So, you know that ABC show, Better off Ted? It’s based around a company, Veridian Dynamics, that makes cool products based on research in their labs. I’ve found this strange phenomenon happening where I watch an episode of Better off Ted and then a few days later find that the product they created has actually just been created in RL (real life).

OK, so maybe this doesn’t happen with every episode, but I’ll give you two examples:

1. Season 1 Episode 2 – Phil and Lem (Veridian’s top two scientists) grow beef in the lab. The day after I watched this (not the day after the episode was released), I saw this article titled Scientists ‘grow’ meat in laboratory. Creepy.
2. Season 1 Episode 13 – Veridian Dynamics introduces a face-scanning Internet search program. On Dec. 7th, 2009, Google introduced Google Goggles. While this software is initially intended for identifying places, it will also, once privacy concerns are worked out, identify faces in the near future and perform and Internet search on the person.

So, how is Better off Ted predicting the future? Do they have insider information in science and tech industries? I don’t know the answer, but if I see another scenario like the two above, I will have to believe that it is more than just coincidence.

I had this great epiphany recently about people that are successful in business. The biggest thing these people have going for them is not that they are really intelligent or brilliant in their field, it’s that they know how to talk to people. OK, I know you all have realized this a long time ago, but I just realized that if you know how to sell yourself, your products and your skills, you are on your way towards what many people would consider success in the working world. Of course, you do have to have ability yourself or a good team to back up your talk with their work, but you do not have to be the absolute best in your field to be successful. So, my question to you is what are your tips and tricks for navigating conversations and having the confidence to convince other people to believe in you and the things you believe in?

I’ve noticed that there have been a few of these fake twitter accounts cropping up recently. They seem to be found out quickly, but I’m always suckered into following the people before they get exposed as fakes. The latest couple have been the Dalai Lama (@OHHDL) and Christopher Walken (@cwalken). I was really bummed that @cwalken was actually a fake. After hearing all of Jason Calicanis’ impressions of him on TWiT, I was excited to see how fun the fake Walken’s twitter posts actually were.

So, this got me thinking about the motives behind taking the time to set up a fake twitter account and post content that actually sounds like something the person/celebrity would say. The person who sets up the account has to know that they are going to be figured out some day. So, do they just want their 5 minutes of fame? Are they trying to make a future name for themselves by gaining followers under a false pretense? Is there some secret obsession with the celebrity they choose to impersonate?

Regardless of any motives for setting up a fake account, I really think there is much more long-term value in building a brand around your true identity than faking it like these posers. There is something so powerful about sincerity – if you are truly interested in marketing yourself and your skills online, be sincere about it. Be open and honest enough with people that they see you are real, but not so much that you seem creepy. It’s interesting to note that even Fake Steve Jobs was forced to become “Real Dan”. People like to see what is real when it comes to online personalities.

Now, maybe this sounds pretty normal to you. I know it’s not unusual for guys to not be able to multitask. But, consider this. I was watching a little bit of the live video stream from Leo Laporte earlier today. He has a tech call-in show where he answers questions people have about their computers/gadgets/etc… So, Leo is carrying on a conversation with someone on the phone/Skype AND watching a chatroom full of people giving him ideas of how to answer the questions AND doing research online about all these things. All of this happens while he drives the conversation with the person on the other end of the line and never loses his train of thought. Oh yeah, and he’s hosting a 3 camera live show while he sits/bounces on his exercise ball. During one show, the ball he was sitting on popped, and he would have just kept on going except that someone asked what the noise was.

So, I know it’s just a movie, but Rocket Science portrays a high school debate team. The kids on this team talk so fast that I can’t even hear what they are saying. My mind can’t even keep up with this fast of a train of thought. Now, I know with debates, every possible talking point is prepared before-hand, and I know that you could easily speed up talking on film without changing the pitch, but dang. There are just some people that have that really strong brain to mouth connection and can keep one line of thought with plenty of other distractions going on around them.

I would like to train my mind to have more than one active process at a time. A kind of hyper-threading if you will. Anyone have ideas for how to do this? Perhaps a more efficient conversation pipeline? Let me know your best tricks of the trade.

Last Sunday at the C.R.A.C.K. House, Mitchell told us that life is so much easier to live when you stop trying to fix things yourself and let God work on them. I still have an image in my head of Mitchell leaning over with his ear out saying that this is like God’s ear on the earth. He can hear what you are thinking…like you listening to your parents conversations downstairs through the vent in your room. So, let God take your problems on Himself…His yoke is easy and His burden is light. It’s not that He takes all your problems away, it’s that He helps you with them and He does a much better job than you. In fact, His work is perfect every time.

So what I am saying is that God cares about how you feel and it’s OK to let Him take care of things and rather than spending your time worrying about them, spend some time talking with God about them…spend some time with other people…have some conversations…experience some new things.

