Happy New Year. Make your resolutions early, break them by midnight.

War of the PR Firms

Every year about this time, The Business Journal (the rag formerly known as City Business) publishes the Top 25 PR Firms which is avidly read by 250 Minnesotans. I admit to be somewhat fascinated by the rise and fall of a very tight, incestuous, competitive market.

Shandwick, Padilla and Carmicael Lynch are on the top, as usual. They'll probably never be dislodged because I think they fudge a bit and lump their advertising and web fee income in with their "Public Relations" fee income. A charge I'd never be able to substantiate.

It's much more interesting to me to watch who is scratching their way through the middle. SCG managed to move up a spot to number 10, but my old company, Haberman & Associates closed the gap and are now directly behind us. (They're listed as having 11 employees which is a heck more than when my hire made my #5.) Miller Meester and Lilja are completely gone and someplace called Fast Horse made its list this year.

It's interesting to see who the firms choose to list as their major clients and people often ooh or groan -- clients they wish they had, clients they'd hate to work with. Most of the firms on the list are owned by their namesakes. #1 & 3, however, are both owned by Interpublic. I never knew that Karowski was owned by Martin Williams and I'd love to hear the story about how Tunheim freed itself from the grips of Carlson Companies.

The biggest use for this list, of course, is gossip generation. It can be heard around offices all day things like "Oh, Joe went to Risdall" and "I applied for a job at Snow" or "We lost the Acme Anvil account to Himle Horner". (All individual and account names have been completely fabricated.)

I guess this just means that I've been working in PR too long.

Semantics

I read in the Star Tribune today that Clare Housing was going to be building new apartments and townhomes for people with HIV. In the article, it says "in a blighted parcel of northeast." which I took to mean possibly one of the warehouse looking spaces along Central Avenue. Later in the article it references the neighborhood association -- St. Anthony East. Huh, not where I thought it would be at all.

According to the Clare web site, it will be at 929 Third Avenue NE, which doesn't really seem like a blighted parcel to me. Houses over there are shooting well over $200K.

Now, just to be clear -- I'm insanely pro affordable housing. I think this will be a good thing, and frankly, that area will be way more hospitable to the residents than a truly blighted area of northeast.

My objection is that the newspaper reporter is just too suburban for their own good. City neighborhoods with old buildings are not automatically "blighted".

Twas the day after Christmas...

... and all through downtown, not a creature was stirring, not even a... donut shop.

I knew it would happen. I knew I would not be able to treat myself to coffee and a donut to ease the pain of being one of the 6 people in all of downtown that had to work today. Still, it was very sad to have to scrounge for a pint of skim milk to have cereal for breakfast.

I do like working when it's this quiet. But I still feel sorry for myself.

Merry Christmas Eve

I most certainly won't have time to post again until Friday, so Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Christmas seems to come in stages for me. The initial planning stage. The execution stage. The prepatory wrap up stage. The mom and dad are here stage. The insanity stage. The mom and dad have left stage. The exhaustion stage.

Last night, we entered the mom and dad are here stage. Many hours earlier than I anticipated. About 9:30pm I got a call from mom saying they were in Hannibal Missouri. They'd gotten too excited packing up the truck and decided to drive half way last night. They were going to stop in Iowa City and would see my at about 1pm today. Well, alright, I mean, they're already on the road, I can't say no. It just meant that I'd have to do some cleaning and cooking under their watchful eyes.

Except at 4:30am, I got a call saying "Dad wouldn't stop" (a likely story) and could they use their key to let themselves in. "Go back to sleep". Uh huh. Well, instead of the 4 hour warning that key is supposed to require, I got a 12 minute warning. I'm exhausted today and not only will the cooking and cleaning have to happen under their watchful eye, but they'll wake up and wander around a house that's messier than *I* like to live in and it's my mess. Oh well, their punishment for being early is a dirty bathroom. Take that, Mom!

It is still exciting to have it finally be here. I just hope that Tim can hold out. I can only imagine what it's like to be woken at 4:30am by the arrival of your in-laws. --shudder--

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Comedian Lenny Bruce pardoned for obscenity use, almost 40 years after death

New Computer

As I've probably mentioned before, I'm a little askerd to install OSX on my old blue & white G3 at work. Today I found out, I won't have to. The design department is getting a new computer for me and all up-to-date software. The rest of the company is getting a new color printer so they don't have to disrupt our lives when they need press sheets printed. This is amazingly good news for us. We've desperately needed these things for a long time -- we're running software that is two- sometimes three- versions behind what's current.

