Mike Williams

Under The Influence

I’ve written a small skit last month and while writing this thing I was also putting down a few Lagers. The piece ended up being very funny and everything about it just clicked.

I’ve written another piece along the same lines this month except that now, I’ve written it without the influence of alcohol and the piece doesn’t seem to be as good as the other one. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s still good work but something feels like its missing.

I’m cutting out the beer because of the amount of calories and the amount of fat its given me. I’ll just have to get used to writing without it and hope it all works out in the end.

Who knew?

June 9, 2012 by Drive By Blogging

Why We Have More Gays and Other Fun Facts

Sometimes when I listen to the shows that I produce, I learn a little somethin’ somethin’. Yesterday was no exception when I taped Brass Balls Radio with Wendy Sullivan and Kimberly Haney.

The discussion led to excess estrogen in the water supply and how it gets into the water supply. You will have to listen to the show to get the details because yes, I pimp my own shit from time to time. Once you get over the initial laughable context and the light goes off…well, you’ll understand when you listen. The ladies suggest that the connection explains an exposion of gays and lesbians. Not sure how accurate that is but it is very interesting.

Strictly Right contains a clip of a union worker claiming that democracy is dead because his candidate lost. Huh? Actually, his candidate losing proves that democracy really works. The education system that he attended obviously doesn’t.

 

June 7, 2012 by 15 in the A.M.

A Quick One

Sometimes writing comes easy to me and sometimes it doesn’t. Most times, my head fills up with ideas and then I just need to find the right “valve” to use to control the flow to paper. Usually, that is exactly how the process works for me.

Sometimes, it doesn’t.

I’m working on something now that has a bunch of funny pieces and elements to it but they don’t want to fit together and play nice.

I guess I’ll blame the lack of alcohol. The last time I wrote a piece like the one I’m trying to finish I did it while drinking some lager and the piece ended up being quite funny.

Oh, well.

Now I have this Eddie Murphy skit in my head. “You can win Jesse. You can win cause you’re bigger than motherfu**in’ Harold Washington. F*** Harold Washington. F*** ’em.”

That still makes me laugh.

June 4, 2012 by 15 in the A.M.

Political Battles and Winning the War

This one might actually go pretty quickly.

There is a war on right now. A war for the White House. The Republicans think they have a real shot of “de-throning” Obama. Due to the major amount of ammunition at their disposal and because Obama’s fake life makes this so easy, I would tend to agree. Anyone who thinks that Obama wasn’t groomed for the White House going back prior to his run for the Senate is simply not paying close enough attention nor are you able to step back and see a bigger picture.

With that being said, if you wish to “de-throne” Obama there are a couple of small things you need to keep in mind. Simple “do this thing” or “don’t do this thing” type stuff. Here we go…

Campaign participation not whatever-con participation is what is needed during a presidential election cycle. Conferences should be put on hold. They serve no purpose other than to make money for the people hosting them and none of that money goes towards the folks who really need it. The hundreds you spent over the weekend to participate in whatever-con would have been better spent on a presidential campaign. That is simple common sense.

Circle Jerks. Talking to the same people over and over again will not further your cause. They already subscribe to your podcasts, they already met you at whatever-con, and they have less influence than any run of the mill lobbyist. I have several political podcasts in my iTunes feed and I cringe whenever I see the exact same names pop up in a podcast over and over again. If we are recycling the same people in radio, podcasts, and television then I suppose the new ideas aren’t flowing very freely either. How could they? I can think of a couple of folks that I could have on shows tomorrow in which I would already know exactly what they are going to say. See what I mean? How does that help anything?

