Overheard

“What remains is a materialism framed in a kind of Tony Robbins positivism… Jesus is front and center but not his Crucifixion, Resurrection or Atonement. There are chapters on overcoming trauma and a late chapter on emulating God’s generosity… But there are many more illustrations of how the Prosperity doctrine has produced personal gain, most memorably, perhaps, for the Osteen family: how Victoria’s ‘speaking words of faith and victory’ eventually brought the couple their dream house; how Joel discerned God’s favor in being bumped from economy to business class.” TIME.com, on megapastor and best-selling author Joel Osteen’s ‘Best Life Now’

“I’ve seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you’ve gone through all that, the girl’s got up and left. You’re much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you’re connected with about two feet of headphone cable.” Steve Jobs

“As Solomon Linda first recorded it in 1939, it was a tender melody, almost childish in its simplicity — three chords, a couple of words and some baritones chanting in the background. But the saga of the song now known worldwide as ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ is anything but a lullaby. It is fraught with racism and exploitation and, in the end, 40-plus years after his death, brings a measure of justice. Were he still alive, Solomon Linda might turn it into one heck of a ballad.” Sharon LaFraniere, The New York Times

“Also something people seem to forget is that the examples of old things around today that we see are the good ones by definition. Sure that XT that still works today is reliable, but what about the ones that failed? Well you don’t see them because they are on the trash heap. Just because there’s a few examples of old items that have survived doesn’t mean they were all well made, may have just been some that were particularly lucky.”

“Ben was saying, ‘Oh, but it’s like, you know, like, kind of like if you see the flickering of the metaverse…’ And we’re like, ‘flicker!’ We tried to get ‘flicker’ with an e, but the guy who had the Web domain wasn’t willing to give it up.” Flickr co-creator Caterina Fake

“We’re engaged!”

“Every writer wants to be liked… I feel like we honestly just start trying to please, and then the writing isn’t pure and it’s not real, and it comes from nowhere except an ability to say, ‘I want to be liked.’ Comic books are a medium that cater to people, myself included, with self-esteem problems and issues of good vs. bad. And that’s why we love the black and white. That’s why we love the punch and the pow. That’s why we love being loved. We all have that issue–and maybe it’s because we came from our lonely places, or our dark places. So the idea that a writer is going to be completely unaffected when someone goes on a message board and says, ‘You’re being too harsh with my character, stop killing my darlings.’ You’re going to eventually want to be liked and read–and it’s going to affect you.” Brad Meltzer, New York Times best-selling author and writer of DC Comic’s Identity Crisis miniseries

“They’re criticizing a guy who can’t run again, who can’t get fired. So they spent the last two years criticizing him instead of saying, ‘Some things aren’t right. This is our game plan.’ And now we’re two years away from the election, and we have no solutions and no front-runner.” Former NBA MVP Charles Barkley, on Democrats who have concentrated too much on President Bush

“Tim Hortons sells coffee but it truly produces loyalty. It enjoys far better market penetration than Starbucks. When compared against 2006 Census data, Starbucks has an average of one store per 37,000 people in the US, while Tim Hortons has an impressive one store per 12,000 in Canada. This penetration has helped Tim Hortons to essentially eliminate competition in Canada.” Interbrand, Best Canadian Brands 2006

“I don’t know. I look at our show sometimes, and I don’t know what the appropriate time for it is. I don’t necessarily think it’s 12:30. Sometimes I think it’s a children’s show. You can run huge portions of my show on Nickelodeon. We have everything but green slime coming down on the guests. So I don’t know. I honestly think yes. I’ve done my share of things in prime time, I’ve done my share of things earlier in the evening, and you still find the way to do your sense of humor or execute your sensibility in front of a slightly different audience. You’re always adjusting to what that specific situation is. If you’re hosting the Emmys, you adjust a little. If you’re doing a week of shows in a 4,000-seat theatre in Chicago, you make certain adjustments, but still, it’s basically you. I have to feel it’s the same thing at 11:30. Will the Masturbating Bear still be there? Who can say?” Conan O’Brien, on doing The Tonight Show an hour earlier than Late Night With Conan O’Brien