My biggest fan

June 5, 2007 by Leave a Comment

My brother just sent me this screenshot from Facebook. Apparently, my book’s cover made it into one of his friend’s photo albums, appropriately titled: “Why’d you have to be so cute?”

Here’s the comment exchange:
My brother: “ahah my brother wrote that”
Big time fan: “seriously?? wow its such a good book. im serious ive read it like 988234776 times. thats crazy”

Yes, indeed, studies have shown that the more you read Untangling the Ivy League, the better your chance of acceptance.

Don’t have a copy yet? What could you possibly be waiting for? Buy it today.

Filed Under: untangling ivy

Boycott Party DC

June 4, 2007 by 5 Comments

Washington, D.C.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather at this weekend’s Vintage Virginia Wine Festival. And between the 85 degree temperature, live music, free food samples and mediocre (yet copious) amount of vino, Saturday was pretty great.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of Party DC, the event planning company that organized our bus transportation to and from Bull Run. If you’re a young professional here in the nation’s capital, chances are good that you’ve been on one of Party DC’s trips – or at least heard of them.

I’ve been on several, to fall and spring Gold Cup and the Wine Festival (twice). But to be honest, I’ve never been happy (or even remotely satisfied) with Party DC’s level of service or professionalism – in fact, no one I’ve spoken to has.

Here are Five Reasons That Party DC is Awful:

  • Terrible website. It’s slow, crashes browsers and is impossible to navigate. Worst of all, it makes purchasing tickets a pain. Forget about trying to find or view event photos.
  • Scaled pricing. Yeah, it’s common with other event tickets, but Party DC doesn’t tell you the exact dates of when prices will increase – or what they will increase to. What ensues? An unnecessary guessing game intended solely to pad their bottom line.
  • Oversold trips. A completely unacceptable practice. At spring Gold Cup this year, many full-paying customers were forced to stand on the hour trip out to the Plains, Virginia.
  • No pre-trip orientation or organization. Time and time again (this past weekend being a prime example), Party DC employees have offered no direction to the hundreds of customers arriving at the Front Page. This inevitably results in a huge backlog and massive confusion when attempting to load buses. And Party DC buses leaving on time? Laughable.
  • Drunk chaperones. Party DC “hires” people to staff buses, but these same people are allowed to drink and do what they want at the event. You can imagine what kind of leadership and organization this inspires — especially at the end of the day.

It’s no surprise then: Party DC events are consistently a screwy mess. So, from this point on, I’ll be boycotting their equally screwy trips.
Who’s with me?

Filed Under: dc, events, rants

Revolution happenings

June 4, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Washington, D.C.

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Hitwise has reported that for the week ending May 26, 2007, Revolution Health was “ranked #11 in the Health & Medical – Information category, and traffic increased by 113% since the week ending April 28, 2007, when it was ranked #23.”

As NextNet further elaborates, this gives RH.com a 1.57% market share in this category — and the rise is “due to traffic sent by search engines like Google and Ask.com.”

Filed Under: revolution health

Who’s more obscene?

June 4, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Washington, D.C.

Dave Attell put on a hilarious show Friday night. But I left wondering a perplexing question: Who’s more obscene – the notoriously offending comedian … or the foul-mouthed HBO employees running his tour?

When we got to the Lincoln Theater around a half hour before the doors open, my buddy and I marched to the end of a line already stretching down the block. Ushers assured us though that there would be enough seats for all of us. They were right and soon we were filing inside, where there was the typical buzz that accompanies taped events like these (i.e., sound guys checking mics, camera cranes getting in position, etc.). Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary.

But no one could’ve prepared me for the army of headset wearing producers, running up and down the aisles, barking orders at anyone in sight. A group sitting next to us was told by one particularly pleasant lady that since they were sitting in front of the cameras, they would not be allowed to stand during the show. When they objected and asked to be moved, the producer asked them where they thought they were going.

