By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Jun 18, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
I wonder whatever happened to this guy?
There are many times I wish he were around to explain something to me–or for me!
Right now I’m having trouble with my cable and having difficulty explaining it to technical support.
I swear I think the UPS guy could probably lay out the entire problem in just a few strokes on a whiteboard and probably never once come close to using using his “outside voice.”
I think drawing must be the key because explaining cable problems using words never seems to get me very far.
I definitely need to get a whiteboard for times like this! Or just find this gentleman to explain all my technical problems to tech support.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jun 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
I have received three flirty messages from three different fake FB profiles pretending to be a young woman eager to exchange private emails with me.
I finally responded to the last one just now.
“Thanks for your message.
However, another woman sent me an almost identical flirty message yesterday and we got married this afternoon.
And it’s really going well. To top it all off (and no offense) but she is a lot hotter than you are.
Here name is Rebecca Brown and we have “married” now as our Facebook relationship status
Good luck with finding romance. Or amusing yourself pretending to be a young woman. Which is, frankly, a turn off to most women your age and not the most well thought out romance strategy.
But you never know…you just might stumble onto an interaction that will change your life forever doing just what you are doing now. It could happen.
Keep the faith. And keep putting yourself out there until something better than rejections like this one from me start to happen for you.
There’s more than one fish in the sea. And more than one profile to fake private message on Facebook. Somewhere out there there on FB tonight there is a soulmate for you who as we message is writing a really funny trolling message under a fake name and profile just like you. And you two are destined to meet someday and fall in love. Someone who “gets you” and will love you just the way you are. And that is no laughing matter.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jun 14, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Parental competition.
When a 19 year old son is traveling abroad and the two parents are trying to keep up with what’s happening based on short cryptic texts from said 19 year old son, the information exchanges can be interesting–and a little competitive.
Rebecca: “Have you heard from Johnny today?”
Me: “Yes, he sent me a text giving me an update of how he’s doing. Sounds like he’s having a …really good time.”
(Truth of the matter is I received only an abbreviated text saying, “Someone mentioned one of the company’s you represent.” That was all I got…but I didn’t what my wife to know that.
Naturally, I read more into the text than was really there. But the day before my wife had received not one but two texts from my son. According to her, he advised her of a number of updates about him personally and the itinerary.
But now I’m suspicious. Maybe she only got a short semi-coherent text and is trying to read much more into it to impress me…..
Next time Rebecca asks if I’ve heard from Johnny, I am telling her, “Yes, just a short text that he likes me more than you.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jun 13, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Just because a middle-aged man looks at an ad in a magazine that discusses a supplement for low testosterone does not in ANY way suggest he thinks he might one day need to know about such a supplement for himself personally.
Not at all.
Lets be clear on this
A lot of men just read over advertisements because they are bored or curious and like learning about something new, or like the pictures in the ad, or maybe are just admiring of a well done magazine advertisement on a complicated subject.
A complicated subject for other men, that is. Obviously.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jun 12, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Me and cars. What do you want to know?
Me (with friend asking sales clerk for directions) : Are you sure it’s on Hubbards and Shelbyville road ?
Sales Clerk: Yes, across from Mini Cooper Dealership
Me (to sales clerk). OK. Thanks
Friend to me: (smiling because he knows I know little about cars) Do you even know what a Mini Cooper is?
Me: Are you serious ? Of course I do.
Friend: What are they?
Me: They are cars. They are, obviously, a smaller version –a sort of miniature version –of the regular-sized Cooper…..
(Pause). Snickering .
Me: I know Austin Powers drives one. You probably didn’t know that, did you? You want to know any more about Mini Coopers or entire Cooper line—including Medium Coopers, Jumbo Coopers and the soon-to-be-released Teeny Tiny Micro Coopers (mostly in Europe, of course). Or are you gonna quit before I embarrass you with my deep knowledge of cars?
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jun 10, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
What’s in a name? In the business world, more than we usually think….
Award for worst named new technology in the past decade?
“The Cloud” A remote point for storing massive amounts of sensitive data
Nothing says security like “I’m moving my data from the server in IT to a place where it will be more secure and accessible. Something called “a cloud”
It’s like calling a sturdy new product for storing dangerous liquids “The Sieve.”
I know that were naming the new technology based on its physical (or rather non-physical) characteristics.
But it’s important to remember when naming a new product or service–especially one that is supposed to change the world— to think not only of the “appearance” but also of the benefit it produces for future users.
And surely the name “The Cloud” has given pause to IT directors who might otherwise be eager to take the leap (worth billions for a truly superior product)but resist because they have to explain to their boss how “The Cloud” isn’t anything like a cloud but just the opposite.
