I'm Away Saving the Universe

Dear my one faithful reader,

I've been called on a top secret mission to help save the universe. Other than that, I can't tell you anymore.

I should be back in about two or three weeks with full disclosure of anything not protected by "National Security."

Sufficient to say, if you're still alive three weeks from now, we accomplished our mission. If though, the Earth looks like a giant bowl of crushed Oreos around that time, then blame me .

Wish me luck.

A $500 Network Cable

Denon has made a $500 cable that supposedly allows for better sound. It looks like a regular ole' Cat5e if you ask me.

There's some hilarious comments on Amazon all the way from "it works" to "It will connect you to Jesus." See them all here.

Lo and behold, Denon actually makes it. Check it out here.

Why Naturals are Shitty Teachers

I have a friend who’s wicked smart. Actually, I have a lot of friends who are wicked smart, like so smart it sort of boggles my mind how quickly they can understand things.

All of these guys are terrible teachers. They can't explain their way out of a cardboard box.

You know in math class where the teacher made us show our work? Well, these guys could go from step 2 to step 5 in their heads.

Meanwhile, people like me didn’t know if an integer was part of a recipe or a math problem.

Naturals are guys who are naturally good at doing something—anything. They can just pick something up without any effort and do well. These people don’t understand the process because they don’t need to. Why study each step when one can already get to the final boss? If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

And that’s why naturals make for bad teachers; they don’t understand the struggles of lesser skilled people. They don’t know what its like to struggle.

People say the best teacher’s assistants for math class were the ones who took fundamentals math and not the honors kids. The honors kids were the naturals while the fundamental kids struggled and learned little tricks to help them pass.

Now, I’m not saying that all naturals are bad teachers or that one cannot learn from a natural, merely that just because someone is highly skilled, don’t assume they can also teach.

Our Government Rulzz . . . Not

Last week, the U.S. Senate passed legislation to privatize the Senate Dining Room. It lost $2 million last year because it sucked. For example, only 20 new items have been introduced in the past 10 years. When sushi was added to menu last year, people acted as if Mr. Sasabune had set up shop. So hard does it suck that Senate staffers would rather haul their asses to the House side cafeteria basement than eat on “their own side” of the building.

For some reason, this “privatize legislation” is always the solution to government problems. Why is it that the solution to “this sucks and we’re losing money” always, let someone else deal with the problem? Moreover, why the hell does the Senate even need to pass LEGISLATION to get this done?

We literally need an act of Congress to make this dining room stop sucking.

What should have been done is to put someone with skillz in charge, make him change the menu a lot, and don’t give his ass job security—like he would have at any other restaurant. Sometimes the best way to get results is to put a guy’s ass to the fire.

Alas, part of that legislation were guarantees that the current workers would keep their jobs. Sigh.

Do Sugar Bowl T-Shirts Depress Anyone Else?

For everyone living under a rock the past year, the University of Hawaii Warrior football team had an outstanding 2007 season. They won every regular season game and then went to the Sugar Bowl . . . where the University of Georgia summarily put on a clinic 41-10. I actually watched that game and the score doesn’t quite reflect how much ass-handing took place.

For some reason, people still wear Sugar Bowl t-shirts and they remind me of how much the team sucked.

Why can people just hide those t-shirts at the bottom of their dressers? I never want to see them ever again. They make me depressed.

Crackn' Muzik

Waking up at 4:30 am sucks. I fricken went to college solely so I wouldn’t have to wake up before the newspaper arrived on my doorstep.

Well, today was an exception.

There are three good things about waking up before the butt crack of dawn: (1) it’s not hot, (2) no traffic, and (3) good music on the radio.

Yeah, seriously, for real, the music at 5 am is good. Its sort of like all the new songs get played, and no, not the “newest hit songs,” but the good songs that haven’t been pumped to death on the radio. Sure these songs may become overplayed in a month or so, but for now, they’re nice and fresh—unlike me at 5 am.

Do not Attempt to Defend an Indefensible Position

So I’m trying to sell off some of my worldly possessions. No, I’m not going from some Zen enlightenment kind of thing, I just see no need to put crap on my shelf for ten years and then decide I want to throw it away.

Well, I put some of my items up for sale on a local forum, people respond, and I didn’t do a damn thing. People got pissed that I wasn't not responding. I really had no excuse. The truth is that I just never got around to calling these people back. I would tell myself “tonight I’m going to call people back,” and then I just watch TV all night.

Today, I gave myself a hard deadline to call the people back; and I did. I left messages like “I’m sorry I took so long to call you back. I wish I had a good excuse, but I don’t. I’m bum and bad seller. If you’re still interested, call me back . . .”

This is something I learned from a George Clooney article. He said “I you try to defend and indefensible position and you look bad. Admit you’re wrong and people respect that. Clooney said "Before they could kill me on Batman & Robin, I said, 'It's a bad film, and I'm the worst thing in it.' You try to defend an indefensible position, you'll look like a schmuck. The guys I dig don't do that. Look at Winston Churchill. He said, 'These are our shortcomings. Now let's get past it,'"

Immediately, I got some callbacks. Someone even said “I love your message; I’ve been there too.” (and this was the guy who wrote “HELLO!?!? ARE YOU GOING TO CALL ME???!”) And then we set up a time to meet so they can buy my stuff.

Lording the Line

On Friday, I did something I haven’t done in nearly a year: stood in line at a club.


Why standing in line outside a club is better than being in the club:

It’s not nearly as hot out here.

I can hear the music just fine

I can talk to my friends without yelling.

There are just as many empty seats out here as there are in there.

Like I'm going to dance when I get inside? Hahahahah

I can smoke, if I wanted to that is.

I can watch drunk girls stumble out and laugh when their skirts flip up over their heads.

