Y. Karp? Why Not!

The Only Thing In My Life That Isn't Hard Is My Abdomen

2008-10-19T23:28:00.006+02:00

Life wasn't meant to be easy. It really wasn't. Well, not for most people. There are those people (who don't really exist, because you don't know any and you don't know anyone who knows any) who have charmed lives. The concept of a charmed life is just that, a concept. Like winning the lottery and paying off your mortgage are concepts.

If one seems to have a charmed life, they should be living in fear of the inevitable difficulty or tragedy which will uncharm their charmed life. It happens all the time in books and movies, which are reflections of real life. The princess lives a happy, care-free existence in the glittering palace. The attendants take care of her every need. Even the elephants in the nearby forest seem to trumpet in tune with each other. Birds, butterflies, sunshine and all that. Then, while she is taking tea on the north balcony, the monster sneaks up behind her and devours her alive. It's going to happen. No surprises there.

If its going well, fear the worst.

You are having the perfect day. Work is flowing smoothly and everything is falling into place. All your private phone calls have been for good things and you had very few work-related conversations. You got out of attending 3 meetings and the cafeteria even served your favorite dessert. Can't you see that you are heading inexorably towards a homeward-bound car crash? Isn't it obvious that something is going to go wrong? Why didn't you prevent the accident by giving yourself a paper-cut on the way out of the office? While uncomfortable, it is much less painful than rolling your car down an embankment. Face it, life wasn't meant to be easy.

Still don't believe me? Here's a real-life case in point. "I thought it was a dumb way to die", was Jeff Bezos' recollection of his could-have-been-last-thoughts when he was the passenger in a near-fatal helicopter crash. Money.cnn.com views the helicopter crash as a metaphor to Bezos' "charmed life" - oh yeah, "But then came the dot com crash" they write. If everything is going perfectly then expect that dot com crash because, baby, life wasn't meant to be easy.

Then you have it going the other way, too. You are down in the dumps and, suddenly, you make it big. Rags to Riches. According to a Forbes.com article in 2007, "Almost two-thirds of the world's 946 billionaires made their fortunes from scratch, relying on grit and determination, and not good genes" So most of the wealthiest people in the world started off poor and then made it into the big-time. Not so charmed before; plenty charmed after, but still doesn't qualify as a "charmed life"because of the first bit. Points earned only later in the game don't make a perfect score.

But my strongest argument that a "charmed life" is nothing more than a popularized quote from Shakespeare is that people are human. That means they die. So even if the person's entire life is going great and they make it to 100 years old with nothing but good luck, success and happiness under their belts, they will still inevitably die. "He was doing great until a sudden heart attack killed him dead in a stalled elevator between the 14th and 15th floors during an electrical outage when an errant cigarette-lighter delivery van collided with a petrol tanker, which rolled into the lobby of his building, setting it on fire." Just one small incident can ruin such a perfect record. How charmed can that be?

So if things seem to be difficult and if life seems to throw you punches that you have trouble avoiding or absorbing, then just remember that those troubles are a blessing in disguise. Imagine if you had a "charmed life", you would do nothing but live in agonizing fear until something bad happened, petrified of the inevitable upsetting of the apple cart. Who wants that? Which is why I'm not so worried when sometimes it seems that the only thing in my life that isn't hard is my abdomen.

This post in in response to a challenge to write about "the only thing in my life that isn't hard is my abdomen".

Something From Nothing

2008-08-07T09:26:00.007+03:00

I do not recall in which of the Superman movies it was, but one of the characters took a special pen, drew a butterfly on the floor and watched as it instantly came to life, took off and flew away. In Star trek one would simply instruct the computer to provide a cup of "Early Grey. Hot", and the beverage would instantly materialize for your drinking pleasure.

I once saw an ingenious invention where the user would input a diagram or digital image of a mechanism into the machine and it would build a 3D representation of it using sand and glue. For example, you could feed the machine a diagram of a ball and socket. The machine would start whizzing away and build a working 3D model of it for you. Naturally, it took a really long time to produce such a thing, layer by layer. Also, the accuracy was not perfect and it was limited in its complexity. The 3D model was also not particularly sturdy, given the materials it was made from, but the idea that you can draw a two-dimensional picture and turn it into a physical reality so quickly is amazing.

Now, you might say that this is not so fantastic. After all, take any carpenter, for example, who would sketch a table on a piece of paper and turn that design into a real piece of furniture. An architect does the same sort of thing. However, the difference here is that anyone, without any skills to create something with his own hands, can actually partake of both the design and creation process. It is an exciting concept.

One of the oldest toy companies in America, FAO Schwartz (est. 1862), provides a similar activity for elementary school kids They have a service called “Imagine it”, where the child sits down at a kindergarten-sized table and, using nothing more than a Crayola Crayon, scrap paper and the world perception of a six-year-old, designs their own clothes. The drawing is then passed on to an eagerly awaiting staff of expert tailors who then proceed to create a life-size real version of the child’s drawing. Nifty.

The problem with this is that kids have wonderful imaginations. A third-grader would never design an outfit comprising blue-jeans and a T-shirt. Boring. They are more likely to draw a gaudy, glittering, colorful outfit which, if brought to life, would render them the school’s laughing stock. Come to think of it, that’s probably how fashion was designed in the 1980s.

I had to check this out, so I took a look at the FAO Schwartz website and came to the following conclusion: normally you would sit your kids down to draw pictures as a way of passing time, entertaining them and releasing their creative juices. Drawing can be a wonderful learning experience and fantastic for a child’s development in many ways. But for $900 a dress, you might want to consider reading them a story, instead.

Practical Jokes

2008-07-20T05:19:00.005+03:00

There is nothing funnier than a good practical joke. I'm talking about a really well thought out, convincing set up. As long as you are not the victim, practical jokes are usually very funny. Take this oldie-but-goodie as an example:

Now that is just a classic.

I've played a few practical jokes in my time. Like when my colleagues went out to lunch and I replaced their computer monitors with cardboard boxes on which I had drawn a "screen" and a knob. One guy returned to his desk and sat there laughing for about five minutes. The other fellow didn't bat an eyelid. He sat down to work, typed a few letters and then called me on the phone to say, "Hey, Yossi, something's wrong with my computer".

Problem with that joke was that I had to schlep the monitors back to the workstations from the meeting room where I had hidden them. But it was worth the trouble.

Then there are other types of practical jokes, like those played on poor, unsuspecting people by Candid Camera or copy-cat programs. Like the time they got a delivery man to pull up outside a house on the side of a hill. When he opened the double-doors at the back of the truck thousands of unstoppable balls of all sizes rolled out of the truck. Funny, harmless, messy.

Jeremy Beadle was one practical jokester who had a show called "Beadles About" where he would play all sorts of practical jokes on people, like destroying their house and then showing up laughing "Ha! Gotcha!". Of course, he wouldn't do that every week. Sometimes he would go lower-scale and blow up their car or have their boss fire them, just for the gag.

According to this Wikipedia article, at the peak of its popularity, Beadle's About had 15 million viewers. It got so popular that, according to the Wikipedia article, in 1993 a man was arrested for pulling a policeman's beard thinking that he was Jeremy Beadle in disguise. Yeah, right. Twenty five heavily armed and highly trained SWAT policemen come bursting into a cocaine refinery in a grotty warehouse at the back of a strip club, shattering glass windows all around the illegal Chinese workers. The chief crook drops his weapon, doubles over in laughter and pulls on the policeman's beard and goes, "Ho! Ha! Very funny! We've been pranked by Beadle!" Likely story.

