Wine will make you live longer

So says The New York Times today. Sounds good to me. I don’t need any excuses to drink more red wine.

The great TSA luggage scam

When American Airlines announced two weeks ago their plans to charge for any checked luggage on their flights, the public — as seen through the media — was outraged. How could the money-grubbing airline industry big wigs be looking to charge the poor, helpless wittle consumer yet again?

Gawker, however, wasn’t sold on that populist argument put forth by the American media. Hamilton Nolan sympathized with the PR flacks and airline reps who have and will continue to bear the brunt of the criticism:

As hard as it is to sympathize with the airline industry, they deserve a little sympathy. They were the victim of an easy cheap shot by the national media, which cried “Not another price increase!” while knowing full well that revenue needs to go up one way or another. American’s only mistake here was being the first one to put in this fee. Now that they’ve broken the cherry, watch as all their fellow airlines fall in line.

There is problem though with Nolan’s criticism and the media’s coverage in general. People writing about American Airlines’ plan have, by and large, neglected to touch upon key aspect of the $15 luggage fee: Due to ridiculous TSA measures, a lot of travelers have no choice but to check their luggage.

The TSA, as they are wont to remind us at every opportunity in every U.S. airport, will not allow travelers to take on any sort of container with liquid, gels or aerosols larger than three ounces. While there are prescription medication exceptions, anyone wishing to take a long trip with shampoo or toothpaste or mouthwash or after shave or cologne or perfume will be totally zapped by the American Airlines policies. Travelers can’t take these items on the plane, and while it’s possible to pack a small suitcase for a long trip, toiletries are, by and large a necessity.

So now travelers are faced with two choices. They can continually spend the money on the other end to buy new toiletries or they can pay the airlines a fee to manhandle check luggage. Either way, the traveler is the one getting bilked out of money, and I’m surprised only that it took so long for the airlines to figure out a way to exploit TSA’s so-called security measures for financial gain.

This is heavy

Movie buffs on the East Coast awoke to some bad news on Sunday morning when word of the Universal Studios fire broke out. The efforts to stop the fire, at first hampered by low water pressure, were eventually successful but not before a large swarth of movie history burned to the ground.

According to the L.A. Times, among the big-ticket items lost to the blaze were the King Kong exhibit, some street scapes used in countless films and movies and a 40,000-reel video vault. While the vault is recoverable, the rest of the damage is tragic, and one item stands out to me above all else: The iconic Courthouse Square from Back to the Future went up in flames.

While I know that the original set was lost to a 1990 fire, this latest blaze still strikes a deep chord with me. Like millions of other kids growing up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I loved the Back to the Future trilogy, and I still watch those movies today on DVD. They’re timeless classics and hilarious sci-fi, time travel films. Christopher Lloyd is over the top as Doctor Emmett Brown and Michael J. Fox plays Marty McFly to a tee. From “Great Scott” to the Grey’s Sports Almanac, those movies are a wild ride.

When news of the burning courthouse struck, I feared for the clock tower itself. I’ve seen the clock tower once on a Universal Studios visit, and it seemed like I was looking at Hill Valley, California. The only thing missing was Dr. Brown swinging off the the top of that clock while a DeLorean hurtled down the street approaching 88 miles per hour. While little eight-year-old Ben was a bit disillusioned by the fact that the clock wasn’t stuck at 10:04 p.m. as it was in the movie following a 1.21-Jigawatt lightening bolt, it was still a pretty awesome site for a little kid.

Luckily, the fire didn’t knock out the Clock Tower, and all is well in Hill Valley. But had we lost that piece of pop culture and movie history, it would have been I sad day indeed.

It was 41 years ago today

Happy 41st Birthday, Sergeant.

Fire that copy editor

Notice anything wrong with this? And I’m not talking about the constipated look on Kevin Garnet’s face. Take a look at the caption, and if you’re (hint, hint) still stuck, read the file name.

Strong Bad would not approve.

The Facebook version of ‘You’re doing it wrong’

On my Facebook profile, my political views are listed as “liberal,” and Barack Obama is one of the politicians I support. Why, then, with their fancy advertising system promising to reach “the exact audience [advertisers] want with relevant targeted ads” am I getting the following ad on my profile?

