Why Didn’t I Think of That? Podcast: GROUPON
I’ve been putting in a lot of work getting this podcast ready for prime-time, and it’s finally here. Please check it out, courtesy of Why Didn’t I Think of That?
Why Didn’t I Think of That? Podcast – EPISODE 1: Groupon
How did a music major wind up founding the fastest growing start-up in history? In our very first Why Didn’t I Think of That? ® Podcast, Bob Smith and Greg Anastos look at the story of Andrew Mason and his tech start-up Groupon, an online daily deal service. Topics covered in this 27 minute podcast include:
-Andrew Mason’s initial inspiration for Groupon
-Controversy surrounding the company’s advertising and recent publicity with regard to its Initial Public Offering filing with the SEC
-Groupon’s plans for the future–including its new Groupon Now feature
-Some practical advice for other companies that are looking to use Groupon to help grow their own business.
Independence Day: Transformers and Poetry
Dear Lord time goes by fast. July 4th is just about here. Some of us have plans. Some of us have no plans. Some of us will be with family or giving thanks for our country, some of us will be doing no such thing.
But there’s something we all have in common: We are all free, and we all like big robots and explosions.
I haven’t seen Transformers: Dark of the Moon yet. But I’m going to. Have I gotten amnesia? Have I forgotten the wasted hours and dollars I spent seeing the first two Transformers?
Yes, maybe I have. Because from the moment I saw the trailer for this flick, I just knew I had to see it. Word on the street is it’s the best of the bunch. Normally, I would give up on a team of “creative” people after they tried twice to make a good movie (the same movie). Maybe it’s because they spent so much darn money on them. Maybe it’s because they shot it in 3D–and the 3D action is being called far and away the best since Avatar. Maybe it’s the girl who’s replacing Megan Fox. But I’ll give Michael Bay his third and final chance to make a Transformers movie that doesn’t have me leading the movie theater with a wince or a headache.
/Film has reported on the great divide between critics and audience members when it comes to this latest movie, which opened on Tuesday in select 3D locations. I read the critics a lot. I don’t always agree with them, but we usually see eye to eye more than me and middle America do. (Speaking of critics, the other “big” movie opening this weekend is the Tom Hanks directed Larry Crowne, which he stars in with Miss Julia Roberts. I’ve read two reviews- LA Times savagely trashed the film, to the point where I knew I had to get a second opinion. Vulture had me covered. David Edelstein says of the “gentle” Larry Crowne, “I found it easy to understand why its trailer is so, so lame—the tagline might as well be ‘Come Smile Awhile.’” Tell your parents to let me know how it is).
But I digress. My point is, while I’m generally on the sides of critics (as opposed to the mass movie going public, or the bureaucratic, elitist, insider sludge of the Academy) I don’t really give a damn what the critics say about Transformers 3 (even the oft-reliable Peter Travers gave Tranformers 3 zero stars, claiming, “Watching it makes you die a little inside.” I hope that shows up on the Blu-ray sleeve). I’m sure the pain of a film like the second Transformers making soooo much money despite their critical warnings is still fresh in the minds of many film critics. I can understand their bitterness. But, while I might have forgotten the utter disappointment and hysterical unhappiness the first two Transformer films evoked in me, I have not forgotten why I saw those films in the first place.
I wanted a good action movie.
CONTINUE READING
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol Teaser Trailer
Don’t tell me this doesn’t look good. Brad Bird directs Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner in December’s Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol.
This is the first film I’ve seen branded as a “Tom Cruise / Bad Robot Production.” This opposed to a Cruise/Wagner Production (Wagner being Cruise’s ex-wife and [former?] producing partner Paula Wagner).
The entire IMF has been disavowed. Only Tom Cruise, the guy who made Lost, and a Pixar director can get to the bottom of it.
M:I 4, people. Lick. It. Up.
What’s It Take To Be Number Four?
What’s It Take To Be Number Four? James Frey’s Small Army of Starving Artists
In college I wrote a Young Adult, Sci-Fi novel about aliens. It was actually a drafting I’d started at seventeen, but I did finish a novel. I started thinking about agents. About publishers. About book tours and signings and fancy interviews where I’d get to talk about all my hard work. I was ready to be a book star.
