The More Things Stay the Same: United Airlines is clearly still managed by morons. We debarked from our Auckland to Los Angeles flight early yesterday morning. In the span of the 30 minutes we spent going from seat through immigration and customs, I counted 6 completely unnecessary employees. First, a nice person in a blazer stared at each dazed passenger as we exited the plane. This person's job appeared to ensure that everyone was able to take a hard right and follow the sign labeled "exit" in multiple languages. Two minutes later, at baggage claim, we witnessed not one, but TWO people whose job was to catch baggage coming down the chute and place the handle outwards for easier grasping by passengers. And finally, the coup de grace occurred at immigration where two different people stood in front of the signs marked "visitor" and "non-visitor" (again in multiple languages) and pointed people in the right line. These were all United employees. At $75k in cost per employee per year, just in one terminal in LAX they could save $300k. Is it really that difficult to walk around and see this stuff as a highly paid CEO of United Airlines?

.. the More They Change. I went and checked out a local LAN gaming cafe here in San Francisco last night. It's an internet cafe that specializes in computers geared for PC gaming. So, the audience is typically male, 13-30, and playing computer games against each other and on the Internet. I saw these across NZ and Australia. As for the location here, even in light of some poor management (I was charged for 60 mins even though I was there for 90 mins), they appeared to be doing well. At 9-10pm last night there were 10 young men (and one woman!) playing Counter-Strike and Warcraft at about $5 an hour. I asked if it got busier and they claimed that the place really got packed after 11pm and on weekends. If they're doing $50 an hour gross for 10 hours a day, 7 days a week year-round -- they're not doing too bad. Of course, it's not as good as a Starbucks (their average store is estimated to do $500k per year, which gives them the best revenue per sq.ft of any retail chain by far) but still decent. Also interesting -- I was the only non-asian in the place. I walked in and the management freaked out until I said "You got Battlefield 1942?"

Blogger Lost Another Post

I just wrote another post and it disappeared when I upgraded part of the site on the Blogger.com interface. Second time that's happened. Guess they're busy cashing the checks they received from Google instead of fixing bugs.

Anyway, I said the following:

1) Detailed how United Airlines was wasting money at LAX. In a 10 minute period going through customs, I saw 6 unnecessary employees. That's hundreds of thousands of $'s per year -- not even commenting on the horrible attitudes of the flight attendants during the flight from Auckland to the States. It's not that hard to see this stuff, but their management clearly doesn't care or is inept to see the problems.

2) Checked out the relative success of an LAN gaming cafe here in San Francisco (i.e. a bunch of computers connected together by a network with games where you charge $5 an hour for people to play). Compared it to Starbucks (which does about $550k per location gross) and commented that the LAN cafe isn't doing too bad. The place I saw had ten kids playing at 10pm on a Monday night. If they're averaging $50 an hour for 10 hours a day, 350 days a year, they're not doing terribly bad.

Back in Auckland and Fixing the Anti-War Movement

Gulf War II began earlier this week while we were up in the Carribbean-esque Whitsunday Group of Islands off the east coast of Australia, about 1500km north of Sydney. You can only have so much sun and fun, so much of our time was spent watching the war coverage.

Fixing the Anti-war Movement

It's clear that the strategy the anti-war groups are pursuing isn't going to work. In addition to the bombs dropping last week, mass organized protests started as well. These demonstrations were generally portrayed by the English-speaking media as disorganized and without much reason to their madness. Little time was spent on the reasons why these folks by the millions were against the war. The media, instead of interviewing intelligent spokespeople for the anti-war movement, interviewed "joe-blow" on the street who invariably was unable to cogently explain why he was protesting. One of the most impressive speakers was actually a 5 year-old kid who, when asked why he was against the war said, "Because people die." A better explanation than most!

Given that the media gives little coverage to the anti-war movement other than "here's 15,000 crazies who were arrested in San Francisco" and "here's a 6 year-old child to represent your movement", the anti-war movement is sadly stuck in the 60s. It's painfully obvious that the folks in charge of the government have learned that civil dissent objectively reported in the media can be devastating. This is what happened in the 70s as the media got out of control and went against Vietnam. I don't know how this happens (other than through the influence of advertisers and their $), but it's clear that the media is not going to provide coverage that accurately represents both sides of the argument. When was the last time NBC or CNN showed a clear, articulate anti-war speaker? It just doesn't happen and it won't.

So, I believe these protest groups should rethink their strategy. Instead of closing down campus buildings at Berkeley or the Bay Bridge, hit the politicans where it hurts -- their re-election money. At this URL, you can locate the top 10 donors to the Republican party: http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/contrib.asp?Cmte=RPC. Take a look. (Interestingly, before 2000 Microsoft was nowhere with regards to political donations. In 2002, they donated big dollars and the case against them was dropped. Coincidence?)

