Heart, Head or Gut: Superbowl XLI

SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY! Superbowl XLI LIVE FROM MIAMI

sorry got a little carried away... anyway, Chicago Bears vs. Indianapolis Colts

The Head Says: Colts win, because there's one guy in this game who is ostensibly the best player in the league today, and possibly the most gifted quarterback of the last ten years (I said gifted, not most successful or most clutch, mind you, because that's Tom Brady), Peyton "Hate His Ugly Mug" Manning. Seriously, the guy looks and speaks like a hillbilly, but he works harder than anyone else, throws the best passes this side of Canton, and he has the best story coming into the Superbowl... he is the guy who could finally end his championship-less streak. Otherwise he might end up like Dan Marino... a fantastic quarterback, probably the most powerful of his generation, but also one who was never able to win the Big One.

The Heart Says: Bears win, because I hope Brian Urlacher and co. kick ass and keep Indy winless for another year. Besides I don't much like the look of the Colts' uniforms, too clean.

The Gut Says: Colts win. Considering everything, the Colts have gotten together at the right time, beat their eternal rivals (Patriots) and seem poised to finally make good on their potential. And of course Manning is the Man of Destiny, lest he become the 21st century version of Marino.

(Madden 06 says: Indy wins by two scores)

All Connected

Using my mobile phone I am able to send and receive photos, e-mails, video, soundbytes, and so on. It doesn't matter if I am at home, at work, in the gym, in the pool, in the car, eating or sleeping. I can make pictures, surf the internet, write a letter, listen to music, setup a meeting everywhere (at least, if a connection is available)...

...and yet there's a strange emptiness in all this. Should I actually be able to do all this at any time, in any place, no matter what I'm doing? The promise is to be able to save time, because you should be able to react and to act on information and new events nearly instantaneously. But all this actually ends up costing me more time: instead of dedicating and focusing specific moments to specific tasks (like answering my e-mail, calling a friend, gathering information about a new topic), I end up doing everything at once. That can't be effective.

What can I do about this... well for one, my phone is not set up for e-mail, so that won't be able to bother me much (my personal high was reached the past few months: more than 200 mails addressed to me personally or requiring my attention per week, spread over five addresses); I cleaned up my phonebook to just the people I call regularly; and I still pay extra for SMS, so that puts a constraint on my thumb-exercises.

So I can just focus the use of my phone on things I find useful about it: listening to radio or Mp3, reminding me of appointments, and making pictures.

Scary Stuff

The scariest things I've noticed this week:

• I can go to the hospital, and without even introducing myself the doctor and the receptionist and the radiologist know my name, my face and my appointment. How scary is that that people working in a hospital recognize you just by you walking in the room?
• I can take a day off from work, and still get called by work by 9:00 am. (Not that I pick up or anything) How scary is it that a project you work at is dependent on your input all the time?
• I got to see where I rank in the age-category at my company, and strangefully enough, I am at or near the average. That means that there's a lot of people younger than me, and that I am old. How did that happen?
  

You Really Don't Want Me To Drive Do You

The process of selecting a new lease car is as quick or slow as you want it to be. If you don't really care, you don't drive a lot, you like the environment more than the ride, you'd probably not spend a lot of time on the choosing part. "Just give me anything that has four wheels and a roof and I'm golden", you say. In fact, you probably don't need a car at all.

However if you do mind, you can make a full project of selecting the best car out there. So you make a shortlist of cars or brands you like, compare the different extras and options between each other, you'll make some test drives, discuss some views with your friends or colleagues in the know, setup a budget, and so on.

Unfortunately there's this thing in the Netherlands called bijtelling. It pretty much screws up the whole deal, because it eats your net pay (literally!) like a fat guy in a snackbar. I'm sure most employers can happily pay for the monthly lease amount, because it's not that big a deal to them. Employees however have to bear the burden of covering the added tax. The alternative is to lease a cheaper car, with less extras, less exposure, less horsepower and so on.

In all fairness, if you want to drive a car, you'll have to pay for the privilege. It's just terrible though that we live in a country that doesn't trust people to drive, so much that it has to resort to paycheck stripping to discourage them.

Locked Out

Now: you spend a long time in the office just to avoid all the chaos and traffic during the worst storm in sixteen years. You end up driving home at about one hour past midnight, and everything seems to be okay (apart from all the tree branches on the road).

And then you arrive home and find the door doesn't open...

Argh!

Now, how was your storm experience?

Pattern of growth

Once you start something new - be it in your work, with people, in a new activity - you would be very reactive in your approach. You react to events, which at that point are all new. You have to adapt continuously to everything because you've had little to no experience with the subject matter. Basically it all boils down to not knowing what to expect.

Most people do okay in this reactive phase. People can adapt quite well and perform as best suited to them. A rare few may have genuine talent for the task, and thus not just do okay but even do very well. In the end though people still react to outside and current stimuli.

