Can I tell you a story…?

Some time ago I had a really fun time accompanying two colleagues to London to take part in a storytelling ‘workshop’.  We went to find out more about storytelling in business and the author of a book called ‘Diary of a naked salesman’, Espen Holm.  The book uses the idea of storytelling as a method of improving sales techniques.
It was nice to meet Espen, however I do remember the rest of the people at the workshop being odd, very odd indeed.  For instance, I met a gentleman who told me that he was not in IT. He was adamant that he was in marketing, not IT.  I nodded politely, hoping to move the conversation on ‘what company are you with?’  He responded, ‘Lexmark’.  I asked, regretting the words as they fell from my mouth, ‘would they consider themselves an IT company? ‘To my surprise, the gentleman took a quite astonished look and answered ‘yes, I suppose they would’ and walked off.  Some of the other odd types included:
•    A person who told a story in a whisper
•    A person who reminded us that when we, or anyone we know, dies that there is someone at the back of the room waving a cheque.  This gentleman deserved a prize for having a business card that was designed to look like a mass card!
•    A racist
I remember thinking at one stage of the day that there had to be hidden cameras, because to be so many odd people in one location had to be a set up.  Someone somewhere was watching and laughing at the pained look on my colleagues and my faces.
It’s too bizarre to go into the characters we met in this post; however I have resolved to post the carry on that day, as a form of therapy for myself.
Experiences like this are a great way to get to know colleagues better and to just have fun.  I have fond memories of that day.
Anyway, the art of storytelling has not gone away, its important.  I’ve been listening to a podcast called ‘the moth’.  Its storytelling and it’s really good.  Check it out, www.themoth.org . You’ll hear stories from famous people and people like you and me.  You’ll be glad you did.

Insert Caption…

‘The world economy is down there somewhere’

Consider the Lobster

David Foster Wallace

February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008

– Rest in Peace -

DFW

Consider the Lobster is just brilliant.

The Barrier Is Down

I come to work and pass through the M50 Toll Bridge.  I got an easy pass gadget for my car to allow me to pass through without having to look for change.  There is a dedicated lane for cars that have the easy pass gadget and my understanding is that any car that use this gadget should be able to pass through without having to stop and should, in theory, be able to ‘beat the queue’

I’ve noticed that the queues in the easy pass lane are now usually as long, if not longer, than the queues on the other lanes and the barrier on the easy pass lane is always down, when most of the other lanes the barriers are usually up.

I know that the easy pass gadget works in any lane, I just don’t know why the lane that is dedicated moves at a slower pace.

Another thing that bothers me about this are cars that use the lane that don’t have the gadget and the attitude of the people who run the bridge to those cars.

If a car arrives to the barrier and doesn’t have a gadget the barrier won’t rise.  A queue will form and it would appear that the attitude of the people inside the toll booth is to let the car sit there and take a horn beating from other cars.  Why do the booth operators do this?  Why not just open the window, take the cash and tell the driver not to do it again or get a gadget.  Why slow everyone down just to make a driver feel uncomfortable?

Why would someone pull into a lane without a gadget?  Well its not as clear cut as that.  They may have a gadget but it may not work properly.  They might be a tourist, they might have taken the gadget out of the car etc. etc. 

If you’re reading this and thinking I’d never do such a thing, you might be suffering fundamental attribution error syndrome.

So you think your life is hard?

As I drove work this morning in my 1.9 Turbo Diesel German engineered car I listened with interest to Morning Ireland on RTE radio one as I do each morning to catch the news headlines. The section ‘it says in the papers’ was on and Caroline Murphy was talking about the usual things in the broadsheets and the rags. She mentioned that Easons may include a section called ‘Painful Lives’ for books by people, z-lists celebrities mostly, who are writing books about their shitty lives. Waterstone’s have already created this section.

What is wrong with these people? Is there nothing they won’t do for cash and attention? They think they have it hard? Let me tell you something about MY painful life.

1. I have only four bedrooms in my detached house. How do you think that makes me feel when five friends / couples might want to stay over? Terrible, that’s how.

