Some random thoughts.
1.) Have you ever said a word so many times in a row that it no longer seems to be a real word and you start to think it is just something you made up? Try it. Take “gesticulate,” say it thirty times real fast, and after a while, it no longer seems to be a word. I had an experience like that this afternoon. I was sitting on the porch, and it was a beautiful cool day, and I looked up, and the clouds seemed to be moving in a southwestern fashion. Now, I’ve always been under the impression that clouds move west to east, so it confused me. I remember the big takeaway I had when I was doing military training in Devil’s Lake, ND, was that the clouds moved so much quicker and seemed so much lower to the ground.
But then, today, the more I thought about it, the more I began to doubt that clouds moved west to east- “Do they move west to east? The sun rises in the east, I know that, but am I just misremembering? Is this a special weather event? Do they normally go west to east but wind patterns can sometimes change it? What about the rotation of the planet- does that have anything to do with it?,” until I was to the point that I honestly could not remember, and like when you repeat a word so many times it no longer makes sense, I had no baseline for sanity. At that very point, I began to wonder if I was having a stroke or had very early onset Alzheimer’s. I’d always heard that if you were having a stroke, one side effect that people experience is the smell of burning hair. I sniffed, and smelled no burning hair, and just settled on the fact that I might possibly be insane.
For those of you reading this thinking “Oh, dear God,” I just want you to know that I deal with this kind of runaway thought processes all day every day. You wonder how I hurt myself mopping? THIS IS HOW.
2.) Please do not install ad block. Ads are the way we fund this site. I know there was a problem with sitemeter, but it was not specific to this website, and I think it has been fixed.
3.) I am not a big fan of fetish fetishist Bob McDonnell in Va, but I do have to say I am a fan of the “This shit has gone on too long, fix this clusterfuck by 3pm or you are all fired” approach to management. I think it is an underutilized approach.
4.) I have degenerate beans that will not follow the poles and string I have put up, and it is really pissing me off. They are probably, at this point, in the equivalent of their teen years as far as beans go, so maybe next week they will follow my guidance and use the strings to grow in the proper direction.
5.) Damages Season 4 showed up on my doorstep today. I had forgotten I had even pre-ordered it. I’m not usually one for scrawny women, but Rose Byrne makes me sweat.
That is all.
Walker
I do not block ads, but I do block flash. Tired of flash ads memory leaking my browser into destruction.
brettvk
#1: This happens to me with words all the time. Jumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjump. I lol’ed in recognition.
Genine
This is why you’re awesome, John.
Idiot!
dead existentialist
@Walker: Dude . . . I know. That leakage is a tell-tale sign of santorum. Go on now, get the hose.
J.W. Hamner
I thought clouds just moved with the wind?
TXG1112
Spoon spoon spoon spoon spoon spoon spoon spoon….one of my favorites for that.
You sure you weren’t just really stoned? You’re like this all the time? Now certain things are starting to make sense around here.
UncommonSense
I got the first disc of Damages Season 4 from Netflix today, and just finished watching episode one.
So far, it hasn’t grabbed me as quickly as Season 3 did, but it’s still better than pretty much everything else on TV except Breaking Bad.
I haven’t seen Dylan Baker play this kind of character before, either. It took me a bit to recognize him, he’s so out of type here. He’s good. I hope they use him to full effect as the season progresses.
jl
” Have you ever said a word so many times in a row that it no longer seems to be a real word and you start to think it is just something you made up? ”
This blog going to do philosophy now, or what?
But, yes. (Edit: except I don’t have to repeat it, it just happens from time to time. I guess I am a little odd in the head)
For me it is simple words. Usually homonyms. And idioms. I’ll say an idiom and then think ‘WTF is with that? It doesn’t make sense. Why do we say that?’
And English language spelling, which is insane. I will look at some word that has an insane spelling and it quits making sense for a second. Than I think ‘Whoever came up with that shit, somethings wrong upstairs with that crowd.’ Which might be true.
Valdivia
John: you are the best, we love you.
that is all.
I get your Rose Byrn thing. She is beautiful, but she really needs to have a sandwich, or something. That’s not skinny that’s I have an eating disorder thin.
UncommonSense
By the way, I did that repetition thing with the word “chair” a few years ago. It freaked me out. I try not to do that any more.
Mark S.
Don’t clouds move any direction the wind takes them? I know I’ve seen them move in from the north (or have I?).
