Linked-in, Facebook for dorks

I have always thought the social/business networking site Linked-in was like Facebook for dorks. Facebook is more like going out with friends; but friends you don't really want to go out with for more than ten minutes. I don't know of anyone that has really gotten a business connection or a job through a contact of theirs on Linked-in. I am willing to bet more people have actually gotten jobs through Facebook. Linked-in is like the awkward networking event where you don't really talk to anyone but you pretend to know everyone in your profession. The one thing that is cool about Linked-in though (albeit not that cool since Facebook does the same thing) is that it gives you your own personal 6-degrees of yourself, just like the 6-degrees of Kevin Bacon. It lets you know that someone is a 2nd degree connection if they are friends of a friend. If Linked-in could make a goofy app so that you could play six degrees of yourself and post it on your friends page it could make serious money. And who is using Linked-in Mobile? Why are you telling me you are on a business trip?

Happy Holidays

I am pretty good about being politically correct when I should be, and saying "happy holidays" instead of Merry Christmas. But I found myself in an awkward position yesterday. I was in a store and it was only me and the woman that worked at the store. She was really personable and helped me find what I was looking for. Then after she rung me up (is it rung me up or rang me up?) anyway, after she did that, I felt compelled to wish her a Merry Christmas. You know, personalize it a little. But I was going to err to the Happy Holidays greeting only because she looked kind of Jewish. But then I thought it might be a little offensive since the Jewish holidays were over and it was basically the day of one of the two remaining holidays left (Christmas and new years). Well, I ended up saying "have a great holiday" and thought that was a pretty good compromise. But damn, not all brown haired people are Jewish. I am just surprised she didn't tell me to have a great Hanukkah.

Santa as a young man

You've never really seen what Santa Claus was like as a young man. There aren't any friends of his that have come forward with revealing photos of him on facebook. Maybe Mr. Claus has paid them off not to reveal any harmful pictures of him in return for always being on the "good" list. Santa doesn't want to become the next Tiger Woods and lose his lucrative endorsements from Coca-Cola and I don't blame him. But I would imagine he looked kinda like this guy.

moths

I was thinking recently about how you never hear about moths eating clothes anymore and it got me wondering if moths still actually eat clothes. It feels like moths only eat old peoples clothes or old peoples clothes that live in old houses. You don't hear too much about a moth eating a 28 year olds clothes. Nobody really smells like moth balls anymore either, and no one is building cedar closets anymore to keep the moths away. And has anyone actually ever seen a moth eating clothes? I don't think anyone has ever caught a moth in the act and if they have I want some proof!

developer speak

Along the same lines as the last post, developer speak drives me crazy. It's like 33% more free, except that maybe we really are getting 33% more free whereas developer speak is all make believe. Developer speak just doesn't make any sense period. I've been noticing a lot more developer advertisements for condos since my job mostly revolves around developer work. For example, I see developers write "oversize windows" all the time. To me, that doesn't sound good. Oversize? Are the windows too big? Here are some other good ones. "Spacious walk-in closets with built-in vinyl coated wire closet shelving systems." No way! vinyl coated wire closets! Just like they sell at Home Depot! Amazing! "Maintenance-free, energy-efficient insulated fully operational custom casement windows." Fully operational windows! You mean not those half assed broken ones? "Category 5 telephone wiring with broadband coaxial cable and Internet ready receptacles throughout each residence" seriously? When people are considering buying a condo are they really debating between the really nice one with the great location that's affordable, or are they saying "well, I don't know about that one honey, I mean this one has Category 5 Coax... can't really overlook the wiring." More often than not, I am unfortunately starting to believe that people really are only considering if their condo has granite countertops and is close to a Starbucks... They could care less about anything else. Except maybe some good coax cables.

33% more free!