Here's an example of Beadle's About I pulled off You Tube:

Funny thing is, they never told the victim that it wasn't his van!

What happens if one day an elderly gentleman comes home to find the house his family has lived in for seven generations completely leveled to the ground? While writhing on the floor in the agony of a heart attack, Beadle pops his head out and goes "Surprise!" Then the victim looks up at the grinning Beadle and scratches into the microphone "I hid my life-savings in the walls of the dining room that you just burned to the ground". Better call two paramedics.

When Jeremy Beadle died on 25 January 2008 at the age of 59, nobody believed him. They still don't.

It's a Violent World and It's Your Fault!

2008-06-23T23:50:00.006+03:00

I suppose that the majority of parents want their children to live full and happy lives, free of violence, murder, death, pain and suffering.

According to this article about school violence:

"The fact is, violence of one sort or another is part of many schools today. Fortunately, this usually involves a small group of people fighting amongst themselves...Since the 1992-3 school year, 270 violent deaths have occurred at schools across the nation."

So, in other words, it's fine for kids to shoot each other, as long as they only do it among themselves. Sounds like a plan.

The article goes on to report staggering statistics about how many schools across the United States reported violent crimes on school premises each year, stating that the rate of violence has decreased. They warn:

"We must fight against this complacency without overreacting. We must fight to make our schools safe."

Isn't that akin to "KILL ALL EXTREMISTS!"

But it is our own fault. We have taught our kids to be violent.

How? Language.

Case in point: what did I learn in English class in high-school? To Kill a Mockingbird, Macbeth, Julius Caesar (among others) - all wonderful and highly acclaimed works of literature about rape, lying, murder, assassination, treachery and death. Just the sorts of things you would want your teenage children to study in depth. And we say that movies and computer games are responsible for youth violence! Harumph!

That's not to mention the fact that the English language itself is rife with oft used violent expressions:

break a leg
give my eye tooth
give my left arm
cut off his nose to spite his face
kill time
roll with the punches
beat a dead horse
to step on his toes
to force one's hand
to bite the hand that feeds you
a dead ringer
she cried blue murder
stick out like a sore thumb
ankle biter
it's a slap in the face
you beat me to the punch
like banging your head against a brick wall
hit me with your best shot
keep your eye on the target
hit the target
He's such a riot
to tackle a problem
better than a kick in the pants
when push comes to shove
he's a real lady killer
keep your nose to the grindstone
to gang up on someone
won the battle but lost the war
on the warpath
blinded by the light
straw that broke the camel's back
to put your nose out of joint

By educating these children we are turning them into thugs. By teaching them language skills, we are helping them to destroy society. Literacy is dangerous. Plain and simple. Keep the kids in the dark. Better to be stupid and alive than educated and dead, I say. Drugs and alcohol don't cause gang wars, Mrs Miller's 8th Grade Book Club does!

It's Good I'm Not A...

2008-06-17T23:38:00.005+03:00

I'm scared of heights, so it's good I'm not a professional hang-glider. That knocks out one profession. Given that there are possibly hundreds and thousands of different professions, and variations thereof, I suppose it isn't really practical to decide your future career by process of elimination. There are other ways to choose the direction of your career.

I like straight lines, so it's good I don't design modern office buildings.

I guess the easiest way to decide what career you want to have is to create categories of professions and strike out the categories that don't suit your personality or abilities. This way you can eliminate entire blocks of careers. For example: outdoor jobs, indoor jobs, computer jobs, scientific jobs, jobs involving animals, community jobs, finance jobs and so on.

I faint at the sight of blood, so it's good I'm not a professional hit-man.

So once you have knocked out the categories of jobs you don't like, you can then focus on the careers that seem appropriate. Try to think of things you like doing and see what professions fit. While doing this, it is important to keep in mind that some hobbies don't translate so well into real paying jobs. For example, just because you beat the heck out of your opponent on your PC kick boxing game, it doesn't mean that you will be any good inside a ring. You have to be realistic.

I like my tongue moist, so it's good I'm not a philatelist.

Also, think of the special skills you might have that will come in handy in your chosen profession. For example, if you are good with numbers, an accounting or finance job might be interesting for you. If you get on well with animals, taming lions might be your cup of tea. Or not. It all depends on you, your personality, your skills and whether or not you have a death wish.

I have a memory like a sieve, so it's good I'm not a doctor.

So you really have to take into consideration all of the factors, make informed choices, research, ask questions, talk to people and decide carefully. Once you have done that you will finally realize that nothing you choose will be exactly what you want, you don't know yourself as well as you thought, circumstances are limiting and so you will probably end up wherever life takes you.

According to this article:

"The statistics show that workers between the ages of 18 and 38 change jobs an average of 10 times"

That doesn't necessarily mean that the 18 to 38 year olds change careers, they just change employers, but sometimes they change careers, too. So, you see, no matter how hard you try to plan, you are almost guaranteed not to get it right.

...and it's good I'm not a career counselor.

Do We Eat Too Much?

2008-06-12T00:27:00.003+03:00

I have been mulling over the question of whether or not we eat too much. Do we really need three meals a day, or will one or two suffice? Even if we eat healthily, are we being wasteful by eating too frequently? And is there too much emphasis on food in our lives?

Do a quick Google search for "eat too much" and you will find all sorts of sites about eating too much meat, not eating enough meat, eating too much salt, and not eating enough salt. It seems like every few years something on the "do not eat" list becomes healthy and vice versa. So don't despair, in ten years scientists will announce that gorging oneself on salty, oily, sugary, snacks is good for you - only, gorge in moderation.

A rather long article in Time magazine boils it all down to society and culture: "We eat together when we celebrate, and we eat together when we grieve; we eat together when a loved one is preparing to leave, and we eat together when the loved one returns. We solve our problems over the family dinner table, conduct our business over the executive lunch table, entertain guests over cake and cookies at the coffee table."

We have moved food from being merely a means for survival into a social ritual. But, nutrition and parties aside, food has unquestionably infiltrated itself into other aspects of our lives. So much so that even our lexicon is overflowing with gastronomically related expressions:

- to chew the fat
- too much to stomach
- spews forth information
- hunger for knowledge
- thirst for the truth
- bit off more than he could chew
- bite sized pieces of information
- eating her words
- have his cake and eat it, too
- to eat humble pie

...and so on and so forth. No wonder we are all so food-focused.

As interesting a picture as this may paint for you, whether you like it or not, food is on your mind.

My Life Ambition

2008-05-11T10:08:00.003+03:00

I have to confess that although I don’t mind working, the thought of going on a really, really long vacation is very appealing. I’m talking about taking at least a year off to travel the world and just enjoy life. Sounds idyllic? Read on.

My dream is to buy a luxury bus, outfitted like a first-class hotel suite: plush carpets, mahogany trim, marble bathroom, leather seats, comfy couches and all that. Then I’d drive the bus around the world, never needing to worry about packing, unpacking, checking in or checking out. I’d go where I wanted and enjoy hot showers, home-cooked meals and top-rate comfort in the middle of the city, desert, rainforest or mountain peak.