Everything has to be on the table. Obama’s faults are too numerous to mention here but don’t go taking anything out of play just yet. McCain made this mistake in 2008. He tried to take the “high road.” Well, this is war and while I appreciate taking the high ground in war, this is certainly no time to take the high road. Not if you have plans of winning. In 2008, the Democrats fought to win. In 2008, the Republicans let them win. I have to say that I don’t feel like the Republicans are ready for a fight this time around either. I’m sure we’ll hear phrases from the Romney camp like “I’m not going to stoop to that level” or “I won’t attack Obama’s relationship with Jeramiah Wright because “I’m better than that.” That is why Romney will probably lose.

These are just a few things off the top of my head. Stay tuned. I’m sure there will be more.

June 3, 2012 by 2012 Election Obama Romney

Containment


I’d like to talk about the term “containment” as it relates to forest fires. Is it appropriate to claim 5% containment on a forest fire? Ah..no. Could you say that the fire is 5% “under control?” Ah..no.

What does the word “containment” actually mean?

Containment to me means positive control. If you have 85% containment then that tells me that you have 85% control of the situation. If you were to tell me that you have 5% containment then I would have to question your use of the term “containment.” In other words, you have no containment to speak of. You have 5% of the fire contained but what about the other 95% that isn’t contained.

Containment used in this context seems and feels wrong to me.

There has to be another word.

 

June 2, 2012 by 15 in the A.M.

Stuck in Culture

First things first. I made a logo for this 15 minutes of blogging in the morning thing. It’s crappy but then again, I’m no artist. Pretty sure we can all agree on that. Shut up Jennifer. Nobody asked you. 🙂

Now, let’s get on to the thought of the day. What kind of a person are you? Do you concern yourself with your day to day life or do you generally tend to look at a bigger picture?

I just wonder about folks that are so out of touch with the modern business world in general that they don’t even know enough to know that they don’t know anything.

Imagine being stuck in a business culture for about 10 years. You really wouldn’t know anything else would you? Your expectations are going to be based on the things you know. For the last ten years, the company you work for is all you knew. I remember working for a company in the not so distant past where I was forced to schedule back hauls based on emails that I would get throughout the day. Another employee watched me go through the email process and pointed out that my methods were painfully old fashioned and that I needed to move into the current decade. His advice was valuable and helped me cope with a changing office culture. Doing backhauls the old fashioned way was all I knew and I had no idea that it could be done another way. Some people have called this type of thing “thinking outside the box” but sometimes we don’t even know another world of ideas or possibilities exist.

I would also suggest that I’ve had a bit of a culture problem with my production websites as well. I was used to running out of bandwidth and space and I accepted that I would have to make periodic adjustments along the way. It is the way it is…or so I thought. After getting frustrated enough with my current server hosts, I decided to shop around for something else. Not only did I end up finding something better but I found a place where bandwidth and space problems do not exist. I also ended up saving about $400.00 a year. Why didn’t I look for alternatives a long time ago?

Ok. I’ve been typing at this off and on all day long and the idea behind this is to write about what I am thinking about when I first get up.

I’m done now.

May 31, 2012 by 15 in the A.M.

15 in the AM for May 30, 2012

This could be the title of my latest book, “How to Neuter Your Computer.”

The idea behind using a computer to make you or your company more productive is to actually allow the computer to do most of the work. Some companies follow that philosophy and some don’t. I often look around and wonder why we still have so much paper floating around when computers were supposed to change that too. They did. People just haven’t caught on yet.

Human beings have a real problem with change. They will go ahead and write an article on their word processor but still need a “hard copy” to file away in a file cabinet somewhere…just in case. The paper copy is my backup. Huh? History really needs to get past people like you and quickly.

Processes at companies that should be relying on computers are deligated to a person to “watch” over a process to make sure it runs correctly. Huh? Instead of using a computer to filter results we manually task a human with that. I want such and such a certain way…and so forth rather than programming the computer to do so.

We don’t trust computers to do things correctly so we rely on the guy who can’t remember what he ate for lunch yesterday to do it. Fabulous.

Progress will happen if we just get out of our own way.

 

May 30, 2012 by 15 in the A.M.

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