For some time now, I have been noticing that all kinds of products are offering a lot more for free. Cereal boxes, toothpaste, bags of chips; they are all offering more free. I assume they are offering 30 percent more than last months package. Or some say they are 30 percent less fat... Less fat than their previous container? I have seen this going on for years. You'd think that the containers offering 30 percent more would be huge by now. At least 250 times what they offered three years ago. It should increase exponentially shouldn't it? And if we keep getting less and less fat per serving, it should have no taste by now. We should be in the negative fat category. Looks like the boxes are staying a pretty similar size to me. Or the Crest with the extra whitening...Do I really need "extra" whitening? I think sufficient whitening would be enough.

artemide window design competition

In keeping with my previous new years resolution of participating in design competitions, I've signed myself up for another one. This time the competition is sponsored by the local Philadelphia Artemide store. For those of you not familiar with Artemide, it's a high-end lighting store. You'll see a lot of their lamps and fixtures in most of the expensive buildings you have ever been in. So anyway, the task was to design a display for their window on 2nd Street using their lamps. The theme was to create a light as stimulus. Naturally the best stimulus I know of is alcohol, so my submission plays on that fact. It's tougher than you think designing around thousand dollar fixtures. So here it is... comment away. Judging takes place December 18th. I'll keep you posted.

Deal or No Deal

My roommate made a very astute point the other night whilst watching tv. The kid seldom makes good points so it's worth mentioning. He said something to the effect that you can't really take anyone who watches Deal or No Deal seriously. And I must say, he's very right about that. Whats' more pathetic is that some people don't actually understand how the game is played. I think as soon as the million dollar case is chosen though the game should end. Trust me, I only watched the show maybe two times.

washcloths

I remember when I was young I made a comment that washcloths should always be clean, because afterall they are constantly being rubbed with soap before each use. My parents laughed and said that it was still dirty. I mean, I get it, but at the same time... I don't get.

It never fails... just like high school all over again

I remember when I was in high school, I'd procrastinate writing any kind of term paper, saving it til the last weekend to write all 20 pages. My theory was that if I started writing the paper a month in advance and finished a week early, I wouldn't write as good a paper as I could, because I would tell myself that I had a week to look it over. And of course wouldn't look it over as critically. I told myself that if I had the deadline of 4 hours looming, I would really buckle down and make sure it was really good. But inevitably the weekend the paper was due was always the nicest weekend of the year or something really cool was happening, and I would waste that day hunched over the computer. Today is that day. I put off designing a newsstand for a friend for the past month. Of course it's due tomorrow and of course the weather is beautiful out right now and I am hunched over a computer. But of course, he is going to get a better product had I started a month ago.

Phanavision

Anybody who knows me, knows that I am a big baseball fan, and especially a Phillies fan and an even bigger fan of longtime Phillies play-by-play announcer Harry Kalas. For the first 29 years of my life I never listened to a Phils game without hearing the sweet baritone of Harry. To use the cliche that everyone else has been using, he was the soundtrack to my summers. When he died in early April, I decided to design and make a few hundred Harry Kalas t-shirts in his memory. I lost a lot of money on the deal but hopefully I made a lot of people happy for people that have gotten them. My buddy Bo from college was nice enough to invite me to the NLCS clincher on Wednesday, and I was lucky enough to get my shirt on the Phanavision for the second time this season! This time I got a picture of it!

winning streak

I've been on a little winning streak this year and especially this week and I hope it keeps going. I'm going to brag a little. Call it braggadocio. Just because I like that word. A few months ago one of the projects I was working on won a gold design award for Best Assisted Living Community. That was cool. Last week, my buddy Blake and I won 25 bucks at our local watering hole for having the best score in quizzo. More impressive was that we won every round we played, and we were drunk. And we didn't even play the first round! That says something about our competition. This week I got an email from a person who runs the Design Philadelphia website that I was a finalist in the bike rack competition. Admittedly I wasn't the winner but I was among 3 finalists and won 100 bucks! Not bad for an hours worth of work!http://designphiladelphia.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/bike-rack-design-competition-winners-announced/#more-2562

speaking of...

