All this blog Needs is a Buzz Phrase

Act Now and in 38000 easy payments (that’s less than a cost of a cup of coffee folks) these scrubbing bubbles with activate the activated charcoal along with these scientifically proven moisture pockets residing within the patented vortex wind funnel cleaning wand.

That sure got your attention Huh? Wow that was exciting! I could just picture myself wet-dry cleaning an elephant and even the elephant’s wrinkles would be squeaky clean. Finally! Heck knows even elephants deserve clean wrinkles.

Everywhere I look it seems there are MADMEN creating brilliantly annoying advertising campaign’s just lousy with buzz phrases. (Or is that lousy advertising with annoying buzz phrases??) Only in commercials do we find out that Bounty is the quicker picker upper (I would hate to see it be the slower, I will get that tomorrow, non-picker downer), Gerber’s baby food has Comfort Proteins, Zip lock bags have snap and fresh seal technology, Fresh Step Cat Litter has activated freshness molecules, and further learn that it only takes wearing a lab coat and a buzz phrase and voila! I can convince you that super-duper smart scientists worked around the clock (with no bathroom break mind you) to create this thigamabob that makes your life complete.

I have some burning questions: Is secret really strong enough for a man, but made for a woman? And will a man blow up into a bazillion little pieces if he wears it any way? Is Irish Spring made in Ireland? Are the thoughts of a dead turkey wrapped in Reynolds wrap protected against Alien thought invasion? Are Colgate cleaning molecules treated differently at the local bar as opposed to regular molecules? Are flavor pockets related to Flavor Flav? (yeeeeeeeee boy) and just what exactly is dry weave technology?

I am beginning to suspect the writers who used to create the techno-babble heard in a Star Trek episode now make up buzz phrases heard in commercials. Maybe if I employ the interlocking viral blog packets then its slightly possible fiber optic cyber freshness seal molecules will dry weave a nice cardigan sweater for me.

Why being a Skeptic is good for YOU

Asking questions, lots of questions, poking holes in popular notions, being a complete pest, refusing to leave your brain at the door, reserving the right to be the constant doubting Thomas are actually good things.

It means you insist on being engaged, spoken to, and NOT being spoken at. Trust me if you have ever been spoken at instead of being spoken to you know what I am talking about.

During a rah-rah sales pitch, sales marketing, this is the money you can make session I once had before taking on the task of selling expensive vacuum cleaners to the open public the tactic used during the session seemed to involve blowing the potential sales people minds by flashing numbers at them.

Numbers are nice, unless I am battling them by trying to bend them to my will just so I can pay a utility bill. Numbers can be motivating and help someone possibly visualize amounts in their favor they may have never thought be possible for them.

I don’t mind using numbers to gain the perked interest of others. A good example is Chuckie, who is part of my marketing team. He is averaging 300.00 a week with only 3 months of effort as a investment of time and effort. Sounds great to me because Chuckie certainly deserves the income and I am happy to hear he is doing well and is on his way to creating a very nice passive residual income.

What bothers me is when numbers are the ONLY thing being used. I am a person! Not a calculator! If your selling something, or marketing something please try to remind yourself there are real people out there with real problems and real dreams attached to that wallet your trying so hard to open.

So when exactly do I get to pick out my “Old Man Outfit”??

I turned 50 last year, I am looking 51 dead in the eye in six more months. It has me worried. The reason why is based on trips to Walmart, any grocery store, the hardware store, The DMV, Doctors offices, and just pumping gas into my minivan. While I am at any location really there is a growing number of people growing old. A lot of these older people (older than me I am pointing out here) are men. The majority of them have somehow, in someway have decided to wear (with very slight variations) the same outfit. Its as if there is a store that caters to grumpiness, never ending stories of working on their car, garage, boat, cabinets, memories of war, and the last pork chop they ate. 

