Jack D. Deal Internet Commercials , Hollister and Santa Cruz , CA 95060 ; Jack D. Deal Promociones de Video , Santa Cruz, California y Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo, Mexico

(Webmaster note: sent to me anonymously; if you are the author please let me know.  If you don't find this funny, my apologies...sort of...ha...send me something that is...ha)

Cow Politics

 You have two  cows. Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being  successful.
You vote people into office  that put a tax on your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay  the tax.
The people you voted for then  take the tax money, buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel  righteous.
Barbara Streisand sings for  you.

SOCIALIST

 You have two  cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.  
You form a cooperative to tell  him how to manage his cow.

REPUBLICAN

 You have two  cows. Your neighbor has none.
So?  

COMMUNIST  

 You have two  cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk.  
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.  

CAPITALISM,  AMERICAN STYLE

 You have two  cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.  

DEMOCRACY,  AMERICAN STYLE

 You have two  cows. The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to  support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift  from your government.

BUREAUCRACY,  AMERICAN STYLE

 You have two  cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays  you for the milk, and then pours the milk down the drain.  

AMERICAN  CORPORATION

 You have two  cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd  one.
You force the two cows to  produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when one cow  drops dead.
You spin an announcement to  the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.  
Your stock goes up.  

FRENCH  CORPORATION

 You have two  cows.  You go on strike because  you want three cows.
You go to lunch.  
Life is good.  

JAPANESE  CORPORATION

 You have two  cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow  and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on  unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their  class at cow school.

GERMAN  CORPORATION

 You have two  cows. You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give  excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately  they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per  year.

ITALIAN  CORPORATION

 You have two  cows but you don't know where they are. While ambling around, you see a  beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.  
Life is good.  

RUSSIAN  CORPORATION

 You have two  cows. You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you  have five cows.
You have some more vodka.  
You count them again and learn  you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes  over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN  CORPORATION

 You have all  the cows in Afghanistan, which are two. You  don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.  
Then you kill them and claim a  US bomb blew them up while they  were in the hospital.

POLISH  CORPORATION

 You have two  bulls. Employees are regularly maimed  and killed attempting to milk them.

FLORIDA  CORPORATION

 You have a  black cow and a brown cow. Everyone votes for the best looking one.  
Some of the people who like  the brown one best, vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both.  
Some people vote for neither.  
Some people can't figure out  how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from  out-of-state tell you which is the best-looking one.  

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jackddeal

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	jackddeal or as we say in California, "Buenas noches." less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal yes Warriors fans, love on the Internet can be frustrating but vastly more interesting than the Wolves game...right Deedee? less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal so our boys played a bit of mischief and did a little tweaking of the database on their own...you might try Randee, Deedee or Sanndee...no? less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal Yes, and even lovely Rosa turned out to be married to two guys also posted on the site looking for 'hot tunitas' near Playa del Carmen... less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal Ashley is really Ashes, an ex Buddhist monk kicked out for constantly playing Judas Priest during meditation and lnow ooking for a roomie... less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal lovely Amber is really petite 6'8 276 pound Petrushka who is very lonely after just burying her sixth husband... less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal so they decide, OK, what are the real girls like at findadate.com? they set out to hack the servers...when they get upset, they really do! less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal they are really upset...techie guys are a bit goofy and have trouble meeting girls and several of them picked Amber too...and are upset... less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal by this time all of our male straight staff have had the same experience...and since it's the Warriors vs. Timberwolves on tonite's NBA... less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal lovely Amber is what we would call a marketing lead; she is all smoke and mirrors to get you to click through..really now, isn't that fraud? less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal I go back to the homepage and see the depressing note: photos may not be actual members...aha...lovely Amber does not exist in the database less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal I finally decide on curvy blue-eyed Amber and am looking for the click button...I click but it goes into a search page as Amber smiles at me less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal so as I am reviewing my spam I am thinking which of the lovely young things would be more interesting: door number one, number two or three less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal and lastly tonite we have the lovely Amber who is 25 and has blue eyes and is curvy...for all you dudes that like something to hold...ha... less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal then there is blonde Ashley, 24 blue eyes with slim build and looks like one of those women in a girly mag...ha... less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal so this evenings choices are Rosa, 27 with green eyes and a slender body...looks like she's off the cover of Cosmo...ha... less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal first the ad shows women, not men, so at least they haven't set me up with men...ha...or lesbians...Jack is like Tom...ha... less than 5 seconds ago from web
	jackddeal ha, gotta love those singles ads even if you're not single...ha...take the ad just over my yahoo mailbox...a banner type of sorts... less than 5 seconds ago from web

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It's called parsing.   It means that you cannot think of anyone or anything over 140 characters long.   Each letter, number, punctuation point and space counts as a character.  Twitter rules as well as destroys.   

As you probably have heard around the coffee shop, Twitter is now being blamed for causing America to go mindless.    Buy hey, come on, how can Twitter be responsible for the pre-Twitter status quo?  

Blame is easy because Twitter is a newbie on the street corner of interactive Web 2.0 sites.   One simply logs onto Twitter and it's free expression as long as it's 140 characters or less.  

Now realistically it is not fair, though admittedly very convenient, to blame America's total lack of attention and focus on Twitter.   It's not Twitter's fault this is an election year. 

Twitter is simply software that just sits there until one enters their 140 characters or less, regardless of who is running for President.    

But it's all worth it in the end because the Twitter community has a steady stream of new members; many of whom just might become your Followers.  Followers are a type of fan and you are the Followed.   So to speak or rather twitter.  

The truth is, like many Web 2.0 unwritten "givens" if one Follows you, you should respectfully Follow them back.  

Whether you actually do Follow or not is not really the point, it's Web 2.0 courtesy to respond in kind.   Be nice or leave.    

Of course one should morally Follow back out of courtesy so that more folks don't jump off the Golden Gate Bridge; imagine the trauma of Twitter rejection.

But just because one Follows, doesn't actually mean one follows, in Twitter terms of course. 

There's no getting around it.   How truly embarrassing when one goes back over the archives!  

Some poor soul thinks they are carrying on some sort of dialogue with you and it's clear you are taking off wherever you wish totally ignoring them and everything else: my gosh, what must they all be thinking?  Or rather, twittering? 

Are they somehow subliminally twittering with me? One eventually starts to wonder: what is really going down here?  

But whatever you do, don't lose control because you committed a downright ugly Twitter indiscretion.   You know, something you are afraid might pop up on you-know-who's Google search. 

But if you do sin, one of the Twitter strategies for covering up your indiscretion is simply moving on.   Or in other words, bury it in the archives.

Twittering away with goofy and silly nonsense does wonders for burying the Twitter where you called your boss an infected scab.  And worse.     

But no worries, in the end Twitter is all so stylishly superficial anyway.  If there is any Twitter style that has emerged, it is the cutesy superficial style.  

That is probably because every California valley girl twitters night and day but of course that's how they talk as well as Twitter.  

If you like Search, Twitter has a good search function but with billions of Twitters it's like getting 10,000 hits on a search.  

And since so many Twitters are twatter, it's sort of like 'what's the point?'   One can only assume some sort of alternative self therapy involved with these Twitter search freaks...

Which seems strange since the original idea was for your friends to know what you are thinking and doing every minute of the day.  

It seems even stranger if you are married, but remember you too were once young and for some reason were once interested in those sorts of things.  

Besides, how important can your thoughts while doing laundry really be? 

The answer is not really important at all and that best describes the real strength of Twitter; it's artificial and not very important at all.   

It's contrived except for those that already think in Twitter.   So for those folks relatively speaking, they are twittering but really not in Twitter terms of course. 

If it sounds too complex it's really not.   Twittering requires only superficial usage of scattered parts of the brain and very quickly you will notice numerous Twitterers that do not express any sort of thought whatsoever.  

They have a hope that someday a miracle will happen.

It's sort of like "hi, I'm here trying to think, not much yet in terms of results but will keep on trying and keep you posted or rather twittered should I actually think something."  

That's because recent research showed some 87% of we Twitterers have less than a two second attention span.  

Call it parsing or call it scatterbrained but the reality is a society hooked on Twitter and Sudoku is a society with way too much free time on its hands.  And that spells big trouble.   

But on the upside, even though we really aren't important, we can impress other unimportant people that we are in fact important because we Twitter.  

In global terms, we should be thankful.   Twitter is showing us a very important and revealing aspect of our humanity: a mind is not necessary for self expression.  Or, as we say out here in California, "No es necessario!"  

So go ahead, feel free to exercise your mindless self expression.   Go ahead, Twitter me, I dare ya!

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's not that AT&T is a small company.  Neither is Yahoo.  My webhosting says AT&T Yahoo, so that should make matters simple.  My monthly billings are exquisitely accurate as any charge possible anywhere throughout the AT&T Yahoo mega system finds its way to my invoice.

Be that as it  may the blog  was  down and no amount of fidgeting or rebooting would help.   The problem had to be on the computer cloud side, that is, with the website software and not my harddrive. 

The first call got me to AT&T but no website.   They gave me a new number.  The next call made me listen to all the options before making my selection.   This was obviously some techie's whopper idea of the week to reduce mis-categorized inquiries and make us have to listen to all the options.   'If you have webhosting and are a Red Sox fan, press 9.'

"Wrong department," replied  the pleasant voice on the other end, "why did they give you that number?" 

"Great question," was my reply, "it would have saved me time if they would have just told me first up they were giving me the wrong number.  Could you please forward me to that number?"

"Sorry, sir," was the reply, "we can't do that but here is the new number."  This was sure disappointing.  My AT&T Yahoo bill is all connected but the rest of  the company is not.  As it turns out neither could even forward calls internally.   The menu maze was obviously an obstacle course to weed out  the weak, frail and mentally challenged.   

Ten minutes later: "Yahoo," said the voice. 

"Great," was my relief, "my blog is down."

