Virus Alert

This showed up in my email inbox today. I just had to share it this play on all those pesky viruses. Very funny!

There is a dangerous virus being passed around electronically, orally, and by hand. This virus is called Worm-Overload-Recreational-Killer (WORK). If you receive (WORK) from any of your colleagues, your boss, or anyone else via any means DO NOT TOUCH IT. This virus will wipe out your private life completely. If you should come into contact with (WORK), put your jacket on and take two good friends to the nearest liquor store. Purchase the antidote known as:

Work-Isolating-Neutralizer-Extract (WINE)
or
Bothersome-Employer-Elimination-Rebooter (BEER).

Take the antidote repeatedly until (WORK) has been completely eliminated from your system. You should forward this warning to five friends. If you do not have five friends, you have already been infected and (WORK) is controlling your life.

Boomer's Texting Vocabulary

Okay, this is for all you folks in "that demographic" group. Yea, I know, I'm right there with you.
The Boomer’s Texting Vocabulary… handy shortcuts for those of us of a certain age. Feel free to share with your BFF Jill.

WMG: Where’s my glasses?

WMK: Where’s my keys?

WAIITR: Why am I in this room?

WDIPMC: Where did I park my car?

IDR: I don’t remember [or "I don't recall" for Al G]

IFYRN: I forgot your real name

FANOI: F***, another night of insomnia

There are a lot more, and some great additions by commenters.

What? Selling Tumbleweed Online?

I have to admit that this story really pissed me off.

When I told my sig-O about it, his response was, "We suck!"

This is one of those "Why didn't I think of that?" stories -- like the pet rock and one red paperclip. Doh!

If you've lost your faith in the Internet, this should restore it! Yes, Suzie, there really is a Santa Claus and you really can make money on the 'Net... and some people even do it by accident.

Hmmmm... do you think there's a market for clumps of dog hair? I've got plenty of that around the house I could sell.

Unusual Business Ideas That Work: How To Make Money Selling Tumbleweed Online

Send messages to loved ones -- after you're gone!

This sounds like the perfect opportunity to say, "Na na na na, I told you so!"

The Post-Rapture Post - The Postal Service of the Saved

If you're asking, "How can this be possible," please take notice of how these messages will be delivered after the rapture. No fancy technology needed here.

My opinion... pretty clever.

Postage Increase

You probably already know that on May 14th the cost to snail-mail a letter is increasing by 2 cents from $.39 to $.41. I guess this is because more people are using email rather than regular mail, although you'd never know it by looking in my mailbox.

The post office has issued a new stamp, called "The Forever Stamp" to compensate for this rate hike - or maybe make us feel better anyway. It will be good for mailing a letter that weighs less than 1 ounce no matter how much the rate goes up -- FOREVER.

Of course, you can't buy this new stamp at the current rate of 39 cents. It'll cost you the new rate of 41 cents.

Seems to me you could save money by paying your bills online and emailing more rather than driving around looking for the cheapest gas in town so you can make it to the post office to mail a letter.

By the way, if you're planning any sort of direct mail campaign, you might want to send it out before Mother's Day.

Hope you get your two cents worth.

I'm Stupid

I just took an online quiz to tell me if I was stupid or not. It had such a creative title - The Stupid Quiz - that I just couldn't resist. The short story is that it told me that I'm not stupid:

Gee Gosh Wow! Congratulations, you are NOT Stupid. Not by a Longshot. In fact, you are a "Brainiac!" (If you know who Brainiac is, you are however, a Nerd.)

Despite what the quiz said, I AM STUPID! Stupid enough to get sucked into the stupid quiz, anyway.

The actual quiz was kinda fun, but getting the results was painful. I had to spend time rejecting all the "free" offers before I could get to the end. And it made me enter my name, address, phone, email, hair color, shoe size, favorite taco sauce, grandfather's maiden name, etc. At least I didn't give any -- NOT ANY -- real information (I said I was a blonde). So I'm not that stupid.

By the way, I deliberately left out the link to the quiz here. If you go looking, it's easy enough to find. Then you can join the crowd and be stupid too.

Now... to run an anti-spyware scan.

Thirteen-year-old wins phone texting contest

From MSNBC.com: Teen pockets $25,000 in texting contest
Thirteen-year-old defeated nearly 200 other competitors in Manhattan

NEW YORK - OMG! Thirteen-year-old Morgan Pozgar, of Claysburg, Pa., was crowned LG National Texting champion on Saturday after she typed "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from "Mary Poppins" in 15 seconds.