The Voyager 1 probe is leaving our solar system. In two hundred years it will have attained consciousness and will try to destroy the Earth.
Keith
@Walker: Ditto, and my feelings on this are that if a site is making money by giving someone free enough reign to ask for user credentials, I really no longer care if I deprive them of revenue or not. Associate with sitemeter (who has also had a long reputation for installing tracking cookies as well), and all bets are off.
Jade Jordan
John, please stop using bath salts. Before we know it you will start growling and eat Tunch.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I still haven’t recovered from reading a post last night in which burnsie said “squeeee.”
MikeJ
Rose Byrne is pretty cute, but there’s no way I’d say say she’s gross and fat as a whale. Saying she’s ok looking in spite of her weight is pretty dickish.
Yutsano
@Mark S.:
With any luck by then the hairless apes will all be extinct. And the dolphins can blame one more shitty thing on us.
Shinobi
Re 1. I find that the word Golf only requires about two repetitions before I’m like WTF?
jl
And I promise I will never block ads. I am a Tunch fan and want him to have his bedtime snack always.
And I like to see how quickly the ads respond to some randome nonsense I did a little bit earlier. There was some thread a year ago, brought on a fricktastic garden gnome ad attack.
I do that to give my paranoia gland a little exercise and keep it fit. Once in awhile this blog does politics and I hae to stay in shape.
Edit: not sure comments will trigger it, so probably safe, but I had a brief garden gnome ad attack a few days ago.
trollhattan
“Degenerate Beans” shall henceforth be the name of my next(first) band.
Thank you.
jeff
I’m a shareholder of Kraft Foods, which released a web ad with a rainbow Oreo in honor of Pride Week. I cannot tell you how idiotic the response has been. I am buying another 50 shares though on the 2% dip from assholes selling their shares. Morons.
scav
Depends where and when you are for the usually prevailing winds and clouds. If however, you ever see the clouds moving with luggage and or a moving van seek medical attention, don’t wait for the hair test. Actually, if you see the clouds moving with a moving van, seek shelter.
Nemo_N
That’s why I don’t repeat words too often. I end up freaking out.
Also, I had two horrible ad-related malware experiences in the past three years, one through TDS site the other one Siliconera (an almost one more through HuffPost) so I’m using adblock out of fear not out of annoyance. Nothing personal, I can live with ads, but not malware.
waynski
I wonder what Seamus the Irish Setter licking his balls at the old fogies club thinks of the lyrics Bruce Springsteen’s Rosalita (pasted below) and what would
Charles MurrayJan Brewer think? David Brooks is a spiddling, piffling, twaddling fop. I think one of those is a word. Here’s the Boss:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WL25NcSIgM
clayton
You are on disability, right?
You are done with real work.
It’s the goal of all wingnuts. You just aren’t doing it right.
Maybe it’s because of where you live.
I hope you enjoy doing next to nothing. And still get paid.
JGabriel
__
__
John Cole @ Top:
You should probably talk to a doctor about that. Unless it’s embarrassing.
.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@waynski: Jan Brewer doesn’t think, she’s a Republican.
jl
And clouds are just what happens when moist air reaches the dew point. I think wind moves ‘through’ clouds just as often as wind moves the clouds.
Open your mind, Cole! Throw off the shackles from you mind.
Cole, of all people, who more than anyone I have heard of, is a plaything of his pets imagination, should know that things are not always what they seem.
Lojasmo
1- yes
2- I don’t
3- wat?
4-tomatoes
5- ah, netflix
Calimatt
Q 1f: What about the rotation of the planet- does that have anything to do with it?
A: Yes! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect#Meteorology
danielx
@waynski:
David Brooks is a lot of things, but the expression that leaps to the forefront of what passes for my brain is mendacious asshole. What can I say….
Note: caring for an adult with a hip replacement is like having a month old infant at home, except that the infant is easier to care for and (usually) there is someone else with whom to share off on the really fun parts. I’m getting to the point where I don’t remember what it’s like to get more than three hours of uninterrupted sleep. I’m too old for this shit.
Mark S.
Shorter Thomas Friedman:
How long until he and Bobo start advocating for a Michael Bloomberg dictatorship?
M. Bouffant
The jet stream moves west to east. Maybe you’re just thinking of higher-altitude clouds.
rammalamadingdong
1) helped me miss Nora Ephron a bit less
NotMax
Fast food bizarritude:
Oink, oink.
