Disney Makes Smart Move, Buys Club Penguin

Yesterday's Advertising Age featured Abbey Klaassen and Andrew Hampp's article on the new takeover of the ever tween popular Club Penguin by Youth Kingdom royalty, Disney.

Read the article by clicking on the link:
http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=119654

This may be one of Disney's smartest moves yet, considering its dire need to rejuvenate the Disney reputation since its final high points during my diaper days. Considered to be a classic producer of youth culture, the gradual failings of cinematic popularity and lethargic sales surely must have hit Generation Y in the face--if they cared enough that is.

In any case, Disney coughed out some movie attempts in the past decade, none of which really shone through the Pixar empire or even dared match the success of its more recent accomplishments such as Mulan. Disney tried to market its cell phone for kids, the Disney mobile. Disney tried to bank on its cable channel--which probably works for some of the couch potato junkies aged 5-13--but none of the above has really sold it through to Generation Z, the newest, most technologically connected generation of all.

A classical mouse and all his cohorts just didn't seem likely to cut it next to the anime craze.

However, this 700 million investment, though pricey for a gaggle of penguins, is pure gold. Club Penguin serves all those teeny tots who cannot access FaceBook or shouldn't be on MySpace, as well as planting a cute and gender-ambiguous world to frolick in. What child doesn't want to be an animal and throw snowballs at others? The swanky little island e-club also allows older kids of the forgotten classic Disney generation to sign on and harass the little ones, without seeming too intimidating. After all, you're not stalker815 on IM, you're a pink artic bird with a hat.

Club Penguin will surely be Disney's ticket to packing back some guns on its body. Becoming the Disney Club Penguin will classify the site as well as modernize the corporation. And as for being ad-free, it may be better off staying that way--but Advertising Age has got a point. It's ironic--but isn't that how advertising works?

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As a highly popular virtual portal into a cartoon world with real-life personalities behind the penguins, Club Penguin not only attracted members with its fun graphics and activities, but also with its fantastic independent label. This buy is good for both Disney and Club Penguin, but it's also a shame that Club Penguin decided not to continue showing the web world that success can work without being wrapped in red tape.

See the official letter from the founders of Club Penguin on the buy-out:

http://clubpenguin.com/news.htm

Finding Enlightenment on the Metro

"Look beyond the single news item. Are they isolated events? Or are they part of a global pattern that has real significance?

The preaching of armageddon is no uncommon encounter. We've had it all in our respective experiences--sweet old men passing out brochures on Jesus, friendly but aggressive strangers accosting you in the middle of a campus, deceiving Korean Christians trying to recruit you to their Christian team, and of course the presumed lunatics who wander the subways and sidewalks proclaiming the end of the world and the coming of the messiah/Satan/reign of evil via the Bush administration.

These religious pawns are seen everywhere and usually ignored, albeit often times with the excusal of just being slightly off their rockers. In recounting my instances of run-ins with armageddon fanatics, perhaps I have found a thread of reciprocation to this seemingly ominous question aforementioned.

In other words, I think I can ask the very same that I've been asked.

My mother, feeding off the suspicious and superstitious Chinese tell-tale personality of generations, has been the source of amusement and fueler of fear for me when it comes to armageddon and its link to current events. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, and the great tsunami--all of which killed so many people--my mother went around whispering during news hours, "The world is changing." The random snows in California and the hot 70 degree winters in Maryland wrought a sense of fear in my mother and inadvertently in me, for she, as I'm sure many others around the world did, considered that perhaps these natural disasters and terrorist attacks were a sure-fire sign of man turning on man and the world coming to an end.

And then she blurts, "It's because of Bush."

I laughed at this translation, but according to Chinese superstition, the gods easily invoke their wraths of fury at world/kingdom leaders through natural causes. And of course, even the Christian legacy will proclaim the same with sinners, concluding the fate of the world with an ever frightening purge.

Is she crazy? Not at all. My mother is a very grounded, very sane, very reasonable woman. Her notion of world karma, however, is easily transferrable, easily corruptable simply through delivery. Take, for example, an experience of mine last month on the metro:

Every morning I catch the subway train to Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C. As I was sitting on the train waiting for people to board at one of the many stops en route, I distinctively heard the blow of a horn. Boarding the train was a black man with a graying beard and ratty, khaki-colored clothes. He was fully equipped with a booming voice and a large horn. This horn was unlike an animal's horn and certainly not like the brass instruments that we're so accustomed to, but a full-fledge horn. It curled into a large arc and measured to be about the length of the man's torso, and when he blew, it sounded reminiscent of a conch shell--except magnified about 30 times.

He blew, startling those around him, and bellowed, "THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS NEAR. YOU CAN STILL AVOID EVIL. BUSH IS THE POSSESSED ANTICHRIST." This easily could be a crazy homeless man who cares too much about politics, and yet, the root of his words matched those of my mother's.