Kind of in the same vein as the checkbooks post earlier, I was thinking about things that have fallen to the wayside. Apparently nobody uses checks anymore. At least most retail businesses don't accept them. I verified this this morning with Henry, the barista at my Starbucks. He said they don't accept checks anymore. Anyway, having given up facebook I have a lot of free time on my hands. It gets me thinking about more and more random things and has overall been a pretty rewarding experience which I don't regret. Admittedly I have given in to other equally ridiculous hobbies, ie checking my match.com profile. Not something I am particularly proud of but not too embarrassed to admit. Match is like facebook minus the ridiculous status updates and dudes. There are a lot of ugly girls though, and I am ready to go cold turkey on that too.
Ok, getting back to the point of this post if it even has one. No one is reading anyway so it's okay for me to ramble. I was thinking about things no one uses anymore. Last week I thought about rejoining Friendster. Remember Friendster? It was like a baby facebook but not nearly as cool. Only losers joined it and you couldn't really do anything with it but accumulate friends and email them. A few days ago I actually went to the site and tried to sign in with my usual passwords and usernames. None worked and I didn't really feel like trying that hard to sign up and see what it was all about again. But the other thing I looked into was AOL instant messenger. Do people still use that? I signed on a few minutes ago and three loser friends were signed in. So I guess only a few losers still use instant messenger for all of you who were wondering. I won't say which friends were signed on to protect the guilty. (proof that only losers use aol.... look at that aol picture. first of all they are talking about threads, and is that guy in the picture the mask? you know, that movie with cher with the guy with big deformed head?)

checkbooks

I was thinking yesterday how infrequently I use my checkbook. Ever since I discovered how to do bill pay on my bank's website I really haven't written any checks. The only checks I really write are for stupid things, like paying my friend my fantasy football dues. I want to bring back check writing. I can't remember the last time I saw someone write a check for an actual purchase. Maybe when I was six and went to the grocery store with my mom was the last time. I was just wondering if cashiers would even know what to do if I wrote out a check. If I went to WaWa and bought two cokes and a newspaper and wrote out a check would they accept it? Or if I went to the bar, and at the end of the night wanted to pay my tab and was like "oh no, don't run the card, here, I am going to write you a check. Who do I make that out to?" Better yet,what if I bought two beers at a crowded bar and tried to pay the 6 bucks with a check? "sorry buddy can you move over a second? Thanks. Just need a solid surface to put this down. Thanks."
Someone should try this with me.

so... i was perusin

actually a guy in my office was perusin the internet looking oat the company website and then wham... look who showed up!

My First Night Without Facebook

So, my first night without facebook went like this. Instead of listening to the baseball game on the radio and going on facebook til 11pm like I usually did, I listened to the baseball game on the radio and fell asleep before 9pm.... So far so good. I don't need no stinkin facebook.

facebook cancellation

I decided to end my use of facebook. I hope it lasts more than the few hours that have already past. Instead of thinking of mindless drivel to write on my status updates, I can think of mindless drivel to write in blog posts instead. And now I won't have to read posts from girls I went to middle school with about how their babies haven't taken naps that day and how they are so cranky. Hopefully this is a new day for me. Instead of the countless hours I have wasted looking at these inane posts and boring photo albums I can be doing something a little more worthwhile with my time. Even if it's reading that issue of Philadelphia Magazine I got three weeks ago that I haven't opened yet. Pretty much anything I do will be better than wasting my time on Facebook.

Pores

I shaved today. When I shave, I usually just throw some hot water on my face a few times and pretend that that opened my pores and thus I will get a closer shave. But I think every time I do that I inevitably wonder if those few splashes of hot water actually did anything. I mean, I've never actually seen my pores open or close before, so how do I really know? How long does it take for a pore to open? Will ten seconds of hot water on my face open my pores? Do I have to close my pores back up with cold water when I am finished?

