Jobbing the System

Supposedly, Steve Jobs changed his car (a Mercedes) every six months to avoid having to get a license tag. I had an uncle once who would change his Buick every two years but that was to keep up legendary status.

Akin to opening up new bank accounts just to get the free  $100.00 promotion.  Or shuffling money around to the 0% introductory period on new credit cards just before an older credit card promotion expires. If you have time on your hands this type of gaming the system can put money in your pocket.

Steve put a high end twist on the whole deal.

The key question. Was it to remain anonymous or to save a couple of bucks?  The world may never know.

Bullets Over Brownsville - On the Grind

I dont know how I ended up on these guys mailing list but I've  been following their OpenMindz on the Grind Web Series which tracks their journey to raise funds to get themselves to Berlin to attend a film fest they've been accepted into.

Filmmaking is hard enough and an awful lot it on this level can sometimes occur in a vaccuum without enough eyes falling on the product so I decided to share it.

I admire how commited these guys are to their movie (which I have not seen). If I had put half as much energy in to filmmaking as they do I'd be a roaring success.

Peace & Love, Peace & Love

This is 3 years old but I Love this. Wonder if it worked?

Mercury Retrograde

About 4 years ago I was informed about Mercury Retrograde, when a client refused to buy new computers because "mercury was retrograding". I was told we'd have to wait 10 days or so until it ended to make the purchases. OK. Whatever.

According to astrology when the planet Mercury is moving backwards (actually it only appears to move backward) in the heavens it can wreak all kinds of havoc with things down here on Earth. Including among other things  electronics and communications equipment i.e. computers.

Astrology is not my thing but do I put Merc Retro on the calendar now just to be safe. And perhaps its just self fulfilling prophecy but its been guaranteed since I've been paying attention that a bunch of computers will go haywire everytime this "event' rolls around.

When my new employee started working for me last year, I informed him of Merc Retro just to see if it was "just me". I also inform new clients about it just to test the theory. Strangely, the theory holds up.

In a years time my employee has also become a (semi) believer like me.  He's seen the problems first hand each time the event rolls around.  To top it off, Mercury Retrograde claimed his brand new laptop and his backup desktop just yesterday. Granted the Apple software update proabbly didnt help either but it still counts.

So far, this current Mercury Retrograde  has has completely crashed a server, lost an important backup, claimed two laptops, one desktop and generally kept us pretty busy the last 3 weeks. Mercury Retrograde fortunately ends today.

Conicidence or not?

Ode To Jobs - Fight the Power

Hearing that Steve Jobs was no longer running Apple last night was kind of a bummer.

I've been using Apple products since "1989!" which is coincidentally the opening line of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power".

I digress.  Steve is a visionary.  There are lots of creative and smart people. I consider myself among them. But visionaries are few and far between.

If you check out this clip of steve in 1997 @ WWDC ....yes 1997, everything he is talking about then, is going on NOW. Visionary!