'Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very, long time.' Chinese proverb
'Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.' Thomas Edison
'If you wait until the wind and the weather are just right, you will never plant anything and never harvest anything.' Ecclesiastes 11:4
'Don't wait. The time will never be just right.' Napoleon Hill
'There is no more miserable human being than the one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.' William James
Compliments of Dan Miller of 48days.com
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Fitness humor
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Top Puns Pun Contest ?
Have you seen the top 10 winners in the International Pun Contest ?
1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead
raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm
sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."
2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns
to the other and says: "DAM."
3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so
they lit a fire in the craft. Not surprisingly, it
sank, proving once again that you can't have your
kayak and heat it too.
4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says "I've lost my
electron." The other says "Are you sure?" The first
replies "Yes, I'm positive."
5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused
Novocain during a root canal? His goal? Transcend
dental medication.
6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel
and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent
tournament victories.
After about an hour, the manager came out of the
office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they
asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I
can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."
7. A woman has identical twins and places them for
adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and
is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain;
they name him "Juan."
Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his
birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells
her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of
Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If
you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."
8. These friars were behind on their belfry payments,
so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds.
Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of
God, a rival florist across town thought the
competition was unfair.
He asked the good fathers to close down, but they
would not. He went back and begged the friars to
close. They ignored him.
So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the
roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade"
them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed
their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close
up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that
Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.
9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most
of the time, which produced an impressive set of
calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which
made him rather frail, and with his odd diet, he
suffered from bad breath.
This made him... A super callused fragile mystic
plagued by halitosis.
10. And finally, there was the person who sent ten
different puns to his friends, with the hope that at
least one of the puns would make them laugh.
"No pun in ten did."
1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead
raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm
sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."
2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns
to the other and says: "DAM."
3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so
they lit a fire in the craft. Not surprisingly, it
sank, proving once again that you can't have your
kayak and heat it too.
4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says "I've lost my
electron." The other says "Are you sure?" The first
replies "Yes, I'm positive."
5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused
Novocain during a root canal? His goal? Transcend
dental medication.
6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel
and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent
tournament victories.
After about an hour, the manager came out of the
office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they
asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I
can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."
7. A woman has identical twins and places them for
adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and
is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain;
they name him "Juan."
Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his
birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells
her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of
Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If
you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."
8. These friars were behind on their belfry payments,
so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds.
Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of
God, a rival florist across town thought the
competition was unfair.
He asked the good fathers to close down, but they
would not. He went back and begged the friars to
close. They ignored him.
So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the
roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade"
them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed
their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close
up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that
Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.
9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most
of the time, which produced an impressive set of
calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which
made him rather frail, and with his odd diet, he
suffered from bad breath.
This made him... A super callused fragile mystic
plagued by halitosis.
10. And finally, there was the person who sent ten
different puns to his friends, with the hope that at
least one of the puns would make them laugh.
"No pun in ten did."
Friday, March 18, 2005
Big Fat Waste of time . . . with laughter on the side
Friday, March 11, 2005
Tips for Mastering E-mail Overload
Tips for Mastering E-mail Overload
An Excerpt:
The problem is that readers now bear the burden
Before e-mail, senders shouldered the burden of mail. Writing, stamping, and mailing a letter was a lot of work. Plus, each new addressee meant more postage, so we thought hard about whom to send things to. (Is it worth spending thirty-two cents for Loren to read this letter? Nah….)
E-mail bludgeoned that system in no time. With free sending to an infinite number of people now a reality, every little thought and impulse becomes instant communication. Our most pathetic meanderings become deep thoughts that we happily blast to six dozen colleagues who surely can't wait. On the receiving end, we collect these gems of wisdom from the dozens around us. The result: Inbox overload.
And here are the bullet points.
You really have to read the entire piece to comprehend some of these points. If you sned and receive a lot of e-mail it's worth it.
How you can send better e-mail:
Use a subject line to summarize, not describe.
Give your reader full context at the start of your message.
When you copy lots of people (a heinous practice that should
be used sparingly), mark out why each person should care.
Make action requests clear.
Separate topics into separate e-mails … up to a point.
Combine separate points into one message.
Edit forwarded messages.
When scheduling a call or conference, include the topic in the invitation.
It helps people prioritize and manage their calendar more effectively.
Make your e-mail one page or less.
Understand how people prefer to be reached, and how quickly they respond.
How to read and receive e-mail:
Check e-mail at defined times each day.
Use a paper "response list" to triage messages before you do any follow-up.
Charge people for sending you messages.
Train people to be relevant.
Answer briefly.
Send out delayed responses.
Ignore it.
