Saturday, June 20, 2009

Hey! I Blogged Again! I Must Feel Better!

The weekend is at hand. Here's the latest:

I'm Still Looking for a New Gym

I stopped off at the much vaunted LA Fitness that's opened up over by Coulon Park. They want $70/month for Craig and me. That's way the fuck too much. The place is admittedly swank. Fine oak lockers, pristine pool, yadda, yadda. I was excited because the Boeing Employee's Credit Union is across the street. As I plan to visit this gym every day, I could do shared branch transactions there and save a little time. No can do. BECU is no longer part of the consortium. This whole neigborhood overpromises and underdelivers.

So tomorrow, Craig and I go over to Kent and see what they've got for us at the Bally's.

I'm Trying to Sell Dinur on a Project

I'm trying to sell Dinur to write the definitive piece on fan loyalty and Brett Favre. Here's the pitch:

I was reading this blog where a die-hard fan debunks Favre's entire career, and he's only on part III. And it dawned on me that if you want to get an anatomy of fan love and feel like going back to content analysis as a method, Favre 2005-2009 is a dream case.

There are three papers that cover the Packers--The Green Bay Press-Gazette, The Wisconsin State Journal and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. After each article, they get dozens of posters. Each has an identity, which means you can track their specific changing opinions over time. Moreover, each comment is linked to an article that stimulated the response. You can code the article as well as the response. The variation in stimuli is fantastic. Favre stumbled, fell, looked washed up in 2005. Everyone said he was a has-been. 2006 looked optimistic. 2007 was his renaissance and his godhood was retored. 2008 he became a Jet and the fans hated Ted Thompson for it. This year, he wants to be a Viking and the fans hate Favre instead.

Lots of emotional variation in public opinion over a short time. The project can yield obvious insight into how fans' emotions rapidly change with respect to the inconsistent ability of their hero to play the role they love him for. Trackable fans with written statements, possibly enough to allow for a LARGE-N CROSS-SECTION OVER TIME.

You do the math. Metaphorically first, then if you like the project, literally.

I honestly think it's a good project. This has nothing to do with making my favorite Niners fan write extensively about Brett Favre, the quarterback who dealt his team so many crushing blows... Nah. Nothing at all.

School Starts Up Again on Monday

Arab-Israeli for the UW. Two weeks after that, my oil class at Antioch starts. Real life, real work. But I'm still going to the gym every day, no matter what. I just need to get some writing done.

2 comments:

Brad said...

Do you have any independent gyms in your area? They sometimes underprice themselves compared to the chains.

Kirk said...

You must be feeling better indeed, the month of June has seen your second-most single month postings since April 2006, which is the furthest back the archive on the right of the blog goes. The only month with more postings came in May of last year.

Keep going to the gym regularly and taking your B-12!