Author: fifteenkey (Page 83 of 95)

It looks like Johnny Damon is getting tailored for pinstripes, and surprisingly, I’m OK with it. The Yankees can take Johnny, but we’ll always have Paris. I wonder how loyal Yankee fans will be to a guy who plunged a red dagger into them with a two-run homer and a grand slam in the Sox’ 10-3 win in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS. We’ll see. I’m also not so sure about the hair thing. I mean, Johnny’s flowing locks and facial growth are part of his individualism. It set him apart. Clean shaven, how will we tell him from the immortal Bubba Crosby? Oh, I know. Bubba can reach second base without a cutoff man from center-field in Yankee Stadium.

I admit, the addition of “Johnny Christ” to the Yankee lineup is troubling… Let’s see… Damon, Jeter, Sheffield, Ass-Rod, Matsui, Giambi, Posada… Uhhh… OK. Still, this year will be no different than any other, and it’s “pitching, pitching, pitching” that will rule. The Sox added Yankee-killer Josh Beckett to their rotation and have some fabulous young arms ready to join the fray. The Yanks? Not so much. Plus, Beckett can play center-field or shortstop when he’s not pitching, right? Right, Theo? Theo?

I got some feedback that my last post, now two weeks old, was kind of lame… a no brainer. Yeah, but it was better than nothing, which is what I’ve posted since. A search of “life as a blur” turned up some interesting images, including this, this, and this.

I guess I’ve been kinda busy with stuff… Lots of meetings… Business trips… New employees… Personal trips… Holiday celebrations… Internet shopping… Furniture shopping… Treo tweaking… A garage renovation in my basement… I’ve nary the time to respond to emails, let alone write here. In the past two weeks I’ve received and failed to respond to about 475 personal emails… Sorry. Oh, there has been some beauty in the blur.

So… A recent article in Scientific American links creativity to sexual success and schizophrenia. Hmmm… I guess i’m only half as creative as I thought…

Richard Pryor RIP

The funniest comedian EVER died last week. The strange thing is I thought about Richard Pryor the day before he died. My Uncle Dave turned me on to Rich back in the late 70’s, and I still own his vinyl recordings of that era, including “That Nigger’s Crazy” and “Bicentennial Nigger.” Mr. Pryor turned pain into laughter and integrated biting social commentary into his routines. I’d say he probably influenced my sense of comedy as much as any comedian except Johnny Carson, not to mention what he did for Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock. With Richard, I learned almost anything can be funny. Johnny added the key ingredient of comic timing.

NPR did a nice tribute to his career and Salon did the same, including some Pryor audio clips. If you’ve never heard or seen Richard Pryor perform, his 1979 “Richard Pryor – Live in Concert” is a must.

Being one of the 3 people left in the world sans iPod, I manage with a 64M Nomad IIc mp3 player. It holds about an hour of music and is perfect for my workouts. In fact, that’s the only time I use it. Here’s a sampler of what’s been going through my head lately:

1. Holiday – Green Day
2. Human Touch – Bruce Springsteen
3. Coax Me – Sloan
4. Jet Pilot – Son Volt
5. Who – Son Volt
6. Six String Belief – Son Volt
7. Gramaphone – Son Volt
8. She’s the One (Cool video from 1975!) – Bruce Springsteen
9. Whatshername – Green Day
10. Note to Self: Don’t Die – Ryan Adams
11. Burning Photographs – Ryan Adams
12. Rock Your Ass – Supersuckers
13. Waiting to Derail – Whiskeytown
14. Wonderwall – Oasis cover by Ryan Adams
15. Respect – Aretha

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon bolted from the Likud Party, one that he helped found and finance, the latter by selling two tons of hay from his ranch in 1973. He split because he believes the right-wing hard-liners in the party were presenting too many obstacles for a lasting peace with the Palestinians. Mr. Sharon’s new “Freedom” party is more centrist, and has gained instant credibility in Israel, indicating popular support for a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Polls indicate Mr. Sharon will win re-election as Prime Minister and that the Likud party is crumbling. This move took extraordinary courage, but the size of the risk may result in a huge reward… security for Israel.

I’d love to see this type of courage and boldness from an American politician, say Arizona Senator John McCain. He’s probably too moderate to win the nomination of the Republican party, but I think he’d make a great president. By 2008, we’re gonna need that.

My latest gadget is a Palm Treo 650 and it is the best thing EVER! Yes, EVER! Check this out… In addition to keeping me tethered to my corporate network 24×7 and giving me access to the WICKED WIDE WEB, it has all kinds of cool accessories like a Global Positioning System (GPS) for golf courses! This will really help my game. I’ll never get lost in the woods looking for an errant drive again, but I digress… The coolest accessory today is the TreoTurkeyTimer.

