Category: play

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books

Maximum Bob

I said the other day while watching Killshot that I was inspired to read some Elmore Leonard, so here we are. Actually, it could be the other way around, or not. It doesn’t matter which inspired which, they were both good.

I’m starting to get a feel for the Elmore Leonard formula after only a few short instances. One thing that he often seems to have is a strong yet vulnerable heroine. In this book, Kathy Diaz Baker is a tough parole officer with two really rough parolees, both of whom were sent away by a crooked judge nicknamed Maximum Bob. It turns into a twisted circle because the judge wants to sleep with non-receptive Kathy, and one of Kathy’s parolees wants to kill the judge. All sorts of shenanigans ensue.

During the shenanigans, Kathy falls for a local detective and it evolves into a tasteful little affair (this is the vulnerable part of Kathy). Kathy character reminds me a little of Jennifer Lopez’s character in Out of Sight, another great Elmore Leonard book and movie. Man I loved that movie. I’m going to watch that again soon.

It all takes place in Palm Beach county Florida. In certain ways, even besides the South Florida angle, it’s a little like a Carl Hiaasen novel, but a little darker and not as much hilarity. I like both.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

The relationship that Kathy has with the cop comes to an abrupt halt when one of her parolees kills him. It was an emotional part of the book and the way Leonard drew out the drama by interspersing two scenes during the killing was masterful. I was engrossed, mad, sad, you name it.

Superb story. I’ll be reading more Leonard in the coming years, and maybe grabbing a few of the movies on Netflix.

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books

Scorecasting

I’m a sports junkie – always have been. It’s a problem, I know. I’m a different kind of junkie though compared to my childhood. As a kid, I loved stats and analysis, but never made much sense of them. Sure, I could give up-to-date recitations of baseball’s hitting leaders and name the high school attended by most of the top college hoopsters, but I couldn’t explain how that affected any game results. Nor did I care to, the game just wasn’t of great import.

Now, sports are all about the game for me. It’s about consuming that live sporting experience in some form, be it TV, web, radio, or attending it live. I don’t record things for later viewing, I don’t watch much pre or post-game analysis, I’m not well-versed in player stats, and I rarely read the recap the next day in the paper. The problem is, I can’t do much ’splaining, which is why I grabbed this book.

I consume these live sporting events often in massive quantities, and sometimes to the detriment of loved ones, my job, and my health. My interest is twofold, I love the rush of excitement I get as the drama unfolds, and I embrace the intellectual experience of trying to figure out why things happen on the field of play. This book is very helpful in the latter.

The authors, Jon Wertheim and Tobias Moskowitz, are friends and sports junkies. One is a University of Chicago finance professor (Moskowitz) and the other a writer for Sports Illustrated (Wertheim). Here, in their words, is a telling statement of why they wrote this book:

Even though sports are treated as a diversion and ignored by highbrow types, they are imbued with tremendous power to explain human behavior more generally.

I can picture these guys wandering through the hallowed halls of academia or media (ie…highbrow types) wishing they could find someone to talk sports with. Well, they’ve found an outlet and I’m gobbling it up. In fact, I’ve heard mention of a sequel and I’m ready for it (they mentioned this in the credits if I recall correctly, their blog does not have anything on it).

To really understand what’s happening on the field of play, there are some key concepts they explore, and the book goes through them in detail. Here are the five main ones.

Key Concept 1: Omission Bias

… It conforms to a sort of default mode of human behavior. People view acts of omission—the absence of an act—as far less intrusive or harmful than acts of commission—the committing of an act—even if the outcomes are the same or worse. Psychologists call this omission bias, and it expresses itself in a broad range of contexts.

This explains why the refs “let them play” at the end of big games or why umpires blow more calls on a two-strike count.

Key Concept 2: Loss Aversion

There’s not just an aversion to risk and confrontation; coaches often make the wrong choice. In other words, they’re just like … the rest of us. Time and again, we let the fear of loss overpower rational decision-making and often make ourselves worse off just to avoid a potential loss.

This explains why golfers will miss more putts for birdie than they will for par or why football coaches will punt on fourth down even though it would make more sense to go for it.

