After a long week of school, it was nice to enjoy my first bonfire of 2004 (high five). Nearly all the snow is gone, and the mosquitoes haven't started coming out yet. It's a good time to be outside by a warm fire.

I just took my BA390: Organizational Theory and Behavior exam. I wasn't as prepared as I would have liked, but I think I did reasonably well. Besides, there's a saying around here that I increasingly agree with as I get closer to graduation: C's get degrees.

I've often tried my hand at criticism, and I use that word neutrally, whether reviewing a movie, book, album or what-have-you. I find that I'm generally not very good at it. I have positive or negative reactions, but find it difficult to express my reactions and the reasoning behind them. I feel like I'm getting better, depending on the subject, and now I have a guide to help me. Design Observer, a blog I've started reading of late, presents a brief critic's code of conduct (my words, not theirs) that I think critics of any medium, from music to food, could benefit from. Here are a couple of good samples: 28. The search for influences quickly degenerates into meaningless name-dropping; and 5. It is the duty of the critic to be aware of the stylistic development of art up to the present.

At 3 o'clock in the morning, Mike, Ben and I went bowling at the Orleans (High Five!) There were 70 lanes open 24 hours. It was awesome. I set a new personal best by rolling a 180. I also kept choking on potential turkeys. I'd get two strikes in a row, but then I'd screw up the third.

The fountain show at the Bellagio is the best free attraction on the strip. The lions at MGM Grand come close, but its not much fun to watch a big cat sleep. The Sirens of TI at Treasure Island is just horrible. Well, except for the little kid behind us who said stuff like, "Wake up pirates, don't be lazy" and "Hurry up pirates, it's past my bedtime!" Even better than the Sirens of TI are the moving sidewalks at the Venetian.

We were walking through the Bellagio yesterday and stumbled on a World Poker Tour event. I managed to snap this shot of Chris Moneymaker before being told that photography was not allowed. Gene recognized a few of the other players, and I found out later that Ben Affleck and John Favreau apparently enjoy Texas Hold 'em. Not 20 minutes earlier we walked through the Venetian, where some filming was about to take place. I didn't see anyone I recognized, though.

I spent four days in Las Vegas before spending any money on gambling. I lost $100 during the day I did spend gambling so I quit for the next four days I was there. I like to think of it like this: I gambled, among other activities, for close to seven hours so I spent $14/hr to be entertained... not bad considering most of the shows along the strip cost as much as $50 or $60 for not even two hours of entertainment.

Observation: Despite the number of people on The Strip, Las Vegas is lonely place.

Observation: I'm at the wrong conference.

Spending time on Las Vegas Boulevard by oneself is not very fun. There are all kinds of things to do, but without someone to do them with, the fun is sapped from nearly all activity.

I'm not at the wrong conference, per se. The station paid for me to attend NAB. I'm doing that. However, there are multiple tracks of conferences, and I'm in the wrong one. This was made apparent when I went to the Small Market Idea Swap session. I was hoping to get ideas for things KSUA could do to improve our role at UAF. Unfortunately, the session was entirely about sales. I understand that any commercial enterprise relies on sales of products and services to operate. Unfortunately, KSUA isn't a commercial enterprise. While some of the sales ideas can be adapted to the non-commercial nature of college radio, I don't face the problems of salaries and compensation packages that were discussed for 45 minutes of a 1:15 idea swap session.

The conference I would like to have attended was the Post-Production World conference. The schedule for this series included all sorts of ways to use Final Cut Pro and Pro Tools to produce quality video and audio programming. Unfortunately, the two tracks are separate and therefore must be paid for separately, which neither the station nor I can afford.

Not all is lost, though. There are several sessions in this conference that I am interested in. The FCC indecency panel and regulatory face-off affect my college radio station and I'm looking forward to learning about the nature of indecency and what changes the FCC is making.

I landed in Las Vegas at approximately 10 p.m. Friday. It was midnight when I opened the door to my hotel room.

My friend offered to pick me up at the airport, but I didn't want to bother him so I decided I would take a cab. The line for cabs at the airport was as bad as the line for Space Mountain at Disneyworld. It was probably 45 minutes before I was seated in a cab headed for the Tropicana.

The cab ride was relatively uneventful. There was a video screen advert in the car and whenever it would start, the driver smacked it with his fist to knock the disc off its track. After the third false start, the driver vowed revenge on the mechanic who reinstalled the device.

The Tropicana is on the strip. It's at the corner of Las Vegas Blvd and Tropicana Ave. The other businesses on the corner are the MGM Grand, New York New York and Excalibur. I walked into the front door to check in. As with every building on the strip, the first things you see and hear upon entering are slot machines. Some hotels bury their front desk within the depths of their expansive first floors. Fortunately, the front desk for the Tropicana was very close to the front door.

