The id of dogcow

So remember that genius bar appointment. It went well. They saw almost dead on time and swapping the phone was a breeze. The appointment was at 5:10, my name was called at around 5:13, and by 5:20 I was on my way with a new phone. The genius moved the SIM card over and the phone seemed to be activated ( I never tried to make a call ). I could access anything on the phone. I had my powerbook with me so I plugged it into iTunes to sync. It went through some type of activation sequence and decided to tell me that my plan was not a valid plan for this type of phone. So I did the usual. I reset the phone, I restored the phone, I reseated the SIM card, I rebooted the computer and tried 1 and 2  and 3 again. No luck. Same error. After about 30 to 45 minutes of this I just assumed I needed a new SIM or something of that nature so I headed to the AT&T store around the corner. I explained what happened. They checked my account - everything looked peachy. We plugged my phone into his computer - same error. He had me call the number on the error message screen from iTunes. After being on hold for a short while, the AT&T representative told me he could not access prepaid info so he xferred me. On hold again, I finally talked to a prepaid rep who knew nothing about iPhones or iTunes. She was nice but clueless and transferred me to Apple tech support tier 1. After verifying my computer, and iTunes and getting the explaination of what happened, I was transferred to tier 2 at Apple. This guy verified everything did some research and got on the horn with AT&T tier 2. This guy finally knew the answer. Basically prepaid is prepaid. There is no option nor any plan to make an option to transfer prepaid service from phone A to phone B regardless of the type of phone it is. Initially I did not like that answer, but it makes sense for any other cheap prepair phone you buy in Wal*Mart or Target or wherever. There really isn’t a need transfer prepair service. I do wish Apple and AT&T would have worked something like this out for the iPhone. And I do wish all the previous people I talked to had known this. All where nice and patient and tied to help within the bounds of their jobs, but after it was all said and done I did not get off the phone with the last guy until 8:35 some a little over 3 hours after I swapped my phone.

That last post was my first in awhile that made it to the web. I had several queued up that were on my eMate. But alas my eMate no longer powers on and I never got a chance to sync it to my Pismo. Also the formatting is all wonky because I started trying some blog software called Qumana. I did not realize it defaulted to right aligned. Strange, but fixed now. But on to the business at hand. My iphone has developed this cool ( not really ) problem where a portion of my screen no longer accepts touch input. I restored it. Didn’t fix it. I suspected hardware all along, but since I work in tech support I may as well not be a hypocrite and do the steps. I should go to an Apple store and demand a replacement I have made a genius bar appointment for today. Never had one before so we’ll see how that goes. I think the stores have a pretty good system in place for the most part. Not sure they are equipped to handle the traffic some of them get though. Hopefully they’ll be on time today. Now for lunch.

So a while ago I saw the new Transformers movie. I must say I did not like it at all. There I said it. It was easy not to like this movie. I did not like the fact that it was a car commercial basically. I did not like the fact that Optimus Prime seemed like a cross between Optimus and Rodimus. But by far the worst part is the end of the movie. That last scene. It’s like a threesome with Bumblebee and the two human heroes. And the other autobots watching like some kind of mechanical voyeurs. It was just a little too over the top for me.

A funny thing at MacWorld. I was walking by the Apple exhibit, which was by far the biggest on the show floor, and there appeared to be a problem. There was a row of MacBooks each with an ipod. Strangely the ipod were not connected to the computers. All the cords disappeared over the back edge of the platform where these things were sitting. So apparently as I walked by a supervisor type had just made the call that one of the ipods was having a problem - no power. Since the cords disappear behind the back, there was no way for those working the display there to do anything about it. Within a few seconds, 4 somber looking guys quickly appeared. Two were carrying flat pry bars. They very quickly proceeded to remove a front panel below the table surface exposing an literal nest of cabling. They addressed the ipod problem ( it simply needed to be plugged in again ) and replaced the panel. Then one of the men, came in behind them with cleaner and a rag and wiped everything down - no trace. As quickly as they arrived, they were gone. The whole thing barely took two minutes. It was like some sort of covert operation in a South American country. I am sure if I had approached them, they would have denied everything. Just a funny thing a MacWorld.

