So yesterday I went to lunch with Suzie.  I was starving, and I generally eat a lot of sushi when I go out, but the relative difference in what we ordered was hilarious, so I took a picture of it.

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Mena (Mee-na?  Meh-na?) posted about great customer service and I agree that excellence should be rewarded.  (And perhaps I'll write a Time Warner Broadband bashing post at some point as well, too.)  My best customer service experience, by far, has been with Factset.  Factset is an online financial data provider used by many large institutions to get stock prices, income statistics, etc.  Sure, we do pay a lot for the service, but there are a lot of services that we pay heavily for that don't have the kind of support that Factset does.  Many times, I've relied on representatives from Factset to follow up on problems, and while they can't always answer a question right away, they'll always get back to me that day with a status update.  The most impressive work came from another service rep there who was guiding me through a process to build some customized groups of companies.  The work was very tedious and after he showed me how to do one group, he offered to actually do the work for me!  I must have had 21 customized groups of 10-15 companies each... easily would have taken me about 2-3 hours to do and he had it done by the end of the day.  I'm sure he was able to do it faster, but still.  Once I e-mailed him an Excel file of how I wanted the groups set up, he did all of the necessary work on Factset.  I nearly fell off my chair when he offered.  I've got to believe that with service like that, their retention rate is extremely high.

You can now register for my class at the Learning Annex!  I'm not thrilled about the "And fatten your wallet" tagline and its not how I'd like to portray the class.  Its really for serious minded professionals interested in career development, not people looking for get rich quick schemes.  Alas, they're trying to bring people in and sell the program hard, so I can't knock them too hard.  :)

The whole world seems to be playing the "WWGD?" game.  (What Will Google Do?)   From browsers to VOIP, the amount of anticipation over Google's next move is out of control... and why not?  The value of Google as a platform is really immeasurable.  There are markets that Google could probably dominate tomorrow if they wanted to code a new offering on their front page tonight.  Google's internal five year plan is probably the single most valuable corporate espionage target out there now...  Who wouldn't want to know what the Google Good Guys are planning to do with all their IPO money? I just discovered Google's book publicity tool last night.  Any publisher can send a copy of their book to Google, and they'll scan it up and tie it into their index, along with a link to purchase the book.  Thought Amazon couldn't be strong armed?  What happens if they discover that a huge proportion of their likely to buy traffic is coming straight from a Google book search?  Maybe Google might want a special discount for Googlers on Amazon.  This company is just a force to be reckoned with and it probably has more flexibility in its future direction than anyone else.  Kind of makes Microsoft seem like old news.

I think it will be an interesting trend to watch as search tools start trying to interface with content and products that are already located within the catalogues of other businesses.  It has already started with Froogle and its only going to continue as search portals encroach into areas like real estate, travel listings, and perhaps even online dating.  What if you could Google search "single brunette AND early 20's AND New York City" and come up with results from Match, Spring Street, Love(at)AOL, AND eHarmony?  Throw in Friendster while you're at it.  There's a level of content that isn't just floating around.... its within a lot of these databases and its only a matter of time before search engines break on through.  They'll be forced to b/c they simply don't have enough content to keep up with the demand for advertising.

Jeff the Intern just came up with a great idea, but I coined the term.  He and Marcy were both needing to work on two different parts of the same spreadsheet, but Marcy had to close out of it before he could just stick in the two numbers he needed to.  He suggested that two people should be able to open the same file and, with two different color cursors, simultaneously add stuff to it.  Brilliant!  I call it "Microsoft Office 2-Player Mode."  :)   Now that's collaboration!

Plus, if you click "Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start" before the file opens, you get 30 lives.

Link: ESPN.com - MLB - Seeking relief, Astros add 44-year-old Franco.

Thank God...   Its OVER.  I was going to write something about how many blown saves he had for the Mets, so I went to his page on Baseball-reference.com.  Someone had sponsored the page and summed up my feelings on John Franco perfectly...

