Meeting Game of the Week

Shall we try something challenging neighbor? Business meeting: 10 am. Conference room seats 12 and a projector comfortably. Small table in corner hosts an array of muffins, juices, water and minds ready to expand.

Let's make it through one meeting, One hour, One agenda without using these words and phrases. If not, we agree to dock one week's pay for each reference.

Sample meeting: "Hi, I would like to first start this effective meeting by saying today we need to leverage a strategic, Out-of-the-box, state of the art program as I'm currently aligned with Joe from Purchasing but haven't got objective feedback from Teresa in MarComm. Going forward, I think it's important that we continue to manage the project pro-actively to obtain low hanging fruit so we can manage expectations without any corporate push back. In the interim we need to Evaluate our current processes and procedures while ensuring we alleviate any duplication of efforts. Remember, a new budgeted project is needed to implement our efforts. In conclusion we will have obtained value-added synergy to help us reach our objectives."

Try it once. You may like the sustained results. There goes my bonus payout. Ok I concede, its not as easy as it sounds.

The radio is always greener

I'm spoiled. Love the music. Love that I can store an infinite amount of music on a piece of plastic the size of cassette tape (sorry, but I find humor in that).

All my favorites from the latest artists I downloaded last night to my high school classics I bought years ago to the hard-to-find, unique songs I would never have bought if I had to actually buy the entire album for one tune or search for that song in a store.

So why am I miserable? WHY do I shuffle through my iPod 50 or 60 times out of 2000 available from songs "I" chose myself, before I find any ONE song I want to hear?

The one tune that is going to get me to the next destination; the next "ADD" moment.

Worse yet. Wouldn't you know it, when I hear a song on the radio that I know IS already on my iPod, I ask myself, "I LOVE that freakin' song...I wonder if its on my iPod so I can listen to it." Never fails.

I've come to the conclusion we could have our own personal band playing for us nightly, but we always want the song when someone else plays it or has it playing on their iPod. Think of it this way: We like when others shampoo our hair. We like it much more when someone else makes the same meal we made for ourselves last week.

Spoiled? YES. I guess that is why scratching my own back doesn't have any pleasure either.

A Bumper Crop of Free Speech

Wait, I need to get closer. Wait.... Wait... almost there.. Accelerate a little more. ahh, much better. Now that I'm right on your ASStounding impressive vehicle, I feel privileged that I was able to witness your life changing philosophies of the world. I now can read and understand you are the "proud mother against drunk parents of a honor student who gets bullied while playing football and is a cheerleader conservative with liberal views who wants world peace but supports the military and is Pro choice of all life while expressing your religious beliefs of beauty, environmental deer hunters and the pursuit of knowing Off-Roaders do it in the dirt"

Now that I bumped into you going 75 mph to get the drift of your inspirational outbreak of adhesive. I have one more sticker for you to slap on those 6 bare inches on your truck.

"Drivers without graffiti are becoming endangered. Save the ink!!!"

What? No room on your mobile billboard? Try your trailer.

Getting Sick over Health Benefits

Healthcare registration, the wonder of it all. I just want someone to explain to me why even if I have 7 choices for healthcare that not one of them has apples to apples comparison that makes sense to any adult with an aptitude for comprehension. In-Network, Out of pocket, HMO, PPO, PPS CDHP HSA, PCP makes me want to enroll in the EAP and pay a deductible for my ADHD diagnosis from not understanding if I'm a member, brand name, generic, short-term rehab candidate or just a referral to an outpatient pre-admission testing facility. Let's redefine Healthcare Reform. List all the services and needs a person and family can utilize in a year. Offer subscription service like the music industry and after a year if I don't even get a blood test..Pay me $5,000 for being too sick to call my doctor when I had a stroke reading your small print.

Failing at Passwords

I truly don't have much to remember in the morning before I start a productive day at work. After docking my laptop I only have to remember 17 different passwords for my network, lotus notes, voicemail, harddrive lock, sametime connect and unique identifier user name and password. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to finite mathematics and probability when I was in school. Because there is NO way I can bet the odds that any of my passwords will be typed in accurately the first dozen times. WARNING: Use upper and lower Case, include 2.3 numbers with each 10 letters ensuring that you don't use any part of your name, the current company, your pet's name or the first 26 letters of the english alphabet are only a few of my constraints before I have to remember why I logged in initially. Thank the character gods that my cap lock button doesn't work all the time or I would have to double check to figure out why I was locked out of my word document for not properly key stroking the words #*$&#@%*$ it. I have a suggestion for you next time you ask ME for a password. GO VERIFY your OWN Mother's Maiden name.

Pin-up Models to Avoid

Bought a few new shirts this week and spent 3.5 hours removing the packaging INSIDE the plastic wrap. Seriously, 14 straight pins, 3 pieces of cardboard, half of roll of tissue paper and plastic molds around the neck line took before I even considered ironing and hanging them up. IT'S a SHIRT not a crystal wedding gift. If I want to consider acupuncture, I'll go to a specialist. I guarantee no matter how careful I was diffusing this department store bombing device, I will either step on a pin or get stuck by one as I pick something else off my floor. After hundreds of years, can someone figure out how to fold the shirt and package it for selling without having it prepared like a voodoo doll with me being the cursed soul? Here's a thought: Try a freakin' hanger display.