For that I’d need a bus license, a whole bunch of free time and a lazy $250,000 to purchase the vehicle. It is not a dream out of range, assuming I sold my house, quit my job, took a loan and sent my kids to live with an elderly wart-ridden aunt in a dilapidated mansion on the top of a dark, distant hill in a wooded forest. Okay, the last part is not essential. It doesn’t have to be a wooded forest.

Then I’d have to buy a beaver.

That’s one sentence that you weren’t expecting. "I’d have to buy a beaver". Actually, that would be a “Beaver”, which is the name of one of the companies that sells luxury motor homes. “Beaver”, as in www.beavermotorcoaches.com.

“Get into a Beaver” is their catch-phrase, which, taken literally, conjures up images of large, brown rodents holding their buck-toothed mouths wide open and pointing with their free paw down their gullets as they garble, “Get in, already!”

But I like that slogan, “Get into a Beaver”. Think of the newly retired couple stopping off at a gas-station in the remotest part of an Arizona desert. The husband goes to the cashier to pay for the diesel, feels his back pocket, turns to his wife and says, “Dear, I think I left my wallet in the Beaver. Would you mind getting it for me?”

“Get out of the fish!” is another sentence you didn’t expect to read here, but then again, you just did. It’s also a sentence that I never thought I’d utter, but I managed to say it often, making perfect sense each time. “The fish” referred to an inflatable swimming-pool toy in the shape of a fish and that the “get out” was directed to various children so that the other children could have a turn.

My life ambition is to sit in a fish inside a Beaver – and the scary thing is that you now understand exactly what I mean.

The Volunteer Conspiracy

2008-02-22T00:49:00.000+02:00

Recently at a restaurant I overheard a group of people talking about their ages. They were all about 18 years old. That's when it hit me that I am a full 15 years older than them. When I was 18, they were 3. That means that when I got my driver's license, they were still wetting their beds. When I was at university, they couldn't even spell university. It was a revelation because on some level I still identify with them, sort of. In my mind I am still 18.

Would I want to be 18 again and go through all of the stuff that 18 year olds go through? Hell, yeah! 18 year olds have the most fun. Most of them live at home with their parents (for some this is bad, for me it was bliss); most are studying; and socializing responsibilities come before all else. What more could you want out of life?

Ah, but I am wrong - fulfillment doesn't come out of "living it up", at least not in 2006. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, "In 2006, 5,227,000 people aged 18 years and more had undertaken some form of voluntary work in the previous 12 months" That's quite a nice number of fulfilled people.

Hang on, what are we saying here? Help others so that you can feel good about yourself? So is it about them or is it about you? Here are some extracts from the official blog of the Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA):

"On a purely selfish level, volunteering makes you feel good about yourself"
"From a professional standpoint, volunteering is a great way to add to your portfolio"
"There is no greater way to expand or add to your skill set than by volunteering"
On networking: "The more people you know, the more opportunities there are out there for you"

I was expecting the last paragraph to say something like: "Despite all of the benefits to you, volunteer work is about giving to others and helping the less fortunate in your community". However, no such luck. It seems that volunteering is about you!

Wait a moment. Let's not be rash. That's only one source, right? How about this survey conducted by "Imagine Canada" (www.givingandvolunteering.ca) in 1997 which produced the following results:

Three-quarters of volunteers (76%) reported gaining interpersonal skills such as understanding people better, motivating others, and dealing with difficult situations.

Two-thirds of volunteers (66%) said they developed communication skills in public speaking, writing, conducting meetings, and public relations.

Sixty-four percent reported an increase in their knowledge about such issues as health, women, politics, criminal justice, or the environment.

More than half of unemployed volunteers (54%) believed that volunteering would increase their chances of finding a job.

I could go on, but that's enough. I proved my point. Volunteers are single-mindedly hell-bent on squeezing the most out of the less fortunate. Let's face it, the underprivileged are being used as stepping stones for some self-important volunteer's career prospects. Soup kitchens are evil dens of self-centeredness, thinly veiled in a facade of "helping" people - yeah, volunteers helping themselves, that is.

My research has conclusively proven that "volunteers" are out there, everywhere, masquerading as a positive force, when they are actually a devilish cult. So next time someone does something "nice" for you, think twice. They may offer you soup, but they are really in it for themselves. Trust me.

Getting Domestic

2008-02-13T14:56:00.003+02:00

Here I am, getting into the whole "keeping house" thing while my wife is away. Enjoy.

Also available on Google Video here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8142718001152119067

The Modern Dwarf

2008-02-04T09:48:00.000+02:00

Imagine if your entire life you were someone else’s curiosity, a pet, a zoo animal, an object over which people “ooh” and “ahh”. I can’t imagine that it would be a pleasant experience. Think midget, circa 1600 CE.

Now imagine that your entire life you were someone else’s curiosity, as before, but this time you are paid millions to be gawked at. The more people who point their fingers, the more prestige, fame and fortune come your way. You are invited to meet the President of the United States, your wedding to a fellow little person is front-page news and your name lives on in history. Think Tom Thumb, late 19th Century.

The modern dwarf can thank people like Tom Thumb. The modern dwarf can now exploit his diminutive stature by acting in diverse roles such as Snow White or Star Wars. Alternatively, he can carry a copy of the equal opportunity act and sue the large-size pants off anyone who can even spell the word “discrimination”.

The modern dwarf has career opportunities open to him that are far more diverse and interesting than those of regular sized people. They can be teachers, computer programmers or circus performers. They can be accountants, doctors or human cannonballs. They can be actuaries, bus drivers or garden gnomes. The possibilities are endless.

The modern dwarf can be the star of professional sports that you and I cannot, such as Dwarf Tossing, which has an international professional league. All you need is a helmet, a landing mat, a dwarf and a six-foot drunk. Place a few bets, hold the little guy by his shorts (pun), swing him back and forth and then throw that dwarf in the general direction of the mat. It’s a team sport.

Make no mistake, the modern dwarf has it good. Oh, and they are also great at small talk…was that a little unfair? Perhaps a tiny bit.

(This blog is in response to a challenge to write about 'The Modern Dwarf').

The Perfect Business

2008-01-21T09:13:00.000+02:00

One of the oldest and well-tested truisms of business is to be the first in the market. If you are first on the scene with a new product or service not offered by anyone else, you are more likely to succeed.

I was trying to think of a business I could start that would fit this requirement. Then, out of the blue, it came to me during a conversation with one of my colleagues. He said that if he was to start a terrorist organization, he wouldn’t call it something boring (think Al Jihad), he would name it something exciting, like a sports team (think Tamil Tigers).

He is right. Your name means everything – how people perceive your organization is vital to your success. Do you think your terrorist organization would be respected if you called it “Belligerent Bunny Rabbits”?

We live in a world of terrorism, where, like McDonalds, there’s a new group in the industry springing up on every street corner (see the US State Department’s list of terror organizations). Now is the opportune time to offer terrorist organization marketing services. Why not? Joe Average doesn’t really know the difference between Al Qa’ida, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas or Fatah. To him, they are all just the same. If your organization is responsible for an incident and it is mistakenly attributed to some other organization, who will know and who will care? You have to stand up and get yourself noticed. A good marketing campaign is the way to go.