I can talk to the girls in front and behind me without having to walk anywhere.

Fights outside are so much better than the fights inside.

Lights: the anti-weapon for “good looking in the dark girls”

Derrie-Air

New fake airline that charges by the pound. "the more you weigh, the more you'll pay."

Actually, it's kinda lame, but consider this: (1) only really skinny people would take this airline, (2) no need to worry about spending 5 hours between two fat people, and (3) more skinny girls than the average flight.

www.flyderrie-air.com

Crisis Management: Focus on the “What Should We Do Now?”

The most important thing to do in a crisis is to focus on the now. Ask yourself, where were are now, what do we need to do?

A good captain is one who can command his ship out of a crisis. A bad commander will spend his efforts pushing blame as he does nothing to stop his ship from going down.

I've had two crisis's in the past month and I've found that this seems to work.

Don’t dwell on mistakes. Mistakes are what got us into the situation. Assigning blame isn’t going to ctrl-z the crisis.

Next, prioritize the tasks. For the most part, the #1 task is usually easy to determine. Make the #1 priority known to everyone. If there are secondary priorities make those also known to everyone.

People will continue to assert blame others or justify their actions. Remind them to focus on their task at hand.

Next, assign duties. If people are stressing about the magnitude of the crisis, it’s often calming to focus on small tasks. Assign small task to people. Tell them, you’re only job now is to do this. After someone is stressing about something big and you’ve replace that stress with something small, their stress level will greatly plummet.


Give people deadlines. Generally though, in a crisis, the deadline is “5 minutes ago”.

As the leader, do not assign yourself any tasks. Your job is to stress about the big picture. If you take on a task, it might disrupt your perspective.

Most of all, remain calm. Act as if this happens all the time. People take cues from their leaders, if their leader remains calm, so will they.

When the crisis has been averted, congratulate people for doing a good job.

Then find a solution so it doesn’t happen again.

I'm Heartless

I am heartless. Instead, I have the Autobot Matrix of Leadership in there.

Obama-Clinton: Hells No

Hillary Clinton is defeated and now she’s saying she’s ok with being Vice President. I present to you top 10 reasons why Obama will choose someone else:

10. How can Obama push for hope and change when Clinton is his VP?

9. She’s from New York: NY is gonna go blue no matter what.

8. She ain’t gonna pull Arkansas, she ain’t.

7. The dude’s already got a wife, he doesn’t need another.

6. Who’s going to use the urinal in the VP mansion?

5. Chelsea is going to complain, “I like the other house better”

4. He’s already making history, no need to pull a double.

3. All the bad things they’ve said about each other are what: “I didn’t really mean it!”?

2. A black man will never be VP cause . . . . (look it up)

1. Bill is going to say, “I didn’t do it that way and I got reelected.”

Greanpeace Girls

It was 3pm on Friday afternoon. I’d just finished a very heated meeting (see my entry below) and I was feeling damn hungry.

Ah crap, Greenpeace chicks patrolling the sidewalk.

I swear to god, I have the most approachable face ever. People also seem to always recognize me from somewhere. Anyway, she approaches me. She’s kinda cute; white girl, nice brown eyes, 5’ 5”, not super skinny, but healthy, also some really cute freckles--which are my weakness.

She spits her Greenpeace spiel and I just nod. When she’s done I tell her that I’d be happy to sign a postcard, but I’m not giving her any money. And as soon as I said that I thought, “OMG, I wonder if stripper game works on Greenpeace girls?” (Rule #1 of gaming a stripper is “do not give her money.”)

She kept pumping the environment and I nodded and said she was right, but I kept to the script of spending no money.

At this point, I realized I needed to build and get her off the subject of getting money from me. I then did what I naturally do: “out-brain them.” Yes, I take their subject and mind dump all the information in my head in an attempt to overwhelm their senses.

This is where being an information junkie pays off. So I begin with the slightly famous Thomas Friedman quote “It is so much more important to change your leaders than change your light bulbs.” I explained how leaders have much greater influence than individuals. I explained how one New York City city-council member changed the law requiring Crown Victoria yellow type cabs, which get 10 mpg, to better-mileage vehicles saved more fuel per year than I could in my entire lifetime

I also explained how the dumb ass Hawaii PUC has set a limit on the amount of renewable energy HECO can buy from individuals. Read this

I also told her to read Thomas Friedman’s book The World is Flat and then to read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

And by then, the IOIs were flowing. I even tried to get away and she said, “are you going that way? I have to go there too!”

One Trillion Less Plastic Bags

Amidst China’s myriad of troubles, something good happened today; China banned ultra thin plastic bags. Now, a customer must either purchase a thicker bag (1-3 cents) or bring their own bags.

China uses a trillion plastic bags a day costing 37 million barrels of crude oil. Many of the bags find their ways into streams, streets and the ocean.

Ideally, it seems, that this will encourage (or force) people to bring their own reusable bags to the grocery store which ultimately will save everyone money and save the environment. Not being stereotypical, but Chinese people are you know . . . cheap.

I think the real problem is changing people’s perceptions of what is right. In my mind, it’s not worth bringing my own bags to the store because my efforts are so small compared to the billions of bags used by all other Americans. But, if we are all forced to pay for our plastic bags, it will make me feel like I’m part of the cause rather than a drop that’s not making a difference. Moreover, I shouldn’t get funny looks from the store clerks as I did when I tried using my own bags or told them not to give me any.

On a related note, a similar Hawaii bill banning plastic bags died in the recent legislative session. That bill banned plastic bags and forced big retailers to use biodegradable bags. I think a more reasonable solution would have been to charge people 5 cents for a plastic bag, which would have made it socially acceptable (even socially hip) to roll into a store with a reusable bag.