New York City, now with 17.2 fewer square miles

New York City is shrinking, reports Sam Roberts in The Times today. Well, maybe it’s not shrinking, but city planners have calculated that the landmass of our fair city is actually 17.2 square miles smaller than it used to be. No longer a robust 322 square-mile city, the Somewhat Smaller Apple is now down to 304.8 square miles.

And what can you do with 17.2 square miles? Roberts tells us:

¶17 square miles could accommodate 13 more Central Parks, nearly a third of Washington, D.C., about three dozen versions of Vatican City and nearly two dozen replicas of Monaco.

¶If 17 square miles were populated at Manhattan’s density, New York might be home to as many as 1.1 million more people.

¶At the price of an acre in Midtown, as recently computed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 17 square miles could be worth $1 trillion.

Brooklyn, my current home borough, emerged the biggest loser. Kings County finds itself 10 square miles smaller than it was yesterday. Mabye it’s time to invade New Jersey to reclaim those 28 square miles the feds took from us when they award Ellis Island to the Garden State.

How many rock radio stations does it take to play new music?

Right now, K-Rock is playing Cheap Trick’s Surrender while Q104 is playing Cheap Trick’s I Want You To Want Me. Welcome to corporate-run radio stations in the year 2008, thirty years after these songs first came out.

A meeting of the blogging minds, but to what end?

Six days ago, I attended the popular Brooklyn Blogfest. While my blogs aren’t particularly germane to Brooklyn — the subways go everywhere and the Yanks are New York’s team — I live in Kings Country and plan to do so for a while. I consider myself a Brooklyn-based blogger and stay attuned to the goings-on in my neighborhood and borough through many of the blogs represented at the Blogfest.

In the intervening six days, I’ve had a long time to think about the Blogfest and no time to write down some of my thoughts. While the participants all had praise for Louise Crawford’s excellent event-planning and generally tireless organization, the few blogs that dared to critique the blogfest drew some ire from those who participated. Most notable were two posts from Brooklyn Skeptic — here and here — that touched upon some of the Blogfests shortcomings.

From the outset, the people who ran and produced the Blogfest did amazing work. Many people do not blog for a living, and those that do are busy running their sites. That the Blogfest went off seemingly without a hitch and with such a large public response speaks volumes to the dedication of those behind the gathering.

But my problem with the blogfest, similar to those views expressed by Brooklyn Skeptic, is that the festival’s programming is not geared toward the proper audience. The sense I got from the crowd last Thursday at the Brooklyn Lyceum was one of blogging sophistication. The overwhelming majority of folks in attendance ran their own blog, worked for a Web 2.0 company or were familiar with the intricacies of blogging. Gersh Kuntzman, the editor, as he’ll remind you over and over again, of The Brooklyn Paper, was one of the few print media people in attendance, and his presentation about blogging and the role they will play in the future was by far the most interesting.

The programming, I found, was geared toward the hypothetical people in the audience with a limited knowledge of blogging and the Internet as a medium for creative writing, photography, reporting, neighborhood watches and so on. The group at the Lyceum didn’t need a five-minute presentation on the top ten tips for starting your own blog; the overwhelming majority of us in attendance had figured out those tips and many more back in, oh, 2005.

What the Blogfest needs — and what Gersh touched upon — are serious panels about the nature and shape of neighborhood blogging. We don’t need introductions; we need depth. While some presentations covered these topics, a revamped panel format instead of a one-off speaking format would do wonders for the Blogfest.

Kuntzman in his presentation mentioned the Brownstoner comment epidemic. On Brownstoner, every comment thread devolves into an Internet fight among anonymous trolls. As these comments are a very public part of the blog presentation, what does this inability to have an intelligent and unmoderated comment discussion say about the future viability of blogs as a news source? Are we doomed to Godwin ourselves into oblivion? Can blogs really democratize — or is it socialize? — media without moderation?

And that’s just the tip of the ice berg. Bloggers as a group can discuss the various ways blogging is just like traditional media coverage. We cultivate sources; we accept tips; and some of us even fact-check.

Maybe at next year’s Blogfest — and, yes, there should be one next year and in the years to come — the Brooklyn Bloggers can move beyond the idea of “Hey, we’re the bloggiest borough in the country” to something more substantial. With all these Brooklyn blogs and many among the most prominent in the country, we all collectively must have learned something more than how to give a good shout-out, right?

I am younger than John McCain…

…and so are all of the things listed on this excellent new blog. You can submit your own on the site. The word game Scrabble is younger than John McCain.