The outfits seem to consist of: jeans, coveralls, work pants (if you say dockers they will slap you for being a sissy), a dress shirt (normally plaid, printed in some manly fashion without looking to frilly), suspenders (seems to be a MUST HAVE item) a belt (I guess the suspenders are a back up just in case the belt goes out or visa-versa), and a hat. 

The hat seems to open to interpretation just as long it does not have fruit on top of  and is completely void of a bow or ribbon included. Baseball cap seems to be a nice popular choice just as long as you wear it like a real man and stop trying to look like a rap artist, or someone with a mental problem.  What is inscribed/written on the baseball hat seems to be important also. Letting people know your a war veteran and that you were Killing people in foreign lands while they were still nursing will get you some serious nursing home Cred. 

Bowlers, Pork Pie hats(Think Walter White from Breaking Bad), Fedora’s, and even Richard Petty style cowboy hats can be acceptable wear. If your stuck in traffic behind a slow moving vehicle chances are good the driver is a old man in a hat (or he left his hat at home).

What confuses me is 1. when exactly did these legions of old men decide to start wearing the same outfit? And 2. Now that I am getting older am I required to follow suit? When exactly do I start turning the garden hose on the neighbors kids?, Complain about the meatloaf at the local cafeteria?, start smelling like I poured a entire bottle of Old Spice on myself?, Have a handshake that feels like Solid Rock?, tell stories of the car I put back together with nothing more than a piece of wire and a can of WD40?, threaten to put my foot up someones wazoo?, smack people on the back of the head just for being a dumb ass? The questions never end.

MOVIE QUOTE JUMBLE

Come with me if you want to live because there is no business like show business. Because only in Hollywood you don’t need roads because where we are going there are NO roads. Take the Gun and leave the cannoli because even though there is no place like home there truly no place like the Movies.

Movies give us a needed escape from life so you better get busy living or get busy dying and Movies can make you feel alive and can help you deal with death even if Stormtroopers just Killed your Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. You may want the truth but you cant handle the truth, the truth is far too boring and the movie version is always much better. The Hills are alive with the sound of music only because those hills have those iconic HOLLYWOOD letters standing on them. 

Say: I am Sparticus! All you want, but you would have to show me the money!! Oh? No money? No worries because Hollywood is genuine proof that if you build it they will come. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, all I’m offering is the truth – nothing more.

So what you want Mary? Should I give you the moon? NO I give you Hollywood, movies, and an escape. Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. So go see a movie dang it. Look, No body puts baby in a corner and your hard earned dollars can help Baby buy some hair straightener. Her hair dresser says I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore. Because with great power comes great responsibility and there is no greater responsibility than being in charge of those tight curls. 

Say what you want about the demise of the Hollywood Myth, all it needs is Bond, James Bond and he likes his martini’s shaken not stirred. All it takes to wake Hollywood up is  to give it a taste of Hanzo Steel. I didn’t say, sell me. I said, give me. Any movie nerd is obliged to assist you in the extermination of your vermin, Because your vermin, is a former student. And considering the student, I’d say you had a rather large obligation. 

So play it Sam, play that movie on the big screen. This is going to start of a beautiful friendship. I will be the movie geek with the Twizzlers and the chocolate covered raisins.

Don’t Look now there is a sexy vampire following you

English: A screenshot from Dracula Italiano: Uno screenshot del film Dracula (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Twilight, the twilight movie franchise, the twilight book franchise, true blood, vampire dairies, twilight the flash light, twilight the place mat, twilight the toilet paper, and vampire dairies the shrimp fork all have one thing in common: Sexy vampires.

Your grandma had Max Shreck (as Nosferatu ). There was no doubt in any ones mind Vampires were weird looking, ugly, disagreeable, spent a lot of time not saying a lot, wanted to drink your blood, liked playing with shadow puppets, and meant to harm you.

Your dad (and possibly mom although she refuses to talk about it) had Bela Lugosi (as Dracula). He was dressed well to do looked like he should be vamping up and down Park Avenue but it was still pretty clear he just wanted to be a evil blood sucking king of the vampires in a tuxedo and coat tails.