Chet
The word thing is one aspect of “latent inhibition”, the capacity of your brain to ignore irrelevant stimuli. Basically what happens is that when your brain notices that a stimulus is insignificant – say, the sensation of your shoes on your feet – it suppresses it temporarily.
When you concentrate on a word, the “stimulus” in this case is your recollection of its meaning, context, previous times you’ve used it, words commonly associated with it, etc – everything your mind uses to attach meaning to a word. If you just repeat it out of context, your brain notices that your recollection of its meaning isn’t really serving any purpose, so it gets temporarily suppressed. You don’t “forget” what it means, of course, you just stop feeling like there’s any particular meaning associated with that collection of sounds because all you’re paying attention to, at that time, is the collection of sounds.
I once had the same kind of obsessive thought experience, only it was about fennel. Woke up – fennel, the word, the taste, the weird lines on fennel seeds. All fuckin’ day long, fennel. Fennel. Fennel. The root cause, I think, is the same as depression; that’s really what depression is, after all, it’s the same kind of obsessive thought except instead of being about fennel or the directions clouds drift, it’s about how what a worthless piece of shit you are, how nothing you do ever matters, and how you don’t even have the will to get up out of this bed, so how about maybe you go back to sleep for another few hours just so that there’s that much less of your life to live.
Fluke bucket
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Well a new Jerry Douglas CD has that kind of power.
NotMax
Correction (dang dyslexic fingers):
Keith
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Jan Brewer thinks, but it’s along the lines of “I think maybe I shouldn’t have spent all those years inhaling my cigars.”
Face
Isnt Devil’s Lake in Wisky?
Valdivia
@NotMax:
Someone I dated a while ago introduced me to chocolate covered bacon. I had never in my life had had bacon before. I have to tell you after that I was hooked. Both on the bacon and the bacon as something that goes well with sweets.
A spanish cuisine fave I love to serve as an appetizer: dates stuffed with chorizo, wrapped in bacon, fried. It’s like bacon candy. Do not check your cholesterol for a week.
Todd
@UncommonSense:
Just started Breaking Bad now that the wife is away. She was never enthusiastic.
Started last night, and am now a few eps into Season 2. Love it!
jl
@Chet:
‘ The word thing is one aspect of “latent inhibition”, the capacity of your brain to ignore irrelevant stimuli…. your brain notices that your recollection of its meaning isn’t really serving any purpose, so it gets temporarily suppressed. You don’t “forget” what it means, of course, you just stop feeling like there’s any particular meaning associated with that collection of sounds because all you’re paying attention to, at that time, is the collection of sounds. ‘
I’m wondering, did researcher’s discover this effect while sitting through work meetings?
jl
@Mark S.:
Give Brooksy and Friedman a break. It’s summer time!
In the summer time when the weather’s hot
You can plop right down and get shut eye
When the weather’s fine
Don’t got typing don’t got typing on your mind
Have a snooze have a snore
Run to the ‘puter see what you can grind.
@Valdivia:
No competition from me for that stuff. Too much bacon in too much snacks. You dang kids are just crazy these days! Get off my lawn with your chocobacon, dang kids!
Yutsano
@Valdivia: Bacon wrapped dates are one of the most divine foods in creation. Occasionally I think Allah chooses his food restrictions just to fuck with us.*
*Actually the prohibition on pork was a smart idea at the time. Having worms explode out of your heart does not sound like a fun Saturday night.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Clouds generally move west to east, but sometimes a high or low pressure system will bring the clouds all the way around it, causing them to move from east to west. Then you can also get north to south and south to north.
Bnut
How to get owned in 2 simple steps:
1. Play baseball
2. Face Clayton Kershaw
PeakVT
@jl: Probably driving their kids to school.
mai naem
John, you make me laugh with some of your posts. My word was bibliography. What a stupid word. bibliographybibliographybibliographybibliographybibliographybibliographybibliographybibliography
I doubt David Brooks knows crap about Bruce Springsteen and I would be willing to bet he’s only become interested since Chris Christie was supposedly dissed by Springsteen. I wouldn’t be shocked if Christie’s also putting it on only to connect to white working class voters. It’s a pity somebody can’t pose a question to the twit about some well known Springsteen info just to confirm that he doesn’t know crap about him.
