The Appeal of Japanese Schoolgirls

Can someone please explain to me the logic behind the lyrics of Japanese pop songs? Walk into any karaoke bar, order a Japanese video CD, and marvel in the total ridiculousness of the songs unfolding in front of you. 

If you're lucky you might see some translation running at the bottom of your screen, but seriously you can't take those words very seriously. Honestly you'd think the translation office had a fresh delivery of weed coming in when they were recording this song. I mean: girls are singing about their boyfriends, but also about their desire to make their homework? And are comparing their houses with a penguin in the local zoo? The logic is all over the place. No, actually it's completely lost. 

I guess the saving grace of these video clips are the Japanese schoolgirls, who are smiling all over the screen MTV-style. That almost takes away your attention from the song. Catholic schoolgirls have got nothing on a tough girl from Tokyo.  

Typical behaviours

• We expect flexibility when it suits us.
• Escalation is based on the premise that people respond to their bosses; if that's not the case, it's about as useful as pissing into the wind.
• People usually refrain from estimating a job accurately, not because they cannot predict the future, but because they don't want to give others a stick to hit them with.
  

Ten things you probably didn't know about me

• I still watch old cartoons from the 1980s. And each time I do, I wonder why.
• I don't swim in open water. I don't have a swimming diploma, and have not learned anything beyond a butterfly stroke.
• My hidden ambition is to be able to order food in at least ten languages. Right now I'm up to eight.
• I know Feng Shui.
• I have a better than average feeling for rhythm, which helps me lots in ballroom, latin and salsa.
• I never ask a person's heritage from the get-go. This forces me to judge a person based on my interaction with him, rather than his race.
• I'm a great fan of long showers.
• I'm a slow eater.
• I'm an uber-consumer and a shopaholic lite. I know my brands and am very brand loyal. I hate it when the stuff I want or need isn't sold.
• I would enjoy to make it to a level of obnoxiousness that wherever I come into a room, The Rock's entrance theme plays.
  

What if there was a bomb scare in the Arena

• It would be the cheapest IKEA commercial of all time
• "The Killers" would be the worst act to play a concert at that moment
  
• Someone really doesn't agree with Marco van Basten
• The way the news kept repeating that shops were targets, makes me think the economic downturn really didn't kill off enough businesses on its own
• It would be the cheapest IKEA commercial of all time
  

Just ask dad

In this economy companies are throwing their arms up in the air and waving the white flag. Some start panicking, others start deliberating what to do until the whole thing blows over. A few companies are legitimately in trouble and have to take drastic measures, such as closing shop or firing half the workforce. Others are busy pushing their failed leadership out the door with hefty sums of money.

All companies are looking for someone to bail them out. The government seems to have to step in, as a father figure who helps out a child. It assumes the father has money to give in the first place, and luckily our government is able to do that.

At first you are just happy you've been helped out of hot water, but at some point in the future - again, when the whole thing has blown over - you have to wonder where the money came from. Or worse still, what the fine print was.

I'm still expecting that my taxes are going to double sometime next year. If not next year, then at least by 2012 we're going to have hyperinflation or something similar. By then all your savings just becomes imaginary.

Hopefully dad will still be around to lend a hand.

Silly marketeers

Twist it...

Lick it...

Dip it...

There are so many double entendres in there, you can start your own orchestra.

That's... kind of new.

Ever had the feeling where you were just minding your own business, your mind switches to screensaver mode for a minute, and then you're slap bang in the middle of a freakin' warzone? Like a Memento-like moment. Except without the memory loss.

Bored

People have to be bored out of their minds. I really cannot understand otherwise why people would go the trouble of:

• messing up a bus driver
• attacking an ambulance worker
• tossing a brick from a highway overpass
• making threats against middle schools
• sending envelopes filled with a white powder to the office

I mean, hasn't everybody got a Wii by now? Has the credit crisis really put people at home, suffering intense boredom? Are people that desperate that when their livelihood ends, they start doing insane stuff? What good does that accomplish?

How to deal with the hidden agenda

Everybody has to protect their own interests. Sometimes people are very open about it, and will run all over you to do so. But maybe more vicious is the other type of person, the ones who have a hidden agenda.

