The more I thought of how many unlucky things had to happen in sequence for this to happen, I came up with image:

It has since been determined that the man only touched the power line, causing the fatal electrocution, and only happened to be urinating at the time. That latest information would, of course, proportionally increase the size of the Murphy’s Law circle while decreasing the size of the Darwin’s Theory circle. That is, if this were in any way scientific.

Saturday’s time was spent in between a second birthday party for the child of a family friend, an organic, humanely-raised turkey tasting at Whole Foods, a nap, and then a viewing of Food Inc., the new-ish food documentary. Nothing groundbreaking I guess, but maybe it was just a day spent at a low-enough intensity level that my brain had a chance to recharge.

Maybe it was the fact that I was only on a computer long enough to figure out what I had done to hose this rarely-updated blog, time on the iPhone Twitter application notwithstanding. Perhaps it was that I managed to get about twice as much sleep yesterday as I normally do. Or maybe its the delightfully low-tech Moleskine pocket notebook I bought the other night that have been itching to start using.

Whatever it is, I feel like I have a new perspective on things, a much simpler one.

I went to a coffee shop and didn’t immediately plug in the laptop and get online. Rather, I sipped my coffee, enjoyed a danish and talked to the people sitting around me. I noticed with an abnormal acuity the stress level of the folks around who were having problems getting online, or finding a seat near a power outlet. Yes, I’m on my laptop now, but using WriteRoom, it’s retro green-text-on-black singularity almost calming.

I changed my default web browser back to Safari from Firefox. Sure, I’ll still use it for web testing, but for personal browsing, why shouldn’t I use the one that gives me the best personal experience? Do I really need fifteen plug-ins and a host of add-ons to read the web sites I go to? Not really.

Perhaps the rest of the day will be set aside for a drive in the beautiful Phoenix Fall weather, or a good healthy meal and time spent in the yard.

Either way, I’ll leave my list of work projects for tomorrow.

As we wandered around, and, more specifically, stood in line for rides, we discussed the idea of what Walt Disney would think of the 2009 version of Disneyland. My opinion is that I’m sure he would have enjoyed the newer attractions, driven by technology that he could only have imagined in the sixties, although I’m not sure he could have gotten on board with the removal of the classic Disneyland features.

One of the most obvious updates to a classic ride was to the Pirates of the Caribbean. It received the “politically correct” update a few years back, but even more recently received the addition of Captain Jack Sparrow to certain areas of the ride. The motion of the new Sparrow animatronics robot (or whatever they’re called) is really good, almost scary. As for a likeness of Johnny Depp, eh, it’s hit and miss.

That said, Walt Disney was nothing if he wasn’t a businessman. Perhaps he would have understood the need for the constant updating to the experience, even at the expense of the features that we grew up with. The marketing tie in to the Disney family of movies is impressive, and in a few years there won’t be anyone around who even remembers the remade versions of the attractions from the ’80’s, much less the originals. So maybe it doesn’t matter.

Then, at the end of the night, in an effort to exit the park before the rest of the attendees, we were hit with a big dose of “Walt would not approve” treatment. Consider that your spoiler alert.

We had discovered earlier in the day that it was grad night, during which local high schools bus their graduating seniors in and after hours they have the park to themselves, locked into Disneyland for the night. As we made our way towards the main street exits, we were told that due to the crowds on Main Street, we needed to exit around the back of the shops.

As we walked down the dirty corridor, which could have been the backside of any strip mall in L.A., employees, on break, or on their cell phones, or smoking, looked at us in shock. It wasn’t just my wife and I in their ne’er-to-be-seen hideaway, but there were hundreds of people pouring in behind us.

To be honest, the feeling was mutual. Not that we, as adults, don’t understand that Disneyland is all props and make-believe, but it really takes the shine off it when you see the backs of the facades, water coolers and employee break rooms. The sight of the candy stripers and the Frontier Land workers out of character, smoking and chatting on the phone drives the point home that this place is a business, just like any place else.

And my gut says that old Walt would have probably had a problem with that.

No, this isn't real. Yet.

So, yeah. Make sure you back up your stuff. Either locally or on a back-up drive or on the web. And it probably wouldn’t hurt to have a back-up of your back-ups, either. I’m just saying.