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        Mr. Wilpon, I sponsored this page so you wouldn't waste another penny on this guy.

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Dave Alexandro...  You're hilarious.

For the record, with the Mets, Franco had 276 Saves and 64 Blown Saves... 81.1%.  So, one out of five times he went out there, he blew it.   In 1998, the Mets finished 2 games shy of the wild card and Franco went 0-8 with 8 blown saves.  Good riddence.

Thanks to Mike R. for forwarding me this link from Dave Taylor's blog.  I just browsed it, but sounds like this would be a good person to share thoughts with...

Link: "Would you buy a book on blogging?" from The Intuitive Life Weblog.

"...Here are my two cents on this subject: books about blogging are going to be boring, just another subset of books about writing (the vast majority of which seem to miss what I view as the essence of learning how to write, which is to write. Peter Elbow captures this in his great book Writing Without Teachers).

To me, though, blogging is just a tool..."

Boring to bloggers, perhaps, but there are still a lot of people out there who actually like to read books AND use computers.  I know, I know.  It blows my mind, too.  I always liked Harold Ramis' line in Ghostbusters, "Print is dead."  I'd prefer to read everything of a screen, be it on a laptop, desktop, TV, Palm, phone, whatever, but people still insist on cutting down trees, so we have books.  Anyway, point being, yes, I agree that you really learn about blogging, and about yourself as a blogger by actually blogging, but some people just need a head start or a few tips.  Dave also writes "maybe I'd buy a book if the author had a unique perspective on what to do with blogs, but it sure doesn't seem like a very big market."  Well, the "what to do" part is where the market lies, and in fact, it is very large.  When you come up with unique applications of blogs, you tap into the 64% of internet users who have never heard of them by identifying blogs with something they're already doing, like, career development, for example.  Blogs are, just as Dave puts it, a tool, and a there are lots of books on how to use tools, from socket wrenches to C++.  Sure, the real tool masters use by doing, but sometimes, beginners need a book to get them started, or at least feel comfortable with getting started.  Speaking of which, my Success Blogging site, is nearly complete and I will probably replicate this post on there for discussion. 

So a funny thing happened today...  A while back, I posted an IM conversation that Brian and I had about people from Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Well, some of the people we mentioned were Googling themselves or other people on the list and found my site.  All of the sudden, four people I went to elementary school with and probably haven't spoken to in between 5-15 years commented on the page, adding more names on the list.  Quite a blast from the past. 

I think its an interesting way to find people.  Just blog a list of people you'd like to get in touch with.  I think everyone Googles themselves at least once in a while.  I'll bet that before you know it, these people will find your "People I'd like to get in touch with" list.  Classmates.com...   so much for your business model. 

Dodge This! proved that last week wasn't a fluke when they split their 1st regular season matchup, 2-2.   They came out a little bit stiff, but 4 dodgeball games and a post game visit to Blondie's loosened up our heros in grey.

So we've been debating team gear for next game...  sweatbands?  Tube socks?  We're a wacky bunch.

Pics from Blondies:

The snow is from yesterday, but the picture is from today because I left my camera at work.   I couldn't find enough snow to write a goofy snow tagline, so I resorted to writing in curbside residuals.  I can't wait until this weekend's blizzard.  I feel like I'm the Marty Stouffer of snow.

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Nice article in the Daily News about Fordham basketball.

I can invite 6 people to join Gmail.  E-mail me for an account.

Imood has a chart of what moods people have recently selected....

At this moment, TIRED and SICK are the top two choices.  That's awful.  HAPPY is number three, followed by BORED.   What's going on?  Winter getting people down?

I just signed up...  I think it will be interesting to track my moods over time.

"Dear O'Donnell Charles:

Thank you for applying to the Stanford Graduate School of Business. We have completed the review of applicants to the Master of Business Administration Program, and I am sorry that we cannot offer you admission to the MBA Class of 2007...."