Upon checking in, I was told that only one night of my week-long stay was paid for. This was (bad) news to me. The purchasing department at the university wouldn't be in until Monday, so I paid for two nights on my credit card. It wasn't quite that easy, though, I was standing at the check-in desk for at least 30 minutes. Finally I had my key card... now I just had to find my room. Of course the room is a quarter-mile away, through the casino, past the Trop Shops and lounge singer, around the corner from the convention center and up 16 floors (actually 15, since 13 is skipped).

After dropping off my stuff, I went back downstairs to use the pay phone, since I hadn't paid the $1 to make phone calls from my room. I left a voice-mail at the university so I could get the hotel stuff figured out, then called my friends to go eat a late dinner.

We ate and chatted and listened to a very funny comedian. I got back to my room at about 5:30 a.m. and went to sleep. I woke up at 11 and went down to the business center to check e-mail and find the home number of the university staffer I needed to contact. Because I need the phone number right away, I paid the $.99/min to use thier ethernet port. I hope I never have to pay $.99/min for internet access again. I can't believe they charge that much.

Anyway, Saturday was spent walking up and down the strip, getting some food and then watching quite a bit of television. I also practiced blackjack. I vowed to learn the basic stategy before sitting down at the table. I was going to catch dinner with Mike but he was stuck at work until 1 a.m.

Sunday morning I woke up, showered, and took a cab to the Convention Center. I picked up my registration badge, free bag and conference information packet and waited around. I showed up before 11 and the first thing i wanted to attend was noon. Now I'm paying $5 for an hour of wi-fi access at the center. More on the convention next time.

I spent several days at the annual NAB conference and expo. If you look very closely at the picture, you'll see Oprah talking during the opening keynote. (Aside: after playing Taboo! with Adam, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear Oprah's name is "Fat! Thin! Fat!")

I stayed in a hotel for the first time this week (High Five!). The Tropicana is a tropical themed hotel. The most notable architectural features are (1) The tower I stayed in was 200 yards down a corridor from the front desk. (2) The elevator has a glass wall so you get a good view when going up to the 16th floor. (3) The headboard for the king-size bed has a mirror that continues on to the ceiling over the bed.

behavior or hanging political mine self private seat wool rain act to argument skin talk military example or deep decision

together level hope voice worm smile cat strange north shelf start political shock crime recordreg rice wall shade sun unit interest tail still thin base bulb hollow short burst art word animal under south hearing framegarden against mother connection on roll a pocket line please finger page number bath last train touch...

This is only a fourth of the entire message. Am I wrong, or is the point of spam to sell something? A page of random words isn't a very good sales pitch. If you want to sell me V!@GR4, tell me that it's going to make me rich, attractive and famous, not "hope voice worm smile cat..."

I received my first wedding invitation of 2004 in the mail today (high five!). I seriously hope I can make it. I don't know where I'll be or whom I'll be working for, so there's plenty of variables to consider, but until I know different, I'm planning on going.

I came across a small Zine on campus today. It's called Zine Scene and seems to be an advert/encouragement for people to create their own zines. (click on pages to pop up a larger version)

It only uses one 8.5x11" piece of paper and is folded into eighths. It's mostly handdrawn with some text that has been cut and pasted. There's a page that says "follow the theme" and the line wraps around to other pages.

I'm really excited about this. There's a line that says "[zine seen] will copy and distribute yer zine fer FREE." Also written is "migration deadline 4.29.04" and the word migration is illustrated on the back page.

The destination, Pirate Records, is a relatively new independent music store in town. I've briefly met the proprietor and could see him promoting indy publishing. There may be some alterior motive -- he serves as distribution point, drawing people into his store -- which is cool by me. My favorite page has tips for starting a zine like "make 'em small, foldem up style... or make one big," "8 1/2 x11 or watevah" "we no ceah" "jus' make one".

I really like the handmade quality of the zine. I've spent quite a bit of time with desktop publishing programs like QuarkXpress and Pagemaker/Indesign, but producing something by hand makes it so much more personal. I think this is the first Zine I've seen since I've been in Fairbanks (6 years), and it makes me want to show up with one of my own in hand. I'm definitely going to show up.

When I got my external hard drive back in January (Thanks, Gene!), I told myself I would be responsible and perform regular backups of my harddrive. I finally came through today after finding Carbon Copy Cloner. I can now mirror my data to my external drive with the click of a button (and plenty of time... 40GB is a lot of info, even for firewire). High Five! I tried a roll-your-own backup script from MacDevCenter, but after a couple of bug-fix attempts, I went with the simpler, and equally effective (for me), solution.

Today I had my first RC Cola of 2004 (High Five!). All this time, I'd been buying Coke, then I saw RC in the beverage cooler at my campus bookstore. It's rare that alternative beverages make it to Alaska, there just isn't a very big market for them up here.

This inaugural issue of Papercuts puts two men's magazines in the ring to see which has the stronger spine.

Comments have been re-enabled, please provide feedback.

