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To help you finish your year off on a high note, here’s a few bits of inspiration from the famous, infamous, and what the heck, even a few from the rabble. Check these out:

• “I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.” – Stephen Hawking
• “There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.” – Cicero
• “The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.” – Henry Stimson
• “Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn’t amount to much.” – Peter Ustinov
• “When love is gone, there’s always justice./ And when justice is gone, there’s always force./ And when force is gone, there’s always Mom./ Hi, Mom!” – Laurie Anderson
• “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” – Pablo Picasso
• “The whole world is in revolt. Soon there will be only five Kings left – the King of England, the King of Spades, The King of Clubs, the King of Hearts, and the King of Diamonds.” – King Farouk of Egypt
• “There is a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased the line.” – Oscar Levant
• “When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.” – Bernard Bailey
• “I hate music, especially when it’s played.” – Jimmy Durante
• “A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people’s patience.” – John Updike
• “People who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven’t what they want that they really don’t want it.” – Ogden Nash
• “If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.” – Sir Francis Bacon
• “Everywhere is walking distance, if you have the time.” – Steven Wright
• “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” – Douglas Adams
• “What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.” – Thomas Carlyle
• “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” – Galileo Galilei
• “Once the game is over, the King and the Pawn go back in the same box.” – Italian Proverb
• “If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.” – Tallulah Bankhead
• “There are two types of people–those who come into a room and say, ‘Well, here I am!’ and those who come in and say, ‘Ah, there you are.’” – Fredrick L. Collins
• “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” – Voltaire
• “I phoned my dad to tell him I had stopped smoking. He called me a quitter.” – Stephen Pearl
• “The deepest definition of youth is life untouched by tragedy.” – Alfred North Whitehead
• “My Grandmother is over eighty and still doesn’t need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.” – Henny Youngman
• “A life of pleasure makes even the strongest mind frivolous at last.” – Edward Bulwer-Lytton
• “All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things.” – Bobby Knight
• “You can pretend to be serious; you can’t pretend to be witty.” – Sacha Guitry
• “Never try to tell everything you know. It may take too short a time.” – Norman Ford
• “The covers of this book are too far apart.” – Ambrose Bierce
• “Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.” – John Kenneth Galbraith
• “Eat a live toad first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you all the rest of the day.” – Unknown
• “When I was born, the doctor took one look at my face… turned me over and said, “Look, twins!” – Rodney Dangerfield
• “Never go out to meet trouble. If you just sit still, nine cases out of ten someone will intercept it before it reaches you.” – Calvin Coolidge
• “Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.” – A. J. Liebling
• “With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.” – Georg Christopher Lichtenberg
• “It is disease that makes health pleasant, hunger that makes fullness good, and weariness that makes rest sweet.” – Heraclitus

And finally, as a worthy thought to end your year:

• “I give you peace, the kind of peace that only I can give. It isn’t like the peace that this world can give. So don’t be worried or afraid.” – Jesus Christ (John 14:27; CEV)

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Note from the proprieter: The Middle Zone will be taking a short end-of-the-year break (que the weeping and gnashing of teeth). But take courage, my friends! The Zone will be back, bright and early next year. To all those who dropped by to visit in 2006, you’ve helped make the Zone what it is, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart (that’s the reverb effect you hear). If you’ve dropped by to read, to comment, to debate, and yes, to argue: thanks, and ya’ll come back, y’hear!
Have a great, safe, and happy New Year!

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

Well, I see all those articles, posts and stuff are piling up so high I can hardly find my keyboard anymore (figuratively speaking of course - we’re in a “paperless” society, you know…), so I guess it’s time to empty out the ol’ file cabinet once again.

Blogging for National Security

Clive Thompson wrote an article for the NYT called “Open-Source Spying” that really makes you sigh wistfully and say to yourself, “Ah, if only.” It’s well worth the read, and as a special bonus feature for visiting us today, the article is still free, free, free! (At least it was for me.)

“Billions of dollars’ worth of ultrasecret data networks couldn’t help spies piece together the clues to the worst terrorist plot ever. So perhaps, they argue, it’s time to try something radically different. Could blogs and wikis prevent the next 9/11?”

Could Values and Philosophy Trump Science?Lewis Green at Marketing Profs was struck (sound of dull thud) by the similarities of marketing MOMA (it’s a museum in New York, don’cha know) and of marketing Starbucks. “All that holidaty shopping must have knocked a few things loose,” you’re probably thinking. But hey, you’d be surprised, he does bring an interesting thought to the table.

“As mentioned in an earlier post, we seem fascinated by our tools and driven to use them. And yet places such as MOMA and in our world, Starbucks, seldom apply these tools. Instead they invest their energies in creating unforgettable experiences.”

I wonder where else this type of values/philosophy marketing might be more powerful than conventional marketing?