Now Vampires have to be hunky, sexy, alluring, wearing Vampire couture, has to know how to be filled with angst, have great hair, be elusive, be mysterious, look great in a tight Hot Topic T-shirt, and memorize confusing dialogue involving shape shifters, witches, werewolves, magic, doppelgangers, cemeteries, and “how do I get get blood out of my laundry?” dry cleaning bills.

Max and Bela just would not make the grade. They don’t test well with modern audiences, don’t know how to work a red carpet event, don’t sparkle in any way possible, don’t know how to work a comic con room, and no one wants to bid $10,000.00 on a cocktail napkin they used on Ebay.

Sounds like way too much pressure to me. Isn’t it enough be eternal? Do you even have any idea how boring the late 1700’s were? And seriously, someone please make up their mind. Am I a bat? Or a vampire? And now I have to look good at 8am making witty morning talk show banter while plugging the new vampire whatever thing? Yuck. I need a upside down nap, someone please wake me up when I can go back to being a ordinary vampire.

Go ahead, be a quitter. Everyone is doing it

32px|alt=W3C|link=http://validator.w3.org/✓ The source code of this SVG is valid. Category:Valid SVG Deutsch: Breaking Bad Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I really have no business pointing out the inability of others to finish a project. When it comes to unfinished projects, book ideas, comic strip ideas, movie ideas, great casting choices (a much younger circa “The Hunt For Red October” Sean Connery really would have made a great “Dr Quest” if anyone would have bothered to make a live action version of “Johnny Quest” like I kept on thinking in my head and shared with few people to no one), art projects, and lego designs I am most certainly the best choice to make.

I am a television entertainment nut from way back. (heck I can still do an impromptu singing of the “Mr Ed” Theme song with a teleprompter but I doubt if you want to be subjected to it) and I hate it when my favorite shows call it quits. I still miss TV shows that have been off the air longer than some of my much younger friends have even been alive. The famous signing off episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore show, Newhart (seriously? Who can forget the awesome twist during the last episode?), MASH, Family Ties, Cheers, Frasier, Friends, Matlock (ok, I threw that one in to see if your paying attention. Did Matlock have a signing off episode?), Seinfeld, The Soprano’s (RIP James Gandolfini), and a skew of others.

Not only do I hate it when my favorite TV shows come to an end because I will so seriously miss the characters, but I also hate the TV wasteland that fills its wake after wards. Is it me? Or does it seem like TV networks are willing to slap anything on? Really ABC? Whodunnit? Its just a reality version of “Clue”. What’s next? Chutes and Ladders?

I have had to give up a lot in the last couple of years. House? Really? You took House from me? Sure I still have the reruns to watch but I miss Dr. House making a nuisance of himself, while solving medical mysteries. Sure Syfy channel, Kick a nerd/geek when I am down, cancel Eureka on me, and now you cancel Warehouse 13. Not only do I hate it when TV networks end a show, but whats even worse is when the show is just yanked off the air without a decent rap up. From what I hear Warehouse 13 is not even going to get a decent send off/rap up/ending episode.

And If August 11th 2013, crystal blue, Heisenberg, Hank Shrader, Walter White, Better call Saul, Los Polo’s Hermanos, Skyler White, or Jesse Pinkman have no meaning for you than you obviously are not a Breaking Bad nut job like I am. Yes I am counting down, Yes I have my Heisenberg hat ready, yes I have my blue rock candy (what they actually use on set for the “blue meth”) recipe ready, and yes my DVR is fired up and ready for the beginning of the end. I m going to love/hate every minute of it knowing that the explosive/emotional end is well..the end. If you need me I will be weeping wildly in front of my TV with a 3/4th eaten ziplock bag of blue rock candy strewn all over me.

Interview Rejection: its not me, its you. Okay its really me

Your NOT hired!

Its hard to not to take Interview rejection personally. I have a job, so trust me I have a very large understanding that I have absolutely nothing to complain about.