People will look for the best way to achieve their objectives, and if that takes smoke and mirrors, so be it. Of course, you could be very evil about it, purposely misleading others to get what you want. Or you could just be all like "I don't voluntueer information, if there's no need to".

You'd have to accept that people have an agenda, and not be surprised by it. The key is to adapt to such a situation, or to have such a strong negotiation position, that it doesn't matter. Either way you have to be very zen.

The HHG: Super Bowl XLIII

Heart: Well, look. I'm giving props to Kurt Warner, who's basically been the feel good story of the year, and in fact for his entire career in the NFL. The ultimate good guy, as well as THE player of the league when I started following football more closely. I'd love to see him winning another one.

Same goes for Larry Fitzgerald. If he's willing to renegotiate his contract to get his friend Anquan B. to stay with the team, he must be the most selfless player in the league. I wouldn't jump on his bandwagon yet, as other receivers are still more powerful, have more flair, etc. But he's the main dish on the Cardinals menu.

All in all, I feel that good guys should win this time around. Not to say that the Steelers aren't good guys, but in this case, the nod goes to the Cards.

Head: I really can't see that the Pittsburgh defense won't smash their way through the Arizona offensive line. And when that happens, the Cards are in trouble. When Philadelphia did that in the NFC Championship Game, Warner couldn't complete a single pass for a first down. Past that, Troy Polamalu seriously scares me. He is the ideal security blanket for a cover defense.

Defensively the Steelers can really shut down Arizona. The only thing that could possibly be Pittsburgh's downfall is if Fitzgerald jumps higher than the Steelers' secondary.

Gut: I'm feeling Pittsburgh. I'm liking the Cards. I know what happened last year between the Giants and the 'undefeated' Patriots, but that was a team with a lot of momentum, against a team with very little. This time around, I feel momentum is more or less equal, so I should simply go with the objectively better team.

So Pittsburgh will win it... probably.

Why Assumptions Are The Mother...

Picture this... you get posed a question, which requires you to answer quite quickly, but to which you lack full information to answer wholly. You'll have to make some assumptions to frame an answer.

Would you frame your answer as favorable as possible to the asking party by making the assumptions as favorable as possible? That pretty much constitutes lying, doesn't it? Or at the very least a delusion. The thing about assumptions is, that saying you assume something, doesn't make it so.

Assumption is the mother of all fuckups

What you need in consulting

It does take a special kind of person with a certain mentality to survive in consulting. It requires a person with the ability to work in ambiguous environments, who is professional, who has an understanding of organizing one's activities in effective and efficient ways, and the courage to make increasingly tougher decisions.

I'm sure my employer holds these characteristics true, but I do realize there are some small additions, which make my colleagues very different from others in consulting. And even when you're looking at my specific department, even the people there have a set of traits slightly different from the rest.

I'm quite sure consulting life is not cut out for everyone, and even some true-blooded consultants are not cut out for life at my employer. You need to be resilient, be able to voice your opinions, be flexible. The prevailing mentality is that giving up is not an option. Entrepreneurship is highly valued, as long as you have a good sales pitch. On the other hand hierarchy is held to strongly, and anything that threatens that hierarchy is frowned upon.

The benefits are obvious: an exciting environment that will give you many stories to tell on your high school reunion. The money ain't bad either. But I wouldn't just recommend Consultancy to anyone. You need to live and breathe consultancy.

In Other News...

Halfway across the world in the Middle East Israelis and Hamas are fighting again. Bombs and missles and all that shit. Global economies are in tatters, financial systems completely out of sync.

In other news however, there's boobies! And even better, the first thing people do after taking a look at the first newspaper of the year, is to call out a nationwide search.

Good thing people have got their priorities straight.

Everything I want to share about 2008

2008 is almost done, so that means it's time to look back, and make mention of whatever I want to share about this year.

Plusses
Health-wise I'm doing okay. I'm definitely more tired than I used to, but I'm sure that's thirty-something going for me. At least nothing's the matter more serious than taking a couple of pills.

Seeing my friends get married on a tropical island was a personal checkmark for me. The very fact I had the freedom to do so, is nothing less than a total luxury, I agree. But it earned me plenty of new stories, new acquaintances and invigorated relationships, some of which were from a long time ago.

