Alsop's Small Thoughts

President Hillary Clinton

I went to a confab called "Dialog" last week, two days of a somewhat heterogenous crowd (meaning not just technology people, though mostly white and mostly middle-upper class professionals) talking about stuff that seems to matter. I figured that meant we should be arguing about interesting topics. (One problem I have with California, after 20+ years, is that people seem to take personally strongly delivered arguments.)

So I came prepared with a strong argument: 1) Hillary Clinton will be nominated as the next Democratic presidential candidate; 2) Hillary Clinton will defeat the Republican nominee, whoever it is, to be the first female president of the United States in 2009; and 3) she will make a great president.

Oh, boy, did I get a reaction. Most people who know me know that I'm pretty conservative politically (which might be why Californians generally take my arguments so personally). So the idea that I would think a Democratic president of any gender would be a great president seems surprising.

Here's what I learned:

*Virtually everybody thinks that Hillary is unelectable because she is so unlikeable. Democrats, particularly liberal Democrats, believe this most strongly and are worried that the party can't stand up to her to avoid nominating her and having her be beat by the Republicans, like Gore and Skerry.
*Nobody has strong feelings about any candidate that supercedes convenience. In other words, nobody seems really taken by any individual to the point where they garner support regardless of conditions. Everybody likes Barak Obama, except he's too young and inexperienced. A small group think Mark Warner is a hot property, except that he doesn't speak so good and is virtually unknown. Who's Bill Richardson, oh that guy who's governor of New Mexico. So on and so forth.
*The Republicans have just as big a problem finding a candidate as the Democrats. McCain is too old. Dean is already busted. Jeb is Jeb.

All of this supports my theory that Hillary will get the nomination (by default) and will win the election (also probably by default). But the part that really got people going is the idea that she will be a great president: after her Mrs. President proposal on health care? Hah!

But the one proposal (and I'm sorry I can't remember who said it me) is that Rudy Giuliani would be the one Republican candidate who could take on Hillary Clinton and win. People say he's too liberal and would never survive the Southern fundamentlists. Now that sounds like an interesting race and scenario.

Lost in "Lost"

I couldn't resist: I bought a copy of "Bad Twin". It's a fiction written by a fictional person, a character that has not  (yet) appeared in the television series Lost, presumably one of the other passengers to whom we haven't been introduced -- yet. Or possibly one that was actually killed in the crash.

I haven't finished the book, but it's actually a pretty good story, pretty well written. The kind of story written by the writing team putting out the script for Lost. You can't find out from the the front or back pages of the book, who (meaning, the real live human beings) actually wrote the book. So I'm assuming it's the same writing team that produces the script.

I am, however, totally impressed by the production quality of this show. I watched the season finale last night (five days late, thanks to TiVo). What a great show. A good book. Lost is clearly a merchandising program and the group that produces it, Touchstone Television, has figured out that it has a property that can be extended. I don't remember an instance of a television show producing a book for commercial sale that is part of the plot and theme of the show itself. Much less having that book appear on the New York Times bestseller list!

All these guys have to do is be careful about over-manipulating their audience. (Of course, it's in character to be manipulative, since the most likely scenario in the show is that the cast itself is being manipulated in some kind of giant mind game.) But during the season, Lost rarely appeared two weeks in a row. Lord knows why they wouldn't put the program on every week, at least mostly, to create an addictive habit in the audience. Even TiVo users notice when one of their favorite shows is so irregular as to not satisfy an existing addiction.

Someone who has actually studied passwords

A reasonable percentage of my gripes about customer service involve passwords. Companies sometimes focus more on security (protecting something worth protecting) than on customer service (providing the desired service in a convenient way). I just read this blog post that reviews this inherent conflict in password protection. Feel free to comment or email if you've seen more; I'd like to be well educated in this topic.

Goddamn soap!

When I'm traveling, as I am, many things annoy. Consistently, I find these little round bars of soap most annoying. I have to open them up in the morning, before I've had coffee, before my fingers have once again become nimble. And they are designed to resist removal of their covering in the most ingenious way: The cover is also round and bound together in the middle with glue that won't give itself up easily. And no tab is provided to allow the big fat fingers to grab hold and tear the paper off. It's as though the hotel decided your day should start wrong, with an annoying, challenging mechanical task before your mind is ready to deal with it. It's unfair. Now I have to get into the shower...

How can one landlord piss me off so much?

Regular readers know that I live in The Presidio. The Presidio Trust, my government (unelected and disliked by me), is on a roll. Someone in The Trust has decided that they are profligate in their services to renters (who, of couse, are currently supplying the vast majority of the income that is paying for their operations). So they have been whittling back their services in all kinds of ways, large and small. My most recent discovery: The Presidio Work Order Desk, which dispatches repairs and other housing related needs to the correct department (like The Department Of Carpentry, I imagine), received a memo recently stating that they are no longer to replace lights bulbs for residents, unless the aforementioned light bulbs are on a ceiling too high for a person to reach without a ladder or are fluorescent.

Previously, I hadn't expected to receive Light Bulb Replacing as a service, but was told last year that The Presidio was happy to provide this service! Now it is considered billable...

I wonder what goes next. I started paying for the gas service this month. Electricity next month? Are they going to charge me for mowing the lawn next year?

Magazine customer service?

I wrote this letter to Steven Dinkelspiel, who appears to double as both publisher and circulation director of San Francisco Magazine:

From: Stewart Alsop
Date: Sat, 06 May 2006 11:42:58 -0700
To: <sdinkelspiel@sanfranmag.com>
Subject: Not totally impressive...

I like the new magazine, as long as the glitz doesn’t overcome Kelly’s editorial product. But I just went to renew my subscription online, as requested in your direct mail piece dated 4-5-06. First the subscription part of the web site was offline, with no explanation. Huh? It’s just software. I clicked on the “Got a promotion code” link (which appears to be working), entered the promotion code in your letter (THNKYOURNW), and was told that promotion is no longer available! So you lead me online and I had no way to renew.

Why offer if it you’re going to make it expire? It’s a renewal offer anyway. And why not say that it expires in your letter, which you don’t? The whole thing feels like someone’s not paying attention to customer service, and servicing customers thoughtfully is a really key way to retain subscribers. And retaining subscribers is a really big deal for magazines these days.

I would like to renew, by the way, but feel that at this point I’ve expended sufficient effort and hope that you will find this email sufficient authorization to renew my subscription and send me a bill.

Stewart

Great service, great price

I've complained enough about Hertz. My new rental company is Enterprise. And I don't just like them because everyone else is so bad; I actually enjoyed renting my last car! Snapshots: The van at LAX was full but when we arrived at the rental facility off airport, a bunch of agents came out of the back room so there was no line waiting for an agent. When the agent checked me in, he personally come around the counter, took me to the car, and explained the contract. When I drove out of the lot in my car, I found a photocopy of the directions for getting back to the rental lot; on the other side was a printed weather forecast and a list of radio stations I could listen to. (Why has it taken a rental car company this long to think of telling me how to find local radio stations?) When I brought the car back, the people who checked it in were dressed well, spoke English clearly, and seemed to be enjoying their jobs. When I looked at my bill, I discovered the car had cost me $26 for two days  -- $13 a day for a midsize car in Los Angeles! And Enterprise didn't rape me for using some of their gas. To top it off, the driver of the van had to have been one of the liveliest, funniest people I've met and he had the whole van going, obviously enjoying his banter.

I only wish Enterprise had airport rentals at Santa Barbara so I didn't have to put up with the attitude and snarky policies of the usual suspects at that airport.