Weekend Haiku

I don't know
which tree it comes from,
that fragrance.

Basho (1644-1694)

As

Perpetuum Jazzile covers Stevie Wonder's As. Notice how everyone in the choir is individually miked. What a nightmare for the sound technician, but they do sound good. Enjoy and happy Friday.

Barbara Boxer spoofed

Call Me Senator from RightChange on Vimeo.

Oops, sorry, I meant Senator Barbara Boxer spoofed. To loosely paraphrase Larry, the cable guy, "I don't care who you are, that's funny right there."

Nestor Kirchner dead

Nestor Kirchner, President of Argentina from May 2003 until December 2007 is dead at age 60. His widow, Cristina Fernandez, is head of state at the present time. This throws Argentina's political landscape somewhat into disarray as Mr. Kirchner was expected to vie for the presidency once again in next year's election.

I'll be at the bar...

No, not that kind of bar. Apple's new Friend Bar is taking the country by storm. I'm not technical at all and wouldn't last a minute there. Now, the other kind of bar, that's another story entirely. Anyway, check it out.

New Apple Friend Bar Gives Customers Someone To Talk At About Mac Products

Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink

What percentage of the planet's water is naturally potable? Answer after the jump. Less than two percent of the earth's water is fresh water.

It's Monday

And we all know what that means. Time for another MOTW, Manager of the Week. This next manager is a tired individual who spends practically all of his/her time on email. On the rare occasion where they do venture out, the trip is typically cut short by some sort of emergency back home, allowing them to quickly return before they spend too much time outside of their comfort zone.

MOTW: Non-Travelling Manager

Charged with important global responsibilities, Non-Traveling Manager rarely if ever travels outside his/her own office, let alone zip code. This manager screens all phone calls, hardly ever answering unless the caller ID shows that the party calling is a “safe” party who will not ask, encourage or order the manager to travel. Non-Traveling Manager believes that all problems can be managed via email, preferably from a blackberry so that the responses given are cryptic and succinct.

Weekend Haiku

The spring day
lingers
in the pools.

Issa (1763-1827)

Ahes to Ashes

Happy Rhodes covers David Bowie's Ashes to Ashes. Unfortunately it is audio only. Enjoy and happy Friday. If you liked Happy Rhode's version check out this earlier post.

For the purists, here is Bowie's version.

Do higher taxes lead to working less?

Once in a while I post about politics. After living through what our current administration's policies have been doing to my wife's business as well as my own I have been searching for a way to express our frustration, besides going to the polls of course. With the mid-term elections right around the corner I found this NYT article, well written and researched by a Harvard professor, which says it better than I ever could.

Fly Away

This is great. Lenny Kravitz crashes a choir in New Orleans doing a cover of his tune Fly Away and joins in. I guess once he starts jamming with them it's no longer technically a cover.

Malbec, the comeback kid

This WSJ article by Will Lyons talks about the resurgence of Malbec, mainly due to the production of Malbec in Argentina. I love Malbec and will drink it anytime it is offered to me.

Take Me Out

Atomic Tom performs Take Me Out on their iPhones while riding the NYC subway. Check out the lady behind them getting into it and singing chorus.

It's Monday

And we all know what that means.Time for another MOTW, Manager of the Week. You may have run into this next manager at some point even if you did not report to them. They are always the source of conjecture, as no one really knows what they are doing there, not even themselves.

MOTW: Token Manager

An odd species, Token Manager has been placed in the position to fill an empty corner office and never really understands why. No one ever pays any attention to him/her and work continues until one day Token Manager mysteriously disappears.

Weekend Haiku

Under the image of Buddha
all these spring flowers
seem a little tiresome.

Issa (1763-1827)

Backwater

From their album Too High To Die, here is The Meat Puppets video of Backwater. Just a great rock song. Happy Friday!

Shhh!! Keep it down, will ya...

In a very brief chat sound guru Julian Treasure talks about what those ear buds are doing to you, among other things in his presentation, and prescribes seven steps to improve your listening health.

Santana on cover of Sound + Vision

The issue of Sound and Vision magazine is due out October 19th and none other than the man himself, guitar player extraordinaire and prolific musician Carlos Santana will grace the cover. Here is a sneak peak at the cover.