Once you gain more experience, confidence, skill and so on people become more proactive in their ways. They have learned which events require their utmost attention and which are negligible. They know when certain events or topics are due and anticipate on their outcome. They know what is important to accomplish the task and manipulate their surroundings to suit.

Proaction is being able to perform ahead of events, either by preparing for their occurance, or to be in a position where you can reap the most rewards from them. If you are really good, you can completely flesh out a full scenario with everything that could possibly impact the outcome of the task, and have the measures to control each factor.

But this is not the ultimate behaviour people should grow to. Eventually people grow so experienced that they not only anticipate on expected events, but can actually initiate unexpected events as well, which others have to adapt to. Only a select few can actually accomplish this. These people are called entrepreneurs.

Rugs. Pulling. From. Under.

Politics is not a fun game to play. In fact it's quite irritating that you can actually win with skills that seemingly have nothing to do with the game at hand. Looking nice, or having the most campaign money win you the presidency sooner than having a good story or a noble nature.

What's worse is that politics often involve you, even when you're not playing in that game yourself. For instance you could try to shape your career as best as possible, and your manager is trying to help you with that, but your boss blocks it, because his interests are best served by blocking the manager's.

That last one is the worst. Not being able to do anything, apart from acting like a petulant child, and just being thrown around between two raging bulls.

I vow to be in the position where I choose which games to play, or be played in.

I don't believe this...

1. Just to make your dishes smell better in the dishwasher, our favorite dishwashing fluid has added perfume to its arsenal some time ago. Now when you open the machine after the programme has done its job, your entire cutlery, all your plates smell like a Chanel No. 5... sort of.

People actually complained about the smell, so now our favorite dishwashing fluid maker has also made, get this, a smell neutralizer to put in the washer.

2. Is there actually no one else that finds two ice skating shows, running simultaneously, depicting the very same vapid, interchangeable, semi-famous Dutch people, a little bit overkill?

Gathering Info

My Modus Operandi for every new situation I'm in, is as follows:

• look around, observe; take up every little detail in the environment, the people, the relationships. get a feel for the place
  
• don't look out of place, but don't be too familiar either. I'm not here to play games, but we have to build some level of trust
• take time to think; I will not be pushed or pulled until I get an idea where I want to go

And once I've gathered all the evidence I need...

BLAM!!

• Attack, Full On, or Sideways. Subtly or out-in-the-open. It depends on who I'm dealing with.
  

Ruthless Aggression

Most people who know me a little bit would say I'm not a calm character. I yell, I slap, I curse and generally make it well known if things are not going my way. I can lash out with the best of them, and I will chew out everyone who gets in my way.

However, if you really think this is my standard demeanor, then you'd be quite mistaken. If you think I am an emotional person, then you'd be wrong.

Emotions to me are those feelings - when you take away all reason - is that which doesn't go away. You don't choose to be emotional. You're either sad, or happy or you're not. I however choose to be aggressive, if it gets my point across or serves my purpose. (Of course that's not to say that I don't occasionally shout out, but those specific instances are rare.)

If you are truly emotional, you let all your feelings just flow over you. If you feel like crying, you do. If you are in love, you zoom around like you're walking on clouds. That is definitely not the case with me. You'd see I'm tired, you'd see I was mad (but that may be my intention), but you would never see me miserable, or sympathetic.

I grew up being told never to cry and never to show emotions, and that has completely messed up my emotional growth. The only outlet I have in fact is frustration. Thankfully most people (most men actually) have the same problem. Apparently it is (was) the way society told men to follow. Be strong, be all business. Never show weakness.

Of course this was the source of many jokes about the differences between men and women.

The aggression, the frustration, it is not an emotion. It is not a cause, not even a symptom. It is a means to an end.

Selling

From the wikipedia: "In professional wrestling, the sell is the element of making the action (the wrestling move) appear to be at least somewhat realistic to the crowd."

Now when we try to sell products to our customers, we pretty much do the same. We make whatever we propose somewhat realistic and attractive to the customer.

There's also something called no-selling, and overselling. In our case, it would mean we either treat the customer like shit, or we offer something that is over-the-top, out-of-our-league, out-of-our-mind.

Now ideally we would be selling, but more often than not, we do the oversell. If the market allows, we would no-sell. Why do either? It's hard to find the right mark. And only the boys and girls who can effectively sell, are the ones who can keep the attention of the crowd (and thus sell tickets).

Guess that McLaren SLR will have to wait

Of course, you all hope you're a little bit richer after New Years, and that your lucky number finally pays off. That finally the television cameras head your way to interview you, hand you the keys to your new car (*cough* Nissan Micra *cough*), or a big five foot cardboard cheque with at least a six figure number...