Another real loon was just uttering every possible obscenity into thin air (or, her little headset), while most of the audience looked on in bewilderment. We thought she might be part of the opening act. Alas, none of it really mattered once Dave got on stage. He was a truly class(less) act and brought the house down.

For those not there, hopefully, the HBO special will be out soon. Unfortunately, for those watching at home, it’ll only include the obscenities from the comedian — and not his traveling sideshow.

Filed Under: dc, events, thoughts

How do you spell f-o-o-l?

June 1, 2007 by 1 Comment

Washington, D.C.

Kiran Chetry, the co-anchor of CNN’s American Morning, got painfully shook this morning during what should have been a pretty easy interview. Her subject was Evan O’Dorney, the 13-year-old eighth-grader from Danville, Calif. who won the Scripps National Spelling Bee yesterday after nailing “serrefine.” Unfortunately, there’s no YouTube video of this train wreck, but I’ve been able to hunt down a transcript. Some of the highlights:

Chetry gets off to a great start, by mispronouncing the kid’s name:

CHETRY: Evan, thanks for being with us.

O’DORNEY: Did you say my name wrong? My name is Evan O’Dorney.

CHETRY: Evan O’Dorney. I am sorry if I said it wrong.

Then, the well-researched questions and every broadcast journalist’s nightmare — zero elaboration on answers — begin:

CHETRY: Were you surprises that you won?

O’DORNEY: Not really.

And:

CHETRY: What did your mom say when you finally won?

O’DORNEY: Well, I don’t know what my mom said. You better ask my mom if you want the answer to that question.

CHETRY: All right, let me ask your mom. You’re making this tough for me today, Evan.

Fed some random fodder from a producer, she continues:

CHETRY: Well, here’s one thing I hope I’m right about. You like to eat a Subway tuna fish sub before every competition? You didn’t get to do that yesterday.

O’DORNEY: What did you just say?

CHETRY: I said you didn’t get to do that yesterday?

O’DORNEY: No.

CHETRY: Why not?

O’DORNEY: I’m not sure. We just — well, they had the — they had a special dinner before the bee.

But the real magic happens at the end, when Chetry attemps to give O’Dorney a word to spell (why does every interview with these champs have to include some futile attempt to trip them up?). Check out the brutality after the jump.

UPDATE: There’s video available. And, Best Week Ever has just discovered the mess, too.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: journalism, thoughts

Who are we?

May 30, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Washington, D.C.

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With graduation season now behind us, there’s been an onslaught of stories recently about Gen Yers entering the workforce. Let’s take a quick look at a couple of them:

Fortune tackles the issue with its cover story, “Manage Us? Puh-leeze” about how we (that is, those born to Boomer parents between 1977 and 1995) are increasingly moving back home (read my, ahem, Hatch story here), asking employers for more money and perks, and, the biggie, expecting more from our jobs. And, when we don’t feel fulfilled, mentored or appreciated, we leave.

Perhaps it has something to do with the way in which the generation was raised – reporter Nadira Hira describes us as “self-absorbed, gregarious, multitasking, loud, optimistic, pierced” – but the attitude and sense of entitlement is increasingly presenting problems for companies who need to retain young workers (some 64 million skilled workers will retire by 2010). But how do they do this?

The New York Times explains. Google is a fantastic case study in how companies can attract Millennials through innovative and creative recruiting events, like cocktails parties, technology lectures and treasure hunts. It might be out of necessity (they’re hiring 500 workers a month in direct competition with Microsoft and, more often, other start-ups), but they’re obviously doing something right: they were considered the most desirable employer for both undergrads and M.B.A.’s this year.

Not everyone agrees with the Gen Y hoopla. Peter Carlson of the Wash Post takes the Fortune feature to town, calling it “mostly piffle” filled with “six pages of dubious generalizations written in whiz-bang biz-mag prose.” Most poignantly, he dissects why today’s young workers show little loyalty to the companies they work for. Is it because they’re too, well, “self-absorbed?”

