Fred Manteghian

Call him Leo Get$. That was his idea to put the dollar sign in his name. Sony hired these two human billboards to walk around and promote their Blu-ray product. Leo was working his wares on the elevator area badge checker at the show with no success, but his motto, just like Joe Pesce in <i>Lethal Weapon II</i> is, "Whatever you want, Leo Gets, get it?"

Up until some dreadful time today, Connecticut radio station 104.1 played new alternate rock music and did it very well. Not enough of a market to justify formulaic shock-jocks, the former owner, the great, the diseased, the much-maligned Clear Channel radio conglomerate ran 104 WURH like a great indie radio station. No live DJ's, in fact, the few radio breaks they took between songs mostly made fun of the other stations (many of whom they owned). WURH was where I could hear the Killers, the Kings of Leon, Cage the Elephant and a bunch of stuff I didn't care for either, but it was all new for the most part and who isn't at least a little sick of classic rock at this point! Once a week, they played an oldie like that dreadful Four Non-Blondes song whose title I paid a hypnotist to make me forget, but for the most part, radio 104 was always fresh!

Not to complain too loudly, because in the old days we had typewriters, but whoever is responsible for making sure the 4th estate can do their job should be fired. The press room is full of hardwired Dell laptops (I mean, I'm a Windows guy and even <I>I</I> won't use a Dell, for Lord's sake) and there are precious few empty tables for people who brung their own. On top of that, there's no "supported," a.k.a. working, wireless connections. Granted, wireless introduces problems too, but hardwired Dells and brown shirts walking around making sure you don't unplug the Ethernet cable and put it into your laptop isn't helping anyone get their job done.

Michelle Kessler who covers technology for USA Today has a <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2007-09-09-electroni... target="new">great little (short) read</a> on price sensitivity in today's electronics marketplace. It's not how high of a mountain you shout from after all. It's how far the people listening are willing to tilt back to hear you.