Logos, slogans, full-page advertisements in broadsheet newspapers, a visual media campaign, an interactive website and radio slots – that’s the way to get your message out there. We will get you on Oprah, if that’s what it takes to ensure that your terrorist organization gets the credit and reputation you work so hard to build.

The more I think about it the more I realize that terrorist organization marketing services really is the perfect business. Now, all I need is to employ someone to collect on bad debts. You interested?

Low-Risk Strategies for Buying a Used Car

2008-01-17T09:14:00.000+02:00

Someone challenged me to write about how to buy a used car. The simple answer to that is to find a car you are interested in, approach the seller, give him money and drive the car home. But that would be cheating my challenger.

The topic should really be “low-risk strategies for buying a used car”. Although that title sounds more like a management text-book than it does a blog post, I think it more accurately describes the essence of my challenger’s challenge.

So what are the low-risk strategies you can use when buying a used car? The answer is that there aren’t any. You just have to take your best shot. Sometimes you will be lucky and find a good car, and other times you will end up buying a vacuum cleaner that sucks your money right out of your pocket. But there are things that you can do to minimize the risk of buying a four-wheeled-dud.

The first thing to do is to really ask yourself if you want to buy a used car or not. The high risk of wasting thousands on a lemon might be enough to push you to buy a new car instead. But new-car salesmen are just as bad as used-car salesmen. Certainly, the car itself will probably go okay, but new-car dealers will relentlessly push the buyer into buying all the extras. This often leaves the buyer with less in the bank account but some nice, fancy gadgets in the car that won’t ever be used (passenger-side airbags? Feh!). So when you are weighing the pros and cons of buying a used car versus buying a new car, just figure that you are going to get royally worked over no matter what you do. It’s easier when you learn to accept that fact at face value.

Never buy a car from a friend. That is my next piece of advice. You may have ridden in the car many times, or you may even have driven it from time to time. Over the years your friend may have described to you his dealings with car mechanics. He may have spun adventurous tales of danger and excitement, like the time when his car broke down on a busy six-lane highway and he had to cross to the other side to get to a phone booth, but was attacked by an angry chicken. You may think you know this car. But you don’t. For in the deep recesses of your friend’s mind is the thought that one day he might sell the car to you. So, whether he realizes it or not, he won’t tell you the full story behind the breakdown (he didn’t get a flat tire, the rear axle sheared itself off the chassis). He may not do it consciously, but your friend is holding back. I would believe the part about the chicken, but a flat tire? Come on.

Know to ask the right questions and then doubt every answer you get. “Has this car ever been involved in an accident” is a great question. Assume that the answer is “yes”, but you are more likely to hear, “I was once driving south on a vacation with my family, when the car in front of us spun out of control. Thankfully this car has great brakes so I managed to stop on time. The driver of the other car was okay, but his car had to be towed to the next town. Luckily my car is very powerful, so I attached the tow-rope and hauled it 100 miles down the road, in the snow, barefoot”.

Another classic question is, “When was the car last serviced?” The true answer is probably that Cousin Angelo came down last weekend and helped to get the car going by repeatedly whacking the starter-motor with a monkey-wrench. However, the answer that you will probably get is, “I service the car regularly. Unfortunately the service log-book was destroyed when I drove my car at high-speed through the collapsing wall of a burning building to save a trapped fireman, a small child and her teddy bear. I managed to save them and the car emerged unscathed, but on the way out of the burning building the fireman flipped through the log book, commenting on how I only used authorized mechanics, when a huge bird of prey swooped down, grabbed the log book and then dropped it into the fiery depths of the second floor, never to be seen again”.

So buying a car is a tricky sort of a business, new or used. If I were you, I’d just take the bus.

The Ultimate Vacation

2008-01-10T21:30:00.000+02:00

Where did you go for your last vacation? Disneyland? Hawaii? Europe? Colin went to Mongolia. He wrote about it in his most fascinating blog, creatively titled "Colin's Mongolian Adventure". Let's not knock Colin. He went to a different destination - to a place where he could see something new and exciting, to challenge himself and come back with engaging stories and lasting memories. I hope Colin doesn't mind if I reproduce a small section of his blog:

To summarize, everything in Mongolia can accurately be explained by merely adding the words "Crazy Mongolian" at the beginning of the name. (E.g. Crazy Mongolian bus drivers; Crazy Mongolian jungle birds; Crazy Mongolian construction workers; and Crazy Mongolian liver diseases.)

This is truly the best I can explain the country.

After all the planning, effort and expense he put into his adventure-trip to Mongolia, the best way he can summarize the place is to call the people "crazy"? Whatever would Gengis Kahn think of Mongolia's hard-earned reputation? "Crazy", indeed! He would be rolling in his grave if he read that. But I thought we weren't going to knock Colin. Let's face it, at lest he left his comfort zone and did something interesting, even if his summary of the whole experience is a little short on adjectives.

It seems to me, though, that the reason most people want to go away on a vacation is either for: luxury (think 6 star Hawaiian resort hotel), fun (think Disneyland), quiet (picture deserted tropical beaches, fine, white sand and exquisite solitude) or adventure (backpacking in Europe, a ride down the Amazon, or an African safari). I think the last category of people get the most out of their vacation. Adventurers get to meet interesting people, enjoy fascinating experiences and contract exotic diseases.

I bet that the ultimate adventure holiday would be a trip to space. According to this short piece on www.space.com, "on April 28, 2001, Dennis Tito, a California-based multi-millionaire, became the first ever space tourist". Mr Tito boarded a Russian spacecraft and then spent two weeks on the International Space Station.

Now that has to be the ultimate vacation.

Firstly, you have the excitement of the buildup. You are sent to a secret Russian camp to learn how to survive lack of gravity, oxygen deprivation and G-forces that push your face through to the back of your head. Then you pay millions of dollars and trust your life to a spacecraft made by a country that can't even produce a decent automobile. You then leave your spacecraft and live in an isolated metal box called a space station, which is basically a fragile pod equivalent to a tiny, vulnerable Lego construction, delicately floating in a great ocean of nothingness. You then spend two weeks getting in the way of a bunch of nervous scientists, hoping that the oxygen doesn't run out, that equipment doesn't malfunction, that asteroids don't crush you while you sleep, that food rations don't get accidentally shot out of an airlock, that aliens don't attack, or that the pilot for your return trip doesn't lose the keys to the spaceship. I can think of nothing more fun than that.

Tito's 2-week jaunt on the International Space Station in 2001 hasn't yet spawned a space-hotel industry. Despite the predictions (or fantasies) of futurists, techies and trekies alike, space-station hotels are still a long way off. A less-than-thrilling article by Leonard David entitled, "The Future of Travel: Aquatic to Cosmic Destinations" quotes an "expert" who says, "You can't have a successful hotel if you don't have the means of getting people there." How cleverly insightful.

Fortunately or unfortunately, at least for now, the majority of us are limited to searching for more Earthly adventures. So next time you feel like a break from the drudgery of life, either borrow a couple of million, learn Russian and bunk down with the Cosmonauts, or do what Colin did and find something different, like climbing Mount Everest using only a ball of string and a toothpick.

Send me a postcard.