I stopped by target today to get some things. I actually forgot what I went there for when I went in but managed to salvage the trip and get a couple of things I needed even though I don’t think it was what I went there for but that was only the beginning. When I went back to my car, I noticed the drive side door was not locked. Shit I thought I locked it. Oh well, nothing worth stealing in the card anyway. After I got in I noticed all the doors were unlocked. Strange since my power locks have not worked for some time, there would be no way to accidentally unlock all the doors. I or someone would have had to go to each door and unlock them. Most bizarre. Everything looks fine. No evidence of anyone ransacking the car. I dismissed it mostly because I could not explain it. Then my horn beeped on its own. Nothing major. Just a short little toot. I cranked the car and then noticed the light on the dashboard telling me the back hatch was open. I got out, walked around and sure enough, open. Hmph. I secured it and got back in a began driving away. My horn decided to toot sporadically in short little bursts. People in other cars thought I was being an ass I’m sure. I got some looks. My response was always the same. I took my hands off the wheel and held them up helplessly as if to say “What the hell just happened”. I decided I would pull into the 7-1-1 and see if I could tinker with it since I had to get some gasoline anyway. My horn only blew 3 times while I was getting gas, confusing the other customers. I said nothing and pretended to not even hear it.

Other tinkerers out there may be thinking, just pull the fuse for the horn. This is almost a viable solution. I abhor horns and horn blowers. I rarely if ever blow my horn in traffic. I find it most obnoxious and usually unnecessary. However, the fuse for the horn also serves as the fuse for two other features, one being the shift lock release. Not a big deal. Under normal operation, when I press the brake, a switch is flipped that allows me to take the car out of park. With that fuse removed I would have to manually release the gear shift each time I wanted to come out of park. Annoying but doable. But the third feature is the deal breaker. That same fuse also supports my brake lights. Remove it and I have no brake lights. That my friends is a deal breaker. Back to the drawing board.

I considered cutting the hot wire to the horn. But then I thought about the state of the care when I came out of the store. The door locks has all released. To the manual. I looked at the fuse diagram, found the one for the power locks and noted that it was not used for anything but the locks. Awesome. Easy enough to try. I pulled the fuse. That was several hours ago. No horn issues so far. I suppose there is some wiring issues. One day I’ll open the dash pull the wiring harness and look around. But not today. I’ll take my easy solution for now and chalk up another win for troubleshooting and common sense.

Verdict: errant electrons.

So while I was walking the floor at MacWorld, I spied the Matias booth. They used to have this really nice keyboard. Why was it so nice ? Well because it used mechanical switches to activate the keys. Those switches made by ALPS. But alas the company does not make those nice buckling spring switches anymore. So the matias keyboard was no more. BUT, thankfully Matias has decided to make there own switches for a new version of the keyboard. I tried out a demo unit at their booth. It is a beautiful thing. If feels so good to type on that keyboard. The original had a 5 year warranty. The new one only has a standard one year, but still I plan to buy one when they ship in the Spring. You can check it out here.

Working in a mall as I do, I get to observe a large selection of mannequins. The thing that strikes me the oddest is why do they have to have so much detail - especially the female ones. I mean really they only need to display the clothes not show you exactly how they will fit as it seems they do. If the mannequins were actually realistic in proportions then I say go ahead and make the detailed I guess. But being that they are all anorexic in a society that is borderline obese makes no sense to me. The female mannequins come complete with nipples, muscle tone, and a fairly well detailed genital area. None of this is needed to coordinate clothes. I can only assume the real reason these models mannequins look as they do, is to make the clothes look as good as possible. This would make the mannequins arguably the most potent of sales people - without ever saying a word. Amazing really. But then I wonder do people really look at the mannequins. I know there is the classic example of the slyle impaired guy going to the clothing store and just buying whatever is on the mannequin. But does that really happen. Most people with steroscopic color vision can coordinate clothes if they just try. All you really have to do is look a colorwheel. But some people are lazy I guess. The thing is I don’t always agree with the arrangments placed on the mannequins. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. And again, unless you are built like a mannequin, you have to add your actual body type to the equation as well.

