I'm a Madman!

I dare you to find someone more obsessive about email than I am.

I treat my inbox like a man with a mallet trying to knock down the furry moles in the arcade game, whack-a-mole.

As soon a new email sticks its head up, it is my goal to deal with it: either delete it, file it in a folder, or respond to it.

I am so nuts that I almost feel physically ill if I open Outlook and see a long line of new messages. The worst is when I can't decide what to do with one of them and I opt to keep it right there to taunt me.

It's with those things in mind that I sympathize with people and companies looking to get a handle on email gone wild. Fast Company had an article in the current issue about how various companies are "whacking the moles" that chew into their productivity.

They say that the average corporate email account receives 18 MB of stuff daily, and that number is expected to grow to 28 MB a day by 2011.

Capital One deals with that crushing tsunami by putting employees through an email management workshop, and it estimates that it saves 11 workdays a year. Some of the keys to their training is teaching employees to write more specific subject lines, using bullet points, underlining, and bolding.

Union Bank tames its email moles by using RSS feeds so that all of its 10,000 employees don't get every email. A new system (called KnowNow) will send RSS feeds based on job description and location.

Finally, Rueters uses a hybrid system of email and instant messages to keep the inboxes from overflowing.

Anybody out there have any personal strategies that work for you? Personally, I will just keep my handy mole-smashing mallet of a delete key at the ready for Option Number One.

Water Follies

A favorite drink of the more-environmental-than-thou club (and others who just think it's cool) is Fiji bottled water.

Surprisingly enough, this water actually comes from Fiji--but not easily.

Not only is Fiji an 18-hour plane ride and a four-hour truck trip away, but before it hits our grocery store shelves, it has to make that trip twice because the bottles are not made in Fiji.

This is just a small example of the tantalizing and amusing tidbits in this Fast Company article about the bottled-water industry and the people who support it.

It you are an environmentalist or you know someone who you would like to needle with tales of the huge carbon footprint their precious wa-wa is leaving on its way to their mouths, you have got to read this article.

If you are interested in how Americans came to pay so much money for something that is available for nada, you might be interested in this too. Here is my favorite part:

"You can buy a half-liter Evian for $1.35--17 ounces of water imported from France for pocket change. That water seems cheap, but only because we aren't paying attention.

"In San Francisco, the municipal water comes from inside Yosemite National Park. It's so good the EPA doesn't require San Francisco to filter it. If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35. Put another way, if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000."

If you are interested in "the way things work" this might prove to be an interesting read.

Putting Money on It

Do you value your opinions enough to bet your own money on it?

If you do, then you might want to check out something that I discovered today called prediction markets.

A prediction market is a lot like the stock market except instead of putting your money on which stocks will perform the best, you can put your money where your mouth is and help predict who will win the 2008 Presidential Election.

It is an exiting idea that, frankly, has majorly distracted me from making a Photo Story CD for my parents' fiftieth anniversary--sorry Mom, Dad, I will get it done, I promise.

Not only can you invest in the future as it pertains to elections, but you can wager on whether Osama Bin Laden will be captured, speculate on how many Atlantic hurricanes their will be this season, put money on who will win the World Series, or cast your vote on whether we will see a recession before 2007 is out.

Not only do prediction markets afford you the opportunity to make money off the accuracy of your convictions, but they are also very good sources for predicting actual future events. It doesn't take much of a web search to find out that prediction markets are no worse (and often better) than polls in picking winners in elections.

Right now I am playing with fake money on TradeSports which allows you to put your wisdom and the wisdom of the masses to the test in predicting the outcome of sporting events. I "bought" 10 contracts at a price of 69 before the Florida/San Diego MLB game started today.

What that means is that at that point in time, 69 percent of the speculators thought the Padres would win. As the game went on, the number fluctuated just like in the stock market. I could have sold my contract for 71 at one point and earned a profit. As the Padres fell behind, the going rate was 17 and I could have bought at that price if I was convinced that it would later rise with a Padre comeback.

If the Padres had won the game (they didn't), the price would have been 100. At the price I purchased (69), I would have made 31 points, with each point being worth 10 cents. I would have won $3.10 times the number of contracts (like shares) I had purchased. Since the Padres lost, I lost $6.90 times the number of contracts I purchased.

