Month: November 2002

I’m quite busy today, but that doesn’t mean I’ve left you with nothing to read.

Phil “Pud” Kaplan, the founder of FuckedCompany.com, the Web site that tracks the downfall of dot coms and their absurdity, has an e-mail newsletter called FC Sporadic in which he rants about whatever he crosses his mind. He’s an interesting guy who writes about a good number of things other than doomed dot-coms, and FC Sporadic often provided me with some of the best reads in my inbox when I was a subscriber. I don’t subscribe to it anymore, but my friend Adam Smith still does, and he forwarded the following story to me.

It’s Pud’s story about a bully who tormented him in junior high and how the tables have turned now that he runs FuckedCompany and the bully was the CEO of a failed dot-com. Enjoy!

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When was the last time you were picked on by a bully? Heckled?

I thought I was done with that shit after that dude Roberto who used to beat me up in sixth grade wound up in jail for dropping a rock onto a moving car from an overpass.

But no, it happened again yesterday. This jock guy was picking on me like I was twelve. Specifically, it was Jason Wolfe, CEO of MyCoupons.com/DirectResponse.com.

What I’m about to tell you is the true, accurate, non-embellished story. In case you don’t believe me, I encourage and implore you to ask Mr. Wolfe yourself for his side of the story. He can be reached at [e-mail deleted — Joey], or more conveniently on his cell phone at [phone number deleted — Joey].

…think he needs some magazine subscriptions? i’ve just finished signing him up for the Marines… Semper Fi, Jason!

Anyway, here’s what happened. I was here in NYC speaking at this online marketing tradeshow called AdTech. Specifically, I was helping out my friends at ClickSquad.com with their presentation.

So Andy from ClickSquad does his shtick, selling his wares in front of the full crowd of about 50 people in the conference section of the tradeshow floor. He then introduces me, as I’m supposed to talk and give examples from my book about companies that squandered money on failed marketing ideas.

As soon as Andy introduces me, this meathead-looking dude standing to the side wearing a green monogrammed polo shirt starts to “boo” me. I notice that he’s standing next to two or three other frat boys, all wearing the same green shirt. The normal people in the room are politely applauding my introduction, and this guy is booing.

So I walk up with a copy of my book in hand. I open with, “hey look, the green shirts are booing me. They must be in my book!”

Everyone laughs. Except this idiot in the green shirt. “It’s all lies!” he shouts. “EVERYTHING YOU WRITE ABOUT, IT’S ALL MADE-UP LIES!” At this point, random people around the tradeshow are wondering what the hell is happening and a large crowd starts to form around the speaking area, around the filled seats.

“LIES!! STORIES!!” he shouts like he has Turrets [sic — I believe Pud meant “Tourette’s”] or something.

“He’s right,” I say to the crowd. “Everything on my website and in my book, I made it all up.”

Figuring that would shut him up, I continued as planned. I’m introducing myself to the audience for a minute or two – he starts back up, heckling. “IT’S BECAUSE OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU THAT ALL THESE COMPANIES WENT OUT OF BUSINESS!!!”

“What?” I asked.

He repeats his claim, yelling even louder. At this point, everyone in the tradeshow has moved over to the speaking area, a few hundred onlookers. The green-shirted asshole moves really close to me, separated only by the velvet ropes around the podium.

“I’d love to take credit for the downfall of all these dot-com companies,” I said. “I really would. But I think it has more to do with superbowl ads, $800 chairs, $1 million launch parties, and more generally, the fact that most of the companies in my book went out of business because they didn’t make enough money.”

I go on to give examples of companies going out of business that were clearly “my fault”. For example, Pets.com and their multi-million-dollar superbowl ads. Furniture.com spending more money to ship items than they were making from them. DigiScents spending $20 million so you could *smell* websites. Hell, I’d like to take personal credit for Enron and Worldcom while we’re at it.