But geting back to the realism of the mannequin, there are times when they are nude. And this always makes me do a doubletake as I walk by. Out of the corner of my eye, it almost looks like a person. It’s ridiculous. I feel like I walked in on someone changing clothes. So again no need for the details. I prefer those headless armless things. I prefer not to see fake tummies and nipples exposed through sheer tops and low cut pants. It’s almost disturbing. And I am sure these types of mannequins help convince girls that they need to be skinny and have that look so they can wear these clothes and be liked, and get dates, etc etc. Disgusting really.

I am so glad I am not a girl.

Well, its come and gone and my worst fear has been imagined. Apple did release a phone and it was received with much enthusiasm. But the experience was really quite interesting. The energy that filled the hall was almost rock concert like. When people came in, they scrambled for seats and made every attempt to position in themselves at some vantage point they felt was suitable. There was some pushing and shoving but it was minimal. Some expected maybe Greenpeace would cause a scene. They didn’t. The keynote was smooth for the most part. There was a point near the end, where the remote stopped responding. It was touch and go, but Jobs being the showman that he is pulled out a story of days gone by and I am sure folks in the back where scrambling. Someone may have even been fired, who knows. The staffers working the show had to wear these horrible baby blue tee shirts. There were a couple of guest speakers. One from Cingular and one from Yahoo. The Cingular CEO was not accustomed to giving live flashy performances. He barely looked at the crowd and read his notes from these huge cards in a dry monotonic delivery that would make anyone fall asleep. On top of all that, he repeated himself repeated himself multiple times. The chief Yahoo was a little better but I guess everyone pales next to Jobs when it comes to delivery and showmanship. And then John Mayer ended the show with a two song mini concert. I think way too much time was spent on the phone. No mention of Leopard ? There was even a Airport Extreme release that happened as silently as snowfall. But even still the event was something every Mac use should check out at some point. I still haven’t made it through all the booths yet, but there is still two more days…

Well I am in California now. The flight was long and uneventful. All said it was over 5 and half hours but of course you gain three back for the time zones. Got to the airport this morning about an hour early. That really wasn’t enough time. The line through the security check was mammoth. In fact, an airport employee went through and harvested people for the 7:06 and earlier flights and moved them to the froont of the line. Even with that, I still barely boarded the plane on time. I had an aisle seat and no carry on except for a laptop bag so it was all groovy from there.

Getting to the hotel from the airport was smooth as silk. We did land at the international terminal so there was a trek to the domestic baggage claim but nothing major. I was starving by then. So I hit up a subway. There was a CDC employee eating there so it must be good right ?

Then it was on to the AirTrain which is a rail based shuttle. That took me to the BART terminal. Getting the BART pass was a breeze. The ride into town was smooth. Although I will say, there seemed to be the smell of urine where I was sitting. But what do you expect when you seats are cloth and the floor is carpeted. It is mass transit after all.

My hotel was only about 2 or 3 blocks from the stop. Nice. The hotel is nice as well. The room as a refrigerator and snack drawer. Inside the snack drawer, is a metal rack with candy bars and the like. Each item is sitting on a sensor. So if the item is moved, your card gets charged. The prices are ridiculous. Like 4 bucks for a candy bar.

Downtown San Francisco is nice though. A little slow but nice. More to follow…

I wasn’t planning on going to any New Year’s parties as I typically don’t see the significance of a very generic day passing. But I did end up stopping by a party on the way home from work. It was pretty low key - just some folks from work hanging out. But there was some brief moments of excitement that made it interesting. One highlight was related to the frat-like party next door. They had a truck outside that was apparently reserved for fuck sessions. We say two different couples go out there, get it on, and then re-enter their party.

Then there was the roommate. She entered the picture much later. Apparently she and her boyfriend had went out for a night on the town. When they returned she was completely smashed. In fact she stumbled into the living room and was barely able to walk most of the night. She was the typical loud apologetic drunk girl. She kept apologizing and trying to make out with every other girl there. She felt up her roommate repeatedly. Her boyfriend finally got her up to her room for the night, or so we all thought. She returned with a bang. The highlight of the night involved a coffee table face plant, a drunken asian fish rescue attempt, and finally the death and rebirth of a fish not named Wanda.

