The Slashdot Effect Hits the Real World

Hitoshi Watanabe of Japan posted details of his successful diet on a social networking site in Japan, and instead of inundating a website, he caused a run on bananas! They are now, at the moment, hard to come by because of the drastically increased sales.

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My Notebook

I love my notebook, any notebook really. It shouldn't be too massive, though, because it is too overwhelming at the start, and the really great, visceral thing is when you reach some critical mass of filled pages and now suddenly it is a notebook of substance, and the written-on pages feel different, of course, they're bumpy and dimpled and textured, a regular patina of thoughts and feelings, palimpsets of the soul, and there it is: I. Love. Notebooks.

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Put a Bullet In Your Plans

Plans are fragile. Just ask Robert Burns. His poem, “To a Mouse,” contains this: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” So things are not entirely within your control. But surely you knew that. Everyone does.

But are they as out of our control as we most-times imagine? Take on the role, for just a moment, of the pain management nurse, and rate your pain (lack of control, in this case) from 1 (complete control, no pain) to 10 (no control whatsoever, unbearable pain). Be honest! Write it down.

Now reconsider. Might you be your own worst enemy, a villainous saboteur, blithely shooting down your own “best laid” plans with one of these bullets?

• Laziness - You assumed too much and didn’t bother to vet your assumptions. These often center in two areas: availability and process.
• Availability - Four points.
• Don’t assume that everyone will simply show up. Were they notified appropriately? Was the list complete and accurate? Was there an opportunity to have them sign up, to commit?
• Don’t assume that the things you want to work on are going to be available. If it’s movable, is it going to be there? Is it going to be in use by another group? Are you absolutely certain that you have permission to tie the resource up for this long?
• Don’t assume that your time frame matches the required time frame of the resource. Talk to the right people.
• Don’t assume that the necessary tools and supplies will magically be on site. You may have to make arrangements.
• Process - Three points.
• Do you have the necessary know-how? In other words, do you know the process?
• Do you have the necessary leadership ability? Do you command enough respect to assign duties? Here’s what I mean: if nobody thinks you know the process, they may not believe you know what you’re doing with your assignments.
• If you don’t have the best handle on process, you might need to hand control over to an expert. Next question: should the control you cede be advisory/technical, or should it be administrative also? If the expert is no good with people, you might need to run interference for him, continuing to be the administrator.
• Naivete - You underestimated the situation. You ran all the traps listed above, but just underestimated how much trouble some of them could be, or you overestimated your or your group’s ability to handle them. “We can handle it,” are four words that can kill your plans.
• Denial - You refused to face up to certain truths about your situation. Someone told you something about availability or process, and you said to yourself:
• “They’re lying.” Come on. Really? Maybe you’re not only in denial, but paranoid as well. Why would they lie? If the answer is not immediately obvious, then this conclusion is not obvious either.
• “That’s not true.” You may not be calling them a liar, but what’s the alternative? They’re an idiot? Someone’s lying to them?
• “They don’t really understand the situation.” If you’re told something by someone you thought should know, and your response is, “That’s not true,” then maybe you need to ask at least one more question. Maybe several.
• “That was then, this is now.” This assumes that your information is more current than theirs. Is that warranted? Nail it down.
• “That’ll never happen.” Watch out, now. Never? You know what they say about pride. It happens right before you fall on your face.

I’ve been at several work days over the years at church or school or the ball field, and plans that fell apart through one of these factors were really just as discouraging (and damaging to future recruitment efforts) as no plans at all. So take care not to put a bullet in your own best plans.

Bailout Mess

This post at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity makes the most sense of the bailout mess that I've seen so far. Well written, informative.

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Sandwich Security Breakthrough

In a move similar to taking a Sharpie and writing "Biology Experiment" on your milk container, someone has come up with a clever, non-verbal strategy:
 See the link.

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Me and Dudley Try to Commiserate

I have a friend; we’ll call him Dudley. He’s old oil money, not big time, but he inherited quite a few producing wells several years ago and with light sweet crude topping $120/barrel, he’s not hurting.

I think he’s benefiting from this oil crisis.

We were talking the other day over plates of fried eggs, bacon and toast. “Melissa has been after me to get rid of that little old Toyota truck I’ve been driving since Methuselah was on the earth. ‘You’re gonna get killed when some big old Dodge Ram hits you on the road. You need to get you a big one, too.’ That’s all she says, all the time.”

“Put that fork down, Dudley,” I said, trying to spear a piece of egg. “You’re going to hurt one of us.”

“So anyway I’m gonna get a big Ford,” he said, setting down his fork and picking up his butter knife and a packet of grape jelly.

I put my fork down and counted to ten. “I think they ought to outlaw all full-sized trucks and SUVs,” I said in my most reasonable voice.