Release Your Inner Networker

Businesspundit writes what may be the best “how-to” I’ve seen yet on how introverts can successfully learn to network. When it comes to networking, the writer reminds me of, well, me when he says, “I would rather spend four hours with my head stapled to the carpet. I would be more comfortable that way.” Good advice, well-presented. (Despite claims to the contrary, I personally believe we introverts outnumber the extroverts of the world – its just that we never raise our hands to be counted because we’re too… well, you know.)

Web 2.0 for Dummies

If you’re anything like me (and my condolences if you are), you have probably chosen NOT to pay much attention when the term “web 2.0” goes floating by. I’ve found it’s far simpler to wait until the flak dies down and THEN find out what it’s all about once the chaff is out of the way. Luckily for us, Matthew Stibbe at Bad Language has written a pretty fair synopsis of the technologies that are involved in web 2.0 that even I could understand. Check it out.

log(N) = 0.093 + 3.389 log(CR) (1) (r2=0.764, t34=10.35, p<0.001)

The obscure post title above is from Prof. Dave Snowden at Cognitive Edge, who started, but has yet to finish (that’s a hint, Professor!), a thought about why human relationships tend to be governed by three numbers: 5, 15, and 150 (approximately). I love his wonderfully obscure explanation of the formula above (it kinda makes me sorry I slept through that particular session at school):

“Recognize it? Well of course, it’s the best-fit reduced major axis regression equation between neocortex ratio and mean group size for the sample of 36 primate genera taken from Dunbar’s 1992 paper which was popularized, and not unduly trivialized by Malcolm Gladwell into a natural limit on human group size of 150 (or 147.8 to be exact).”

Um, what you said, Professor! Read the article for more clarification, but he promises to follow up with more. I sure hope so - I’m on the edge of my seat now.

Hostile Takeover

Ed Brenegar at Leading Questions tells a very enlightening story of a time when the crowd got control of a speaking engagement (they disrupted the speaker ahead of him), and the steps he did to first defuse the situation, and then lead the group back into control. If you’ve ever had to speak before a hostile group (like a PTA meeting?), there are some good lessons here. Very nice, Ed, no firearms or nerve gas canisters needed!

“They did not like the approach his business association took with economic development. They pelted him with questions, and he finally had to leave the event without finishing his presentation because he had another meeting to attend.

As I sat there, I was thinking, if they do this to him, what will they do to me?”

A Whack on the Head

If a whack on the head (sound of dull thud) no longer gets those creative juices flowing again, before you reach for a bigger hammer, it may be that you just don’t know yourself that well! How do they come up with crazy ideas like the Clapper or the Juice-O-Matic, anyway? Roger von Oech at Creative Think (author of A Whack on the Side of the Head, and the inventor of the Ball of Whacks) provides some tips on how to uncover your own creative tendencies.

“Much of our educational system is an elaborate game of “guess what the teacher is thinking,” and we come to believe that the best ideas are in someone else’s head rather than our own. Heraclitus reminds us that there are good ideas within ourselves if we are willing to dig deeply enough.”

The Never-ending List

I don’t know how many times I’ve perused the business bookshelves at the local B&N and thought to myself, “I can do that!” Well, if you’ve ever wanted to write a business book, Ben McConnell at Church of the Customer has 10 things you ought to think about first.

I had to laugh, though, when I noticed #10: “Seth Godin has 19 additional pieces of advice.” I had this vision of a never-ending trail of “lists of things”, where the last one always takes you to the start of yet another list. Gaagh!
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Well, friends, that’s all for this episode! Have a great day!

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

In mind of the fact that there would be no Christmas without Jesus Christ, today I am simply posting an essay many of you may already be familiar with called “One Solitary Life”. I first heard it when Paul Harvey recited it on the radio, but there are many, many copies of it circulating everywhere.

What many don’t know is that the one most are familiar with differs in a significant way from the original, which was published by Dr. James Allan Francis in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” © 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (pp 123-124 titled “Arise Sir Knight!”). You can Google the phrase “One Solitary Life” and get over 30,000 hits, and all the ones I checked are almost exactly the same - and they are NOT the original.

Here is the original text:

“Let us turn now to the story. A child is born in an obscure village. He is brought up in another obscure village. He works in a carpenter shop until he is thirty, and then for three brief years is an itinerant preacher, proclaiming a message and living a life. He never writes a book. He never holds an office. He never raises an army. He never has a family of his own. He never owns a home. He never goes to college. He never travels two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He gathers a little group of friends about him and teaches them his way of life. While still a young man, the tide of popular feeling turns against him. One denies him; another betrays him. He is turned over to his enemies. He goes through the mockery of a trial; he is nailed to a cross between two thieves, and when dead is laid in a borrowed grave by the kindness of a friend.Those are the facts of his human life. He rises from the dead. Today we look back across nineteen hundred years and ask, What kind of trail has he left across the centuries? When we try to sum up his influence, all the armies that ever marched, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned are absolutely picayune in their influence on mankind compared with that of this one solitary life…”

The difference, in case you missed it, is in that last paragraph, second sentence: “He rises from the dead.”