You'll all be happy to know that I had the grand total winnings of...

Zero

Nil

Zilch

So that means that one of you guys actually won something in the lottery! Congrats! Let's Drink!

Springing Big News

Some people just want all the attention. You know the year is about to close and you think everything is calm and ramping up for the new year... and then there's these guys who just have to butt in and take some of the thunder. This year it's Saddam, who just manages to squeak by with a televised execution at the close of year.

Bad thing is, I don't think Saddam's execution has much of an impact anymore. I'm sure victims' families during his regime are celebrating now. But the fighting, the war still continues; the suffering does not end. In fact, it just pisses some people off more.

Don't you just hate people who always need to have the last word?

Lessons Learned Today

• Black Russians and Long Island Ice Tea are good... except when you haven't had dinner
• "Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever"
• People never look their age; that can be good, can be bad...
• Nerds can be babes
• All IT administrator departments are the same
• Babes can be nerds...
• ...really, they can
  
• The Truth is Closer than You think...
• ...so why don't you turn to some spirituality for a change
  

Reviews and Resolutions

This year I've been able to do everything I set out to do at the end of last year. I got elected (twice), got promoted, and got my home in order. The respect and attention are rising (although people still find it extremely hard to spell my first name correctly), the attraction and interest is growing (from people I would not have expected).

Of course there were setbacks, from all the garbage I had to put up with (literally), to the nervousness I endured about new job offers and late furniture orders. And of course that stretch goal of meeting that very, very special someone...

Now for the coming year we're going for:

• new wheels!
• higher returns-on-investment in love, life and liberty
  
• leadership role in the workplace
• more pictorials on my camera phone!
• cooking a three-course meal
  
• dancing salsa
  
• speaking rudimentary (but understandable) Japanese, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese and Turkish
  
• a clean sweep in my Heart-Head-Gut predictions!
  

Importance

The things people find important can be found in the traditions they keep, the rituals they hold. I myself have a couple, such as celebrating my birthday every other year with a huge dinner... You probably would also stay with your family during Christmas... My father prays every day after getting up and just before going to sleep... Our team has this Friday-night drinking binge where we just forget about the week and start our weekends as they should... entire droves of Americans gather round the television to see a football game during Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve... These are all examples of institutions, traditions, and rituals that people tend to keep. Every single one valuable, albeit for different purposes.

Traditions gain strength the longer the period during which they are retained. Sometimes even so much that we forget the original purpose behind a tradition, and raise the tradition itself to importance. That seems to be recurring issue in religion, anthropology, but also politics.

I do think that whatever I find very important I should institutionalize, turn in to a tradition or a ritual. I just have to make sure that I don't forget what I did it for in the first place.

Region Free

Why do I - if I happen to have other interests than my fellow countrymen - be subject to higher costs, more trouble and generally more nuisance if I want to watch a DVD from the States on a Dutch DVD player?

Why should I be limited to the market in the European Community, while the stuff that I like is from across the Atlantic?

Seriously, whoever came up with the bright idea of region-protected DVDs deserves to get his tires slashed.

Things nobody wants to know about 2006

Music
Band du jour: The Feeling (with two nice top-class singles spanning the last 12 months ['Sewn' and 'Fill my little world'] this band has finally hit the limelight. Inoffensive, unlike Coldplay; Underplayed, unlike Keane; and Truly Engaging, unlike U2)

Honorable mention: Sandi Thom - Smile, It Confuses People

Games
Videogame I played most this year: Warhammer 40K: Dawn Of War: Dark Crusade (and only because I got tired of simulating yet another NBA Live season)

Honorable mention: Does The Sims count if you only use it to model your house?

Sports
Most tragic sports moment: 2006 Lakeside final, Jelle Klaassen beats four-time winner Raymond van Barneveld (Barney gets booed off the stage, tail between legs. His coup to tie former five-time winner Eric Bristow at the Lakeside failed miserably; Jelle runs off to smooch with his girlfriend... who just so happens not to be his girlfriend anymore six months later)

Honorable mention: Andre Agassi saying goodbye at the US Open (would have won the award, if I didn't think the crying was a little bit over the top)
Honorable mention 2: Zidane. I don't need to say more I think.

