Archive for July 2007

Writing Down the Bones

July 7, 2007 CreativeMojo No comments

Last year a lovely and talented writer named Jennifer turned me on to Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg.

Thank you Jennifer.

Thank you.

I’ve had this book for months and I haven’t even finished it. I can only read about two pages before I suddenly have to put the book down, rush over to my desk, and write something.

This book is so unique you can judge it by weight. It’s light, yet it holds more inspiration per ounce than anything I have ever hefted before in my life. It’s like condensed inspiration, slowly and lovingly rendered down to almost pure form.

I know I’ve touted this book before, maybe here, definitely elsewhere, but even if I’m repeating myself it deserves to be repeated. I sometimes wish I’d discovered this twenty years ago, but no. Things happen for a reason. The universe has a timing all its own. Something brought Jennifer and I together one morning at a Starbucks, and I think her gift to me was to tell me about this book. So the book came into my life at a time where I can really appreciate it, and savor it, and let it inspire me one page at a time.

I cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone who writes. Not just novels, but poetry, business reports, sales receipts, shopping lists … even if you don’t write at all. It teaches you in a very Zen way to appreciate life as it happens.

It’s a writer’s job to notice things. Moments. Instances. If you notice them, you appreciate them. Then you can write about them.

But the real gift here is that you learn to notice them.

Thank you again, Jennifer.

And thank you Natalie Goldberg.

Chicken & Cheese Bachelor Starch Surprise

July 7, 2007 MerryMojo, YummyMojo No comments

Serves three, or one bachelor for three days.

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups water
  • 1 TBS margarine
  • 3/4 cup frozen onion/pepper mix
  • Wal-Mart Great Value Chicken Stuffing Mix
  • Wal-Mart Great Value Chicken Flavor Pasta & Sauce
  • Idahoan Four Cheese Mashed Potatoes

Bring water and margarine to a boil in medium saucepan.

Add package of Chicken Flavor Pasta & Sauce.

Add the frozen onion/pepper mix because, oh, what the heck. Onions and peppers are good.

Continue boiling over medium heat for seven minutes, stirring occasionally and wondering if it is supported to look so soupy.

Realize you used a 2 cup measure instead of a 1 cup measure, which means there is twice the water that’s supported to be in there.

Panic and search the cupboard for more pasta.

Finding none, throw in the stuffing mix, because — what the heck — it’s been in the cupboard for at least two years now.

Determine that it still looks too soupy to eat, so search for something else you can throw in to soak up the water.

Discover the package of Idahoan Four Cheese Mashed Potatoes and wonder how long that’s been up there.

Stir in the entire package.

Describe over the phone how disgusting it looks to your fiancée. Wince as she laughs hysterically at you.

Take it off the heat and let it congeal as you look up the phone number of the local pizza delivery place.

Right before you dial the pizza number, you take an experimental taste.

Surprise! It’s delicious!

Wash it down with a bottle of Lagunitas Hairy Eyeball Ale.

Life is good.

Getting Things Done

July 7, 2007 InfoMojo No comments

There are only a few books I can point to and say, “That changed my life.” David Allen’s Getting Things Done is the latest. It’s a very Zen and common sense approach to increasing your productivity and lowering your stress levels, and it has helped me tremendously.

The secret is to organize in a simple way, and empty your mind of all the things you need to do by putting them down on paper or PDA. The point is to have an uncluttered mind so that when you turn your attention to something, you can turn your entire attention to it. The system you set up enables you to not worry about forgetting this or that important thing, which really does lower your stress levels.

It’s made me realize, once again, that the simplest answers to problems are the best and often the most profound.

The book has spawned an entire subculture and influenced numerous websites, my favorite of which is Lifehacker, which I read daily. Lifehacker feeds you a continuous stream of tips to help “hack” your life and make it better, embracing the concept of Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD is how Lifehacker refers to it). They, in turn, pull from a whole group of other sites that are dedicated to the same thing.

If you’re stumbling through life juggling 40 things in your head, and keep forgetting half of them, and never seem to have the time to do any of it — and stressing out because of that — then I highly recommend taking a close look at GTD. It worked for me

Double Positive

July 7, 2007 MerryMojo No comments

A linguistics professor was lecturing his class.

“In English,” he explained, “a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However,” the professor continued, “there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.”

A voice from the back of the room piped up. “Yeah, right.”

- From our big dusty archive of funny email
(Authors Unknown)

Google Archeology

July 7, 2007 TechMojo No comments

This very interesting article on Nature.com tells the tale of Luci Mori studying the area around his home in Sorbolo, Italy, using Google Earth. Noticing something odd in a field, he zooms in and discovers an unknown Roman ruin!

That’s right, folks, a guy surfing the Internet made an important archeological discovery.

As Indiana Jones said, “Seventy percent of all archeology is done in the library.” Well, now it’s going to be done on Google.

Google Of The Dead

July 7, 2007 InfoMojo, WeirdMojo No comments

If you are curious about where a famous person is buried, or which famous people are buried in your local cemetery, there’s an online place called “Find A Grave” where you can find out: www.findagrave.com

You can search by person, by location, and by claim to fame. There are numerous other options, including the ability to search for your own ancestors, making this a virtual Google of the dead.

Best of all, it’s free.

If you spend too much time there, though, it starts to get creepy. Maybe that’s just me.

