Somerville Crowns the 2011 Pharaoh of Fluff in Union Square

I went to Union Square on Saturday and didn't leave until I had consumed a fluffernutter sandwich and a fluff-filled s'more. The annual What the Fluff festival in Somerville celebrates a distinctly New England delicacy invented in the city, marshmallow fluff.

Dave Manganello was the 2010 Fabulous Pharaoh of Fluff, introduced here by Hi-Jinx Mistress Jamie Waltz.

Brian Agosta was crowned as the Pharaoh of Fluff for 2011.


Celebrity judges for the Pharaoh selction were songwriter Allee Willis, who wrote the song "September" made famous by Earth, Wind & Fire, and Susan Olsen, who starred as Cindy Brady on The Brady Bunch. Yes, Cindy has grown up, that's her in the pink shirt.


Geri Reischl, who played Jan Brady in 9 episodes of the Brady Bunch, also took part in the Fluff festivities by serving "Fake Jan" sandwiches at the Sherman Cafe.

Susan Olsen also exhibited a series of Fluff art pieces at Bloc 11. Cindy, Cindy, Cindy:

Barack Obama Takes Off His Bedroom Slippers and Puts On His Marching Shoes for the Congressional Black Caucus

Quoting Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama lamented at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation annual awards dinner that "there is a frustrating and bewildering wilderness ahead." President Obama continued:

“The future rewards those who press on. With patient and firm determination we will press on. I don’t know about you CBC, but the future rewards those who press on. With patient and firm determination, I’m going to press on for jobs. I’m going to press on for equality. I’m going to press on for the sake of our children. I’m going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on. I expect all of you to march with me, and press on. Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes, shake it off, stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying, we are going to press on, we’ve got work to do.”

The Daily Kos headlined this speech as Obama Kicked Booty Tonight and even Andrew Breitbart took notice.

Update: Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Walters probably thinks this song is about her.

Ron Paul Wins Three Debates in a Row

Here's how last night's Republican debate played out on Facebook, looking at followers picked up since the previous debate.

Candidate	Tue 9/13 Noon	Fri 9/23 Noon	Pickup
Ron Paul	505,555	519,151	13,596
Mitt Romney	1,107,211	1,118,444	11,233
Rick Perry	157,088	164,830	7,742
Herman Cain	175,195	181,117	5,922
Gary Johnson	134,036	135,559	1,523
Newt Gingrich	147,433	148,855	1,422
Jon Huntsman	17,445	18,527	1,082
Rick Santorum	27,679	28,448	769
Michele Bachmann	462,233	461,806	-427

Ron Paul is the big winner of the September debates, at least on Facebook. He picked up the most followers since the last debate, as he did for the 9/12 and 9/7 debates.

Mitt Romney has moved up from third to second, while Rick Perry has fallen down into Herman Cain territory. The bleeding has resumed for Michele Bachmann, with followers actually dropping off after 2 of the last 3 debates.

Gary Johnson was not invited to the 9/12 debate, pickup for him is since 9/16. He practically endorsed Ron Paul during the debate.

Elizabeth Warren and the Threat of Marauding Bands of Asthma Sufferers

I'm all for getting back to a balanced budget even if that means some increased tax revenue, but don't sign me up for the class warfare.



Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has a message to factory owners on why they should accept a tax increase:

"You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory."

Marauding bands? Warren clearly has in mind the left-wing activists protesting on Wall Street since Saturday with the chants "pay your share."



You call this a revolution? The videographers among the protesters outnumber the guys actually willing to get arrested by 20 to 2. One of those guys has asthma and desperately needs his inhaler, the other says he could really use a new pair of handcuffs.

That being a NYPD cop is a hard job. One day it's two planes being flown into the World Trade Center. Another day it's lefty college students with large backpacks, even larger attitudes, and the National Lawyers Guild on their cell phone speed dial. We've come a long way, black cops dragging white kids through the streets in handcuffs.

Back to Elizabeth Warren. Why pick on the few remaining U.S. factory owners? They have a very tough job these days competing against cheaper labor in foreign countries. And if the communists in China will do a better job than Democrats in the U.S. at protecting them from marauding bands ...

True Confessions of a Jilted Netflix Movie Slut

What is a movie slut to do? Netflix has decided to split its instant streaming and DVD by mail businesses, and that means I have to rethink my whole movie-watching lifestyle.

First it's confession time, I watch a lot of movies. When it comes to the 1-5 star ratings, give me a 3-star movie and I'm happy. Give me an occassional 2-star, I'm not proud. They don't all have to be Being There, I like to watch. Just how many movies I watch is a lot of movies:

Year	Total Movies	Instant Titles	DVD Titles	Avg Days
2002	128	-	128	9
2003	147	-	147	10
2004	161	-	161	9
2005	122	-	122	12
2006	150	-	150	10
2007	168	-	168	9
2008	152	11	141	11
2009	277	174	103	17
2010	224	156	68	22
2011	147	96	51	14
Total	1676	437	1239	11

Now, not all of these titles are movies. Some are TV shows, in fact a great many of the Instant titles are TV serials. And that's a big difference on Netflix between Instant and DVD. DVD has a lot of recent movies, really pretty much all the new movies that have come out on DVD or Blu-ray. Instant doesn't, at least not yet.

