August 21, 2006
So I was really tickled to check out this collection of Watterson rarities that Lynn found. It's neat to see his pre-Calvin work, as well as examples of the only couple of authorized Calvin and Hobbes items that Watterson ever licensed.
My sons both love these books, and I wish I could get them an authorized t-shirt to keep the characters alive as they were intended to be seen, not as some peeing or praying little boy sticker planted on the back of redneck pickup trucks.
Posted by: JohnL at
10:18 PM
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August 15, 2006
Hit:
A nicely done reenactment of the Halo 2 trailer using stop-motion Lego animation:
Miss:
A mixture of live action and crude stop motion to tell an original story set in the Halo universe:
If I had a few more hours a day to goof off, I could see the fun in putting something like these together. And now there's a global audience ready to consume whatever is posted for their viewing pleasure. Maybe someday...
Posted by: JohnL at
07:54 PM
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August 13, 2006
Mr. Bailey's success as an entrepreneur began in the fashion business. Having first worked as a traveling dress salesman, Mr. Bailey soon opened and ran a successful men's designer clothing store in Cincinnati for 10 years. When he got his first franchise from McDonald's in 1984, he moved his family to Plano (a great place to live!) and was successful enough in the difficult Valley View Mall food court location that he obtained a second franchise within a year. Over the next 22 years, he added 59 more stores to his portfolio.
His story could have ended there as a great tribute to the American Dream lived by so many successful small business owners. But as the article points out, there's a special angle to Mr. Bailey's success. In the early 1990s, Mr. Bailey decided to distinguish his franchises by spending money to make them more aesthetically pleasing at the same time as his corporate management was pushing cost controls:
In 1992, Mr. Bailey opened unit No. 7 at Preston Road and Royal Lane just as McDonald's was entering its low-cost era....
It was the most expensive McDonald's built in the United States that year, with a $650,000 tab. A company-owned unit less than three miles away was the cheapest, costing half as much. The regional vice president chastised Mr. Bailey severely for this perceived folly.
"Two and a half years later, I bought that store because McDonald's wasn't making any money," he says, stating fact more than bragging. "I was doing 40 percent more in sales in basically the same trade area."
Mr. Bailey knew then what Virginia Postrel would later identify as the "aesthetic imperative." In Ms. Postrel's words:
Aesthetics--the look and feel of people, places, and things--is increasingly important as a source of value, both economic and cultural....
Aesthetics shows up where function used to be the only thing that mattered, from toilet brushes to business memos to computers and cell phones. And people's expectations keep rising. New tract homes have granite countertops, so hotel rooms have to have granite countertops too. Family restaurants used to be all about price and food, but now they have to worry about their decor. We've gone from Pizza Hut to California Pizza Kitchen. If you're in business, you have to invest in aesthetics simply to keep up with the competition.
Or, as Mr. Bailey's experience showed, to beat the competition.
For more in the same vein, check out Ms. Postrel's The Substance of Style. And be sure to read the entire Morning News article about Mr. Bailey.
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09:57 PM
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