Au contraire: “Given the performance of American corporations lately – the layoffs, the rip-offs, the accounting scandals, the outsourcing – what rational human would put loyalty to his company over loyalty to himself and his family?”

It’s a good question. I’m going to check Wikipedia for the answer.

Filed Under: gen y, web 2.0

Leaving authors out in the cold

May 29, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Washington, D.C.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned as an author, it’s that every sale counts. Because when you dedicate 2 years to researching, writing, editing, rewriting, marketing and selling your life’s novel (or, in my case, a college admissions guidebook), you want to make sure that your publisher properly compensates your hard work. (Trust me, it’s not much, or enough.)

That’s why authors tend to decry services like Amazon’s used book offerings. Currently, you can buy Untangling the Ivy League there for $14.77 – which actually isn’t much less than the $16.47 price for a new copy – but no portion of that price goes towards an author royalty. We’re entirely removed from the process and don’t see a penny of the transaction. The same can be said of copies being sold on craigslist (for $10 no less).

So, while I’m flattered that there continues to be a market for the Ivy book — and it’s validating to think all my hard work is still helping college bound students make the right choices — I’d much rather that they (and their parents) purchase the Ivy book through a reseller, or, better yet, through me directly.

Plus, isn’t a signed copy priceless?

Filed Under: thoughts

Insomniac in the city

May 29, 2007 by 1 Comment

The comedian Dave Attell (named one of the “25 Funniest People in America” by Entertainment Weekly) will be taping an HBO special this Friday at the Lincoln Theater on U Street.

Attell is probably best known for his Comedy Central show Insomniac, where he traveled around the country, got liquored up, stayed out all night and documented it all with a crummy disposable camera. In my humble opinion, his experience at the Wiener’s Circle in Chicago should forever be immortalized in television history. It was priceless.

To get free tickets to one of his two shows (7:15 or 9:45 p.m.), you need to e-mail the following information to daveattell@broadwayvideo.com:

  1. Your full name
  2. Your e-mail address
  3. Your phone number
  4. Your preference for show 1 or 2. (I’ll be at show 1.)
  5. The number of tickets you want, 2 max.

Move fast. I’m sure tickets will be gone soon — and the Jaeger commercials are priceless.

Filed Under: dc, events

Living in a modernist world (then & now)

May 22, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Washington, D.C.

4-28-08southwestern1

I’m writing this post, appropriately enough, from my Wassily Chair.

Over the weekend, we had a chance to go to “Modernism: Designing a New World 1914 – 1939,” a new traveling exhibit from London currently on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. It was a really interesting look at a movement that continues to play a tremendous role in design today.

Looking at Bauhaus teapots, futurist “Frankfurt Kitchens” that were designed to increase efficiency and models of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoy, it was hard not to also think of Ikea furniture, Snaidero kitchens or the Hurshhorn Museum here in D.C.

Modernism was about revolutionizing the way we live – it was thought that we could view buildings as “machines for living in.” With its emphasis on simplicity, clean lines and open plans, it was about the universal idea of freeing your mind and life of clutter and the extraneous — and instead focusing on the things that really mattered.

Perhaps this is why, at 90 years old, it’s just as relevant now as it was then.

Filed Under: architecture, dc, design

I’m back!

May 15, 2007 by 3 Comments

Washington, D.C.

img_14482

So, it’s been a while. For the last couple of months, I’ve been looking for someone to redesign this site — improving its navigation, integrating a blog and just giving it a general face lift. Frustrated last week that I’d not yet been able to find a taker, I decided to take on the project myself. Welcome to the new & improved, third version of marczawel.com.

Everything from my old site is here: the freelance listings, reviews of my book and all that jazz. But I’ve also incorporated some new features and personalization. As for the blog, it’s something I’ll update (hopefully) on a semi-frequent basis, with thoughts on life in the District. So, be sure to check back often, and, in the meantime, took a look around and let me know what you think.

Cheers!

Filed Under: dc, thoughts
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