Netflix wants $7.99 per month ($96 per year) for the Instant unlimited streaming plan. That's a good deal, around 62 cents per title. And I can stream Netflix directly onto my TV through my Samsung Blu-ray player. But Instant doesn't get me many of the new movies I want to see.

I'm on the 3 DVDs out at a time plan which costs $19.99 per month ($240 per year). That is costing me about $3.50 per title, which judged on price alone is not such a great deal. And now it's going to be called Qwikster. The clear message from Netflix is to find a new service before Qwikster goes into the dumpster.

What made Netflix by mail great was the convenience of dropping the returns in the mail box and getting another movie by return mail. For the first few years I supplemented by also renting from Blockbuster, and that covered the
occassional inconvenience of not having a Netflix movie I wanted to watch.

When I stopped going to Blockbuster I put myself on the 4 DVDs at-a-time plan to help cover that gap. But that lead to doing things like keeping out Where the Wild Things Are for 186 days from 5/6/2010 to 11/8/2010 and The Bunker for 147 days from 7/14/2010 to 12/8/2010. Also, the average number of days I was keeping DVDs before watching them increased with the addition of Instant movies. So when Netflix raised its prices at the beginning of this year, I dropped back to 3 DVDs at-a-time.

Blockbuster by mail has a 3 DVDs out at a time plan for $20 per month. But that's the same price as the Netflix Qwikster option. The nearest Blockbuster store is 5 miles away. I'm not going to drive from Cambridge to Malden for a movie. Blockbuster lost my business when they closed their store that was only half a mile away.

Hulu Plus costs $8 a month but like Netflix instant streaming I've heard it doesn't have a lot of movies. I'd need to buy a $59 Roku box to connect to my TV. And Hulu has commercials, so why switch?

Amazon gives you free unlimited streaming if you sign for Amazon Prime at $79 per year. Or you can rent instant movies for around $4. But just what is available, for how long, and how do I hook that up to my TV is all unclear.

Comcast On Demand has a lot of new movies, some are free, but the best new movies cost $5 and up and are typically only available for a limited period of time. I expect to rent more than 4 movies a month (48 a year) so I am better off with Netflix Qwikster.

Redbox may be the best deal. They have one of their red movie vending machines at my grocery store. The rental deal is $1 a day for DVDs and $1.50 a day for Blu-ray. That compares well to Netflix even if I keep the movie 2 or 3 days. I'm not keen on having to return movies, but at least it's a trip to the grocery store.

So for now I'm keeping Netflix Instant, but I'm dropping DVD by mail from 3-at-a-time to 2-at-a-time. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings doesn't need to know, but he just saved me $5 a month, which is $60 per year. Redbox will get my bootie calls when I'm in the mood for a little something extra on the side. Who knows, I think this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Update: Redbox.com has a cool see-inside-the-box feature. I can pick a location on their website and browse through the list of movies inside that particular vending machine, reserve one, and go pick it up.

Netflix Doubles Down with a Streaming Pile of BS

After annoying all of their customers with a price increase over the summer, Netflix has done it again. They are now splitting the streaming video service (to still be called Netflix) and the DVD by mail service (to be called Qwikster). That's right, two websites that won't talk to each other and two charges on your credit card statement.



I suspect that CEO Reed Hastings is right, he needs to move ahead with the streaming video service without being tied down to the old concepts of the DVD mail queue. In the meantime, he has pissed off all of his longtime customers.

Here's the problem and Reed already knows what it is:

"A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.So if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or email address, you would need to do it in two places.Similarly, if you rate or review a movie on Qwikster, it doesn’t show up on Netflix, and vice-versa."

So creating this problem, for this is a self-created problem, can only mean one thing. Netflix expects its customers to choose between the DVD by mail service and streaming video. And you can tell where Netflix thinks the future lies, the streaming service will continue to bear the name Netflix but the original DVD by mail service gets the extremely lame name Qwikster.

Reed nonetheless thinks he needs to do this, and here's why:

Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.

Actually, companies die from moving too fast all the time.

Glenn Beck for Less Than $1 Per Day

Are you missing your Glenn Beck fix? It's been a dry summer for Glenn Beck fans. But now he's back with GBTV.com.

You can feed the addiction at $4.95 per month (or $49.95 per year) or take the even bigger hit for Glenn Beck Plus at $9.95 ($99.95 per year). The includes extras such as Making of GBTV, billed as an exclusive reality program giving a look behind the scenes of the building of GBTV.

This new delivery model could make Glenn Beck rich. For example, if all 2 million of Glenn Beck's followers on Facebook signed up, that would be $100 million in revenue, $200 million if they all signed up for Glenn Beck Plus. It won't do so well if none of them sign up.

And that's a distinct possibility. GBTV has already taken heat from Sarah Palin fans after a joke on Beck's show about her alleged affair with Glen Rice played off of calling Sarah a quitter.

But I suspect there will be some subscribers. And with the show streaming out over the internet, who knows. That guy with the iPad and the headphones at the booth in the trendy lesbian coffee shop may be watching Glenn Beck.