An Excerpt:
The problem is that readers now bear the burden
Before e-mail, senders shouldered the burden of mail. Writing, stamping, and mailing a letter was a lot of work. Plus, each new addressee meant more postage, so we thought hard about whom to send things to. (Is it worth spending thirty-two cents for Loren to read this letter? Nah….)
E-mail bludgeoned that system in no time. With free sending to an infinite number of people now a reality, every little thought and impulse becomes instant communication. Our most pathetic meanderings become deep thoughts that we happily blast to six dozen colleagues who surely can't wait. On the receiving end, we collect these gems of wisdom from the dozens around us. The result: Inbox overload.
And here are the bullet points.
You really have to read the entire piece to comprehend some of these points. If you sned and receive a lot of e-mail it's worth it.
How you can send better e-mail:
Use a subject line to summarize, not describe.
Give your reader full context at the start of your message.
When you copy lots of people (a heinous practice that should
be used sparingly), mark out why each person should care.
Make action requests clear.
Separate topics into separate e-mails … up to a point.
Combine separate points into one message.
Edit forwarded messages.
When scheduling a call or conference, include the topic in the invitation.
It helps people prioritize and manage their calendar more effectively.
Make your e-mail one page or less.
Understand how people prefer to be reached, and how quickly they respond.
How to read and receive e-mail:
Check e-mail at defined times each day.
Use a paper "response list" to triage messages before you do any follow-up.
Charge people for sending you messages.
Train people to be relevant.
Answer briefly.
Send out delayed responses.
Ignore it.
Our eyes to seem to be drawn to faces
I posted previously on how your eyes move around on Google. focusing on the top left triangle. Well compliments of Seth Godin's second blog entry on the topic, I have nosed around a little more. The interesting thing is when images are presented, the eyes tend to go to the faces of people in the pictures. Interesting.
Other example news pages tested.
Is this unique to news or do we do this with all images of faces? Does this happen across cultures? I'm guessing it does. There is something meaningful here, no?
Addendum: My daughters tell me this is how everyone is. It must be so.
Other example news pages tested.
Is this unique to news or do we do this with all images of faces? Does this happen across cultures? I'm guessing it does. There is something meaningful here, no?
Addendum: My daughters tell me this is how everyone is. It must be so.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Where you want to be . . .
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Style is not to be trusted.
Excerpt from Milton Glaser's 10 Things I Have Learned
Number 6
Style is not ot be trusted..
I think this idea first occurred to me when I was looking at a marvellous etching of a bull by Picasso. It was an illustration for a story by Balzac called The Hidden Masterpiece. I am sure that you all know it. It is a bull that is expressed in 12 different styles going from very naturalistic version of a bull to an absolutely reductive single line abstraction and everything else along the way. What is clear just from looking at this single print is that style is irrelevant. In every one of these cases, from extreme abstraction to acute naturalism they are extraordinary regardless of the style. It’s absurd to be loyal to a style. It does not deserve your loyalty. I must say that for old design professionals it is a problem because the field is driven by economic consideration more than anything else. Style change is usually linked to economic factors, as all of you know who have read Marx. Also fatigue occurs when people see too much of the same thing too often. So every ten years or so there is a stylistic shift and things are made to look different. Typefaces go in and out of style and the visual system shifts a little bit. If you are around for a long time as a designer, you have an essential problem of what to do. Incidentally, it’s popular for designers to claim they have no style but this is generally not true. Most good designers have developed a vocabulary, a form that is their own. It is one of the ways that they distinguish themselves from their peers, and establish their identity in the field. How you maintain your own belief system and preferences becomes a real balancing act. As a career progresses the question of whether you pursue change or whether you maintain your own distinct form becomes difficult. We have all seen the work of illustrious practitioners that suddenly look old-fashioned or, more precisely, belonging to another moment in time. And there are sad stories such as the one about Cassandre, arguably the greatest graphic designer of the twentieth century, who couldn’t make a living at the end of his life and committed suicide. But the point is that anybody who is in this for the long haul has to decide how to respond to change in the zeitgeist. What is it that people now expect that they formerly didn’t want? And how to respond to that desire in a way that doesn’t violate your sense of integrity and purpose.
This made me think of how people from different culture and sub-cultures paint God differently. They use their distinct style to paint a picture of God. Where we go wrong is falling in love with our particular style rather than the subject of the art.
Learn to paint well. Know your subject. Study it. With the image of God their are so many ways his image is defaced in our world. Twisted around to where people get confused or misled about what he really is like.
Number 6
Style is not ot be trusted..
