Howard Owens

I own a Treo 600, which is a great little device. It's a phone, of course, and a PDA, and a camera, but it also means I can log onto the Web from just about anywhere. It's helped settle a few arguments up at Smoker's Castle.

A few weeks ago -- and I wish I had some notes on this to tell you exactly who I'm talking about -- a tech executive on Charlie Rose talked about the fast approaching day when we will all carry devices about the size of a PDA that will contain pretty much all of the world's knowledge. And if for whatever reason some bit of information isn't stored on the device, it will be readily accessible over the ubiquitous wireless (WiMax?) network.

This news about Google's new deal with Harvard, to digitize Harvard's documents, is undoubtedly a step in that direction.

A friend brought this article to my attention. It is about a guy who decided to experiment with steroids and found, to his amazement, that his eyesight improved. In fact, he was able to stop wearing glasses.

You don't think improved eyesight would help a major league hitter, do you? Like, oh, I don't know, somebody who seems incredibly disciplined at the plate and is able to recognize pitches quickly and easily. Even better than he did early in his career. Somebody, like maybe, Barry Bonds? Just a thought.

This is an issue of steroid use, as my friend pointed out, that you don't hear discussed often. Not often enough, I think.

Seth at Nowheresville has the coolest blog design I've seen. Too bad he's decided to stop blogging. Give him six or eight months. I bet he makes a comeback.

Over on Welch's Warblog, I left a comment offering a comparison between steroid-hyped batters cheating the game and gamblers cheating and was pretty roundly rebutted. Kevin Featherly treads the same path, but with a subtler juxtaposition and better results.

Some deny that this is a crisis, fashioning it is a mere embarrassment. But why would anyone imagine that throwing a World Series to gamblers in one year (1919) constitutes a greater travesty than handing an immortal record like Hank Aaron's home run championship--the most famous, most notable achievement in all sport--to someone who has bought and paid for the pharmacological, bioengineered fountain of youth?

Is there anyone left who believes that illegal chemicals are not the sole reason that Barry Bonds has hit more home runs after age 35--the age that the human body naturally begins to lose muscle mass--than Roger Maris, a two-time American League MVP, hit in his entire career?

The analogy between gambling and steroids may be imperfect, but the impact on the game is equally devastating, so why not ban steroid users? As Kev points out, there is precedent in the Jenkins and Howe cases. I'm solidly behind lifetime bans -- ones equally harsh as those meted out to Joe Jackson and Pete Rose. And I stand by my statement that if you're not going to ban an artificially enhance masher, then you have no business banning Rose. For one thing, arguably, what the steroid users are doing is far worse than anything Rose is accused of.

As for John McCain and the rest of the feds getting involved in the issue, I say, "NO!" This is a matter for private enterprise to work out for itself. If the owners and the players won't fix it, then the fans need to decide if they'll stick with the game (enough will, I imagine to keep MLB profitable). I do hope baseball decides one way or the other, though -- either it's legal or it ain't. There should be no more of this wink and a nod attitude. Fans, those who choose to stick with the game, have a right to know who's doping and who isn't.

Money Quote:

A journalist? Hell, what does that mean? Peeking through keyholes? Chasing after fire engines? Waking people up in the middle of the night to ask them if Hitler's gonna start another war? Stealing pictures off old ladies? I know all about reporters, Walter. A lot of daffy buttinskis running around without a nickel in their pockets and for what? So a million hired girls and motormen's wives'll know what's going on. Why-... Golly, what's the use? Walter, you-you wouldn't know what it means to want to be respectable and live a half-way normal life. The point is, I-I'm through.

-- Hildy Johnson, His Girl Friday

Most Fridays after work, some Saturdays and assorted other days of the week, I can be found in a little cigar shop on Main Street called "Smoker's Castle."

Who knows how long the shop's been there, but the oak-paneled decor has the whiff of early '70s small town merchant. Smoker's Castle was a cigar and pipe shop before fine stogies were hip and has outlasted local upstarts that tried to cash in on the craze at the end of the last decade.

It's survived on the strength of a group of a dozen and a half or so of regulars who don't usually buy by the bundle, only rarely plunk down as much as $10 for trendy churchills or coronas. Me, I fork over $1.60 each for five or six robusto maduros that have been lovingly rolled out of second-grade tobacco by apprentices in Honduras. Generally, a better cigar is hard to find, but the quality is unpredictable. That said, the only flaw that ever makes these sticks unsmokable are 1 in 15 that are rolled too tight.