This is why I like movies like Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Juno, Garden State, Sideways…and the list goes on. I like these movies for the fact that they are all about the people…the character development. Sometimes they are screwed up people (albeit in various stages of life), but aren’t we all in some ways? So, if you haven’t already, let God handle the things you are trying to control yourself. If you are already doing this, encourage someone else to do the same. I have the feeling it will be a worthwhile experiment.

I think we all know that the media will present news to us in the most shocking and negative way possible because it garners a response. The question is, what is our reaction to all of this? Do we live in fear of the future? Are we simply fascinated by the shocking stories? Do we hold out hope for citizen journalism to gain more credibility through sites like Current TV and Beat Blogging? Or, do you have another solution? You tell me…

Whiskers found that there many things she had never heard of before. Catnip, in particular. The longer she spent living in the wild, the more catnip she had to have to feel happy. Sure, whiskers made many friends. She met big cats, small cats, cats with no hair, and even a three-legged cat named Tripod. But, as Whiskers trekked farther and farther from home, she began to look more and more haggard. Her friends all got their fill of food from their owners, but Whiskers found herself stealing food and trading it for catnip because she just couldn’t bring herself to go without. Alleys where steam rose from the sewers were her favorite place to sleep. As Whiskers awoke one morning from her catnip induced sleep, she heard a faint gobbling noise in the distance. Some creature she had never encountered before was waddling through the steam – it seemed to hop over the piles of trash almost as if it could have flown in another life. As it grew closer, Whiskers heard a voice: “Hey there cat, watcha doing?” Whiskers answered back, “Oh, just trying to get some sleep before my next meal.” “Why are you sleeping out here? Where is your family?” asked the Turkey. “What?” said Whiskers. “What are you anyway?” “My name is Thomas. Thomas the Turkey”, replied the strange creature. “Well”, Whiskers said “my family is a bunch of dogs and I’ve left them to discover the world. I was sick of being the only cat in that house.” “Look at you now though”, said Thomas. “You have nothing to eat except this one bite of catnip.” As Thomas reached out his wing to point, Whiskers hissed back, “Merooowww. Don’t you touch my catnip.” With pity in his eyes, Thomas said softly, “Look, if it were me, I would go back to my family even if they were all different from me. I’m sure it must have been much better than you have it out here on the street.” “Whatever…” Whiskers mumbled as she turned to walk away. But, she couldn’t get that thought out of her head. Life was so much better when there were dogs around that loved her. So, Whiskers decided to head back home and the dogs all accepted her with open arms…err paws. As she was coming into the house, one of the dogs said, “You’re just in time for Thanksgiving…and we’re having Turkey!”.

Moral of the story: Be thankful for the life you have.

I feel like I *should* ignore the crappy feelings of life, like I *want* to go start over with some new things in different areas of life, and like I’m *jealous* of people who are able to appreciate so greatly where God has brought them from in life.

I know that there is a good (or possibly even right) answer posed in one (or a combination) of the questions posed above (you don’t need to tell me which one you think is correct). I know that there are a lot of easy answers to hard questions in the world, but I also know that there is a big difference between knowing, believing and living.

My questions for the week are these: 1. What do you find joy in? 2. Do you live more by your emotions, your mind, or your spirituality? 3. What kind of furrie are you?

Before I share my thought, let me take you back to my early childhood days. I used to love playing basketball and even played on a small rec center team in elementary school. It was a lot of fun until I went from being somewhere in skill around the top 50% of people I played with to being worse of a player than most of the kids my age. Even my own sister would beat me at just about every game of 1-on-1 we played (no hard feelings sis). So, instead of working on improving my game, I gave up and became bitter. I resented anything related to the “common” team sports (i.e. basketball, football, baseball, etc…) – “extreme” sports were OK with me though. *sarcasm* After much therapy *sarcasm*, I’m proud to let you all know that now I am OK with you playing whatever sport you choose – I am no longer bitter. Personally though, I enjoy snowboarding, skateboarding and running.

Fast forward to today…the thought I had (as I was out running, ironically enough) was that if all guys are competitive, where does the competition go if you are not into sports? At this point in my life, it goes into competing with others in what I know about computers (this is unhealthy) and competing against myself and others with my running (healthy). It would be nice to put more of that competitive energy into running and into wait for it…serving others…what does service have to do with competition you ask? Only that the energy has to go somewhere, so it might as well go to something to combat the unhealthy competition.

Question for you all: What do you put your competitive energy towards? Question #2: Is it healthy to push your kids (especially boys) to play sports?

Maybe this is just a guy thing. I heard recently that a woman’s smell can actually be an influence on how a man feels about her. Maybe this is why women are more concerned about their hygiene than men.

Back to the subject of smell relating to location. I walked into a friend’s place of business and was so overwhelmed by the new smells that I became dizzy and almost had to sit down. They certainly weren’t offensive, but were all so new to me that it sent my senses into overload. So, this is just something to keep in mind. When someone first comes into your home, your church or your workplace, what smells are they greeted with. Will they feel at home because the smells are familiar? Will they feel apprehensive at the hint of something they haven’t smelled before? Or, do I just have a hyper-sensitive nose?