BBC Commentary on the news

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Feb 5, 2010 in Funny | 0 comments

Outrageously funny and sadly true.

Hat tip to Mr. Brogan.

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Failing December and loving it

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Dec 8, 2009 in Awakening, Funny, World of Warcraft | 7 comments

Ever had a New Year’s Resolution go bad?

Ever fallen off the tracks in the start of a new year and had it impact your whole year?

Why wait until the ball drops in Times Square when you can drop the ball right now?

I’ve been failing December – intentionally – and loving it. This month, I’m trying out new stuff, going back and doing maintenance on previous failures, and watching things explode fairly spectacularly. Why? Because if I figure out all the failure points now, while I can mentally group all the failures in the bucket of 2009, then by the time I move into 2010, I’ll already have figured out where the landmines are.

A couple of examples:

I’ve failed at running several times. I started again at the beginning of this month and failed almost immediately, but asked around a few folks as to what I was doing wrong. I said, hey, I’m just doing this for fitness, not for competition or anything – why am I failing at casual running? Immediately a few folks pointed out the obvious – even casual running demands reasonably good shoes for avoiding damage, plus some basic changes to nutrition. I’ve since resumed with less failure.

I’ve failed at maintaining one of my web sites, the FAFSA guide site I run. This month, I’ve been cleaning it up with the help of some wicked smart coworkers and found entirely new power tools in things I thought I knew how to use (my text editor, it turns out, has nuclear options!) that make me spectacularly more powerful. Just today I discovered a function that in the past I would have needed if I’d known to look for it. The process of failing has led to some great new tools to carry into 2010.

Icecrown Citadel, the last patch of the World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King expansion, is dropping this month. Some folks say it’ll be December 8, other folks say later. No matter when it drops, I anticipate a rich bounty of complete failure at the various wings of the Citadel by our guild – and in doing so, we’ll become even more proficient at the roles we play, so that when the New Year rolls around, our sad little army will instead be a battle-hardened platoon ready to take on the Lich King himself.

What are you going to fail at (and learn from) this month, so that prospects for success with your resolutions for the New  Year is greatly increased?

How can you start failing today for success tomorrow?

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April 2 is International Mark All As Read Day

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Apr 2, 2009 in Funny, Jedi mind tricks | 14 comments

How many blog posts haven’t you read yet?

How many messages in your inbox are just languishing there?

Some of them are landmines. After all, yesterday was April Fool’s Day, but you might not get to those April 1 blog posts in your RSS reader for a while – how embarrassing would it be in a week to start tweeting, blogging, or podcasting about something that folks knew was a joke 6 days earlier?

April 2 is the best day of the year to simply click Mark All As Read or Archive or whatever mechanism you use for a clean start. Lots of people do this on January 1, but re-blogging a post from December 31 isn’t as big a deal as re-blogging a prank as a serious article on April 2.

So click that Mark All As Read button, force yourself to go to Inbox Zero today, and make sure that April Fool’s Jokes stay contained to April 1. Celebrate a clean new inbox on April 2!

Happy International Mark All As Read Day!

The funniest antivirus software ad you'll see this year

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Dec 7, 2007 in Funny | 8 comments

I have to hand it to Symantec for perfectly cloning Japanese kids’ shows with this ad series for Norton Antivirus.

Part 1:

Part 2:

More cheese than all of Paris. Hat tip to Erik Carlsson for these absolute gems.