Personally, I use Dropbox for an off-site online storage, a Western Digital portable drive for on the go, and a Maxtor 500GB drive to back up at home.

And yet somehow I still manage to lose my stuff.

I guess it is Friday the thirteenth, though.

In a weird coincidence, my local Autozone is currently running a special where if you buy a bottle of a certain brand of fuel injector cleaner and an air filter, you get a free air freshener. As luck would have it, I happened to go in there Tuesday night to purchase those two items, unrelated to the totally random promotion.

Honest.

Well, at the checkout I was allowed to pick from an aromatic bin full of tree-shaped air fresheners, and chose the one that seemed the least obtrusive – “the Designer Series.” After pulling the product off the cardboard backing I found that my choice came with a free designer gift: a gold tree-shaped decal.

I realize that the concept of time as we know it isn’t over, but I’m pretty sure this will stand out as one of the worst promotional ideas ever. Unless you’re a sixteen year old guy with your first new car, does anyone really actually like the concept of these little trees? They block your field of view if you hang it from your rear view mirror, or blow around distractingly in any breeze.

What are the chances that I’m going to permanently mount a gold-foil version of this item to my car? In fact, the only benefit of these products is that some of them smell slightly less offensive than Pine-Sol, but a decal doesn’t even have that.

Could there be a better way to get their point across?

Employee A is given an award. It could be anything – an old bowling trophy, for example. Employee A holds onto said award until the next staff meeting, when he/she is supposed to pass it on to another member of the staff and give their reasoning behind why the recipient deserves this prestigious honor.

The one rule (besides a strong probability that the giver will be instructed by management who gets the award next) is that you are supposed to add something to it before passing it on.

Some sort of personalized touch to commemorate the time that you spent with the award? Perhaps. But really what it’s turned into is whatever loose crap sitting near it on the desk gets hastily tied or taped or rubber banded to the it five minutes before the next meeting.

The result is the wonderful objet d’ art that you see below:

When cash isn't an option, apparently
rubbish can be substituted

And yes, it was my turn to hold on to the coveted Rooster – at least for the next two weeks.

And what about my contribution to the award? Well, since you asked, I’m trying to figure out how to affix the spray painted gold mallet I received at the last white elephant gift exchange. And keep the Rooster in one piece.

What’s the strangest/worst incentive you’ve ever seen? And if you won it, what did you do with it?

Sort of.

I recently came across an application for OSX for Mac called FuzzyClock, created by ObjectPark. Rather than the sterile digital 10:15 AM that is normally displayed in the menu bar, the application displays the time in what its creators call a “more readable human style”, in this case, “shortly after ten.”

While it does take a little bit to get used to, once I did I’ve found it’s more calming. The application is obviously not geared towards the type of person who lives and dies by the second hand on their atomic clock, but then again, I don’t work for NASA. An approximate time is fine for most of the things on my daily schedule. If there is ever a need to know the “real” time, clicking on the application displays the time and date in normal, Type-A specificity.

So, if you ever feel the need to soften up your schedule, try snuggling up to FuzzyClock.

“I thought you could starch laundry, but not dry cleaning” I replied, a little confused. “These clothes are to be dry cleaned.” Hopefully, I added “But if you are able to add starch to…”

She cut me off.

“Ugh! Are sure you want dry cleaning? Because now I have to void the whole ticket. See, this ticket is for laundry, and this is for dry cleaning, and you can’t mix them up.” She wandered off to find a supervisor.

I stood there looking for the candid camera stashed in the fake trees.

Her supervisor was just as dumbfounded as I was about why voiding that ticket called for such a dramatic production, and we eventually talked her off the ledge.

Since I don’t know what’s going on in her personal life, I can’t really judge her for being so tightly wound, but it did make me think about the business ramifications of the event:

It was my first time in that particular establishment, so they’re already under the microscope. The idea of tossing out a form that probably cost a fifth of a cent was all it took for the employee to attempt to dissuade me from the sole reason I walked into the place. A supposedly easy task was stretched into an uncomfortable ten-minute ordeal involving management. While in the end the clothes were clean and the price was reasonable, it will certainly make me think twice about going back to that shop, or will at least peek in the windows before I wander up with an armload of dirty clothes.

Note to self: try not to over-complicate the easy stuff to the point that clients are made uncomfortable.

That said, this Saturday Night Live clip is still pretty funny.