"Can you get into the control panel?"

"Yes, but not to post new entry or entries.   An error message comes back."

"Give me a few minutes sir and let me  check  it.  Please hold"

Now we were getting somewhere.   What is amazing is how many departments in AT&T Yahoo  have something to do with websites but not the website itself.   My suspicion was most staff were in marketing and sales.   

15 minutes later came the reply.  "Sir, we are getting error messages too but it looks like it's on the  software side.   There doesn't look like there is much we can do..."  Pause.

"Golly, maybe I was hoping for a little too much; afterall, it's  your software, your webhosting and it is technically beyond my capabilities to troubleshoot your software."

"Good point sir.  I'm going to speak with my immediate tech supervisor and get his opinion.  Please  hold."

So far so good though to some it might look otherwise.  They acknowledged there was a problem and they can duplicate it although initially it was unclear just whose respsonsiblity this was.  They must get thousands of  calls from buffoons that can't push the right key; at least on their AT&T Yahoo internal customer routing software  program they would not put me under the 'buffoon' category.  At least not yet.   And ten minutes later:

"Sir, we are looking at shutting down the site and restarting it but we want to make  sure we don't lose your data."

"Thanks.  It means a lot to me.  That and the fact there are hundreds of thousands of words and that blog mean a lot to me too." 

"Sir, we can't determine why you are having this problem from where we are.  Can I have your user name and  password?"  Sure.  Why not?  The good news is even they have trouble hacking into a site they host.  Ten minutes later.   

"Sir, this is an engineering problem and we are forwarding it to them for review.  Please stay on the line and we appreciate your patience."   Sounds good to me as we are only into this process a bit over an hour and what the heck could be more fun that doing  this? 

"Sir, the engineering department said they can see no quick solution and will open a case number.   Your case number is 6542345.   Let me also get your phone and email address as well so they can get back to you.   It might take 24 hours."

"My phone and email?  You folks sell me both, you should have some record somewhere." 

"Thank you sir and they will  be in touch with you."  And there it sat.  Me with a case number like it's some trial or deposition.   There were two things that were abundantly clear to me at this point in this tech troubleshooting process. 

The first  is that even if AT&T and Yahoo are world class companies that does not necesarrily mean that they can communicate with each other about things other than my invoice.   The second is that  Yahoo is a company that the week before had turned down an offer of a $45 billion dollar buy out by rival Microsoft.   Go  figure.   

But no worries.   The engineers were hard a work looking into my problem.    With positive signs like a case number hopefully they were beginning to realize it was their problem too.    A half  hour later I checked back on my email and nothing.   On a hunch I tried my blog and "voila!" ; it worked! 

So you may be thinking this guy is a whiner and why does he need a blog anyway?   Good  points and you may in fact be right.  But you miss the point.   You see,  my experience  proved that AT&T and Yahoo are in it for themselves and collecting my money is their first priority.   As true blue capitialists, they feel that getting my money is at times more important than my having a meaningful experience when dealing with a techie issue. 

So in fact one comes to the conclusion that the company cultures of Yahoo and AT&T are so unidimensional that they will never change and were it not for their people, they would crumble into digital cyber dust.   What saved me were the string of polite, knowledgable employees that despite the absurdity of the systems they were working under, were able to work around that and get my problem solved.

But that still does not explain why Yahoo did not take that $45 billion when they had the chance.

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Business is serious stuff.
 
Costs must not exceed revenues.  Employees must be hired, fired, reviewed, evaluated, compensated and motivated.  Managers must walk the tightrope of viewing employees both as resources and costs.  The competition is brutal.
 
What does it say about a business when we walk in and find stressed, grumpy, resentful employees?   Isn't image, look and feel the responsibility of management?
 
Employees do what they are told and reflect the company image they are told to reflect.  Image is the responsibility of management.  So is humor.

Unfortunately the message employees often get is that the company is no fun.  With such high stakes the atmosphere can get overly serious: "if we don't get this contract we all should start to look for another job." 

"If we don't find a way to compete with that big chain we are toast." 

"All our best customers are going to our cheaper competitors."

These are serious issues...everyday serious issues.  Bread and butter problems are not funny.  These issues aren't funny so why the humor?
 
Consider the normal reaction when a manager tells an employee 'unless we get more sales, we won't make payroll next week.'  More often than not the reaction is one of simple worry.
 
The manager mistakenly feels that if he makes the employee feel badly enough then the employee will become motivated as if the payroll problems were the employee's problem.
 
In reality the manager is simply spreading his worry.   The next customer that comes in will read the worry in the employee's face.   The customer may not know the specifics but they clearly see there is a lot of tension.  They can see it.
 
What is not always clear to managers is how the bottom line correlates with attitude and company culture.

When employees hang their heads it is usually a good indicator of the company's performance.  The impression depressed employees give is one of trouble or internal problems.
  
Yet the hard facts of cash flow and competition cannot be ignored.  Where is the trade off?  Where is the magic mix?  Is there a happy median?
 
The bad news is there are no quick fixes for the business seriousness syndrome.  The really bad news is it takes some cognitive restructuring or reframing of old attitudes to develop a better sense of humor.
 
In order to change perception attitude has to change and that is not an easy task.  People are stubborn and in fact attitudinal change is almost always is a very difficult chore.
 
It is important to understand that humor is a process not a destination.   Humor requires ongoing creativity and lots of attention.  And some lighthearted kidlike energy.   After all, humor is supposed to be fun, no?
  
What's the worst that can happen?   Without humor, the worst is already happening.
 
Think about beginning your next business meeting with a touch of humor. Do something humorous and different.   Hand out toys if you can't think of anything else.  Liven up! 

Make the attendees do something that involves their direct participation.  Take a minute to have few chuckles before getting down to all your serious business.  Make fun of a tense situation to help ease the stress.
 
Employees know when their jobs are on the line.  Making them feel worse accomplishes nothing except lowering morale.  Making them laugh lessens their tensions, improves focus and may just improve productivity.
 
Laughing certainly helps morale.  Try a little humor.  'If we all die in the Big One that will take care of the tax problem.'
 
Use humor to lower communication barriers when you are dealing with something very serious.  'I would be getting sunburned in Tulum right now if we hadn't lost that shipment'.

Use humor to reinforce the bond between you and your customers, suppliers and staff.   Customers like to be perceived as humans and not just accounts.  When you use lighthearted humor with people they tend to view you in a more positive light don't feel they are only a transaction.
 
Do happy employees create happy customers?  Are your people happy?

So just how is your company look and feel doing these days?  Do you project a positive image with friendly, loose, relaxed, focused and upbeat employees?  Are all your people Sad Sacks?
   
Humor is one of the highest, personal and complex of all behaviors.  But at the same time there really is no need to make it out to be more than it is.   It's all really quite simple.  Humor is life; humor is fun.

Ask yourself, is your work fun?

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 08:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's always better to avoid being downwind from pigs. My Maya friend Poot had our permission to put a couple of pigs in back of our village hut.  Somehow Poot took couple to mean six.  A smelly six at that...especially downwind. 

The bad news is the pigs he bought are of the 'Americano' variety and not the Mexican variety.   The Americano pigs eat a special feed that Poot later found out make his pigs more costly to raise and so subsequently he will make nothing.  

Bad business.  The good news is that when they grow a bit more he will sell them and get out of the pig business; forever, we do all sincerely hope.

The bad news too is he can't let them out of their pig pen and he has to clean the pen twice daily.   The other bad news is we all have to smell what he cleans up. 

He laughs that only the Americano pigs smell bad; the Mexican pigs smell sweet.  He says they smell sweet but that is not the case. 

Better yes, but sweet no.  The Maya do have a sardonic sense of humor and living amongst them one occasionally has to bear the brunt.     

In Mexico there is a dark skinned pig that can still be seen in many rural villages and ranchos.   These pigs eat corn but mostly roots and weeds and garbage.  In fact, these pigs will actually clean up a weedy lot and keep it clean.  

And because they are not kept in confined pens, they really don't smell that bad or have to have their pens cleaned twice daily. 

The owners keep giving them corn so they won't walk away to another village.  Pigs aren't stupid; they follow the corn.  

Recently we drove to several Maya villages deep in the jungle with these free range pigs running throughout the village.   Even though these pigs aren't marked everyone knows whose pigs they are.  

We even remarked how cute the little ones looked if loose pigs in the streets can indeed be called cute.   Actually no one pays them any attention except for the senoras that are always shooing them away. 

No matter what pigs are dirty and make a mess.  It's a pig thing. 

My first night many years back in rural Veracruz was spent inside a hut with a dirt floor.   In back there was another 'room' which must have contained farm tools or such.  Later the truth was revealed.

At about 2:00 in the morning there was a very loud noise. Pigs.  A bunch of them.   Maybe ten little ones and four or five big ones.   What a ruckus!

If you have never had the pleasure of sleeping with pigs then you probably don't know they sleep in a pile at night.  It's a pig thing. 

Several times a night they get up and run around in circles and change positions.   And make quite a bit of noise in this social bonding process. 

No need to try and figure out what's going on because it happens to be a pig thing. 

To make matters more perplexing the next morning it was clear someone had smeared my motorcycle with mud.   In broken Spanish I questioned why someone would do that?

The answer was 'puercos' or pigs which I misinterpreted as thieves or bandidos.  They all had a good laugh.   Silly Gringo.   What kinds of thieves go around smearing mud on motorcycles? 

Of course the pigs had wallowed in the mud as pigs like to do and found my motorcycle a good place to scratch themselves, hence the mud.  

That skinny Gringo ended up marrying that family's oldest daughter and to this day they love to tell the story of the skinny Gringo teenager who thought thieves came at night and covered his motorcycle in mud.   Silly Gringos.  

Needless to say when considering what types of animals to put on my jungle ranch pigs were not a consideration.  