Coming from a Communications background, I am quick to remind you that the medium is the message. He prescribes his epiphany in an insane way, he is seen as insane. My mother--only mildly insane (although if you REALLY knew her, you'd claim otherwise).

Another instance: I was walking through Downtown Silver Spring and parked on the astroturf was a small crowd of people listening to a man demonstrating with an easel. He had marked on the left side of his board: MONEY + SIN + YOU = GOD. On the left side was a silhouette of a body torso with a red heart and a black hole in the heart. The snippets I caught announced the need for the acceptance of Jesus, but the image I saw was an amateur Fortune 500 lesson.

My point is that en-masse we notice patterns. We seem to respect large gatherings of events. After all, how much more extraordinary did the Virginia Tech massacre seem than your individual downtown murder, despite the fact that there is nothing normal about being shot to death?

En-masse, in hindsight, I noticed the pattern of increased armageddon preachers--does that mean that armageddon is truly near if these pawns are busy crawling out of their nooks and crannies and stealing our attention? Or are they isolated events, with each individual finding their own revelation that they must warn us of all invisible infractions?

What I found today on the subway was the true message of the Lord. He came in the form of a man--not a very beautiful man, not a very graceful man. I was sleeping on the train and I feel a heavy PLOP in the seat next to me. A large, muscular man with a heavy set jaw and sun glasses was holding a small booklet too flimsy for his large, tan hands. He shot me a clumsy grin and said, "I'll be quiet. Shhh," and allowed me to go back to sleep.

He had on blue sweat pants, sneakers, a light blue muscle shirt and a cap. I stared at his booklet and he leaned in and started to speak to me.

"You see this?" He pointed at a series of black and white pictures memorializing nuclear bombs, wars, battle grounds. Then he flipped the page to a drawing of rolling hills, sunshine and pure nature.

"Wouldn't that be wonderful if the world could be like this? Do you know how it's going to happen?"

"What?" I asked.

"Do you know how it's going to happen?" I shook my head. "Would you like to find out?"

And he gave me the book, telling me he has plenty more.

I asked if he was Christian; he said yes, and he tries to be a good one. He told me he was from Washington to take care of his ill 80 year old father. He told me to be safe when I left. I told him him to have a good day.

He told me much more in those few moments I had with him--he told me of kindness, the faultiness that lays in judging a human by their cover, of what God's true message was. God's true message is to simply listen, hope, and spread the quiet moments that he gives us, for in our quiet moments does God speak the loudest.

He told me that I would never know if the separate messages I received from armageddon fanatics were individual and unique or not. He told me that they should be, however, a pattern of global significance--that this pattern should be a peaceful, horn-less, one in which everybody spreads the word of God, the coming of the Lord, the end of the world as a beautiful merging of heaven and earth. He told me that anybody could find God in any one, anywhere.

I found it in him on my ride to work, he who told me so much but kept his promise--he was quiet...and I still heard him.

Leash that Dog...or Leash that Idiot?

Here's the deal. A good dog only has its value in respect to its relationship that it has cultivated with its owner. Any single mistake executed by said good dog is easily enough to warrant it a bad dog in a stranger's eyes.

Now here's the second part. Not unlike many other states and straight pure logic, my home state of Maryland declares owners liable for their pets and above all, leashing their pets. The liability for any incurred dog injuries goes in the following process:

According to Kevin Willging of Niles, Barton & Wilmer, LLP, the claimant must prove that the owner exercised "ineffective control" of the animal in order to hold the owner liable for any injuries caused by the dog. This level of control is measured by what degree of notice that the owner has that his or her dog may attack. Key fact two: the pure and simple notion of a leash. Given that all dodogs are required to be leashed and not allowed to run at large, any violation of this law is in and of itself a means to be charged with negligence.

Here's the situation--one that you will find me in fault and one that I clearly admit to wrong-doing:

I have two dogs, Yoyo and Ding Ding. Yoyo is a small bichon-shitzu mix, as is his sister. Ding Ding is about the size of a small cat, a mini dog. A tiny little chicken nugget of a canine. Ding Ding is prone to charging and barking at people that she does not know, simply because she has little-man syndrome and likes to think she's a rottweiler. Yoyo is just about the dumbest, happiest dog who completely collapses onto his back if you touch him in the slightest bit. He loves to greet people, she loves to try to eat people. Our dogs have been disciplined to know that in our human-canine relationship, they are never to leave our sight but may stray as far as they would like...they always come back. When it comes to strangers sharing our path, Ding is usually picked up and held onto until the party leaves so that she may not be of any concern--Yoyo is good enough a dog to wag his tail and go off.