Valdivia
@Yutsano:
So glad we concur on the scrumptiousness of that!
I totally agree on why the prohibition made sense at the time. And the reason I went so long without having tried Bacon was probably growing up with the kosher thing very deeply ingrained. But man, is it worth giving that prohibition up for the taste of it :)
PeakVT
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): At middle latitudes the typical direction is west to east.
Face
@Bnut: you have, um, seen the, uh….um, scoreboard, right?
Yutsano
@Valdivia: I first sampled them at the BJ meet-up, and I was hooked. And they’re so flipping easy to make that it almost seems criminal to not have them at your next party. If I ever get hitched that will be one of the appetizers. Even if I have to show the kitchen staff how to do it.
MTiffany
Or if you do have adblock installed, please disable it for this site.
jl
I actually (true story! and Joe B would say) once had a nightmare, where the whole world was turning into bacon. I could not run fast enough to escape. And soon there was no place for escape. The bacon was catching up to me!
That was an actual true, swear to all the gods and holy books, nightmare I had once.
Bacon is the devils food. Bacon, see, was the reason for the prohibition of port in the first place.
Young children growing up on farms long long ago in the Middle East, were force fed bacan for breakfast, over and over again. Forced down their throats. And they rebelled.
Lord, I got so much bacon shoved down my throat growing up… ugh. Maybe in some other life i’ll be able to eat it again.
Sausage and ham, on the other hand, are divine.
Bnut
@Face: Looks like another Quality Start to me.
KS in MA
#4 – Re degenerate beans: A friend of mine once tried to grow clematis, or some climbing plant, on a wooden trellis she’d bought at one of the box stores, and the plant acted like your beans–totally refused to climb the trellis. She decided the trellis wood must have been treated with something that repelled the plant. I’m not sure what that says about your options here, but you might want to replace your bean poles.
Valdivia
@Yutsano:
they are super easy to make indeed, and whenever i have served them at parties they are always the biggest hit for finger food. some restaurants use cheese instead of chorizo. I prefer the chorizo version though. doubling the pork, just to make up for lost time ;)
@jl: see this is why having not had any until my 30’s+ I get to enjoy it a lot!
edited for too tired to make sense.
TaMara (BHF)
We’re on fire here in Colorado. And now my office is under pre-evacuation orders. Can’t even imagine what the smoke will be like when I get in tomorrow.
I posted this earlier today and promised to post it again for those who missed it. I have the secret Pappa Cole cabbage roll recipe, courtesy of John himself. I couldn’t post it when you all were asking for it because I was entertaining a gentleman caller. I do have priorities.
You’ll find the recipe here:
Cole Family Cabbage Rolls
cbear
Jeebus, Cole—are you playing that Black Sabbath record at .78 speed, again?
jefft452
“I began to doubt that clouds moved west to east”
Other way round, no?
Red sky at night, sailors delight – storm in setting sun is to your west moving further west ie away from you
Red Sky at morning, sailor take warning – storm in rising sun is to your east moving west ie toward you
(may be valid for north Atlantic only)
Valdivia
@jl:
I should add that I like bacon in any shape or form, again, I am just making up for lost time here in the pork department.
Dave Trowbridge
As for your beans, if you give them any horizontal paths they will take them and tangle up. To stop this behavior I stopped using netting and just put vertical strings up (I use what used to be a vineyard for some of my vegetable gardening, and the leftover VSP trellises are incredibly useful).
TaMara (BHF)
@Valdivia: @Yutsano:
Your food goddess demands a recipe.TaMara would be happy if you shared this recipe. kthnxjl
@Valdivia:
The other savory stuff with dates sounds good though. That never occured to me. What kind of cheese they use? Do you know?
Valdivia
@TaMara (BHF):
I am happy to! just send it along right? will type it up and send tomorrow.
@jl:
I have seen Spanish restaurants use Cabrales (Spanish blue), or Manchego, Idiazabal or Roncal. I usually use whatever chorizo I can find, I prefer it to be not too spicy (I like the palacios if you can find it for not an arm and a leg)
Yutsano
@Valdivia: I haven’t found a good source for Spanish chorizo yet. Mexican no problem, but there are differences and I have several recipes I want to try.
Allen
@jefft452: Actually, it is just the other way around. Red sky in the morning means the weather in the East is good and the weather in the West (in northern hemisphere) is generally in for a change.