Groovy Gizmos…

July 7, 2007 InfoMojo No comments

I am happy to announce another spin-off site has gone live this evening: GroovyGizmo.com

It’s just getting off the ground, but already we’ve got:

  • Coke bottles set to “stun”
  • Introduction of the “Wammer”
  • Cold beer flying at your head
  • And a guy who zooms through the sky like a genuine super-hero

If you’re into gizmos and gadgets, please feel free to go take a look. And, if you’ve got one for us to look at, please contact us.

Thanks!

Dinner With Her Parents

July 7, 2007 MerryMojo No comments

A girl asks her boyfriend to come over Friday night and have dinner with her parents. Since this is such a big event, the girl announces to her boyfriend that after dinner, she would like to go out and make love for the first time. Well, the boy is ecstatic, but he has never had sex before, so he takes a trip to the pharmacist to get some condoms.

The pharmacist helps the boy for about an hour. He tells the boy everything there is to know about condoms and sex. At the register, the pharmacist asks the boy how many condoms he’d like to buy, a 3-pack, 10-pack or family pack. The boy insists on the familypack because he thinks he will be rather busy, it being his first time and all.

That night, the boy shows up at the girls parents house and meets his girlfriend at the door. “Oh I’m so excited for you to meet my parents, come on in!”

The boy goes inside and is taken to the dinner table where the girl’s parents are seated. The boy quickly offers to say grace and bows his head. A minute passes, and the boy is still deep in prayer, with his head down. Four minutes pass, and still no movement from the boy. Finally, after nearly ten minutes with his head down, the girlfriend finally leans over and whispers to the boyfriend, “I had no idea you were this religious.”

The boy turns, and whispers back, “I had no idea your father was a pharmacist.”

- From our big dusty archive of funny email
(Authors Unknown)

How To Ask For What You Want

July 7, 2007 PsycheMojo No comments

Here’s a bit of psyche mojo for when you have to ask someone for something, like a raise from your boss, or some extra time off from work.

First, make a list of reasons to back up your request. In the case of a raise, come up with all your job-related accomplishments and things you’ve done that are above and beyond the call of duty. In the case of time off, list all the extra hours you’ve put in without pay. Include times and dates, and what you were working on. The secret here is to be specific.

Then, when you’re actually asking, ask in a strong and straightforward manner. “I’ve been working hard and I deserve a raise,” or, “I put in a lot of extra time, and I want some time off with pay to compensate.” Never, ever ask in a weak, roundabout way, like, “Do you think, um, that it would be possible to, say, maybe, consider giving me a raise?” Psychologically, a weak question is easier to dismiss, and you’ve given them the advantage to laugh it off like you were joking, or simply say “Sorry, not this year.”

Now, you’ve asked your strong, demanding question. Without skipping a beat, follow up by asking for much more than you actually want. This is key, because there’s an outside chance that you’ll get it, but even more importantly, this gives you room to negotiate down to what you really want.

Next, and before they have a chance to respond to the amount, immediately list off all the reasons that you deserve this thing you’re asking for. This will keep them off balance and chip away at their ability to say no. Be calm, not too aggressive — don’t act angry and put them on the defensive — simply state it all in a matter of fact, earnest voice.

I deserve a raise. I want x number of dollars. I deserve it because yadda yadda yadda.

The most likely response will be, “I can’t give you that much, but…” and they’ll rattle off a lower amount. You counter with one that’s a bit less than your original demand. And, with luck, you negotiate down to your goal.

This works with more than just raises and time off. Use your imagination, and then get what you deserve.

Create Backup Copies of Video DVDs

July 7, 2007 TechMojo No comments

NOTE: since writing this, it’s gone out of date and some of the links are dead.  Updating it is on my to-do list … but in the meantime if you have any tips on this to share, please send them to me or put them in the comments.  Thanks!

The scenario:  you just spent $24.95 on a new DVD for your kids.  You pop it in the player, sit on the couch with them, and they have fun watching it over and over again.  You, on the other hand, fall asleep.  Time passes, and you wake up with your youngest one shaking you.  “Watch again!” she says.  “Want to watch again!”

Then she hands you two halves of the DVD disk she mysteriously destroyed while you were napping.

Goodbye $24.95.

Now, without getting into a legal debate [I'm in the camp which believes any laws prohibiting the circumvention of copy protection are invalid because they violate pre-existing fair use laws] I’m going to outline how you can do this, for the explicit purpose of protecting your investment in legally purchased DVDs.

The following programs are free, and they work together:

First, go to www.ripit4me.org and download the main piece of software, RipIt4Me.  This is a small program that coordinates and controls three other programs.  Download and study it.  It goes a long way toward making this complex process simple.

When you run this software it will, in turn, instruct you to download and install the following free programs:

Once you have these software applications installed, RipIt4Me takes control of them and makes it a easy process.  This combination gets around most known copy protection schemes (at least, it does at the time of this writing) and enables you to make copies of your legally purchased DVDs, so that you’ll put wear and tear on the cheap copies instead of the valuable originals.  Also, you’ll be able to use single layer discs, and not the more expensive and finicky dual layer blanks.

Now, even though RipIt4Me simplifies the process, it still takes some reading and there is a learning curve.  If you’re not that technically inclined, you might consider buying a commercial DVD copying solution, such as those produced by SlySoft.com.  SlySoft is supposed to make some of the best and easiest to use tools available, and they offer free updates to keep it current, so that newly released copy protection schemes don’t render it useless.

These software titles, both the free and pay versions, also have the added benefit of being able to make good copies of some DVDs that are otherwise damaged.  As in, if you’ve got a scratched up and skipping disc, these give you a good chance of resurrecting a playable copy from it.

Unfortunately if your little girl has already snapped the disk in half, then you’re out of luck no matter what software you have.

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