Archive for the ‘Entertainment’ Category

See, he sort of just stood and watched. He WANTED to do an exciting play-by-play but he couldn’t think of anything to say other than, “Helen is stacking her balls! Now Brian is stacking his balls! They’re both stacking their balls. Now Brian has more balls stacked. Helen is trying to stack her balls a different way. Brian tries to stack his balls a different way. They are still stacking their balls. Brian’s balls are almost completely stacked.” So, instead of saying all that, he just announced the winner. “Brian’s got it!” (more…)

This gutsy move has essentially turned NECX, the retailer, into NECX, the buyer’s agent. The company has escaped the disin-termediation squeeze, focusing its attention on making the experience of purchasing computer products online better and easier than in the real world. The strategy has paid off in retaining customers. NECX’s electronic customer loyalty statistics are impressive; according to the company, 75 percent of orders come from repeat cus-tomers, while half of all first-time buyers buy again within 12 months. (more…)

Schwab
[ Most transactions ]

The brokerage indus-try has taken to the Internet like ducks to water. The statistics are staggering: In 1998, the number of online accounts doubled, trading activity almost tripled, and revenue followed accord-ingly. No wonder the top 10 online brokers made it into the Business 2.0 100. Topping them all is the king of online trading, Charles Schwab. Had we been counting page views, Yahoo! could have claimed the top spot on transactions, but here we’re counting transactions, making Schwab the hands-down winner.
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IBM
[ Fastest growing ]

CEO Lou Gerstner’s challenge to IBMers was simple: become the number-one company at doing business on the Web. IBM’s ebusiness ramp-up is impressive– from $150 million in 1997 to $3.3 billion in 1998, a staggering 2,100 percent jump.

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CMGI

CMGI’s CEO David Wetherell heads up not just the most diversified Internet-related company, but one of the most powerful. CMGI’s address is 100 Brickstone Square, Andover, Mass., but there are no bricks or stone in any of its wide-ranging business models. The company’s core mission–creating Net value–seems to be working: The company’s stock price has shot up 14,000 percent since 1994.

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Dell
[ Most innovative ]

Dell Computer’s innovation addresses both tactical and strategic concerns in ecommerce. On both sides, Dell aims to solidify its Internet supremacy. On the strategic side, Dell gave us a hint of its future, the online elec-tronics superstore it announced in March. Expect Gigabuys’ features to be incorporated, which will take on an increasingly business-to-business profile. Gigabuys is a fun place to shop–just what consumers want. And www.dell.com is a serious place to purchase computers–just what businesses expect. Dell manages extremely low inventory levels for both. With Gigabuys, Dell is essentially an order aggregator without physical inventory for nearly 30,000 products.

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I’m no traditionalist when it comes to poetry. I’m even fond of unconventional ambiguity in verse where literal permutations of words such as “moo” to “mute,” are allowed to carry a poem from point A to point B. But, Sheri-D Wilson’s two latest collections of poems, Girl’s Guide to Giving Head and The Sweet Taste of Lightning (both from Arsenal Pulp Press) are disappointing attempts at poetic innovation.

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A host of new small-screen heroines has been clamoring for our attention this fall. Now that the introductions are over, we’d like to cut through the clutter and suggest who’s worth watching, who could pull through and who’s as annoying as, well, Tammy Faye Bakker. So check out our green-, yellow- and red-light picks, then head for the Entertainment: TV message board to give your own reviews. (All broadcast times are in Eastern time.)

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Can you recommend books for fourth-grade boys? I want to get my grandson some books for Christmas and I’m not sure what is appropriate.

When choosing books for children, start with their interests. Children, like adults, will read voraciously about topics they’re interested in. So, if your grandson has a favorite figure in history or a favorite sports hero, perhaps you can find a biography of that person.

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Edith Frost’s new album Wonder Wonder is stunning. In the first place, Ms. Frost’s vocal range is more or less without rival right now. It is not just where her voice can go; more importantly, it is her sublime expressive power. Beyond what she can do with her voice, Ms. Frost is a consummate songwriter. On this album, produced by Rian Murphy and engineered by Steve Albini, her songs find the appropriate instrumentation: deep strings, piano, breezy percussion, guitars floating in and out seamlessly. This is not an easy album to classify. At times, it is reminiscent of the country greats of old. But there are other songs exposing a playful side to Ms. Frost, or a dalliance with cabaret drama. Still other times one can almost hear the kind of horse’s gait JJ Cale mastered (underpinning “Further” and the last song “You’re Decided”, for instance). (more…)