Thursday, September 3, 2009

My Blackberry Met with an Accident

Someone told me that I should blog about what I do to my mobile phones. Really, I only break one every year or so. I guess it is in the way that I go about breaking them - or what I try to do to keep them together, that keeps it interesting.

The latest is when I bent over a tub full of soapy water I was running for the bath for the twins, when out of my shirt pocket jumped my blackberry. Now, to understand my efforts fully, you need to know that the company I work for no longer wants to support RIM devices for competitive reasons, so if this phone goes kaput, so does any hope of using my beloved Blackberry for work. Not that I do not want to upgrade to an iPhone or anything (I hear the new 3Gs is pretty slick) but I am pretty adverse to change. Just look at my car....

Anyway - what really got Dimitri laughing was what I did next - immediately I pulled the phone out of he tub, removed the battery, disassembled the phone to dry it out, and proceeded to melt the SIM card with a hair dryer. Everything else seems to have come back together and back to life, except for the slightly darkened, warped, sad looking SIM. AT&T promised me they could ship a replacement SIM, and if that works, I may be back in business. If not, It's time to get creative and combine a few damaged devices from eBay together with my phone to make a "Franken-berry" and get back on track.

The things I do for love..... (and yes, my wife is fully aware she has to share my heart with this annoying little device...).

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

I am NOT a SCAM

This post is not a scam. I have done extensive research into the subject and I can assure you, from the #1 trusted source of things that come from me, this is not a scam post. You can trust everything you read here, including this post. Honestly, I have lied in the past, but this post is 100% the honest to goodness truth. I have no vested interest in making you believe me, and can guarantee that if you believe me all the fame and fortune you are looking for in life can be yours. Just send me One Billion Dollars for my free, at home, easy to use kit explaining how to become famous, beautiful, rich and the monarch of a small country (or if you do really well using my proven system of world domination in 30 days or less, even a very large country or two).

Just look at me, King of AustralEuroAsia. Really, just Google it and see for yourself.

Can you tell I have been researching home based businesses today? Not for me, for my wife. She wants to start one, and all that I find out there are promises of great returns, scam-busting websites that promote the scams and "bust'" the competitive scams, all fluff and no meat. Really, if this stuff was really that good and it worked as well as they say it would, then why do they need all the schmucks at the end of the downlines to make it profitable?

In the age of internet stores and social networking to promote your wares, why would a successful product vendor want to carry the cost of the downlines anyway? Keep more margin for yourselves selling directly. Or through proven distribution networks. Maybe I am missing something but it seems that unless you get in early on these things, all you end up doing is selling a half a dozen units to friends and family and maybe break even on yuor investment.

Next - selling Campbell's Soup through MLM.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

It is the Imperfections that Make Things Interesting

Just read an interesting article on Stan Lee - inventor of many great superheros as head of Marvel Comics, and he indicated his "special power" was that his characters were imperfect. They had weak alter egos that had trouble succeeding socially, or were plagued with alcoholism, etc. It reminds me of how live singers are better to listen to than studio recordings, those little suprises, the imperfections of the performance that capture our attention, keep us focsed on all the good that is happening between the mistakes. We end up remembering only the highlights.

What this is telling me is that all the noise between the moments mean nothing compared to the moment itself and we should not let our fears get in the way of taking the risks and chances needed to make those moments happen.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

eBay thinks I want to buy red bikinis

It isn't my fault. I blame Big Brother and all those fan sites. I was curious if Laura, one of the earlier contestants to be evicted, was selling her red bikini for charity or not. So, I followed a link and presto, I am now, according to eBay, interested in all things small red and skimpy.

Now, I am not to judge what the ladies like to wear. I guess the point is more about getting to know who I really am. I think we've got a long way to go to being truly intelligent in our predictive analytics to know that I am curious about a specific red bikini in a completely different context from what I really like to buy, which is either replacement parts for my 16 year old Toyota Tercel or camera equipment or stuff for the kids, my wife, etc. Well, maybe she'd like a skimpy red bikini.... so maybe eBay is right all along and I just don't know myself well enough.