clearing out your inbox

This should be deleted, but...you never know. One of them might write the next Full Monty or Usual Suspects or something...And then I'll be there to jump on their bandwagon...

Brian Merkley wrote:
>
> The reason the great Tragically Hip can charge 19.55 for tickets
relative
> to 25 or whatever for sloan is could also be related to the venue.
>
> Tragically Hip
> 19.55 x 5000 = approx $98,000
>
> Sloan
> 25 x 2000 = $50,000

Very good guess, Mr. Merkley. But not the entire story. You see, those
are GROSS profits. Figuring out the actual net profit is a far more
complicated set of calculations than most people even dream of.

Let us start with an elementary lesson in Sound Reinforement. Please be
so kind as to follow me into your local music store... here we have a
20
watt amp capable of producing a sound that will annoy your mum in the
kitchen downstairs, with a pricetag of $100. Next to it is a 50 watt
amp
capable of annoying your next door neighbors two doors down, with a
pricetag of $250.

The exact difference between these two amps is expressed in a unit of
measurement called a TUFNEL, roughly the annoyance level (measured in
dB) divided by the dollar amount, multiplied by the inverse of the
Price
of Eggs in China. or... (dB/$)*(1/PeC)

Now, if it were simply a question of how many Tufnels it took to raise
the volume one louder to fill the larger hall, we could simply stop
there, and adjust the price of your ticket accordingly.

TH- 19.95 x 5000 = ~95,000 - (500 Tufnels @ $40) = $75,000 net profit
Sloan- 25 x 2000 = $50,000 - (200 Tufnels @ $50) = $40,000 net profit

But wait, kids... that's not all. There is a little known
audio-economic
theorem known as the Malkmus Effect, discovered first in the early
'90s.
The Malkmus Theorem states that amazingly enough, "Old Fans" of a band
actually, literally absorb more sound during a performance than do "New
Fans". (and yes, there is an exact mathematical formula for determining
whether a person is a "New" or "Old" fan, based on number of years
"into" the band, records owned, shows attended and the 'Indie Cred
Factor at Attained Age', all divided by the number of Duran Duran
records hidden at the back of the closet.)

Actual tests have shown that a room full of 100 "New Fans" in a room
where a band are playing will absorb an average of between 10 and 20
Tufnels, while an equivalent room full or 100 "Old Fans" may absorb
anywhere up to *100* Tufnels. That means some members of the audience
may be absorbing up to A FULL TUFNEL OF SOUND EACH!!!

Someone either on this list, or on the MessageBoard was mentioning, in
review of the Chicago show, that it sounded as if either Jay's guitar
may have been undermixed, or Patrick's distortion may have been too
high. Actually, neither of these were the case- this person was
*actually* experiencing the Malkmus Effect, literally sucking the sound
of Jay's guitar RIGHT OUT OF THE AIR.

You can imagine how complicated this all gets. It is a little known
fact
that, hidden away in floors of anonymous skyscrapers in NYC, L.A. and
T.O., are thousands of record company employees doing complicated
demographic unit-shifting product enhancement target audience surveys
to
determine *exactly* how many Tufnels a band can output for certain
ticket prices.

(This may go to partially explain why bands or record companies in
financial distress may deliberately go out of their way to *alienate*
their "Old Fans"- they simply can no longer *afford* the Tufnel level
output required to satisfy them.)

Now let's look at that equation again:

Sloan- 25 x 2000 = $50,000 - (200 Tufnels @ $50) = $40,000 net profit

assuming an equal division of New Fans and Old fans...
1000 New Fans (100 Tufnels @ $50) = $ 5000
1000 Old Fans (1000 Tufnels @ $50) = $50000

After a show like this, each member of Sloan may leave the building
*OWING* their sound engineer $1250!!!!

My god! I am shocked and horrified!

I propose that we immediately start a charity named the Sloan Relief
Fund to help assuage this problem! Send me $5 (tax deductable, of
course) and I will make sure that your favourite member of Sloan gets
adequately bathed and fed, and in return for your troubles, you will
get
a pin that says "I Saved A Starving Sloan!"

Thank you for your support,
--
[Guess Who?], Queen of Coo, AJSAS, PHEB, TYFSOK, JFDC
[Website removed]
"Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level.
It's much cheaper" -Quentin Crisp

Yes? Im still at work.

My computer died completely on 9/14/03 so all prior emails are lost to the evil netherworld.

** NEVER send administrative requests to the list! **

The very first e-mail I received when I got back my computer from the shop, where my old HD was being fixed up after crashing completely on me again. I got a CD burner for Christmas 1999, which served a very useful purpose once my old HD gave up the ghost once and for all back in 2000. I had to have a completely new HD installed on my system, but thankfully unlike in the past I could hang onto everything from before, because I could burn a couple of backup CDs. This came from the old archive, which I've since added onto, of course.

This dates from 2 weeks after I started work here and was from the Deputy Director making a complete hash of classifying books. We had to explain to her that books couldn't have two different shelfmarks, by definition. Unless she'd invented some kind of quantum device to make them exist in two points simultaneously.

I haven't deleted nearly enough crap, but if you leave it all for 2 years it becomes kind of a big job...

Anyway the first one (on this computer) is a mail from kathryn about the ponderosa carnival

On my yahoomail account, arranging to go see Paths of Glory with a friend in July 2000

And the one below, a friend of my sister's in February 1996 mailed me a copy of Dave Barry on Relationships. I thought it was funny and passed it on. And thus was spam born.

Do you really keep mail that goes "Yeah, see you later"

A trip home last year revealed some printouts of college email chat from 1988. Binned in shivery discomfort.

In Yahoo it's May 1998 - a mini-flurry of messages from, in order, the Pinefox (subj: Singles Going Steady), Nick D, Jerry and Steve B (a one-time poster on ILX).

In hotmail, the oldest message is from July 11th 1997.

clearing out from 126 to 20 = satisfying. extra points to the deletion that makes the scrollbar disappear

well done! i need to do this . . . badly

Making the scrollbar disappear is key. I've managed to be scrollbar free for the past few months after years of having hundreds of e-mails in my inbox.

god i used to be anal about this and now have 1000+ sitting there

was referring to my work inbox, btw. my personal mail inbox is at...547

hahaha I hit the big 10,000 unread the other day

just culled the herd to 58

jesus, my unread emails are always at zero. i would go insane.

hahaha I hit the big 10,000 unread the other day

unread?!

I'm guessing 9950 are ilxmails with good posting advices

facebook and job sites have a lot to answer for

I can't stand unread emails in my inbox, and I can't stand not having them dealt with by the end of the day. At least at work.
Irl i'm kind of a lazy slob, but I'm so paranoid about that spilling over into my work life that I am a little ott about organization at work.

READ YR MAIL, jeez

oh god ~unread~? that shit gets read immediately. can't stand having that little red dot on the mail icon

so glad i don't get facebook notifications (actually i'm supposed to according to my settings i think, but it hasn't worked in forever)

yeah, i'm usually good about killing those but uncovered a few dozen in this afternoon's slaughter

Attention GTD-fanatics... I hit Inbox Zero the old-fashioned way. Go whine in your nth-generation to-do lists!

/smug