The recent price increase for USA Today (now 75¢, up from 50¢) was a pretty blatant move to try and increase the percentage of subscribers. Ever since the hike I have seen promos to, “Beat the price increase” if you subscribe. At first I said I wasn’t going to just based on principle–don’t like being walked into things–but I subscribed yesterday via Amazon.com because it’s a lot cheaper… 40¢ an issue. And then there is the whole finding three quarters to get a copy from a machine.

I would be interested in seeing how many new subscribers they got from it.

Drudge has the siren blaring–the Kobe case will be dropped by the prosecutors. I wonder what the costs compare to the OJ legeal defense… We could start to form a price list for rich people getting off for various types of crime.

Want to murder? Well that’s $10,000,000. If you don’t want to drop that much for one night, try a rape, it’s only $2,000,000.

Case in point. It seems the best PR is no PR. The Google IPO became a meme because no one really knew what was going on. Sound familiar?

So the storm that all weather types said was coming right to tampa took a surprise right turn and we got nearly no wind (it wouldn’t have blown out a lighter) and a drizzle of rain. Obvs I can’t really say that “someone was watching out for us” because that would mean that someone really has it in for Punta Gorda. Our dues are coming, we know that.

One of the best parts of the surprise turn was complete CYA mode on local stations from about 1PM on. Denis Phillips, the local ABC weather man was screaming “I told you!” (which he never ever did) pretty much all afternoon. Sometime inbetween these lies he muttered that the storm turned 190 degrees while he motioned 10 degrees. I think I may hate him now.

But I don’t hate him as much as one of their reporters, Don Germaise. He was at a Holiday Inn down south a bit orgasming over what looked to be minor cosmetic damage. It was the epitome of lame local news hype (and its not even sweeps!). He was in climax for a good three minutes of his report, screaming sweet love about fallen leaves and how he was the only one there.

Besides being super lame, is it illegal to film your own (fake) beheading? I wouldn’t say so, but the FBI is investigating the not-really-beheaded hippy who got put all over the news this weekend. If they charge him with anything it should be for not putting on clothes before being interviewed by the AP. What the hell?

And if this is somehow illegal, there a lot of people involved in Lord of the Rings and Kill Bill that need to go to jail. I have seen Ork heads fly, not to mention what Uma did to the Crazy 88.

TED KOPPEL: Bruce, let me put it very bluntly … Who the hell is Bruce Springsteen to tell anybody how to vote?

Read the rest.

Ted taking lessons from O’Reilly?

Not sure why this isn’t more of a front page story–I think it’s huge news. Hopefully it will end peacefully (being a Republican doesn’t mean you want everything to be bloody) but the ball is in Iran’s court.

I strongly believe in an open and free press. I don’t want Brokaw or O’Reilly deciding what I see. On a news day like today when a video that is “too grisly” to be shown comes out, the public doesn’t see what the news room does. Everyone in Washington sees it. They have decided that you can’t handle it. Some times it takes a video like this to make you remember what our country is fighting for.

Nick Berg, a young man from Philadelphia, recently found himself in the hands of a group of Al Qaeda terrorists. They made him state his details and then listen to a long speech against America in a language he didn’t understand. While screaming started to fill the room his head was cut off by a small knife. It wasn’t a clean cut.

If you want to see who we are dealing with, download and watch this video [If that doesn't work, try mirror 1 or mirror 2]. It’s in WMV (I’m sorry), and is about 5 megs. If you believe George Bush is satan, I beg you to watch it. If you forget how the two towers looked moments before they fell, I beg you to watch it. Send it to everyone you know. I will pay for the bandwidth for as long as it takes.

Update: Thanks to search engine rankings, I’m getting a ton of downloads on this today. If anyone has some spare bandwidth, it would be appreciated. I want to keep the downloads fast for everyone. So if you would like to contribute, drop a comment.

I heard this on the radio this morning–there couldn’t have been a worse story for McDonalds PR: McDonald’s CEO Dies of Heart Attack. Those salads might get a little more popular.

I have been hyper-busy lately as it is the end of the semester. But I have a few things to say:

• Go see Kill Bill Volume 2 tonight. It’s amazing. It has a lot more dialog than Volume 1, but still had action. In other news, the DVD of Volume 1 sold over 2 million copies its first day.
• Matt is right. People freak out way to easily. I was invited to use Gmail, not forced. I am pretty sure that if I never signed up I wouldn’t be punished. If you don’t like all the ads (and lack of features) on other webmail services, give Gmail a spin. If you disagree with the privacy policy, don’t. Not that complex.
• MySpace started a games section. There is also a TV show in the works. Good bye Friendster.
• The low-carb Quiznos sandwiches are great. I was impressed.
• Whoever said that I hurt Pepsi sales was wrong. Also on the subject, at least in my location there are now new caps designed to obfuscate peeking on both Pepsi and Mountain Dew. Can anyone else confirm this?