Fantasy

I entered a contest several months ago. Well, sent off my entry fee to the NY Midnight Short Story Competition. At Midnight on Jan. 15 we’re all given a genre and a topic and a week to write a short story about it. My genre is “Fantasy” and my topic is….well, it’s a secret. If I win this first heat, I go into a second and have only 24 hours to write a fantastic piece…first prize? $1,2500. Not bad. Off we go then!

Doing the unexpected

It might not rank high on the “career success” ladder of must-do’s, but it should.

“Do the unexpected.”

Be remarkable. Be patient. Go out of your way to find a solution. Don’t just pass the problem onto someone you think will be better. Be that person yourself.

One of the tricks I used to use when confronted with an angry customer (telemarketing/inbound) is to pretend they were a good friend of mine that I wanted to “do right by.”

I enjoyed doing the unexpected – going above and beyond – being better. There’s something remarkably satisfying in knowing that you’ve set the bar for those around you.

Try it.

12seconds.tv

Some people call it an “elevator speech.”  12 seconds to get your point across.

Now it’s called “12seconds.tv” and it’s better than YouTube.com. Love YouTube. Love 12 seconds more. It’s like visual tweeting.

Robert Scoble loves it too.

The 12second founders make a great point – charging for services. They charge 99 cents for their iPhone app that lets users take three photos and send them to 12seconds – where the photos are synched, Ken Burns effected and made into a video. Their point – that 12seconds will stay free, but that services like the app need to be monetized, is right one.

“It’d be great if this was a big ole love and hug fest,” as one of the founders says, but “It’s nice not to have to wear the same clothes every day and buy dinner too.”

It’ll be the next big thing – if it’s not already. Try it.

Why I buy the cheap baloney

$1.49. But that’s not why I buy the cheap baloney. I buy it because it is thick, spicy and meaty. And it has a red band around it which must be removed before consuming. It is the ritual of preparing it. It is white bread. Mustard. Miracle Whip – the blue collarness of it that feels so comforting for some odd reason. A connection to my roots.

It is NOT the Oscar Meyer $3.49 a package, thinly sliced with lower fat and turkey by-products. I buy the cheap baloney. I know it is artery clogging, but stomach satisfying. Proust had his madelines. I have baloney.

I stand next to a tiny black woman in the grocery.

“Oh lawd. Look how prices have gone up.” She shakes her head and reaches for the $1.49 package. She remembers, I learn, when it was only 69. cents a package. Prices, it seems have almost tripled since she was my age 30 years ago.

Back when she was buying baloney at .69 cents a pound, I was just learning to eat it. I must have had baloney sandwiches as a child, but I don’t remember them.

The first baloney sandwich I can recall was when I was 22. I was working construction and a co-worker, whose stories I remember, but whose name I forget, shared half his sandwiches with me. White bread, a thick slab of baloney, Miracle Whip and mustard and two crunchy leaves of lettuce. It was heavenly.  Ft. Collins, Colorado on a warm spring day. Trees were budding and it was the best sandwich I have ever tasted and I don’t know why. Maybe because I was hungry and broke and he shared his lunch. Maybe it was the baloney itself – going for .69 cents a package. Maybe it the Colorado Rockies and something in the water. To this day I can’t eat baloney without remembering.

“Do you like it fried?” she asks.

“Oh yes!”

“Me too,” she smiles, then starts laughing.

“Fried baloney and greens,” she giggles.

“I like it better than anything.”

How I got hooked on Twitter

How can you really know people until you read their Twitters? I want to be the gearshift in their Volkswagon. Do they even drive a Volkswagon? Or at least the skull on their bookshelf. Something about Martin Whitmore just screams skulls on bookshelves. Or something. I want to be something in Megan’s World so I can hear all their Twitters – like those I got yesterday. And you wonder why I got hooked on Twitter?

“You don’t even know where we’re going. I have a penis. I’ll get us there.”

Marty: “You mean to establish a routine we actually have to DO the things in the routine? On a regular basis? I don’t like this.”

Daddy Warbucks: “Well I decided then and there that one day I would be rich — very very rich!” Annie: “Good idea!”

I can’t have profound existential validation until everyone I friended on Facebook friends me back. Until then, my life is totally over.

“What if we… [horrible gross suggestion for project]?” “That’s really gross, Marty.” “So it wins. That’s how we play this game, right?”

All you people without the Dr. Horrible DVD are SO INCREDIBLY jealous of me.

from http://twitter.com/worldmegan.
Hey. You can follow them too.

Then there’s Daniel Pink. He’s Al Gore’s speech writer and has a great book called Johnny Bunko, a manga (comic book) about business. I’m one of three finalists in his writing contest for the seventh lesson in Johnny Bunko’s world. Now you know where the name for this blog came from.

Does America need a Secretary of Culture? http://www.nytimes.com/2008… or how about:

The rest of the afternoon will be devoted to setting up Time Capsule. You see, I work so Steve Jobs doesn’t have to.

How to survive Great Depression 2.0: Come up with a product idea as brilliant as Baconnaise http://tinyurl.com/3vcep4 (I have Daniel Pink to thank for my discovering Baconnaise)

I’m OK because you’re not. (Via Pink Blog and NYT) . . . http://is.gd/dHC9
from http://twitter.com/DanielPink

Then there’s http://twitter.com/devijvers. The man is writing the most awesome book. He is inspired. Brilliant. Gifted. He inspires me. Why is it taking him so long to finish? I have to wait until January. But then I’ll post the link. Once in blue moon such vision comes along. How can someone this young be so aware? I will post pieces of his book here and it will be eye candy so sweet your teeth will hurt when you read it. I promise. I have seen the future and Steven is a force in it. If you absolutely can’t bear the wait. Read it yourself, HERE.

It didn’t take long. Wasn’t painful. Was delightfully funny. Try it yourself.