Key Concept 3: Quantity Bias

We see this all the time in many facets of life and business. People count quantities (easy) rather than measure importance (hard) and as a result sometimes make faulty decisions.

This explains why people erroneously assume Dwight Howard is a better shot blocker than Tim Duncan simply because Howard blocked a whole lot more shots than Duncan or why a .299 hitter in baseball is usually a much better bargain than a .300 hitter.

Key Concept 4: Influence Conformity

Despite fans’ claims to the contrary, referees are, finally, human. Psychology finds that social influence is a powerful force that can affect human behavior and decisions without the subjects even being aware of it. Psychologists call this influence conformity because it causes the subject’s opinion to conform to a group’s opinion.

This is the big one. It is almost wholly responsible for the home field advantage. The writers beat the tar out of home field advantage. They tested the theory that home teams do better because they are more rested, and debunked it. They tested the theory that familiar surroundings help the home team win more often, and debunked it.

The home team advantage happens mostly because the home team gets favorable calls by the refs. Period. The refs, without knowing it, are influenced by the home crowd and because they are human, fall prey to influence conformity. Fascinating stuff.

In the end, I have new appreciation for judgment calls by umpires/referees. There was a period recently where I shunned the major sports and focused almost exclusively on golf and running because those two competitive endeavors are devoid of judgment calls. But judgment calls are part of the game and part of life. Bad calls are just as real as great plays and great chokes. It’s an unfair and biased world that we live in and sports prove this every day.

Key Concept 5: Pattern Attribution Tendency

Why do we attribute so much importance to “sports momentum” when it’s mostly fiction? Psychology offers an explanation. People tend to ascribe patterns to events. We don’t like mystery.

They explain in detail why momentum is bull. So many of those “nine out of last ten” stats or “five game winning streaks” are completely irrelevant to the outcome of the next at-bat, the next free throw, or the next game. Those stats are lazy fall-backs for uninformed sportscasters who should dig a little deeper to explain what’s going on.

Oh, there’s a lot more folks. About half the chapters are lengthy and filled with lots of data. The other half are shorter, which helps break up the intensity a little bit. Smart, very smart. It finishes strong with a detailed study of why the Cubs usually suck. It’s a chapter worth waiting for, especially if you’re a Sox fan. They dig deeply into the correlation between the annual change in attendance and the annual change in number of wins, comparing the Cubs to the Sox and the Yankees. It slaps you in the face.

I’ve only scratched the surface, this is an enlightening book. And I’ve heard Moskovitz and Wertheim have a lot more material for the sequel. I can’t wait.

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books

A Game of Thrones

Historically, around one out of every twenty books I read are sci-fi/fantasy/horror books. Last year was kind of an anomaly because I read three (out if thirty). I read Dune, followed it up with some teen lit, and finished with a less than stellar vampire novel. I want more books like Dune. It’s such a great book, but then to finish the year with that disappointing horror/vampire thing left me empty.

I was ready to give up on the genre, actually. Then this Game of Thrones thing comes along. I mentioned a few weeks ago how I stumbled on the TV version. After seeing that, my first thought was, “I gotta read the book.” Eventually, I’ll watch the show, but that could be years down the road.

It’s a long, meandering epic set in a mystical, medieval-style world with kings and queens and wars and politics. It’s 800 pages long and this is only book one of five in the series. It’s kind of like Lord of the Rings meets Pillars of the Earth meets 48 Laws of Power. Yeah, that may be an apt description.

It’s about people, probably a dozen of them. Each chapter is titled with a person’s name and it bounces from one to the other in about equal proportions. They are all related in some way to protecting or pursuing the king of the land, who sits on an iron throne made from swords. The land is called Westeros and it’s a place where summers last decades and winters just as long. The novel is set at a time when the summer is ending and people are readying for a long, long, long winter.

Westeros is a piece of land bordered by a cross-able body of water on the east and a massive, 700 foot wall on the north. Besides internal strife among the seven families who run Westeros, there is a looming threat east of the water and north of the wall. East, across the water, there are fearsome warriors and deposed inheritors of the crown. North of the wall are mysterious, supernatural beasts. The people of Westeros acknowledge these threats, but they hate each other so much that they concentrate more on fighting each other rather than protecting themselves from outside threats.