Paying a band not to play

Now I've seen everything. It's like paying farmers not to farm, not that we ever did that. James Burns is waging a campaign to raise 10 million dollars to get the band Weezer to disband. Burns is not even that much of a fan, but says that the band's output since it released its 1996 Pinkerton album has been sub-standard and keeps disappointing his friends who are die-hard Weezer fans. He terms it an abusive relationship which he says has to stop. Weezer has responded that if he raises the fund to 20 million they will do just that, retire.

It's Monday

And we all know what that means. Time for another MOTW, Manager of the Week. Now that the NFL season is in full swing, the Canopy thought it would be apropos to use a reference from that league. Hopefully you have not worked for the following manager as their play calling is usually suspect.

MOTW: Monday Morning Quarterback Manager

Never one to prepare or coach his/her staff before important meetings, Monday Morning Quarterback Manager has an infinite array of revisionist feedback whenever the meetings are done and does not hesitate to let anyone within a fifty mile radius know about it. Monday Morning Quarterback Manager will tell you what you should have said, done and thought differently even if the outcomes of the meetings were a resounding success. Upon leaving any meeting at which you and Monday Morning Quarterback Manager were present the recommendation is to put on a pair of noise reduction headphones and run away as quickly as possible.

Weekend Haiku

Escaped the nets,
escaped the ropes-
moon on the water.

Buson (1716-1783)

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

This spaghetti western has always been one of my favorite cowboy movies. Directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach, it was everything a gun-slinging western should be including the epic theme song by Hugo Montenegro and His Orchestra.

Well, check out The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain rocking out to the tune. It's really creative and they are obviously having a good time performing it. Enjoy and happy Friday.

The Friendship Paradox

Do you know what it is? Simply put the Friendship Paradox states that you are more likely to be friends with someone who has more friends than with someone who has fewer friends. In other words, more than likely your friends have more friends than you do.

Is this idea difficult to wrap your mind around? It depends. If you think you are an extremely popular person then perhaps it might be. In my case, since my wife considers me to be a misanthrope it made immediate sense. This finding was published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1991 by Scott L. Feld.

Of what use is this finding you ask? One way it can be used is as a way to forecast the course of epidemics as Nicholas Christakis explains in this TED talk in the video below.

Oh no! It's a fake...

Most wildlife movies are not all they seem, or so says this film producer. You really need to watch this. It's pretty revealing. He admits to outright lies and complete fakes in some of our favorite wildlife documentaries. Moral of this short film sequence; don't believe everything you see or are told by the narrator or anyone else in these movies. Oh, and read the fine print during the credits at the end of the film.

A year later, a year crazier

Some of you may remember this post. It was approximately a year ago and it was from CareerBuilder.com via CNN. It reported some of the wackiest things candidates said in job interviews. Needless to say, few if any landed the job they were after in the interview.

Well, it is a year later and with the economy in the shape it's in and with unemployment rampant you can imagine that a lot of people have been interviewing trying to get jobs. So here is CareerBuilder's new article on some of the more outlandish things that candidates said or did when interviewing for jobs in the past year.

The call that went awry

A conference call organized by Citigroup which was supposed to quell investors' fears over Ireland's economic woes became an unmitigated disaster when Citi failed to mute the investors' lines. When the investors realized their lines were not muted they proceeded to heckle Ireland's finance minister Brian Lenihan as he attempted to deliver his message. As things got out of control Citigroup officials shut down the line.

Host Philip Brown, head of public sector debt at Citigroup, restarted the call 20 minutes later. Citigroup cited technical difficulties as the culprit. That conference call technology can get pretty tricky at times.

It's Monday

And we all know what that means. Time for another MOTW, Manager of the Week. It is exhausting trying to keep up with this next manager. The staff has a bet going that if you opened him/her up, inside you would find a series of microchips.

MOTW: Robo Manager

He/she is everywhere at once. Works 24/7 and leads by example. (Hint: everyone should work 24/7.) Is convinced that with enough effort, skill, luck and technological devices anything is possible.

Weekend Haiku

The jars of octopus-
brief dreams
under the summer moon.

Basho (1644-1694)

Billie Jean

Chris Cornell's unplugged cover of Billie Jean. All I can say is wow! Enjoy and happy Friday.