Month: November 2013

I hear dead people QUESTION

I have some old cassette tapes (remember cassette tapes?) with my father’s voice – he died in 2000.

The phone is ringing at home, and the caller ID says it’s from Gertrude Green in the 704 area code. That’s interesting in that my mother died over two years ago. As it turns out, it was my sister, Marcia, calling on her cellphone. She didn’t understand why our mother’s name popped up, as the phone has always been in Marcia’s name, but I was not the first person to tell her of this phenomenon. It was kind of weird/disconcerting.

This led to a broader discussion – at my dentist’s office, of all places – about how long you keep a deceased person’s voice as the voice on an outgoing answering machine message. Some will find it comforting, while others will find it creepy. I tend to be in the latter category, although I know most of us in mourning can’t/won’t rush to change it.

Whereas I have some old cassette tapes (remember cassette tapes?) with my father’s voice – he died in 2000. Those I find oddly comforting. AND I can play them for my daughter, born in 2004, who never knew her paternal grandfather.

What sayest thou?

S is for Phil Seuling

FantaCo wouldn’t have thrived without Phil Seuling.

1977: host Mike Douglas, Phil Seuling, Wendy Pini, guest cohost Jamie Farr

Phil Seuling invented the direct market for comic books. From Wikipedia: “The evolution of the comic book specialty shop (or “direct-only stores”) in the early 1970s created a whole new system for delivering comics to customers. Before the advent of the comics retailer, most comics were found in grocery, drug, and toy stores. The specialty shop presents a number of competitive advantages over those other venues.” If it weren’t for Phil, there would not have been a proliferation of comic book stores in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Chuck Rozanski of Mile High Comics, once a customer and later competitor of Phil’s, wrote a lengthy Evolution of the Direct Market. Naturally, he mentions Phil straight off:
“Phil began Seagate in 1972, long before selling to comics shops was economically viable. He was a schoolteacher at the time and was well known in the New York area not only as a dealer in comics and original artwork but also as the operator of the huge 4th of July convention in NYC. As I’ve heard the story told, Phil brazenly walked into DC, Marvel, Warren, Harvey, and Archie in 1972 and convinced them that their future lay in selling comics directly to comics specialty shops. He also convinced them to give him a special deal by which they would pay the costs of packaging and shipping all of the books ordered by his accounts. In exchange, he promised them that he would purchase all books from them on a non-returnable basis. Returns had become a very big deal in the early 1970s, as comics were no longer selling in the percentages of previous decades.”

Chuck also describes Phil the person, and this I can verify from meeting the man himself: “If you ask anyone who knew him, one of the first things they will tell you is that Phil was a person who epitomized the concept of an individual being ‘larger than life.’… Chuck describes Phil’s place quite well. I was there a few times myself when Phil was throwing lavish parties.

More to the point, the store I worked at, FantaCo, wouldn’t have thrived – if it would have existed at all – without Phil Seuling. Not only was Seagate FantaCo’s initial distributor, but Phil also bought sufficient amounts of FantaCo publications to distribute when they were unproven commodities.

Unfortunately, Phil Seuling died of liver cancer in 1984 at the age of 50. Tom Skulan, the FantaCo founder, wrote a nice piece about Phil in the FantaCon 2013 program.

Enjoy this video of Phil Seuling on the Mike Douglas Show in 1977, from which the above picture was taken.


ABC Wednesday – Round 13

The Belgian Congo and Yugoslavia

One of my co-workers came up to me and asked how many of the five former Yugoslav republics I could name; I remembered four.

During the Vietnam war, it was widely reported – I don’t remember if it was apocryphal or true – that most Americans could not find Vietnam on a map. Likewise, today’s students might be challenged to find Afghanistan or Iraq on the globe.

By contrast, I was a bit of a cartology fanatic when I was a child. My paternal grandfather, who lived upstairs, would give me maps from his National Geographic, which I would study at length. I still have some of them in the attic, BTW.

Unfortunately for my recall, the world kept changing. French West Africa and British East Africa became a slew of independent countries. What was once Belgian Congo became Zaire, but is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sometimes referred to as Congo-Kinshasa; this not to be confused with the neighboring Republic of the Congo, also referred to as Congo-Brazzaville, which used to be under French control.

Later, Germany merged. Czechoslovakia, Sudan, Yugoslavia, and the USSR broke up; fortunately, the former two only broke into a pair of countries each. But Yugoslavia… One of my co-workers came up to me and asked how many of the five former Yugoslav republics I could name; I remembered four. Then I looked it up and there are SIX:

Bosnia and Herzegovina
Croatia (which I forgot)
Macedonia (which I remembered because the Greeks got all bent out of shape)
Montenegro (which I remembered from WWI)
Serbia (which has two autonomous regions, Vojvodina – which I had never heard of; and Kosovo, which I had)
Slovenia (not be confused with Slovakia, part of former Czechoslovakia; I forgot it)

It SHOULD be easy to remember: BCMMSS

Now the former Soviet Union is tougher, and I have developed a bizarre way to remember, roughly from northwest to southeast:

Baltic states-ELL
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania

Eastern Europe-BUM
Belarus
Ukraine
Moldova

Southern Caucasus, Russia-RAGA
Russia
Armenia
Georgia
Azerbaijan

Central Asia-KKUTT
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Uzbekistan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan

ELL-BUM-RAGA-KKUTT? Well, it worked for me; sounds like a musical selection.