They smell, get sick, get stolen and my resident jaguar would kill them off with great regularity.   Domestic pigs are so much easier to catch and eat than wild pigs.   No match for Mr. Jaguar.

Besides, it might be tempting to just give up on them and have a barbecue.  Good eating but not much of a ranching business.   

Yet there really is no doubt our paths will cross again.  It's inevitable and it's fate...along with an occasional BLT or barbecue ribs with the ball game. 

It's a human thing.

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Recently psychotherapists and counselors have been recommending that old married couples go out on 'dates' to rekindle their relationship.  The purpose of these dates is to create a sense of excitement when the fire has gone out and stimulate local commerce during the recession.   

In the pursuit of immense diversification potential and unlimited profits, our R&D team got together over the weekend and outlined a roll play dialogue for an Old Married Couples Dating Training Manual.  What was interesting is how this would play out in different regions of the United States.  

What we found was that old marrieds dating strategies would have to be customized for approximately 75 different demographic regions nationwide, not including Hawaii and Samoa. 

For instance, envision this old marrieds dating conversation at a chic, very West Coast Silicon Valley breakfast table:

"Honey, I want to ask you out on a date," says he.

"You need my permission to ask?" says she, "You either want to ask me or you ask me.  After all these years you still can't get it right." 

"Well, do you want to go out on a date?"

"I swear to God your seeing that shrink is not doing you any good at all.  In case you have forgotten, and God knows I can't, I'm not your girlfriend.  Google me and you'll come up with 'wife'; my Google print isn't just pages it's volumes and they all scream 'wife'."

"Well the counselor said we were supposed to ask our significant other out on a date and it couldn't be a virtual date.  The whole purpose is to create a sense of excitement and rekindle old fires if you know what I mean."

"Honey, those fires died when you defragged your hard drive.  And just what do you plan to do?  Get in our broken down car, drive around the block, ring our doorbell and announce you are ready for our date?  Won't the neighbors think you finally fried all your white matter? "

"I guess so, but the counselor said I should do it anyway.  Working on improving relationships is an important part of my therapy; sort of like a neighborhood Wifi."

"Really?  Somewhere I missed all the RFPs in all this...it's true I don't check my Blackberry but I'm only in the next room.   You used to be considerate enough to at least yell.  Is all this that difficult or are we just really that stupid? "

"Could be some of both according to my psychotherapist.  I have to completely erase my brain's hard drive and install a new operating system.  It's going to take about nine years."

"Nine years?  You've got to be kidding.  And you believed her.  She doesn't know what she's talking about.  I'm around you way too much anyway; when I go somewhere I certainly don't care about going with you."

"I love you too, hon.  After all these years it still makes my eyes water when I think of how tender we are still with each other."

"Sometimes I think I liked you better drunk.  All this rehab nonsense has made you into a mush head.   You hardly yell at me anymore...I almost feel like you stopped caring."

"I talked about it with my therapy team and they all agree I should manage my anger and find my own little mental space where I can go and hide when I feel like going ballistic.  Or when I feel I need to be with just me."

"May the gods help us...I just wish they would stop filling your head with manure because you're starting to spread it around here."

"Sorry, hon.  I try to look at it like spam.  If I fill my head with enough spam I can overwrite my buggy mental software and drive out all the evil and spiteful glitches that used to dominate my RAM.  It's harder for evil to grab me if I'm hip deep in spam."

"You fell in, bozo. But all right already, I'll go along with your therapy team and go out on a date with you."

"Great.  That will make my team very happy.  Where should we go?"

"Either Costco or Ross's.  You said we need to go somewhere exciting."

"What time shall I pick you up?"

"How about let's go around 10:00".

"That's too late for a date."

"In the morning, dimwit."

"That's too early.  I think it's supposed to be 7:30 or 7:45 at night.  It's supposed to be like a teenager date."

"That's odd because in a certain sense I really do feel like a really stupid teenager right now.  So, why don't we just make it 7:38 for good measure?"   

"Well 7:38 sounds a bit sketchy but maybe they won't mind.  They are really busy so maybe they won't notice."

"Oh no doubt your team is absorbed with much greater thoughts.  This oldster dating rehab therapy would never have occurred to me; you have to give them credit for dreaming this one up.   And just what does your shrink say about all this?"

"Actually she doesn't say much at all.  Mostly she just nods her head and says 'good'.  That and 'goodbye, see you next week at the same time." 

"I was worried she was going to give you drugs."

"She said I look like I was already drugged and she didn't think I needed any more."

"She's a real sharpie all right. Why don't you just pick me up at 10:30 and we'll be done with it?"

"What about 7:38?"

"Tell them I already have a date for then although after 40 years of being married to you it seems more like a ball and chain."

"I love you too, hon.  What should I wear?"

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Before video games we kids played with marbles.  There were 'funsies' where the participants would simply play for the fun of it.  Then there were 'keepsies' or a type of wager where the loser lost his marbles thus introducing many an innocent child to the risks of gambling in a brutally cruel world.  There were many variations in between and we played most of them with great vigor, learning a lot about ourselves and each other in the process.    

Fast-forward many years to the Chinese metallic "worry balls" or at least that is how they are marketed in Chinatown.   A little bigger than golf balls, the idea is to put the two balls in the palm your hand and rotate them, using only the one hand, without touching balls.   This is no small task especially if you have small hands or are a bit awkward or have just drank a half dozen martinis.

The concept is similar to the Feldenkreis physical therapy method: focus on something else and the intensity of your primary and immediate problem diminishes.   When one twiddles these Chinese worry balls then they somehow get distracted from their worries, cares, problems, challenges, hassles and aggravations.   This worry ball therapy does not solve problems or even eliminate worries; the attention is simply momentarily focused away from the stressor. 

The real problem with the Chinese metallic balls is they are just too big.  They are awkward, need a travel case and can't be carried in a business suit pocket without bulging.  Some of the balls actually have a type of internal bell so when the balls are moved they make a noise.  Not so with a couple of marbles.   Advantage marbles.

The purists will say that marbles are too small and present no challenge so attention is not diverted from worry and anxiety.   But purists are often wrong.   If regular marbles are too small for you, use the larger sized 'shooters'.  While slowly rotating two marbles in the palm of your hand may not seem overly challenging it does keep one's frazzled mind occupied and at least part of the brain in a less distressed state.   If nothing else it gives the poor overworked hippocampus a short break. 
 
As usual the experts don't know how all this works but in their defense nobody else knows either.   The clump of gray matter known as the brain does not work like the pragmatists hope it would work.   This has been a problem since some men thought they knew more than other men.  And women.  What little is actually known has something to do with tactile sensation, attention, coordination and current mental condition.   And faking out a lot of cranial neural circuitry also known as the black box.     

If we look at the computer or informational model of the brain for insight we can quickly see that logic really doesn't compute because the brain itself really doesn't care.   In the computer brain model, information is taken in, processed internally and then either put into memory or exhibited outwardly as behavior.   This computerized brain model tells us nothing about neural chemistry or extended neural circuitry but it tells us a lot about the dynamics of cause and effect.   The bad news is the dynamics look mostly to be smoke and mirrors. 

The biggest advantage of the two marble therapy is low cost.   Depending on the quantity, marbles can cost several cents to maybe a dime apiece.   For two dollars you can get a year's supply of worry marbles so that even if you lose them or they are stolen by jealous colleagues you can resupply rather quickly.   And you can always pop into the toy store for a new bag.  What therapy is cheaper or more convenient? 

The most outstanding feature of the two marble therapy is marbles can fit in your pocket or purse or laptop case.  You can hide them and bring them out when you feel the urge.  Or not.  You can twiddle them while waiting to give that big presentation or during your kid's soccer match.  People might look at you a bit oddly and you can explain or not; if you must explain just tell them it's a new top secret brain plasticity builder.   Odds are they will readily accept that explanation because they have no idea what brain plasticity means. 

An added plus is if you drop your marbles at an embarrassing moment you can always remark that you 'must be losing your marbles.'  Those near you will snicker and chortle and probably think you are an odd sort but be assured you will emit strong markers that you have a well developed sense of humor.  And a good sense of humor can offset many character defects. 

By the way, have you seen any stray marbles rolling around?

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As a kid, Sherlock Holmes was my hero.  Here was really a cool guy if there ever was one.  He knew almost everything about everything and could solve almost any crime, even crimes that had stumped Her Majesty's best.   But even Sherlock had his days. 

On those rare but revealing occasions when our good Sherlock was bested, he had to swallow his pride, no small task, and go and seek counsel with his older brother Mycroft.   Mycroft lived at the gentleman's club Diogenes, a place where few members spoke and all sipped their coffee and brandies and read the newspaper and looked at each other through the tops of their eyeglasses.   That's where Mycroft lived.   Mycroft also had some sort of government job but his exact duties and functions were unclear.  

Sherlock would approach Mycroft and Mycroft would immediately start this sarcastic teasing of Sherlock.   Only under the most extreme of circumstances would Sherlock go this route but there were times when he just couldn't get over the hump in the case.   Even our man Sherlock could get stumped. 

After a fair amount of belittling, Mycroft would give Sherlock the hint and one almost wondered if in fact Sherlock already knew the answer, but just couldn't get it out.   And our poor hero Sherlock would slip away dragging his tail and feeling just a little bit wiser but a lot more foolish.   Mycroft was Sherlock's comeuppance and reality check.   

Yet curse as he may, Sherlock knew he would use Mycroft again.   Sherlock knew there would come another case and he would have to go meekly before his brother and beg.   The only thing worse than shame is ignorance. 

Now whether Mycroft actually had the knowledge or just real good people skills is the question of the day.   In the end Sherlock probably had the imagination and creativity to solve anything but at times just hit one of those mental blocks, as we humans are prone to do.  

Did Mycroft actually know the answer or did he know how to structure the perception and question to reveal the answer?   Did Sherlock always have the answer already within himself?   Was Mycroft really too lazy to do the investigative work? 

