Day: March 29, 2005

Tuesday

Sad news: the passing of Johnnie Cochran. NY Times has an article already posted.

A hilarious Ad Report on Slate.com: celebrity voiceovers in ads. Seth Stevenson writes on the curious development of Julia Roberts doing AOL ads (huh? really should pay attention the next time), Richard Dreyfuss being the voice of Honda (which I recognized for awhile), and Gene Hackman (!) the voice of Oppenheimer Funds and Lowe’s (which explains why I kept thinking that Gee Whiz Authoritative voice sounded strangely – well – authoritative). So weird! The funny thing I like about celebrity voiceovers (more than mere celebrity appearances/endorsements) is that if you even recognize the voice, it’s like your own little secret. I’ve enjoyed recognizing Liev Shrieber’s voice (yeah, I watch way too much PBS documentaries if it’s getting to the point of recognizing Liev Shrieber’s voice in a tv commercial), and – of course – Patrick Stewart (doing Goodyear commercials – oh, yeah, sure, reliable tires; although, still not quite sure what to make of his voice doing Dr. Seuss style poetry for that stomach problem medication – I mean, geez, Patrick Stewart, are you endorsing this stuff or are you doing it because you need the money?).

On a sidenote, regarding celebrity endorsements: I think Earl Grey tea people should give Patrick Stewart/the Powers that Be of Star Trek a small residual for getting Earl Grey tea out there. I mean, it’s turning into one of my favorite teas, and I just don’t think I’d ever know about Earl Grey tea if it hadn’t been for watching Capt. Picard’s ordering of “Earl Grey, hot.”

Oh, and for cool PBS documentary voiceovers, there’s always Morgan Freeman. Thumbs up – I was watching this documentary on the artist Romare Bearden, and Morgan Freeman’s voice was just awesome.

Are we ever going to see the sun again? Hmm.

Up and running

Well, looking forward to the FC & P- express train from Brooklyn here in Taipei. Sorry, but the gloomy rainy weather has returned this week with a vengeance. Pouring rain and wind making it really yucko!

This is a busy week socially as another friend from California arrived this past Sunday. He’ll be attending the SecuTech 2005 Expoin Taipei this Thursday. Some interesting stuff.

Meanwhile, I’m busy with my own baby, ML McLean & Associates Co. Ltd. in Taipei. I built the website using all open-source technologies recently and relatively painlessly. People ask me, what does ML stand for and why McLean? Well, it’s very unscientific but an educated guess in that Asia companies really like American sounding names. McLean is really anglo-saxon and ML doesn’t stand for anything. So what does it do? It’s a business and technology advisory and consulting firm, a mouthful. Essentially, we do consulting and training for companies that are looking to be more competitive. Our range of services is aimed at the locals looking internationally and the expats and foreigners looking to survive and expand their presence in Asia. We’re the classic Asia-West bridge company.

There’s hope here in Asia-Pac, particularly because of China and its black-hole affect. Compare that to the US where the real-estate market bubble, basically foreigners buying up everything is causing everyone in the US to go poor. One has to be really rich to live in the US and I fear that the longer I stay out here, the less likely I would be able to return to the US and live the life that my parents did. I think already, people have trouble doing that without racking up obscene amounts of debt. I don’t know. Seems like the proverbial, there’s no thing such as a free lunch is only half-true :-|?

=YC