You get the point, and so did the audience. Mister green-shirt’s face is turning purple, clearly realizing that he’s waged a losing battle. Guys like Mr. Wolfe aren’t exactly known for their intellectual prowess or debating expertise, if ya know what I mean…

You have to realize, at this point I had no idea who this freak was or what his problem was. At one point I thought maybe he was mentally handicapped so I felt bad arguing with him in front of all these people. So I continue with the presentation.

Thirty-seconds later, “YOU POSTED COPYWRITED [sic] INFORMATION ABOUT MY COMPANY!!!” he screams loudly.

“You have a company?” I asked, figuring he has an ice cream route or something.

“I’m the founder and CEO of MyCoupons.com!” he exclaimed proudly, like the fat kid who finished all his pie.

Ah ha! This guy is a bitter CEO of a fucked dot-com! An actual dot-com CEO! This weirdo actually runs a business! I dunno, I might be going out on a limb here but I’m gonna have to say that it’s PEOPLE LIKE HIM who drive their companies into the ground — I just stand around and watch like everyone else. I was flabbergasted.

So anyway.

“You posted copywrited [sic] information on your website!” he yelled again, making sure the crowd could hear him. Apparently he didn’t realize that everyone thought he was nuts.

The first thing that popped into my mind – in the microphone for all to hear, “Bet I made more money from your copywrited [sic] information than you did..!”

That was a proud moment in my pathetic little life.

Editors note: Later that day when I got home I checked FC to see what “copywrited [sic] information” I posted. I posted a note that he sent to all MyCoupons users notifying them about impending lawsuits and the company’s financial problems. It wasn’t even an internal memo, it WAS intended for distribution.

Anyway, getting back to the story… I ignored his stare-down and finished my presentation.

Presentation over, audience loudly applauding me, Mr. Wolfe looking like a dumbass.

As soon as I walk off the stage, he gets all huffy in my face. Flashbacks of sixth grade, I’m actually kinda nervous, thinking this nut-job might actually hit me. Then again, my apartment needs new floors and I could use the money so I’m kinda hoping he’s gonna take a swing.

At this point I’m supposed to walk back to the ClickSquad booth and sign books. There’s a huge crowd of people following me and this pinhead — who’s in my face. His face is turning purple and I can’t make out what he’s babbling about but he’s doing that thing where he’s talking and spit is coming out of his mouth. It was kinda gross so I said to him, “Your breath smells. Could you stop talking to me?” in my best I’m-not-twelve-anymore-you-fuckface delivery.

I turn around to sign a book or something. He whips around and gets in my face yelling, “WHAT’D YOU SAY!??! WHAT’D YOU SAY?!?! WHAT’D YOU SAY!?!!”. Serious flashbacks to sixth grade here, remember the guy who used to say “You gotta staring problem??!” It was like that.

“I said your breath stinks. Invest in a fucking toothbrush,” I replied. I had a stern facade but I spot his clenched fist and inside I can feel this dude about to deck me.

Suddenly the other green-shirts appeared out of nowhere and forcefully pulled him away before he could pummel me.

The moral of the story? There is none. I’m just a big pussy.

Zooko points out that the phrase “Atkins diet” is number 9 among the top gaining Google queries (according to Google’s Zeitgeist page, which tracks which search phrases are the most popular).. Could it be all the praise it’s received in Cory’s and Doc Searls’ weblogs, an aftereffect of the New York Times article [free registration required] or has Dr. Atkins made a TV appearance recently?

Cory at BoingBoing points to the Future of Music Coalition’s report on the effects of radio consolidation of the music industry [PDF]. For the time- or attention span-challenged, there’s an executive summary of the report.

Equally interesting are the “fact sheet” released by the National Association of Broadcasters in anticipation of this report (“You’re wrong, radio’s great, people aren’t turning their radios off, everyone loves Clear Channel!”) and the Future of Music Coalition’s response.

I’ve pretty much given up on radio (with the possible exception of The Corpse) unless I’m in the car, and even then, I prefer to bring a pack of CDs with me. The limited playlists and repetition of the commercial stations are annoying, and university radio during the daytime is pretty much talk by people who badly need elocution lessons. Thankfully DMCA/CARP and its Big Content supporters haven’t been able to kill of Internet radio…yet.

