It’s a good thing we didn’t rename the Tacoma Dome the Comcast Dome … Xfinity Dome? Lame.

Chief Executive Brian Roberts said Wednesday the company will rebrand its cable products under the banner “Xfinity” in an effort to reinvent its relationship with customers as the company’s cable systems shift to new technology platforms. via online.wsj.com Also, note to troubled companies with bad reputations. Changing your name to start with an X doesn’t mean we’ll start liking you. I’m looking at you Xe.

Quick wrap-up

I'm happy to say that my first meeting was a great success! I've been appointed to two committees, both rather close to my passion. The first committee is the Zoo Liaison Committee. My first job was at the Zoo, and I have had many good times there, from Zoolights to sleepovers in the aquarium (as a kid) to a wonderful homecoming dinner my senior year in high school by the shark tank. The second committee is the Capital Improvement Committee, which deals with the improvements from the 2005 capital bond. This will be very interesting, because 2005 was the year Read more…

Best Picture at the Oscars goes RCV

But in the Best Picture category — which used to be listed in the middle of the Oscar ballot, but will now be in a separate, detachable section — voters will be asked to rank the nominees in order of preference, one through 10. Those ballots will then be tallied using the preferential system (for a full-blown explanation, click here) in which the film with the fewest Number One votes will be eliminated, and its votes redistributed based on the film listed second on those ballots.  Eventually, one film will wind up with more than 50 percent of the vote, Read more…

How to Blog a Book

“It’s a five-year process from writing to publishing,” said Llewellyn, of traditional books. “It’s incredibly frustrating. And it’s like the lottery, such a risk every step of the way. “The Tilting House” was the fourth manuscript I tried to have published – no one ever read the others. So the idea of having an immediate audience was attractive.” The result is “Letter Off Dead,” a book in blog form (letteroffdead.com) which Llewellyn’s been writing since last April. The book follows the middle-school adventures and mishaps of Trevor, who begins writing to his dead father in a desperate measure to cope Read more…

Metro Parks!

This morning I went in to Metro Parks HQ on 19th and was administered the oath of office … by Mary! It was a very cool thing to have her be a part of it. I'm jumping in with both feet–there's a lot on the board's plate! As far as this blog goes … well professional changes have often made this blog divert in tone, content, and substance. I really like blogging, and I can't imagine stopping. I do feel like it's gotten a little stale around here, though. Part of that is time: writing interesting posts can take more Read more…

Tacoma Startup Weekend This Weekend!

If you're an interested entrepreneur or techie, we've got a big weekend ahead of us! Start-Up Weekend is like the 72-Hour Film Competition, except instead of making a movie in 3 days, you create a company, a product, and a business plan. Bringing together people with a variety of different talents, people team up, get to work, and then at the end of the weekend, they've got a company. From there, it's up to them to decide whether to keep it going or not. We'll be at Suite133. Andrew Fry's blog has a good run-down of what the weekend would Read more…