This seems a little strange to me...

My mother is very interesting. She always seems to call at precisely the wrong moment - I'm carrying things, talking to someone, going to the bathroom, having sex (well, not that last one - at least she hasn't called then yet), and inevitably I'll hear her ringtone. Anyway, besides her terrible sense of timing when she calls, she calls me for things that I don't know about. For example, today she called me about some sandals she was buying for my wife...she wanted to know sizes, colors, and all of that. Being a guy, I had no idea what any of that was. The thing that's really strange is that she could have just called my wife directly and asked her. Instead, she uses me as a middleman, and that's about as ineffective as anything that I can imagine. Call my wife!!

Does this happen to other people, or is it just me?

Send this to 43 people and something good will happen

Junk mail is like getting raped in prison, you don't know when or how often, you just know that it's on its way. I'm exhasted from the overflow of trite Christian anecdotes, "what women really mean," and most of all chain letters.
I'd like to say it boggles my mind that people are dumb enough to think that this type of correspondence is humorous/inspirational/fun, but I can't. I'm fully aware of how many dumb people exist out there, and based on my inbox I seem to be associated with all of them.

Free Digital Cameras

The good folks at Gratis Networks have come out with a new promo: a free digital camera. The way it works is thusly:
You sign up using the link I am providing here: http://www.FreeDigitalCameras.com/?r=16085451 . You complete an offer (there aren’t many freebies on there, but one that I did notice that was free was a 30 day trial to stamps.com. Not only is that one free, but you get 5 bucks of postage for free too. Just cancel before your month’s trial is up – it’s easy to do so via their website). Then you get 10 friends to sign up using a link that you’ll be getting after you sign up. They’ll complete the offer, and BOOM! - you’ve got yourself a free 5+ megapixel digital camera!

This is a legitimate thing! I signed up for their free iPod offer (same type of deal), and I’m loving it! Shipping is free, the product is free, everything is free. Just make sure you don’t sign up for anything in the first several screens. When it gets to the page where it says that you have to complete 1 of the following offers, that’s the only stuff you have to sign up for, and just one of those. The other stuff won’t give you credit (i.e. everything before that screen). Also, I’d advise against checking the 2 boxes on the opening page – they will most likely lead to spam offers being dropped in your e-mail box.

The Apprentice: Negotiating with Musicians

It'll be interesting to see what happens on tonight's Apprentice. Who knows how the team shuffle will work, and which team will be weaker. The most obvious weak players have been ousted now, so there's no Omarosa to make the early decision about. I imagine that it will come down to whoever is negotiating the best deal from the performers - I see this as a lot like the auction task from Season 1. Put together the best package, and you'll be in good shape.

Reply to all abuse

Who else is sick of this? I am on a mailing list, where, long and uninteresting story short, people like to chat back and forth. The way it works, you can either send to the e-mail address that shoots it out to everybody, or you can reply to the person via their e-mail address, which is in the "reply to" field. These people e-mail and call back and forth amongst each other. I got involved in it because I went to a conference a month ago and ended up in it. Anyway, if you got an email sent over the list like this:

"I am looking for people to call other than my group, because sometimes I cannot reach them, so if any of you don't mind if I call on you, let me know. Vice Versa."

what would you do? I think I'd probably respond to this person by doing something along the lines of sending an e-mail directly to the person. Is that what this group does? Not hardly! Instead, the following e-mail (with names changed to protect the retarded) was sent not only to her, but also to the entire group - she deliberately added in the entire group, which means that the original e-mailer got this message twice.

Hi Janet,
This is Jillian.
I love you. You can call me.

How ridiculous is that? Why did I need to know anything about that? Things like that have turned this mailing list into a dumping ground. My wife has it all sent to the trash, and I think I'm going to do the same.

The Apprentice: Clown College

We saw Alex step up last week, and lo and behold, he gave a performance that was so night and day from what we have seen from most other candidates that you'd almost think we were back in Season 1. He actually talked to his target audience and tried to sell the product, as opposed to making a pretty mural that he liked. He's no urban candidate - his terrible use of "mad props" showed that - but he knows what the urban market wants because he asked.
In this week's task, watch for Audrey to further embarass Utah with her mouth (seriously, did she get a mouth transplant from a sailor or something?) and actions. What a horrible candidate. You can definitely tell that she's only 22. Also, watch for another Net Worth loss, because as anybody can tell you, clowns are scary. Kids will not like clowns. For the few who consider Ronald McDonald their best friend, they'll be okay, but I tend to think that that's not their target audience. Clowns are too polarizing, regardless of the task.

Quick and Dirty

I've grown ever so weary of the business buzzwords around my office, more specifically from my boss. Inevitably when he opens his mouth I find myself being smothered under the flow of oral crap that spews forth. Everyday it is a constant stream of "let's take this offline", "think outside the box", "sharpen the saw" and so on. He recently added the phrase "quick and dirty" to his already weighty repertoire. Let me just explain this about my boss, much of what he does is dirty, but never is it quick. Generally it is a painfully slow process in which he repeatedly thrusts his ideas until you relent and agree.
I understand that such phrases have their time and place, and can add illustration to an idea, but it seems that 90% of the time they are tossed in as nothing more than executive bull honk. I don't know if you are equally annoyed with all the buzzwords, but my advice to you when presented with the comment "let's have a quick and dirty about this". Follow your gut instinct and run, run like a small boy from a beefy schoolmarm.

The Way to M&A

As a follow-up to my last entry, currently Blue Ribbon is also in the process of purchasing a company that we'll call Edge Health Care. The normal procedure in an acquisition is this: Company A buys Company B. Company B and Company A become the same company, and B's identity is subsumed. A gets B's assets, jobs and overlapping functions are merged, and life is good. However, here at Blue Ribbon, we don't do that so much. Instead, Edge will be moving into our building. So far, so good, right? Well, then they'll become a separate company, with some merged back office functions. The reasoning behind this is because people who wouldn't go with a big company like Blue Ribbon will go with a small company like Edge. Here in the area, word will certainly get out that Edge is part of Blue Ribbon. Therefore, people won't refer to the small company that's part of a big company, and you lose the small company advantage as well as the opportunity to show that a big company can treat you well. On top of that, a lot of operational efficiencies won't be realized because we're still 2 companies in many respects. Mergers and aquisitions pay off through operational efficiencies as much as anything else, and by making sure that we don't get those efficiencies, we're making sure that we'll merge like a bunch of retarded monkeys who have fallen out of the trees one too many times. Eventually this will change - they will be completely integrated, but that's been put on hold indefinitely.