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MacGuffin

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Wikipedia definition of the Alfred Hitchcock concept of a MacGuffin.

In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. The MacGuffin’s importance to the plot is not the object itself, but rather its effect on the characters and their motivations.

The MacGuffin technique is common in films, especially thrillers. Usually, the MacGuffin is revealed in the first act, and thereafter declines in importance. It can reappear at the climax of the story but may actually be forgotten by the end of the story. Multiple MacGuffins are sometimes derisively identified as plot coupons.

Definitive List of Hitchcock McGuffins

Also, Hitchcock Mania has a collection of stills from all of the Hitchcock films, including several MacGuffins.

Rope MacGuffin - The Wrong Hat

Rope MacGuffin – The wrong hat

The Spare Key to the Apartment

Dial M for Murder MacGuffin – the spare key to the apartment

Strangers on a Train MacGuffin

Strangers on a Train MacGuffin – The lighter implicating Farley Granger

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FCC is seeking to expand it’s reach into cable

According to Salon Magazine, Commissioner Kevin J. Martin of the FCC has been meeting quietly with religious leaders and industry leaders to try to organize a push for new stricter standards on what is broadcast over cable stations.
Pardon me, please, because I’m going to lose it right here.
USE YOUR FUCKING ‘V’ CHIP, PEOPLE. That’s what it’s FOR. I AM NOT YOUR GOD-DAMNED BABYSITTER.
I don’t want my cable television censored because you’re too damned lazy or stupid to monitor what your children are watching on television. You PAY FOR that cable and bring it into your own home. If you don’t want your kids to see something, SHUT IT OFF. You know how to do that, don’t you, you retarded fucking moron?
If this goes through, I’m going to calculate the cost of babysitting charges for every parent of every child in the entire country, and I’m going to start a lawsuit against someone, I don’t know who yet, to CHARGE PEOPLE FOR THE BABYSITTING SERVICES I’LL BE PROVIDING TO RETARDED PARENTS who are forcing me to have my television censored.
God damned, mother-fucking, retarded son-of-a-bitch morons. Shithead assholes. Losers. Uni-brow idiots. Stop fucking BREEDING if you can’t be smarter than this.

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The Long Tail

[Navigated to by way of Steven Johnson’s Blog. Johnson is the author of Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter which I read recently.]
Quoting from Wikipedia:

The phrase The Long Tail, as a proper noun, was first coined by Chris Anderson. Beginning in a series of speeches in early 2004 and culminating with the publication of a Wired Magazine article in October 2004, Anderson described the effects of the long tail on current and future business models. Anderson observed that products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough. Examples of such mega-stores include Amazon.com, Netflix and even Wikipedia.

Meaning that if you’re into some obscure punk band that no one but you and two people in Idaho have heard of, some businesses with large distribution channels can provide them to you, and their business on small demand items can exceed business for large demand items. Which explains who so many obscure movies are now being released on DVD, where there’s now a market for them via Internet companies that don’t need to provide a physical store to house them.

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Public Space Games: Ministry of Reshelving

I’m a bit behind on reading Boing Boing, so I’m just now perusing Wednesday’s post about a new city-wide game: the Ministry of Reshelving, by Avant Game, a woman’s personal blog where she discusses some of the public games she’s created and participated in. Basically, following certain rules, you go to a bookstore and take George Orwell’s 1984 and reshelve it in the “Current Affairs” section, leaving notes behind about why. I love it that it’s fun and political, too. Can I reshelve Ann Coulter under fiction? Or better yet, under mental illnesses. This is much better than what I normally do, which is turn right-wing nutjob books around so you can’t see the titles.
I love the idea of public games and have blogged about them before:
26 Things Photographic Scavenger Hunt
New York Games
Design Institute’s Big Urban Game
The Go Game
Ernie about The Go Game
Alternate Reality Gaming Network
The Urban Iditarod
Geocaching – The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site
At one time, Lori and I put together a kick-ass scavenger hunt here in Indianapolis. Sadly, we have several teams sign up, but only one team actually did the work or showed up to claim a prize. I think I was so disappointed that I never actually published the game or the answers. I’d love to revisit the idea, though.

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