Would that our man Mycroft were around and on call today to help us out on this one.   Like Sherlock we most likely would discover that a good dose of humility is a small price to pay for the right answer.   The right answer can mean the difference between a project's success or failure.   The wrong answer can lead one down a Narnian path to the twilight zone of no return.  

Mycroft's secret was he kept getting a bigger and bigger perspective on the problem.   At some point, he simply mastered it and moved on.   Sherlock would hit dead end and like most of us throw up his hands in despair.   Not Mycroft.   Mycroft didn't structure the problem that way in his mind so he didn't feel that frustration.  Mycroft didn't care.   Mycroft just kept trying to get the greatest perspective he could on the problem and then probe Sherlock's head to fill in the blanks and connect the dots.  

Holmes certainly led a more exciting life but clearly excitement was not how Mycroft measured his own life.   Mycroft appears to be forever content sitting around the club reading the evening edition.   Or the morning edition.   Or looking wistfully at clouds of tobacco smoke.   The club was Mycroft's reward for being Mycroft.

So in the end Mycroft probably didn't know the answer.   Mycroft was a club rat; it kept him insulated from the cruel and insane world, a world of which our man Sherlock was always knee deep in; rogues and scoundrels and that sort of thing.   In the end we have to conclude that Mycroft was nothing more than a well dressed guru pointing the way...and did perhaps Mycroft envy Sherlock?   

At any rate we Sherlock freaks would like even tougher cases and to see our man Sherlock having to squirm and run to Mycroft for more brotherly advice.  Sherlock seldom squirmed.  This is what it's all about and part of what make both Mycroft and Sherlock tick.   Well, at least Sherlock.  

With Mycroft it was all just one big crossword puzzle but for Sherlock it was a way of life so that is why Sherlock wallowed in it.   Mycroft didn't have to.  Sherlock was the populist; Mycroft the aloof landed gentry.  Sherlock lived life; Mycroft experienced life vicariously since it was so much tidier that way.  Two paths that cross through necessity. 

Besides, our Sherlock would never be content with the dull, gentlemanly life of the Diogenes club, right Sir Doyle?

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Jack D. Deal is the owner of Deal Business Consulting. Related articles may be found at http://www.jddeal.com and http://www.freeandinquiringmind.typepad.com 잭 디의 거래는 거래의 소유자 비즈니스 컨설팅합니다. 관련 기사 http://www.jddeal.com과 http://www.freeandinquiringmind.typepad.com에서 확인할 수있습니다

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A new study tells us we should stop worrying about worrying as if we didn't already know.  It all started when some group of research pointy heads found out that worrying about paying health insurance premiums was causing people to get sick.  Their conclusions were the patient was going to be sick anyway so may as well jack up the premiums. 

Now we are told if one worries about having a heart attack, one more than likely will have the Big One than if one does not worry about having the Big One.   So now we have a worry about a worry, if that makes sense.  But of course it does. 

It's simply a matter of civilized visualization.  If the baseball player visualizes himself striking out, well, that most likely will be the result.   We do know that in the end the survival of the fittest strategy may come down to who can worry less about worrying.   Or as my good pal Clem Oakley used to say, 'it's time for some very, very hard liquor right now.'  

Good old Clem, rest in peace.   Clem always knew what to do when things seemed darkest.   Clem knew how to deal with things like worry.  Clem always saw the mug as half filled which for him meant he had just chugged the other half. 

But Clem aside, one should worry a lot about having a heart attack, no?   Don't you just hate to visualize all that chest clenching and pain and loss of awareness and sensitivity for others?   Those having heart attacks almost always are focused on their own needs and entirely ignore the needs of others that are most likely becoming stressed as well.  

So now, thanks to folks like you, we have not one but two things to worry about; 1) the Big One and 2) the worry about the Big One.  As a consequence we now must spend our days thinking through all our worries and our difficulty remembering them all, which could be a plus or a minus.  

Not to cheer too soon, because all this eventually causes new anxiety and probably new worry as well.   You know what they say; one little worry leads right to another and nine days later out pops a brand new little baby worry crying its heart out.   It's a cultural thing and an element of pride.  Once you really learn how to seriously worry, amateurism simply will not do. 

As a sideshow, a whole entire industry will pop up over night teaching everybody and his brother how to cope with worry; 'we don't get rid of it, we just dull the pain.'   Sounds like fun.  Sounds like another thing to worry about.   Somehow we just can't wait to attend all those worry capacity building workshops.   As a group, we have found that group worry brings us closer to each other and our common worries.   We also recommend it for families with rude and crude teenagers.  Talk about worry...bring me the bottle, Clem.

What this all means in the final net net is that we just have to learn to deal with more worry if we want to get the full benefits of a worry based existence.   What me worry?  Why not, it's good for you, no?  

Well, yes and no.  If one worries enough about having a heart attack, maybe one will also change one's diet and adopt an exercise plan.  Or not.  So the positive aspect of doing positive things that help prevent a heart attack may in fact offset the negative aspect of worrying about the big one.  

So be it.  But just because it is, should we worry about it?   The unpopular truth is probably so.  That's life.  Like the jaguar in the jungle, what you worry obsessively over won't sneak up on you in the middle of the night, right?   Who wants to wake up in the middle of the night having the Big One?   It's enough to spoil the entire evening...

No worries for the real worry pro though, adding a worry or two presents no problem.  Worries need room to expand and grow if they are to become healthy and vigorous and mesh into the melting pot of full blown anxieties and neuroses.   And subsequently aid in the increased dysfunction of both individuals and tribes.  What's not to like about that?     

Just remember that things are never as bad as they seem and never seem as they truly are; your problems emanate solely from your peculiarly skewed perceptions.  You are somewhat strange.  Don't try to blame it on nature or nurture; be a real man or a real woman and simply take the blame yourself.  In the long run it's less painful and certainly less confusing. 

Whatever you do, don't blame me.  Just remember you were told worry is us and that's all you really need to know, right?   Right?

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There you have it and we admit we have thrown in the towel.   We have lost interest in everything.  That doesn't mean we're bored; it just means we have no interests.  None.  With no interests it's harder to get bored, no?   

At any rate, we have what the cowboys would say 'gone out to pasture'.   In other words, our useful and productive days on this planet have since passed.   We don't do anything; we just exist and speak a collective 'we'. 

If you are as young as you feel, what happens when you feel you are really old?   Does your usefulness as marketing fodder diminish as you mentally prepare for your very own final check out time?  If adult means the opposite of kid and kid means interested then adult means not interested?  That's us.  We just aren't interested in anything, like we have been telling you...

We have been there and done that.  We have seen it all and done it all several times already and just aren't interested in anything at the moment and that also includes the foreseeable future.   We are what the medical researchers call the "flat lined living"; it might look like something is going on, but believe me, nobody is home.   Not anyone that matters anyway...

We became this stupid through great effort and we resent those that demean and belittle our far reaching efforts.   It's in our spirit and in our blood...it's what we do.   We consume, go to the store, go to the clinic, and consume some more.   It's us.  Again, it's what we do.  We like to do our fair share to make it all work out hunky-dory for everybody...isn't this a great country?   

Well, for most of us it is a great country.   Except those that have to live here...ha, just kidding.   We also dumbed down by not thinking very much and by not thinking about much of substance.   That way we make certain we have nothing to discuss, especially with Dog off the air.   Dog was the last truly intellectual informational TV series in our time.   Dog was actually the last intellectual thing in our life period.  We still talk about Dog.   

We all want a dream job like Dog's old job.   Man, did he have it made.   But alas, we get what we get, not what we think we deserve.   Unfortunately our expectations are usually too high and we feel burned by any result that is less than spectacular, such as our work life.   If there is one part of our lives that reeks or isn't spectacular, it's our work. 

We work because we have to.  That's it.  We put ourselves in this have-to box and we have no easy way out.   So we sit in the trap year after year.   Decade after decade.  It makes us dumber by design. 

That's us...dumber by design.   After so many years, we cease to function on a normal level and get this quizzical look.   We don't answer because we don't hear the question, so we look puzzled because we have no idea what the heck you just said.   We are so wrapped up in our own little microcosmic universe that we cease to register and record what is actually going on around us.   Sorry, we've already checked out.  Hence, we appear really thick but in reality, we just aren't home.    

But we do try to keep our spirits up, no thanks to others like you.   They nag and gripe and complain at every twist and at times are simply unpredictable.   And we seem always to get kneed by the unpredictable...

So what else is new?  Actually not much.  You see, once you have done it all there's not much left to do.  It all becomes a type of repetition and dance of futility.  But all is not lost, no, not if we can help it.   Our mantra, "I didn't do it!" was, is and shall remain the statement of our faith, belief and hope.  With zero expectations we're just thankful for a continental breakfast in the morning.   And lots of coffee...after that, what else can one realistically expect?    

As that fixed glazed look settles somewhat permanently across our sunken eyeballs we know that it is not a matter of if but only a matter of when.   We are in the first stages of our final chapter and are trying to go gracefully and if not gracefully, at least with some sort of low key whimper.  And why not?  It's a long time lying in that cold, cold ground, no? 

And maybe if we all close our eyes and wish real hard, we can make it all go nicely away at least until tomorrow.   Life goes on.   But lest we forget, it's a long time lying in the cold, cold ground...

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Whenever we feel the need to lower our heads in collective depression and despair, we take heart from the simple fact that things can always be worse.   To reaffirm this fact of our cruel and unjust life, it helps if we remind ourselves of the imminent Italian physician and philosopher, the venerable Dr. Pietro d'Abano.   

The most obvious difference between Dr. P and us is we are alive and poor Dr. Pietro is dead.   Long dead.  He died around 1316.   Almost seven centuries ago.  This fact alone should be enough to raise our leaden spirits up out of our collective slumber  and into the realm of ignorant bliss as we realize it is far better to be alive than dead.   However, this argument is also somewhat weak in that it can only be argued from the vantage point of the living, since the dead don't usually debate.  Or at least very well.   