Buying cigars at Smoker's Castle is only half the fun. What keeps me a regular is the people I meet -- unknown screenwriters and producers, brick layers, tow-truck drivers, postal workers, gardners and the occasional CPA or lawyer. If your vision of a smoke shop is a place populated by high-livin' CEOs, then you've never been in a neighborhood smoker. It's more like a local bar than a swanky Beverly Hills salon.

And I'm sure our conversations are more interesting, whether it's the best place to buy habanero cheesecake or how to cure dysentery with camel dung, you might just hear something you've never heard before. Or a good dirty joke. And if you've been there more than twice and haven't been insulted, you just aren't part of the gang yet. Insults, in fact, are our primary pasttime some days.

Pictured are Brian, Marty and Vic. Vic is the proprietor. He's owned the place about eight years. He's pretty sure he's handsome, and plays a pretty good Flamenco guitar. All around good guy. He sets tone both in civility and barbed rejoinders.

Tonight's entertainment included Time of Your Life, a dreamy, plotless story starring James Cagney as a barstool philosopher and small-time philanthropist. The ensemble cast is made up mostly of actors you'd only recognize if you watched at lot of 1940s B-movies. In another time, this would be a noirish take on a seedy dive bar and the down-and-out losers who drift in and out. Instead, it's more of a kitchy morality play about the value of individuality. A fine sentiment, but with characters so flat you could slip them through a cooling vent, the drama of their lives is sucked out of the story like so much dust in the air. Too bad Bukowski never rewrote this script. He could have made something of it.

Anybody interested in customer service on the Web should think of a good, honest question to ask the Defense of Department and then surf on over to DefenseLink.mil.

If you go to "Contact Us" and ask you're question, the response page offers up contextually sensitive links to information in the DoD's FAQ. Another tab offers more contextually accurate information from the DoD site. You can also access you're previous questions and answers. It's all very slick.

A couple of years ago, I sent in a question to the DoD through this site and I got a detailed, personal answer within 24 hours. Clearly, the DoD is setting the standard on the Web for customer service. I've dealt with a number of large corporations on the Web, including a number who clearly take customer service seriously and are trying to do a good job. The DoD, as far as I'm concerned, is the best.

When I was a kid, going to the baseball game was a very different aethetic. There was an Hammond organ. There were people cheering and clapping. But there was no rock and roll. There were no theme songs for each batter. There was no "Hell's Bells" for the closer.

Fans also didn't do the wave.

The old days had it advantages. Then, it seemed the gamed mattered more than the entertainment. If the fans wanted a rally, they started the rhytmic clapping themselves. When a hit was called for, we yelled "We want a hit." The scoreboard didn't offer cue cards. As a fan, you had to follow the game if you wanted to do more than sit on your hands.

And fans didn't do the wave, which is the dumbest non-cheer in sports.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who feels this way.

I'm pretty happy with how the Padres (13-9) are doing so far this season. But the other bad team gone good story this year is Detroit. I thought I would take a look at their roster and maybe do a post on why ... but then I looked at Alex Sanchez's stats.

Can you answer this question? Maybe Matt Welch can. How do you get an OBP that is LOWER than your batting average?

As I write this, Sanchez is hitting .350 after 60 ABs. His OBP is .344. He has no walks. But still ... a lower OBP?

Sanchez is about as anti-moneyball player as you can find. Only 3 SBs, and he's been caught twice. Only 12 runs scored and 7 RBI. Sabermatric types don't get too worked up over Ks, but I do. Sanchez has struck out 15 times.

The Tigers are 12-9. I wonder how many wins Sanchez has cost his team?

Contradicting my speculation, Phillip Swann says Tivo will not die.

Meanwhile, Gordon over at Venturepenuer links to one of my posts on Google, and I still say from a business standpoint, Google would probably be better off remaining a private company.

The Net rewrote the rules for books, music and travel. Business week says six more industries are ripe for the picking: jewelry, bill payments, telecom, hotels, real estate, and software.

If I were a Google rival, I would be praying everyday that the company would issue an IPO.

Being a publicly traded company doesn't outright kill innovation, but it creates powerful currents against it, along with a host of pressures to take short cuts to profits.

I actually think going public is a huge mistake for Google. They don't need the cash infusion. I don't see what Google has to gain by an IPO.

For Google watchers, Business Week has three worthwhile pieces. Start here, then here, then here.