How to Open a Coconut

2008-01-06T20:43:00.000+02:00

I was surfing the web and came across a very informative site called www.howtoopencoconuts.com. It shouldn't surprise me that such a site exists, but I found it amusing that there is an entire website dedicated to showing you how to open a coconut.

The way this website advises you to open the coconut is by delicately tapping holes in the end of the coconut and then draining the liquid (coconut water). Once the coconut water has been extracted, gently wrap the coconut in a towel and then sledge the thing with a hammer until pulverized. You may wish to bare your teeth, yell and think of something that makes you angry. I call that a bonus.

The funny thing about this method is that at the top of the website are the following words, "but we humans can't just sit around and let monkeys show us up, right?" - yeah, right. Monkeys can crack open a coconut with their bare hands, a banana peel and a pebble, but we use rusty nails and hammers. Sure, we are much smarter than them.

This got me thinking about the most efficient method for opening coconuts.

I went to About.com, which is a great resource for advice on almost anything. They suggest that after draining the coconut of its juices (by using a corkscrew to poke it in the eyes), you whack the coconut with the blunt edge of a knife. If that doesn't work, bake the coconut in the oven for 15 minutes and then whack it with the blunt edge of a knife. I think they like whacking things with blunt edges of knives.

WikiHow suggests that you hold the coconut in the palm of your hand and have a go at it with the blunt edge of a machete. "Hey, can you hold this coconut for a minute while I go crazy over it with a machete? Don't worry, I'm only using the blunt edge". Ah, no. Live-Food.com shows you a video in which the person demonstrating how to open the coconut wields a meat cleaver the size of Greenland and then tells you not to cut your fingers off. Thanks for the advice.

Jeremy and Michael, whose coconut-opening video is featured on lonelyplanettv.com, demonstrate their somewhat unique method. According to these two outdoorsey types, all you need is a swiss-army-knife, a coconut, a car jack and a heavy off-road vehicle. Simply puncture the eyes of the coconut with the swiss-army-knife and prop the coconut between the car jack and the underside of the heaviest part of the car. Pump the jack until the coconut explodes under the pressure.

So there you have it. If you are planning on getting yourself stranded on a deserted tropical island, all you need to take with you is a hammer, a nail, a towel, an oven, a corkscrew, a large, meat cleaver, a swiss-army-knife, a car jack and a heavy 4x4. I don't know about you, but to me it seems easier just to bring along a monkey.

Who's fault is it, anyway?

2008-01-03T21:32:00.000+02:00

According to this article in USA Today, the Dolphins' Cam Cameron, was fired from his position as coach. Why? The team finished with one win and fifteen losses. They fired the coach? Don't you think they should have fired the players? Let's see, was it the coach who zigged when he should have zagged? Was it the coach who dropped the ball? Was it the coach who tripped over his shoelaces at a critical moment?

Certainly, the coach has overall responsibility for the players. He directs them where to run and what plays to make. He is the decider. He tells you when to play and when to sit on the bench. He sure does have a measure of responsibility. But if the players stink, they will lose the game matter how good the coach is.

Think of sports as a war. You have the General sitting safely in a tent on friendly territory (the coach). A superior officer (the team captain) directs his men (the players) to carry out the General's orders. If the on-field officer doesn't do a good job of directing his soldiers in the heat of the fight, or if the soldiers are incompetent, they will lose the battle despite that the General shouts orders through the radio. So who is to blame? The General? I think not.

Now, I know that it is the coach's job to properly train his team, motivate them and get them to perform the best they can. If he doesn't do that then he didn't do a good job. I get it. But there is a limit to how much blame you can lump on the coach. If the players lack talent, they should be held accountable.

Hang on, though. If you fire the coach because of bad decision making, then what about the decision to hire the coach? The coach was hired by management, right? Therefore, shouldn't the guy who hired him also get fired? After all, he didn't do a good job of recruiting, either. And who hired him? The President of the club? I mean, didn't he have something to do with this as well? Isn't he ultimately responsible for the entire team? He should go, too. But you know what? I think that we should take it all the way and fire club members, the fans themselves, because if it wasn't for their support of the club, financially and emotionally, then the club wouldn't exist. They are the shareholders of the club. If the fans would shout as one voice and protest the CEO's bad decision to hire someone who made a bad decision to hire someone who makes bad decisions, then maybe the club would win a game or two.

So it stands to reason that if you are a Dolphins fan, you should be ashamed of yourself.

News: Entertain Me!

2007-12-30T21:11:00.000+02:00

To me, there is nothing like sitting on the couch with a nice big, hot cup of coffee and a newspaper. It's a mystery to me, but for some reason it can be very relaxing to be able to sip a steaming cuppa and read the news: usually morbid stuff like how many people died in what tragedy in which part of the world.

I remember that when I used to have a TV at home I would watch the news as a form of entertainment. Sure, I rationalized that I was "informing myself" about world events. But, get real, it was enjoyable to sit and munch on a cheese-topped cracker and listen to the newscasters report on things that only happen to other people.

It is for this reason, I also used to like listening to the news on the radio. Talk-back radio was especially fun because you got to hear regular people air their opinions on how leaders of foreign countries should shape their policies towards other foreign countries. When it comes to foreign affairs (especially someone else's), everyone is an expert.

The Internet has brought a whole new dimension to the news. If the regular news isn't entertaining enough, you can now amuse yourself with made-up news (ala The Onion) or with news of people doing stupid things (News of the Wierd).

One of my favorite books "Chronicle of the 20th Century", is a compendium of newspaper-like articles spanning the 20th Century. The articles in the book include happenings from around the world, but have a focus on Australia and its involvement in world affairs. A marvelous gift from my parents-in-law.

There are serious articles about world wars, political upheavals, tragedies and famine. Then there are nostalgic pieces covering social, cultural and sporting issues (like the fact that Kaarlo Makinen of Finland won the gold medal for wrestling in the Bantamweight division in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games). The inside front cover of the book is a map of the world as it stood in 1900. The inside back cover shows a map of the world as it stood in 1999. It's really quite interesting to see how events moved those lines around.

The great thing about this book is that you can pick it up at any point in the 20th Century and then just go with it and follow the articles through time. The articles themselves are not original newspaper articles. Each piece is written using the style and terminology of the day, with the knowledge of the time. It is absolutely fascinating. Break out the beer and sunflower seeds and I can sit for hours, and relive Israel's miraculous birth and survival or immerse myself in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Whichever way you look at it, it's funny how news, no matter how stupid, inspiring or horrible, keeps us entertained. So next time there's an earthquake, tsunami, economic crisis or upset in international one-day cricket, boil the kettle, make yourself comfortable and enjoy yourself.

Center of Attention

2007-12-28T09:57:00.001+02:00

Why is it that some people seek to be the center of attention? There are some situations where being the focus is expected (as the bride at your wedding, for example) and there are times when one should stay out of the limelight (for instance, when you are being investigated for fraud).

As a kid, the best way to seek attention was to either win an award or throw a tantrum. Both tactics worked for me. As an adult, I have noticed that it becomes more and more difficult to be the center of attention. Winning awards is harder to do and throwing tantrums is not nearly as effective as I would have hoped, so I have discovered.

