Radical Transparency

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November 20, 2008

Thank You Doogie Howser

An old colleague just sent me an email accusing me of watching Doogie Howser, MD.  Unclear exactly what she was implying, but it was in response to my suggestion that she get an email address that does not betray her '80s-level technological capabilities.  She still rocks the dot AOL.  And not nostalgically or for humor.

Anyway, her email led me to think for a moment about Dr. Howser, and that thinking turned into this response:

My childhood sitcom trajectory was very simple: Cosby Show to Fresh Prince to Seinfeld.  I made the occasional while-we're-at-it foray into Cheers and Friends and A Different World and Blossom, but never did any of those capture my imagination the way Bill and Will and Jerry did. 

Capturing the imagination.  That's a weird expression.

Anyway, I do remember that Doogie kept a journal on the computer, and I remember thinking that that was totally cool.  Doogie Howser, MD introduced me to blogging.
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October 31, 2008

On Possums and Proverbs

Another reason I think my sister maybe ought to be blogging...

According to a footnote in Henry IV, 'weasels are proverbially quarrelsome.' I wonder... are possums proverbially greasy? If reference to possums are found in proverbs, how do you think they would be described? I like the idea of claiming something to be 'proverbially blank' as if proverbs were a great source of authority... I can hear someone adding to a conversation about seeing a weasel attack something... 'Well, I'm sure you know, weasels are proverbially quarrelsome...' Maybe i also just like the look of 'proverbially quarrelsome,'  though saying it out loud is a mouthful. I guess I like the nonsense of it.

That's an email she sent me this morning.

No previous conversation prompted it, no discussion of proverbs or weasels.  But possums (opossums not brushtail possums) are something of a running joke in my family.  Everyone is thoroughly amused at the fact that possums scare me to death.  Because of their tails, their walk, their grease, their shiny little eyes, and the fact that they bare their teeth and dangle their tongues when they play dead.  Yuck.

Winslow, my 11 year old cousin, regularly calls me possum boy, and the chances that my Christmas present this year will be possum-related are extremely high.
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October 09, 2008

What Might Be a Lesson in Consumer Psychology

Here's one of a handful of caffeine induced emails I've written over the past 90 mins.  I sent it to the founders of Dansko, the Danish-Pennsylvanian clog company.

I was telling someone about The Carrot Project last night, and her first question was whether she would be able, as a user, to promote the La Naturalista shoes she was wearing.  As I was explaining how she could do that, she told me that she'd heard that Dansko had just been bought by some big corporation and was thus now totally suspect. 

Remembering our conversations about the aborted Timberland deal, I asked her who she thought had bought you guys, and she didn't know, but