I think I like the company-line answer on whether it would be fair for Microsoft to bundle search with the desktop? "We don't have an opinion on that. Search is a very big space."

I think these guys are very smart about the nature of competition. It isn't about monopolies or leveraged advantages. It's about understanding your customers, the jobs they want to get done, and coming up with better solutions. Google will compete with Microsoft just fine, I predict, regardless of what Microsoft does. I don't expect to see Google dragging Bill Gates into court.

One other thought: I don't understand all of this hand wringing about Gmail. It's ain't a privacy issue. If you sign up for a service to that scans your mail, you've knowingly surrendered that corner of your private world. It's you're choice, and it's none of the damn business of privacy advocates if you make that choice. This is about the biggest non-controversy on the Web since Netscape introduced the FONT tag.

If that's still not enough Google for you, here's more Google news from Google News.

Where Apple built a better computer, but lost out to more modular and less expensive IBM-compatible machines, Tivo's superior user experience may not be able to hold off the lower-price and convinience consumers get when they sign up for DVR service from their existing cable companies. A great user interface, as Apple learned, isn't enough to stave off competition at a lower price point.

There are some signs that Tivo execs understand this, but is it too late for Tivo to move away from a properietary software model? Some investors think so.

To put this in the terms of Clayton Christensen, where Tivo has been a disruptive technology relative to traditional television, the cable companies are disruptive to Tivo with a "good enough" service at an attractive price. For the cable companies, it's also a sustaining business model -- improving service for its best customers. And as Christensen would note -- established companies win sustaining battles with start ups every time.

Apple survived serving a niche market and with a cult aura. But there could also be some very different dynamics at play. For example, there is no evil empire gunning for Tivo the way Microsoft went after Apple, so the Tivo cult may not be as energized, and therefore more readily switch to another product when other services eventually become as good as Tivo. On the other end, nobody ever "Mac'd" a spreadsheet they way consumers "Tivo'd" "The West Wing." The word "Tivo" may have permenantly entered our lexicon for DVRing in a way that will survive the company. Unfortunately, there's no money in a great brand name if there's no product to leverage it.

You know, I've never been able to decide when to date the beginning of this blog. Was it April 14, 2002 when I made my first post -- but was available only on my desktop while I still developed the site? Or was it a week later when I finally went public.

Either way, I've been at this infernal addiction for two years now.

Through the last several weeks of my limited posting, there were many evenings where I felt tempted to run to the computer and post my thoughts on my new favorite show ... American Idol.

This is the first season I've watched, and find that I do enjoy it. Simon Cowell is a really perceptive judge of talent, and it's fun to watch these kids perform. The music isn't always to my taste, but some of the finalist are incredibly talented and deserve a crack at stardom.

To my mind, there are four, and only four people in the final 12 who deserve a record contact. They are George Huff, LaToya London, Fantasia Barrino and Jennifer Hudson.

I got a kick out of Jon Peter Lewis, and I would cast him in a minute as a sitcom star, but not as a pop singer. Early on, I rooted for John Stevens because he was a good looking kid with a taste for old time music. But it didn't take me long to realize he is no future Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin. He isn't even a Mel Torme. Steven's is the next Jack Jones or Perry Como. He is a Steve Lawrence in search of and Edie Gorme. He should have been voted off the show weeks ago, yet he lingers.

Apparently, the sub-13 girls are keeping him in a sports coat and penny loafers.

If it was simply a matter of keeping John on until the final five, when the real talent is left, I would simply shrug.

But tonight, I watched this week's shows ... and was shocked to discover that not only was he NOT voted off ... he wasn't even in the bottom three.

The bottom three were the three best singers in the competition, London, Barrino and Hudson.

To put this in perspective a bit more ... last week Barrino gave the best performance of the Gershwin classic "Summertime" that I've ever heard. It gave me chills, it was so good. My wife and I watched it three times. It was Billie Holiday or Etta James worthy. Yet, this week, even after another great performance, her she was, not only in the bottom three, but the bottom two.

The one voted out: Hudson, the one contestant who has gotten better with each performance.

It was hard not to conclude that some sort of racism was at play. How could lily white, subpar singer John Stevens beat out Jennifer Hundson? I can guarantee you that not one single idol voter who voted purely on talent considerations voted for John Stevens.

But the best explanation for what happened is those damn little girls.