The strategy for the anti-war groups should be simple: pick one of these donors and start a national boycott of their products. Protest at their headquarters. Hold them responsible for the war. If the Republicans won't listen to the voters, they'll definitely listen to the people who pay the bills at Republican National Headquarters.

As for which company, pick one where they basically supply commodity products and where consumer switching costs are low. In addition, pick one where people against the war are likely to spend big $ and where the logo and brand are VERY visible. I'd have to analyze each a bit closer, but AFLAC, AT&T and Verizon would be great victims. These companies should be boycotted until they say they will no longer donate to the Republican party unless they stop the war.

As for implementation, use email and a website. Allow people to register as participants of the boycott of a particular company. Ask them to forward the boycott email to 10 friends, etc. Simple Internet marketing stuff that I won't go into in much detail.

Simple idea in general, but sadly I don't think the anti-war guys are going to get anywhere without a bit more strategic thinking. What worked in the 60s won't work today, just as Saddam's tanks from the same decade are not going to do well against Pentium-age Abrams monsters currently heading northwest in Iraq now.

Back From Frazier Island

We just returned from our 4x4 tour of Frazier Island last night. It was a terrific time tramping across the entire length of the island's 100 or so kilometers. I think for the first time we really saw some of the spectacular scenery that makes Australia famous.

The entire island is constructed by sand washing northward across the Australian coast. As plants take hold, vast forests emerge, and spectacular freshwater lakes dot the landscape. Two adjoining lakes may be completely different due to the sand that surrounds them. One such lake was crystal blue with a wide, white beach perfect for sunbathing. Another was murky and green, with tiny turtles swimming everywhere. We were able to get in and swim with the turtles, which was marvelous.

Today consisted of a drive up north to Bundaberg and we just completed a tour of the local rum factory. Not much else to do, so we're heading to the beach before flying up to the Whitsunday Islands up north.

Boxes of Wine

You ever walk down the aisle of a grocery store, look at a particular product (say, a 3 gallon jug of Prune Juice or Spam) and wonder: Who Buys This Crap? I do that virtually every time I walk through a store especially when I see the King of the Unpurchasable Product, the "Box of Wine." Of course, you have seen this product. It's cheap wine shipped in a plastic bag that is contained in a large cardboard box with a large dolphin-killing nozzle. The wine itself looks like strangely gasoline because they make it so it's both Red and a White. It can therefore go with red meat or white meat! For the wine afficinado who's also on a Beer Budget worthy of only the best Milwaukee's Best Light Ice brew, this is utter perfection.

The earliest entrant into the Box-of-Wine market was Franzia, which is so high-brow that it does not have a website. For those of you interested, you can identify a "trashy" consumer product as one that the manufacturer does not bother to put up a single page on the Web. Hell, even Spam (the international meat of mystery) has its own website: http://www.spam.com/.

Back to Franzia: It claims on the side of the box that 1 of every 8 glasses of wine drunk in America is done out of a box rather than the snobby means out of a bottle. That's almost 17%. So, these people are out there and drinking this stuff. Who the hell are the types of people that would? Let's analyze the features:

1) Cheap as hell. $9.99 for 3 liters -- That's about 10 bucks for almost a gallon. It's almost cheaper than milk and about 50% the cost of Orange Juice.

2) Very alcoholic. At 9%, it's 3 times more alcoholic than Budweiser.

3) Discreet. You're not carrying around either an obvious glass bottle of Southern Comfort nor a large box of Bud for the cops to see (or appear on the TV show "Cops"" when you're caught on camera wearing your wifebeater undershirt chasing your estranged wife out the front door).

The perfect consumer of this wine (and I can back this up by true empirical evidence) is the international travelling student (or backpacker) between 18-21. The boxes of wine are consumed at these backpacker hostels more than water. (At this point, I need a snippy joke to close, but I can't develop one. I won't quit my day job.)

War, Bus Rides, and Japan in the South Pacific

I have determined that I loathe riding buses. For me, it is a triple-whammy of pain. First, the seats seem to be designed for people about 4.5 feet tall. Not only does this diminish one's legroom to nothing, but it also means that the curvature of the seats place one or more large lumps in the small of my back. Second, I get carsick easily and the modern buses do nothing to get fresh air in your face to prevent the inevitable queasiness that comes with stale air and winding roads. And finally, Shandelle is a similar victim of carsickness. So, I get carsick and then must also be nice to her while sick as well. And Greyhound wonders why no one except knife-toting, drunken weirdos want to ride their buses? It's because they are hell.

We finished up our stay at the Arts Factory in Byron Bay. Last night a Belgian looked over my shoulder while Sha and I were surfing the Net and saw we were reading about the war. Interestingly, he started speaking to us about the whole Iraq issue and America in general. While he was definitely an open-minded chap, he was decidely anit-war/pro-peace in philosophy. He wanted to understand better about the whole issue and what America/ns think.