Yep, you just shove this bad boy into Tom’s nether region and using state of the art, “bluetooth” wireless technology, it will notify me it’s done and dinner can be served!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Long before I worked for a real company, I toiled in the fields of NEC’s AFIS Division. Looking back with some perspective, I can now say it really was pretty disfunctional, but they had (at least while I was there) a great group of loyal customers known as the “AFIS Internet Users Group.” Interestingly, they named themselves well before Al Gore worked his magic with IP, and they still to this day use a (now very cheesey) logo created by yours truly in…uhhhh 1993?

The NEC AFIS politics were sickening, and as some great philosopher once said, “the fish rots from the head.” The head in this case was an evil, old Japanese man known to most as “HH.” He came from a world where it was okay to hand out paper bags of money to one group of prospective customers while telling another about his exploits killing American pilots in the Pacific during the “big one.” Yeah, he was a real piece of work. One year he pulled a long, stretch limo up to the state capitol in Arkansas for an audience with members of the legislature. That arrogant behavior was not well received in the deep South, and we ended up losing the deal. For that, everyone involved with it took a hit on their next merit raise. Also included in his list of absurd ego-stroking needs included: traveling with a “nurse,” and requiring an entourage to ensure doorways were cleared and elevators always open.

Hey, speaking of stroking, those Japanese think of everything!

I apologize for my protracted absence from the um, well, from here. This boy has been busy. Lately I’ve found myself shuffling from one meeting to another to be force-fed the glow of hideous Powerpoint “decks.” We sit there like zombies as many well intentioned folks read their slides to us. About the only time I’m awakened from the trance is if a hot babe in a tee-shirt runs by swinging a sledgehammer. Kinda like this.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Powerpoint and do quite a bit of them myself, but damn… It’s intended as a visual medium, so why not use some pictures? I have a new favorite blog called Presentation Zen. It’s devoted to “professional presentation design.” One recent post compares the presentation styles of two high-tech heavyweights, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates:

Which speaker do you think would be more compelling? Somewhere I read that “communication is the transfer of emotion.” Bullet points sure don’t evoke any, but a good storyteller can paint vivid images in your mind so the point really sticks. Isn’t that the um, point? Recently I had the pleasure of watching Barb and Joe present. They both presented naked. Well, not literally, but without the security blanket of slides for people to go zombie on. They were both great because they know their stuff cold and speak passionately about it. That’s communication.

Oh, if you’d like to improve your PPT’s, check out Seth Godin’s Really Bad Powerpoint.

Now that my HDTV summit has been um, scaled, I’m embarking on another gadget quest. I need a smartphone so I can have 7×24 access to my corporate email. Uhhhhh…. Nevermind. Perhaps that one deserves some rethinking. Nah! I’m all over it! My Product Advisor is a very cool site that runs you through a series of questions to help recommend the right product for you. They cover cars, smartphones, digital cameras and TV’s. Right now the Palm Treo650 is in the lead…

There are TV commercials that are artisticly pleasing and there are ads that are effective. In rare instances, they accomplish both. I think a current ad from Fidelity Investments hits a home run. The visuals are flourescent green lava lamp bubbles with key investment words related to 401K’s. The point of the ad is to get people to consolidate their various 401K’s held at various institutions with Fidelity. Or maybe I just like lava lamp bubbles.

This is just for Jeff.

Bloglines, that is… This cool site provides me one place that I can view all the internet content that interests me. Previously, I used to have a MyYahoo page and a MyMSN page to aggregate all that content. Now it’s all on one easily navigated page. A couple things I still haven’t figured out, like how to get local sports scores and movie times, but for the most part, it’s all there.

Yesterday was Kyle’s 14th birthday. I had a comittment to do a presentation for our Education line of business at Babson College, so I took Kyle along. It was the first time he’s ever seen me speak publicly. I sprinkled a good amount of humor into it, and I thought it went well. When I asked Kyle what he thought, he had but a one word response: “humiliating.” I see. In spite of being viciously panned by my own son, we went straight to the mall to grab (another) present. His new Darth Vader lightsaber is one nasty tool. When you turn it on, the beam of red light shoots up the blade while the digital sound effects wail. The beam shut off in the opposite direction. So cool. He was a very happy evil Sith Lord.

Finally, I’m guessing this is just an internet hoax, but it’s so well done, I can’t tell for sure. The Focus Fusion Society claims to be developing the Plasma Focus Device for hydrogen-boron nuclear fusion… Hmmmmm….