Today at the grocery store, I saw a very cute woman with her three-year old daughter and thought to myself “Yummy mummy! I wonder if she’s a single mom.”

Maybe it’s the fact that I’m now a “mature gentleman”, but I think it’s just that my brain (or maybe it’s my hormones) is trying to kill me.

After seeing actual results from people I know — Cory, Doc, the older sister of my can’t-commit-to-a-damned-thing ex and Herb (a doctor friend who went to med school with my sister) and recommendations from my trainer Mike (who’s still missing in action) and my mom (who happens to be the Chief of Cardiology at St. Joseph’s Health Centre here in Accordion City), I have committed an act of nutritional sacrilege and hopped on the Atkins Diet.

The basic premise of the diet is that it’s not fat that makes you fat, but digestible carbohydrates. When you eat carbohydrates, your digestive system absorbs sugars from them, which get broken down into the basic sugar called glucose, which you use as fuel. Some of this fuel is used immediately, because your body is like an engine that runs all the time, even when you’re sleeping. Some of it is converted by your liver into glycogen and stored there and in your muscles for near-term use. The remainder gets converted into a form that packs lots of energy into a little space — fat — and gets put into long-term storage tanks on your belly, thighs, butt and eveywhere else that can get flabby.

The Atkins Diet takes this principle and applies this approach: if you cut out the carbs as completely as possible and limit your intake to just proteins and fats, you force your body to start tapping into those long-term storage tanks. As you drain these tanks, you get skinnier.

The Atkins Diet allows you to eat your fill of proteins and fat — steak and eggs, lobster broiled in butter, pork chops — and cut out all carbohydrates — potatoes, bread, foods with sugar, and worst of all, my beloved rice. The strange and counterintuitive approach — which turns the “Food Pyramid” upside-down — has been soundly condemned by the American Medical Association as a “bizarre regimen”; Dr. Atkins has even had to defend his diet at a congressional hearing. However, there’s been all kinds of evidence — anecdotal for years, and scientific — that seems to say that everything we knew about eating might actually be, as an article in the New York Times Magazine [free registration required] put it, “a big fat lie”.

The low-carbohydrate appraoch taken by Atkins seems to have other benefits as well — according to an article that appeared yesterday in Salon, it’s also good for controlling your cholestrol levels. There seems to be evidence that it’s also good for diabetics (very good for me — there’s diabetes on both sides of my family).

Since joining the gym earlier this year, I’ve lost ten pounds and fit in some of my old pants. The problem is that I haven’t been able to lose more than that over the past few months; it’s as if I were stuck. I’m giving Atkins a whirl and seeing what happens over the next three months.

I promise this won’t become some kind of diet-obsessed weblog. It’ll still be the same, fun-lovin’ Advertues of AccordionGuy that you’ve all come to know and love. The only real difference you should notice is that since beer is full of carbs, my drunken nights out will have to be fueled by rum, whiskey or vodka shots (which might make them even more interesting).

Now I just have to see if I can live without rice and beer…

Twelve essay questions, my answers to which they loved, and one very good interview later…

…I didn’t score the semi-final interview, the final interview (or the swimsuit competition, for that matter). It was “we love this guy” followed by “he’s not what we’re looking for.”

I don’t mind getting turned down so much as getting turned down after putting in all the work to answer those questions.

For the technical and the curious, I’ve posted in the questions in my other blog.

To all you drivers out there in Accordion City and other areas hit by last night’s snow storm:

SNOW IS SLIPPERY.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, the white stuff falling from the sky is the same kind of snow that fell last year, the year before and all prior years. They haven’t improved or upgraded it with a higher-traction version. It plays havoc with traction (especially if you didn’t get your snow tires on yet), increases braking distances, and if you’re like the idiot in the silver Honda Accord who was a few hundred metres ahead of me, it will cause your car to spin like a top if you drive as if you were auditioning for Corvette Summer. The solution is to drive more slowly and leave considerably more braking room, especially when the snow’s falling.