Of course in naming some things, like boys and girls, neither appearance nor functionality are helpful. But even painful names like Helga and Norbert would have been better for remote data storage than “The Cloud.”
I would feel secure with all my sensitive data stored in “The Norbert” or “Helga”
Then again maybe the person who came up with the name “The Cloud” was named Norbert or Helga —and was just trying to get even. That might explain it.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jun 7, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
If I could give high school freshmen one piece of advice to motivate them to work hard the next 4 years, it would be this.
“The primary importance of working hard and achieving a lot in high school is that high school, fairly or unfairly, is where we develop our core opinion of ourselves. If we do well, we have high self-esteem. If we do poorly, we worry we will have to spend the rest of our lives fooling our bosses.”
It’s a self-image thing primarily.
But there is also a very measurable financial component that can be measured.
Over the course of a lifetime your success over the next four years in high school will be worth about $300,000. In avoided therapy bills.
But at the end of all that therapy you’ll learn that the people who did well in high school that you envy, think they are faking it too and fooling their bosses. They just believe they are better at fooling others than you are. That’s the chief advantage in life. None of us feel we’re up to the task. Except that one family member we all have who is a certifiable narcissist. (Or four or more family members in certain families.)
And, if you don’t have a have a successful run in high school and become a therapist yourself, you’ll eventually get to treat those students from high school who achieved the most. They will want to meet discreetly and late at night and you can charge them a lot more than your other clients. And they can pay. So charge them. It will make you feel better and finally realize they really had nothing on you all these years and are a bigger mess than you are.
It’s awesome when that happens.
Which leads to the second thing I would tell 9th graders if I could.
The universe has a way of balancing out in the end. So don’t sweat it if you aren’t able to take advantage of my first piece of advice. Just be patient and keep a sense of humor. And have an office space you can meet wealthy but screwed up salutatorians after hours.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jun 6, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Some people who claim to always go the “extra mile” –actually often only go a few extra yards. Or feet .
And just hope nobody notices and measures.
I have done that myself a few times. I find it helps to look like I am out of breath, so it will look like I really did go a full extra mile in working on a project
In the future, I think we ought to consider the practical advantages of changing the phrase “going the extra mile” to “going the extra kilometer”
Sure, chalk one up for the metic system but its also much more efficient and realistic . A kilometer is about 6/10th of a mile but is about as much extra a person can go on something without looking like a fool, or martyr.
Once you go a full mile over what is required, you are just trying to show off. But a kilometer is more believable and sends the message you really do try harder.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jun 5, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Keep an open mind….don’t jump to conclusions.
If the first thing you think of when letting your mind wander on a Saturday morning while having your coffee is, “Jack Rabbit Slims,” it’s probably worth asking yourself “What did I have for dinner last night?” and making sure you don’t eat that again since it must have caused indigestion that led to disturbing images the next morning.
At least that’s what was my first thought in reaction to the first thing I thought of this morning, which was “Jack Rabbit Slims.”
But it turns out it isn’t such a bad thing after all. I wasn’t thinking of the famous Travolta-Thurman dance scene or the great dialogue scene. I thought of the tracking shot of Travolta-Thurman entering the restaurant and walking to there table.
And I found the video of clip and watched it twice. It turns out that watching (and thinking) about Jack Rabbit Slim the first thing on a Saturday morning while having coffee is a pretty cool way to start the day off after all.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Jun 4, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
My first and last Beiber rant.
I just watched a video clip of two people reacting to the reaction of several commentators who offered their opinions on the reactions of two other people to an event that I personally didn’t find important enough for anyone to form an opinion on in the first place.
And now I feel the need to add my two cents to the two people reacting to the several commentators… reaction to the two people who originally reacted to an event that doesn’t seem very important in the first place.
My commentary is this:
If an event isn’t that important–or involves the name Justin Bieber– it’s probably not worth the time to form a full opinion about it. And certainly not worth the time to form an opinion and publicly express it.
And if someone does do those two things, it’s not really worth the time for a commentator (or group of commentators) to comment about further because that will only lead to more people, or at least two, who will feel compelled to comment publicly about their disagreement with the commentators commentary about the original two people’s reaction to the unimportant event.
And then, dammit, I’ll feel compelled to get involved and suggest that maybe, at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, whatever I think about Justin Bieber, I should just keep to myself. And maybe other people should do the same.
Let’s all just agree that Justin Beiber seems like a nice enough fella and sings well and has the same hair like of a lot of young people we know. And leave it at that.
It just saves everybody time and energy to talk about more important things.
I wonder whatever happened to this guy?
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