Oh--and his soap ISN'T funny

It’s Friday, so time for a little something different. And, you know, our antipodean brothers and sisters just take a different approach to public service announcements. Even for subjects that everyone knows aren’t amusing.

You’ll recall the video from the Victoria police laying out in pretty much words of one syllable what’ll happen if you drive drunk. (“You’ll be stuffed!”) Well, the Aussies aren’t the only ones who know how to frame the problem for the target audience.

Here’s a video from New Zealand pointing out how stupid you are when you’re high, and therefore how stupid you’re going to be behind the wheel if you try driving while loaded.

Here’s what I want to know—what does a grown man want with 12 frosty pigs?

No, wait; never mind. I think that falls into the category of TMI.

Serving up spam

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of spam through one of my email accounts. It all goes into the spam folder, but sometimes the juxtapositions are, well, cherce.

Take this one:

I’ve been getting a lot from Christian Mingle for some reason; but I put them in the same category as the Russian hotties who want to talk with me.

What kind of tickled my fancy was the notion that the Victoria’s Secret reward might tie in to the Christian mingling thing. Like the Great Spam Server somewhere in the Ukraine has some algorithm that matches things up.

Well, probably not. But the idea kept me amused while I cleared the spam folder.

And furthermore...

As often happens on email discussions in the Pundit’s Apprentice circle, the exchange about saberage, which I reported on yesterday, branched out a bit. One of the fellows said he’d be sending the video to his sons “and possibly my ‘I can do it myself’ daughter.”

On account of, “It’s always important for young people to be sophisticated and know how to impressingly open champagne [or Piper Sonoma, or Asti Spumante, etc.), especially when you are out on a date—or you have an unexpected evening alone at home, and want to drown your sorrows.”

Well—did I not tell you that people in the Pundit’s Apprentice-Stretch set are extremely interesting? This guy has a weltanschauung that totally aligns with mine.

First off, I think it’s extremely important, when out on a date, to demonstrate that you possess weapons, and that you know how to use them. It sets realistic expectations straight off the bat.

Also, it lets your companion know how much you appreciate the choice of sparkling wine over something like Château Thames Embankment.

And, no doubt, it impresses the wait staff. You’ll get much better service after that.

But I also like his inclusion of doing up the night in properly—not just the “drowning your sorrows” part; anyone can do that, to the soundtrack of some Country & Western CD. No—by whacking the cork out of a bottle of bubbly with a saber.

That’s style to the core, baby.

He went on to add, “Actually, I know a number of single women who tell me that they daily make a full dinner for themselves, and polish off an entire bottle of wine with it, which I have never been tempted to do: either make a full dinner for myself and/or polish off a whole bottle of wine.”

Well, again—this person travels in first-rate circles. Women who don’t need no stinkin’ guests to prepare and eat a slap-up meal, and who aren’t afraid to drink a whole bottle of wine with it.

You go, girls!

Here’s the deal: for the longest time I used my dining table strictly as a place to dump papers. But about three months ago, I decided that I was an idiot. Since then I cleared off (at least half of) the table and had dinner there every night (except for three occasions, which were allowable exceptions). I set my place on the tablecloth, with linen napkins and a crystal wine glass.

(I long since threw away the notion that crystal is for guests only. And most of my stemware either came as a gift from someone or was purchased on one of my trips to Europe, so every piece has happiness associated with it. My good china may be packed away in a garage; but I damn well drink wine from crystal.)

Okay—I probably have the TV on, or am streaming video on the laptop. But I’m sat at the table, eating an actual whole meal, with veggies and everything, and I feel a lot more humanoid than if I were just, say, eating potato chips out of the bag and washing them down with caffeine-free Diet Coke while checking Facebook updates. (Which I don’t. Because you get the salt and oil all over your keyboard.)

So far I’ve refrained from drinking a whole bottle of wine at one sitting. Although there have been nights when I considered it. So it’s still an option.

En garde, bouteille!

I have a couple of friends in Virginia who feed my need for weirdness. I met (well, “email met”) Stretch through the Pundit’s Apprentice, who was one of the mainstays of the choir I used to sing in. PA continually challenges my mental acuity and gives me opportunities to Look Stuff Up, activities I adore. Both of them occasionally send me news of the bizarre, obituaries from the Telegraph and book or film recommendations.