I mention supernatural beasts, but this book is mostly devoid of much magic, mysticism, and fantasy. It, oddly enough, only speaks of these beasts in dreams and stories. It’s mostly humans fighting with words, wit, and swords. However, based on the ending, it’s clear that the next book will leave this familiar, medieval setting and incorporate supernatural creatures.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’ll have to sort through that before I buy the next book. I can’t go all-in with imaginary characters and the magic. Dune was really well done in terms of incorporating imaginary things. Can anyone suggest something comparable? Dune, for me, didn’t get bad until after the guy turned into a worm (that was maybe book four). I don’t know, it was just so out there that it didn’t work for me. But, in general, I haven’t completely bought into the fantasy genre.

Regardless, I thought it was well done. I’ll let it rest a few months before I decide if I press on.

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Killshot

This is a movie based on an Elmore Leonard novel of the same name. It’s a 2008 movie that Gail came across so she DVR’d it, thinking we would like it. Man, she nailed it. Great movie. It’s a solid, gritty crime story. How often do I use that gritty crime term? I did a search and I’ve used it three times before this when talking about fiction. I guess I’m a cliche-ridden fool.

This movie didn’t do much at the box office and from what I can gather, it was only shown in a few test markets then released straight to DVD. That, according to IMDB. Kind of surprising when you consider how prolific and popular Elmore Leonard is. Take a look at all of the stuff he’s been attached to. It’s pretty amazing.

I’ve never read any Elmore Leonard, although he’s always been in the back of my mind as a writer I’d potentially like. In fact, it just so happened that I purchased an Elmore Leonard novel a few weeks ago (Maximum Bob) from a used book store. I’m reading it after this.

Like many of Leonard’s stories, this movie takes place in Michigan. It’s about an estranged husband and wife (Thomas Jane and Diane Lane) who witness a crime by an accomplished killer (Mickey Rourke) and a bumbling crook (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). The husband and wife eventually get on the witness protection program when the FBI get involved, but the killer and crook are dogged in their pursuit. There’s other stuff going, but his is the gist of it.

Despite the all-star cast and the high-powered writer, I’m not surprised that this got killed at the box office. Most people probably don’t have much tolerance for crime novel type of pacing and fluffy character exploration, but that’s what you got here. Which is probably why Sue Grafton novels will never be made into movies. Damn.

But I think Mickey Rourke did a great job as the killer and the Joseph Gordon-Levitt character had a lot of funny moments, like the time he made a Wade Boggs reference related to eating chicken. It was a great example of the warped humor this movie contains. I wonder if Leonard had that reference in the book. I can’t wait to read Maximum Bob now. Gonna start it soon.

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books

The Green Ripper

This was the second reread of 2011 and I have a feeling that I’ll do a few more. I made a visit to the Brown Elephant in Oak Park and walked out with this paperback along with ones by Alistair Maclean (Athabasca) and Len Deighton (SS-GB). These are books that I only marginally enjoyed as a kid, but my tastes have changed considerably since then and I’m expecting to get a little more enjoyment out of them this time around now that I’m all growed up.

I’m off to a great start because the The Green Ripper was a heckuva lot better than I remember.

* PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW *

The most distinct memory I have of this book was this feeling: There’s a gun and dead body on the front cover, but the only action is a gunfight that takes place in the second-to-last chapter.

That encapsulates what a little idiot I was. What was I expecting? Did I just want a 300 page shootout? What I got was a short but intense shootout at the end that took place over about a chapter (of a total of 15 chapters). I vividly recall McGee referring to the day of carnage and revenge as his “John Wayne day.” As a kid, I loved John Wayne movies so that made the book worthwhile back then.

This time, I didn’t struggle through the buildup like I did as a kid. I relished MacDonald’s McGee, who is a classic, hardcore, private investigator living on a houseboat called The Busted Flush in South Florida. McGee’s cohort is his buddy and resident genius Meyer, who hangs around to talk sense into McGee and occasionally provide some comic relief. This is the kind of classic crime novel that I love and I’ll be reading all of the Travis McGee novels. However, I don’t know if I’ll be reading them order. I’ve read a few and I don’t seem to recall it being that important to read them in order. I’ll have to do a little research on that.