2. 8Mb. That’s how fast my broadband connection to my four bed-roomed house is. How painful is that. Knowing that I have to wait one or two seconds for a page to load. Oh sure its contention free, but I’m sure it could be MORE contention free. When will I be free of this pain?

3. My Apple MacBook Pro is one year old. And as far as anyone is concerned that too old. How can I be seen with something so outdated. Its like a computer from the last century or something. its probably not even year Y2K compliant. I’m sure that my laptop will be hit by the Y2K bug. How can I show my face outside?

4. My German Turbo Diesel engine is only 1.9. The shame I feel every day knowing that its not 2.5 or 3.0 or even a hummer. Why must I be forsaken? Why can’t I have a hummer? You tell me? Why is life so hard?

5. I only get to work from home up to two days a week. Enough said about that.

6. Only one room in my house is en suite. Tears are rolling down my face, as I’m sure they are yours as you read about my painful life.

So I’m sure that my life is far more painful than Kerry, Posh, Brian, Jordon etc. They’ll never understand the pain that I feel when I have to listen their stories mentioned on the radio or Sky news. That’s a pain that just won’t go away.

good copy bad copy

More on this later.

clipped from www.goodcopybadcopy.net

That isn’t cool Bra…

TV bounty hunter Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman has been axed from TV due to a Race Rant in a private conversation.

Fishbowl NY runs a partial transcript from the tape, where Chapman asks the film crew to not record the girlfriend:

“I don’t care if she’s a Mexican, a whore, whatever. It’s not because she’s black, it’s because we use the word n- – - – - sometimes here [...] “I’m not going to take a chance ever in life of losing everything I’ve worked for, for 30 years, because some f- – -ing n- – - – - heard us saying n- – - – -. [...] It’s that we use the word n- – - -. We don’t mean, ‘You f- – -ing scum n- – - – - without a soul… We don’t mean that s- – -, but America would think we mean that.”

Over The Brainbow

 Neuronal circuits, that’s the brian wiring to you and me, can now be seen in a multicolour ‘brainbow’.

Next stage an idiots guide to brain circuitry!

This story appeared in this months Nature.  Worth checking out…here.

Caturday Morning

Andrea found this and described it as my mornings with the the Count.

Radiohead – In Rainbows

Radiohead have offered their new album ‘INRAINBOWS’ at a ‘pay-what-you-want’ price on their website.  They are not officially signed to any company so they can do this.  You can purchase the album from 0-100 GBP.  I chatted with a colleague about this sort of thing some time ago.  The colleague mentioned that if the music industry or film industry offered materials for people to download that a price that didn’t leave the consumer feeling ripped off then they wouldn’t rip off the music and they would indeed pay for it.  I’ve paraphrased, my colleague said it far more eloquently than I have written here, but it was some time ago and my memory isn’t what it was.

So when it came time to decide whether to ‘purchase’ the music from Radiohead or just take it gratis I decided that it is only right and proper to pay something towards their efforts.

The whole process is so simple. Log in to their site, register pay your money and there’s a link in your inbox to download a 48MB zip file.  The music is DRM free, so that means it will work on any device that’s capable of playing MP3 music.

I wonder if any other major artists will follow their lead?

Here’s a video of Paranoid Android from OK Computer, a beautifully constructed album.

Some Sharp Advertising

Bravo to the team that put this web advertisment together. I fell of my seat watching the trailer. Click the link below, its well worth a look.

Thanks to Liam for sending it.

http://www.ffk-wilkinson.com/

Hacking the iPhone

Some pretty nifty toys for the phone. Apple and Steve Jobs are none to happy about it.

Although with updates from Apple to the firmware it could turn the phone from

this: into this

Ireland’s new Rugby strip for the big game on Sunday

http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/home/teams/team=36/index.html

The world has lost another mime

Marcel Marceau, mine, who silently passed on at a grand old age of 84.   I knew his name but I didn’t know he was a mime until I heard on the news that he passed.

The Count Von Cuddlebum III

Here’s a short video, including images, of our kitten ‘The Count’.

Pale Blue Dot

Enjoy your weekend – whatever it is you do.