If we were all Buddhists at this point there would be far more logic than we need for proof; but we're not, so it isn't.   Coming from the Judeo-Christian tradition of 'every tiny little thing is such a very big pain'; we can't let it go so easily.  In fact, we can't let anything go very easily.  It's what we do best; hoard stuff.   

The good news back then was that Dr. Pietro was a respected professor of Medicine at Padua and was partially responsible for elevating the noble concept of medicine above the superstitious back alleys of sorcery and witchcraft.   The bad news is he was tried for heresy and practicing magic by the Inquisition.   In fact, it really could have been magic after all since this was some 600 years before penicillin.   

But the good news was that our Dr. Pietro was acquitted and freed, no small feat for that day and time.  The bad news was he was later charged again with heresy and tried again.   The good news was that he had already beaten the previous charges.   The really bad news was he died during the second trial.   We don't know the cause of death because the Inquisition did not favor autopsies for obvious reasons. 

But before even any last rites consideration, Dr. P's friends, being the typical uninformed blockheads of the early 1300's, stole his body thinking that the corpse housed something akin to the soul or spirit and was in effect the essence of man or in this case, Dr. Pietro himself incarnate. 

When the good Dr. P.  was later convicted of his heinous crimes, he was ordered burned at the stake, the usual and customary sentence for such an offense as practicing magic.   No big deal.  However, since he was dead and his cadaver had vanished, he was ordered burned in effigy, the same or at least very similar thing.   

So if in fact the sick and fever ridden Don Pietro had realized he was going to die during his second trial, he also knew his good buddies would more than likely scarf the cadaver to prevent the Inquisitors from inquisitioning it.  He also knew he would then be ordered burned in effigy which he somehow would equate with great importance and still thusly die a fearful, dejected and despondent man.  Had our Dr. Pietro only known what we the modernly civilized know.

Had Dr. P been enlightened he would have told the judge to do whatever the court wants with his vile cadaver.   Modern medicine and modern science has now determined just when the whole thing called life ceases to exist and that point is called the time and date on the death certificate.   Death certificates are equal opportunity for all since we all get one, just like the birth one; we are stamped coming in and stamped going out.  Having been burned in effigy, it is unclear whether Dr. P. got one going out or not. 

So of course this begs the existential question:  Can human knowledge that came after Dr. Pietro's era then be integrated into Dr. Pietro's ongoing spiritual psyche thus causing it to be nurtured and developed even after his untimely yet expected death?   Whew.

The short answer is no but that has never stopped extremists like Don Pietro.  For all we know he could still be around so don't be surprised if he shows up at your next potluck or office social.   We can't actually say for sure that he wasn't one of those sorcerers with one of those pointed hats...but we can say that he probably stepped way outside the accepted bounds of normalcy for his day and time.   It probably wasn't a hard thing to do, remember, Columbus was still two centuries away.

It's a good guess there is a physical law or rule somewhere that says you can't keep on learning, growing and developing after you are dead.   As of yet, there is no proof since there is not much reliable information that has been obtained from dead people.  However, it does appear that thanks to the efforts of oddballs like Dr. Pietro D'Abano we are somehow better off today.   For instance, we won't be arrested for practicing magic which despite the best efforts of the Inquisition is no longer a crime.   Wonder what Don Pietro would say about that. 

It is hard to imagine a world without vaccines and public health and a world where burning in effigy really meant something.   "And as punishment Your Honor, I recommend the State burn the dead carcass of my miserable client.   But until then, it's party time, OK, Your Honor?"  Today we call it cremation. 

Such is good and bad, life and death.  And the evolving concept of justice.   But hey admit it, after comparing your problems to those of the departed Dr. Pietro, just what exactly is your gripe?   

And go ahead and admit it, after comparing your situation with that of Dr. Pietro D'Abano, don't you feel better now?

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You know you are there when you have diarrhea and are throwing up at the same time.  You just have to lose those pounds and it just doesn't get any better than losing them on both ends.  What you really need is an IV drip since you are losing fluids so rapidly but who cares, water is weight and weight is public and private enemy number one, no?   You grin and bear it...

The experts tell us dysentery or as it is known South of the Border, 'turista', is simply the bacteria in the smaller intestines adapting to a change of scenery.   Of course one has to remember that this theory is brought to you by the same folks that said the male and female brain are the same and cancer causing estrogen is just what all post menopausal women need lots of.  Go figure. 

But regardless of how you contact it, 'the runs' as it is known in the vernacular, is not hard to get.   Just drink the local tap water for starters.  If that doesn't work, try well water but be forewarned you might catch more from well water than just weight losing dysentery.   But hey, in the final net net, who can argue with great results? 

Before you pooh-pooh this intervention strategy consider your other options to rapid weight loss reduction; a stapled stomach, colonic cleansing, addiction to diet pills, starvation or the newest grass and toadstool organic calorie burning therapies.   After reviewing your options, you too might take another look at our weight losing user friendly amoebae. 

And consider the cost savings.   Amoebic dysentery is a breeze to catch and usually doesn't require hospitalization; your doctor simply says 'you got da turista, amigo.  It's a lot cheaper to sit on the hotel toilet than a hospital toilet.'   You stand up, pay and hurry out.   

Because there really isn't treatment for dysentery except for letting it, if you will excuse my crudeness, pass through your system.  You can take those pills that plug up your plumbing but remember that fix is only temporary and it all has to pass anyway; 'tarde o temprano' as we Mexicans say.   Those pills only slow it down...stretch out the bliss if you will.   

Several clinics have been using biofeedback and meditation to help you align your chakras so your brain will be faked out and tell you that you are having a peak spiritual experience instead of a wicked case of the runs.   You might try biofeedback but the odds are it's a waste of time because your gut wrenching intestines constantly remind you otherwise.  

My vote for the worst dysentery is for Africa.  Three days of fever and chills finally subside and give way to two months of early afternoon relapses with both vomiting and diarrhea.   Who said exotic travel isn't fun?   Again, try faking yourself out by saying you are trying to understand the finer points of native culture as you lose it on both ends.  Oh, to be an animal in Africa right now...

But since most wimpy travelers can only take Cancun or Bermuda, well, let's not get too far out on an amoebic limb.   The limbs are actually called strains and strain is a very apt descriptor, along with pain, insane and slain.   Hipster travelers will talk about the African strain or the Chiapas strain as if they were old traveling buddies which of course many are.  What goes around comes around, right?   Or at least passes through...

Be that as it may, there are many fools, mostly German, that just don't learn.   Each time they go they fall deathly ill in the rainforest, as if the jungle heat were just a bit too much for their fragile insides to bear.  But the experts assure us it has little to do with economics and class status and a lot about 'did you drink the water?'   Case in point, the Germans.  They just keep going back and drinking the water.   It's a rite of passage; gastrointestinal passage if you will.    

My luck is good with Mexico except way down south which unfortunately is where we jungle lovers tend to hang out.   That is because we are just simply nuts.  Each gut wrenching amoebae and itching mosquito bite should be crying out 'get the hell outta the jungle you idiot!' so the message would be loud and clear even for fools like us and the Germans.  But it's not.  We still go.  The Crazies and the Germans.   

But let's face it, if you really want to lose weight and go home with that newly emaciated look and feel, go right ahead and drink the water, moron.  Nobody really cares what you do or if you turn green in the agonizingly protracted process.  

In conclusion there are three certainties in our germ ridden existence we can acknowledge without hesitation: life, death and dysentery, nature's natural way to emaciation.   The unfair, unjust reality in all this is your only choice is whether you drink the water...unless perhaps, if you happen to live there.

The bad news is the very end result is always same.  The good news is at least we have a choice.   Unless perhaps, if you happen to live there.

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Three guys up in trees are winning the war of words and nerves against the multi-billion University of California system.   The three guys and their supporters are bringing the highly taunted University of California to its administrative and intellectual knees, thus begging the question of the value of a higher UC education.  

Protesting against UCSC expansion, the treesitters are now fighting the system all the way up to the University Regents level, a sort of David and Goliath sideshow.   But just who is David and who is Goliath remains to be seen; one would think the protestors to be the underdogs but the inept administrators have copied a favorite populist political strategy and have given away the advantage to the 'enemy'; the enemy being the treesitters and their supporters.

Obviously those that can't administrate in the real world find jobs administrating in the make believe world of university administration.  Stymied by their lack of creativity, initiative and insight, the UC administrators have borrowed a George Bush strategy from the Al-Qaeda fight; starve the suckers out. 

At the Regents level, the governing body of the University, the leaders maintain in court that the protestors have created an unsafe as well as unsanitary situation.   It will be interesting to see how the judge rules on the unsafe part; "your honor, we've been up in those trees for several months now in all kinds of weather and haven't fallen out once yet."  

As for unsanitary, the University now claims other students have been 'downloading' the five gallon bathroom buckets from the treesitters and emptying them in nearby student housing toilets.   Please keep a straight face, Your Honor.  The University knows about this clandestine potty run because they have installed around the clock security guards and security cameras.   These treesitters aren't the usual criminal profile; UC is not only bringing in the heavy guns but high tech guns as well. 

Obviously the poor judge will have to keep from snickering as he hears open testimony from the University lawyers about the hazardous bathroom buckets.   The protestor's case will be based on First Amendment rights while the University's is on bathroom buckets.   Once again, just who's David and who's Goliath?  

Stiffening their resolve, the UC administrators have said that any attempt to hoist food up to the protestors will be met by the heavy hand of law enforcement.   The Santa Cruz Sentinel quoted UC spokesman Jim Burns as not characterizing the new strategy as "starving them out" but said, "It is what it is."   Heavy stuff here, folks.   Somebody up high took a seminar on "how to deal with terrorists."  Unfortunately at the point when the judge hears this, he'll stop smiling...