Ah well.   I knew I didn't get an interview, so I wasn't exactly surprised about the outcome.  Still, I wish I would have gotten the chance to interview and talk about all of the things going on in my life that I'm excited about.  Still, it turns out that I have an interesting place to spend my time in '05 and '06... I just can't talk about it yet.  Stay tuned.

I feel like I should put this catagory in hiatus for now with an ending line from the James Bond movies...

Charlie O'Donnell will return.

I'm sorry, but I think this is hilarious.  :)  Now I hope it snows all the time!

I wrote this on the car parked behind me after I got a spot on the right side... yet again.  Its quite a streak I'm on. 

The Rams scored a big win on the final play of the game yesterday up at Rose Hill, beating Xavier 76-74.  Yours truly was lucky enough to be up at the game, which Fordham nearly gave away in the last few minutes.  The win makes them 6-9 and 1-1 in the conference.   Not too shabby...  certainly a lot more than Bob Hill did with the team.  Where is old Bobby boy anyway?  I hope he's coaching an 11 year-old CYO team somewhere.

I've started running at night again, like I did at Fordham.  At least three or four times a week, I used to run sometime between 10 and 1... maybe about a mile and a half or two miles.  I didn't care how cold it was out...   I was out there in shorts and a t-shirt.  In fact, it was better when it was cold out.  I loved the feel of the cold.  It wasn't a jog.  I was running...  almost running away from the cold, or away from something, or after something.  The music set the mood.  My favorite song to run to was David Bowie's "I'm Deranged" from the Lost Highway Soundtrack.  I listened to that outside tonight.  I just looped it again and again.  Running around the campus at Fordham was great..  I'd run out the door of Hughes Hall, down towards Walsh Library and around the back of Martyrs.  When you ran past Martyrs, you could see the first floor suites and you'd get these little vignettes of college life...  mostly just people watching TV or sitting around chatting.  You'd catch sight of window decorations from the upper floors, too... neon beer signs, Christmas lights, banners on adjacent walls.  I ran behind South and then North, where the Rambulences parked, and past Fordham Prep.  Past the tennis courts and McGinley Hall, by Eddie's Parade, where you might catch someone else running just around the Parade path.  What a boring run that would be.. just around and around Eddie's.  Around Keating and past Millenium, Tierney, and back up towards Walsh Hall.  That was a sketchy stretch, because you had that parking lot where they kept Facilties vehicles and then JMH...  two places you weren't going to run indoors to, but you'd always bump into people along that stretch.  You'd be running at them for some part or behind them, and you could sence their uneasiness.  Right past I went, right by Finlay and instead of a right turn to Hughes, I'd go past it and back around Martyrs again, and not stop until the tennis courts.  Then I cut right and walk it off back to Hughes. 

The streets were empty and the wind was frigid tonight, but I felt great when I got back inside.  My arms were red from the cold and the water from the shower confused my skin.  I remembered showering in Hughes.  The bathroom was usually freezing b/c someone was always leaving the window open.  I couldn't figure out if the water it was cold or hot, because my body was so cold from the outside.  I felt great.  It makes me tired before bed and it gets rid of all the stress that my body unconsciously picks up even though my brain is pretty well trained to ignore it.  I think I'm going to make a regular habit of this again. 

LiveJournal has been down for over 24 hours, not less than a week and a half after they got bought.  Of course, the two have nothing to do with each other, but you have to think that at least a few of the 2.5 million active LJers are having their doubts.  This has got to be extremely embarrassing for Six Apart.  Oh, and PS...  what's with the "9:12AM... We're back at it..."?   I think if you're going to be serious about capturing the innermost thoughts of millions of LJers, you call in the reserves and you find some people who can spell you and work through the night.  12 hours?  What kind of stamina is that?  I stay at work longer the day before our internal strategy reviews.  I'm sure there were plenty of LJers trying to post in the middle of the night who didn't shed a tear for the LJ team's 12 hour attempt.  Kind of reminds me of the day AOL went out.