The only cloud to this silver lining is how irritating it is that year-end accounting is more important than having functioning tools for your staff. The total kicker is that all this hardware and software adds up to a cost that didn't really warrant such pleading to get.

Still, I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm pretty excited that we'll be all outfitted with current stuff. BTW, is the phrase really "look a gift horse in the mouth"? I was thinking about this yesterday and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

p.s. I'm getting the cheese grater.

Everything is easier when you breathe

I had a dinner party tonight and it went pretty smoothly. I freaked out a bit when my roast was done an hour and a half sooner than I expected. But really, what could I do about that? Nothing. So I turned off the oven and went back to the present opening fest in the livingroom. Everyone bailed before dessert because of logistics and sick cat, but again, there was nothing I could do. I bid my guests farewell and those that were left had dessert a half hour or so later.

The end result is that I had a semi-formal dinner for 8 people with nothing burnt, forgotten or broken, which was good enough for me. Hopefully, it was good enough for my guests. It seemed to be.

If I'm not careful, I still get myself worked up over things, especially when they're traumas I haven't met before. I'm sure there's some sort of mystic name for my latest, most effective coping mechanism, but I don't know what it is...

When there's nothing I can do about something, I can still breathe.

Juvenille office antics in eye of beholder

We have a star program at work. It's not unlike the "congratulations, you didn't pee the bed today" type of system. It's supposed to inspire people. It doesn't really have that effect on me, but oh well.

Yesterday, someone messed up when they sent a star and it made it look like one of our co-workers had sent themselves a star. We joked with the guy and then someone else in the office decided to make it look like this same co-worker had sent himself a second star.

Most people thought it was funny. We don't know who sent the first one, but the person that sent the second one apologized to the target. End of story, right? No. The brass apparently takes this star thing just a little too seriously, and there are appearing to be repercussions. These are the same people that were earlier in the day joking about other things that I found borderline offensive.

I guess I'm used to "executive privlege" but I think they've taken this a little too far.

Burning desire for mediocrity

Sometimes my company's extreme efforts to create nothing even remotely extreme grates on me.

Didn't miss work at all

Yesterday I took a vacation day and I didn't miss work at all. I went and got my cholesterol checked in the morning (better to take care of that BEFORE the holidays, I figure), ran some errands (meat market, liquor store) and then cooked for 8 hours straight. Macaroni & cheese with spinach, Baked ziti, chicken enchiladas, beef enchiladas, beef stew, chicken stock, tuna casserole, laid the groundwork for chili and wild rice soup. I didn't get to the stuffed turkey breast, the greek flank steak or the banana bread. I was completely exhausted by the time I had a friend over for dinner, but it still beat being at work.

It's days like yesterday that make me think about housewife-ism. I've always maintained that I would go stir crazy and feel unfulfilled if I stayed at home. Days like yesterday almost make me long for it. But then I remember that I cooked for 8 hours straight and if I was home every day, I certainly wouldn't be doing that* every day. Tim and I would weigh a million pounds each.

It's now officially a week until Christmas, but my holiday starts on Saturday when Tim's family comes for dinner. Hopefully, after cooking and cleaning tonight, I'll be ready. I'd better check my to-do list. When it comes to Christmas, Santa's list ain't got nuthin' on me.

Don't Wanna

I'd just like to point out that the annual Don't Wannas has set in. I'd much rather be at home, being a festive folk than being here at work. And I'm not even missing parties yet.

Holiday greetings from the past

I had saved this Doodle for the holidays a long time ago, back when we had Doodles every day. But then we stopped having doodles before the holidays came. Now I find it particularly fitting to use, since I finally* checked the EZ Board link and found a post from September by the artist.

Maggie, Fran's "little sister" (I'm sure she's not little anymore) used to come spend the night with Fran and I on Christmas Eve Eve to help us kick off our holiday celebrations. At one of those visits, she drew this very pretty Christmas tree. You can't tell from the screen, but it glitters.

Thanks for your patience

While I screwed up comments a couple billion times. Should be fixed now.

My time is worth $44 to me

I love Simon Delivers, especially during busy times. The ease of ordering something on my lunch break over the internet and having it delivered to my house (and then put away by Tim) is amazing.

