Author / Jim Cota

Posts by Jim Cota

Jim lives in Indianapolis with his wife and four kids and feels lucky to work with the fine folks at Rare Bird. An occasional writer, tweeter, and shooter. If you need to know anything else about me, this should do it...

60 Minutes makes you impotent

I haven’t watched 60 Minutes regularly since I lived at home with my parents, but I do listen to the podcast versions while doing other things, like cleaning the gutters, blowing leaves around with my kick-ass leaf blower, or riding my bike. So I don’t really know which companies are advertising during the broadcast, but I can tell you who should be: Pfizer and Lilly. In fact, I’m surprised that some sort of erectile disfunction (ED) aid isn’t stuffing all the commercial breaks.

Understanding why is simple. Watch any broadcast and you’ll find yourself:

  1. seriously, absolutely perturbed and
  2. completely unable to do anything about it

As you can imagine, this combination has a horrid affect on men. Enter the key to sanity: Viagra and/or Cialis.

Consider the story about credit default swaps and the industry insiders who were sending emails that read, “Let’s just hope we’re rich and retired by the time this house of cards collapses.” They sent those emails three years ago. (And there’s nothing you can do about it.)

Or the story about the titans of Wall Street making $600 million a year (a figure I wish I had made up) while hiring physicists to create investment vehicles out of bad loans that could be repackaged and sold with AAA ratings. (And there’s nothing you can do about it.)

Or the story of the Delta Force that had Bin Laden trapped in the mountains (in 2004) and couldn’t go after him because someone higher up the chain of command kept denying them approval. (And there’s nothing you can do about it.)

If stories like these don’t do it to you, there’s always Andy Rooney. Yikes!

I read the other day that GM, through its employee health insurance program, is the largest single buyer of Viagra in the world. They spend something like $18 million a year on Viagra alone. I wondered if auto industry workers were just more depressed than the rest of us, but now I think they were just watching 60 Minutes.

So I got two boxes of Scabs in the mail…

Which, though gross, wasn’t all that surprising since I ordered them. Scabs are bandages designed to reflect all the grossness of being a kid (and, I guess, a Dad.) It also wasn’t surprising that I had two opportunities to use them this weekend since my kids seem inherently clumsy. I decided to conduct a little (un)scientific anecdotal study to see which design would be more in demand.

Scabs come in five designs: a zipper, stitches, eyeballs, worms, and spiders. Both times, the bandagee– (bandagie?)– ah, heck, kid with the cut, chose the spiders. These were both girls.

Grace went so far as to say, “I don’t want the zipper, Dad.” Really? I dig the zipper. I can’t figure out these kids…

Want to have some fun? Pick up some scabs of your own.

50 Best Inventions of 2008

This is one of those “un-looked-for” joys: Time Magazines’ annual article about the most impressive, game-changing inventions of the year. There are some very cool things on the list this year:

The Tesla Roadster – an all-electric rocket that goes from 0-60 in four seconds, powered entirely by the same lithium ion batteries in laptops and created by a Silicon Valley startup. In my book, the new sedan is even cooler, but that’s probably because I’m old.

Hulu – Okay, call be a believer, as you already know from my recent web review article, but Hulu is just flat-out awesome. Coupled with Boxee, it doesn’t only change the game, the changes the entire paradigm. (And that’s not just hyperbole.)

The Seed Vault – I first heard about this on a 60 Minutes report and smacked myself in the forehead and thought, “That’s something that makes perfect sense that I never considered.” This is why I’m glad there are lots of smart people thinking about lots of different things.

The Montreal Public Bike System – This just needs to happen in lots of places.

(Freaking) Bionic Contacts – Yeah, sure, they’ll let you look up and see maps placed directly in your field of vision or even show you — exactly — which button to press to avoid a nuclear meltdown (perhaps), but can you imagine the games?

And, perhaps my personal favorite:

The Direct-to-Web Supervillain Musical – And to think my neighbor Paul knew him when he was just Doogie Howser, MD…Neil Patrick Harris blew everyone away with this. You just have to watch it to appreciate it.

For the first time I can remember, there are also a few on the list that I take considerable umbrage with. For the sake of us all, I hope Time reconsiders the following:
– Housing Funds
– The Branded Candidate
– The New Ping Pong Serve
– Disemvoweling

Head over to see the complete list and find your own favorite.

"I'm Robert Bianco, and I have a man-crush on Barack Obama."

Let’s be perfectly clear: you can vote for whomever you feel is the best candidate. In fact, please do. The more of us that are informed and involved in the process, the better off we’ll all be. (I think.)

(I hope.)

This morning I noticed a USA Today headline about Obama’s 30-minute infomercial that called it a “triumph.” I thought to myself, “when was the last time an advertisement for anything was called a triumph?” Interest piqued, I read the article.

Written by Robert Bianco, it should have contained the disclaimer that is the title of this post. Again, Bianco can vote for anyone he chooses, but we should at least know where he stands before he tosses out platitudes like “low-key triumph… perfectly tuned for the cool side of the medium” or “some parts, perhaps, were hokey [but] they are well-used here.”

Perhaps the biggest clue was his use of the following: “The show was designed to prove that Obama understands us.” “Prove,” not show or maybe demonstrate. “Us,” not working Americans or retirees or undecided voters or whatever.

“Me,” Bianco seems to be saying, “Obama understands me, and for that I am gushing.”

The fact is that words matter, and the words we choose to communicate affect the overall message. It’s my opinion that Bianco, a professional columnist, could have either chosen his better or offered some sort of disclosure about the context of his point of view. But I could be overreacting. You can read it yourself and let me know if you think I’m wrong.