Overall, the entire trip to NZ/AUS has been a real bummer (that's hippie-talk for those of you not around for the sixties) with regards to America's image abroad. Here's a great example in this Observer story (http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905936,00.html) that talks about how the NSA is spying on other UN Security Council members who will be voting on the Iraq issue. Sadly, not a single one of the American major media outlets covered this issue. Americans just plain don't know about it. It's swept under the rug (http://santafenewmexican.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=7234803&BRD=2144&PAG=461&dept_id=367954&rfi=6) and not reported. The Aussies, Kiwis, etc all hear this stuff and the American government's image (and thus opinions of it's people) turns to garbage.

It's not that we're bad people in America, it's that we just don't have all the right facts. The former days of "objective" journalism are long gone and we're sadly seeing too much spin to be able to digest it right. With the inputs the public receives in places like Topeka where trusted Tom Brokaw still comes on NBC every evening and only shows spin that will make its advertisers happy, it's understandable that more Americans aren't questioning America's policies. Few people ask: What is the underlying cause for people to hate America in the middle-east? Why are those people protesting globalization? Why do people hate Americans? The mainstream media doesn't ask these questions because they're subservient to the people who pay the bills, their advertisers. The media system has become a giant problem in the country by not doing its job. Thus, too few people really grok the root of the problems (or they're too busy being frightened by Killer Bee outbreaks to think clearly). We went to see The Quiet American (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0258068) and the CIA agent character in the movie says "[America] is not imperialist." It was sad when the audience erupted in laughter.

There's some good stuff to read and see about all this garbage. If I had to pick one source to start with, it'd be a compendum of Noam Chomsky's interviews: Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky. It's a pretty darn good read. In the end, it teaches us to *think* and question anything we hear from anyone (including the crap someone may actually read on this homepage!).

And finally, it's clear that the Japanese really won WWII as they appear to already own most of the East Coast of AUS. Seriously, we're now in Surfer's Paradise (which is as close to Las Vegas as the Land Down Under gets). It's a 10 mile strip of beaches coverd in 30 floor condo high-rises, Disney theme parks, and mega-malls in front of sandy beaches. The signs are in English, Korean and Japanese everywhere. It's a trip and I'm glad I forced Shandelle to stop here. Somehow, even stopping to see the ugly, touristy parts of a country are as much of the experience as witnessing the natural beauty. The highlight of the area is a real, live shooting range where you can go and shoot automatic weapons. I don't think we'll be hitting that one (Shandelle's choice), though I have to admit it is really tempting. If you could shoot a bazooka, I'd definitely be there.

Byron Bay, Tony Robbins and the Art House

Sometimes you walk down the street and interesting things just happen. Other times, you walk along looking for "cool stuff" and nothing comes along. We had spent the previous week in Sydney and it was, well, just kinda boring. Sure, we did neat stuff, but very little out of the ordinary. Things have changed since then.

We flew to Byron Bay, which is a tiny little town north of Sydney. It's reputed as a hippie hangout and that's relatively true though we've noticed a real tension in the town. There is definitely the hippie element, as demonstrated by the pot-smoking-look basically everyone seems to have. The hippie war protests are humorous as well -- the most famous being the 500 naked hippie women laying together on an empty field so that they spell out "No War" with their naked bods. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the old guard of folks who liked Byron the way it used to be, before the hippie invasion. It's completely sad as the town does so very little to welcome tourists. There's no public toilets. Signage is pathetic. The cops prowl the streets. There are no crosswalks, so crossing the street is death-defying. Sad, but kind of fascinating and the hippies just keep coming.

We're staying at the most interesting place as well. We just stumbled into it with no prior knowledge. It's called the Art House and I can best describe it as a resort for young hippies. It's built around a lake (really a stagnant swamp) and seems to blast Lenny Kravitz music all day long. You can take a free Yoga class, get a wheatgrass smoothie at the bar, or make your own Dijeradoo (those things Aboriginies blow into to make bass sounds). It wasn't what we expected, but has been a real trip.

I've also discovered my hidden talent: I have the uncanny ability to recognize minor celebrities in the street. First, we saw Tony Robbins on the street here in Byron Bay. If you don't know, he's a motivational speaker type guy who is all over late night infomercials. His website is here: http://www.tonyrobbins.com/noflash/. He talks about self-empowerment and all kinds of new-age "inner peace" stuff. Not all bad. Anyway, he and his barbie doll wife were having a substantial screaming match in the street. It was just so apropros that someone so into "peace and love" was chewing out his wife on the street. Funny. We also saw the lead singer from the Counting Crows in Sydney. He was unrecognized, except by yours truly.

Blazed through a few more books on the way up here. Most recent is Reminisces of a Stock Operator. A classic and great in terms of general business practices. I may write more on that later. I have to go now and help Shandelle with the digital photos.