And it makes all the difference in the world.

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

(Note: Before I take off for the next few days, I have some important information you may wish you’d known sooner.)

Here’s the thing. Christmas is only a few days away, and you’ve already completed your shopping (for last minute gift help just check yesterday’s post). Congratulations… almost.

Just when you thought you had it made, I need to warn you – that perfect gift you have for your spouse may not be so perfect after all. “Noooo!” you scream (as sweat begins to pop out on your fevered brow), “how can that be? I spent weeks looking for that exact shade,” or “that’s her favorite perfume,” or “but the guy on the phone guaranteed they’d like it!”

In a recent study by Davy LeRouge and Luk Warlop (all together now, “Who pays for these things, anyway?”), they found that instead of being a help, knowing someone intimately was more of a burden when it came to gift-giving. Strange, but there it is. What happens, see, is that as you get to know each other, you sort of project your own likes and dislikes on the other person, and end up with a tendency to give gifts you would like more than they would like. Sheesh! Ya can’t win for loosing! (And more importantly, why did it have to wait until now to find this out!)

But Clive Johnson at Collision Detection may have discovered what’s really going down.

“Mind you, maybe these sorts of errors are propping up the world economy. Think of it this way: What you really want is a new pair of jeans … but instead, your partner thoughtfully buys you a bunch of CDs of bands that he likes and you loathe. So you go out after the holidays and buy the jeans yourself. Essentially, there have been two rounds of gift-buying: Your partner’s addled, narcissistic purchase of crap you don’t want, and your own purchase of things you’d actually like. Double the spending — double the boost to the economy! And double the landfill!”

Could the whole thing be by design? Conspiracy theorists, unite! Let’s see if there’s truth to Clive’s assertions! But in the meantime… I suggest you might want to re-think that Clapper.

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

Pete Aldin over at Great Circle (a personal and professional life coach located Down Under) stopped by my post yesterday and invited me to drop by his blog (see the comments) and contribute my “top 3 achievements for 2006”. Naturally, I was flattered (they like me – they really like me!); I always love to hear from all my, uh, fan.

I don’t know, Pete, there are so many to choose from – but what the heck, I’ll give it a shot. Here (in no particular order) are my Top 3 Achievements for 2006:

Blogging

I started blogging this year. After wondering what the heck it was all about, reading about it, and seeing it for myself, I figured the best way to learn how was to actually do it. Not being one to shy away from a challenge, I joined the fray on June 22, and it’s been more fun than that root canal I had back in ’84! (Actually, I joined the fray on the 21st, but the post stunk so badly I deleted it and gave up. But the next day I started over, and the rest, as they say, is history.)

Science

(Note: Although mentioned in my post the other day about the things I learned in 2006, this doesn’t really represent a learning so much as an achievement, so it rightfully belongs here.)

I added my contribution to the Scientific Body of Knowledge by modifying a formula (and making it WAY more accurate and useful, thank you very much!) a few scientists came up with for quantifying the “beer-goggle” effect. You know, it’s that well-documented phenomenon wherein your date’s (of the night before) attractiveness usually takes a nose-dive the next morning. These guys were on the right track, but I set ‘em straight. Now I’m just dusting off the mantle for when the Nobel Committee calls.

Home

Mrs. MZM and I have been married nearly 25 years, and after moving over 65 times (I know, it sounds like a joke – but it’s not!) we finally settled into a house of our own this year. I have to admit that even I, the perennial optimist, started to wonder about this ever happening. But after making it through a recent 4 years of unemployment, and now being gainfully (and enjoyably I might add) employed, it finally happened. It’s a nice little place on the outskirts of Houston, Texas, which IMHO is a great place to live (and the missus and I have lived in quite a few places, let me tell you).
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Well, I could go on (what blogger couldn’t?), but I’ll stop at three. After all, we wouldn’t want to spoil any material that may be useful for future posts, now do we?

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

I know, I know. With Christmas fast approaching (make that thundering remorselessly upon us like a runaway space shuttle), you barely have time to finish that last-minute shopping. So in the spirit of giving, allow me to help you out with a casual list of things you might want to consider for that special “oh-so-hard-to-shop-for” someone.

One website that’s hard to beat for cool, sometimes strange, but guaranteed pricey gifts is CribCandy. Some of my favorites are: the Carnivorous Plant of the Month Club (FEED ME!), the Doggy Judaica Yarmulke (Arf, arf, Shalom), and from the “I wish I’d thought of that” category (may I have a drum roll please?), the Mud Flap Girl toilet bowl flush lever. (Yep, you read it right!)

