A couple of days ago, my Office Suite died on me. And for once, this was no fault of Bills. I was cleaning out my harddisk, and must have deleted one file too many. Suddenly Outlook, Word, Excel etc. had stopped working.
I spent a few seconds in the required (and familiar to any PC user) state of semi-panic, and then the solution came to me.
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Yes, yes, yes: Egoland is online with a new strip every day. For those who don’t know, this is the best daily comic strip in Denmark, and one of the best in the world.
The artwork is brilliant, the humour alternates between the lowbrow and deep philosophy, and the whole package seems to never get old or tired, only better and better. It’s in danish though, so the rest of the world will just have to grieve at what they’re missing.
Here’s one of my recent favourites, which pretty much illustrates the depth of the series.
If you’re not having a fair degree of failures, you’re not exposing yourself to the upside of getting it dramatically right on dark horses. If you don’t like going home at night with a feeling of uncertainty, then you’re not cut out for it. If you try too hard to improve your failure rate, you become afraid of your inbox, terrified by the proposals made by authors and their agents. You end up having either no output or a book that is so bland that no one will want to read it. Discovering J.K. Rowling has reminded me of the sheer fun of knowing long before anyone else that you have something that will change the world.
– Nigel Newton, CEO of Bloomsbury, the publishing company who “discovered” Harry Potter
This underlines the importance of getting it wrong once in a while, and the utter stupidity of the old “Get it right the first time” maxim. From an article in Fast Company.
So, why on earth am I reading a book about child therapy? First of all, therapy is all about change. You have a problem, you need to change, therapy is one potential tool, and therapy contains many potentially useful methods for promoting change. And one of the biggest challenges facing organizations today is the need for constant change. It’s almost a clich? to say it, but it remains true.
Secondly, I discovered the concept of narrative therapy on the net, while netresearching therapy, and it seemed really interesting for a number of reasons.
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I remember the Vietnamese spiritual teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, right after 9/11, speaking in New York City. Somebody asked him what would he do if he was able to meet with Osama bin Laden. He said, “If he had his choice, he would sit down and listen to what Osama bin Laden had to say, so that he could hear his perspective and his motivation.” That’s a profound response.
It is this kind of dialogue that’s so important in this new world we occupy. Democracy is rooted in conversation. It’s rooted in the exchange of ideas. It’s rooted in multiple voices. It’s rooted in diversity. It’s rooted in hearing all the different perspectives. That’s what democracy is about. It’s not about one view, or one solitary approach. It’s not about the, “America right, wrong and always” form of patriotism. It’s not about that. It’s about something much deeper, much more precious, even mysterious.
– Michael Toms in an article in powells.com
I’ve never been to the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, but people who have describe it as a joyful chaos. The fishmongers throw the fish and crabs around, catch them one-handed, yell at and with the customers and generally have a great time.
But things weren’t always great. Yokoyama, the owner, describes himself as an ex-tyrant, who only recently learned to treat employees as peers in stead of peons. And the reward has been to see the company come to life, and the customers have followed.
Let me give you an example of what happens in a company, where people have this much fun.
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One of lifes biggest pleasures is doing stuff you don’t know if you can. And this weekend I performed with some fellow instructors from Form&Fitness at Alt for Damerne Live.
The thought of getting on a stage in front of hundreds of women was terrifying, but once you’re up there it’s actually easy. It went great, and we had a lot of fun both practicing and especially performing. Pictures here, here and here (I’m the one in the blue shirt).
Now, what should the next challenge be?
Here’s a riddle for you:
It is a story about a girl. While at the funeral of her own mother,she met this guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing, he was her dream guy, and she fell in love with him there but never asked for his number and could not find him.
A few days later the girl killed her own sister.
Question: What is her motive in killing her sister?
Give this some thought for a while before you click more to see the answer.
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The current national and international bickering over Iraq really saddens me, because it shows how easy it is to let disagreement widen into a serious rift between friendly nations. There has certainly been a lot of heated transatlantic rhetoric these last months, and too little of it has been focused on common goals and purposes.
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NaNoWriMo is a seriously cool project: You sign up, and the idea is that during november 2003, you’ll write a novel. To make it easier, there are no quality restrictions, only quantity: You must write at least 50.000 words. I LOVE the idea. This means no agonizing over insignificant details. It means you can’t procrastinate and delay. You’ll have to get down and write!
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