Probably my greatest professional successes this year have all to do with recognition, acknowledgment, and gratitude. People enjoy and appreciate working with me and for me, which is more than I can hope for. It means I'm a good team mate, a good team lead, and whatever I want to have everyone around me do, makes sense. My way - which is not so much demanding, as it is making people to believe themselves that my way is best - works dividends.

Minuses
Stuff that happened this year I could have done without, included getting registered by our resident traffic authorities, getting stuff busted for no good reason, and of course having all these traders and financial institutions panicking and crashing the stock exchanges, again for no really good reason. (so you do bad business now GM... you did bad business before... don't blame credit crunches for your own mistakes...)

But I think the most epic fail this year has to be the following... I always prided myself with having great perspective and insight into people around me. Yet I completely missed people's breakdowns, break-ups, depressions and all that, left, right and center. Shows how much of a friend I am. The only excuse I can think of, is that I've been given leeway to take on a lot of professional responsibilities, and somehow that makes people think I'm all work and no play.

Learning points
I feel sad, but also fortunate that I can support other people during their grief. And I hope I can show as much dignity and calm when such grief arrives at my doorstep. For some reason, I didn't have (or didn't take) my chance at this before, and I feel bad about it. This feels like redemption.

I've learned that agendas are important, and putting the right points on it even more so. It is up to me to make sure that other people's agendas contain the items I find important. I've learned that asking questions, especially on record, is a very potent weapon in discussions. That means I've got to master asking the right type of questions to achieve my goals. Regarding both points, I firmly believe no person is actually unwilling to talk about a particular subject, as long as it happens on their terms (at least that's what they think), and as long as they are given ample time to think about it.

Next year
In 2009 I need a lot of resolve around the home, institutionalize my relationships, make my professional concerns important to those who should. It will help I have deferred some of my responsibilities next year. Money is less of a driver I guess this coming year. I'm more looking at experiences, good, bad, evil, beautiful and everything inbetween. Things that have to be done before the start of the fourteenth B'ak'tun...

Eat, take pictures and play cards

How to Sit in a Restaurant.

Solo, at the corner of the bar. The food's the same. You can look out over the restaurant, and your server for the evening will be the bartender, who'll be more than happy to provide you with info on all things hot waitress. If you're dining with a special someone, ask for a table in a corner away from the kitchen, and sit next to each other, not across, to up the intimacy factor, says Todd English, a chef and restaurateur. Make a 7:30 reservation. It's just before the crunch, so adrenaline will be pumping and service should be optimal.

. . . Take a Group Photo.

Standing on a balcony or chair. Shooting down makes people look up, and looking up makes people look better, says Danny Clinch, a New York City photographer. Have Phil tell the story that always makes Aunt Cheryl spit water, or ask each person to tell a joke. People will listen, relax, and forget about the camera. Shoot just before, during, and after they laugh, to capture a series of natural looks. One more trick: If they're sitting, ask them to lean toward the center of the group, and as soon as they start, click. More doing and less thinking. Wait too long and it'll be too posed.

. . . Sit On a Couch for a Group Picture.

It doesn't matter where, just lean forward. You'll have to look up, and putting your forearms on your knees will hide any gut, Clinch says. Leaning back will cause you to look down and across your chest, giving even the most ripped cover model some unsightly chin business.

. . . Sit At Your Regular Poker Game.

To the immediate left of the most aggressive player. Money moves to the left, and you want to see how he acts before you play. If that turns out to be at the head of the table, even better: You can see everyone and snag maximum legroom. Once comfortable, your goal is to isolate Captain Macho. Since he's prone to play weaker hands, you'll have your chance. Just be patient for a decent starting hand and raise three to four times his initial bet to drive the pretenders out, says Daniel Negreanu, professional poker player. It might not look great, but a 7-8 of the same suit can turn into gold after the flop. Plus it'll be hard for opponents to figure out what you're holding.

[Also check out the Men's Wisdom pages on menshealth.com]

Funny quotes from 2008

From the Funny Department:

• "BS, M.S., Ph.D: bullshit, more shit, piled higher and deeper" (stole it from Ben's mom)

From the world of epiphany:

• The more money you have, the less you actually need spend.
• There are no goals. Just be in the moment.

From the department of cheesy, but still good:

• A real friend is one who walks in, while the rest of the world walks away
• Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results (Einstein)

From the department of DRM MUST DIE:

copa Oct 15th 2008 11:51AM: giving a metaphore for EA's DRM practices.