Dentists

I love my dentist. She's funny, gentle, never keeps me waiting long in the chair, and I think she does a pretty good job at keeping my teeth healthy. When appointment time comes around, I start thinking that I should have done a better job brushing my teeth between visits, and start getting anxious knowing that she will know that I haven't flossed. I'm not too worried about the flossing part only because I know no one else is flossing. But I guess I wish I was toughening up my gums the week prior so they wouldn't bleed at all when she scraped.

shirts in windows

Whenever you are driving on a highway you are bound to see a car abandoned on the side of the road with a shirt or a bag hanging out the window. What the hell does that mean? Is that something you learn in driver's ed because I don't ever recall "hang shirt from window when in distress." It can only mean one of two things, "don't tow my car, I am coming back for it", or "I surrender and I am leaving this piece of shit here!" Two very different meanings huh? Where does one get this information?

metric vs english measurements

Being an architect, and an American, I have to deal with the dreaded English system of measure. Probably more than most people, I have to deal with it. Chances are if you are a doctor or a lawyer or a scientist even, you aren't dealing with the English system. Sure you might casually say, "oh that's ten feet, or that's a 30 gallon trashcan," but you aren't making computations like an architect is. I really want to switch over the metric system with the rest of the world and start making fast computations. You don't realize how embarrassing it is when my boss rattles off dimensions and is able to add them in the matter of seconds "4'-3", plus 8'-6 5/8" plus 9'-11 3/4" is....(and he looks at me, pauses...I give him the blank stare)...waits a second... 22'-9 3/8"!" uh what?

emails

I've noticed a few friends have automatic email signatures that say "thank you, such and such". I'm not sure that's the best option. It's okay if they are really thanking them me for something but if it's just, "I think we should go with the wood ceiling rather than the drywall ceiling, we tried convincing him of that, thank you" doesnt make much sense, It's even worse when it's a boob forward, "thank you" just seems weird.

bat boys

I was wondering the other day if bat boys get tipped by major league baseball players. Extra tip if they throw their bats and the bat boy has to fetch them? Extra if the guy hits a few home runs that week? Extra if he comes out and collects your helmet and batting gloves when you strike out to end the inning?

my T shirt idea

I want to make a t shirt that says "printin' ain't easy"
you know you can relate.

the amazing travel of my new shoes.

I am amazed at my new shoes.. I haven't gotten them yet but I did a UPS tracking on them and found out that they were made in Vietnam. Sent from Ho Chi Minh, to Hong Kong, to Alaska, to Nashville, and hopefully to me in New Jersey. Then I got to thinking about... how the hell do they make any money doing that... and then I realized.

Its pretty amazing…

I was thinking, I wonder if they make any money doing this…

But I guess they do…

They pay the guy in Vietnam 40 cents per shoe

The big wig in nam makes 3 bucks… he sends it on a mule and that guy makes 20 cents to bring the mule to the airport

Costs 2 bucks to send it on the plane from nam with all kinds of other crap headed for bed bath and beyond to hong kong…

Fed ex hong kong ships it on a jumbo jet full of other shittt headed for sams club for 2 bucks

A guy in Alaska scans it for ten bucks an hour,

Goes on fed ex plane with crap from hong kong, nam and china headed for Costco in Moorestown… stock guy at Costco gets paid another ten bucks an hour

Ups ships it to me for ten more bucks…

Nike makes 80 dollars profit…

The world works in mysterious ways.

Ceo of nike goes to Vietnam… finds 9 year old boy who made shoe. Feels bad. Gives him a ten dollar bill… takes him back to his hotel… has man/boy love to him…

Goes back home on private jet. Looks up boy on google, sends him to school for the rest of his childhood.

Is praised by coworkers, community, wife and kids as a great man… wins citizen of year award in his town.

thought i had a picture of the shoes... but i dont. doh!

CDs

Is it me, or do only every other blank CDs actually work. I must have put four blank CDs into my computer in a row and not one of them has been recognized... I put them in the cd drive, I put them in the DVD drive... nothing happens. End up throwing away half of the ones I put into my computer.

