This morning I'm seriously charged-up because Inc. magazine — which is right up there with Fast Company on my short list of cool business mags — just published a glowing piece on digital billboards.

Despite the fact that the article suggests digital outdoor creative is made using Illustrator (which I suppose could be used in a pinch) or Final Cut Pro (WTF?), overall it is the most complete look at digital outdoor I've come across.

Here's a choice quote from a real-estate company that pulled all its dollars from newspapers and put it into digital outdoor:

The gamble paid off. Edina's home sales totaled $7 billion in 2007, down from $8.3 billion in 2006 but a decent level of volume given the deteriorating housing market. It was successful at getting more consumers to visit its website, where the click-through rate for searchable for-sale listings increased 175 percent. "We were very satisfied with the results," says Lynn Clare, Edina's head of marketing. "It was the first time ever that we could respond to consumer trends immediately instead of being a slave to media buys. How many companies have that advantage?"

Of course, my personal favorite line reads, "If digital signs are good for advertisers, they are an absolute bonanza for billboard companies."

My friend Nick just sent me this entertaining photo. He said it reminded him of my encounter with the Oaklandon ninjas.

Personally, I think it reminds me of that time I got kicked out of Killroy's Sports in Bloomington for swiping that pitcher of booze off the bus cart.

Here's a story you might not find a whole lot of other places:

Recently, Her Royal Highness Princess Badiya of Jordan bestowed a "World Changing Ideas" award to the LifeStraw — a straw-like device worn around the neck that allows one to create drinkable water simply by sucking contaminated water through it.

Given the drinking-water crisis in sub-Saharan Africa (and other places) this is supposedly a pretty big deal. But far more important? Noting that LifeStraw is ineffective in filtering the spores which cause ... I can't believe I'm going to say this ... "beaver fever."

Late one night, many years ago (in a memory that is hazy at best) I once saw most of a brilliantly funny movie on Cinemax that I was sure most people had never even heard of. The movie was called Freaked and it starred Bill and Ted's Alex Winter — you know, the one who was not Keanu Reeves — as a cocky movie star turned into a hideous sideshow freak by some toxic chemicals.

Years later, I found a copy of this movie on DVD at my public library of all places. I quickly made a copy (possibly legal) and sat on it for a few months. (Not literally.)

Well, last night (my memory of which is only slightly less hazy than that night many years ago) I watched it in its entirety. And I have to say, it's even better than I remember it. Not only does it have an Evil Dead 2 giddiness to it, but I also detected some pretty biting social, gender and economic satire in there.

More importantly, it's got Mr. T in drag.

See this movie.

Today, I thought about the Star Wars prequel trilogy ... twice!

First, I was wondering why didn't they have Anakin as a young adult in the first place instead of being a toddler? Why not have the first episode be about new Jedi recruit Anakin falling in love with Padme? Have it end happy and be self-contained and all — like a WWII love story.

Then Episode II could be about the simultaneous development of Padme's feelings for Obi-Wan — Anakin's slightly older, more emotionally-stable mentor — and Anakin's personal and professional jealousy of him. Throw in a backdrop of political instability between the Republic and the grassroots-but-fascist proto-Empire and have Anakin suffer a humongous emotional wound in the end.

Alternately, you could have Padme be Obi-Wan's stately wife from the very beginning. Have Obi-Wan "take on" Anakin as a private pupil — despite the advice of his guru Yoda. But Padme feels cold because of Obi-Wan's devotion to Jedi ethics and responds to the irrational and unstable Anakin's inherent passion. Then, at the end of Episode II, in a moment that recalls Empire, have Padme reveal to Luke and Leia's presumptive-daddy Obi-Wan that "No, Anakin is their father."

My point is ... there are a lot of better ways they could have gone with it.

Anyway, the second time I thought about the prequel trilogy, I was on the balcony of my friend's apartment talking to her boyfriend.

He was telling me about his first car — a '91 Ford Taurus — which he'd saved long and hard for but which turned out to be a disappointment.

"Can you imagine what that's like?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I said, "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace."

When I'm on a roller-coaster, I can't stand going up. It's debatable which are more tightly clamped — my hands on the bar or my eyelids. But once I'm past the crest of that first hill, on the way down with all the momentum needed to carry me the rest of the way, I feel free. I feel alive.

Life, as Bill Hicks says in the above video, is like a ride. And in life, as on a roller-coaster, I feel like I've had my eyes closed and my hands clenched around the bar. But I can hear the people in the cars ahead of me start to scream as they crest that hill. And I can feel the tug in my gut as the momentum of those first cars pulls me forward.

And I feel the moment of relief arriving. "It's okay to open your eyes. It's okay to let go. It's okay to enjoy this."

As many of you have probably already heard, Blu-ray has triumphed over HD-DVD. We live in such a strange time — or I'm such a strange person — that the end of hostilities between rival home movie formats actually seems like cause for celebration since we'll probably never see an end to real human conflict on either a systemic or personal level.

Still, I have to say, I was rooting for HD-DVD. In general, I don't like Sony. I don't like their products. I don't like their attitude. I don't like their preference for closed, proprietary formats. And I really don't like their totalitarian, anti-consumer copyright stance — even though I understand this is a consequence of one entity being in both the hardware and software sides of the media business.

And yet, as a person who just invested in a 42" 1080P LCD monitor, I find myself not only eyeing Blu-ray players — which I should like, right? I mean my name is Ray and my favorite color is blue — but even wondering if I should buy a (shudder) Playstation 3.