In my opinion, the more successful attention seekers in a social scene are those with a really good sense of humor. Witty people tend to attract others. Everyone likes a good laugh, especially if the person telling the joke or the story tells it well. On the other hand, it is a bit dangerous because you can lose your audience just as easily as you got them. A few bad jokes, botched punch-lines, mistimings or even a heckler or two can be devastating to your reputation. Remember, you don’t want to be a stand-up-comic. You want to be a people magnet.

Below you will find hints and tips that I compiled to assist those who would like to try to use humor to become the center of attention. Keep in mind that there are no free steak knives and no guarantees…

Firstly, you have to make sure that you have a good balance between how much you speak and how much someone else in the crowd speaks. You don’t want some guy telling a long and involved story about an accounting problem he solved, “…and then I realized that I’d put the wrong amount in the debit column! Can you believe it?!" Hilarious. You will lose your admirers in less than a second. On the other hand, you need to create the illusion of a conversation. People need to feel wanted.

When and how much to laugh is also a tricky thing. On one hand, you want to encourage people to gather around you. Laughing is a great pull-in for passers by. But laughing too much at your own jokes can make you look foolish. Especially if they can tell that you are faking it. Practice faking being genuine. It helps a lot.

Hold a drink. A glass in your hand is a great tool for helping you to limit your arm movements so you don’t look like a monkey on drugs when you tell your stories. It is also useful for when you pause for special effect. Whether to look contemplatively into your glass, to take a long slurp or a short sip is a matter of judgment. It all depends on the effect you want to create. Whatever you do, make sure the glass is only one-third full – and don’t gesticulate wildly or you will spill the contents on one of your audience.

Eye contact. This is very important. Nobody likes a person who tells jokes while looking at their shoes unless, of course, you are an actuary. On the other hand, don’t hold anyone’s gaze for too long. You will lose the rest of your audience. Make a point of looking at everyone in your audience, except for the person about whom you are telling the joke. That would be a bad idea.

Be cool. Wear clothes that make you look sophisticated yet comfortable. Half-sitting on a stool while half-leaning at the bar is a perfect pose. You seem cool and relaxed, especially with a drink in one hand. Think James Bond, but funnier.

If people start to leave, and you are down to five people, excuse yourself and walk right up to another group of people. Fake knowing someone in the new crowd, if you must. You don’t want to be left surrounded by only a small group of people and you want to be seen to know others, too. If you are in the unfortunate situation where you are left with only one person and that person leaves, definitely do not shout across the room, “Hey, did I ever tell you the one about the…” It is doubtful that the person will turn around and say, “Oh, no, you didn’t! Please, you must tell it to me now!” You will instantly destroy the reputation you worked hard to build up.

If you have a bad night, don’t despair. As they say in showbiz: “no publicity is bad publicity” Take that any way you want.

Semi-Intelligent Gifts

2007-12-25T19:50:00.000+02:00

It is that time of year again when all good little children write down their wish lists and hope for the best: firetrucks, footballs, fluffy bunnies. However, parents' shopping lists this year featured a $300 robotic dinosaur called Pleo, who, incidentally, is the most popular toy of 2007 (at least according to some website or other, which probably makes it true).

According to the blurb:

"This techno dino is equipped with sensors (35 in total) throughout his tiny body, allowing Pleo to react instantly to sight, sound and touch. They also make Pleo capable of expressions and reactions. They also make each Pleo unique. As Pleos learn, Ugobe says, they begin to form their own distinct behaviors and personalities developed from their environment".

From the sounds of it, Pleo is better than a real pet because you can go away for a vacation and not have to worry about it. You can just leave it sitting on the shelf, scowling for two weeks. Imagine its joy when you return. Either that or it will greet you with a lop-sided smile, enticing you to come close so that it can open its cute little mouth and bite your head off.

The sentence "As Pleos learn, Ugobe says, they begin to form their own distinct behaviors and personalities developed from their environment" is very interesting. The sadist in me would like to see if one can give Pleo a multi-personality disorder. In fact, I wonder if we can use Pleo for social and psychological experiments. Instead of forming groups of willing human subjects to undergo psychological tests, we can simply have piles of Pleos, ready to risk irreversible psychological damage for the greater good.

Learn from his environment? I can't think of anything more dangerous than leaving the poor, cute little robot alone with five-year-old children. What will he learn from his environment? To throw tantrums, hit siblings and pull hair? Great. That's all any parent needs, a toy that thinks he is a child. Now, where have I seen this before?

Pleo isn't the only semi-intelligent robot on the market, although he might be one of the cutest.

How about the WowWee Alive Elvis Animatronic Robot: ""...a lifelike singing and talking bust of the best selling solo artist in U.S. history." - just the King's head and shoulders? No stepping on his blue-suede shoes.

Then you have Robo Robbie: "Robo Robbie is a simple toy by any means, and you can tell by its price ($18.89) and design. In essence, Robo Robbie is a walking, talking, and dancing robot that shoots harmless foam discs from its mouth as well." A foam-spewing toy? I don't get it.

For those futurists out there who think that today we are building the technology that will eventually take over the world, I suggest you sit back, relax and wait another fifty years. I don't think Pleo, a singing head and Robo Robbie are quite up to world domination. Well, at least it doesn't mention it on the box...

Biodegradeable

2007-12-23T22:43:00.000+02:00

I'm all for saving the environment. We have spent thousands of years messing up this planet. It's time to right the wrongs, stop plundering the planet get the place back in order. It's time we cleaned house.

There are things that one can do to facilitate this: drive eco-friendly cars (or ride a bike), recycle glass, plastics and paper, and buy environmentally friendly toothpicks (see: Spirit of Nature).

But there are some environmentally "friendly" products out there that make no sense at all. Take, for example, scented plastic bags used for disposing dirty diapers. Living in a household with small kids, I understand the whole nappy sack thing: you want to keep the smell in the bag. I relate to that. So why would you want to buy biodegradeable nappy sacks? Your Huggies won't biodegrade for a thousand years, yet the nappy sacks take only 60 days to turn to dust. What a great invention! I suppose that 60 days is long enough to get the sack out of your house and into landfill. That might be okay for you, but think of future generations!

In a thousand years archaeologists will excavate our current rubbish dumps to determine what sort of society we lived in. And what will they find? Dirty, bagless nappies! Their conclusion will be that we were an unhygenic society that disposed of dirty nappies without enclosing them in a scented bag first, like any normal futuristic parent would. Of course they wouldn't know that we first wrapped the nappy in a bag because it degraded 1,000 years ago (less 60 days).

So by using this product, you are actually destroying the reputation of an entire generation of people. We will be viewed in the same light as those from the middle ages who thought it was physically dangerous to wash yourself.

In fact, the whole biodegradeable business is a disservice to our society. If you buy all the biodegradeable stuff out there on the market, in 60 days there will be no evidence that any of that stuff actually existed! Let's say that we all go pro-biodegradeable to "save the environment" - there will be nothing left for future archaeologists to find.

Now that I think about it, how do we know that what we dug up from 1,000 years ago is really indicative of that society? What if they were really an advanced culture? What if they actually used only biodegradeable products and all the evidence of their society disappeared 60 days after use? What if the fragments of clay utensils that we found are really museum pieces that they found in their excavations of societies that existed 1,000 years before them?

