Hail Of A Day

Disturbing article…

Nine-year-old girl finds black widow spider in red grapes bought at Waitrose | Mail Online

One is a convicted female felon.  The other is Sebastian Bach, lead singer of 80’s hair metal band, Skid Row.  See if you can tell which one is which.  P.S. Since I was lazy and didn’t want to photoshop out the words Skid Row, this shouldn’t be too hard.

   
Photo Detail | WFTS-TV | First in HD

Be glad that you live in the U.S..  We can’t ever take for granted the freedom that we have to things like fair trials, freedom of religion, and general public safety.  This scene was so barbaric and these people were so ignorant that the celebratory gunfire killed 2 people and wounded 6 others.  That’s a well run social gathering.

Look at the guy in the foreground with the walkie talkie.  What could he possibly be coordinating?  “On my command, after we sever his head, launch the fireworks.”  This is just pathetic.

Crowd watches Pakistan militants kill 2 Afghans - Yahoo! News

This is an outstanding post by Chris Brogan about writing emails that get a response. With the increase of emails that we both send and receive it’s easy to get lazy in responding, and frustrating to not get answers. We should always be looking for better ways to cut through the clutter in others’ inboxes.

If you don’t want to follow the link, here are a few highlights:

• One Decision Per Email - increases odds of getting a quick response
• Don’t spend several paragraphs trying to justify why you’re asking something, just ask it.
• Effective signature line
• Use subject line effectively, i.e. Following Up, Deadline Friday

I’m going to implement some of these suggestions, so you better answer my emails if I send one to you.

Writing Email That Gets Answered | chrisbrogan.com

Tags: email

4 Wheeler Guys, originally uploaded by kevinhail.

I’d be embarrassed.

I have been asked quite a bit over the last few months how the economy’s woes have affected the non-profit industry and my organization’s bottom line. My standard answer has been that we haven’t seen a difference and as far as I know the rest of the industry is doing alright.

This article confirms this. Say what you will about America’s reputation in this world, but we are the most generous nation on the planet. People give out of emotion and there are some amazing, heart-tugging call-to-actions out there right now. We have a lot of room to give without it materially affecting our lifestyles.

We should always be striving to give more and more within our budget. Increased monetary generosity is one of the most noble goals we can strive towards on a daily basis.

A quote I love that’s more about generosity of time:
“Everybody wants to save the world. Few want to help their mother with the dishes.”

Despite Economic Dip, Giving Rose in 2007 - washingtonpost.com

Tags: charity, giving

You’re looking at the two longest-tongued people in the world, Stephen Taylor and Annika Irmler.  The guy’s presentation is a bit more like an overcooked 7-11 hotdog. Nevertheless, it’s quite impressive and I felt was worth a nice Monday morning posting to get your day off to a meaningless start.

Long-tongued people - Boing Boing

This is a marvelous animal….

This just seems too good to be true, but it isn’t.  I came across some buzz on the internet about the audio manufacturer, Denon, and their attempt to sell a 4 foot long ethernet cable for…(drumroll)…$499.  I didn’t say $4.99, I said $500.  Can you believe that????

For the uninformed, an ethernet cable should cost about a buck and there is NO difference between the cheap ones and the good ones.  Denon sells very high end A/V receivers, DVD player, etc.  So they are putting an order together for the man who must have the finest picture quality and audio experience, and of course he must have no signal degradation.  “Sir, we recommend our Ultra Premium Link Cable to ensure the highest possible audio/visual experience.  Yes, it is $499..sir, we feel…sir, if you’ll let me finish…why, I never!”

Why not tell them it’s forged in the fires of Mt. Doom and charge $5,000.  At a certain point, you’ve got to do what’s right. That cable costs them 50 cents to make, if that. Shame on you Denon!

Denon USA | AK-DL1

Tags: denon, ethernet

I heard about this company called Little Miss Matched from Seth Godin’s blog. What a cool and innovative idea. Mismatching clothes, on purpose. The clothes like socks, for instance, come in a three pack and they are they are usually either complimentary colors or patterns, but neither sock is identical.

Apparently, teenage girls are going nuts over this, so you’re about to start seeing their stuff popping up all over the place as it’s an emerging trend that big retailers don’t want to get left behind on.

Knowing this, I wish that I had jumped on this trend in college when I was poor and fashion-brilliant.  I wore mismatching clothes all the time.  In fact, I could have started a company that sold underwear with holes in them.  Hole-y Underwear.  I certainly had enough inventory to get started.

LittleMissMatched - Creative Fashion - Nothing Matches but Anything Goes!

I know that this post has an incredibly boring title that will put most of you to sleep, but it’s a great article about productivity for the guy like me (and a few of you are like me).

How Batch Processing Made Me 10 Times More Productive

This is a fascinating article about a lawsuit that a professor filed against her students for “intellectual distress”, which was caused by their questioning of her theories. What’s particularly interesting is that the students were interested enough to actually openly challenge her in class. That is probably indicative of the caliber of student at Dartmouth. At my school, we would have read the student paper and tuned her out.

I had a couple colorful professors in college. One was an Astronomy professor that spoke such poor English, he forgot the word for planet one time and called it a “biggie”. In fact, I payed more attention in that class, because my friend and I were grossly engaged in the compilation of a glossary of words our professor used. Somewhere in a dusty box, I have the glossary and I hope that for the sake of science, I can uncover it. One day the future of the “biggie” may hinge on key scientists knowing that Ert means Earth.