Then there’s the sofa train (I guess for those parties on the go?); for really, really careful drivers, there’s a glass garage door (hey if you live in glass houses…); to mix the crass with the class, you need these Christofle champagne straws; or for that always-fun “yech!” moment at your next party, you can get an extension cord that looks like a fish skeleton (third item down).

For the slickest way to make toast yet, you need the RollerToaster (you’ll love pulling this out and using it for your guests), and if you really, really love birds, here’s a cool heated bird bath. Then of course you might want to freak out your kids with the melting snowman canister set or the monster stockings. And then maybe a little something for yourself, like perhaps the world’s largest bed (12 x 10 feet!)

OK, now a couple of gifts for those, like me, to whom money is no object (after all, when you ain’t got any…)

How about a personal wax figure of yourself or your loved one from Madame Tussauds (about $270,000). Or, if that’s too ordinary, there’s also the chance for you and a guest to fly in space in Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (I say chance because the craft still has yet to get off the drawing board) for only $1.7 million.

Ah, well, if that’s a bit too rich for you, there’s always last year’s fruitcake.

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

(Today’s post was inspired by Ben Yoskovitz, whose invitation to post about this at his Instigator Blog was sent to me by my friend Dennis. Thanks, Bud - I owe you a cookie at the next Board Meeting.)

No doubt by now you’ve probably read several “What I Learned…” posts, replete with all sorts of wonderful life lessons, entrepreneurial lessons, marketing lessons, etc. However, as I started to write my own list, I realized that while I did indeed learn many of the same things (and I truly appreciate the lessons – honest!), I have to admit the most interesting and memorable things I’ve learned are, well, let’s just say they’re a bit offbeat, to say the least.

Now I realize that some may see this posting as gratuitous self-promotion, designed to take advantage of readers by constantly referring back to my own blog. Well, maybe so, but since my thoughts were already posted once, I’d rather point you to them than repeat myself. (I really hate – I mean really hate – repeating myself. Darn.)

But what the heck, it’s my blog and I’ll post if I want to, so here goes.

1. One of the best ways to innovate is to… fail! (And to the chorus of “I knew that!” from readers, let me just acknowledge right up front that I’m late to this particular train.) It really makes sense, though, doesn’t it? After all, discovering how NOT to do something can be just a valuable as figuring out how. Who would you rather have working for you: someone who says, “I haven’t figured it out yet, but I’m not giving up!” or, “I tried that and it didn’t work, so I gave up.” (And by the way, this isn’t just a business lesson either – it’s good for life!)
2. Are you looking for a truly great source for words that are either out of use, or obscure, or both? If you ever wanted to know what galamatious (gal-i-may’shi-us, n.) means and how to use it for fun and profit, then this was the place. I say ‘was’ because alas, since I first learned of the Phrontistery, it appears to have gone out of use as well and is no longer answering its link (it’s now redirected to some unrelated index page). Too bad.
3. Speaking of elegant language, I learned that while Bob Sutton may be a Stanford Professor, a prolific author, and an all-around nice guy, he seems to be most well-known for his ongoing discussion of um, er, assholes. I’ve been following this meme since first reading his blog in June, and it’s amazing how it resonates in the blogosphere! Thanks, Bob, for having the guts, the out-and-out courage to articulate something we all feel (at least for those of us who aren’t, well, you know.) For those of you who are… well, let me say this: you’re outnumbered, and one day we’ll be coming for you.
4. If you’ve ever had one of those days when you wished you could just blow up everything, then this one is for you. I learned that there is definitely more than one way to skin this particular cat, so to speak. Out of my 109 posts so far (including this one), this is still my favorite. (And now you just learned something about me.)
5. Rejoice! The energy crisis is no more. I learned that a Dublin, Ireland company named Steorn has rewritten the Laws of Thermodynamics, invented free unlimited energy for the masses, and challenged the scientific community to prove them wrong. Film at 11.
6. I learned how to make a million dollars. Now if I could only learn how to keep it.
7. While researching my 100th post, I learned several great things, including: a) one in 18 people have a third nipple; b) how to cause people to run screaming from an elevator; c) that teddy bears kill more people every year than grizzly bears; and most importantly, d) 100 tips on being an effective evil overlord (particularly useful if you’re interested in #4, above)
8. And, while it’s not exactly a lesson learned, in case you missed the announcement in Sweden, I made a contribution to science that I feel certain will stand the test of time.

BUT (and that’s a BIG but!) by far the best lesson learned this year is how much fun blogging really is! I mean, how much easier can it be to meet so many new and interesting people? Thanks, Ben, for the invitation to jump out there and make a splash!

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!