This goes back to the question of what exactly Six Apart bought.  I would bet that free blogs are pretty far down on the stickyness list.  Perhaps the "community" aspect is what will keep everyone on... the same reason most of us are still using AOL IM... only because everyone else we care about is still on it. 

And what's going on here?  Greatestjournal.com apparently has 700,000 members.  I never even heard of them, but apparently they're using the LJ open source code.  I have to be honest, after I saw this, I thought to myself, "I know a lot of LJers, but I don't know anyone on GJ."  How easy would it be to put up a journaling site with LJ code, totally inflate the numbers of users, and try to get lots of people to donate to you?  You could even write some fake blogs to make people think that there were lots of other people on there.  Ok, maybe I'm just being cynical, but 700,000 bloggers seems like a big population to never hear of, especially when we were all commenting to death on the 6A-LJ merger.  I don't think I'll believe that number unless I get 700,000 individual comments from GJers.

Last night was our first ZogSports Dodgeball Game.  Not only was it a blast, but it turns out we're not too shabby either.   In fact, we went undefeated in the four game round robin at PS 191's gym.  (Yes, we actaully play in elementery school gyms.) 

Here are the pics...    The gym was sort of dimly lit, but Sue Yoo did an admirable job with the photography work while she sat out this week on the DL nonetheless.

Pastore came up with a great team cheer:

  D! O! D! G-E! DODGE-THIS!  [Run around like idiots and bump chests]

We've yet to get the whole team on board with the cheer, but we're working on it.

I have to say, everyone up and down the lineup did a great job.  We worked together as a team and became a sweaty force to be reckoned with.  Extremely sweaty.  Ohhh...   memories of being nine.  One lesson we all learned well today...  Don't mess with Lindsey. 

Back to the Gita again, which I’m still reading… I’m a terribly inconsistent reader. I pick up a book for like three pages at a time, in between two stops on the 6 train or for ten minutes right before bed. I think the only book I’ve ever really been hooked on to the point where I’d sit and read for hours on end was the Fountainhead.

Ok, so I’m sitting in DTUT at the moment and I can’t help but be distracted by one “open mike night” performer. I’m not sure if I can really explain the kind of… well… it’s a bit like a car accident. I don’t really want to keep looking, but I’m inexplicably drawn to it. This froggy looking dude has a deathgrip on his guitar and he’s bouncing back and forth between grindspitting his words through his mouth and lightly whispering. The material is touching a wide variety of areas, from violence to corporations. Its very uncomfortable to watch. The girl who runs it doesn’t seem like she’s exactly sure to take this, but I’m sure she’s hoping he doesn’t attempt to just go on forever. I wonder what would happen if he just continued singing this chopping corporate song all night. I’m pretty sure there are no bouncers at DTUT. Now the next guy is up, singing about “Maggots in the Eye of Love.” Oh brother. What ever happened to fuzzy pink bunnies?

Anyway… the Gita. The Bhagavhad Gita talks about two forces in your lives: “the upward thrust of evolution and the downward pull of our evolutionary past.” I agree with that and I’ll take it one step further by putting forth a derivative of that idea: We spend every moment of our lives either making more of ourselves or bringing ourselves down. What did you do today? Did you become something more by taking part in today, or are you less than you were for having experienced it?

DTUT ran out of green tea… in both of the brands that they carry. I didn’t know what else to choose. I picked oolong. Its garbage. I am a creature of habit, but my habits are thoughtfully chosen and they make me happy.

This is the fifth verse of the sixth chapter:

“Reshape yourself through the power of your will; never let yourself be degraded by self-will. The will is the only friend of the Self, and the will is the only enemy of the Self.”

Basically, your life is what you make of it. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea that the major influences on the outcome of my life were beyond my control. I believe in our ability to “reshape” ourselves out of sheer force of will. Without the ability to impact our lives in meaningful ways—for our own will to be the most meaningful influence in our lives, then we are just adrift. I don’t like the idea of being adrift.