Why don’t you tell us what you’re really thinking?

German ambassador to Ireland doesn’t hold back and tells it like he sees it and delivers funny anecdote.

• Ireland is a coarse place with a sad history where the natives are obsessed by money
• Junior ministers earn more than the German Chancellor
• 20 per cent of the population are public servants
• Health service chaotic
• Hospital consultants turn down ‘Micky Mouse’ money (200,000 euro) to work in public sector
  
• Irish history “even sadder than Poland’s”

He said that he was at the National Concert Hall when an announcer appealed for the owner of a 1993-registered car to move the vehicle because it was blocking an entrance. “Of course no one moved,” said Mr Pauls. “All the Irish are driving 2006 and 2007 cars. For all I know the car is still there.” He also said that tourists from the United States had stopped visiting Ireland because they were sick of the incessant traffic jams.

Is this true?  Perhaps, perhaps not, but its better than being called a ‘bunch of ditch-digging drunks who like nothing better than to sing and fight and fight and sing’

Five Star Hotel Policy – No Sharing Allowed.

Sure isn’t it one of the things that makes the Irish…well Irish. Tea. Mrs Doyle, Lyons, Barry’s they all make a nice cup of tea.

A well know five star hotel, Herbert Park, has a hotel policy that dictates that customers who order a pot of tea are restricted to just one teacup with the beverage.

This came to light when a customer was refused an extra cup to share the pot of liquid gold. The customer was refused not once but three times. The manager on duty told her that this was the hotel policy and they were sticking to it. What a crazy policy. What could be the reason behind it?

Not very refreshing customer service.

What are the guys over at MS Zune thinking?

Probably something like “Awww Crap!” or “I wish I worked at Apple”

Ever hear a song on the radio and make a mental note to look it up or wonder what the name of it was or tell yourself you’ll try and get a copy of it, then forget all about it and wake up at 3AM with same song in your head and wondering why you’ve woken up at 3AM listening to it….? No. Me neither!

Anyway that may be a thing of the past with the new WI-FI enabled iPod from Apple. You can hear a song in a store and go and purchase it right from iTunes while you wait in line.

This will open up a whole new marketing channel for advertisers and companies. This will be huge.

Apple announces iPod Touch. I hope the battery lives up to the hype.

Touch screen,

Safari web browser,

You Tube,

Purchase music from iTunes on the fly.

Deal with Starbucks (US) for instant access and SB Store Song information.

Who signed off on this?

Recently I started watching a show from Comedy Central called ‘Frisky Dingo’.  A very entertaining yet insane show about something (or someone) called ‘Killface’ who wants to send the earth into the Sun using a device called the Annihilatrix.   The large rocket cost 22Billion to make and because of the large cost Killface can’t afford to do a big marketing blitz to all the TVs on the planet as he originally intended, so a mass-mail campaign was devised.  The big problem is that the mailing card contains spelling and grammar errors.

and if you want to see the pilot episode then have a look here: http://www.adultswim.com/shows/frisky/

So a week or so ago a menu for an Indian Restaurant arrived through our letterbox at around 1.30AM, that’s right, AM!  Who delivers menus at that time, odd-balls in Portlaoise, that’s who.

Last night we decided or order-in and Andrea pulled out the menu.  She started to laugh as soon as she looked at it and when she showed me I thought of Frisky Dingo.

The menu has in print the following:

Whay not enjoy some of our favorite Indian delicacies, finely prepared by our highly qualified cheas in the comfort of our own home.  Surely, your family would enjoy that so much! [sic]

and further down

‘our staff would be help you’.

Also you can get a ‘can of cock, 7up or orange for 1 euro 20 cent at this place.  If you fancy a starter then number 17 is:

‘Prawn Piyari’ which is Tiger Prawn marinate with Indian spice and cooked on girl.

I regularly make awful blumbering mistakes when I start writing anything and often have to be corrected so I’m not being nasty with this post.  I just thought it was funnie, sorry funny!

In case you doubt the text, here’s an image or two of the take-away menu.

All things considered it was a pretty good meal.