Movies
Picture I most wanted to see, but didn't: Clerks 2 (supposedly Kevin Smith's worst outing, but I have yet to pass judgement)

Honorable mention: Cars; X-Men 3; Da Vinci Code (Bought them all on DVD)

Television
Stay-at-home-for-this: Bones (Dr. Brennan is strangely, naively hot; and the show kicks ass in every corner of the globe)

Honorable mention: House MD (Got the entire first and second season on DVD already, so don't need to stay at home)

Finally, some memorable quotes I heard this year (thanks, to all sources, notably Gerard):

• "When Jezus died, it took him 3 days to respawn... NOW THATS WHAT I CALL LAG!!!" (someone who plays first-person shooters)
  
• "The day that a child realises that all adults are imperfect he becomes an adolescent, the day he forgives them he becomes a man"
• 'I thought you didn't hold a grudge'
  'I don't. I have no surviving enemies.'
  (Delinquent Habits - Everyday)
• Nothing is as equally distributed as common sense; everybody thinks he's got plenty.
• {makes sense only in Dutch} Het is niet toevallig dat beleid en debiel uit dezelfde letters bestaan.
• {makes sense only in Dutch} De vraag des levens is: Gaan we Door of Slaan we Af. Maar voor de meeste mensen is het: Slaan we Door of Gaan we Af.
  

Things I've noticed in 2006

Apart from all the things I've learned in 2006, there are also some news snippets that I happened to come across this year that were either unsettling, noteworthy, funny or simply strange.

• Jerry Stackhouse fouls Shaquille O'Neal into the stands during Game 4 of the 2006 NBA Finals... and not just by any small amount either... funny thing is, Shaq is 7' 1", 325 pounds; Jerry is 6' 6", 218. And yet Stackhouse - a full seven foot smaller and over 100 pounds lighter - manages to knock Shaq into the second ring. Even funnier: 6' 4", 212 Dwyane Wade manages to stop O'Neal from going after Stackhouse.
• And that means I have to note this year's best known sports hit, Zidane-Materazzi at the World Cup Final. I've already mentioned the brilliance of Zidane's actions, but HOW HARD was that head butt in the first place!
• On a sadder note: Tamara Wolfers managed to get the city square completely filled to the brim... after getting killed in her home this past summer. The thing I have trouble with, is that the person or the people who killed her in the first place, are probably ruthless enough to not let anyone know about it. What's the point of asking then?
• Less serious, but still tragic: the Bos en Lommer complex where people got forced out of their newly minted apartments because the floor cracked... Of course I have a lot of recognition with my own situation this year, and I found out one of my old classmates was actually being interviewed on television!

Next time, let's talk about the cool awards for this year!

Things I've learned in 2006

• It's rather hard to give sincere compliments; it's possibly even harder to give sincere compliments that are in fact negative. And yet there's one that works about 90 percent of the time: insecurity. If you tell some girl she's insecure, she's not gonna slap you upside the head. She's not gonna yell at you, call you names. However, she will feel empowered because (finally) someone else noticed a trait in her that she values greatly.
• I used to think my most important motivation in life was to be right all the time. Win all negotiations, win every discussion, always be the (moral) victor; Although it is still an important motivation, there's one that trumps it: getting asked. I don't need to be right all the time, but I value greatly that everyone comes to me first for everything. That's why I put myself upfront for the owners' association, and the works council, and proposals at work, and giving training and so on and so on. And sometimes this snowballs and consumes me whole.
  
• I am completely unwilling to take a risk to be truly and completely happy in love. Several different opportunities presented themselves in which clearly one more step from me could seal the deal. And every single time I choose to back away instead. Now if I just keep doing that, it ceases being bad luck, and just becomes symptomatic. I choose to be unhappy, because otherwise, I wouldn't know what to do with myself. Nope, it's not a unique feeling I'm sure, but it is one that can only be felt and carried within.
  
• I learned people from my past apparently think I'm worth looking up, even after an extremely long amount of time. I didn't learn however why exactly. Given my newly found most important motivation, I am extremely honoured by it, but understand it I don't. I mean, have you seen me back then?
• Pro-action is a misunderstood concept; there's only this trait that allows you to remember everything and prepare for everything well ahead of time. It is being careful and disciplined. You react to gaps and issues, and that's not pro-action, it is a re-action. Except in this case the action is taken before the issue, instead of after. The concept pro-action people speak of and value highly should not be called like that. It should be entrepreneurship.
  
• People think and feel as they do, because they do. Your success in society depends greatly on if you can convince many or if you can convince key people to match your thinking and/or feelings. And you have to. If you just sit still and hope everyone will eventually make the world as it should be ideally, then you can wait for a bloody long time. Just like pro wrestling, you need to sell it to pop the crowd.
• I don't have a problem with my salary. I do however have a problem with what I am able to do with it. I perceive that given my environment, experience, track record, skills, attitude, strength, education etc. I should be able to go out every week, fly out for a vacation twice a year, buy and maintain an appartment, buy reasonably nice stuff, get proper health care, drive a nice car and so on. I should be trusted to be able to do so, but society doesn't, so I have to cave a little: no nice car, no second vacation. The solution is simple: Either my salary goes up, or the prices overall go down.
• The Flop, The Turn, The River
• Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and French
• No matter how well I prepare presentations or sales pitches, it becomes completely irrelevant to how I feel during the actual pitch. If the body gives out, the body gives out. Nothing I can do about it.