Nine people who were named in the complaint by the University will have their day in court, including the UCSC professor that brought the protestors soup and hot tea.  "My crime," the Prof will say, "was bringing soup and hot tea to those that needed it."  Go figure...that's what Mother Teresa used to do, no?  

"You are hereby sentenced to six months in the Santa Cruz County Jail for having served hot tea and soup to a group of ruthless 'criminals.' "

And so the comedy of errors continues.  After the University's initial 'bust and gas' strategy failed to deter the protestors, the weenie administrators have been trying to gain the upper hand even though it is obvious they are unclear on the concept.   By installing the high tech cameras they are hoping to widen the net of subversives and put the whole lot behind bars.  Fat chance.  

UC is a public institution and other than plant a tree, the protestors have had zero effect on the property itself; what judge in his right mind is going to sentence someone for planting a tree?  Hello?  Even in flaky California that won't happen...

But the poor administrators have always been a day late and a dollar short since this one started.   The protestors, having anticipated the weenie strategy, already built a fourth platform to store food and can now send food via wire and rope from platform to platform.   Advantage protestors.   In fact, in this whole mess the protestors have had the upper hand.  

The fact that the University police, administrators, and hired security guards have become more aggressive and 'violent' is a page right out of the old social rebellion school.   If you can't beat 'em, get the cops to bust 'em up real good to win sympathy for the cause.   Hello UC administrators, this is one of the oldest tricks in the civil disobedience book and one that has done an end run around the all night UC think tank.   Sad.

And while as a parent you might at times wish your child had gone to Texas A&M, it does give you cause to worry at just what kind of education your child is getting at UCSC or UC for that matter.   If the system can't handle a few eco extremists up in trees it certainly is questionable whether they are capable of handling and administering anyone's education. 

The truly amazing point is that apparently there is no active dialogue between the University and the protestors...hello again?  

In the coming months we most likely will see more tear gas, beatings, security guards and probably arrests.    The protestors will sue the University for infringement of their First Amendment Rights and will win millions in court.   The University will admit its ineptness; cluelessness and all those administrators involved in this fiasco will be given promotions, golden parachutes and moved into other less sensitive positions devoid of criminal activity. 

And by the way, in the end it will also cost the taxpayers many millions of dollars...

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Like many other Americans I was once a slave to stuff. I had more than I needed. No more. I owe my enlightenment to being junk dealer. I have to come clean and admit that I dealt with pallets, pickups, box vans and even warehouses full of the flotsam and jetsam of America. I was a weekend warrior.

It all started with the wife wanting to turn her hobby into a job. So instead of watching ball games on the weekends like other guys I get to drive her International truck and haul junk from flea market to crafts show to collectibles fair and back again. We did them all. The final step in curing my materialism was the locker auction because up to that point we had only been junk amateurs.

You have probably seen a storage locker complex near where you live. These things are springing up wherever there is a gas station or trailer park now, which is almost everywhere. It's because we Americans have way too much stuff; we don't know where to put it and can't bear throwing it away just yet though we don't actually know why.

Unfortunately some of us just go too far out buying stuff for our own good and we go belly up. Eventually we can't pay our storage bill and the locker's contents are auctioned off to the highest bidder. In comes the junk man or perhaps better stated, the junk people. People like us.

So we buy all your personal stuff you kept in your storage locker because you didn't want anyone finding it at your house. Good thinking. Your loss becomes our gain so to speak. And it goes downhill from there.

My tale of woe worsens as my junk person dealer wife starts buying truckload after truckload of auctioned storage lockers. She simply cannot believe her good fortune. No need to waste time at flea markets, EBay, thrift stores and yard sales anymore; now there is a way to buy junk by the truckload. And what fun! For sometimes as little as fifteen dollars one can buy an entire storage locker filled to the ceiling with junk. What a bargain! Too good to be true!

So I'm thinking after buying several dozen of these lockers with no place to put them, the game is up. We've got nowhere to put this stuff. Finally we can retire from hustling junk and go back to being normal weekend people once again. Maybe spend some quality time together and watch a ball game or two. Boy was I wrong. Just like Buddha, I way underestimated the power of junk.

Strategically, I'm thinking that we are going to have to start renting storage lockers to put all this stuff that we are buying in. That's what I get for thinking strategically. Not us. We don't always think strategically. We end up renting, if you will pardon my expression, a frigging warehouse.

One day I'm sitting down in the middle of our frigging warehouse and crying. We are caught up in a bad Bunuel movie or Kafka novel that never ends. I can envision another warehouse and another and eventually we would own all the junk in town. Sooner or later we would be bidding on our own storage lockers. We would be recycling junk to ourselves. Our motto would be 'We Are the Flea Market!'

If you ever feel like this, please restrain yourself and don't end it all just yet. Try relaxing first and using a bit of my cognitive behavioral therapy; you will feel so much better afterwards because unlike drugs and alcohol it really works.

Sit your worn and tired bones down in a warehouse surrounded by your very own junk. Wallow around in it; get to know the feeling. It is a helpless feeling of pain; feel the pain. Get to know the feeling that you went to battle against your greed and corresponding junk and you got your rear end whupped. Learn to live with how badly that feels and just what that reveals about your inner character.

But just remember, as bad as it may seem you can't give up; you have to keep trying. You have family and friends that need you to be strong for them. Because you will be tested each and every day for the rest of your life.

Such as, 'We can't throw that out because it's only missing that one piece and sooner or later we're going to come across it and then it will be complete and worth a lot of money.'

In theory perhaps, but we never do in practice find that piece because it's Twilight Zone redux. The devil himself is holding that missing piece in his hand and laughing at us right now. And besides, it's certainly chipped, cracked, dinged, scoured, pitted, scratched or a shoddy reproduction. For two bucks our neurotic customers expect perfect, original junk.

As you can probably tell from my jaded attitude I'm undergoing junk dealer's cognitive behavioral rehab therapy along with several other former junk dealers in my area. This article is part of my patient recovery plan. I'm also required to spend four hours each weekend sitting in a pile of my own junk. And then I have to write about my experiences in my journal. This is today's entry.

But hey, I'm cured. I don't want to go to the mall and buy stuff I don't need anymore. I don't even want to go and buy the stuff I do need. I don't even want to go to the frigging mall at all. I'm cured. I can take junk or leave it now and I'll leave it with you thank you very much. Been there; done that stuff thing. No mas.

Besides, Buddha and I prefer traveling lightly.

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 05:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I think it was the original old man Getty that said some find oil and others don't.    As you probably know the Getty Museum in Los Angeles has one of the finest collections of art in the world.  The 1930's, 1940's and 1950's were great decades for the nouveau riche to splurge on dirt cheap European art.  Getty bought boatloads of some of the best.  Actually art everywhere back then was cheap. 

And it is on that end of the spectrum that I collect and play the market.  The cheap side that is, not exactly the Getty side.  Some find cheap good art and others don't.  Actually it is a totally neglected end of the market and one that although not lucrative can almost make one feel like a poor Getty, if there is such a thing.  That's why locally our house is known as the Poor Getty's Museum, dubbed such after a trip to the real thing in LA. 

As a weekend pack mule, truck driver, errand boy, stand tender and other task doer for my wife's collectibles stand, I found myself constantly at yard sales, flea markets, thrift stores, antiques shows, locker auctions, estate sales, bankruptcy sales and liquidation sales. 

Her total justification for this torture was it kept me away from meaningless activities like ball games and beer.  Needless to say I quickly became fed up with the absolute mountains of stuff and junk my better half insisted on putting me through. 

As a survival mechanism I needed to find a way to cope and not have a Miminsky.  Being the wheeler dealer that she is, she would constantly be spying the neighbor's wares looking for bargains.  'Find some art' she would say.  So I did.  I brought her junk and bad prints and reprints and one day a nice acrylic and she smiled.  'Finally', she beamed. 

Bingo!  My career in art was off.  Rather than standing around looking like I was waiting for my nachos, I was out scouring wherever we were for art.  Skyview, Alameda, San Juan Bautista, De Anza, Alemany...we did them all. 

My first lesson was to determine what a print is and what is an oil, acrylic, watercolor, charcoal, pen, etc.  Now those of you that are experts may snicker but throughout my years of buying paintings I have seen a number of 'experts' stumped on this very issue.  Unless you're an experienced dealer you need to get an eyepiece to see if it's an original or a print.  I know.  I bought a number of them that weren't original and have since learned real dealers make the same mistake.   

The hunter of fine art has to realize that for every good painting there were dozens of bad ones. If the painting had skill that conveyed an appeal, then the painting would have value based on what is commonly called its 'design'.   A skilled painting could be worth good money even if the artist was not listed or even known.  I would usually pay five or ten dollars for these paintings.  Sometimes fifteen or twenty but no more.  My only rule was I had to like it.   

At first I dealt with traditional art; art about objects that would be considered traditional.  Landscapes, portraits, people...sometimes painted with incredible skill.  One day in a thrift store I found four paintings by a Californian named G. Fisher.  He's had a few listings and did a number of paintings up and down the California coast.  At two bucks apiece I have more than gotten my money's worth.   

The paintings are acrylics of Big Sur and Monterey from the 1950's and are probably worth $100-200 each.  Not bad.  But right now fifties paintings are going gangbusters and shooting up...so in 10 years the price may triple.  But for now they adorn my Poor Getty's Museum.

In art don't be surprised if you find one thing leading to another.   Occasionally, though not very often, I came across modern art.  I especially like the collages.   Sometimes the collage components are works of art themselves.  The effects can be rather dramatic, especially if the artist is skilled.   

What I have found is that modern art in general, and collages and three dimensional works in particular, are often ignored by collectors and dealers.  The most valuable of mine might be worth three or four hundred dollars.  Probably what Getty paid for his Del Grecos and Renoirs. 

