I was pretty bummed out by Tim Hardaway's recent remarks. Leave it to George Takei to turn the tables.

Nicely done, George.

It's been awhile since I linked to an SB Email, but this one really spoke to me.

I had a great weekend. It started on Friday when Ric and I celebrated Valentine's Day. We went to Downtown Disney to look for a restaurant and ended up eating at the Jazz Kitchen in the umbrella room with the live jazz music. The entertainment was great, and so was the food. I had a wonderful chardonnay with my shrimp and lobster ravioli, and Ric enjoyed his gumbo and jambalaya. After dinner we were walking along the stores and joked about going in to Build-A-Bear. Of course, joking turned into "let's do it!" when we thought of buying a new stuffed playmate for Pip, who was 1-year old that day. That's right - he's already one!

So we went in and a very effeminate guy helped us stuff our little cat. Of course, if we had known that, at Build-A-Bear, they take delight in embarrassing the customers by making them hug the animals, choose a heart, make a wish, kiss the heart, and put it in the animals, we wouldn't have even walked in the door. Nevertheless, a child was born, and his name is Magwich (because, of course, he is both a benefactor and a nemesis to Pip since he is a playmate and something to tear into pieces - and if you haven't read Great Expectations, you should). We bought a stuffed-animal polo shirt with the sole intent to take it home and see what it would look like on Pip. Isn't it cute? He was doing a sort of walk-crawl because he felt so constrained by clothing. It was hilarious.

Saturday I got up bright and early to meet up with Amy, Megan, and Lisette, and we all drove down to the LA Flower District to get an idea of what we're going to do for Amy's decorations for her wedding. We pretty much figured everything out, which was amazing. And, like most brides, Amy's idea of what she was going to do completely changed once she visited the flower market and saw all of those colorful flowers in person. I love going there.

Ric took Pip to the vet on Saturday afternoon. I had him go to the Banfield at Petsmart instead of the little homegrown vet we had been going to previously because it made me uncomfortable to take my pet to such a dirty place. Pip was having his year checkup and checking into that infection in his teeth. First off, he's a healthy 12.5 pounds already. Wow! Second, the infection didn't warrant teeth-pulling, so I'm glad we took him to Banfield. I dropped him off today to leave him overnight, where he'll have some sort of dental cleaning that costs too much, and we'll get him microchipped just like everyone on Heroes.

After I was done with all the flowers, I did laundry at my folks' place and then Jenny and I decided to go out to Italian since Ric wasn't coming along. We had a fantastic meal at Roman Cucina. The bruschetta (best anywhere) and aglio/olio were worth the long wait, which didn't turn out to be so bad because we were able to go shopping at Buffalo Exchange and take a walk around downtown Fullerton. I definitely need to go back to BE once I've got more money. By the time I got home I was able to watch the end of a Kings game with Ric and then I pretty much passed out from exhaustion.

Sunday we went to church - no Andersons. I thought so. We had lunch and then joined Ric's folks to see the university's current play, The Glass Menagerie. Great acting, especially the mother's role. I think I'll post more about it later. We all had pizza for dinner and watched another Kings game. This time the game ended right - a shootout where the Kings beat the Ducks.

All in all, a busy weekend, but full of fun memories and good food. Good times. Work's busy, so I suppose I shouold get back to that.

I'm not really much of a Nine Inch Nails fan. I respect Trent Reznor for being a talented and creative musician, but his music just isn't my cup of tea. Nevertheless, I'm intrigued by the viral marketing strategy being used to promote the new NIN album.

A couple of weeks ago, apparently, some new t-shirts were sold with highlighted letters spelling out "I am trying to believe." Fans discovered that iamtryingtobelieve.com is a registered website that seems to be about a dark, dystopian future. Several related sites have been discovered (see the list here), which together reveal a world that exists after a catastrophic global act of war.

None of these sites specifically mention a new album or even Nine Inch Nails; and, like the infamous 1984 Apple ad, it's the mystery and the lack of information that generates interest.

This marketing campaign was taken to a new level when one of the songs from the album was found on a flash drive that was left in a bathroom at a Nine Inch Nails concert, and subsequently shared on the Internet. Since then two other songs have been leaked in the same way.

Normally, an album leak occurs when an advance copy of a CD is ripped and shared before its release, which is a source of great frustration to record labels. Instead of hopelessly trying to fight the downloaders, though, Trent Reznor is taking advantage of file sharing to build anticipation of the new album. By intentionally leaking the album one song at a time (as many have speculated he is doing), he is gradually building excitement over the release online. Like I said, I normally wouldn't take any interest in a new Nine Inch Nails album, but this marketing campaign has me intrigued.

But if the album is eventually available for free download, will it make any money? Yes, for two reasons.

First of all, not everybody downloads album leaks. There's still a substantial portion of listeners who get their music exclusively by purchasing CDs or downloading from iTunes. I'm guessing that Trent Reznor is counting on fans who download the leaked music to generate enough buzz about the album to cause some of these other people to become interested and buy the music.

More significantly, I expect the official release will include some added incentives to buy. Already, we see that the album is tied into a fictional dystopia as revealed through further websites. I think we can expect a multimedia experience that includes some combination of audio, video, pictures, and words in an elaborately designed package.