You just know Twitter will be all over this

Once you hear news like this developing, the first five to ten minutes are exciting. Then you realize nobody can tell you more than you already know about what you see and hear already. Couple this to the fact that people are absolutely stunned, and you're better off going away and coming back to the news some hours later. 

But you just absolutely know that people with Twitter accounts will be all over this.

Does that work?

Hmm... does that really work? Mouth caps against swine flu? 

Damn, I was just getting adjusted to the state of the economy, and now they come up with yet another way to influence the way we dress on the street.

Now, if they also stop stuff like handshaking, hugging, kissing we can pretty much move all our interactions to Facebook anyway. Then the only virus we need to be afraid of, is Conflicker.

Degrees of separation

According to my latest information, I am just three degrees removed from: 

• the president of the United States
  
• Bill Gates
• HRH Prince van Oranje

...or at least three degrees removed from the caretaker whom these people told to make their entries in the various networking sites...

Deauthorization Blues

I'm one of those people who jumped at the opportunity to get all the deauthorization software I can get. I mean, if you have Spore and Sims 2 and Red Alert 3 that installation limit is a huge inconvenience if you keep buying new equipment for your rig. 

However, how am I going to deauthorize a game's installation if THE ENTIRE HARD DISK WHICH THE GAME IS ON, IS INACCESSIBLE BY THE OS?! Can't run it, if I can't even get Vista to run, do I?

So not only does EA demand 50 bucks for the bloody privilege of playing their title... a handful of times. You can't ever upgrade the computer, which according to EA shouldn't be necessary for most people... right... 

EA fallaciously gives people the opportunity to regain these privileges with a small tool, which assumes you actually have the chance to run it in the first place. This doesn't help if your computer craps out on you. Just about the only reason to legitimately reinstall a piece of software, and EA gives you a feather duster to open a bottle of wine.

STUPID, STUPID, STUPID.

Something impractical

I understand why major motor racing competitions want to have night races on their schedule. It makes for beautiful pictures, adds to the uniqueness of the circuit and the venue itself, and generally brings a lot of headlines to the front page.

But as the MotoGP race of Qatar has proven, these races are hideously impractical. First they take place late at night, so you can't really move up the race one or two hours. Also you can't really move the race up to the Monday, since people have to go to work. Fans will want their money back.

To a lesser extent the start of the Formula One race in Malaysia was moved up to late in the afternoon to accommodate television channels in Europe, who could then show the race live at a more convenient time. The weather forecast however showed rain, and predictably the race was halted not even midway through. Because of the late hour, it was not possible to move up the remainder of the race. 

I'm quite sure, especially with all the economic difficulties even the premier race teams are experiencing, that these race postponements completely negate all the regulations the competitions have made to make them economically and financially viable.

Adaptability

I've always taken great pride in being able to relate to a great number of people on an individual level. Not just relate actually... also adapt to someone's personality. It does make me very easy to approach, but also very hard to understand. See, you can't really know how my demeanor is going to turn out. Some basic mannerisms will be the same, but beyond that it's going to be a crapshoot. How I will act around a person, or a group, depends on the social context, the relationships, the hierarchy, the topic, the time of day, my mood, whether or not Ajax won last weekend... the list goes on and on.

So in a sense, adaptable behaviour is not the best desirable trait. Could be good for actors, profilers, mentalists and hustlers; but for someone in a seat of power or reponsibility it may not work out as well.

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.