Killing time before a meeting

If you are in a meeting but can't start it until one last person arrives, take their phone extension and try to make a word out of it -- or, an anagram that has funnier connotations.

 

For example, If your extension is 2453, that spells BIKE. My extension is 2524, which is BLAH, matching my personality. That's good for a laugh -- although whether they are laughing with me or at me is sometimes unclear ;)

 

One day when Rita was late we figured out that her extension, 2883, spelled CUTE. Rita was insulted, in a feminist sort of way, when we pointed this out. But I later found out from her husband that she'd told him to use that as a mnemonic for her phone number, so she couldn't have been too insulted.

I Guess I Deserved This

I made two picks in the NCAA office pool. The first one was my legitimate selection -- pretty standard with some upsets thrown in because there are 45 entrants in the pool and only 3 winners.  If you pick only favorites, you get an above-average score, but still $0.

The other pick I named "Bush_In_Iraq" and figured I'd make a political point. Our policy in Iraq is such a longshot that I picked all longshots: #16 to beat #1, etc. Above that, I picked the service academy (Air Force).  But, trumping other rules, I picked Texas teams (Texas A&M and Texas), with nothing messing up Texas's march to the national championship.  I figured "Bush_In_Iraq" would be right there at the bottom of the standings.

So, what's happening? My true pick is not doing well. I've been hovering in the lower half of the standings, and though I've risen to 24th of 45 that's still hopeless.

"Bush_In_Iraq" has been as high as 4th and currently is in 9th. If Texas wins it all, there's an outside chance of getting in the money. I've promised to donate it to "Billiionaires for Bush".

The moral?  Don't try to make a political point with sports.

Losing Face

An NPR pundit commented on the Dubai ports situation this morning by noting that the Arab owners of Dubai Ports World would not want to lose face, since not losing face is important to Arab leaders.

I recall Americans saying the North Vietnamese were pursuing the war to avoid losing face, because not losing face was important in Asian cultures. Similar comments used to be made about Japanese businessmen.

Are there cultures that like losing face? Why single out Arabs or Vietnamese or Japanese as particularly concerned about losing face?  Isn't "losing face" a common English idiom? The existence of this common idiom means that English speakers are quite familiar with this concept in their own lives, without reference to foreign cultures.

Googling on the term "save face" returns "about 99,500,000 entries". Maybe that's as high as Google's numbers go.

Wal-mart free blog

Everybody has a constitutional right to free speech, and so there's nothing really wrong about Wal-mart planting stories with bloggers (any more than, say, the Sierra Club). There's something creepy about it, though.

 

It's pretty obvious, and not always in a good way, that I'm writing my blog myself rather than channeling the Wal-mart PR machine.

 

 

NY Times, March 7, 2006

"Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign

By MICHAEL BARBARO

Brian Pickrell, a blogger, recently posted a note on his Web site attacking state legislation that would force Wal-Mart Stores to spend more on employee health insurance. "All across the country, newspaper editorial boards — no great friends of business — are ripping the bills," he wrote.

It was the kind of pro-Wal-Mart comment the giant retailer might write itself. And, in fact, it did.

Several sentences in Mr. Pickrell's Jan. 20 posting — and others from different days — are identical to those written by an employee at one of Wal-Mart's public relations firms and distributed by e-mail to bloggers.

Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate headquarters...."

Full story at <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/technology/07blog.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=print>

Today's top headline

Prosthetic legs returned; police stumped

Mar 6, 2006 9:58 AM (ET)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two prosthetic legs stolen from a 16-year-old California girl have mysteriously turned up in her mother's van, the second time in three months that an artificial limb belonging to the teen has been taken and then returned, police said on Friday.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. David Austin said investigators dusted the slightly damaged limbs for fingerprints and had interviewed a "laundry list" of people but were baffled by the thefts.

"We're treating this as a crime," Austin said.

(Thanks to Sorni for calling this to my attention.)

Unsuitable

Unsuitable. Just unsuitable.

Sunday I wore a suit for Tony Heilman's memorial service. Monday through Wednesday I was at the "Reinventing Consumer Packaged Goods" conference sponsored by IRI, my employer. At the office, we are "business casual", but at the conference suits and ties were required. Tomorrow, Bar Mitzfah in the morning, reception for the young gentleman in the evening.

Five days in a suit this week! This is the most since the 1980's, when I wore one every day to work. What, I wonder now, was the point of that?

Unfortunately the suits are left over from that time since they get so little use. Frankly, they don't look that classy any more. Wearing the expensive but old suit is a minor protest, but at least it's a cheap protest.