World, stop changing. I’m kidding; change is inevitable.

Mom: still surprising me

My mom would have been 86 today.

My sister Marcia has been posting a number of photos on Facebook. Most of them were pictures I remember but hadn’t viewed in many years. Then there is this one; I’d never seen it before, as far as I can recall.

My mom married my dad when she was 23, and I suspect this shot predates that, but I have no idea of the provenance of the photo. Who took it? What was the occasion? I may never know. She does look lovely.

Gertrude (Trudy) Elizabeth Green, nee Williams, would have been 86 today.

The BIG DATA on me

Financially Support Community Causes: Donate to Charitable Causes, Animal Welfare, Environment or Wildlife, Health, Political – Liberal, Religious (all true)

I noted in another blog that companies have a lot of data on you, at least in the US, and that some are willing to share with you what they think they know.

Plugging in my name, address, date of birth, and the last four digits of my Social Security number:

Male
Ethnicity Based on Surname: American (well, I suppose)
Education: Completed Graduate School (true)
Marital Status: Married (true)
Presence of Children: No Children Present (false)
Political Party: Voter – Democratic (true)
Occupation: Professional/Technical (true)

HOME DATA
Home Owner / Renter: Home Owner (true)
Dwelling Type: Single Family Dwelling Unit (true)
Length of Residence by Year: 13 Years (true)
Year Home Built: 1900 – 1940 (true)
Estimated Home Market Value: $100,000 – $149,999 (true)
Home Purchase Date: 05/2000 (I was there at the closing, true)
Primary Home Loan Type: Conventional (true)

Household Vehicle
Primary Vehicle Make: Toyota (got the year and model right, too)
Intent to Purchase a Vehicle: True (I suppose so)

Household Economic Data

Estimated Household Income Ranges (a little low)
Presence of Credit Card: Bank Card Holder (true) , Gas/Department/Retail Card Holder (false), Credit Card Holder (true)
Credit Card Use – Discover (true)

Value-Priced General Merchandise
Apparently, I buy as Mail Order Responder (true)

Books
Magazines
Children’s Toys
Home Furnishings Accessories
Other Merchandise/Services
Total Dollars Spent: 200 (I imagine it’s more)
Total Number of Purchases: 2 (definitely more)

Average Dollars Spent Per Offline Purchase: 77 (I have no idea – seems high)
Total Offline Dollars Spent: 77 (seems very low)

Average Dollars Spent Per Online Purchase: 100 (definitely seems high)
Total Online Dollars Spent: 200 (definitely low)

Household Interests Data

Parenting: Interested
Children’s Items: Interested
Financially Support Community Causes: Donate to Charitable Causes, Animal Welfare, Environment or Wildlife, Health, Political – Liberal, Religious (all true)
Community / Charities: Interested
Environmental Concerns: Interested
Wireless Product Buyer: Interested
Computers: Interested
PC Internet / Online Service User: Interested
Wireless – Cellular Phone Owner: Interested
Consumer Electronics: Interested
PC DSL/High-Speed User: PC Broadband User
PC Software Buyer (not so much)
Text Messaging: Interested (no)
Home Stereo: Interested
Avid Music Listener: Interested (now THAT’S right)
Movie Collector: Interested
Movies at Home: Interested
Sweepstakes / Contests: Interested (I was at one point, but haven’t done those in years)
Cooking: Interested (not particularly)
Low-Fat Cooking: Interested (ditto)
Natural Foods: Interested
Cholesterol-Related Products: Interested
Health/Medical: Interested
Dieting / Weight-loss: Interested
Celebrities: Interested (not so much anymore, but that probably was true at some point)
Current Affairs / Politics: Interested (absolutely)
Music Players: Interested
Home Furnishings / Decorating: I don’t much care, but I probably bought some stuff
Religious / Inspirational: Interested
Self Improvement: Interested
Personal Investment: Interested (not really)
Real Estate Investment: Interested (no, I’m not)
Education Online: Interested
Reading: Interested
Reading Religious / Inspirational: Interested
Reading Magazines: Interested
Reading Financial Newsletters: Interested (but my eyes glaze over)
Spectator Football: Interested
Spectator Baseball: Interested
Spectator Basketball: Interested (not in years)

Then I checked my wife’s record. She is clerical/white collar(?) – she’s a teacher – with similar interests. Ah, it’s the unit’s interests.

But the real kicker is that while the profile got HER age correctly, they had me born in 1978! Since I entered my age in the first place, I found that hysterically funny. Finally younger than my wife…

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