Valdivia
@Yutsano:
a place called La Tienda (.com) on the internet sells the palacios, I have also seen it at specialty stores (like Dean and Delucca here on the east coast) But there are other brands. I have seen chorizo sold but already sliced for a chacuterie plate at Trader Joe’s
Jay in Oregon
Svensker posted on this yesterday but I hadn’t seen a followup. There was a story about a female pit bull named Chloe, who was found with serious injuries as a result of someone setting her on fire. She was taken to the hospital for emergency care, and a $500 reward was offered for information leading to the arrest of the individual(s) responsible.
I wanted to see if there was any update, so I went to the site; Chloe was in terrible pain and did not survive her injuries, and as a result of public outcry the reward was increased to $1,000 for information.
DO NOT GO LOOKING for pictures of Chloe if you want to retain any sense of optimism about your fellow man. I can’t imagine what kind of twisted fuck would do that to a dog.
Valdivia
@Jay in Oregon:
that is horrible. so sad for poor Chloe.
ok people I am off to sleep.
can’t even type right anymore.
kideni
#1 happens to me with my own last name fairly often, even though it’s been with me all forty-five years of my life (as of this past Sunday). Sometimes when I’m writing it, it just looks wrong (it’s on the long side, but it’s Scottish so not terribly exotic in a USian context).
John Cole
@TaMara (BHF): Let us know if you need a place to crash, and we can put up the bat signal. I have a spare BR in WV, but that isn’t much help.
lol
One of the “fun” things about programming is how you can lose all comprehension of all common words that make up the programming language because you use them so much. Not just language keywords, but also if you name variables intelligently after what they’re supposed to represent.
Repetition yesss repetition repetition really repetition repetition repetition repetition lol repetition repetition repetition yeah repetition repetition repetition wat repetition repetition repetition nooooo repetition repetition repetition repetition
Yay.
jl
The famous scrumptuous fantabulous Cole Sr. cabbage rolls?
Thanks Cole and TaMara(BHF)!
I will try them.
Good luck, Tamara.
Mnemosyne
@Jay in Oregon:
I suspect the purpose was not simply random animal cruelty, but also to send a message to anyone in the neighborhood who had been whining about the dog fighting operation going on: keep your mouth shut or this will happen to you.
Not that it makes it any better.
MattR
@lol: And if the code was originally written by programmers in another country you end up with certain words being misspelled over and over. After reading it for a while you forget the correct way to spell it.
Yutsano
@Valdivia: Okay get me off that website. I’m about to spend my entire paycheck before I pay my rent! :)
asiangrrlMN
Table is the word that does me in every time. Tabletabletabletabletable. Table.
Moar Tunchie, please?
My current earworm (love this song). It’s actually Last Wish, not Blue October, but same lead singer. Still Broken.
Jay in Oregon
@Mnemosyne:
I know almost nothing about the area. All I know is from the article Sven linked to yesterday and the one I read today; I saw a picture that about broke my heart and I contributed $20 to the PSPCA.
I did poke around and there was a similar story on the PSPCA site from several weeks ago where the remains of another pit bull were found, so there may be more to it than a freak occurrence.
TaMara (BHF)
@Valdivia: Yes please. whats4dinnersolutions @ live (dot) com
There’s also a link on the right hand side of my blog.
FlipYrWhig
The word repetition thing never works for me. My brain just kind of enjoys it. It never successfully passes over into nonsense. The word, that is. The brain, long since shot to hell.
TaMara (BHF)
@John Cole: Well I’ve never been to WV before….
Yutsano
@TaMara (BHF): But you kinda liked the music? :)
suzanne
The word that does that for me is “feckless”. I also want to know why we don’t use “feckful”.
I also like “droll”.
RossInDetroit
Once again I went to bed too early and missed some classic Cole awesomeness.
John, if I was there I would have an impulse to hug you for being so weirdly ordinary, then not do it because we’re dudes and it would be odd. But consider yourself briefly thought-hugged for this post.
Valdivia
@TaMara (BHF):
Will do. Be safe from those fires!
Debbie(aussie)
Thank you so much, John. I really needed that laugh.
And after some of the days posts, may I just say, how glad I am to live in the socialist hell hole that is Australia:)
BruceFromOhio
Its underutilized because it is self-defeating: if the problem isn’t fixed by 3pm, you have to fire the staff to retain your credibility. At 3:01pm, you will then have no staff, and the problem will still exist. Then it’s *your* ass that is on the line, if it wasn’t already there to begin with.
