BlogSat

In a clear sign something is going right in the economy, I get targeted by a lot of job ads that are surprisingly relevant to my experience (and even reasonably interesting.) But that's another post, for now enjoy this. I can relate to this. I often type up something similar when I'm unable to complete a frustratingly mundane sentence.:)

A friend/classmate forwarded this to me today, and the Internets picked it up too. :) BofA Merill Lynch published a report that started with the title "Dick's added; BJ's removed..." I'm not ashamed to admit I find that amusing... though I probably should be. :)

Just booked a flight to Chicago. Noticed this little anamoly on my bill while doing expenses. Apparently United moved to Haryana. :):)

The NBA regular season is here, which means I have a reason to visit the Sports guys World again, and delight in articles like this . Excerpt below. " 3b. Khloe Kardashian Raise your hand if you're excited about Khlomar! (Happily raising hand.) Look, I don't have much ammo for the teams I hate right now. The Colts have been ruined for me; Peyton Manning has become such a monolith of clutchness that I can't even toss grenades at him; if anything, I respect the hell out of him. The Yankees are pulling for each other, slamming shaving pies into faces and looking unbeatable; even worse, it's the kind of likable, quirky (albeit, expensive) team that the Red Sox once had before they dumped their front office, ignored human intuition, decided that "business-like" was better than "personable," and used complicated statistical engines to assemble their 2009 roster. (Wait, we didn't do that? It just seemed like it. Sorry.) So really, hating the hatea...

Great GCN ad targeting? or not? :) Check out the ad I was served in Reader with my last blog post.

I stumbled on to this great rhyme set of the Sound of Music classic "How do you solve a problem like Maria? " First couple of stanzas below How do you solve a problem like Korea? How do you run Dear Leader out of town? How do you find a way to stop Korea? A chummy discussion? A punch in the nose? A frown? Many a bomb you'd like them to dismantle, Many a threat you'd like them to suspend, But why waste your time in talk? They bluster and then they walk, When will they hear the message that you send? Oh, how do you solve a problem like Korea? How do you make a lunatic your friend? But that got me on to my search problems: I tried to find a clip of the song, but kept getting stuck with clips from the BBC America show instead. People uploading both hadn't created the metadata to differentiate the two and recency and volume meant the clips from the show were the only thing to find. Tweaking the words "how do you solve a problem like maria sound of music orgina...

...and there's comic genius. Today, the Fake Steve Jobs blog is firmly in the latter territory. :) For more behind the Dan Lyons story, check out the extremely entertaining video below:

Still so hilarious, still so true.

OK. The fact that I laughed my head off at this officially proves that I have absolutely no chance of ever growing up...:) The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c Changefest '09 - The End of Frat Boy Culture Barack Obama Interview John McCain Interview Sarah Palin Video Funny Election Video

Ah, Colbert...you're funny even with your sore throat.:)

So, how many times have you been asked to "own" something vs. just doing it? Of late, 5-6 people have used those exact words when asking me or others to work on something. Its like somebody just sent out a motivation tactic memo to everyone that I know! The choice of words is really fascinating to me. Clearly, I'm going to be much more committed to doing something that I now apparently "own" and the subtle difference in words can have quite an impact on the way the work you're parcelling out is treated. Think about it: Doesn't owning the grocery-shopping sound better than being told to go and do some chores? In my mind though, owning something means enpowerment (hopefully some resources as well) decision-making ability, even if its limited.  If you're not given these, you're not "owning" stuff, you're doing stuff; which is fine; just different and probably less interesting. The take-away: To those who would make others "owners...

My sense of humor can be pretty infantile at time, but I still think these videos are hilarious..and brilliant. Now if only the ecosystem existed so that someone could make money every time any of these got played.:)

Its a pity I missed this because I had to work instead.:( It would help plan stuff if CEOs advertised their talks properly. Y'know like "Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast featuring a performance by the Flight of the Conchords, that awesomely quirky show on HBO"

Reprised something I've been using on-and-off for more than a few years now: "The meek may inherit the earth...but everyone else is going to screw it up so badly by the time they get it, I'm not sure it'll be worth it." "I officially give up on my one-big-happy-yet-dysfunctional-family theory of organizations today." "Wow. For someone who's supposed to be smart, that was pretty stupid." "I can no longer add any value to this conversation. I'm going to go and eat a cookie."

while watching an advertisement for a drug during a BBC America re-run "...if you or a loved one have suffered side-effects or died due to using this contact a physician.." :)

Once works starts, I'll really need to watch the Google-referencing blog posts just in case, though I'm obviously pretty bull-ish on the company by default.:) So here's one that I meant to post three-ish weeks ago when Google announced their Q2 earnings , which weren't spectacular enough for Wall Street. A few people asked me what I thought (apparently an offer letter from the company qualifies me to have an opinion. :)) Well, I don't know. My one course in Financial Statement Analysis though allows me to appreciate how insightful, Kevin Kelleher's commentary over at GigaOm is, and he seems a little worried. Time will tell if he's right to be concerned. Either way, its a really exciting time to start work there. Interesting sidenote: you can't seem to buy a car or rent a house in the Bay Area without getting a Google reference just randomly thrown in. For example "BTW, we have a lot of Google employees live here." ...

Ahh...the world of movie piracy can get so very amusing. I'd read reference now and then to The Pirate Bay , but never bothered finding out what they were. Their Wikipedia entry is hilarious. The short story seems to be that they used the Swedish copyright law (or rather the lack of one) to run a torrent indexing site (and apparently a very successful one.) Just for fun they sent rude replies to all the threats they received. They made the standard rule of the new Internet work for them: get the eyeballs, get the money. A Swedish newspaper reported they had an ad take of $75K a month! The best part of the story is their attempt to buy Sealand . As digital copyright law, and international law, struggle to catch up the world over, there won't there be many such opportunities and instances?