It is therefore irresponsible to use cutlery made from corn or disposable plates made from sugarcane. It would be a travesty of history to buy biodegradeable pencil sharpeners or biodegradeable refridgerators.

Give future historians a chance to learn the truth - and keep those 1,000 year old nappies away from me!

Call Centers in the Caribbean?

2007-12-20T00:49:00.000+02:00

I read in Business Week Online that India is losing business to the Caribbean. According to the article, the number of Caribbean call center employees jumped from 11,000 in 2002 to 55,000 in 2007. That‘s pretty cool.

North America has discovered that the Caribbean Islands are full of hotels. Hotels deal with grumpy customers. Senior Management contends that people who deal with grumpy hotel customers would make great call center staff. A good solid business argument - and a suspicious one.

Now, I don’t know about you, but if I had a choice of traveling first-class on business to Calcutta or Barbados, I think that Barbados would win. Do I want to spend time in busy, dusty New Delhi, or would I prefer to wear board shorts and do business on white, sandy beaches in the Bahamas? Would I want to eat curry in a sweaty restaurant in Bangalore, or drink dacharies by the pool in Aruba?

Of course, doing business in the Caribbean has its drawbacks, too. One of them is if the Caribbean Islands cease to exist. I guess that would be bad for business. What I mean is, when global warming gets serious and Jamaica disappears below the depths of the rising sea waters, the Indian business option suddenly looks much more attractive. Unless they can build a huge water-proof retaining wall, Haiti will be history. Cubans will have to become Scubans (okay, that was bad, but I couldn’t resist).

But despite the threat of total environmental disaster, with regard to the India vs Caribbean call center issue, those tiny Islands with great weather and five-star hotels will win every time. You see, I believe that people often make decisions based on what they want to do, rather than on what is the right thing to do. If people based their decisions on what is correct rather than what they want, then nobody would drive motorcycles, drink, smoke or vote for inept governments.

So next time you call to reserve a seat on an airplane, or call to complain about your phone bill, or phone to cancel your subscription, don’t be surprised if you hear reggae music in the background. Hey, mon, get your dreadlocks out of my curry – I mean coconut…

English Lesson

2007-12-17T09:33:00.000+02:00

It says somewhere that one of G-d’s greatest gifts to us is the ability to forget. That way, pain and suffering don’t stay with us forever. Memories of bad experiences fade with time. The cost of this all, as you well know, is that good memories also fade away. We forget details of places, people and events. Sometimes we even make up our own memories in place of the ones that we forgot. Have you ever had a conversation that went something like this:

“Yeah, I remember. It was a big blue boat with white writing on the side. How can I forget?”
“Actually, it was a small white boat with blue writing on the side. You were three at the time, how can you possibly remember?”
“No, I’m sure of it: big, blue with white writing!”

This is called misremembering. It’s not exactly forgetting, but it’s remembering incorrectly. We do this for all sorts of things, especially people:

“He was such a good guy.”
“Well, he evicted us from our house.”
“No, wasn’t that his brother?”
“I think you are misremembering.”

Misforgetting is another thing altogether. Misforgetting is when you forget something incorrectly. In other words, you thought you knew something and forgot it, but the reality is that you never knew it to begin with so you have misforgotten it.

“Um, I used to know how many liters of water evaporate from the Mediterranean Sea every year, but I forgot”.
“I think you mean the Black Sea. You never studied the Mediterranean region”
“Oh, yeah, I think you are right! I just misforgot”

Misforgetting can be useful. It can make you look wiser than you actually are. For example, you can be at a dinner party, blabbering on about stocks and shares and financial markets and then say something like, “Was it ACME Ltd that went up or was it Company X that did. It was so long ago, I don’t remember”. The fact that you never heard of either of these companies is irrelevant, you have simply planted the idea in your listeners’ minds that you, at one stage, knew all of the details but you just forgot. In other words, another definition of misforgetting is “lying”, but only if done on purpose.

Misforgetting is a great word. Not only because (to my knowledge) I just made it up, but because it will confound those who don’t know what it means:
“Hang on, didn’t you say that you used to know the code but you forgot it?”
“Oh, actually I don’t think I ever did. I must have been misforgetting at the time I said that”
“Um, well, that’s alright then, I guess…”

The word “misforget” is also a great word because it describes the combination of two mistakes into one. At first you forget, but then you realize that you forgot incorrectly. I don’t think there are too many words that can do that.

I suppose to “unmisforget” is to have once thought that you misforgot, but then you realize that you actually forgot correctly. Unmisforgetting can be a very satisfying experience. You can feel victorious that you unmisforgot something and set the record straight that you really did forget it correctly. This word trumps “misforget” because not only does it combine two mistakes into one word, but then, with the addition of only two letters, it corrects one of the mistakes.

Now you know why my wife doesn’t let me help my kids with their English homework.

The Crash

2007-12-13T09:49:00.000+02:00

On the way home from work the other night we passed the scene of a car accident. The vehicle in question had both its front and rear ends smashed in and it was positioned across two lanes. There were no other cars involved, although one could easily be mistaken considering the amount of broken glass strewn across the road.

It must have taken extraordinary skill to crash the car in such a spectacular way, especially since the road was dry, well lit, flat and very straight.

As we passed by, I glanced out the window and noticed the driver sitting on the road barrier. I know it was the driver because he was inhaling his cigarette smoke so deeply that, if he let go, the cigarette might get sucked down his throat. His foot was also rapidly tapping the floor. Two sure signs. What also struck me was that the barrier was twisted horizontally, creating a perfect place to sit. How convenient. Why not make the most of a bad situation, sit down and have a smoke?

Wait a minute, this sounds a little too convenient, don’t you think?

I never studied the skid marks, car wreckage, road barriers, paint scrapings or the satellite images, but I have a strong feeling that the accident happened like this: the driver was drinking a coke from an over-sized open cup while talking on his cell phone to a friend about a passionate subject like, say, sport. The increasing speed of the car matched the increasingly heated debate about the effect of brand-name sport shoes on performance. The friend then dropped a bombshell: the driver's favorite player just announced that he will be switching to a rival team. In shock, the driver fumbled his phone, which fell on the floor and slid under his chair, just out of reach. That’s when the driver swerved across multiple lanes and lost control.

The front of the car clipped the barrier on one side of the road and spun around, narrowly missing an elderly pedestrian, a child with a ball and a family of cute yellow ducks. In his panic, the driver couldn’t remember what a relative who had taken an advanced driving course in the 1970s once told him about how to come out of a spin: should I brake hard, pump the brakes, accelerate into the spin, turn into the spin, turn out of the spin, keep the wheel straight…? So he tried all options and managed to increase his speed as his car collided with the barrier on the other side of the road, ricocheting off it like an elastic projectile.

As the scenery went by anti-clockwise, the driver realized that when the car finally comes to a halt, possibly upside down, he will have to be at the scene for some time. He then stopped groping under his seat for the phone so he could concentrate on maneuvering the car to impact the barrier at just the right angle. He managed to point the car at the barrier and flatten the metal sufficiently so that it would serve as a seat where he could wait comfortably until the tow-truck’s arrival.

Just a hunch.

The Truth About President Bush

2007-12-10T09:24:00.000+02:00

I have to admit, watching clips of President Bush messing up his speeches is funny. I don’t know why that is. I mean, poor guy, it seems that every time he stands behind the microphone it is a disaster waiting to happen.