And this new term, the book star, is exactly what James Frey, author of the controversial “memoir” A Million Little Pieces, is willing to make you if you sign on with his new writing company. The company, called Full Fathom Five, is one in which Frey signs on work-for-hire writers, for little or no pay, for the chance to become the next Twilight or Harry Potter-sized author. As New York Magazine’s Suzanne Mozes, an alum of Full Fathom Five, describes it in a recent feature on the company:
In exchange for delivering a finished book within a set number of months, the writer would receive $250 (some contracts allowed for another $250 upon completion), along with a percentage of all revenue generated by the project, including television, film, and merchandise rights—30 percent if the idea was originally Frey’s, 40 percent if it was originally the writer’s. The writer would be financially responsible for any legal action brought against the book but would not own its copyright. Full Fathom Five could use the writer’s name or a pseudonym without his or her permission, even if the writer was no longer involved with the series, and the company could substitute the writer’s full name for a pseudonym at any point in the future. The writer was forbidden from signing contracts that would “conflict” with the project; what that might be wasn’t specified. The writer would not have approval over his or her publicity, pictures, or biographical materials. There was a $50,000 penalty if the writer publicly admitted to working with Full Fathom Five without permission.
Astral Answers: Jesus is Magic
Dear Shae,
My sister is an ultra-religious fundamentalist Christian. She and her husband believe that God himself decided on them having 8 children. I guess I can handle that, but as I get older I am less and less able to find any real satisfaction in keeping a friendship with her. I don’t want to just cut things off completely, but when we’re together the whole Jesus thing is ALWAYS there, hanging over us. She insists that she won’t try to convert me anymore, which always seemed to be the problem. I’ve realized lately, however, that it’s me who needs to get over her ever-present religion. It annoys the hell out of me. I am an atheist, but I don’t want to be the kind of arrogant atheist who goes around criticizing everything in sight. I would like to have genuine respect for her religious beliefs, but the truth is that I just don’t. How can I stop this trend of liking religious people less and less?
Atheist Rising Continue Reading
Three Father’s Day Tributes
Happy Father’s Day from The Heated Forest
In honor of their Dads, some of our writers have written up tributes, memoirs, anecdotes, memories, and Thank-You Letters for their Fathers.
As a general rule, we don’t like to get too mushy here at THF. But hell. We wouldn’t be who we were without these men. And we figured it was time to finally say thanks.
What’s in a Name? My Coach, My Dad, My Great Old Man
He called me Champ.
My dad, perpetual coach and marketing Maharishi, called everyone by a nickname. As a coach, that’s what he did. He gave kids nicknames. It was his way of branding the individual to strengthen the gestalt. Well, that, or he couldn’t remember their actual names. Regardless, the kids loved having them for the simple sake of having them. Because they sounded cool. Case in point: For me, it was either Chuckie or Champ.
Which would you rather?
There was Slick and Flash and Hollywood and Tito. There was Spider and Speedy and Hondo and Hammer. There was Buck and Say Hey Willie, as in “The Say Hey Kid,” as in just plain old “Kid” (my youngest brother’s glorious epithet and all its incarnations, named after the Say Hey Kid himself). There was a nickname for every single kid on every single team my dad ever coached. And my dad coached a lot, particularly me.
I got mine the summer before 1st grade, playing tee-ball for the Orioles. I spent the next 11 years trying to live it down. Champ, it turns out, while perfectly acceptable for a six-year-old playing tee-ball, is not all too appropriate for the captain of a varsity football team.
Who knew?
History and Haircuts – Things My Father Taught Me
My old man never taught me how to fish. He never took me hunting. He never sat me down on his work bench, the smell of fresh saw dust stinging my nose, and said, “Son, this is a socket wrench.”
No, he wasn’t a deadbeat. He just wasn’t that kind of guy. I’ve sometimes wondered who I would be if I’d been raised by a real man’s man, but the only conclusion I can come to is: I wouldn’t be me.
A few years ago, I took my girlfriend along for a trip to the cabin my family rented on Lake Michigan. I brought a football. My Dad brought old-time radio shows.