Netflix is finally listening, but who the hell was saying this? →

I received a wonderful bit of news in my inbox this morning from Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings:

I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming, and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. I’ll try to explain how this happened.

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business.

That seems like a legitimate fear, amirite? I get this. There is a real need to make sure these two divisions of the company are making money. Why else would you provide a good or service?

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”.

And (allegedly, in my mind) promptly sell that shit off as soon as possible. WTF??!! First world problems, man, they be tuff.

Tags: Netflix be frontin

Sep 19, 2011 • By Mike • Humor, Irony, News That's Fit For Blogging

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Yelping With Cormac →

A Bavarian chocolate cake stood apart, on a simple plate. Like a rancher’s wife it was seasoned by hardships and nature’s brutal arithmetic. Flourless, it awaited a lonely fate.

A Tiramisu teetered like the oldest prostitute in a mining town, reeking of saccharine liqueur. The faint scent of virtue lost amid the hellish musk of ten thousand outrages.

A torte, covered in glistening fruit, a lie as old as memory. Its flavor joyless, a pyrrhic dessert atop a mountain of meaningless artifice. Hasn’t been real sugar in this torte since before the highway was built here. Since before the first settlers came through with bibles and Henry rifles. The slow mockery of corn syrup.

He reached for the Tiramisu with a hand that had been dried by the sun and wind and bathed in the steaming blood of another human being. All that now was behind him.

Pitch perfect restaurant reviews in the style of Cormac McCarthy.

Sep 09, 2011 • By Mike • Literature and Fiction

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Gibson Guitar Raided For Trafficking in…Illegal Wood →

Illegal wood is what Gibson Guitar had in hand at the facilities in Tennessee, according to unnamed Federal investigators. Gibson is charged with maintaining a supply chain of various woods that have been declared off limits.

“The most egregious thing about this is that this wood is endangered. You can’t just bring it out and parade it around in public like common wares,” one investigator, who declined to be identified, opined.

The real question is, who’s strumming this illegal wood as we speak?

Tags: Gibson Wood

Sep 02, 2011 • By Mike • News That's Fit For Blogging

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