The scene started innocently enough. She was on one couch and decided she wanted to make her way over the other couch where her boyfriend was sitting. By this time, she knows she cannot walk very well, so she walks across the room on her knees ( not all fours, just her knees ). She manages to make to the end of the couch and navigates her way in between the couch and the coffee table. She then starts the arduous ( for her ) task of making her way to the far end of the couch where her beloved was sitting. She made it to where she wanted to be I guess, and then attempted to stand. What happened next was almost surreal. After she made it about 3/4 of the way to upright, she started to sway a little, like a giant oak in a stiff breeze. Before anyone could react or possibly even notice, she started leaning decidedly to the left away from the couch and towards the coffee table. The next thing we all knew, she had face planted the coffee table with a loud thud.

An unfortunate thing resulted. On the table was a fish bowl, with a black Beta fish floating casually minding his own business. After the face plant that bowl was in the floor with most of the water in the carpet, and the fish flapping helplessly on the carpet as well. Then the Asian came into the scene. Quick as a cat, he came to the fish’s rescue, scooping it up, putting it in the bowl whcih had maybe an inch of water remaining, and ran into the kitchen and filled the bowl with cold chlorinated tap water. The fish seemed ok at first. Then it seemed to stop moving. Someone put their finger in the water, and the fish flipped to its side and floated to the bottom like a leaf fluttering the ground in a gentle breeze. Sad it was. But then about an hour or so later, it was reborn and rose from the bottom like the phoenix itself. Amazing.

If you aren’t reading this blog you should be. And that is pretty much all that needs to be said.

Through the magic of Christmas, I have managed to arrange going to MacWorld in January. Awesome. For those that don’t know. It really just a trade show for all things Macintosh, of which I am a user. It is in San Francisco. I’ll be flying out on the 8th early in the AM and flying back late in the PM on the 12th. I hope to be able to update this site with some information from the show. My plan is to attend the keynote expo by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Hopefully more will be announced than an iTV device and an iPhone thingy. I have no desire for my first and possibly only keynote attendance be marred by such consumer electronics BS. Gimme a Leopard into, gimme new case designs. Gimme some good stuff, man. And where has the iSight been hiding lately ?

A few days before Christmas, I was in a local Borders bookstore. I was in the history section, which is one of the few sections I tend to visit repeatedly. Anyway, I was minding my own business as I normally am. It was later in the day. Actually it was around 10:30 or 11:00 at night since Borders was staying open til midnight to squeeze precious shopping minutes in before the big day. So this guy walks by. We make eye contact but say nothing. Then he gets about 3 steps past me, stops on a dime and comments

“Whoa I thought that was your hair”.

“Not quite I say”, and he walks on.

To explain that interaction, you simply need to know that I was wearing a fuzzy knit cap ( I call them toboggans but on one else here seems to ) that is brightly colored. It look nothing like hair to a sane person. Keep that in mind. As I continue to peruse the section, he comes back by and stops to chat. He was dressed in all camoflaged clothing. His boots were tattered and taped together with duct tape. He sported to knapsacks - both matching camoflaged material. I suspect he was homeless. But then without much introduction he hands me some literature to read.

“Hmm”, I say, “Interesting”. I glance the pages over quickly. Something about two separate reports he has printed from websites. Both seem to be about bigfoot sightings. I hand them back to him.

“No, go ahead and read them”, he says, pushing them back in my direction.

“Oh, thanks”, I begin to read. But my original cursory perusal was enough to get the gist and my complete reading confirms the subject matter and that this guy is on the high side of looney.

As I read the articles, he continues to chat either with me or other passersby.

“Pretty good stuff, what do you think?” he queries.

“Yeah seems valid enough, so you don’t think this one was the missing kid, but sasquatch huh?”

“Hard to say”, his face seems to indicate that we are having a valid intellectual conversation.

Then he begins to rant about some website that the second one came from. They have these authentic sound clips of bigfoot. But he complains that when you click on the links for them, it taks you to a page to buy the sounds on disc.