"I'm going to go shopping and buy lots of clothes," the teen said after winning her $25,000 prize from the electronics company LG.

Pozgar defeated nearly 200 other competitors at the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan to become East Coast champion. She then beat West Coast champion Eli Tirosh, 21, of Los Angeles texting the message: "Supercalifragilisticexpialidoucious! Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. If you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious."

She estimated that she sends more than 8,000 text messages a month to her friends and family.

Photo caption: Morgan Pozgar of Claysburg, Pennsylvania, uses a phone to send a text message as she competes in the LG National Texting Championship in New York. Pozgar, who is 13-years-old, defeated "West Coast Champion" Eli Tirosh of Los Angeles.

- - - - -

If you haven't thought much about how communication is changing, especially among younger folk, maybe it's time to start. Better brush up on your texting.

7777...88...7...33...7777...[expletive]...[back]...777...222...

You could be waiting awhile for me to finish this text message. Morgan, your record is safe from me -- for now.

2...555...444...3333...[expletive]...[back]...333...777...2...4...

The worst communications job ever

Thanks, Steve Crescenzo at Corporate Hallucinations, for this great post. Puts things in perspective. When I think my job or my life sucks, I'll remember this one.

Would you do this job?

Having a bad day? Hate your job? Your boss sucks?

This story might cheer you up . . . because as bad as you have it, at least your job isn’t the one “Billy the Kid” had to do for almost a year.

I met Billy The Kid in Atlanta this week. His nametag said William, but he introduced himself as Billy, and in my mind he immediately became Billy the Kid, because he's from Texas.

After Day One, Billy was one of the drinkers in the bar, and I asked him what he did before he came to his current job.

Turns out Billy worked for the Red Cross . . . but in a very unusual role. He was on the ground in Iraq, near Tikrit, Saddam’s home town.

Billy’s job? He was responsible for delivering bad news from home to soldiers. So if a soldier’s parent died, Billy had to go tell him. If something happened to their spouse, or their kids, Billy had to pay them a visit.

“I was like the Grim Reaper,” he told me. “People would see me coming and tell me to get the hell away from them.”

That may be the worst communications job I’ve ever heard of, and I’ve heard of a lot of bad ones. Telling soldiers—who are miserable enough already—that they now have to deal with a personal tragedy could suck the soul right out of you.

The worst kind of news Billy had to deliver—even worse than the deaths—was when he had to tell a soldier who had been in Iraq for more than a year without a break that his wife was pregnant with somebody else’s child.

“I had to do that quite a bit,” he said.

If there is a worse job out there, I’d like to hear about it.

Guerrilla marketing goes national

Cartoon Network: the next logical step? Click here or on the image to read the article.

Thanks Nedra Weinreich and her Social Marketing Blog for this.

The Chosen One - funny

Wow! I can relate!

Lessons for Pat O'Brien

For those of you who don't keep up on all the celebrity gossip, Pat O'Brien (Access Hollywood, The Insider) has checked himself into rehab after making some critical email and voicemail errors. Perhaps it's a lesson not only for Pat, but for the rest of us too.

Before leaving Access Hollywood in summer 2004, O'Brien sent out a drunken email critiquing his co-hosts including Nancy O'Dell. The email was promptly followed by a public apology and an admission of a drinking problem.

Lesson #1 for Pat O'Brien: If you write an email while intoxicated, sober up before hitting the send button.

After leaving Access Hollywood, O'Brien got his own entertainment gossip show called the Insider. At first it looked like O'Brien got his drinking under control. However, he apparently decided to get drunk, do a few lines of cocaine and leave a string of dirty voice-mail messages all over the place.

Lesson #2 for Pat O'Brien: If you are "horny" and doing illegal drugs, don't call everyone in your address book and tell them. You are a celebrity damn it! Especially don't leave voice mail evidence that can be recorded and leaked all over the internet.

If you're out of the loop and want more info on this critical issue, check out this article at MethodShop. Or better yet, read the blog (and buy a t-shirt while you're there) or this little inside commentary.

Just a thought (since before I read the commentary) -- what's with everyone checking into rehab these days? Kennedy, Foley, and now O'Brien. I guess it's that devil alcohol that made me do it.

And those two glasses of red wine made me write this post. Rrrrriiiiiigggghhhhtttt. Oh what the hell!