Category: Culture

Sadly, Kwame lost, but it won’t hurt his career. Which is good — I think he’d have been a better hire than Bill, although I’m sure Bill will do a good job for The Donald. On the other hand, Bill certainly did a better job on the final task than Kwame. Kwame was stuck with Omarosa no matter what, but he should have at least tried to sideline her.

Even given that he’d kept Omarosa, he might have had a chance to win if he’d defended himself in the boardroom. I’d have used the situation as an excuse to trot out the “I always hire people who are smarter than me” line, which has the advantage of being true. I’m pretty sure Kwame’s management style works better when he’s had the chance to build and/or mold his own team rather than inheriting a bunch of subpar workers.

I’m already looking forward to Apprentice 2, in large part because competitors can think about strategy now. This season, since nobody knew how the final few shows would work, strategic planning was a shot in the dark. Now, I think it’s clear that you want to ally with another strong competitor; the goal is to get to the final four and then out-interview your ally. That way you get him or her back on your team for the last task; it’s immensely important to have a strong employee there.

Mind you, that’s not exactly what Bill did (unless Bill and Amy had a stronger alliance than we saw) and it’s more or less what Kwame did. So it’s not a guaranteed win. Still, I think that if Kwame had dealt with Omarosa better he’d have won because of Troy’s strong support, and it’s certainly the strategy that got Kwame and Troy into the final five.

The 2004 Hugo nominees are out. I have very little opinion. I do find it interesting to compare them to the Nebula nominees, insofar as the Nebula nominees include quite a few stories originally published online.

The rumor is that this is Owen Wilson.

“My life is boring and not worth writing about, except for my knowledge of one thing. So this blog will focus on that thing. It is, for lack of a better word, celebrity. I stumbled onto it by a series of chance events. Suffice it to say, I can tell you what it’s like to see your picture on the magazine rack every now and again when you pay for groceries. And that’ll have to suffice. I’d like this to be the sort of account afforded only by anonymity. And it that happens, if my identity were revealed, I’d quickly be selling grapefruits — instead of paying $14 a pop to eat them — on Sunset Blvd.”

Maybe, although the paranoia of exposure seems a little overwritten. But what do I know about being a celebrity? More to the point, do I really care as long as I can pretend that the gory details of Hollywood life are true?

“Recently, though, a producer I’ve worked with and seven Industry buds of his flew their own private jet from LA to Havana for a day of mojitas, Cohibas and sixteen-year-old whores, and, upon their return, were each fined $25,000, for no other reason than their hubris. For the producer, this is Tooth-Fairy money, and a small price to be hailed as a bad ass. I should note that my cleaning lady, who’s small enough to be turned away from the more perilous amusement park rides, could kick his ass.”

I don’t care if it’s fiction as long as it’s amusing.

Excellent second to last episode of The Apprentice tonight. I’m already looking forward to the next season, when competitors will know the format better. There wasn’t a lot of metagaming in this season, and that’s got to be partially due to the lack of information about the full rules. Next year, contestants will know that they’ll see their fired peers again, and they’ll know that they can keep allies on their team safe even when it gets down to three people per team. More important, they’ll be more confident about the twists.

I also enjoyed the interviews, and wouldn’t have minded watching more of them. There’s no question but that this episode demanded a completely different set of skills than previous contests. In particular, Amy’s lack of substance showed up in a big way. Given what Trump’s looking for, it’s going to be very clear who has no chance next year.

I liked Kwame’s tactic of hiring his old team, since they weren’t as ego-ridden as Versacorp. Most of Bill’s people were pretty clearly unhappy about losing. Of course, Omarosa’s screw-ups may have blown that tactic. Albeit… he picked second, so he was going to wind up with Omarosa no matter what. So the real question is whether giving Omarosa a little egoboo was worth not picking Nick. And I think it was; Nick was showing some serious attitude at Bill. So since Kwame was going to get Omarosa no matter what, he was smart to get Heidi over Nick.

Now, why Bill would choose both Nick and Amy is beyond me.

Dave Winer on journalists:

Journalists do all that they think bloggers do, with an extra added bonus of arrogance. There’s no accountability. No equivalent of the ABA or AMA. No malpractice suits to worry about.

Well, no equivalent except the SPJ. And while it’s true that journalists don’t have to worry about malpractice suits, I hear libel suits are still in vogue.

It’s such a silly question anyhow. Blogs are a medium, like television and newspapers. Journalists can blog; blogs are not inherently journalism.

Not that I am not all about the Luke Wilson, but I cannot help but think that 3001 ought to list C. M. Kornbluth in the credits somewhere. "Marching Morons" comes to mind.

The IMDB boards are all a-twitter because the plot is stolen from Futurama. Which, I guess, is evidence of Kornbluth’s predictive skills.