There is one drawback to my method.  If you take the Poor Getty's route for your own museum be prepared for it to be a long term project.  Many is the day when I found nothing.  But some days I would find two or three originals and was I on top of the world.  I could rotate my stock on the living room wall and pretend I was one of those few in the world that could find oil and trek to Europe to buy boatloads of big time art.      

Well, maybe not oil and maybe not big time art.  I don't even carry a listings guide.  I always buy what I like and I like the cheap, good Poor Getty's art the best...

Why be uncivilized?

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 03:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You know who you are. You've turned over your locus of self control for the collective good. You've given up your mind and soul for others. You have adopted the standards and norms that are acceptable to many people some of the time. You have in fact, dumbed down.

Why do you feel like you've entered the twilight zone of arrested development and whatever potential you once had left with your divorce settlement?

OK. I know. You are expecting some words of comfort and sensitivity. Forget it. You made the huge booboo of dumbing down. Now at almost any depth your logic and reasoning falters. You have been called an intellectual wienie by your co-workers, neighbors and immediate family, all of whom are your biggest fans. That should tell you something.

You are the bane of Silicon Valley. Employers hire you because they need bodies. They know that at your best you're good for showing up and behaving somewhat responsibly until you leave. That's it. You are known as a generic sheep with a herd instinct.

At some point in your life, probably just before or after puberty, you lost the locus of control on yourself. You ceased to be the one in control of your destiny and have instead decided to let others do it for you, a task which they have always eagerly accepted.

Over a relatively short period of time, your perceptions have become increasingly distorted. You come to conclusions like the sky is falling, everything is the fault of the government and everything in the universe is equal to everything else.

As your thinking further deteriorates, you begin to fantasize that everything in the whole world is driven by oil, the U.S. is always wrong and any negative news about the U.S. is in some twisted way, good news.

In the advanced stages you feel you are qualified to judge people by their looks, opinions and political party affiliation. Despite being such a cynic, you paradoxically think your candidate is the one candidate that is different than all the others that ever were. You have long stopped judging candidates by what they believe and instead judge them on who they know. You are the culture wars.

At work, you drive your boss nuts. You always show up and you always do what you are told but you produce little and contribute little. Your creativity and innovation is zip. Several times you have been passed over for promotions assuming you would have the decency to quit, but you didn't. As your opinions, attitudes and beliefs become more hardened and negative, you find more and more folks getting irritated simply by your presence.

At first you just accept a simple concept such as 'all societies are equal and just.' As you mentally repeat this idea over a period of time you start to believe it. This causes the neurons in your hippocampus to turn to a dark, green liquid and folks start to suggest you take a vacation to recuperate since they can see your mental capacity is declining.

Eventually you deny yourself any sense of excitement or accomplishment as you are convinced it is bad to ever do anything solely for yourself, except of course the bathroom visits. Because of your skewed and depressing views; active, productive folks start avoiding you altogether and start making up excuses like they just came down with the plague and want to be a good amigo and not spread it to you.

As you finally descend into the category of 'loser' you find that anyone that is not a loser avoids you as if you actually did have the plague. The only ones that can stand to be around you are your fellow losers and there comes a point where even they stop seeming very friendly...

Like the critics that criticize because they can't create, you criticize those that stand out and haven't succumbed to the 'we are all dumbed down' credo. They in turn don't do business with you, hire you, marry you, socialize with you, befriend you or help you when you can't figure out the right spreadsheet formula.

If your spouse hasn't joined you on this dumbing down quest then she will soon be leaving you. Another sign of this is when one starts regularly grinding his teeth. The person they hoped they could change when they got married turned out to be a bigger fool than they imagined. To make things worse she doesn't necessarily even leave you for another man or another woman, they just leave. They don't need an excuse let alone a reason...

In the end you turn bitter because no one buys into your baloney anymore. You lose interest in that which does not support your fantasies and over time the effect becomes more pronounced. As you lose your interest, you become less interesting. Sadly, at some point you begin to realize that you are such un-fun that all your friends and family are trying to avoid you. They see you as mix of sad, stupid and goofy.

Like Buddha says, a hundred years from now who the heck will care. But if you want to get admitted, get the job, get the promotion, get the sale, get married, get the contract or just about get anything else, just remember that your collective thinking is all your fault.

Understanding that it is all your fault might not make you feel any better but that insight just might be your only way out.

Those that think like sheep become sheep.

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last night the ground moved. Again. It started a little after 8:00 and lasted about 15 seconds; a swaying motion rocking back and forth. It had been a while. Actually several years.  This one was a 5.6 and was the biggest we have had since the 7.1 quake in 1989; you probably remember the World Series Loma Prieta earthquake.

That day in 1989 I was heading to get some hamburgers for the start of Game One when it hit. I had left early for the game but a number of employees were still in the building when it struck. My first thought was they had to be under the rubble and after checking on my family, I raced downtown.

Downtown Santa Cruz was devastated and I believe ten died; most buried under the rubble of unreinforced buildings over 50 years old. All our people were safe. But business was never the same.

That night we camped out in our backyard as the aftershocks continued. At about 3:00 I took off my shoes and stood barefoot on the ground. It was quivering like a bowl of Jell-O.

Just the other day my neighbor and I were recounting the post earthquake days. Some people took it very hard and actually got depressed even though no one in their family was hurt and the damages to their property were minimal.  Why did some people just breeze right through it and others need months and years of counseling to cope?

And how could all this be? If there was ever anything in the universe that was secure it had to be terra firma or the ground beneath our very feet. At least that's what I thought up until then.

At that precise moment my perception was forever changed. No longer would I ever assume that the earth was solid beneath my feet. I knew that at any moment it could jump and roll and turn to a liquid nightmare. I don't worry about it but I know it can happen at anytime. And if the ground beneath my feet cannot be counted on, what can?

We just don't know when Al-Qaeda will attack, a drunk driver will hit us or the ground will turn liquid. How can we be presumptuous enough to feel we can avoid these and numerous other threats and risks to our security? Will the United Nations Security Council keep me and mine secure?  And how about Social Security? And the National Security Council? Homeland Security? The security net

Helen Keller said that security does not exist in nature and therefore does not exist in mankind. We build bigger fences, more elaborate alarms and even hire "Security" companies to help us keep what we got because it seems there are a lot of folks out there that want what is not theirs. They don't want you and me to have security and to pay higher prices.

"It's a war and the shoplifters and crooked employees will steal everything," says Armand Aranda of Enterprise Protective Services. "Losses can approach 10%. These people are nuts; it's like they're crazy and angry. At that point the actual viability of the business is compromised. Employee theft can reach 50% of total theft; we've caught them loading up their pick-ups."

Great.  So we have met the enemy and he's us.  Our own people selling us out; sort of how Dog must have felt after he got shafted.  How do we secure ourselves from ourselves? Do we call the security guard on ourselves? Code Blue, hurry quick, we're stealing from ourselves! Did Dog think he was secure?

So you see, there really is no security. When we feel secure we should start worrying because that is when Al-Qaeda or the Extremist Supremist Utopian groups do their harm. Actually we would be doing ourselves a favor by not getting too comfy. Like Dog you never really know who ends up coming after you...

"It's bad enough when it's your employees," laments Aranda, "but think what it's like when we have a video of your family stealing from your business."

My family? Egads. I never thought of that. One more security worry. Maybe the wife is stealing from me and I don't know it. She's definitely smart enough to figure out a way to drain me dry. You know, go through my wallet when I'm asleep and that sort of thing. Maybe I need to hire a security company. I'd have to get her permission first. Better not wake her up and ask her about it just yet. She probably would not be pleased.

"Security, that's a good one" she would laugh, "after roaming the world through all kinds of adventures and ups and downs you actually think I need security? What would I do with this security of yours when the Big Shaker hits? Will it protect my store from looters?"  She would have a point there. And she would laugh until tears ran down her cheeks.
 
On second thought maybe I won't mention the security thing just yet. We sensitive guys need to make sure the timing is just right, no? And not do stupid things that can compromise what little security we may have.  Because you never know when your family will start stealing from you, the vandals will ransack your store and the ground will turn to Jell-o.

What me worry? Security? Anyway, what would I do with it if I actually had it?

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 02:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All of us can't be beautiful. God knows.

Take me for instance. I'm nondescript. You see me in a restaurant and it's as if I'm not there. On the one hand that's good because no one is pointing at me and making faces. I can also spill food on my shirt and no one will pay any attention. Or care, except for a stray comment like "Look John, there's another idiot with food all over his shirt."

Yet on the other hand my modern angsted ego is bruised when no one looks at me and says 'what a handsome guy.' So be it.

Now I know immediately some of you gals are going to be upset and cry sexist pig and start nagging me because I'm only talking about ugly women and not ugly men.

As a writer I write about what I know and I know a lot about ugly women but don't know much about ugly men. Most men for me are non-descript too. I will hear women remarking about how handsome a particular man is but I don't see it. I don't understand the appeal of the rough look.  To me, the rough look is ugly in both men and women.

Be that as it may I do have a much better aptitude for determining what is attractive in women. Like most men, I can readily spot an ugly woman or a pretty woman.

Don't ask me why I know this or how I know this. I just know this. It's a guy thing and has something to do with the hippocampus in the brain. No one is exactly sure why but everything else goes one way or the other through the hippocampus so it is one heck of a good guess.

Besides, we guys know about a woman's look. We may not know much else about her, but we ace the looks category. That's our job. It's what we and our hippocampuses do.

Really pretty women are now getting little tiny, discrete tattoos sometimes on little tiny discrete parts of their pretty bodies. You know, the butterfly in the small of the back type of tattoos. The risk these women run is that the tattoo will detract from their beauty even when put on a particularly discrete part of their anatomy.