If you *don’t* put the axe to the necks of the subordinate, you have then demonstrated you are blowhard, and staff will ignore any threats of demise in the future.
Better to sacrifice a token subordinate – it let’s you clean house if needed, you demonstrate you’re not just woofing, and puts the fear of starvation into the survivors.
roshan
__
1.) Have you ever said a word so many times in a row that it no longer seems to be a real word and you start to think it is just something you made up? Try it. Take “gesticulate,” say it thirty times real fast, and after a while, it no longer seems to be a word. I had an experience like that this afternoon.
The above phenomena is described as semantic satiation.
roshan
__
1.) Have you ever said a word so many times in a row that it no longer seems to be a real word and you start to think it is just something you made up? Try it. Take “gesticulate,” say it thirty times real fast, and after a while, it no longer seems to be a word. I had an experience like that this afternoon.
The above phenomena is described as semantic satiation.
roshan
The phenomena you described in 1. is called as semantic satiation, in which the word loses its meaning and doesn’t feel like a word when it’s repeated simultaneously many times.
roshan
The phenomena you described in 1. is called as semantic satiation, in which the word loses its meaning and doesn’t feel like a word when it’s repeated simultaneously many times.
nodakfarmboy
@Face: Devils Lake (no apostrophe) is in North Dakota. It’s the hometown of such noted persons as occasional Balloon-Juice commenter, nodakfarmboy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_Lake,_North_Dakota
It’s also home to Camp Grafton, the main base of the North Dakota National Guard, where John would have done his training. That, and past home of the Devils Lake Satans, everyone’s favorite hell themed high school sports team.
Cue “the more you know” music.
Seanly
@Mark S.:
Go V’ger!
RE: wind, I think it does generally go west to east for most people in the United States and looks a little freaky when it goes in another direction.
300baud
How much do you make per visitor per year? Because I’ll happily donate that much. But I’m done with ads.
redshirt
Yogurt. That is all.
Also too: I’ve noticed the same phenomena with looking at body parts. Stare at your ears for awhile. Soon enough you’ll trip.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Once, when I was a kid, I was lying in bed, and I was thinking of my grandfather, who had a mustache back then, and I couldn’t remember if moustaches grow under the nose or above the nose. It really befuddled me for a while. When I woke up, I still couldn’t remember, and it seemed like too weird and silly a thing to ask my mosther or father, so I just dealt with the fact that I’d have to wait until I saw a guy with a mustache to find out. It might have been a few days, but sooner or later, I saw a guy with a moustache, and then I knew. And all was right with the world. If anybody wants to know, well, I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but they grow under the nose. At leaast I think they do; maybe I should check on that before I mislead anybody…
denali
Thank you so much for this diversion. I am having a horrible day and this helped.
Jim Campbell
On the “Fix this fracking clusterfrack or you are all fired,” approach to management, I have to weigh in with an actual example. It may be a good or bad thing after the fact, depending on circumstances. However, it is a good preventative measure. In the olden days, when computers were the size of small buildings and required more energy for cooling than computing, new installation was a bitch. Typically, you would get the mainframe from one manufacturer and the disc drives could come from a different one and the terminals from another and all the wiring and supporting devices from another. The result was that the suppliers spent more time blaming each other than fixing problems.
The best manager I ever knew had a simple solution to bring everyone together. At the beginning of the project he would bring the representatives of all of the suppliers at once and lay it out this way, “Gentlemen, you are all in this together. It this project fails, I will get rid of all of you and bring in a completely different set of suppliers. I don’t want to do that. If you have a problem with getting your gear to work together, get your technical people out here and make it work.”
This technique works.
Mark
I got into a huge argument with the woman I’m dating last night. She is going on a trip and I recommended the Chris Hayes book to her – I said people have bought into the notion of meritocracy (as opposed to luck) and that Republicans think you should die of cancer if you’re (unlucky enough to be) poor. She flipped out. Told me that Republicans are not evil and that I’m just as bad as her relatives who watch Fox News.
Don’t think this one is going to work out.
Maude
@TaMara (BHF):
It’s Tunch’s room. not a spare bedroom.
Catsy
“Quite.”
Try that one. Say “quite” to yourself repeatedly. Think it; roll it over in your head.