Today’s vignette comes courtesy of Stretch. I knew Stretch was worth cultivating when I noticed his signature line: “Omnes moritatem. Deus suos cognoscet.” I’ve only read a little about the Albigensian Crusade, as I’m not much of a medievalist, but that’s an order you don’t soon forget. (And probably one uttered by commanders for millennia, because it’s often hard to tell who’s your friend and who’s your enemy when the field of battle slops over into civilian territory.) It was given by the papal legate when asked how the soldiers were supposed to know who was a heretic and who was of the true faith when they attacked the city of Beziers. “Kill them all,” he said. “God will know his own.” These days that sort of thing would cause a firestorm on Twitter, and CNN would go ballistic; but things were different in the 13^th Century.

Anyhow—what Stretch sent around to a select few was this video from Mental Floss on saberage: how to open a bottle of Champagne with a saber. Or a kitchen knife. Or a machete.

Well, he had me at “Champagne”, so I watched it all the way through. And had a few thoughts:

They’re using Piper Sonoma, which technically is not Champagne. But I do understand why they might not want to use the good stuff. In case of Unfortunate Incidents.

It just tears my heart in two to see sparkling wine go undrunk, for any reason; which is what happens when you rip a cork out the way it’s done here. Couldn’t they at least have put a bowl under it to catch the overflow?

If that gibbering Mental Floss twit can master the technique, I think it must be fairly straightforward, once you screw your courage to the sticking place, as it were. But if so, why would they slap that “Do not try this at home” warning all over it? I thought the whole purpose of this video was to give visual instructions and demonstrations of how to do it, no? WTH?

I like the whole Zen thing of the technique being all in the follow-through. Like smashing blocks of wood with the heel of your hand, it’s all in seeing just beyond the rim. You see the blade and the cork beyond the lip of the bottle; the rest is just detail.

It occurred to me that a bayonet might work—not one of those WWII jobbers, sharp on both sides; but maybe one from the 19^th Century. As might be used on a Martini-Henry rifle. So I asked the question. Naturally, Stretch has a few:

I knew he would. (Points to anyone who can identify the rifles associated with these bayonets.)

I’m thinking that the one in the center would be pretty good—looks like it has a blunt edge, and also has a good handle for gripping.

So I’m hoping someone on the email tries sabering a bottle, and that they record it. I’d try it myself, except that I’m not allowed sharp objects. (Or flammable substances.)

Um.

Gratitude Monday: I talk to the trees

Today I’m expressing my gratitude for crape myrtle. I love these things—both as shrubs and trees. They bring brilliant colors to summer, usually right around my birthday.

We had a pink tree in our front yard when I was growing up, but they come in white, fuschia, lavender and red.

In Virginia they bloom a little earlier—around July. But back in California, they’re out now and I love walking around neighborhoods where they’re part of the landscaping.

Yes—I’m grateful for trees. And the people who planted them. I’m easily amused.

The cure for what ails you

My friend the Pundit’s Apprentice sent this round to his email list recently. I find it strangely compelling, since I’ve often wondered whether the world would operate better for me if I just banged my head against a wall long enough to turn my brain to mush. I overthink pretty much everything.

Thing is—I’ve got a rather uneasy feeling that you can accomplish the same thing, without resorting to MinusIQ™ drugs; because it really does seem to me that the very act of signing up for a Twitter account lowers your IQ by at least 27 points. Along with the concomitant shedding of grammar, circumspection, civility and all sense of actions (and words) having consequences.

(Actually, the company that produced it has other very compelling—if not as amusing—videos on its site. Have a look: www.sleepthinker.com.)

Anyhow—it’s tequila o’clock on Funky Friday, so enjoy the possibilities.

Mixing oil & vinegar

Back in the 90s I read a story in the Washington Post to the effect that you can tell who’s a yuppie by the number of types of vinegar they have in their pantry. I remember thinking, “Uh-oh” back then, because I probably had about five lying about, along with three or four types of cooking oil.

I was reminded of that the other day asI pulled out the balsamic when I wanted the red wine vinegar for a spinach salad, and I really looked at that cabinet shelf. Which is half full of vinegar bottles.

