If you're a speaker, and you're addressing an audience someplace with a well defined regional identity like, oh, California or NYC or Texas, please, I beg of you, think before you speak. Interjecting snippets of the stereotypical understanding you have of the area is not the best idea in the world.
Surely you're savvy enough to know that if you fly into DFW and start using "Howdy" or "y'all," (with verbal or — God forbid — air quotes around them) no one will find it amusing except you. The same thing applies when you're speaking in front of an audience.
If you give a presentation to a group of California business people, maybe you might be tempted to have a slide referring to Valley girls or make a little joke about the Governator. It's novel. Different. Noteworthy, and worth a mention. To...you. Not to the people who live and work there and who — trust me — know the stereotypes. And either buy into them or don't, resent them or don't, are completely freakin' sick and tired of them or...no, they're tired of them. So don't.
Just...don't.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Bad jokes
One of my nephews was at camp a few weeks ago, and his mom contacted some people and asked us to email him while he was there. The camp prints out emails and gives them to the campers at mail call. Since I didn't really have all that much to chat about, at least that he would have cared about, I sent him riddles and one liners all week. Yes, I had a whole week's worth. Plus some.
Here's a sample.
On Tuesday:
Here's a sample.
On Tuesday:
- How do you kill a circus?
- Go for the juggler! [that's one of my favorites]
- What does the Gingerbread Boy have on his bed?
- Cookie sheets.
- What do you get when you cross a skunk with a teddy bear?
- Winnie the PEEYEW!
- Did you hear about the red ship that collided with the blue ship?
- The sailors were marooned!
- Why did Bill take a fig to the movies?
- Because he couldn't find a date!
- What would happen if Satan lost his hair?
- There would be hell toupee!
- What do you get if you cross a turtle with a porcupine?
- A slowpoke!
- What do you get if you cross an electric eel with a sponge?
- A shock absorber!
- What did the hat say to the scarf?
- You hang around while I go on ahead.
- Why do blonde nurses carry a red Magic Marker?
- In case they have to draw blood!
- What do you get when you cross a kangaroo and a snake?
- A jump rope!
- If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?
- Pilgrims!
- Which Knight Invented the round Table?
- Circumference!
- Which Knight makes pottery?
- Ceramic!
- Two thousand pounds of hair fell off a truck today and blocked the road. State Police are still combing the area.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
SNB Annex
Thanks to Edee, of my wonderful Stitch and Bitch group. She invited us all over to her house just because her daughter, son-in-law and their kids, with whom Edee lives, were out of town. We took snacky things and our various crafts and hung out this afternoon. It was so much fun! It helps, too, that the household has four cats and three dogs, and all us SNBers appear to be animal lovers. At least we petted as much as we knitted and spun (though probably not as much as we snacked).
Oh! One of the other women in the group has a son who's an actor. He's currently on The Young and the Restless — Michael Muhney. Cool, huh?
Back to work tomorrow.
Oh! One of the other women in the group has a son who's an actor. He's currently on The Young and the Restless — Michael Muhney. Cool, huh?
Back to work tomorrow.
Torchwood...so much Torchwood....
Rich and I watched the first episode of the Torchwood mini-series "Children of Earth" last night, then tonight watched the second one. Then, what the heck, we watched the third. And the fourth, and by that time it would have been silly to stop, so we watched the fifth and last one. They were each 75 minutes long, so we watched five hours of Torchwood tonight. (Except that the last episode was actually about 35 minutes long, with 40 minutes of commercials. Seriously.)
It was obviously engaging and very entertaining. We were surprised by the ending, though. I didn't realize the series wasn't coming back, which is apparently a real possibility. They also left some loose ends (that woman Minister, the one who insisted they keep their own children safe and get rid of the "socially undesirable" children, really needs to be spattered all over something, not made Prime Minister). I'll have to keep an eye on the BBC website.
In the meantime, the Dr. Who special is on tomorrow night! (Geek. Yes. Pretty much a hundred percent.)
It was obviously engaging and very entertaining. We were surprised by the ending, though. I didn't realize the series wasn't coming back, which is apparently a real possibility. They also left some loose ends (that woman Minister, the one who insisted they keep their own children safe and get rid of the "socially undesirable" children, really needs to be spattered all over something, not made Prime Minister). I'll have to keep an eye on the BBC website.
In the meantime, the Dr. Who special is on tomorrow night! (Geek. Yes. Pretty much a hundred percent.)
Friday, July 24, 2009
Friday!
Okay, so today I set up a blog for my business. No funny or frivolous stuff on that one, I guess. (Bummer.) But maybe it'll be a little bit informative. And even promote some, you know, business or something. It's at http://originalproduction.blogspot.com/.
Like I said on that blog, I just listened to Jeff Crilley speak at Leads. It was really good! I don't know why, but it was better than the other times I've heard him talk. (No offense, Jeff. You weren't bad before, this time was just more informative.) We had a pretty good crowd, at least for that Leads group. And now I'm DONE for the day. For the week! Okay, I have some stuff I have to do at my desk, but no more appointments, no more obligations. Nice.
So I think I'll go run some errands, maybe look at shoes or something (it doesn't happen often, but sometimes I'm such a girl), then finish out the work week at my desk, slippers on and adult beverage in hand. (Ah! The joys of a home office!)
