a trivial issue where kids are concerned), this is also about city services, public safety, and now with the garbage piling up, public health.

Everyone loves dumplings. Mandoo is a household favorite. These days, it’s so much easier to have them than when I was a kid.

So we said goodbye to my in-laws today after a nice Christmas visit.  Little did they know that they would be snowbound for almost an entire week!  We’ve now got a day and a half of downtime before my sister and her family come into town for New Year’s.  This year, our kids will be 6.5, 5, 3.5, & 1.5 years old, which should make all of them fully interactive.  Unfortunately for them, they will have missed all the snow (so no sledding down the street).  Although, come to think of it, maybe they don’t mind after having survived a few Boston winters.

These days it’s not favorable being a free market supporter.  My alma mater is famous for its free market ideals and its spiritual leader, Milton Friedman. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a3GVhIHGyWRM