Dudley didn’t even blink. He finished spreading the jelly on his triangle of toast – he can really paint that stuff on there - and looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

“Are you a communist or something, Emmitt?” he said. He bit into the toast, not taking his eyes off of me.

“No, Dudley,” I said, “I’m as American as you, but this is ridiculous. Everybody’s scared of getting smashed by SUVs and big trucks, so they go out and get SUVs or big trucks, and it’s getting bigger and bigger every year, and the gas prices keep going up… There’s no end in sight!”

Dudley shook his head. “People don’t like to be smushed, Emmitt. That’s the American way.”

“But what about the people that can’t afford to buy bigger and bigger SUVs and trucks, Dudley? What about them?”

“Come on, Emmitt. You know good and well that they go out and get big old cars! I was downtown yesterday and I saw this fella in a 1976 Caddy that was as big as a boat. And those things are heavy, heavier than that Ford I’m looking to get.”

I sat there and steamed.

“Dudley,” I said, “I’m not mad at you…” I paused for just a second. “Well, maybe I’m a little mad at you, but that’s not the point. I’m not hostile towards you…” I hesitated again.

Dudley paused from putting together a bacon and egg sandwich with his toast, casting an apprising eye over at me.

“You’re feeling a little hostile, aren’t you?” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Well, yes, maybe a little. But your attitude is so typical of rich people. You’re totally clueless about the consequences of your knee-jerk spending. The economy’s in a death-spiral!”

“I hear you, Emmitt.” He got up from the table and shook my hand. “I’ll see you later, hear? I’ve gotta run over to Home Depot and pick out the flagstone flooring for that new wing of the house we’re adding on next month.”

“You have a good one, you hear?”

Supply and Demand Still Exists: Found on Vacation in the Virgin Islands

Contrary to public opinion, the Law of Supply and Demand (SnD) is still alive and well and vacationing in the Virgin Islands. Some say she’s been down there for twelve months while others put it at only a few weeks.

Noticeably absent is SnD’s longtime partner, Markets.

Though the exact timeline for SnD’s departure from Markets is unclear, sources say that trouble has been brewing for some time.

“Okay,” said one insider, requesting that his identity be kept secret, “let’s just look at the effect it’s having on the children. They’re always the ones to act out, dear things. They bear the brunt.” The insider paused to wipe at his eyes, then blew his nose and cleaned his glasses. “They bear the brunt.”

“Would one child in particular be a good illustration of this?” I wondered.

“Oil,” he said without hesitation. “Oil is really acting out at this time. Oh, I know, she’s always been an unruly child, but as long as SnD was in the home, she at least knew she had guidelines. That’s all changed now that Markets had taken up with that skank, Scarcity.”

“Scarcity?”

“Yes, Scarcity. Markets think that there won’t be enough Oil, that it’s somehow become under-supplied overnight, and so Markets seeks to keep her under his thumb, and not just for right now, but far into the future, when Markets believes that Oil will be so much harder to find.”

I chewed on my bottom lip, considering. “Isn’t that just good parenting?”

“A child needs her mother. What are you, some kind of Nazi?” He glared at me. “No,” he continued, “it’s not good parenting to shack up with an entirely different model. It’s still the same Supply and Demand this year that it was last year, but Markets is reading the papers, listening to the paparazzi, and now his attitude has changed. He thinks Scarcity is the way to go, so Supply and Demand packed up her stuff and went to the beach. I don’t blame her.”

“Is this all Oil’s fault?” I said.

“It’s complicated. Are you some sort of a Philistine? I don’t know that you can even blame the entire thing on Markets, though he certainly behaved abominably.” He threw up his hands and rolled his eyes.

“Well look at Copper, for instance,” he said, shaking out a pack of cigarillos and hanging one from the corner of his mouth. “Copper’s been saying he was going to grow for years now, and Markets would hold steady, not put big restrictions out there or buy up Copper’s futures ahead of time, confident that his son would come through with the extra production, and there would be plenty for all.”

“I suppose it didn’t happen?” I said.

“No it didn’t happen. And Markets got burned, in some cases pretty badly. He claimed Supply and Demand had betrayed him. He took out a page in the Journal and claimed that Supply and Demand just wasn’t working for Markets anymore.”

“And so Scarcity was the new model?”

“That’s the way he saw it,” said the insider as he lit up and took a drag. He blew smoke in my direction.

“So why even deal with models?” I said. “Who cares about models? We just want things to be right and cost what they should.” I stopped at this point, embarrassed by my outburst.

“Oh for heaven’s sake!” he said, throwing down his cigarillo and grinding it beneath the heel of his patent leather boot. “Where do they get you people?”