Harry Kalas

It wouldn't be fitting if I didn't mention the passing of the great Harry Kalas on my blog. Even if I am the only one that reads this page, I felt a need to write how I feel about the man. After crying like a baby every time I've seen a tribute to him or read an article, I really felt how much I am going to miss him. Although I have never talked to the man personally, I must have heard him call a thousand games in my life. I remember once looking up into the booth at the stadium trying to find him between innings, and seeing the man gazing over the crowd during an afternoon game. I saw him looking in my direction and gave him a wave trying to get his attention... a shot in the dark....he spotted me and waved back ... I'll never forget it. Says something about the guy. Also I have to say the Phillies showed a lot of class at his memorial tribute, handing out free coffees, free parking, and the Owner Bill Giles and President of the ball club David Montgomery shaking every fans' hand and thanking everyone for coming. I'm going to miss the guy. Summers will never be the same.

case in point

Pirates and Castro

I think it's funny how every time you see Fidel Castro these days, he's just chillin in a velour jumpsuit talking on the phone. That's how military leaders should dress. However the hell they want. And has anyone else noticed that you are seeing a lot more stories on the news about pirates? Like Somali pirates hijacking tanker ships off the coast of Africa. Five years ago there weren't stories about pirates. maybe 105 years ago there were stories about pirates.

Running

I'm not an avid runner, but a few weeks ago I ran in my first "race". It was only a 5k, and I did pretty well considering I hadn't really trained for it. Apparently the race was for pretty serious runners who just sprint it for fun; most finishers were running in under 20 minutes. As we were registering, I overheard a guy say "35 dollars for a 5k? Really? I can run a 10k for 35 dollars!" I just thought that was funny, is the guy getting more for his money? Seriously? Weird.

Banking

Online banking is a great convenience. What I find really funny is that you enter your password and your pin, and then sometimes they will ask you a security question afterward, just to make sure it's really you. TD Bank asks you questions that you've already submitted the answer; like "what was the make and model of your first car" or "what is your father's middle name" or "your childhood friend's last name." It doesn't concern me that my best friend could probably easily answer all the security questions without thinking for more than 2 seconds, it concerns me that whoever breaks into my house and gets into my account can simply type the correct first letter to each answer and the answer will automatically appear in autocomplete.

It Never Fails

How come it never fails that when you are getting dressed up to go somewhere and you put on your nice shirt, you go to brush your teeth and you inevitably drop some toothpaste slob on your nice shirt. And you know, no matter how much water you put on that spot, it's not going away. But how come if you wash your shirt, it will come out? Or you shave, and you are pretty sure you didn't shave over any pimples or rough spots on your neck and you are pretty confident there is no blood anywhere... but when you show up at the event, you look in the mirror and there are ten tiny blood spots all over your collar and undershirt. It never fails.

This guy at work

There's this guy at work, I swear I think he probably pulls his pants all the way down to pee.

New Pants

I realized I haven't bought a new pair of pants in probably two or three years. Could that be a good sign that I am still the same size as I was three years ago? I think I am leaning more towards me being afraid of buying 35 inch waist pants.

2009.02.22

My website has finally been updated! Special thanks to Erica Clymer for getting that done for me. Now it will probably go untouched for two years. But now I have this super sweet new blog. Always entertaining. mikeizzo.com

2009.02.18 lunchmeat

I, along with millions of other people, love lunch meat. I can't buy lunch meat for the week to make sandwiches because everytime I make a sandwich, I end up eating a slice of each meat I put on the sandwich and then there's not enough to last me the week. But one thing about lunch meat drives me crazy. Never in my life have I bought lunch meat and had the little ziplock package work. You can never get it to zip. Not only that, they put the sticker on the bag and the first time you open the bag, it rips gigantic holes in the bag. sucks.

2009.02.18 first blog

Garlic is good ain't it? I guess I am starting this blog because I wanted to create a more legit blog site; Not that anyone is reading anyway, but I wanted to get rid of myspace once and for all and this seemed like a good enough excuse. I have a new addiction and it's called facebook. But even that novelty is starting to wear off. I think this blog will be much of what my old blog was, more stupid things that are happening to me, or that I am ruminating, but also will be commentary on daily life.