Happy Friday, everybody!
Like I said on that blog, I just listened to Jeff Crilley speak at Leads. It was really good! I don't know why, but it was better than the other times I've heard him talk. (No offense, Jeff. You weren't bad before, this time was just more informative.) We had a pretty good crowd, at least for that Leads group. And now I'm DONE for the day. For the week! Okay, I have some stuff I have to do at my desk, but no more appointments, no more obligations. Nice.
So I think I'll go run some errands, maybe look at shoes or something (it doesn't happen often, but sometimes I'm such a girl), then finish out the work week at my desk, slippers on and adult beverage in hand. (Ah! The joys of a home office!)
Happy Friday, everybody!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Thursday
The notice about Global Group and the video of Donnie that was here has moved to my business blog.
Let's see...Thursday, not business.... Well, I won a $25 gift card at the Chamber Luncheon, courtesy of Michael A. Bogdan, M.D., aesthetic plastic surgery. And made a variation of Alton Brown's Chicken Pot Pie for dinner. And, um...snuggled with the dog.
(Yeah, it's a blurry photo. I'll get around to taking a good one sometime.)
And petted the cats.
These are Biddy and Rocky. There's also a Siamese mix named Izzy who doesn't sleep on our bed during the day.
And that was my Thursday. (Hey, I said I'd blog. I never said anything about interesting.)
Let's see...Thursday, not business.... Well, I won a $25 gift card at the Chamber Luncheon, courtesy of Michael A. Bogdan, M.D., aesthetic plastic surgery. And made a variation of Alton Brown's Chicken Pot Pie for dinner. And, um...snuggled with the dog.
(Yeah, it's a blurry photo. I'll get around to taking a good one sometime.)
And petted the cats.
These are Biddy and Rocky. There's also a Siamese mix named Izzy who doesn't sleep on our bed during the day.
And that was my Thursday. (Hey, I said I'd blog. I never said anything about interesting.)
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
It's a new day
So where were we?
Sorry, again, for the long silence; I've had some technical difficulties these last few weeks. My little Dell Inspiron 910 (cutest little computer you've ever seen) was acting crazy and it took a while to get a handle on things. Not that you care, but I ended up having to repartition the hard drive and reinstall the operating system, and doing repair work on Linux is not exactly intuitive for someone who's used Macs for twenty years. But we learn and move on. Having problems with my little Linux machine tends to bollux up my blogging, because I meet some people at Central Market in Southlake every Wednesday morning for breakfast. After they leave, I get out the little netbook and blog. That's the time I have set aside for it and when the netbook isn't cooperating, it gums up the works.
But anyway...since we last spoke, we lost a cat (very hard), had a yard sale (very hot), and Rich went to Denver for a week (very...okay, I can't think of an "h" word that makes sense). I finished one helmet liner and continue working on another. I went to a Rangers game (really fun!) courtesy of Shea & McMurdie, clients and networking friends (Hi, Scott) who were nice enough to include us in their client appreciation night. BTW, the Odyssey OneSource suite at The Ballpark is beautiful!
I'm seriously trying to get back in the swing of business things. It was kind of hard for a while after we found out Rich was being laid off, hard to promote business or network with any kind of enthusiasm. In the back of my mind I kept thinking, "We may be living halfway around the world in six months. Why bother?" But I think I've gotten over it, and I'm getting back up to speed. So, in keeping with that, I'm going to blog more often for a while. Maybe...every day for a week. Promise. Then, you know, we'll see after that.
But for now, I have to get over to the Global Group in Fort Worth for a thing at 10am. Then back to work. See you tomorrow
Sorry, again, for the long silence; I've had some technical difficulties these last few weeks. My little Dell Inspiron 910 (cutest little computer you've ever seen) was acting crazy and it took a while to get a handle on things. Not that you care, but I ended up having to repartition the hard drive and reinstall the operating system, and doing repair work on Linux is not exactly intuitive for someone who's used Macs for twenty years. But we learn and move on. Having problems with my little Linux machine tends to bollux up my blogging, because I meet some people at Central Market in Southlake every Wednesday morning for breakfast. After they leave, I get out the little netbook and blog. That's the time I have set aside for it and when the netbook isn't cooperating, it gums up the works.
But anyway...since we last spoke, we lost a cat (very hard), had a yard sale (very hot), and Rich went to Denver for a week (very...okay, I can't think of an "h" word that makes sense). I finished one helmet liner and continue working on another. I went to a Rangers game (really fun!) courtesy of Shea & McMurdie, clients and networking friends (Hi, Scott) who were nice enough to include us in their client appreciation night. BTW, the Odyssey OneSource suite at The Ballpark is beautiful!
I'm seriously trying to get back in the swing of business things. It was kind of hard for a while after we found out Rich was being laid off, hard to promote business or network with any kind of enthusiasm. In the back of my mind I kept thinking, "We may be living halfway around the world in six months. Why bother?" But I think I've gotten over it, and I'm getting back up to speed. So, in keeping with that, I'm going to blog more often for a while. Maybe...every day for a week. Promise. Then, you know, we'll see after that.
But for now, I have to get over to the Global Group in Fort Worth for a thing at 10am. Then back to work. See you tomorrow
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