Finally, as I do with many of the crime novels, I like to pick out a thought or a rant by the main character that embodies their take on the world. Here are McGee’s thoughts on a middle-aged guy (Herm) whom McGee thought died from over exherting himself:

… In the meanwhile, poor Herm had succumbed to the age of the jock. The mystique of pushing yourself past your limits. The age of shin splints, sprung knees, and new hernias. An office-softened body in its middle years needs a long, long time to come around. Until a man can walk seven miles in two hours without blowing like a porpoise, without sweating gallons, without bumping his heart past 120, it is asinine to start jogging. Except for a few dreadful lapses which have not really gone on too long, I have stayed in shape all my life. Being in shape means knowing your body, how it feels, how it responds to this and to that, and when to stop. You develop a sixth sense about when to stop. It is not mysticism. It is brute labor, boring and demanding. Violent exercise is for children and knowledgeable jocks. Not for insurance adjustors and sales managers. They do not need to be in the shape they want to be, and could not sustain it if they could get there. Walking briskly no less than six hours a week will do it for them. The McGee System for earnest office people. I can push myself considerably further because I sense when I’m getting too close to the place where something is going to pop, rip, or split.

Ah, the soliloquy of the crime noire hero. It’s a thing of beauty. I’m glad to welcome back Travis McGee after about 30 years. I’m looking forward to more.

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screen

Ironman 2

Did Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) call the senator (Garry Shandling) an ass-clown? I think he did. What is this movie rated? PG-13. I think Jon Favreau is spending too much time reading the Urban Dictionary. Maybe Tony Stark would say such a thing. I don’t know. He seems pretty arrogant but his heart is in the right place I guess.

You have to understand: superheroes have flaws. You gotta take the good with the bad.

This is a cute movie. The opening fight scene is worthy and there is plenty of humor. The special effects are cool. It makes you think, man, we’ve come a long way since Minority Report (referencing the scene where they use their hands with air-touch-holograph method to sort through information and the like).

The cast of characters is strong. Samuel L. Jackson as head of this do-good group of superheroes is somewhat fitting. I don’t know much about these superhero comics, but the back story is highly appreciated by many fans. I posed this question to someone in the know the other day, “Who is this character played by Samuel L. Jackson?” Boy did I get an earful.

I guess his name is Nick Fury. How was I supposed to know that? Did they say his name during the movie at all? I think not. And Scarlett Johansson’s character has like three names. I’m a geek about certain things, but Marvel Comics is not one of them.

Did I mention that AC/DC and Garry Shandling are featured prominently? You really can’t go wrong with that.

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books

Positioning

This marketing book was suggested by a childhood friend and businessman named David Worrell. You can read his take on the subject in his post about lame business names. Great rant David. For me, the book is a much needed treatise on some of the most important principles in marketing. I have my own business and as you can probably tell, it’s not in marketing. I certainly always need marketing help.

To give you a feel for the definition of positioning, I’ll use a few quotes from the authors, Al Ries and Jack Trout:

The basic approach of positioning is not to create something new and different, but to manipulate what’s already up there in the mind, to retie the connections that already exist.

Today’s marketplace is no longer responsive to the strategies that worked in the past. There are just too many products, too many companies, and too much marketing noise.

Keep in mind, this book was first written in 1980 and revised in 2001. Even considering the update, they were talking about “too much marketing noise” before Facebook and Twitter were even conceived and Google was mostly a search company. If you want discussions about information overload, we have discussions about information overload. I’ve talked about it in detail in a post over at my business site. Ries and Trout use this great visual of a “dripping sponge”:

The average mind is already a dripping sponge that can only soak up more information at the expense of what’s already there. Yet we continue to pour more information into that supersaturated sponge and are disappointed when our messages fail to get through.

I find this interesting because when I wrote my post I was under the impression that this was new and groundbreaking science. But Ries and Trout have been making the same point about information overload for decades. Quoting from the book:

Scientists have discovered that a person is capable of receiving only a limited amount of sensation. Beyond a certain point, the brain goes blank and refuses to function normally.

