Hail Of A Day

Would you like to eat in this restaurant?  I bet they serve fish, but it would be ironic if they served downhome cookin’ like Black-eyed Pea or Cotton Patch. 

This is absolutely brilliant. Weezer once again knocks the ball out of the park with this video that ingeniously features tons of the last couple years’ viral internet stars.

Check out this article from Forbes.com to see where the US rank on hours worked per year compared to other industrialized countries of the world. 

Here’s a snippet from the article. Poor guy…

If you thought you worked long hours, consider 39-year-old Lee from South Korea. A civil servant at the ministry of agriculture and fisheries, Lee gets up at 5:30 a.m. every day, gets dressed and makes a two-hour commute into Seoul to start work at 8:30 a.m. After sitting at a computer for most of the day, Lee typically gets out the door at 9 p.m., or even later.

By the time he gets home, it’s just a matter of jumping in the shower and collapsing into bed, before starting the whole routine all over again, about four hours later. This happens six days a week, and throughout almost all of the year, as Lee gets just three days of vacation.

That’s right. Three days.

In Pictures: The World’s Hardest-Working Countries

And did we mention Lee has a wife and three teenage kids? “I get to see them for 10 or 15 minutes a week, and then just on the weekend,” he says of his children before adding that, on weekends, he usually gets interrupted to go to the office.

Lee, who sometimes has to sleep at the ministry of agriculture and fisheries by lying on top of his desk, might seem like a workaholic that needs to get his priorities straight. But his schedule is completely normal in South Korea, where the average employee works 2,357 hours per year–that’s six-and-a-half hours for every single day of their life. According to a 2008 ranking by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, South Koreans work the longest hours per year, on average, out of every other OECD member.

“It’s the culture,” says Lee. “We always watch what the senior boss thinks of our behavior. So it’s very difficult to finish at a fixed time.” Leaving at the official time of 6 p.m. could mean not getting a promotion or raise. What would happen if Lee took a month’s vacation? “My desk would surely be gone when I got back.”

Tags: work

Wired recently published an article titled, “Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green“. Their contention was that the environmentalists have their priorities wrong and their sights set low. In other words, they’re nitpicking the rest of us on things that don’t really matter all that much. This is exactly what it feels like and why there is such a huge gap in understanding between Green Peace and Green Suburban. The point is carbon emissions, plain and simple. We must reduce these or our plan will actually be in trouble in the future. See, I can understand this. It’s something that makes sense to me. Arguments about saving everglades or using one square of toilet paper, a la Sheryl Crow, go right past me.

Here are some of the controversial highlights of the article:

1) Urban living is kinder to the planet than the suburban lifestyle
2) A/C is ok
3) Cutting down old trees cuts down CO2 emissions
4) Nuclear power: Good!
5) Toyota Prius: Bad!

Take a look at this insightful article if you are slightly interested in the subject. Otherwise, my trees are lonely, please come give them a hug.

Mariachi band spotted in North Dallas!, originally uploaded by kevinhail.

I apologize ahead of time that I was not able to get a closer shot (it’s actually more photojournalistic this way), but check out the travelling mariachi band I snapped a picture of in a gas station parking lot. You can just barely make out the embroidered soaring eagle on the accordion player’s jacket. This sort of sight doesn’t occur every day in North Dallas.

There’s a great online game where you are tasked with balancing the US budget.  For you fellow Economics majors, you might find this interesting.

Check it out…

Tags: Budget

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Tags: rat, cat, dog

My friend Cameron Gawley was telling me about a big tv special on tonight on “The Big Idea” with Donny Deutsch.  If you’ve ever had a great idea and wanted to take it from a concept to an actual business, then you may want to watch this tonight.  Sort of a how-to manual featuring several successful female entrepreneurs, including the lady who founded Sassybax.

It’s on at 9c on CNBC.

A Big Idea Event: There’s Gotta Be A Better Way! - CNBC.com

These clips are great. Check out the link below the video for all of them….

College’s greatest dunks

Hideous Retro Puma Sneakers Feature Every Color Known To Man. Every Color | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

Tags: Puma

From www.gasbuddy.com, a site that tracks gas prices, geographically:

gasbuddy.jpg (JPEG Image, 630×430 pixels)

I was just talking about this with my colleague… the trends of business communication. Bad news for large companies, agencies and service industries, but good news for the small business owner and the customer.  The individual has more power with all of the tools at his/her disposal.

From Chris Brogan’s Blog:

Jumping Over a Mountain

I believe this with all my heart: the way these new tools make the web work for us will (is!) dramatically impact the how/why/when of business communications and collaboration of all kinds. In ways, this impact is not too far afield from what Thomas Friedman talked about in THE WORLD IS FLAT. In this book, we learned how to move things that added value to our organization closer to the core of what we do, and how to disaggregate those things that aren’t as important and push those out to the fringe. It’s never safe to predict the future, but I want you to think about this, and see if it resonates. Disagree with me in the comments. We’ll talk about it.

I believe we’re going to shift back to thinking customer service and community management are the core and not the fringe. I believe we’re going to move our communications practices back in-house for lots of what is currently pushed out to agencies and organizations. I believe that integrity, reputation, skills, and personality are going to trump some of our previous measures of professional ability. I believe the web and our devices will continue to move into tighter friendships, and that we will continue to train our devices to interpret more of the world around us on our behalf.

I believe working remotely will become the rule, not the exception, and that we’ll replace some portion of office-meeting time with video now that it’s free-to-cheap. I believe that our business practices, processes, and output will modularize the way widgets have changed web design.

And not unlike Guy Kawasaki’s example of the ice blocks, to ice houses, to refrigerators analogy, I believe that the difference between how you perceive your role in all this and what will really make the difference is far apart.

It might be time to start thinking about jumping over a mountain. Because linear thinking won’t bring about what comes next. It will take a jet pack’s difference in your thinking.

What’s your prediction? How far off am I? What are you doing to get ready to jump over that mountain?

Tags: GuyKawasaki, Chris Brogan, community

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Tags: Bird

Me and my twin brother, originally uploaded by kevinhail.

This is the coolest elevator ever.

It just goes from bad to worse.  However, the silver lining in this is that the people I travel with (no offense if you’re reading this) will be more “efficient” and pack things into carry-on bags.  I could pack an elephant into a carry-on, tusks and all, so it will not be affecting me.  It’s a whipping to be waiting around at baggage claim when you don’t have any bags, but I’m a guy so I’m used to shortcuts relating to beautycare and personal maintenance.

American to charge $15 for 1st checked bag - Yahoo! News

Read this article and tell me how you feel about AA doing this.