“…and if you are working hard to put food on your family…”

Granted, he is a very visible President. He attends lots of functions, gives lots of speeches and he is likely to make a mistake every now and then. Nobody’s perfect. I’m sure that every President before him made the occasional slip. Bush has been in power for nearly two terms, so he has ample opportunity to make a mess of it.

“..I know that human beings and fish can live together peacefully…”

Okay, but then you can say that every President faced the same challenge. It just so happens that President Bush botches it more often than others. Or that could just be the media picking up on his shortcomings.

Ostensibly, the President of the United States is supposed to be the most powerful man in the world and the fact that he seems to be unable to construct a sentence should be quite disturbing for the American people.

I wonder if you put together a compilation of President Bush Senior’s gaffs, whether it would fill a five-minute time slot on the David Letterman show.

“…is our children learning?”

Now, isn’t it obvious to anyone out there that if you were George W. Bush’s PR director that the right thing to do would be to limit his public appearances? I mean, if you can’t prevent him from becoming entangled in the English language, at least minimize the opportunities for damage. But George W. is out there: on television; giving press conferences or holding impromptu road-side speeches. You can barely shut the man up. Sounds fishy…

After much thought, I have concluded that there could only be one possible explanation: Bush is America’s ultimate weapon against terrorism.

The American people are using their own President to soften the enemy. If the bad guys think that the President of the United States of America is dimwitted, they will get sloppy and the US will catch them before they can perpetrate their acts of terror. Pure genius. George W. Bush is the world’s best actor. He makes all those mistakes look real. His well-rehearsed goofy facial expressions really work. They fooled the US public into doubting the President’s intelligence, they will certainly fool the terrorists.

Behind the scenes, I bet that the President is sharp, articulate and very smart. I bet that the major decisions regarding US policy originate from behind that big desk in the Oval Office. I bet that Bush is no fool, not by a long shot. I bet that he is the cleverest and most conniving politician the US has ever seen. He is shrewd and cunning, using his Texan background as the basis for his apparent awkwardness. Bush generates this public image of a nice guy, just trying to keep up with the world; one who can barely say his own name, let alone spell it. It is a deception, a ruse, a trick, an act.

“…Fool me once and, uh, er, shame on…you. Um, er, fool me once and you can’t fool me again”

It is the greatest con ever and you have been fooled.

[Late update: link to a collection of Bush Bloopers]

Sweat

2007-12-09T09:24:00.000+02:00

When you think of a real man, do you think of a middle-aged professional with graying hair, wearing a power tie and a fancy Rolex, working in a big office building with a doorman and marble floors; or do you think of rough-faced cowboys breaking-in wild horses, or muscled workmen on a rig surrounded by huge pipes and oversized spanners? Does the word “bloke” conjure up images of sophisticated, educated and refined gentlemen smoking long cigars in the club, or of tall, strong, sweaty men doing the jobs only real men can do?

Sport is also manly. I’m talking about well-built blokes with bowling-ball biceps who put their bodies on the line because they only play to win. No pain, no gain. If you aint sweatin’, you aint workin’.*

Let’s face it, there is nothing more manly than doing hard, physical work and getting sweaty. I’m not talking about perspiration – that’s too delicate a term. I’m talking about sweet, salty, gritty, sweat. Men love to sweat. It’s true. Here’s an example: what happens right after a tough football game? The players don’t just shower and go home. No. They go to the locker rooms, get into a huddle, sweat-against-sweat, belt out the team song, slap each other on the back and then, maybe, they’ll go and have a shower before hitting the pub. None of this “Ooh, don’t look! My face is flushed, better go powder my nose” business.

Go into any boxing club and the first thing you will notice is the pungent smell of years of sweat oozing out of the floor-boards. The boxing club is real man-territory. Punching bags, boxing rings, barbells. There’s no room for mercy. You either train until it hurts, and then some, or you get out. Coaches yell insults and instructions, but the boxers obey because they know that the coach’s job is to make them into the leanest and meanest. Leave your Blackberries, MP3s and mobile phones outside because the boxing club isn’t powered by rechargeable lithium-ion, but the raw energy of men being men.

What about the gym? How can you consider yourself a real man if your face isn’t contorted in pain as you conquer that weights machine? How can you show yourself in public if you cannot claim victory over the treadmill? How can you live with yourself if the rowing machine gets the better of you? Push it and work it until you succeed.* That’s what I’m talking about. Real satisfaction.

Even if you are not a well-built muscle-dude, you still understand what I mean. It’s about proving yourself to yourself - showing yourself that you've got what it takes. You can do it. Sweat is the physical symbol of getting a hard job done. That’s why real men don’t run to the shower. Sweat, my friend. Sit in it, revel in it, enjoy it - sweat is your trophy. You deserve it.

*Note: watch it, injured men don’t count!

Welcome to the New You

2007-12-06T09:46:00.000+02:00

Identity Theft is a crime that claims more and more victims every day. Personality aside, your details are a large part of who you are - your family status, your health, address, telephone numbers, income and so on. The age of technology, where your personal information is stored electronically, has given rise to this new phenomenon. If someone can tap into that database, they have the ability to virtually become you (in many senses of the term). This is only possible because the security of the information is at the fickle mercy of technology, organizational policy, budgets and the expertise of the database administrator.

Identity Theft sounds like a bad thing. But it aint necessarily so. Here’s why:

I figure that the medical condition that troubles the majority of people today (whether they know it or not) is depression. Everybody has gripes, complaints and dissatisfaction. I’m not talking about complaints about lousy service at the local grocery store; I’m talking about complaints that have a marked effect on your life: career issues, parenting problems, essential household appliances breaking down at the wrong time of your financial cycle etc. These areas of discontent lead to various levels of depression, depending on your personality.

My proof for this is as follows. It seems to me that one of the biggest growth industries in the last twenty years is “therapy”. In the good old days people used to learn to deal with their problems on their own. We used to be strong, tough, resilient. People used to work it out (or, alternatively, go to a public place to take out their frustrations with a semi-automatic, but that’s not my point). My point is that “therapy” (the art of being paid for listening to other people moan about life) has become a popular method of getting out of dealing with your problems the old-fashioned way: by thinking.

So I figure that I’ll do you all a favor and give you some advice that will save you hundreds of dollars a month on therapy: if you don’t like who you are, become someone else.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, becoming someone else (in my unscientific opinion) is today’s second-fastest growing industry. All those people who can’t afford therapy have decided that it is better to simply leave their old self behind and become someone else.

Let’s put it another way. Someone mentioned recently that people no longer repair their broken printers. It is usually cheaper to just buy a new one. Let’s apply the same logic to people. If you feel all broken down and that you can’t go on just find a better alternative and discard the old you.

I know (hope) that I’ll get lots of comments from therapists who will say that each person is an individual personality with something to offer the world and that they are worth saving. Translate that: each client is an individual billable account with weekly appointments that are worth, at least, $100 per hour.

Listen to me, people, save your money!

I’m not advocating theft. I certainly wouldn’t suggest that you break the law. I’m simply offering a cheaper and more fun way of dealing with your problems. Don’t bother reinventing yourself because there is probably a better person out there who you can be, instead. Hey, anybody want to swap?