"This clearly is not a solution to piracy."

You clearly know nothing about running a business. I run a convenience store, and know a thing or two about stopping criminals.

Every time someone shoplifts beer from my store, I implement policies that make it less convenient for paying customers to buy shit from me. I require customers to show me two forms of ID, and give me their Social Security number before they can buy stuff. Also, I have a guy who stands in the parking lot and blocks their car for five minutes before letting them leave.

Unfortunately, my store's annual revenue has actually dropped $60,000 in the year since I started implementing these policies. Also, shoplifting has increased 50%. When I caught one of these criminals, he claimed he would have paid for the beer, but he just didn't want to give me his social security number. I hope he get ass-raped in prison.

Anyway, the revenue drop at my store just illustrates how unchecked shoplifting is going to destroy my business. Obviously, the solution is to implement more draconian policies so I can eliminate shoplifting completely.

Starting tomorrow, I will gut-punch all paying customers at the point of sale. That will give the shoplifters something to think about.

The fallibility of the attractiveness grading system

You probably heard of it before. When you go out you scope the room and identify the most attractive people in the room. You order them, give them a grade, and then proceed to pick one of them up - as pretty as feasible, thus as high grade as possible. Very attractive people are scored higher, ugly ones score low.

What is usually said that happens, is that people will more or less stay within their own grade, give or take a point. If you're a 9, you can hook up with anyone up to a 9, and even 10. Likely a 9 will not date someone lower than 8. But a 6 should not realistically be successful with a 9.

The problem I have with this, is there's no objective measuring system that says "this person is a 4 and this an 8". Only one person determines how attractive a person is, and that person is you. Of course many people could share a similar opinion about how attractive someone is, but that's not enough reason to just take someone else's opinion as yours. It could very well be that one person's 6 or 7, is another person's 9 or even 10. It all depends on what you're looking for.

Ideally, and probably instinctively, people start scoping the room by doing lightning quick reviews. I'm fine with that. But when it comes to dating, will you let the overall "metacritic" score influence your move? Or do you stick to your own review?

The State of Sports in 2008

Sports in 2008 have taken a leaf out of the WWE handbook of "shock and awe" plot twists. From Giants upsetting undefeated teams, to championships pulled out from the skin of your teeth, these are the most shocking events in sports this past year. Try to beat that, WWE booking team.

• The Upset; or the Rise of the Giants: An undefeated New England Patriots team comes into Arizona to pick up the one win that will make them the most dominating team in the NFL ever. Except for some divine reason their offensive line couldn't stand up straight, their linebackers couldn't pull down a quarterback, and balls were caught with helmets. The Giants won, and became the most powerful team in the league for the rest of the year.
  
• Women of Gold: at least for the Netherlands, the Olympics would have been a bust, had it not been saved by the fine ladies in hockey, swimming, and very surprisingly water polo. Makes you wonder where all the Dutch men went. However, all of these successes were achieved in team sports. Individually the Netherlands had mediocre results, and it showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the low countries do not have a superstar to rally behind. Thankfully the Dutch Female Athletes, tall, proud and full of team spirit, made it happen.
  
• The Superstar; or the Franchise: Usain Bolt destroyed athletics competitions for the forseeable future, for holding back on a sub-9.50 100 m dash, and boasting about it loudly in cameras and television screens world wide. The IOC, in its best Vince McMahon-impression, gave the Jamaican an official warning, which Bolt seemingly underwent with a definite indifference. Of course, he made sure that future Olympic 100 m dashes still have drawing power, because if he would have done his utmost and ran 9.48 or thereabouts, no one would ever be able to beat the record, killing the event forever.
  