The other half is different kinds of oils.

Here’s the tally.

Vinegar:

•  Champagne (two bottles, but one’s almost empty and the other was on sale)
• Red wine
• White wine
• Balsamic
• Cider
• White
• Rice
• Raspberry
• Raspberry red wine

Oil:

• EVOO (California estate)
• EVOO (Kalamata)
• Persian lime EVOO
• Eureka lemon EVOO
• Lemon basil EVOO
• Sesame
• Walnut
• Canola spray
• Garlic
• Basting olive oil with herbs
• Canola
• Peanut

Don’t quite know what to say about it. I’m not really excessive, I don’t think. I’m pretty sure I could stop at any point.

Well, maybe just one more…

Rogue killer app

One of the people I follow on the Twitter-dot-com was apparently having a bad day earlier this week. You could tell that when his tweets began referring darkly to “rogues”.

I got the impression that by “rogues” he meant “scoundrels”, and not, say, “scamps”, or even “undesirable deviations from a standard”. That’s because he declared, “If I invented a gadget that detected rogues I’d be a billionaire in a week.”

Well—you can’t argue with that, really.

He went on to announce, “So it’s time to get busy inventing a rogue detector”.

And the product manager in me kicked in pretty much automatically. Because in software product management, it’s all about understanding the problem that needs to be solved and who has the problem. Only after you’ve got those two elements completely in hand can you start thinking about defining the technology that might ameliorate the situation.

I pointed that out to him—the big challenge in developing a scumbag-identifying device or (more likely) application is in how one defines a scumbag. My standards in the matter are going to be somewhat different from yours, depending on how charming you find lying, cheating, self-puffery, back-stabbing, expense-fiddling and other behaviors and character traits. You probably wouldn’t download the app if it’s set to my criteria.

(Well—it’s the Twitters, so I was limited to 140 characters. What I actually said to him was “The big problem is accommodating individual definitions of ‘rogue’. #GoodLuck”)

This guy is definitely CEO material, the man with the Big Idea; and every start-up needs one of them. Maybe more, in case of traffic accidents or bad seafood. His response was right in line with the CEO approach:

“LOL…but my definition is the only one that matters! ;-)”

Well, I tried to be circumspect, as you are to CEOs. “To you; yes. But to the millions who’ll pay you $$$ per download…they gotta have their definition. Just sayin’.”

(I once told a CEO who was visualizing Big Things for a product I was developing, “It’s your job to build castles in the air. It’s mine [as product manager] to get out the shovel and start digging the foundation.” This tweeted exchange was along those lines.)

And he graciously came around: “Very true…I’m actually beginning to think seriously about the plan… :-)”

But then he came up with a prototype involving Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth.

Okay, look—it may surprise you to know that I have given considerable thought to this whole rat-catching issue over the years. Being able to detect scrotes is the first step to getting them out of your life. It is therefore my opinion that a Lasso of Truth is not only hardware-intensive (you’ve got manufacturing and distribution costs, moving parts and all the stuff that can go wrong. Plus—what do you do about batteries?), it’s not subtle and it puts you in closer proximity to the schmucks than I think you should be, as a paying customer.

I’m thinking mobile app, here; something that combines user-defined scumbag criteria, maybe NLP, voice recognition, even facial scanning technologies. The subscriber chooses what’s important to her from a comprehensive pick list, sets the priorities, probably using sliders, and then just taps the icon when she’s in the presence of a suspected schmuck.

(I say "subscriber" because this has to be Software-as-a-Service. Need to determine the subscription model—per-month or per-use. First thought is that per-use is going to be the money-spinner, but I'll have to run some number projections; maybe plug them into a spreadsheet.)

The app would “read” the jerk in question from a discreet distance (pretend you’re taking his picture; they’re narcissistic enough to be pleased by that) so that it would never occur to him that he’s being, ah, filtered, and process the inputs according to some algorithm yet TBD.

(It would have to be robust enough to handle the presence of multiple scumbags. So that if you were, say, in any legislative body anywhere in the world, or a Hollywood party, it wouldn't crash through the sheer weight of data. Well—maybe we put in the instructions that you shouldn't waste your per-use fees on politicians because everyone knows they're all lying, thieving rat bastards and why would you even fire up the app for what you already know?)

