mccullochblog

Funny.

I've laughed a lot in the past 24 hours, which given the fast-paced start to the New Year, is definitely a good thing. On the off chance you like laughing too, I thought I'd share a couple of funnies.

I was on the phone with my brother, Ron, this morning. He told me the family was in the middle of a game of Scrabble. It was dad's turn to choose letters and he didn't like the ones he took, so, surruptitiously, he tried to put a few tiles back. Only, in fiddling with the tile bag and the tiles, he spilled the entire bag of tiles on the floor, thereby alerting everyone to his cheating. I could easily imagine the scene - but then I didn't have to anymore - as the uproar in the background of our phone conversation told me everything I needed to know!

A bit later I was surfing www.lastminute.com and noticed a few words in the top right corner which read: "The boss is watching - look busy". When you click on the link offered by those words, the site switches from pages of travel deals to this. Very ingenious!

Emma and I are off to see Keane in concert tonight. I was just thinking about how much Poddy hates Keane. If he knew about it in advance, I could imagine him grimmacing that uniquely Poddy grimace while pulling a few clumps of hair out. He might even let out one of those pained screams he did when I forced him to watch a bit of Coldplay with me at Glastonbury two years ago. That made me laugh too.

Expect (and hope for) the Unexpected!

There are some things you don't expect in life. For example, after I inadvertently dropped my $300 cell phone in an underground parking garage in San Francisco at 9.30am today, I didn't expect to find it there - lying next to where my car had been - at 9.20pm this evening.

I won't pretend I thought the phone was still there because my fellow parkers were honest enough not to steal it. I firmly believe that if the parking garage down at level 3A wasn't pitch dark...it would have been gone, and I would have spent the whole day tomorrow thinking that my phone might have been ringing with important news if I hadn't lost it somewhere today. Anyway, that was cool, and I didn't expect the "I've lost my damn phone" story to turn out well.

What I do think I have a right to expect is that the next President of the USA will be elected on the basis of being well-qualified, intelligent, logical, ambitious, pragmatic, and not simply driven by a desire to win (or purchase) 51% of the vote. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I hope they are driven to do what is right, not necessarily what is popular.

Sadly, unlike the story of my cell phone, I don't expect that story to end well. One week after the 'big names' - Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton - announced their candidacy, my hopes that the next President will put an end to America's era of ignorant foreign policy and rampant debt escalation are all but dashed.

Why is it that US politics is all about spouting populist, patriotic, lowest-common-denominator rhetorical crap? For a country so proud of its heritage as America, it's amazing its people don't demand more. If politics was done this way in Britain, TV screens would be full every night with East-end geezers ranting "that bloke's full of populist, patriotic crap"...and then someone else would come up with some better policies, publish them for everyone to see in Tesco, and they'd get elected.

Anyway, given that we're about to start two years of 24/7/365 Hillary and Barack TV coverage, I thought I may as well make an early request here that they find something interesting to say.

Oh, and if you don't believe there's a snoozefest in store, check out the celebrations of the banal available at Barack and Hillary's sites. Nothing there to upset anyone at all, oh no. Just lots of nice, bland, 51%-of-the-vote sort of stuff. Bring it on!

A Rocky Month for Resolutions

Good news! I completed my first New Year's resolution of the year! Admittedly it was one of last year's (to educate myself in something new) but still, that counts doesn't it? I will concede though that aside from immersing myself in the field of Investor Relations (very enlightening, thank you NIRI), it's been a rocky month for New Year's resolutions.

Having worked a couple of back-to-back 70-hour-weeks (me) and spent the rest of the time planning our wedding (mostly Emma, sometimes me), we decided to put our charitable contribution resolution (the brown one) on hold. We did chose a charity - the Make a Wish Foundation (so that's not a bad start, right?) but we're damned if we've got time to do anything about it.

It's funny, I remember talking with Pierre Omidyar at PC Forum a few years ago. "Philanthropy is one of the most rewarding activities you can undertake - even in small measures" he said. I'm sure he's right, but I'm also sure it's easier to be more philanthropic with $8 billion in the bank. Still, you're right, Pierre, and we'll get around to it.

Other than that, I see I've got 10 days to finish a chapter of the book and try something new with Emma! Maybe we can do the former together and thereby achieve the latter! How's your January going?

Airplane: When Funny is Not Funny

There are times in life when 'joking around' just doesn't seem appropriate, don't you think?

Just hypothetically, if you were to draw up a short-list in this post 9/11 era, what professions would you have at the top of your "people who should not joke around" list? I'm no soothsayer, but i'm willing to bet that your list would include such candidates as:

1. People who carry guns
2. People who scan luggage at airports
3. People who fly planes
4. People who answer 911 calls

Am I right?

Well imagine my horror then upon boarding an American Airlines flight to LA, when I find that the pilot is none other than "Mr Comedy Pilot" who - for a joke - is wearing thick glass spectacles, making wise-cracks with the passengers as they board and - get this - has a comedy "fake-arm-trapped-in-the-window" sticking out of the cockpit glass of the Super 80 plane I was boarding. (I'm not making this up.)

By the time I found my seat, I was fully expecting to hear the pilot go into the "Unger, Over, Dunn" Leslie Nielsen routine, possibly followed by a "Over Macho Grande? No, I'll never get over Macho Grande!"

Note to American Airlines: When Jet Blue does funny things on its planes - it's usually the cabin crew cracking the jokes, not the pilot. Funny pilots are not a good idea.

New Year's Resolutions

Despite having learned that only a measly 8% of New Year's Resolutions are kept by the people that make them, I have elected to rush headlong into a frenzy of promises and pledges on this, the beautiful first day of 2007.

Before I share with you my goals for the New Year, I would like to point out that I managed to keep 50% of my 2006 resolutions: I properly started my book; obtained a Green Card; bought a house and became friends with the UK taxman. I did however fail to get in shape; finish writing my book; travel to Laos or record an album of songs with my band. Undeterred, here's the new list, complete with some old favorites.

1. Lose enough weight for Emma's niece to stop referring to my "big fat belly"
2. Have a fantastic wedding and still retain enough money to eat
3. Finish 12 chapters of my book, Statendam, and make them available here
4. Make our household a Greener household
5. Try one new thing together with Emma each month (thanks for the idea, Dushka!)
6. Support a charity with time, not just money (which is the easy way out)

Okay readers, over to you: please record your resolutions here for the judgment of all mankind. Oh, and if you need inspiration, I'm happy to provide here About Little Rock's guide to the Ten Most Popular New Year's Resolutions. Let's have them...