I think this idea first occurred to me when I was looking at a marvellous etching of a bull by Picasso. It was an illustration for a story by Balzac called The Hidden Masterpiece. I am sure that you all know it. It is a bull that is expressed in 12 different styles going from very naturalistic version of a bull to an absolutely reductive single line abstraction and everything else along the way. What is clear just from looking at this single print is that style is irrelevant. In every one of these cases, from extreme abstraction to acute naturalism they are extraordinary regardless of the style. It’s absurd to be loyal to a style. It does not deserve your loyalty. I must say that for old design professionals it is a problem because the field is driven by economic consideration more than anything else. Style change is usually linked to economic factors, as all of you know who have read Marx. Also fatigue occurs when people see too much of the same thing too often. So every ten years or so there is a stylistic shift and things are made to look different. Typefaces go in and out of style and the visual system shifts a little bit. If you are around for a long time as a designer, you have an essential problem of what to do. Incidentally, it’s popular for designers to claim they have no style but this is generally not true. Most good designers have developed a vocabulary, a form that is their own. It is one of the ways that they distinguish themselves from their peers, and establish their identity in the field. How you maintain your own belief system and preferences becomes a real balancing act. As a career progresses the question of whether you pursue change or whether you maintain your own distinct form becomes difficult. We have all seen the work of illustrious practitioners that suddenly look old-fashioned or, more precisely, belonging to another moment in time. And there are sad stories such as the one about Cassandre, arguably the greatest graphic designer of the twentieth century, who couldn’t make a living at the end of his life and committed suicide. But the point is that anybody who is in this for the long haul has to decide how to respond to change in the zeitgeist. What is it that people now expect that they formerly didn’t want? And how to respond to that desire in a way that doesn’t violate your sense of integrity and purpose.
This made me think of how people from different culture and sub-cultures paint God differently. They use their distinct style to paint a picture of God. Where we go wrong is falling in love with our particular style rather than the subject of the art.
Learn to paint well. Know your subject. Study it. With the image of God their are so many ways his image is defaced in our world. Twisted around to where people get confused or misled about what he really is like.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Get moving!
'Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps, if you are not willing to move your feet.' Author Unknown
No, I've never done that.
Liar!
Got to get moving. Later.
No, I've never done that.
Liar!
Got to get moving. Later.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Controlling the culture
"Whoever controls the media--the images--controls the culture." - Allen Ginsberg
Does controlling the culture really matter? Many Christians are concerned with where the cultures is going? Should we be? Jesus wasn't so up in arms about the culture of his day, with one exception. The religious culture. The Sadducees and Pharisees turned a relationship with God into a bunch of rule keeping. Jesus didn't like that much.
I just read a piece from & Arnold Fruchtenbaum's Newsletter yesterday that goes through the Sermon on the Mount. (Unfortunately it is not available online). Basically Jesus was refuting the teachings of the Pharisees about how to obtain righteousness.
Jesus says, For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Matt. 5:20 In our language "Sorry folks, not good enough".
And boy could these guys, and yes people, they were all guys, keep a lot of rules. They had the 600+ from Moses plus a bunch of traditions piled on top of that. Leaves you wondering. . . who could ever be good enough to be considered righteous and enter heaven? Which is the point, isn't it?
Does controlling the culture really matter? Many Christians are concerned with where the cultures is going? Should we be? Jesus wasn't so up in arms about the culture of his day, with one exception. The religious culture. The Sadducees and Pharisees turned a relationship with God into a bunch of rule keeping. Jesus didn't like that much.
I just read a piece from & Arnold Fruchtenbaum's Newsletter yesterday that goes through the Sermon on the Mount. (Unfortunately it is not available online). Basically Jesus was refuting the teachings of the Pharisees about how to obtain righteousness.
Jesus says, For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Matt. 5:20 In our language "Sorry folks, not good enough".
And boy could these guys, and yes people, they were all guys, keep a lot of rules. They had the 600+ from Moses plus a bunch of traditions piled on top of that. Leaves you wondering. . . who could ever be good enough to be considered righteous and enter heaven? Which is the point, isn't it?
A brand to die for . . .
Friday, March 04, 2005
I didn't know . . .
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Adding something to get that dad-blamed map off my links.
Don't know
why
it does
this
but
the map
in my
last post overflows
onto
my links.
I'm hoping
this
clears it up.
why
it does
this
but
the map
in my
last post overflows
onto
my links.
I'm hoping
this
clears it up.
I can't believe I've visited . . .
I can't believe I've visited all of these states. I'm not sure about Rhode isalnd so I left it out and i actually haven't been to Louisiana, I'm going there next week for the first time. Just a few more to hit and then I can start on the Canadian provinces or Central America.
create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourFlorida travel guide
create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourFlorida travel guide
Firefox?