“Yeah, that sucks when they try to force you into buys stuff,” I conclude.

“I’m not even sure of the quality of the clips, so I don’t want to buy them not knowing.”

“Makes sense”, I say, wondering how this guy has enough money to buy a cup of coffee, let alone a CD of bigfoot sounds. At this point, I had the pages back to him after reading them in full.

“Thanks, man”.

“Hey you have a Merry Christmas”, he says.

“You too, be safe”, I say.

He walks away. Interesting.

A true David and Goliath type story. I was on the way home this morning. Let me set the stage. A four lane road, two lanes each way with a small median separating directions. The speed limit is 30 or 40 MPH. Driving along and the car in front of me bows up and I can’t see why. Then a moment later, there trots the reason. A small dog - maybe two handfuls in size. You know the type. His little short legs are moving so fast that he should be moving faster than he is. Anyway, he’s trotting like he owns the whole road - tail straight up, head up high. He keeps going to the left, crosses the median and hits the lane on the other side. Here comes an ambulance. Not the run of the mill ambulances but one of those super ambulances - the big boxy type. It tries to swerve a little. The result is the dog is dead center of the vehicle. So no wheels to worry about. And it looks like he is small enough that the vehicle will pass right over him no harm done. But then as if to challenge his agressor, the dog squares off with the oncoming emergency chariot, stretches his head as high as he can, and begins barking at the ambulance as if to say. “Why the hell are you in my way”. Surprisingly, the ambulance is able to stop just short of the dog, who defiantly lets out another bark right at the front bumper and the proceeds to cross the road.

Well boys and girls, today’s topic is something you might not want to talk about but secretly enjoy doing. What’s that you say ? Whatever could it be ? It’s anal sex. Anal sex is something I personally have never experienced neither giving nor receiving. Logically I can understand why a guy would like receiving it. There is that sensitive little prostate in there. It is basically the equivalent of the g spot.

But I digress. What puzzles me more is the fact that guys like to penetrate girl’s rectums. I truly don’t get the appeal of this for a few reasons. First of all unless the girls has used an enema prior to the act, its going to be a little dirty up in there. Second of all, no matter how small you penis is, its going to be pretty tight unless she’s been busy. And third, is it really going to feel physically better than that other place that works so well and keeps the penis so nice and warm ? I don’t see how it could.

Apparently I am naive. Lots of girls tell me they like receiving it in the rectum. They even go so far as to tell me they can climax from it. Hmmm. And guys seem to think its all kinds of hot. But I just don’t get it. I really don’t. Granted this is coming from a guy who doesn’t even really like porn. And maybe that is the clue. I suspect its more of a psychological thing anyway. Maybe a dominance or submissive thing depending on which end you are on. Maybe just a dirty little act. Maybe it feels really really good. I guess there is the whole not having to worry about pregnancy thing. Hmmm.

I still don’t get it. If someone can shed some light on it feel free to enlighten me, but I just don’t get it.

Picking a browser seems to be such a simple task. But it basically the workhourse application of the modern computer user. It is the swiss army knife of surfing. Whether its posting to a blog, general surfing, doing webmail, developing websites, etc, the browser is always right there. So should I settle for a whatever browser is bundled with my computer ? I think not.

Currently there are 8 browsers installed on my computer. They are in no particular order : Camino, Firefox, Scourge, Shiira, Sarafi, OmniWeb, Sunrise, and Lynx. They are way more and I have tried many of them, but these are the finalists. There are basically two camps of development for browsers running on a Mac OS X system: webkit and gecko.

Webkit, sometimes referred to as WebCore, came from the old KHTML and KJS libraries from KDE. Apple uses it in Safari, Mail, Dashboard, and probably a lot of other OS X applications. Scourge, Shiira, Sunrise and OmniWeb all use Webkit rendering engines. Gecko on the other hand, came from Netscape. Camino and Firefox use this rendering engine. Lynx is the odd man out as it is a text based browser.

I use all these browsers off and on as none of them have completely convinced me that they are the king of the realm. OmniWeb is a special case. I just starting using it because it is not a free browser. I have the trial version and have about 28 days left to decide if its worth paying for when so many other apps do the same types of tasks for free.