Dartmouth’s ‘Hostile’ Environment - WSJ.com

I submit to you a look a like that occurred to me the other day.  General Akbar of Star Wars fame and the hit rapper Lil’ Wayne.

Tags: StarWars, Lil’ Wayne

This is a great article that I thought you would like. I admire the courage that Paul Pierce had to step up and take the assignment of guarding Kobe Bryant. Arguably, this will be the turning point in the series and will make Pierce a legend…

LOS ANGELES – At halftime of a pending disaster, with his offensive game seemingly left back in Boston and the NBA Finals on the verge of being squared up at two games apiece, Paul Pierce asked his coach for the toughest assignment in the NBA.

“I want Kobe,” he told Doc Rivers. “Give me Kobe.”

If the Boston Celtics were going to storm back from a 24-point deficit and move to the brink of their 17th NBA championship, then it would need two of the things Pierce has never been famous for – defense and leadership.

For 10 seasons he’s always been a scorer. Now with that even failing him, he went with trying to be a champion.

So he asked to guard Kobe Bryant, the dangerous Los Angeles Lakers scorer. The locker room was stunned. Yes, this is a prideful defensive team where guys make these kinds of requests, but he wants Kobe? Nobody wants Kobe. Certainly not when the game was all but lost anyway.

“That got everybody hyped up,” said Leon Powe.

The third quarter started with a surge of Celtics energy. Then Pierce delivered a huge block of Bryant, right in front of the Boston bench, that sent hopes soaring. With each defensive possession, Pierce’s presence grew and the Lakers’ lead shrunk. He muscled Bryant sometimes, stayed in front of him all the time and even found time to find his own offensive game.

By the fourth quarter, with the deficit erased, Bryant still in single digits and Pierce heaving in exhaustion, Rivers figured the point was made. He tried to switch the pressure off of Pierce, send a trap of two or three guys to handle the MVP.

And Pierce, hands on his shorts and breathing heavy in the huddle, would have none of it.

“He told Doc, ‘No, no, I got him. I got him. Just show, don’t trap. Don’t go messing up our whole defense to just get the ball out of his hands. Just show and I’m going to go get him,’ ” Powe said.

He got them. Boston 97, Los Angeles 91 in an historic, gritty comeback – the biggest in NBA Finals history – putting the Celtics on the verge, up 3-1 with a Father’s Day closeout here looming.

“It’s a dream if I can come out here and win on Sunday,” said Pierce.

For most of Pierce’s 10 seasons in Boston, the idea he would willingly give up on conserving energy for offense to fight the potentially impossible defensive fight of containing Bryant, seemed improbable. That he’d try anything to win this championship, do the blood-and-guts dirty work, seemed impossible.

While he’s far tougher and competitive than his reputation allows, the questions remained.

This is a guy who as a rookie was practically introduced to the city of Boston by getting stabbed 11 times in the face by some two-bit rapper. He was a good player, certainly, but mostly on the offensive end where the glory was obvious. He became known as the best player on some of Boston’s worst teams. In a franchise known for winning and winning only, where hanging banners is all that matters, Pierce’s willingness to lead never seemed to match the past greats.

Maybe the standards aren’t fair, but no one said being a Celtics captain is easy. Give me Kobe? Yes, that’s what Russell would have said. That’s a Havlicek move. Bird. Cousy. Cowens. D.J. or Maxwell. That’s what Celtics do, the guys with those numbers hanging from the rafters, right next to the championships they won.

“He dug deep,” said P.J. Brown. “In that second half, you could just look at him and see it. He wanted this. He wanted this bad.

“It was like, ‘This is my time; I’m leaving this on the floor.’ ”

Up and down the roster the whole mood changed with his repeated requests. If anything, Pierce should have been sulking. He’d been terrible since the series shifted to his old hometown. He was 4 for 20 from the floor in a game and a half here. In the first quarter alone Thursday, his plus/minus was an appalling negative 21.

But here he was; stepping up, standing up, even if this game looked like it would be one long embarrassment.

“When he started guarding Kobe, I think he just started competing,” said Ray Allen. “I mean, he had been competing, but you could see he just went up another level. … It took for Paul to say, ‘Let me guard him.’ When he said that, I knew.”

Pierce didn’t score all the points – although he finished with 20 to Bryant’s 17. He didn’t grab all the rebounds or make all the stops. But he led the charge for a relentless pack of believers.

He was the catalyst of a victory that will go down as legend even for the league’s most legendary franchise.

“I knew we weren’t going to lay down,” Pierce said. “It wasn’t about believing we can win. It was just going out there and competing. We got aggressive and stayed aggressive.”

In the end, after the Staples Center had begun to empty in disappointment, after the L.A. kid did the quick television interview and looked so tired he might collapse, Pierce acknowledged the family and friends hugging and dancing behind the Celtics bench.

Then he threw his headband into the stands, pumped his fist and shouted proud and loud with whatever he had left in him, one game he knew now from cementing his own legacy.

“That’s how you do it,” he screamed again and again. “That’s how you do it.”

That’s how Celtics’ greats have done it forever

No quit in Pierce - NBA - Yahoo! Sports

Tags: basketball