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Tech

20 Oct

Alien Invasion…

DLR / Tech / / 0 Comments

dave-globeA couple of subjects. They do relate although initially they may not seem like it.

I want to deal with the issue of sensitivity though historically, I have been dramatically insensitive as a means of drawing attention to those who are overly sensitive. I am sensitive and I feel that I’ve seen something that would bear a sensitive comment. There’s a documentary that you can now see on YouTube in regards to an island that is flooding– Vanuatu or Micronesia or some such. They followed around the tribespeople as they’ve done in New Guinea and the Amazon. These indigenous folks, at one point in history, were cannibals.

As a means of a linear historical documentary, they had a Millennial pair up with a great-grandfather (one of the oldsters). To me, he looked like he was in his 80’s. The great-grandfather taught him the ancient ways: building a canoe, crafting tiki, cooking, etc. Seemingly it was impromptu, the young fella who spoke English, asked the great-grandfather, “When are you going to teach me about cannibalism?” The old man laughed and put it off for a while. The young man coaxed it out of him until the old man said, “I’ll demonstrate as opposed to describing.” The kid was joking around and asked, “How would I find dinner?” The man said, “Come I will show you.” They went and hid to the side of a path outside the village. (This was all carefully filmed.) They sat in the bushes. One of the village women came walking by in a mufti and a wrap around her head, a larger woman. The kid says, “Should we grab this one?” The old man laughs and says, “You’ll have a heart attack before you’re 50. That’s not the way you go.” Another woman comes walking down the path, normal size. Kid says, “Would you have grabbed this one?” Man says, “No, there’s no meat on her bones.” Right behind her was one of the production assistants clearly there for the documentary. She was a hot number, like a Naomi Campbell, and the kid says, “Would you have eaten her?” The old man says to the boy, “No, this one we would take home and then we would eat mom.”

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13 Oct

Time Travel…

DLR / Tech / / 0 Comments

I want to talk about something that you’ve all been waiting for me to talk about. I think there’s never a right time and there’s always a right time, so I’m going to go for it… time travel. I know you thought sushi. “It’s always food with this guy.” No, I’ll talk about sushi on the next column. I think of this as a column. The 1960’s is when I first started reading books that were collections of columns by Art Buchwald, Howard Cosell, (I don’t expect you to know any of these names) and the descendents of Mark Twain. There’s more that goes into a blog and the printed word. It’s a bit more sacred because it lasts longer when it ends up on paper. Steve Jobs said that he felt terrible for new, young artists who only worked in the digital forum because all of their work is going to disappear. In my business alone, (I know you’re wondering… “What business is that Diamond Dave?” It’s telecommunications in all of its departments including women’s lingerie. I am that ant in your pants) there has been 80 different transfers of media. I have entire record albums that I can take out to Henson Recording Studios (In one handful of visits I’ve run into everybody from Timberlake to McCartney… excuse me, I think I just dropped a name. They look me square in the eye and say Dave, “We can’t transfer that anymore. We don’t have that machine” or “That machine isn’t made in America. We know where it’s made but we currently have an embargo.” Where is my record now? You’re breathing it…

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29 Sep

My Stalker…

DLR / Tech / / 0 Comments

Stalker blog. Part 1.

Help! I have a stalker. A very real one.
75 stalker phone calls in the last 4 months.
All of them at 5:30-6:00 in the morning.
All 917 and 301 area codes.
Every now and then at 2 in the afternoon.
Never on the weekend.
The phone calls show up on my old phone but they don’t show up on the phone bill.

Somebody knows a little bit about tech. They even know how to remove the number out of my phone when they want to. This is not the first time I’ve bought the land and gotten some of the unhappy Indians. There is a list of unhappy ex-colleagues, as there always is in show biz, but this stalker is particularly obsessed. They’re no longer prank calls. Having been through the process with the private detectives, lawyers, FBI and ex-FBI, I can speak with some authority. These stalker calls come under the heading of “Domestic Terrorism.” This is all news to me so let me share it with you. I grew up thinking prank calls were the equivalent to toilet papering the old Coach’s house once a season. Just this season alone, I’ve had my house toilet papered four dozen times. 
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22 Sep

The Corner of Screen and Street…

DLR / Sports, Tech / / 0 Comments

screen-street-dlrTurns out I’m not the only one dressed appropriately for Call Of Duty. I heard the Call… My only mistake was not taking a picture with the zombies on the way out. What a gas! The future on 25-ft screens and all of the action was backstage. That looked like something from a science fiction movie– all of the gamers were sitting at long tables with headsets. “The meek shall inherit the Earth,” just like it says in the Bible… or is it Spiderman?

A lot of what’s happening on the screens is like boxing. It is perfectly age appropriate if you realize that the age of the traditional gamer at the moment is probably 20, exactly 4 months before Mike Tyson became heavyweight champion. There is a great degree of reflexive jabbing, stick and move, shoot and go, run to action in both events. These are military, boxing and jiu-jitsu terms and it’s perfect for the gender and age grouping that I saw in action at The Forum and there was a lot of action at the forum. The Forum holds 17,000 of your closest friends. I know. That was just the bathroom… (Stick with me. We talk about time travel in an upcoming blog and I’ll take you back to that bathroom in 1982 until then, it’s all allegations.) There’s a reflex in gaming similar to what you might have in a street fight. You learn to anticipate and almost levitate like a hovercraft. It’s different than grandparent games like chess, go or backgammon that pre-date what’s happening now digitally. I love what’s happening digitally particularly now that we’re at the corner of Screen and Street. That sounds like an actual place… and it actually is.
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02 Sep

Call of Duty

DLR / Sports, Tech / / 1 Comment

DLRandRussWe’re going to the Call Of Duty® Gaming Empire Mega All-Pro Heavyweight Internationals that now takes up a 17,000 seat arena for three days. It doesn’t really matter what it’s called, that’s how I feel. These people competing are not contestants anymore, these are athletes. There are now universities that not only sponsor but field teams of gamers requiring all the qualifications and specifications that you would for a contact football player or a professional tennis player or any other sports team. So the question is, is a gamer an athlete?

Let’s back up… Chess teams have been around for as long as I have and a couple of lifetimes before. We never think twice about the UCLA chess team. They’re sweating. I saw a commercial about an off road 4-wheel vehicle that said, “2 mph has never been so exciting.” It looked like the Jeep was going to fall over backwards and the chick at the wheel was squealing with ecstatic glee. I knew I had to have both, the Jeep and the dame. Perhaps if I bought the Jeep first, it would facilitate the later (you have to think like a guy). 2 mph was fine by me on both accounts. Besides, I’m at the age now where if I go any faster they can’t see who’s driving. Priorities do shift.

I think they’re athletes. Did your heart rate go up to 280 BPM? I think I’ve heard some great material at the Rehab Beach Club in Las Vegas that got my heart rate up to 280 BPM. For me, that’s standard when I’m walking out in front of Madison Square Garden. At Van Halen’s all-time great we had 350,000 people in attendance one night. I’m trying to remember… was that backstage or in front of the stage? Regardless, they were just close friends.
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