The Real Scoop on Real Wives

I admit it. I watch some Reality TV every now and then. Even though some of them are scripted in advance, I enjoy the human drama (good and bad) like the rest of us. Cat fights, Train wrecks of their lives, B-actors trying to get back into the limelight because their last performance was at Kennedy's innauguration.

But catching Real Housewives of New York the other night made me want to change the channel to Nick at Night and watch the innocent fun of Father Knows Best or the slapstick humor of Hogan's Heros. Competing witches for who is going to be the worse mother on Manhattan is not my idea of enjoyment. Sex in the City was either a real or an exagerated version of life in NY. This, however, was a disturbing few minutes of "I can't wait for my friends to see how evil, selfish and greedy I can be in a 10 minute block when they watch this and tell me how good my ass looked on TV."

This was not entertaining. It was pathetic with a good chance of nausea. Why can't they be more like the Real Housewives of Orange County and just be concerned about who can have the uglier but RICHER husband and determined if they go to Rodeo Drive or their plastic surgeon more often. To me, THAT is REAL TV.

It's not where I'm going that is important

"Excuse me...can you tell me how to get to........"

Hate asking for directions. Not because I'm a Y chromosome and it hurts my pride to ask, but because I haven't got a GPS yet and I'm jealous plus I always seem to ask someone who is more lost than me and they live a block from where I'm going.

As soon as you hear this phrase, "....if you get to a bar or a school... YOU'VE GONE TOO FAR." you might as well turn back. How about "if you give me the proper directions, I won't have to see the bar unless I decide to take a tour of your neighborhood". It's not that hard, Tell me how many streets to turn left or right and then how many lights until I see the place. Or better yet, tell me you don't have a clue and there is a gas station or major intersection a street over and it would do me good to ask someone there.

I'm looking for a good samaritan with a concept of south versus north, not Forrest Gump's literal guidebook to the southern hemisphere.

Ask me for return directions after I spent $45.00 in gas following yours, and I'll tell you exactly where to GO.

Can You Add Me?

Social networking at its best. MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and the flavor of the month. Ten years gone by and all of a sudden, a message appears on your profile page. "Fennis Dembo would like to be added to your network of friends, family, acquaintances and strangers who bumped into you at a QuickChek". Love how none of us can hide anymore, but if you want to be linkedIn with me or connected in some way other than by coincidentally sitting next to each other at a sporting event back during the Clinton era, at least spell my name right when you request acknowledgement. Pretend you liked me at some point in your life and not just to add me as CONNECTION #4543 so you can be more popular than Paula Abdul at a Narcolepsy seminar. I honestly don't remember saying hi in April of 2004 as you pushed a shopping cart past me in WalMart. I don't have the vaguest recollection of that time we both jockeyed for position going for the same urinal at the Yankees Game. Yes YES YES, I was the one who forgot we were on speaker during a conference call when I told that joke about my um...past manager. But that was before HDTV, and Satellite Radio. I have a new life, new friends and all 2 of them are on my YAHOO 360 page. I just wish someone else in the world knew about it too.

crowded house of silence

"Excuse me? You said Tori's brother was just sold? NO. I said, "Your mother caught a cold!!" Ouch, I can't hear you there are two women next to us with voices that seem to rattle the canine population in Spain with their high pitch explanation of why they didn't call each other yesterday because they were returning the call from the day before. Someone, OK...ANYONE tell me why certain patrons of the public food industry need to share with five other tables their mundane lifestories? Its a eating establishment, not the wall street trading floor. Use your indoor voices children, no one cares about your neighbor's pet who looks like your boss on steroids. "I'd like to order another drink" "DID you just say your psychotic mother can't sing? I would have heard you more clearly but the two guys on the other side of us who haven't shaved their necks since '97 are groping the waitress while bragging their porsches' just got detailed by their younger brother who just got out on a work release program. UM..wanna go to the library?

UGHS for UGGS

Yes, incredibly comfortable is what I hear. Casual wear at its finest. Warm, easy to get on and off and based on every 12-28 year old, they go with everything from evening wear to PJ's. But please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks these oversized elephant mitts look as though they fell out of the ugly tree and hit every other branch. I do think women should wear these at those circus funny mirrors and see how their legs would actually look with a sleek, stylish boot. Why would you want to walk around with your legs aspiring to be short tree stumps? It could be worse..they could cost over $25.00...what?..you mean they sell for more? Mmm..I have some old HUSH PUPPIES you could buy for $75.00 on ebay. Ugly, but I guarantee they look better than those UGGly shoes.

Political Choices

Riddle me this Batman....Is there is actually a strange woman who is worth over $4000.00 a night? Please someone tell me after the first hour..(in the Governor's case, in a New York Minute) what is she going to do? He is now snoring and calling room service for another bottle of Dom. Seriously, is she emulating the press corp? acting like a beaten down witness in one of his past cases? Does he realize that after the 20% service fee that his trip down mammary lane to DC cost him over five grand, a political office, a tarnished reputation, a few felon counts and a possible cabinet position. Perhaps we should imagine what did he gain. For one, a chance to be on TMZ for the next week and top billing on Leno and Letterman until another Britney sighting. But most importantly, he can now save $3980.00 and go to Brooklyn and say--"WOW, I completely overpaid for a 'half and half'. Maybe, next time I'll try Priceline.com"