OK – I have a number of personal resolutions that aren’t for sharing (and aren’t interesting anyway).

I also have one big, important one.  One that will make my friends fall about the place laughing.  Well, it’s not funny!  And I’m going to try very very very very hard to be better. I won’t say that I’ll be good, I don’t have it in me to be good, but I do have it in me to be better, I know I do!

[more...]

[more...]

The Best Christmas Tradition Ever:

I’m posting this so that you can steal the idea and present it to your family as your own. Although I must confess, it’s not my idea, it was my mother’s.

[more...]

However you begin a career in Marketing, purposefully or accidentally, this is the first lesson they should be teaching you: The difference between a feature and a benefit. It’s a difficult lesson and, like languages, the older you are, the harder it is to learn. Once you see the light it’s like riding a bike; you can’t unlearn it and you can’t imagine how you ever had trouble with it.

[more...]

Really Kate? It's barely been two weeks. Windshield-washer fluid = No! Scraper = Yes!

Everyone knows that the temperature has nothing to do with your rush to get settled in the car. Everyone knows that it's because it's the only place you're allowed to smoke anymore.

See? Smoking really is dangerous.

Phil made a post here about being home for the holidays and Gump asked him a very cryptic question about where really felt like home. After a bit of editing, the question came out as: "Does your parents' home still feel like home, or does your own house feel like home?"

I think those of us who are truly lucky have many places that feel like home. I moved out of my Mom's house when I was 19 and never looked back. That was *cough* years ago and I've lived away from that house almost 3-times as long a I lived in that house. But it still feels like home. No more so than my own home does, but home never-the-less.

I have one other house that feels like home, and that's my Auntie Chrissy's house. Chrissy has moved twice since I moved to Toronto, but her current house feels as familiar to me as the house she lived in when I was in High School.

I think there are measures that you can use to determine the level of "hominess" of any place:

1. When you first arrive, do you knock and wait, or do you knock and go in?

2. Do you feel confined to certain parts of the house, or no?

3. Do you take your own shampoo, conditioner etc. or use what's there?

4. Could you take your laundry there?

5. Would they do it for you?

Any other measures?

I had a whole article composed in my head about the Heroic Recovery and how valuable it is to building customer loyalty. Mostly because I haven't written anything serious in a long time. I had a couple of examples from my own experiences, and I was going to link to Phil's post about TypePad. It was all very brilliant.

The thing with the heroic recovery is, you have to actually recover. And TypePad messed-up that part.

TypePad users (Phil and Allan) may be interested in this interview with one of SixApart's VPs.

I'm going to re-think that article. Perhaps I'll replace it with "Copy That I Wish I'd Written" because I have a boat-load of those laying around, too.

This is my first post made directly to this blog at its new home. I'm going to try very hard not to break it. Or at least, I'm going to try very hard to live by Clove's advice, and make nice, current back-ups before I break it. Everything from the old blog is here - including all of your witty comments, so have no fear.

Things are a little rough around the edges here. Especially in the archives. I wouldn't subscribe to anything yet - let's go on record with that one! But the plug-in that I've been fighting with for weeks finally works - and I think that I should have everything under control shortly. I may even be able to get some cool stuff working, we'll see.

Welcome to the new home, and please wish me luck with it.

K.

You know – the Internet is annoying.  I’ve been trying to hunt down an old comic that I loved for this article. But the Internet just won’t sit still.

Anyway – onward…

Web-based comics are a big deal, but I’ve never really been that into them.  Not for any reason, just that I’ve never encountered any that hooked me.  With two exceptions, and they both have something in common; they both contain references to Gordon Freeman.  He played a cameo in one, before we all finally got to meet him.  He has yet to appear in the second one, but they’ve heard of him there.

[more...]

Dear Kate,

I am very disappointed in you. Primarily, I am disappointed because you have been a driver in this country for 18 years and we have this conversation every year. Eighteen times, I have begged you to resist temptation, and 18 times (at least), you have succumbed.

Why?

Do you think it will ever work out differently? Do you think that just once it will actually do less harm than good?

I know, I know: the temperature Saturday morning was above freezing. Barely. It doesn’t matter. It has never mattered. You must learn to just say no. I don’t care if you left your mittens indoors, go back and get them if your hands are cold.

I never want to have to tell you this again:

Do not try to dissolve the remaining ice on the windshield of your car by spraying it with windshield-washer fluid. Use the fucking scraper.

Inspired by Gump.

So - the rat post. Isn't it interesting, that fine line between cute rodents and scary rodents?

[more...]

So - I've been reading Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants, by Robert Sullivan. And I'm liking it.  I'm a sucker for what I call "parallel histories"; books that trace aspects of our history by looking at something that runs parallel to us.  Like rats.  Or drinks.  Or salt.

Anyway - that's not the point of this entry.  The point of this entry is this sentence - paraphrased:

Most likely if you are, while you are reading this sentence, in any major city in America, then you are in proximity to two or more rats having sex.

I defy anyone to read that sentence while laying in bed without instantly ensuring that all of your little piggies are safely tucked up under the blankets. I went from my full 6-feet to about 5-2 in a heartbeat as I pulled my feet up to safety.

Q: Why is the sand on the shore wet?

[more...]