Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2

Happy New Year

I hope you have the happiest and healthiest of New Years. Thanks for stopping by Life on the Wicked Stage every now and then, and I look forward to seeing you here in 2008.

Graphic courtesy of that Cartoon Monkey, Chad Essley!

Lake Superior State Throws Words Under The Bus

Lake Superior State University's Annual lists of words and phrases that should be banned from usage because they are overused is a good list. Some of my favorites include:

Perfect Storm

Waterboarding

Organic

Random

Under the Bus

Here's the rest of the list.

The Onion: New Form of Government Discovered

This is funny Onion post. Political scientists at the Cato Institute have discovered a new form of government. It is called  a megalocracy. It was discovered inadvertently. 

"We were attempting to recreate a military junta in a controlled diplomatic setting, and we applied too much external pressure," said head researcher Dr. Adam Stogsdill, a leading expert in highly reactionary ruling systems. "The resultant government has the ruthless qualities of a dictatorship combined with the class solidarity of a plutocracy—it's quite a remarkable find."

The best part? It is extremely unstable and can only exist in ideal conditions for a few moments before it collapses.

Technorati Tags: Politics,megalocracy,parody

2008 Wicked Stage Predictions

Someone will be elected President of the US, despite everyone's best efforts to screw it up.

Whomever is elected president will not get the usual honeymoon that new presidents receive.

There will be natural disasters.

There will be extreme weather conditions at various places on the planet.

Extreme weather will be blamed on Global Warming.

Scientists will insist Global Warming isn't real.

There will be several celebrity trials, murders, scandals, etc.. that will dominate the news.

The Writers Strike will never end. No one will notice. No one will care.

The RIAA will branch out to start suing other lawyers for using boilerplate legal language in EULAs.

New products will be announced. Some will actually be released. Some will actually sell units.

Google will continue its march towards world universal control of all data.

Microsoft will continue to suck at marketing its products.

Apple will continue to roll.

Steve Jobs will continue to fight with the entertainment industry. He'll win some and lose some. He'll  be perceived as the winner and the loser, depending on the phase of the moon.

Web 2.0 will become Web 2.1.0319428. We're not ready for Web 3.0 yet.

The Gang will continue to be this decade's best effort at surrealism.

The Russian Bot gang will take down another country.

Savings will become the new consumer buzz word.

Telco's and big media companies will continue to bite the hands that feed them, even though they continue to get slapped by those same hands. What's a little pain when you have profits?

Robert Scoble will upset someone somewhere with a blog or Twitter post.

Someone will patent stupidity and then we are all doomed.

There will be predictions made at the end of 2008.

Brain Hormone Nasal Spray Instead of Coffee?

I'm sure if this works it will be big. Apparently, scientists are working on a drug that will eliminate sleepiness. Using the naturally occurring brain hormone orexin A, they say they have reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in, yep, you guessed it, monkeys. Here's more info.

I'm going to take a nap now.

Via Wired.

Technorati Tags: orexin A

Steve Rubel's Knowledge Ninja Program

I'm going to have to look at this more closely. Steve Rubel has pointed out some helpful tips to using Google Reader and Gmail to help manage knowledge flow. There look to be some good ideas there and I'll be trying a few of them out in the next few weeks.

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday morning reading to share.

Young people are getting more involved in philanthropy. This is a good thing. Let's hope it lasts. In my experience as a not-for-profit arts administrator things have turned from "how can I help" to "how can you help me." Which is depressing.

Jeff Jarvis writes that Google is God. At least as far as its growth is concerned.

Circuit City's shortsighted business practices result in end of the year losses. They fired their top salespersons in favor of lower paid newbies. But the VP's all got huge retention bonuses. (Try $1 million on for size.) Didn't  these guys learn math? Or did they just learn it the wrong way? BoingBoing calls it suicidal. I agree.

John Lundberg on How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bard.

Hugh MacLeod revisits How Big Is Your Audience?

The RIAA goes after individuals for copying CDs they own. This guy is fighting back. Scoble has a fun post on why the RIAA is right. Doc Searls sees a VRM model for paying artists.

Meanwhile, Mashable wonders if 2008 will be the year the RIAA will die. I doubt it.

More Holiday Family Fun

Here are some more pictures of the Holiday fun we're having in Chicago. The Flickr feed is here.

The Consumerist's Top 10 List

Top 10 Lists are popping out all over. Some good, some stupid. So far my favorite is this one compiled by the Consumerist. I mean a Top 10 List that is topped by Vinegar as #1 has to be good right?

The Digg Song

I had meant to post this several days ago before the holidays took hold and travel ensued. I just find it clever and refreshing, but also a wonderful example of taking advantage of the Internet to advance an agenda. The singer, Kina Grannis is trying to win a contest to appear on the SuperBowl. So she came up with this song.

 

She's got some other clever songs going on her site as well. Including a free download of her Christmas song, I Know Who Took the Milk and Cookies.

Hat tip to Thinking on the Margins for reminding me of this.

Technorati Tags: The Digg Song