Had a lovely time presenting twice at the Frontiers in Service conference in Montreal. First, I presented at the doc consortium on how to expand your network as a junior faculty. Second, I presented some ongoing research with a KU PhD student looking at consumer power, control, and choices.

Titan: The OceanGate Disaster (2025) - how does one make a serious film about an event where society rejoiced by memeing dead millionaires? Well, this certainly isn’t it. The engineering bits were interesting, but all of the present day interviews were people saying over and over “I told you so.”

Some people are truly disgusting. “With friends like these…”

Lilo & Stitch (2025) - first things first, let’s make sure we are all on the same page. The original L&S from 2002 can stand with any other modern Disney movie classic. Over the years it has slowly but surely gained the following this charming movie deserves.

Did the 2002 movie need a remake?

Braveheart (1995) - 30 years later and still a solid film. The melodrama is executed well, but the real accomplishments are the battle scenes, which still hold up well. This may be peak “Saturday afternoon on TBS” movie and it’s great.

Ugetsu (1953) - another Japanese classic I watched recently. One thing I noticed is how “fast” the movie is. It clocks in at 96 minutes, and in this day and age with hour-long TV episodes and almost every movie being 2+ hours, that’s a breeze. Not to the film’s detriment, ofc.

Alfie out and about enjoying the City of Fountains.

… Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara, and contrasting Tokyo Story to their other work.

It takes a lot these days for a movie to affect me and keep me thinking about it afterwards. Yet, without spoiling (a ~70-year-old movie), the conclusion of the film…

Tokyo Story (1953) - What can one say about this wonderful film that hasn’t been said already? It is ranked top 10 in the S&S critics’ poll (4th) and directors’ poll (5th), and for good reason. There is so much nuance and love in this film that it can be appreciated over and over as one ages.

UCF vs KU tomorrow 😳

Go UCF!

Great info here, not just for the Super Bowl but also for marketing in general.

My research on when and why consumers voluntarily give up decision-making control has been accepted to Winter AMA 2025!

While I've been to plenty of AMAs, this is extra exciting because it's my first acceptance with a PhD student co-author (Rui Zhang). :)

See y'all in Phoenix in February!

I should probably make a first post on here. So here’s my pup Alfie with his favorite toys.