Just in time for the shopping season: Manolo’s shoe blog.
Category: Culture
Madison Rep’s Copenhagen
Go…. see the Madison Rep’s production of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen. We very much enjoyed Thursday’s performance which was the Rep’s first show at the new Overture Center. Nancy noted that the lighting and set were very well done. The rep has a page on the people behind the set construction.
“I’d have to get a real job”.
Walking quickly on a brisk Saturday morning Farmer’s Market (cold wind) last week, we stopped to make a purchase. I asked the vendor how he was holding up in the cold? “If I didn’t do this, I’d have to get a real job”. “I’m great!”
TV’s go Dark
In the middle of a scene, the TV turned off.
For 10 seconds, Li kept looking, waiting, not blinking through his glasses. At last, he left his stool, trashed his plate and emerged into the cool autumn night.
Leaving, he passed 48-year-old Mitch Altman, who was twiddling a matte-black plastic fob on his key chain. Altman’s blue and purple hair reflected the pizza shop’s neon, and he was smiling excitedly.
“We just saved him several minutes of his life,” he said.
Li agreed. He said he didn’t care that the TV was gone, even though he had been watching the show.
Altman’s key-chain fob was a TV-B-Gone, a new universal remote that turns off almost any television. The device, which looks like an automobile remote, has just one button. When activated, it spends over a minute flashing out 209 different codes to turn off televisions, the most popular brands first.
I think this is great. I’ve never understood the need to put TV’s absolutely everywhere….. Ken Lonnquist comes to the rescue with an appropriate
mp3 – Time Vacuum!
Cow Quarter…. Coming Soon
Following a “first strike” ceremony featuring a contingent from Wisconsin, the first Wisconsin quarters began rolling off the assembly line here and at the mint in Philadelphia. They’ll continue to be minted for the next 10 weeks until an estimated 400 million to 500 million will be circulating through Americans’ pockets and purses.
Soon, Wisconsin’s quarters will be plunked into soda machines and Salvation Army red kettles, tossed into church collection plates and casino slot machines and wind up in kids’ piggy banks and tollbooths for those who have to travel through Illinois.
San Francisco Outdoor Smoking Ban?
Tara Siler on San Francisco’s plans to ban outdoor smoking (audio).
Boulder’s Pearl Street = Madison’s State Street?
I recently visited Boulder, CO for the first time in 10+ years. Strolling down Pearl Street, which in many respects is similar to our own State Street, on a pleasant fall day quickly illustrated the ongoing challenge of retail chain encroachment…..
I wonder if a similar fate awaits State Street? In other words, will Ragstock ultimately move on as Gap type stores take over?
A Pravda View of Guild.com
Jason Stein points to Madison’s Guild.com as an example of how “critical that [venture capital] funding can be”:
In the late 1990s, Sikes dreamed of turning her Madison art catalog and publishing business into an Internet site that could sell pieces of art directly to the public. With millions in venture money to strengthen it, Guild.com survived the dot.com bust and now has 35 employees.
“Venture capital helped build this company to what it is today,” Sikes said. “The reason most start-up businesses fail is because they’re undercapitalized. There is an enormous need in Wisconsin for more venture capital.”
Fred Schwarzer, managing director of Charter Life Sciences in Palo Alto, Calif., said most venture capitalists stay relatively close to their East and West Coast offices and don’t get a chance to discover Madison companies like Guild.com.
Rather than drinking the kool aid and simply printing Guild CEO Toni Sike’s statements, Stein should have dug in a bit and run a quick Google search and found that:
- Local investors lost millions during Guild’s chase for west coast VC money
- Guild was bought back from Ashford for less than pennies on the dollar
Holding up guild.com as a local vc success story would be like the folks in Silicon Valley point to their substantial VC investments in massive failure webvan as an example of why they need more venture funding. Local NBC affiliate channel 15 (now a friend of Capital Newspapers madison.com site (!)) ran a brief story on Guild a few years ago. No mention was made of their financial history. I phoned the reporter after the segment aired and asked why this was omitted. She said: “well, the local investors got to keep their [worthless] stock”.
I’m not sure we can point to any successful VC backed firm here. Rather, we can look to those firms that have built businesses brick by brick, such as Epic systems. This lack of big numbers points to the real problem, too few folks are willing to take risks…. (Sikes took some, for sure, but let’s tell the whole story).
Unfortunately, this type of hype is quickly dismissed by anyone doing their homework, which the serious VC’s will do.
TV’s last gasp? Sony at 70″
Likely a last gasp before projectors and high resolution laptops take over: Sony’s new $10K 70″ TV (!).
Ed Haggar Died
Ed Haggar, who coined the term “slacks,” has died. From the Dallas Morning News obit: Mr. Haggar teamed with legendary Dallas advertising pioneer Morris Hite to coin the term “slacks,” his son said. Pants were largely known as trousers until then.
“During the war years, people tried to get more casual during the weekends, during slack time or down time,” [his son] Eddie Haggar said. “Dad and Morris Hite…came up with the name slacks.”