from The Little Prince

Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask what really matters. They never ask: "What does his voice sound like?" "What games does he like best?" "Does he collect butterflies?"

They ask: "How old is he?" "How many brothers does he have?""How much does he weigh?" "How much money does his father make?"

Only then do they think they know him.

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~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Trivial: Rock Band for Wii

My newest interest is a game for the Wii console called Rock Band 2. It's an interactive video game that allows multiple user set up a band and play guitar, base, drums and sing. It is set up in different levels of difficulty. The game comes with over 100 rock songs.

I'm totally shocked that I actually like this game because I am very much musically challenged: I am pretty much tone deaf, have no rhythm AND I don't really care for rock music (*collective gasp*, I know) EXCEPT for System of a Down (the greatest band ever!)

OK, so save for Serge and the gang and a handful of popular rock songs, I don't care for the genre.

BUT I love this game.

I turns out I'm no good at the guitar. The drums are an impossibility! The lack of rhythm and coordination have something to do with that, I'm sure.

But I love singing!!!

I never, ever sing ~ outside the comfort of my double glass paneled, ultra-noise cancelling car, that is.

Until now!!!

I still suck. Don't get me wrong.

But due to an unforeseen turn of event (it's like "a break in the Matrix" or something) I turn out to be quite the gifted singer of the Chili Peppers Song "Give it Away"

I am shocked. And delighted. Shocked because, well: I've never been able to sing along to songs on the radio.

I can't follow the lyrics. (I blame this on my "English as second language" handicap) and I never really cared for the Chili Peppers.

But suddenly I'm transformed into someone who is good at something musical and happens to be a video game.

I can't wait to go back to Massachusetts and show off my mad skillzzz to the ones that introduced me to this game!

Watch out, I'm quite a Rock Star! and modest, as well :P

The Experience Economy

Yesterday I finished the book The Experience Economy by Pine & Gilmore. This was more a "work read" than anything else.
Honestly, I could actually only get through the first few pages and then put it aside.
So I decided to download the audio version from I-Tunes instead and listen to it during my daily commute.
It was actually a nice change from my Argumentation audio tapes in that the subject seemed refreshing.

I must warn you though, the narrator is horrid.

I actually thought the voice was digitized. Like on those automated telephone systems that string various computer generated words together without change in tone or pitch and make recordings out of it.---Until I saw on the I-Tunes page that the narrator had a name. A HUMAN name.

Wow. This was a cross between the voice of my my high school Physics teacher, Ben Stein and my grandma's answering machine. Painful.
If you can get pass that for just short of four hours, you are OK.

This book basically describes from an economist's perspective, the advantages of providing a service experience that ultimately transforms the consumer/client/customer into a life long devotee.
It's not Customer Service for Dummies. This book is not even geared at the "front line" worker that is often associated with providing "customer service"

This book is geared at the executives, the financial analysts, the "suits" that need to be convinced, in their terms, why going above and beyond the call of duty is a sound financial decision. It goes a step further to suggest that staging the experience economy is actually the only way to obtain and retain a competitive advantage and sustainable financial edge on this market.

This book was co-authored by two individuals and sometimes the difference in their perspectives and seen even in the audio tape. Some parts of the book are dry, dry, dry. Then the following chapter chirps with an enthusiasm that is obviously not shared by both authors.

Overall, it was a good read--for work purposes.
I actually gained a lot of knowledge because finances and economics are not my strongest subjects.
Would I recommend this as a casual, friendly read? NO. But it the time spent absorbing this book was a sound business investment.

Iraqi teen girl gets 7 1/2 years for bombing attempt

This headline caught my eye this morning:

"BAGHDAD – A teenage Iraqi girl who claimed her husband's female relatives strapped explosives on her has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for attempting

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to blow herself up at a checkpoint in northeastern Iraq, a provincial judge said Thursday."

The article goes on to describe the increase of such attempts by women in a society where because of cultural taboos, the mostly male police force does not routinely check robed women explosives.

The closing paragraph of this article is even more disturbing:

"In January, police arrested a middle-aged woman, Samira Ahmed Jassim, for allegedly recruiting female suicide bombers. In a prison interview, Jassim told The Associated Press about a plot in which young women were raped and then persuaded to carry out suicide attacks to reclaim their honor."

Food for Thought

" You cannot do kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late" ~ Emerson

l'Heure Bleue

Madrugada

This is the time when the sky fills with hope and

Image by _fLeMmA__ via Flickr

peace.

It's not quite day and not quite night.

The antithesis of "penumbra"

Not because of the precise differences of light vs. dark ratios, but because of the energy that surround these events.

L'Heure Blue evokes an unmistakable sense of calm.

No need to rush.

Look at the freedom and beauty captured here:

A boy jumps over a row of lavender in a field in Carshalton, south London, Wednesday, July 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Sang Tan)

I wanna hop through a lavender field one day.

I love to do child-like things like that. To take in nature and its spirit. Not just visually but spatially as well.

To become part of the divine, even if just for a second.