I was thinking that I'd order from them next week when I'm taking a day off work to do a bunch of cooking. Some stuff as gifts, some things to make my life easier while I have houseguests (although I'm not having as many as I planned.) I'd checked all my recipes and entered everything in to the site. $200. Oof. But not bad for 20 meals.

Out of curiousity, I printed out my "cart" and took it with me when I went to Cub tonight. I didn't check everything on the list -- just the meat, dairy and things I walked past. Tallied it up when I got home. Double Oof.

Not including the $5 delivery fee, I'd be paying a $44 premium to have this stuff delivered to me. Guess who is going to be hoofing around Cub next week with a monster list.

Overheard on the bus

This morning, a guy was talking on the bus about his 96 year old grandmother who has a neat holiday tradition. Every year on Christmas Eve she goes down to UNBank or one of those other check cashing places and pays a couple of people's phone or electric bill. A random act of kindness.

I thought that was pretty cool and it made me wonder if there was something like that I could do for someone. I always try to make the lives of my friends and family a little easier if I can, but I've never reached out to a stranger and maybe I wanna.

Acme

Is just as I remembered it.

T minus 16 and counting

Just over two weeks until Christmas starts. Which isn't really true -- Christmas started weeks ago when I began compiling a list of giftees. I'm in relatively good shape this year. I'd even be in good shape if my folks were arriving next week, which they usually do. What I'm lacking right now however, is excitement. Without the pressure, I don't have the adrenaline pumping through me that I ususally do. This is probably a good thing.

I was a little worried that if I "finished" early that I'd do the mom thing and just try to cram more crap in. But I don't seem to be inclined to bake a million Christmas cookies, make my own Christmas CDs, rethink every gift, or hand crochet a holiday sweater for my cat. Jasmine and Tim are both glad.

p.s. Who is the stupid idiot that put together a Thanksgiving sale rebate program that required the UPC symbols to be cut off boxes and mailed in before December 13th? Here's your present, I hope it's what you want, because I had to OPEN IT AND CUT APART THE PACKAGING!!! Grr.

Gingerbread hell

Have you ever done that cooking making thing with friends or family where you get together and make holiday cookies for hours and hours and hours? You know how exhausting that is?

I did that yesterday, only I didn't get to do it with friends and family. I did it with my co-workers. (Okay, a couple of those people are friends, but by and large, no.) It was excruciating. Not only was it exhausting physically, it was stressful as hell -- especially with my boss bitching endlessly that I didn't run all over bleep and back and find the little silver ball decoratins. I'd say that going to 5 stores qualifies for running over hell and back. Grrrr!

Happy freaking holidays. Good thing the rest of the season is family intensive instead.

Comedy

So I forced Tim to go down to Minnesota Comedy Club last night to do the open stage and there ended up not being a show. It's the (mean) thought that counts?

But on Friday night, also at MCC, Bob Larson is doing a free version of Hecklefest at 10:30. Tim is planning on going down there and probably going up on stage. If you want to heckle Tim and other various comics on Friday night, here are the show details:

Minnesota Comedy Club -- BestWestern Maplewood
Friday, December 5, 10:30pm, Free
Directions/Map

Let's see, after three business days of tech anguish (more, if you're counting all the time I spent archiving files) I've got three quarters of the department upgraded to OS X. Okay, to be fair, Trevor was already at 10.2. My boss' computer went completely smoothly -- system restore, upgrade, reinstall apps. Joy's computer was a nightmare. System restore, attempt X.3 -- no go. Clean install X.3 -- no classic. System restore, attempt X.1 -- disk error, start over. System restore, upgrade 9.2, archive restore and 9.2, install X.3 -- finally works. But not the way we'd planned. The idea was that we'd get everyone set up with 10.2 but switch their disks to boot to 9. Then, we'd have the OS X training and switch their disks right away. Well, Joy is going to have to learn early because X.3 won't play that way.

I think I mentioned that my folks are getting Tim and I a refrigerator for Christmas which is really cool. However, it's going to be a little tricky since it's arriving Christmas Eve and I'll have to transfer all my holiday food mid-guests. Turns out it's even more crazy -- apparently the new fridge will have to sit upright in the house warming up for two days until I can turn it on. Not quite sure what to do with that. Part of me is almost tempted to move the old fridge down into the basement now* and just run it in the garage for a month. Eh, maybe not.

On the Christmas front, I've got all the easy presents done. Now, it's just the hard ones left. Blah.

Developer likely won't pay Minneapolis from million-dollar condo sales