Not so with the ugly woman. No way. The ugly woman will get the most bodacious tattoo she can finance covering her arms, head, neck and anything else when possible.  Double King Sized is her order.

The key here is to imagine the viewer's reaction upon seeing this massive tattoo, which is really the only reason anyone gets tattooed in the first place, with the possible exception of those that get large Nazi themed facial tattoos. Those with Nazi themed facial tattoos get them almost exclusively for their own self gratification.

One's first reaction is "man, something's really ugly here so it must be the tattoo." Aha. We are in the hunt now. Our tenacious research has finally led us to the crucial clue as to why ugly women get super grande tattoos.

Like Sherlock Holmes once said it's all right there in front of your nose. Ugly women get large tattoos to hide their ugliness. At least that's the strategy.  The ugliness gets blamed on the tattoo and not well, the underlying ugliness or real cause of the ugly effect. In the process the tattered ego gets a facelift.

In certain urban and suburban areas of California, tattoos and body piercings have gone to the extreme. On many bodies now it's hard to find a place that is not tattooed or pierced, including major and minor body orifices and canals creating a whole new specialty branch in applied medicine.

In this attempt to create a new look the user opts for the total tattoo remake and body pierced mutilations: in short, cover up all that ugly. One of the immediate psychological benefits is a dramatic improvement in self esteem. Beware the devil you don't know does not apply to the permanently very ugly. Any change is an improvement for the desperately ugly. God knows that too.

It really doesn't matter that as these tattooed clowns age they will look like those angry aborigines in New Zealand. They probably won't remember who they are anyway or won't care even if they do remember. At that point even tattoos are secondary.

Quite frankly nobody is going to pay any attention to Granma's wrinkles if she has Hells Angels Bakersfield tattooed in Gothic letters across her forehead. And initial research shows that such tattoos are actually often viewed as attractive by those with senility, dementia and the more common senile dementia. "By golly I think I used to belong to the Bakersfield chapter - you must be my kinda girl! I can almost remember you..."

Keywords are Hells, Angels, Snake Oil, Deception and Bakersfield. You do see the logic behind all this, no?

On some level it must actually work or why in God's name do they keep doing it?

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

We have all heard bigger is better. At least that's what the snake oil marketers tell us. These charlatans tell me that whatever my desire in life it can be fulfilled by having a bigger one. Or ones. I've come to the conclusion that part of it is cultural as in the "American Way." We do everything in a bigger way. That's why nobody wants a smaller one. No matter what it is.

A good part of this new bigger better marketing methodology makes no sense to me. I watch the ad on TV and I can't figure out what the heck they're selling.

Here's a middle aged couple sitting next to each other on the couch. She is running her index finger in circles on his cheek and he's got a goofy grin. I don't know whether he has eczema, ringworm, lice or she is giving him a Feng Shui massage.

I'm wrong on all counts. She is trying to get him into the sack.  Could have fooled me. These are old folks, what are they going to do in bed? They're middle aged for goodness sakes. They should know better. Absolutely no shame these days. Besides, why should I care?  What's in all this for me? Why would I be interested in attracting old, ugly women? What if they won't go home?

What will my wife say? 'Hey, you, what's this old ugly woman doing here?'

So the implication is if sweetie pie in the ad gives her man a pill of 'man pumper'; then he will stop his daydreaming about other old ugly women and turn his rusty old passion toward her.

Now, that's all well and good on the marketer's whiteboard. But in real life the issue for this couple isn't so much can he do it but does he want to do it.  And, perhaps just as importantly, does he want to do it with her.

This difference is fundamental, especially for the party that doesn't want to do it. In this instance, a simple survey would reveal most men his age would prefer a pill that would calm her down and get her mind on something else. Like football or golf. And leave him alone.

So that brings us full circle to the big male organ and why all these folks I don't really know are so keenly interested that I grow mine. I guess that's what one does. Grows it that is. It doesn't go from one size to the next instantly, no? Perhaps it grows through stages? Pee wee, pint size, medium and jumbo?

My guess is there are a whole lot of companies in the business of trying to make this happen, considering the tons of e-mail I get referring to the subject.  For some reason they seem to think I should be worried.

What me worry?

I probably should worry. My wife says I don't worry enough. Because right behind all this tree trunk business are the hot women that now want to meet me. Cause and effect. Mind you, these are women I've never even met and the only thing that they know about me is my username Senor Tree Trunk. Everybody have a good time!

Unfortunately by this time through a little known Google algorithm I'm sure they've got my address and will be knocking on my door any minute now. I can visualize the look on my wife's face when a pair of nymphets asks for Senor Tree Trunk.

"Come right on in," she'll say motioning them in, "he's in the other room with a bunch of old, ugly ladies."

Despite all these advantages I'm just a little hesitant to leap just yet.

Take breast enlargements for men. Now, several years back who would have heard of such a thing? Then my guess is a couple of gone cats in San Francisco did it and the marketers started having a field day. Their motto is find a niche and fill it. Literally.

Now some of these same companies are claiming women are starting to get turned on by big breasted men. Go figure. Most of these companies are still in San Francisco so the source of that info is a bit suspect but according to them it's spreading and soon could be opening at a franchised store near you! Maybe near a school or even your church or synagogue! Look for the 'Manly Breast' chain. Our motto is 'Manly breasts for manly men.'

I personally would have never, ever, under any circumstances have considered a penis or breast enlargement had it not been for all my enlargement industry friends that stay in close touch via email.

The comfort and care they show me constantly is touching. And with timely advice such as 'if you are going to augment one breast, you may as well do the other.' 

And helpful money saving tips, such as 'be sure to ask your surgeon for a volume discount on two.'

However after much internal debate and analysis,I am foregoing any and all enlargements at this time. I can almost hear the women sigh.

Still, there is hope. My ego is not totally trashed.  If I personally align my chakras and meditate on nothingness, good things will start to come to me.  I can feel it.

I'm starting to feel it already. Good news. Forget everything I just said. I just got an email from a woman named Raven that says she knows some hot Swedish babes that want to meet me...all they need is some travel money.

That works out swell because a lost uncle of mine just contacted me saying he left me inheritance money in a bank account in Rwanda. Funny how these things seem to work out...

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The simple truth is I'm not hung up on me. I don't sit around analyzing myself and what my colleagues or neighbors are thinking or not thinking.  For that reason and several others, some people think I am strange, weird and enlightened.  Sometimes all three.

It's all rather simple because I always know what I'm thinking.  And it's also partly because I already know what some other folks are thinking and don't want to know any more.  And partly because I no longer care.  OK, OK.  The older I get the more it tends toward I don't care. 

I also bore myself because I already know how all my stories are going to end.  You know the feeling?  And just how can I pick up new material if I'm always the one talking?   I had to do something contrarian and bodacious…like strike up conversations with total strangers.

My secret is I simply refuse to talk about me and insist we talk about them. Want to watch someone eat out of your hand?  Ask them to tell you about them. 

"Can I get you something to eat or drink?" is one of the first things they say, "Maybe a pillow?  Pitcher of martinis?  Can I pick up your tab?  No one has ever in my whole life asked me about me. Let me tell you all about me. I'm so excited."

"This is the happiest day of my life. I'm so thrilled someone is interested in worthless, useless, gutless moronic embattled me. I've been devoutly praying, meditating and rubbing my crystals so this day would come and it finally has. I am feeling so very blessed and spiritual right now."

Not to rain on the self esteem picnic here but the honest truth is I'm not interested.  I'm in it for the food. 

So I let them talk while I eat and occasionally nod my head up or down. Blah, blah, blah. I just let them get it out of their system. Blah, blah, blah. I eat and drink all I want and just let them keep going. Blah, blah, blah. I never stop them until I am finished eating and drinking. Blah, blah, blah. And when that point arrives, I stand up and loudly pronounce 'it's halftime'.

If you use the halftime exit survival tactic remember to never accept food or drink after your halftime proclamation as you will never be able to leave the premises again having totally lost the element of surprise.  You are doomed.  

Like the good life, good sequences almost always come down to timing and execution so don't be stupid and blow yours.

By the time they figure out what the heck this clown aka me means by the expression 'halftime' I have already profusely excused myself to the loo, whether I need to go or not, and once given a three step lead I simply cannot be caught.  Just like a well executed bank robbery, the focus is on surprise and escape and not looking back.

You have to start thinking outside your narrow bourgeois box if you want to get ahead in this flea bitten world. And you must understand that in our modern web linked cyber society it is often better to give first and then later receive the backlinks.  The more, the merrier. 

So stop whining and focusing so much on yourself.   Think leveraged strategy.  And focus.  In fact, focus on leveraged strategy.  And especially focus on backlink paybacks through leveraged strategy.

Afterwards you graciously allow yourself to become immensely popular and everyone adores you and you get food invites to all the really cool and important functions where they also offer you bloated contracts, discounted timeshares in Akumal and their first born quarter horses. 

They soon whisper in your ear how the masses will be clamoring for you to run for public office. At least Governor they whisper.  At least for Governor…

You humbly decline signing all contracts that are not food or drink related except for Governor and keep your focus until halftime when you can regroup.  Governors have to regroup and eat too.

Our national hero Curly of the Three Stooges put it best when he said, 'We ain't normal people, we're morons'.  Amen.  That's the one thing we truly know.  That's it.  That's the enlightened truth.  From whence we come.  There is no truer statement.  Even the Governor knows that.  He'd be the first to agree with Curly.

Buddha admitted knowing that too but said that at the end of the day it doesn't matter.  If ignorance is its own reward then we should all be rich.  Curly would have agreed since he had such a short attention span, even when he got angry.  And you have to admit both Buddha and Curly have some very impressive backlinks. 

So don't forget to always be closing, never insult the cook and think leveraged backlinks. 

Oh, and by the way, speaking of leveraging some backlinks can you please pass the nachos, amigo?  It's almost halftime...

Posted by Jack D. Deal at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)