The Weigh-In

Cover Photo	Angelina Jolie	Ethan Hawke
Price	$3.50	$3.95
Pages	280	268
Page Size	10.8125x7.75"	10.8125x9"
Area (sq. in.)	23,463.125	26,079
Ad Pages	141	141
Ad percentage	50.38%	52.61%

Commentary

Physically, Details has the advantage. The extra 1.25" of page-width more than makes up for having 12 fewer pages by giving the magazine almost 3,000 more square inches of potential content. And, Details is one-sixteenth of an inch thicker despite having fewer pages.

Internally, GQ has a slight advantage: The Ad-Content ratio is closer to 1:1 than Details, but not by much. Advertorials were counted as ads in both magazines, even though their content generally fits well with the magazine's content. Details had two relatively large advertorials, whereas GQ only had one.

The striking thing about these mags is their simlarity. The first few pages of both are adverts for the same companies: Prada, BMW and Calvin Klein -- in that order for both publications. There are about 40 pages of ads before the tables of contents. If, by some crazy machination, you reached for GQ and accidentally picked up Details, you probably wouldn't notice for quite some time.

The clothing and fashion in both magazines is also similar. Most of the clothing is from high-end designers like Dolce and Gabbana and Versace. The exception to the rule is GQ's fashion section this month that showcases ensembles from Target, Wal-Mart and K-Mart (Target's outfits being the best, but that's another story).

Frankly, even the stories don't do much, if anything, to distinguish themselves. Details has a thoroughly reported story about AIDS and Straight Men and GQs journalism piece is about the Dean's campaign manager. Details also has a piece comparing Bush and Dean. GQ has pieces on Snoop Dog and Nick Lachey. Details has Ethan Hawke (which is a great piece, even though it's mostly Q&A) and a nudist family.

Final Word

In this contest, content is king. With that in mind, the edge goes to GQ. Details' Ethan Hawke piece is almost enough to take the battle of March issues, but GQ comes through with better reporting and writing (David Sedaris is a regular contributor, how do you compete with that?). Also, the box store fashion spread is a lot better than Details' layering style pages (pictured above). GQ triumphs.

I love being introduced to new things. I love the thrill of experiencing something great that I haven't seen, heard or otherwise experienced. Yesterday a friend of mine introduced me to Deltron 3030. She sent me a sample song and I was hooked. After listening to this one song, I wanted to know more about it. I found out through several sources that Deltron 3030 is Del the Funkee Homosapien, Dan the Automator and Kid Koala. These three dudes are masterful, and the sum of their powers is greater than the parts.

Why would a magazine not put old content online? I can understand not putting current material online, since it would potentially hurt newsstand sales, but back issues aren't going to get sold except to people already reading the magazine. If you put material online, readers who can't buy the print copy at their newsstand will be able to evaluate the content and potentially subscribe, and subscribers are what the newspaper sells to advertisers. Few people will buy back issues of a magazine they've never read, so you're not losing money by giving away old content online.

In a couple weeks I will be heading to Las Vegas, Nevada, for the National Association of Broadcasters Annual Convention/Expo. As with most major conferences, some events are scheduled at the same time as others, so I won't be able to attend all of them. Fortunately, the expo staff record most of the sessions so they can be purchased on CD and listened to later. I've posted a schedule of sessions wanted to see if anyone is interested in "notes" from any of them. There is also a group of sessions about video production. When I get those posted to the schedule, I'll let you know.

Yesterday was a monumental milestone in the development of UAF Weekly News. After four episodes of tweaks and changes, the fifth show was an amazing success.

The first four episodes were all quite experimental. Each one would try to solve the problems of the previous, while maintaining the qualities that worked. The fifth newscast was a result of hard work, but they was standardization.

In the beginning, we planned on rotating duties each week. The idea was to give everyone an opportunity to learn the different aspects of production, from anchoring to audio, from switching to floor managing. We soon learned that trying to train a new person on the switcher each week was too much, so after the second show, key positions were maintained by the same people. By cutting down on that variable, other problem areas were more easily identified.

Deadlines were posing a problem early in the show. We strived to make a 5:00 start, but often we had to push it back to 5:30 or later because scripts and tapes weren't ready. The friday afternoon deadline, only 3 hours before the scheduled fade up, was causing too much congestion for our limited resources. This week, several staff met Thursday afternoon and prepared the material that was available at the time. Although it wasn't much compared with the totality of the cast (maybe 15%), it made a big difference on Friday as the group was more calm and worked more efficiently.

Another area that was causing problems was the control room. Each week, we would deal with new technical problems. The VTRs wouldn't eject the tapes fast enough, so we had to plan around that. The way the VTRs and Mics were hooked up caused feedback in certain situations, so workarounds were necessary. After several weeks of testing, we finally got the graphics system working.

When we first began planning this program in mid-January, I don't think any of us knew it would take us until April to produce a show we were proud of. After nearly two months, our post-show drinks are celebratory instead of an attempt to forget the problems we'd experienced.

I have a newfound respect for stations around the country, especially the small ones with limited resources, who do on a daily basis what we're barely managing to do once a week.