There are two main sticking points for me and browser to have a fun and loving relationship. Actually three, with the third being less important but still a valid consideration. The first is speed. All things being equal, the browser needs to be able to render a page as quickly as possible. If I am doing some general browsing, I will be loading a lot of pages clicking on various links. I don’t want to spend a good deal of time waiting for this type of action. The second is resource usage. I can’t stand for something as simple as a browser to use a ridiculous amount of CPU cycles. All browsers tend to be resource hogs but some are better than others. And the third albeit minor point is look and feel. Since I am going to be looking at it a lot, I prefer it to be pleasing to the eye.

Note that I use all these on a Mac. Also note that I have not performed any hard fast head to head tests. The one test I perform is to use the browser as it was meant to be used - doing all the tasks you do when you browse.

Firefox, to me, is by far the ugliest of the browsers, however Safari is a close second. I hate brushed metal (yes I know you can hack it away). The best looking browser is probably Omniweb with Camino being a close second - although the beta of Shiira looks pretty slick. Once its officially released it may jump to the top of this category.

Resource usage is a bit trickier. If you want you browser to have all the bells and whistles, it will cost you resources. The obvious winner here is Lynx. That should be clear to anyone as to why that is. Sunrise is light on resource usage but really stripped down. Its target audience is web developers and I think it hits that mark really well. OmniWeb is next hovering in the 20 - 30 % CPU usage on my computer. The rest - well - the rest really suck in this category. Usage can go anywhere from the 40% range on up. Its atrocious. Truly.

Speed. It kills. And a lack of it will make me stop using a browser at the drop of hat. Firefox and Safari are by far the slowest browsers. Although Firefox 2.0, recently released, seems a bit better but still slow. OmniWeb is the fastest full featured browser while Sunrise is simply greased lightning. But it comes at a cost. Sunrise has no tab support and no address autofills ( you have to type http://www…com everytime ) These are deal breakers for most I assume, but the speed gain is phenomenal and that speed alone keeps it in my Applications folder. Camino is moderately faster than the slower browsers.

The main drawback to OmniWeb is price. Not being free makes it a hard sell. BUT again the browser is your most used application by far. And OmniWeb is as polished as a browser can be. Everyone should use the trial for 30 days a see for themselves. The jury is still out for me. Some have there pluses. Firefox, will slow, has a plugin architecture and works well with sites that want you use Internet Explorer. Shiira is a good middle of the road browser. It looks ok, is reasonable speedy and is on the lower end of resource usage as browsers go.

My point to all this is don’t accept the bundled browser if you do a lot of browsing. There is a browser out there that does certain tasks really well. If you fit into one of those niches, then you should explore your options and not hinder yourself with a browser that sucks at what you do most with it. I will continue to use different browsers as my tasks change. Which one do I use the most (read: which one has all my bookmarks ?) Camino right now. That may change to Shiira when 2.0 is released officially. Or OmniWeb if I decide to pay. Again they all have certain things they do better than the others. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

As I see it, there are basically two types of gaseous emissions from the anus. In short, they are either shallow, or deep. The shallow ones seem to develop quickly just below the “surface”. I guess just inside the sphincter. They are usually the noisier of the two like a childs toy horn but also the least foul smelling. It’s sort of like the bubbles that form when you run your finger through still water rather quickly. Not much to them - all bark and no bite so to speak.

Then there are the deep ones. These seem to stew and swirl in the deep recesses of the bowels until ready to unleash themselves on the world. The bubble up from the firmware load of the colon and spew forth in a typically silent but noxious array of odor that can be quite potent and generally unpleasant. You can feel them welling up over time almost as if they are waiting for the worst possible time to launch.

I don’t know which is the worse of the two. The noisy ones bring a momentary spike in attention and possibly an embarrassing few seconds but nothing more. Those deeps ones can linger and spead forth a malodorous aroma that lasts for several minutes and can clear a room under the right circumstances. But its often hard to determine the culprit as they are usually the silent killer.