I sort of like Firefox but I havn't really made it my home browser yet. I like the RSS subscription tool. Easy. I also like the promise of open source software. I'm not worried I will end up locked into the software with no escape route, which brings me to my next point.
Firefox lacks the dot mac bookmark sync feature of Safari and I can't figure out how to get my bookmarks out of Safari and into Firefox. If anyone is reading AND they know how to get bookmarks transferred or any other cool features I am missing out on, comment now or forever hold your mouse.
Firefox lacks the dot mac bookmark sync feature of Safari and I can't figure out how to get my bookmarks out of Safari and into Firefox. If anyone is reading AND they know how to get bookmarks transferred or any other cool features I am missing out on, comment now or forever hold your mouse.
Refining your message
"If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now."
- Woodrow Wilson
- Woodrow Wilson
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
"Intimacy doesn't scale".
"Intimacy doesn't scale." This got me thinking. Technology lets us talk to more people, advertise to more people, get audio, video and written content to thousands, even millions. In spite of all this technology that gives us the ability to communicate, we are still left to develop relationships in our "primitive" ways.
You can grow a business customer base or a community of common interest, but in the end, we all come down to our need for and ability to maintain personal one-to-one or one-to-few relationships.
Here's an ancient example of intimacy scaling poorly. King Solomon with his hundreds of wives. Do you think he had a close relationship with all of them? NOT! Geez, he couldn't have given each one but one day a year to talk personally. That was completely nuts! For the wisest man who ever lived, this is a character flaw you could fly a plane through. It certainly wasn't what God wanted for him. Maybe he thought, “If I just marry one more, I’ll finally understand women.”
If you want to be close, stop spreading yourself around so thin. Don't expect technology to allow you to scale your relationships in any dramatic multiple of what your "primitive” abilities allow. Even Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, couldn’t get around this limitation. He had 12 close friends and of those only 3 were his tightest buds.
How does intimacy get created? What destroys it? What advances it? Maybe I should ask MJ. What are your thoughts?
======================
Here is the inspiration for this entry, From Hugh McLeod's blog, Gaping Void :
More thoughts on "How To Be Creative" from Hugh here.
You can grow a business customer base or a community of common interest, but in the end, we all come down to our need for and ability to maintain personal one-to-one or one-to-few relationships.
Here's an ancient example of intimacy scaling poorly. King Solomon with his hundreds of wives. Do you think he had a close relationship with all of them? NOT! Geez, he couldn't have given each one but one day a year to talk personally. That was completely nuts! For the wisest man who ever lived, this is a character flaw you could fly a plane through. It certainly wasn't what God wanted for him. Maybe he thought, “If I just marry one more, I’ll finally understand women.”
If you want to be close, stop spreading yourself around so thin. Don't expect technology to allow you to scale your relationships in any dramatic multiple of what your "primitive” abilities allow. Even Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, couldn’t get around this limitation. He had 12 close friends and of those only 3 were his tightest buds.
How does intimacy get created? What destroys it? What advances it? Maybe I should ask MJ. What are your thoughts?
======================
Here is the inspiration for this entry, From Hugh McLeod's blog, Gaping Void :
More thoughts on "How To Be Creative" from Hugh here.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
If you like exaggerated stories of good versus evil . .
. . . then you like Macs and . . .
. . . you'll get a kick out of As The Apple Turns.
This piece got me going today. Pay More, Get Less, & Like It
Here's an excerpt:
Maybe we're not so much deep-down incredulous that anyone could really sink to such depths as to try to jack up prices on something that's essentially all profit in the first place, but rather that they could really stay down there in the slime for ten or eleven months without coming up for air. That's purely a gut reaction, of course, since our rational selves are fully aware that record execs breathe slime, and if they ever took a gillful of clean, fresh air, they'd burst into flames. (Fire: the Biblical Cleanser™!)
I must confess I read it far too regularly. The good news is, it takes many repeat doses to come fully under it's mind altering powers, I think.
Bon Apetit!
. . . you'll get a kick out of As The Apple Turns.
This piece got me going today. Pay More, Get Less, & Like It
Here's an excerpt:
Maybe we're not so much deep-down incredulous that anyone could really sink to such depths as to try to jack up prices on something that's essentially all profit in the first place, but rather that they could really stay down there in the slime for ten or eleven months without coming up for air. That's purely a gut reaction, of course, since our rational selves are fully aware that record execs breathe slime, and if they ever took a gillful of clean, fresh air, they'd burst into flames. (Fire: the Biblical Cleanser™!)
I must confess I read it far too regularly. The good news is, it takes many repeat doses to come fully under it's mind altering powers, I think.
Bon Apetit!
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