• The Great Hope, and the Disappointment: For about two weeks the Netherlands thought it had a chance to win it all, and emulate what a previous generation did before: win the UEFA European Championship. Oranje made short work of the World Cup holders from Italy, beat the French soundly and were looking to walk over the dark horse Russians in the quarter final... except things didn't turn out that way, leaving Holland with another promise unfulfilled, and millions of Oranje fans dejected, after having been fooled yet again.
• The Soap Opera: Formula One always markets itself as the glamourous, jetset, top flight of automobile motorsport. But this year the circus had more twists, turns, Dusty-finishes than the WWE, which is saying a lot. They had a boss who was caught in a sex-scandal, systematically erased results to manipulate the standings, and ended up with the most dramatic finish of recent history, when Lewis Hamilton just pipped Massa for the championship in the final 500 m of the Brazilian GP. If someone was still entertaining the notion that F1 held the highest form of integrity, I seriously doubt their sanity. I mean, this very same plot line was held to the letter in WWE circa 1998-2001.
• The Kids You Hated At School: For a U.S. Ryder Cup team, which was so extremely keen on making themselves the underdog for this year's competition ("sob, sob, we're never going to win this, we don't have Tiger, boohoo, yadda yadda"), they looked much too smug after actually beating the Europeans.
• The End of An Era: Roger Federer is no longer invincible. That's a good thing. I don't care what people say about watching tennis brilliance when he is on TV. HE IS FREAKIN' BORING.
  
• Extracurricular Activities: On the other side of the net, the WTA is finally using its sex appeal to win viewers. Too bad that the women crack apart (Sharapova, Ivanovic, Jankovic etc.) once they won once. Thankfully just about every player in the top 50 has a magazine shoot ramped up to give them some income when they're nursing their injuries.
• The Curse: The Cubs still haven't won a World Series. The Red Sox now have two.
  
• The More Things Change...: NBA Finals 1987: Lakers vs. Celtics. NBA Finals 2008: Lakers vs. Celtics. So much for expansion.
• A Sign Of Armageddon: It is bad for your sport if the one individual in that sport the general media is talking about, is not a champion (More Detroit Redwings hoisting Stanley Cups. C'mon guys... share the wealth!), and not its most talented player, but is the class clown. Sean Avery, from his stick waving antics in the NHL Playoffs, to his public burns of Jack Bauer's daughter and Stacy's Mom, was generating more publicity than the league he is playing in. Yes. All 30 teams in it, including all the other players on each of the 30 team rosters.
  
  I give the NHL four more years.
  

State of video games in 2008

I got caught. I actually shelled out for a PlayStation3 and (re)joined the console owning army this past summer. Hell, you need to justify that widescreen TV anyway, right?

Truthfully only a couple of games interest me for the PS3. Metal Gear Solid 4 is one, every bit the elaborate military stealth thriller it promised to be. A truly involving story, interesting characters, and well paced action. It was the first game in a long while to actually scare the daylights out of me. Try playing the boss level against Laughing Octopus in the dark, and try not to get too spooked.

Grand Theft Auto 4 is another, which is actually a surprise to me. I thought I wouldn't like it too much, with all the hype surrounding it. But it is the best depiction of a sandbox game yet, with an environment which is so convincing as a depiction of New York, I recognized locations when I was there.

And I'm sure Gran Turismo 5 is going to be a great game, but Prologue is an ideal (if slightly contrived) way of demoing the game up front. And I'm happy to note that with just a couple of practice laps, I can get to be second fastest driver in the Netherlands.

On the PC Windows front, not a lot happened for me. The Sims continues to sell, but it is getting extremely evil with all the spinoffs, theme packs, expansions that a true Sim fan will have to buy. Getting connected with H&M and IKEA is a stroke of genius, but who in their right mind would pay $29.99 for 60 new pieces of Sims furniture?!

The two main games for the PC were Red Alert 3 and Spore. The latter used to be a shoe-in for release date acquisition, but the DRM mess really put it in the crapper. I mean, it is an interesting game, with a unique premise, but it is not good enough to warrant such a draconian measure to protect it from piracy. It's like having 15.000 dollars worth of alarm systems on a 7.000 dollar car. And each time you get into your car, you get hit in the nuts.

Which leaves Red Alert 3. Back in the old days, you only needed to equip your game with one or maybe two attractive women, and you would create a new fanboy addiction overnight. RA3 gives us seven women. SEVEN. That's a bit overkill. And you could argue if you want Jenny McCarthy on your computer screen in this day and age. But Gemma Atkinson made the best use of a white dress yet seen on any screen. The game was enjoyable too.

And the soundtracks this year... absolutely fantastic. I actually discovered new great music because of the soundtracks of these games. But just go back to my 2008 music review to see what I'm talking about.