So that’s where we stand folks, now more than ever. Getting someone to hear what you’re saying, listen to your pitch, or pay attention to what you’re selling, becomes more difficult every day.

Ries and Trout have the antidote with plenty of specific, albeit dated examples. They go through the details on advertising, communication, and public relations campaigns for companies ranging from Avis to Xerox, and many in between. Each is tied to a specific positioning principle.

It’s highly relevant stuff, but I need help thinking through if it’s more or less relevant now in the information age. Take this assertion for example:

Changing minds in our overcommunicated society is an extremely difficult task. It’s much easier to work with what’s already there.

Isn’t this even more relevant today? Not only are we bombarded with more information, but it’s easier than ever to find information that’s agreeable, that corroborates feelings and emotions already in place. So there’s a good case for it being even more difficult to change minds in this day and age. However, it’s not as easy to fool the educated consumer these days because information is a lot more accesible for those who know how to get at it. Can’t their mind be changed simply with facts and data? Can they even be swayed by positioning-speak like “we try harder” or “it’s the real thing”?

These are questions that a finance guy like myself needs help on. I would buy an update to the book. Heck, it could be valuable to look an line extensions alone. Ries and Trout are highly negative on line extensions, but they don’t seem to have lost favor yet. Gosh, the candy aisle is full of Dark Chocolate Kit-Kats, Pretzel M&Ms, and Snicker’s Peanut Butter. They seem to be doing alright, but I don’t have any hard data on that.

I have a feeling that certain assertions stand the test of time. Ries and Trout would still stand behind their idea that to be successful, a marketer has to deal with reality. What’s in the mind stays in the mind, it’s a monstrous task to change it. To do so you have to be skilful, analytical, creative, and subtle. Their six guiding questions are still relevant I think:

  1. What position do you own?
  2. What position do you want to own?
  3. Whom must you outgun?
  4. Do you have enough money?
  5. Can you stick it out?
  6. Do you match your position?

To answer these, the examples in the book help a lot. It’s a fast read. It would be a cliche to call this book timeless, but it very well could be.

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books

Harvest

You’ve heard me talk about my hometown before. Great town, although it’s been a rocky ride lately (you know, with the flood and such). But this small town has had some successes in the last few years – a National Championship basketball team and, heck, this book entitled Harvest. Harvest is a fine piece of work co-authored by a gentlemen who graduated with me from Findlay High School.

So in the interest of full disclosure, you should know that co-author Chris Younger grew up in my neighborhood and was a childhood friend of mine. Chris and his business partner/co-author David Tolson run an investment banking firm in suburban Denver called Capital Value Advisors.

This book spans the process of selling your business, which certainly encapsulates an important part of the services provided by Capital Value Advisors. It begins at the moment you simply contemplate what life would be like if you sold your business and ends at the moment you sign the closing documents. Tolson and Younger touch on everything you need to think about throughout this process. Everything. They go into detail on some things and mention others in summary, making it clear where they expect you, the business owner, to dig deeper. I think they nail the mix of detail and summary, concrete and abstract.

In fact, in terms of balancing weight/length with relevant knowledge, this book excels. It’s less than 200 pages and can be read over the course of a couple of days even by the most harried business owner. But I strongly suggest longer study and quiet contemplation of the content.

The payoff for reading it? I can imagine an immediate boost in confidence for small business owners as they walk into their first meeting to discuss selling their business. And confident they should be. By giving this book the appropriate attention, they’ve taken great measures to guard against any lawyer, accountant, banker, or consultant misleading them on any key aspect of the sale of their business. A confidence borne of knowing that they’re prepared intellectually and emotionally for what could be a long and taxing process.

In my work life, I’m associated with this industry. I’m a numbers guy with a consulting business focused on helping finance organizations in mid-sized enterprises do things faster and more accurately with fewer resources. This book is relevant for me because it clearly links the role of the finance organization to the rest of this process. Tolson and Younger go into a fair amount of detail on valuation, understanding financial statements, and capital structure. By the time any business owner is done reading it, they’re surely going to understand the value of rigorous and regular analysis of financial results.

