Strategic refueling mission accomplished!

That sounds so much more impressive than saying that I stopped for gas the other day.

Alternative vacation plans

Those concerned about rising prices of gasoline and air fares this year might consider an ego-trip rather than a traditional vacation. Believe me, such trips are highly gratifying!

Geeky fathers

An e-mail notice from Roxio suggests that one's "Dad will love his gift [of Roxio Easy Media Creator 10]."

Logistically implausible claim in spam e-mail

Today, a spam e-mail arrived with the following subject heading: "[W]holesale shoes accept [P]aypal."

A disturbing dream

This one really has me puzzled--and embarrassed.

I dreamed that a service department employee at a Ford dealership insisted on bringing in an obnoxious salesperson who wanted me to sign up for a life long e-mail account on which I could store important information. It would work fifty or even hundred years from now.

What really doesn't jive with my self image as a kind and compassionate individual is that, as the salesperson made a long and rambling introduction, I kept hitting the salesperson's knuckles on one hand with my keys--not just car keys, but a large keyring with other keys. The salesperson apparently never tried to pull his hand away.

Just for the record, I have never actually engaged in this behavior while awake. I did once yell at a crooked car salesman, even in this case of a rotten psychopath who lied with impunity, I did not resort to physical violence. And I did not even succeed in getting him fired. Also for the record, that bozo was not with Ford.

Rain in Spain, Southern California, and Tokyo

Two days after making my last blog entry, I did receive conformation that it does rain in Central Japan, at least some of the time. Smaller stores usually feature umbrella racks outside the stores. Larger stores, where too many umbrellas would accumulate outside the store, have umbrella wrapping machines that wrap the umbrella in plastic covers.

Ironically, it turns out that the song "It Never Rains in Southern California" was actually written before the two co-authors ever came here. Unlike the two writers of "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (which was written in Maryland), the co-authors of the rain song were anticipating their trip to Los Angeles. The story is based on the experiences of Albert Hammond of severe cash flow problems in Spain. Some interesting details are at http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=3137 . Somehow, no allusions to snails made it into the song's lyrics.

By the way, if any of you are looking for Julio Iglesias' version, there is actually independent song. It is part of the song "Moonlight Lady."

Got onboard an eastbound 747...

So far, I have not seen any evidence that it ever does rain in Central Japan, but I am told it does.

Seven habits of highly ineffective F-students

1. Ditch or arrive late for class
2. Engage in personal conversations during class
3. Fail to follow instructions and pay attention
4. Use the term “etc.” in their assignments and exam answers
5. Study insufficiently for exams and put inadequate effort into assignments
6. Fail to think logically and/or make their reasoning clear
7. Overestimate their own performance, insight, and competence

Marketing Fundamentals (BUAD 307) course podcasts now online!

The audio from my Marketing Fundamentals (BUAD 307) course lecture sessions is now available as podcasts at http://buad307cast.com/audio/ .

My River

In Birkerod, Denmark--the town in which I was born--there was a river that passed through. It wasn't a big river, and the water level certainly would not have high enough to sustain a yellow submarine, but I was not at all too proud to call it "my river."

My memories of this are very vague, but back when I was something like 2-3 years old, my mother, my little sister, and I would, almost every day, walk down to the road to my great grandparents who lived on a farm, most of which had been converted into leased factory space and, later, a kindergarten. When we arrived, my great grandmother would usually boil an egg for me. On the way, we could see the river. Somewhere--whether it was at home or at the homes of relatives--I was apparently exposed frequently to the classical piece The Moldau, composed by the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. When this song was played, I am told, I would say that it was about "my river." The piece, by the way, is about the Czech river Vlatana (Moldau is the German word), and the composer intended to incorporate the sounds of the river into the composition.

To this day, I always have a special feeling when I hear the composition about my river. I have fond memories of listening to this piece frequently when I woke up to the morning program of Dennis Owen at WGMS in Washington, D.C. during my years at the University of Maryland and The George Washington University.

It may not be a duck

Yesterday, I came across a bird on a car in a parking lot. The food it had in its beak made it look, from the front, like a duck. I am not sure, however, whether ducks have spots, so I can't determine if it looks like a duck. I am not sure how ducks are supposed to walk--nor, for that sake, how other birds walk--so I cannot use that criterion. The bird did not quack, but one cannot infer non-duck status based on the converse. Another practical problem is that I am not sure if there are any "non-duck-like" ways of quacking (other than in offering bogus medical services), so I am not sure what the standard of comparison would be.

Ultimately, of course, the question is whether I could make more profit on this bird than I could on a duck. Unfortunately, I did not see any commercial value here.

The Grass is Greener at USC

It is clearly evident that the grass on campus is now both literally and figuratively greener. Normally, I am rather suspicious of change, but, with green being my favorite color and with the environmental benefits of not having to irrigate artificial grass, this seems like a good one.

Valentine's Gift for Geeky Girlfriends

Costco features a deal at http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?whse=BC&topnav=&prodid=11188565&ec=BC-EC877-CatHome&pos=6&lang=en-US where a $59.99 discount is given when a Magellan Maestro 3250 auto GPS system is bought along with three dozen roses.

Juicy gossip in the LA Times

The online version of the Los Angeles Times today features an article whose link from the front page features a title one might expect more to read in the National Enquirer: "Text messages point to affair in Detroit."

On second thought, maybe the Enquirer would use words less restrained than "point to."

A bad dream--in two stages

The other night, I first dreamed that I was on my way to guest speak to a colleague's class at a nearby institution. I had budgeted plenty of time, but suddenly realized that I had only twelve minutes until the talk was scheduled to talk--but would definitely not be able to make it to the location--which I wasn't entirely clear on where to find. To make matters worse, as I was sitting in a parking lot to call my colleague, my cell phone was stolen. A woman approached me, asking, of all things, for an aspirin (which I must somehow had had with me), and while I was distracted, her partner in crime stole my cell phone. I woke up and wondered if it was really safe to keep my cell phone on my belt, or whether I was too vulnerable to get it stolen that way in real life.