Clearly, if American Idol is going to have any credibility going forward, something must be done to limit the voting and prevent clueless preteens from stuffing the ballot box. One site I read suggested requiring a fee to vote. Good idea. Frankly, I don't have a better one, and I'm not sure it would work. But it might help.

If John Stevens wins this season, I may very well not bother with another Idol season. What would be the point?

The one saving grace is the comfort in knowing that all four of my favorites on the show will, at seasons end, have record contracts, and successful careers. They're too good, and have gotten too much exposure from being on the show, not to move forward from here. But with so much talent, it must be galling to lose to somebody like Stevens. Even Stevens knows he doesn't deserve to be there at this point ... you can see it in his face every week after he survives another round of votes. He knows he's not good enough to be on the Idol stage at this point. And next week, don't be surprised if Simon doesn't tell him that in even blunter terms.

More on the controversy here and here.

I'm excited. My homestead is now wireless.

As I write, I'm in the living room with my new HP laptop connected to my Netgear wireless router. This isn't my first wireles post, though. That honor belongs to post before last, about Kevin. That was made on a train between San Diego and Ventura using my SprintPCS Handspring Treo 300.

BTW: Now we know why the anti-war crowd was so upset when US troops allegedly protected the Oil Ministry. It stopped the records of bribe payments from being destroyed.

For fans of Innovator's Solution, a blog.

I'm just starting to uncover the "innovator's web" ... seems like there's a lot of good resources out there, and some interesting perspectives.

For those of you who don't know what all this is about ... think "Moneyball" for business geeks. There's a lot of paralles between the two books ... it's all about efficiency, using information that matters (OBP -- jobs people need done) and ignoring information that doesn't (BA -- technology for technology's sake, i.e. CueCat), and relying very little on the professional, grey-beard scouts.

UDPATE: I've changed my mind a bit about the blog I link to above ... though I initially found it based on a post about the book, and read some other stuff related to the book, digging further into it today, there's a lot of stuff that is more "old scout" thinking than "moneyball" thinking on the blog, including a link to a really fuzzy-headed post from another blogger on how all future innovation is going to be driven by female-cultured, flat, collectivist teams.

In San Diego this weekend ... Saturday, saw my first game at Petco.

I've waited a long time for this stadium. Even before there was a Coors or a Camden, I thought the city should built a baseball only facility downtown.

Now that it's there, I'm not disappointed. It's a beautiful yard. Perfect for San Diego.

I took a whole bunch of picture.

Here's a slide show. There are 24 shots in all.

Kevin Featherly and I have a long history ... we met when he wanted to write for the Beacon, and I was co-publishing it. A few years later, when I left the Carlsbad Journal, I recommended him for my vacant position. He got. A year later, when a position opened up at the Daily Californian, I recommended him and he got the job. At that point, he started calling me The Godfather. He's a great guy. One of the kindest people I've met in journalism. And smart, too. A little left of center, but that's ok. I remember during the first Gulf War we got in a couple of arguments. That was the first time I ever took a pro-war stance, btw. At any rate, Kev is now a blogger.

So far, Petco is playing like a pitchers park, and I couldn't be happier.

I attended an Arena Football League game for the first time. I had four free tickets, but the only person I could con into going with me was Steve Smith.

All of you who turned me down, you didn't miss much.

For the fast pace, AFL is an extremely boring sport. Nearly ever pass is a completion, nearly every possession a score and hardly anything ever goes wrong. There is little tension, and zero drama. About half-way through the second quarter, Smith and I retired to the Staple's sports bar where he could watch his Dodgers and I could watch my Padres.

The bar was dead. In fact, the staff was busy closing up -- no customers, they all go home.

We talked with one of the bar tenders about it, and he told us that the bar was usual dead during Avengers games, whereas when the Lakers are in the house, the bar is jumpin'. Funny, I thought, initially, it should be just the opposite.

But when I returned to my seat and looked at the people around me -- obviously, not the LA elite, not the wealthy, but families and blue collar types, it struck me -- the AFL appeals to the kind of crowd that spending their hard-earned money on a game ticket, they're going to watch the game, and not waste $10 on a whisky sour.

I've been reading (actually, now, re-reading) a great book by Clayton Christensen called "The Innovator's Solution." It's all about how entrepreneurs grow businesses -- successful growth comes from finding a product or service that either isn't available, but people want or need, or the available product or service is either too expensive or too inconvenient to use. Such products or services are called "disruptive innovations."