Whatever prediction one puts one's money on--what level the Dow Jones hits this year, who will be the first Republican to drop out of the race, etc.--the contract has a time when it is over. If the prediction comes true, the final price is 100. If it doesn't come true, the price is 0.

I don't know that I will ever do this for real money (it's highly doubtful), but the sheer predictive power of these markets makes me want to watch. Right now Hilary Clinton is trading at 24 and Rudy Guiliani is second, trading at 18. This means that the market feels the chances are 24 percent that Hilary will be president in 2008.

If you have never heard of TradeSports or InTrade (which accepts contracts for non-sporting predictions), I suggest you check it out.

I bet you find it interesting.

What a Dumb Law!

After church today we stopped by a roadside vegetable stand to get some corn and cherries. My daughter wanted to know if we could buy her something to drink, but we were told that county regulations forbid the business from selling cold drinks.

You will never guess in a million years why they can't sell a can of cola. Go ahead, try. Give up?

drum roll
drum roll
drum roll
drum roll
drum roll

Ready to hear the answer?

dramatic pause (though I was going to say drum roll, huh?)

They are forbidden to sell a can of coke or a bottle of water because their business doesn't have a bathroom.

Who thinks this stuff up?

Smart in a Bad Way

In their best Mister Rogers voice, professors in teacher certification classes will happily tell you that "children have a natural desire to learn."

One teensy little detail that they leave out is that children don't desire to learn what we have to teach them.

The real natural desire they have is to screw things up so badly that teachers run screaming from the classroom. One way they do that is by messing with the computers so that the technology-challenged teacher thinks they are broken.

Here are the things they have done to computers in my summer school class:

*Used the function key to make it so that certain letters will type numbers instead. "Look, somethings wrong with the computer; I can't log in because the keys are all messed up."

*Activated certain keystroke combinations so that whenever the computer "sleeps" it emits a high-pitched lazer-gun sound. This always makes the whole class laugh and I am the only one allowed to make people laugh.

*Used a differenct function to make something called "sticky keys". I don't have any idea what the real purpose of this is, but they do it so that when you hit the shift key, it too makes a nasty loud beep.

*Made it so that the display is turned ninety degrees (or completely upside down) on the screen.

*Disabled something (not sure what yet) so that the computer can no longer find the educational software we are using.

*Pretend that they don't know how to plug in headphones so that all of a sudden in a quiet room whatever sound plays is audible to everyone. What they really do is pull the plug out ever-so-slightly when whatever noise they want to make comes on.

They have the amazing ability to do these things very quickly even though I have them seated in such a way that I can see them all. Of course, they NEVER have any idea how it happens and when I tell them that they did it, they act like I called them an ax murderer.

It is amazing what they can accomplish when they really want to!

Are You Panicking?

Monday was International Panic Day and you missed it. I think it originated with Al Gore and all of those people who believe everything they hear on the news.

Maybe in honor of them we should all pause for a moment of hysterical screaming.

They Should Pay Me for This

This is not a sponsored post, but that doesn't stop me from sharing when I find something cool.

I love magazines. If I could find a job that pays me to hang out in libraries and Barnes and Nobles to read magazines and nap, I would be a happy Ugly Naked Guy.

Alas, some dreams are not to be.

Today while I was in Home Depot buying a $6.47 box of screws when I only needed six of them, I saw a magazine that caught my eye, and I made a point to look it up online when I got a chance.

Well, I now have another place marked in my del.iou.us bookmarks--no thanks to Jon at Chimeric Daydreams who said that he would explain what all those cute little icons at the bottom of his posts were for, but never did, leaving me to figure it out on my own.

Anyway, the magazine is called ReadyMade and it is a very hip kinda do-it-your-self projects magazine "for people who like to make stuff."

I'm not sure why I like the magazine and the website because I never make stuff. I guess I am in love with the idea that if I weren't so lazy, I could make stuff using this cool magazine as a guide.

I know that Opal at Vegan Momma would make this stuff (if she hasn't already). She would especially like the sod couch (above) or the tips on recycling. These are not your typical How-to-Remodel-your-Bathroom-on-a-Budget projects.

Another nifty project would be perfect for the aforementioned Jon whose photography would be great paired with the picture book frame project.

One of the most useful features of the website version is the part where you can go back in the magazine's archives and find all of the projects they have featured. Each of those tasks has a recipe-like index card telling you what you need (including skill level), how much it will cost, and step-by-step instructions.