What you do about it is, of course, not part of the app, and we’d have to state that very clearly in the End User License Agreement (EULA). So it’s not what you might call a complete end-to-end solution. For that we’d probably have to partner with some, ah, services organization(s); so that would be part of a future version in the product roadmap.

But, like 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean, it’s a start.

I think I’ll just put together a little product requirements document and have it ready in the cloud for when I run into VCs at a local coffee shop somewhere near Sand Hill Road. I'm thinking there's a Google Glass tie-in, too.

Keep on truckin'

I don’t ordinarily watch commercials on TV. As with all manner of online ads, I’ve trained my eyes so that I just don’t see them. (Thus all that work Google, Facebook and the Twitter-dot-com put into their ad-serving algorithms is just swirling down the drain when it comes to getting my attention and money.)

In fact, for the most part I’m afraid that television is basically a talking lamp to me—flickering lights with noise accompaniment.

Sometimes my ears prick up, though, and there was something about the sound of this Chevy Silverado commercial that made me look up.

There he is, our rugged hero; a guy and his truck. Out there on the range in the pissing-down rain, protecting his herd. But—no—there’s a calf gone missing! Noooo. And like the shepherd in the parable, our waxen-coated truck guy goes off in search of the lost little one.

And blah, blah, blah.

Until he finds it and cradles it to him.

Awww…

But am I the only person watching that commercial who’s thinking, “Hey—that’s a beef cow! In two years or so (life span of beef cattle being less than three years), that little dogie’s going to be hauled to the slaughterhouse."

Perhaps towed behind that truck.

Gratitude Monday: The blessing of water

My friend Danger Girl brought this story from Forbes to my attention recently. You’ve no doubt seen the videos of Shark Cat—the feline that likes to ride a Roomba and lets its humans dress it in a shark outfit.

(If you haven’t—you probably might want to check your broadband connection. ‘Cause it would have been hard to miss.)

The Forbes writer makes the case that Shark-Roomba-Cat may be the quintessential depiction of the wealth of America—roomy, well-equipped kitchen; high-tech robotic floor cleaning device; people with enough disposable income to buy shark sweaters for their pets.

DG didn’t object to that characterization, but she did point out that many Americans are not in fact represented by that video; people in their millions who only dream of having the space and equipment of this kitchen. And the multiple bedrooms, working bathroom and suburban yard that presumably surround the Roomba-riding cat.

She’s spot on, of course.

But let me add one element to the discussion, which is the subject of my Gratitude Monday today, which isn’t mentioned in the article:

With some exceptions, the vast majority of Americans have access to clean, potable water, and are not in danger of contracting or dying from numerous water-borne diseases. Assuming your own plumbing is operational, you can turn on the tap and can drink whatever comes out of it without greater fear than that it might taste funny. You don't even think about things like cholera, typhoid, dysentery or a dozen other hazards.

That is a triumph of technology and civic services.

When I moved to Korea, it was in the middle of a cholera epidemic. Since I did not live on base, and bottled water was not at that time the universal thing it is today, I had two choices for consumption: either drop purification tablets into a pitcher of water (which turned it a shade of brown that made you wonder whether the color alone was killing the bacteria), or boil it. For ten minutes. On a hot plate.

Well, okay—three choices: tablets, boiling or take my chances with cholera.

The Korean government occasionally sent round loud-speaker trucks to urge people in the apartment complex to get their cholera shots (which I found very Orwellian). This was not in any way a joke to anyone. But they didn’t have the infrastructure for delivering clean water to the populace. Our neighborhood (maybe most of Seoul) had open sewers. If you've never experienced a banjo ditch in monsoon-hot/wet summer...well, consider yourself fortunate.

(Actually—I was in one of the “luxury” buildings of the complex. We had indoor toilets. Residents of six out of the twelve six-story walk-ups used outhouses.)

So, long after my time there, I am still deeply grateful that I do not have to boil water before I drink it, and that I don't have to worry about killer diseases shooting out of the taps. I know there are millions and millions of people in the world who do not share in this blessing.