Despite all of that I have recently have been trying to see what else is available for me both internally and externally of my current employer. I have interviewed both internally and externally and 2 out the 3 times I have done so I felt both interviews went really well.

One external interview went so well I was told specifically I was “on the top of the list”. There was a 2nd interview hoop to jump through and the interviewer seemed so pumped about me as a candidate that he/she wanted to see if there was any way to do the 2nd interview process right then and there and only because the person who this interview would have been with was not available, it never came to being.

The contact between myself and that person who interviewed me has been annoyingly glacial and silent since then. I started to have a slight understanding of what its like to be a single woman who felt she and her date had really connected and then did not receive a call.

I was given some “feed back” recently on why I did not get offered a position after yet another (what I felt was) great interview. “Well sir, you were late to the appointment, and you failed the written portion of the interview”. In my defense I was helping my mom who just happened to be in town at the time, I did call well before the interview time apologizing that I might be a bit late and I was only late by a minute or 2 at best. The “written” portion of the interview was me playing grade school teacher marking with a red pen spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. I am still not certain how this exorcize was a true test of my ability to use spell, grammar, or punctuation check (how in the heck do you honestly think I produce these blogs?) on a word processing program.

I am still at a loss also if the “feed back” given was a nifty new service to help me improve myself or there was a such a great concern of my deplorable performance that something just had to be said. If it’s a real service I can only hope other potential employers put it into action. “No mam, you did not get chosen for the position because you spent the entire interview with your shirt pulled over your head”. “No sir, we regret to inform you we decided to choose candidates who did not insist the interviewer speak to a sock puppet”. “I’m sorry mam you we will not be hiring you, you wore an outfit more appropriate for Hooters and not for a office position”.

Gordon Gekko was not lying when he said “Greed is Good”

 

 

Chris Gardner, the inspiration for the film “The Pursuit of Happyness” with Will Smith (Photo credit: dbking)

In the movie “Wall Street” Michael Douglas plays sleazy Corporate fat cat “Gordon Gekko” and makes the now infamous and overly repeated (yes I realize I am further repeating it here) catch phrase “Greed is good”. The most obvious way to interpret this is by saying he was encouraging the rich to get richer even if its at the expense of the poor getting poorer. 

I have noticed there seems to be an awful lot of talk like never before about the rich getter richer and the poor getting poorer. It almost seems like a national obsession at this point. It also feels like there is a unhealthy singular focus on how much of something most of us don’t have, and how much of something someone else has. 

I get it, no argument from me the economy sucks. Since I personally have never made a six figure income and don’t know what its like to go from living in a expensive home to living in more meager means I just cant relate to those who have. So from my already meager existence stand point not much has changed for me or my wife. Living hand to mouth is just as routine as as my morning coffee.

I would like to submit that “Greed Is Good” can be redefined in a way where it’s encouraging all of us to NOT to loose our piss and vinegar despite how crappy the economy is. I get a lot of this idea and attitude from my mom. She supported 3 children (obviously including myself) on a median income and still had the nerve to be larger than life itself. Its all attitude folks, look at extreme sport icons Shaun white, or  Travis Pastrana both started out very, very young. So young in fact I cant imagine their parents being anything else but horrified when they would insist on doing dangerous stunts. 

They both have one key element in common: when it came to the dangerous and horrified part neither one it seemed to get the memo on that issue. They were just having fun. I’m a cheesy guy, I tell myself things in the form of movie quotes that really crystallize my real life attitude. A quick Karate Kid Fear does not exist in this dojo, a robust Han Solo Never tell me the odds, a sincere James T. Kirk there is no no win scenario, I get to the day by being Top Gun and telling myself to kick the tires and light the fires, that I have the need, the need for speed, and when I win the moment I say: yeeeeeehaw jester’s dead. 

Get out there folks, stop crying in your cheap coffee and beer, make yourself a tuna salad sandwich because eating out is out of the question, and be the windshield, not the bug. Greed is good, grab life by the throat and make it dance monkey dance.