When Southwest Airlines started their point-to-point flights at low costs, they introduced a disruptive innovation into the marketplace. Southwest wasn't competing against bigger airlines. Southwest was competing against busses and cars. They were making airline travel for short trips cheaper and easier. That's why the business grew so quickly.

The Arena Football League is also a low-end disruptor -- selling a product to a class of people who want to enjoy live sports, but can't afford NBA prices, and maybe find MLB a little slow.

The big mistake I see the AFL making though is being locked into deals were concession prices are outrageously high. The AFL could probably appeal to even more families if the price of four dogs and sodas was in the $10 to $12 range, instead of exceeding $25.

I've re-recorded the vocal for "I Think I'll Buy Some Land in Colorado."

I think it's better.

You may disagree.

That's your right.

This is so damn exciting. I can't wait until I get to see my first ballgame in the new stadium ... probably April 17.

When I hear music as soulful, heartfelt and immaculate as Greg Brown's, I want to find some shimmering and honest way to tell you about it. But finding the right words to get to the gritty truth of performers like Brown requires more poetics than I can muster.

Greg Brown has been making music for more than 25 years and has 24 albums to his credit. Mostly, he's written and performed his own material, gaining a reputation as a skilled and powerful songwriter.

Now he brings us "Honey in the Lion's Head," a collection of songs of the hills and woods of America. Like Dave Alvin's Grammy-winning "Public Domain" -- an inevitable comparison, especially when Brown opens with an even earthier "Railroad Bill" -- "Lion's Head" takes the songs of the land and transfuses them both with an updated esthetic and he's own unique style.

Like Alvin, Brown's throaty baritone gives the selections an authenticity that none of the '60s folksies could achieve with their perfect harmonies and precious arrangements. Brown isn't trying to make a commercial document to revitalize a genre. He is paying tribute by paying close attention to the original intent of the songs.

Fans of Alvin and Johnny Cash's American Recordings series will love "Lion's Head."

And that's as close as I can come to conveying the imperative message: Buy this CD.

I'm not a fanatical Bogart fan, but for a long time, I figured there were few good Bogart films I hadn't seen, and fewer still (like none) that I didn't at least know about.

Somehow, In A Lonely Place escaped my attention. That might have been because the original prints were in pretty bad shape and it rarely (if ever) showed up on teevee or video store aisles. Fortunately, not long ago, the film was restored and it's now available on DVD.

In A Lonely Place is classic Noir. Set in 1950 Los Angeles with all the murder and intrigue a mystery fan could hope for. It's also a love story. If you think every Hollywood film has a happy ending, you haven't seen In A Lonely Place.

It's the story of a screen writer who invites a young girl back to his apartment, then sends her on her way with cab fare. She is later murdered. The writer is accused of the crime, but a neighbor woman provides him with an alibi. Soon, the writer and neighbor fall in love. But the writer is a complex man who isn't easy to adore. He is a man who is gentle and kind, but also hot tempered and thuggish. He is a man that viewers, and his lover, come to believe is capable of murder.

The script is deft and the plot artful and unpredictable. You are drawn into the characters pyschology both by their solid acting and by the construction of the film. It is beautifully shot (some great exterior scenes of 1950 Hollywood) and cut.

Bogart made so many wonderful films, but he may never have played a role better than Dixon Steele. He is both vulnerable and transparent and simmering with an unquenchable rage. He is cynical without being borish. He never overreaches for his anger, while leting his face tell stories words could never convey.

In the bonus material, a commentator says, "I'm not saying this is the greatest film every made ..." I agree. But it is a perfect film. It is flawless in every way, and should be a must-see for every noir and Bogart fan.

Lot's of goodness on Timm Herdt's California politics blog right now.

Bill Hobbs has all you need to know about the Bush AWOL myth.

So, do you want a slice of rock and roll history?

When I saw a Mini Cooper parked outside my gym a year or so ago, I thought -- what a cool car. It's retro European, but thoroughly modern. If it wasn't so damn small, I'd want one.

I figure I'd seen Minis in films about London and whatnot, but until today, I didn't fully appreciate the Mini history. Today, I happened across the MiniGuy's shop and found a garden of these quaint little hot rods.

It's amazing, some of these cars can now sell for upward of $20,000. And the MiniGuy is quick to tell you, he'll ship to anywhere in the United States, and has.

I sat in one of these things and surprisingly, I fit. But even at a low-end $6,000 model, I don't think I want to adjust to a right-side drivers seat.