Today Yoyo cried from morning until night because he wanted to desperately go out for a walk. So after kickboxing tonight, I came home at 9:30 and my mother and I walked the two of them--sans leash. Yoyo had sprinted away, Ding was within five feet reach, and lo and behold we have a nice middle-aged Indian couple having their romantic pre-slumber, summertime walk. Alright. I go to fetch my little bite-size monster but before I make it to her, she starts making her rounds and barking. Let's consider this: A dog the size of your foot is most likely going to render bouts of fear if it is charging at you and growling, but you're not going to get anymore than a nip from that tiny little mouth.

So of course, Ding is circling the couple and barking and vacillating back and forth, and to nobody's surprise, their first instinct is to completely have a breakdown. This woman is shrieking and the man is crying out and that only excites a dog more.

Lesson number one for Idiots: When there is a dog threatening you, just stand the fuck (excuse my French) still and try not to excite it. I mean honestly, do you not learn anything from greyhound races, the game of tag, the general reciprocal relationship of hunt and chase? They see something go and they want it even more.

Finally I get a hold of my monster and they're walking away, completely upset, as they have every right to be. We call for Yoyo to come back, and on his way on bounding towards home, he gets excited by newcomers and flops on over to them. In the dark, especially after a scare not quite half a minute ago, this second dog surely must look like a terrifying prospect. So the lady takes off halfway up the side of the hill shrieking again, and my poor dog thinks they are playing. The man starts hissing and shooing away this confused animal who only wants to say hello because it is in his nature to have such a happy disposition.

When we finally get a hold of him as well, the man spits out vehemenously, "DON'T YOU HAVE A LEASH FOR THEM? YOU SHOULD LEASH THEM. NEXT TIME I'M GOING TO BRING A STICK."

Okay. Fine. We should leash them. I know the law. I know we're breaking it. I also know I'll break your entire face if you EVER touch my dogs. So my mother, not quite hearing everything, just says thank you and tries to dismiss it as we depart from one another.

And then I hear, "Idiots." I turn around and say, "Alright, that was unnecessary." Man explodes, screams, "YES IT IS NECESSARY." I start yelling at him and my mother is trying to pull us away. The last thing I hear, is a split second delay of a loss of words, and the man splurting out, "SHUT UP!"

Now, it is one thing to hear "shut up" in an argument, another to hear it with an Indian accent, and yet another to hear it as a final word. It's one of those moments where you are seized with absolute confusion. Do I laugh at him? Should I sneer at his 5 year old come back or say something intelligent to spite his lack of efficient argument?

To be the bigger person as I had been doing for the entire time, I merely turned and walked away with my mother chirping in my ear about always instigating fights.

But here's the final deal. For every wrongdoing that I may committed with the non-leashing of my canines, that man played even more of a ridiculous role in trying to snub me behind my back. If you feel that inadequate as a grown man that you must verbally attack somebody over an incident that has already occured, much less to say that somebody having not said a single nasty thing to you at all, then you are clearly the idiot on the loose. I have fully admitted in this rant that I was wrong from the beginning and surely that should not warrant such juvenile behavior. But there you go; people are sure to try their hand at anything to look better and smarter than you. But if your best shot is a flimsy "shut up" screeched at the top of the lungs as a final coup de grace, your argument has completely flopped, any consideration of mine towards you as a reasonable grown man, and your ultimate swipe at me has done nothing but made me think that YOU'RE the idiot ...and my dogs should have just simply taken you out.

New Beginnings, Old Thoughts

Let's just say that it's been a while since I've updated my LiveJournal and perhaps, the adult thing to do now is to blog, not e-diary write. Seeing as I never thought I would succumb to the creepy, nerdy, technological world of internet expression, it certainly was an ironic moment when I finally came to terms with the fact that I am indeed part of this encoded cult society. My guilty partakings in LiveJournal, Facebook, Instant Messenger, Gmail Chat, You Tube, Myspace (sadly coerced into making an account thanks to my college roommate) have all ultimately led the way to this blog.

For a while I would come across blogs and read all sorts of entries that were interesting to read but I could never completely grasped who gave a crap about a stranger's opinion. However, so far this summer I have worked for about a month at GYMR Public Relations in Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C., as an intern. Nine to five, 40 hours a week of databases, coverage matrixes, media lists, meetings and five stacks worth of paper printed and copied to date--and honestly, one finds a lot of time to think in those hours of slightly tedious work. And while I try to jam out to my cd player (yes I'm still old school and loving it) and not fall asleep, little things come to mind that are inspirational enough for me to dedicate a good 20 minutes writing, but alas, I am at work and cannot. Even if I am not at work, those half an hour long commutes are prone to mind-wandering.

In any case, here we go. Whatever you read, consider it comes from the perspective of a 20 year old. If I say anything disagreeably stupid, please excuse it due to my fabulously youthful personality...and if I say anything that blows you out of the water, please do remember to attribute it to that baby 20 year old and think to yourself, "Wow! Kids these days DO know how to think."