If any of you try the sod couch, let me know! (Opal?)

My laundry can beat your laundry!

Sometimes the passionate sports fan in me collides with the pragmatist.

One of those moments occurred a few days ago when I was on a sports blog somewhere and someone profoundly noted that "we are really only rooting for laundry."

I don't think I will ever forget that quote for the simple reason that it crystallized and gave voice to something that I have thought about for many years.

What is it about us humans that we can be so loyal to a group of guys who happen to be wearing a uniform that we have grown accustomed to pulling for?

I really began to question the logic of being a fanatic when my beloved Los Angeles Rams skipped town and moved to St. Louis. Why do I still root for them even though they aren't from my hometown? Why will I still be a Rams fan even when L.A. finally gets a new team?

At least you can't say I am provincial.

Logically it makes no sense to root for a team from St. Louis. The only thing they have in common with the team I grew up loving is the name and the owner whom I despise.

Logic be damned, I can't stop myself!

What if the entire team and coaching staff were completely swapped with another team in the league? I've thought about that before and I can tell you with all certainty that I would still root for the Rams! Am I mental or what?

I think this mystery wrapped in an enigma can probably be explained by studying the implication of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Isn't there something about the importance of spending large portions of time on the couch with a remote, chips and a favorite beverage?

Go Angels (red uniforms), UCLA Bruins (blue and gold), Rams (blue and gold), and Lakers (yellow and "Laker" blue)!

Go Google Yourself!

Come on, we have all done it when there's no one looking...

Your alone late at night. You've surfed so much that you're checking the same sites for the tenth time and you realize that it is already the next day's issue of the L.A. Times and it's not going to change for another 24 hours unless a major disaster happens.

Then you do it: you type your own name into the magic box and hit the enter key. What did you find?

For most of us, depending on how you look at it, you find out you are either a nobody or unique. I found three things that matched my rather unusual name--my real name, not Ugly Naked Guy--exactly.

Mostly I am one heck of a golfer. This is extremely ironic. If there is anyone out there bored enough to be googling my name, they will get a big laugh out of that one. I am actually a horrible golfer, but there is a guy in Minnesota who is tearing it up on my behalf.

I also can be found providing "high tech financial solutions for businesses." It turns out that I have a BA in economics and a masters in international business. Wooo hoo, I must be making the big bucks!

Unfortunately, the real me can only be found commenting about the Terry Schiavo case on somebody's blog. I don't know why out of all the blogs I look at I would only find that one, but I must say, I thought I was very polite while making my point quite lucidly.

How about you? What do you find out about your clones-in-name-only when you go google yourself?

Coming soon: What does spellcheck do to your last name?

A little too much reality

As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.

The Leomiti family of Santa Fe Springs, CA either didn't know that, or they decided to tempt the gods of fate anyway--they are currently being sued.

Today's L.A. Times recounts how a story that was aired on ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition quickly turned into an example of extreme ingratitude.

When five brothers from the Higgins family found themselves orphaned,their friends the Leomiti's, who had three kids of their own, invited them to move into their house.

The story was so heartwarming that ABC selected the Leomiti's to have their home remodeled to accommodate them all. The home was expanded to include nine bedrooms and cover over 4,000 square feet. The mortgage was paid off, and six cars were given to the kids of driving age.

Within weeks after the show aired as an Easter Special in 2005, most of the Higginses had moved out, citing racism as one of the reasons. The Higgins are black and the Leomiti's are Samoan.

You can read the story and draw your own conclusions. I must admit that I don't believe everything I read in the L.A. Times or any other paper, but it looks as though the Higgins siblings didn't take to the discipline standards and expectations that the Leomiti's imposed on them.

One of the Leomiti's neighbors said the Higginses started giving an attitude.

Reminds me of a time I tried to do a good deed.

I had my own gardening business and I hired a homeless young man to work with me. Being the thrifty person I am, I used to bring a sack lunch to work everyday. When I noticed that my helper had no food, I would bring him a lunch everyday too.

Guess what? He complained about the type of sandwich I made him!

Pandering or Marketing?

It's Cinco de Mayo and for the San Francisco Giants it is also Mexican Heritage Day at the ballpark where the home team will wear their Gigantes uniform tops for the occasion.

Does the Chivas soccer club, one of the most popular in Mexico, translate their name to Goats every July 4th?