Besides finance, the book covers other detailed, procedural items like:

  • Finding and hiring an advisor
  • Preparing the “book” that describes your business
  • The process of marketing your business to potential buyers
  • The legal document estate
  • Due diligence

And finally, Tolson and Younger throw in a wealth of “soft” information, real stories on the strategic and managerial side of things. They have chapters addressing these issues:

  • Are you (the owner) ready for this?
  • When is the best time to harvest?
  • Value outside of the financial statements
  • Dealing with deal fatigue
  • Communicating to employees and customers

In fact, I just purchased a handful of Harvest to have in hand the next time a client mentions something like, “I will probably want to sell this business someday.” It’s worthy of breaking out just for the glossary and appendices alone. The appendix includes a sample RFP for hiring an investment banker, a sample due diligence list, and an explanation of financial ratios. It’s rich stuff and written to appeal to a generalist.

Besides specific deal issues, I can envision it also being useful as a general reference for a variety of situations where strategy and finance intersect (valuation, performance metrics, and capital structure). Eventually, I’ll be writing more about this over at my business site. That is, when I actually start consistently posting over there.

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Game of Thrones – Episode Two

So yeah, after watching Talking Funny, I hung around HBO a little longer and caught this hour-long episode of Game of Thrones. It’s an HBO series based on the books by author George R.R. Martin. I saw some headlines weeks ago about this HBO series but I had no idea what it was. I ignored them because we don’t have HBO and I don’t do TV series in real time. The only TV series I’m watching right now is season two of The Wire (2003).

Game of Thrones was cool. I read about one sci-fi/fantasy book a year and I think the first book of this series will be it. I would rather read it than watch it. Sure, if it’s great I’ll probably grab the video in a few years, but I read very little fantasy so I need to be highly selective. Heck, I’ve seen an hour of the story and I’m comfortable that the plot and characters appear interesting, so let’s do this.

I’ve heard it described as “Lord of the Rings for Americans.” I’m not sure where I heard that or why they said it. Martin is American, but the show seems to have a lot of British accents and uses the whole king and royalty schtick. Hmmm, whatever. I’ll know more in a few months. I’ll probably read it this summer, especially if I get to a beach or pool.

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Talking Funny

I was out of town and it just so happens that the cable system in the hotel had TNT adjacent to HBO on the dial. So as I was watching the Heat clinch against the Sixers, I checked on HBO during commercial breaks. We don’t have HBO at home so it’s one of the few redeeming things about business travel. I got sucked in to this show and couldn’t turn it off. It’s just four comedians sitting around discussing the trade for an hour.

The four comedians are Ricky Gervais, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, and Louis C.K. It appeared that Ricky Gervais was the ringleader/moderator and I think his company produced the show. It’s specifically about stand-up comedy. The topics ran the gamut, they talked about the engaging the audience, writing jokes, using profanity, style, delivery, getting started, etc… You name it. It was a rambling conversation and really funny.

I do love stand-up comedy, but I haven’t been to see any stand-up in years. It used to be that my wife and I would hit the comedy clubs a few times a year back in the 1990s. I don’t think we’ve been in ten years, actually. This makes me want to go back.

They spent about 10 minutes talking about profanity. Jerry Seinfeld has used the f-word during stand-up once in his life. Only once! He says he just doesn’t need it for laughs. He didn’t deride the word though and is not offended by it. In fact, he sounded like he was appreciative of how the other guys use it. If you’ve seen any of the others, you know that they are heavy users of the f-word.

Then they moved on the the n-word, which Chris Rock uses mightily. Now I’m not familiar with Louis C.K.’s comedy, but evidently he uses the n-word also. I gotta tell you, it was a little uncomfortable watching him throw it around during the show. You just don’t see white guys using that word ever. Seinfeld and/or Gervais commented with something like, “only you, Louis, can use the n-word.” I’m not sure what that means. I need to check out his comedy to get a better understanding.

I started following Louis C.K. and Chris Rock on Twitter. It doesn’t look like Seinfeld or Gervais use the medium at all. I have a comedy list on Twitter with a mix of popular and indie comics and it provides a ton of laughs on a pretty regular basis. I need to reintroduce myself to stand-up.