February 12th, 2009
I am not a fan of Valentine’s Day for the most part. It has always seemed like a “Hallmark Holiday” that pressures us to do a bunch of goofy stuff to prove that we love the ones we love. I like birthdays, Christmas and surprises. Since my wife’s birthday is pretty close to Valentine’s, I get a bit of a pass. But I still need to at least get a card.
I recently went shopping for Valentines cards and, aparently, most of the husbands out there have a great need to apologize for coming up short, not always being there or somehow being a skrewup. I checked out about 10 cards and 8 of them started with, “I might not always be the most…” or “I’m sorry that I’m…” Really? Is Valentines really just “get out of the dog house day”?
Personally, I grow my own flowers and I think it’s much nicer to bring those in as frequent surprises rather than having a one-time day of over-priced roses. Chocolate is a regular treat in our household. And if I’m in the dog house, I’m sure not going to wait for a Hallmark holiday to make ammends.
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February 3rd, 2009
I will always remember the day when I was at a conference in New York…I believe it was in 2003…and the Yahoo! speaker announced that they would be charging people to get into their directory and then, on top of that initial, yearly, $299 charge, they would also charge a per-click fee every time someone clicked a listing. Imagine that.
Luckily, people booed and that model never went forward.
So now when Yahoo! needs a some more cash, they don’t bother with silly announcements that could get booed. They just get right down to charging their customers. The fine print is in place, it’s all legal, so it must be all good. Oh, how I miss the corporate life and the wonderful decisions that come from a spreadsheet.
There is a reason I don’t advertise with Yahoo!. And I’m really glad I don’t. Because if I were a Yahoo! advertiser, it is likely that they would have already “optimized” my account, like they just did for so many unwitting other accounts, by adding keywords and distribution that results in more exposure, more clicks and higher costs with a complete disregard to relevance and transparency.
The fact that things are technically “legal” doesn’t make them right. There’s no wonder that Yahoo! continues to come up short in their quest to be the leader in online search. They just don’t seem to understand that customers are actually people.
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January 6th, 2009
Dang. I just looked up and realized I had not made a blog post in more than a month. Maybe that’s because my daughter has been super active during the day and not very sleepy at night. Maybe it’s because every night for the past few months has been interrupted by at least two crying episodes. Maybe today’s post is related to the fact that she slept 12 hours straight last night! After the initial panic (is she ok?! what could be wrong?), we realized that normalcy just paid us a visit. And it is long overdue.
Hopefully 2009 will bring more restful nights and productive days.
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November 18th, 2008
Since I was in Vegas for the Pubcon conference, I thought it would be a crime to leave without seeing at least on Cirque du Soleil show. The only problem was in the choosing. I have heard a lot about the “O” show and “LOVE” has gotten some rave reviews. But Mystere was showing in my hotel (Treasure Island) and when I decided to look into buying tickets, I was lucky to find that lovely single seat on the second row, center stage, right on the aisle. I couldn’t pass that up and it was a fantastic decision.
For starters, the comedy relief act was really clever and funny. Comedy shows and Circus acts are famous for picking on the people up front. Luckily a woman a few seats down from me got the brunt of the jokes so I didn’t get splashed, pulled on stage, put in a cage or taped up by a clown.
The costumes were very creative, the music was powerful and the artists were incredible. There was a constant texture of percussion throughout the show. At one point the stage was filled with drummers and the center point was occupied by an enormous drum with a head at least 5 feet across.
The most stunning act was of the “strong men” who leveraged their strength and weight in ways that defied physics and seemed humanly impossible. At one point, one of the performers was doing a one-handed hand stand on top of the other performer’s head. At another point in the show, artists climbed up poles…except that they held their bodies out horizontal from the vertical pole, arms extended, and moved up and down the poles with amazing synchronicity.
The see-saw act was also amazing. In rapid-fire fashion, one artist after another jumped on their see-saw end to send the other side flying in the air and ultimately stacking up to 4 people in a vertical pile. The trapeze artists were perfectly synchronized and flipped and flew threw the air and landed with the ease and softness of human cats.
I can’t imagine the stage show would travel well. That would be a huge undertaking. Platforms disappeared and gave way to different stages with different props every few minutes. It was a constant barrage of amazement.
If you’re ever in Vegas, see one of these shows. You won’t forget it.
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