“Shit rises to the top” “The buoyancy effect” “The Peter principle” “Rising to the level of your own incompetence”

All these basically refer to the same phenomenon. That is that people in the workplace will continue to get promoted or advance to the level of there own incompetence. The sad truth is that people will do a job and do it well, then get promoted up the ladder a notch ot two. The time will pass, they will excel at that position and move up again. But the somwhat sad ending to this is that a person will generally advance to a position and upon not excelling or performing admirably, will not advance any further. They may be okay at the job but not amazing - definitely not well enough to advance. So they end up doing a job or performing a role that they may not be best suited for and may not actually do really well. But as long as they don’t completely screw something up, they will continue to work at that job possibly for as long as they are at that company. It’s almost depressing how much this happens and I don’t necessarily blame the employee for this. It usually starts by people getting promoted for the wrong reason. For example, let’s say you work in a call center doing phone support. Let’s say you do that job really well. Typical metrics for a support representative are things like call time, first call resolution, etc. In most typical centers (but not all) the next logical progression from tier 1 agent is to move up to a coach or manager or lead for a tier 1 team. Promotion is generally based on your performance as a representative on the phone. Well guess what. Just because you do well on the phone with customers and you hit your metrics bears no indication on whether or not you can lead a diverse group of people, coach them, and instill in them the same skill you possess. You may be able to but more than likely you cannot. That is not a natural progression of skill. It takes a different set of talents to manage other people at performing a task other than being good at said task yourself.

This is just one example. But it happens over an over in different job types. I have either seen it myself in other areas or discussed with other people that have witnessed it in other areas. It is an unfortunate but typical path an employee makes from starting with a company, staying there for a longer period of time and continuing to do well in the roles he is given. He or she will eventually get to a role that they do not excel in and there will be where that person spends a large chunk or possible the remaining amount of his tenure with that company. Is there really a solution ? Probably not a hard and fast one that will work in all situations. Better selection of personnel is an obvious one. Promoting people to a position because you believe or see the potential of success in the new position as opposed to the old one may work in some cases. But ultimately I guess you would like to think that if someone is good in a position, they would be equally good at the next level but seldom does that seem to translate.

Is there a finite amount of creativity in our or any society? The cut reaction would be no I would hope. But then the question may come up how do you define an amount of creativity. Well, let me make a few observations. It seems like less big things are invented all the time. Are we just running out of things to invent. It seems as though every new patent is simply a minor alteration of something that already exists. Have we hit a ceiling? Are there no more big things to come up with? To further reinforce this, look at the movie/music industry. There is this constant recycling of ideas and stories. Movies are either remakes of older movies, or remakes of older movies that were adapted from books, etc etc. Songs are constantly covered and recovered and updated. But the percentage of truly news creative work seems to be dwindling at an ever alarming rate. The independents seem to do ok at producing new material. But the bigger operations seem content to just recycle things for the sake of making money. Anyone that does have something orginal to add, probably never gets much of a chance. And don’t get me started on the computer user interface. When did that last see any significant updates? We’ve been using the standard mouse and windows combination since Apple “borrowed” the idea from Xerox. The mouse seemed to bring the computer to the masses foregoing the arcane cryptic (to some) command line interface. But of course “power” users still rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts and command line inputs even now.

Well I tried out another razor. My conclusion is either I cannot shave very well or razor technology has peaked. I am convinced that the law of diminishing returns takes over when the number of blades is greater than 3. I will admit that there is a pretty significant improvement in the shaving experience going from 2 blades to 3. But, when I tried out the Fusion a while ago, which has 4 blades ( a fifth blade is on the back of the razor head for trimming sideburns and such) I was not impressed. There was little difference in the feel and cut of the 4 blades compared to the three. So I decided recently to try the three blader with the vibrating head. You slide a AAA battery into the handle and push a button on the handle and whamo you are shaving with 3 blades that vibrate as you drag sharp metal across your face (and whereever else you decide to use it) The verdict? I think it was a little better than the non vibrating 4 blader. It definitely felt better as I was shaving. And I think it was a slightly closer shave. It seemed significantly better shaving my chest. And yes I tried it on my testicles, and it worked pretty well there too. It definitely felt good doing it.