“Where hacks come to spew nonsense” - B2B
I had a meeting with a British cycling journalist earlier this week who stated that he wrote mostly for “punters.”
So what’s worse, being a “punter” or a “fred”?
I think punter sounds better but the British guy liked the sound of fred.
It’s a compelling issue.
(sent wireless via Treo 650)
A furious Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino vowed yesterday to throw the book at the masterminds behind a guerrilla marketing campaign gone amok that plunged the city into bomb-scare pandemonium and blew nearly $1 million in police overtime and other costs.
As city and state attorneys laid groundwork for criminal charges and lawsuits, cops seized 27-year-old Arlington multimedia artist Peter Berdovsky, who posted film on his Web site boasting that he and friends planted the battery-wired devices, and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown. Both were jailed overnight on charges of placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct.
“This is outrageous activity to get publicity for a failing show,” said Menino, referring to the battery-operated light-up ads for the Cartoon Network’s “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” which sparked at least nine bomb scares in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville.
Menino promised to sue Turner Broadcasting Co., the Cartoon Network’s parent company, and criminally prosecute Berdovsky and anyone else responsible for the devices, and to petition the FCC to pull the network’s license.
August J. Pollak says it better than I can.
1. Attorney General Martha Coakley needs to shut up and stop using the word “hoax.” There was no hoax. Hoax implies Turner Networks and the ATHF people were trying to defraud or confuse people as to what they were doing. Hoax implies they were trying to make their signs look like bombs. They weren’t. They made Lite-Brite signs of a cartoon character giving the finger.
2. It bears repeating again that Turner, and especially Berdovsky, did absolutely nothing illegal. The devices were not bombs. They did not look like bombs. They were all placed in public spaces and caused no obstruction to traffic or commerce. At most, Berdovsky is guilty of littering or illegal flyering.
3. The “devices” were placed in ten cities, and have been there for over two weeks. No other city managed to freak out and commit an entire platoon of police officers to scaring their own city claiming they might be bombs. No other mayor agreed to talk to Fox News with any statement beyond “no comment” when spending the day asking if this was a “terrorist dry run.”
4. There is nothing, not a single thing, remotely suggesting that Turner or the guerilla marketing firm they hired intended to cause a public disturbance. Many have claimed the signs were “like saying ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.” Wrong. This was like taping a picture of a fire to the wall of a theater and someone freaked out and called the fire department.
5. The FCC can’t pull a private cable network’s license, Mayor Hyperbole McFuckwit.
This proves it. The terrorists are winning. They really don’t need to attack us here, we are doing a more than effective job at tearing this country apart without their help. What a total joke.
Sheesh, I am tired.
I am going to call the doctor and try and get in next week to see what he has to say about my shoulder. Some of the online research I have done seems to indicate that I would be looking at a six week recovery time from a surgical procedure.
I don’t have six weeks open until early October at the soonest. If I want to race cross this year then I might have to put it off until early November. The question is whether or not I can put up with the bad joint between now and then. I think I can.
I injured it in February of 2005 and had some additional trouble during the summer of 2005 when swimming but I have not had much problem with it since then. Bike racing obviously does not cause me any trouble as I rode and raced all of 2006 without incident.
The only question is what happens if I crash. She who no longer blogs, Gilby, was asking me this afternoon if I am worried about crashing on my shoulder. She has had some problems with a bad shoulder and worries about crashing on it. Maybe I should worry about it and, to be honest, if I was racing next week I probably would be worried about it. But, if I don’t have any problems between now and April then I probably won’t be thinking about it at all. At least I hope not. We shall see.
I think tomorrow I will post some factory pictures and video that I shot this week in France.
