All I Want for Christmas is Bondage Barbie

Thank God Christmas comes but once a year. Its pretty much all my patience can handle. The idea of assembling various presents took an interesting turn this year, something I previously had not seen. This year, the year of Barbie (and Achy Breaky Montana), had me removing said Barbie from her box with extreme frustration. Every square inch of Barbie was either wired or taped to some form of cardboard. Was this to prevent someone from stealing Barbie? Considering the Barbie demographic (ages 4-12?) is all of this security really necessary?

aaaa little bit of help here...

I am so disgusted with our current state of democracy. We hire politicians to make decisions to help us and mankind (at least it used to work that way). Since late 2001 the political system has been broken (some would question if it had ever worked). We have two parties that will not speak to one another, unless you count the screaming done on the various *news* channels.

Talk about being stuck in a rut, this is ridiculous. I want a leader that can unite the parties, get people talking, compromising, making decisions so that there is a planet left for my children to enjoy.

I do not see the above as an unreasonable request. Is it?

I hope everyone does learn about the candidates in our upcoming election. If you choose to wait to the last minute and have a computer make your decision, based on your beliefs, it will align you with the candidate that shares your values and outlook. The site is called The Candidate Calculator. Do me a favor though... please do your own research beyond "the calculator". If nothing at all the calculator points you in the right direction.

Now go vote for Obama. Why? at this point I feel that he is a person that has not been jaded by the political system (yet). This could do the most good. Some people laughed when Californians elected the "Govenator", but if you look at the results he has actually had an impact, blurring the lines between right wing and left wing agendas. If he were eligible to run for president I would consider him also.

For the record I would say I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal (though my father says you cannot be both). The hell with it, WHY NOT?!

This Apple has left a bad taste in my mouth...

I was an early adopter of Macbook Pro. As many of you know being an early adopter can sometimes be painful.

The story behind my Apple Macbook Pro starts innocently enough... long time PC user switches to a Mac and falls in love. The honeymoon period lasted approximately 8 weeks. After 8 weeks the machine was determined to have fan/over heating issues. I sent the laptop back and it was returned one week later *fixed*.

Repeat, Repeat, and Repeat. 4 TIMES the laptop was sent in for repair! Always for the same issue, fan/over heating.

I was so angry that I decided to email Steve Jobs. The day after I emailed Steve I received a phone call from their Executive Customer Service, which was nice, but the machine came back from its 4th repair with a new problem... the casing wasn't aligned and there are bulges on the deck and sides. It is very disappointing that Apple has not taken responsibility and replaced the faulty machine.

Has Apple neglected the QA of its desktops/laptops in favor or consumer electronics (iPods)? I have an idea and it includes not making the same mistake twice.

Great Article: Limit your email messages to 5 sentences

I like this post, once you take a look you will see why...

Designer Mike Davidson says many email messages he receives take more time for him to answer than they did for the sender to write. So he's instituted a new email policy: no message he sends out will be more than 5 sentences. Specifically "...After awhile, others will just expect short responses from you..."

The Bullet Pointing of America...

Dr. Dugmore said (quote): “I think we’re now in a bullet-point society. We’re not a paragraph society or a conversation society. I think we’re used to reading bullet-points, we’re used to speaking in bullet-points – and we’re losing out on human interaction.” Bullet-points are, of course, those terse facts, bluntly listed, with a big, black dot in front of each. Although useful on web pages or in memos, bullet-points are probably a symptom of disconnection – each fact being disconnected from its adjacent facts, and all of these isolated facts lacking a human face. Bullet-points make no attempt at showing logical or human connections. Perhaps Dr Dugmore is right – perhaps we are now verbal machine guns spraying bullet-points at each other: perhaps we have become a bullet-point society.

To the above I cry horse pucky. Here is why (in bullet points, of course):

Just like a baseball pitcher, its all in the delivery. it will make the person communicating a better writer because they will want to emote a certain feel for an email, PowerPoint, etc.

When I am sending messages I want to get to the point. No one has enough time in the day. When I am sitting in a meeting and an associate is standing on his/her proverbial soapbox going off on some diatribe about something that could be summed up in 10 words.

What Dr. Dugmore should be addressing in the above is "diarrhea of the mouth syndrome". Business is full of egos, the challenge is managing said egos.

Brevity- Treat every correspondence like you are on a Blackberry with a tiny keyboard. Blackberry's were not created for those looking to type a manifesto.

Directness: The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.