I Still Love David Ortiz

Despite his awful showings at the plate recently, I still have a very soft spot in my heart for Big Papi. And he gives good quote, this one about the this close grand slam he almost had on Friday:

"All I can do about myself right now is laugh," he said. "Because I ain't going to cry. Laugh. Keep on swinging. ... I can't swing the bat no better than that."

Incroyable!

The Virginia DMV has just banned smiling on your license photo, ostensibly to help institute some awful - and doubtfully effective - facial recognition system. As they put it: "To prepare for the possibility of future security enhancements, we're asking customers to maintain a neutral expression." Further, "Naturally, the new software is programmed to reject attempts at exuberance or human warmth. "It will send an error message if it detects a non-neutral expression."

To add insult to injury, "State residents can no longer get their licenses and identification cards on the same day as their visits."

Unbelievably, it's not parady

This Young Conservatives Rap is hysterical. The Brooks Brothers wigger moves are priceless.

Actual lyric:

The terrorists we used to keep in Guantanimo Bay/
Now they're in our neighborhoods planning out doomsday

New Brandon Graham

Good news! Looks like Brandon Graham will be coming out with new versions of Multiple Warheads soon. Until then, i'm going to have to pick up this King City line. LOVE this dude's artwork.

Inserting Humor in your Online Training Tests

I've heard arguments like this one before: use humor and fun, hip formats to engage and liven up your training. However, I've found there to be several big drawbacks to this:

1. Humor is subjective. You have to be careful when deciding what is funny, especially for training with a large audience. For example, if your audience is international, any humor you interject might not survive the translation process or, if it does, may not be funny in another culture.

2. Corporate humor isn't funny. Jokes rarely survive the review process. If you need to get approval for your course, jokes that survive past a panel of reviewers are typically the least funny of the bunch. In my experience, the most you can hope for in these cases is a hip irreverent tone that many might read as funny.

3. The format may not fit. The article uses the "Who Wants to be a Millionare" game show as a good example of a quiz, but, if memory serves, the only way to keep playing is to answer all of the questions correctly. The main purpose of an elearning quiz is to get the user to demonstrate that they know the material they've just covered, and you're not going to know if this is true or not unless they get to answer all of your questions.

I'm a big fan of humor and fun formats as much as the next guy, but when it comes to business training, you have to be very careful how you use them or you may find that it decreases the effectiveness of your training.

NBA Officiating

Like a few others, I've been sucked back into the NBA playoffs by the Celtics excellent team play in their 2008 championship, and the fantastic Celtics/Bulls round one series this year. Most of the other games, however, despite their potential, have sucked, because of too many missed shots and HORRIBLE officiating. The Sports Guy surveys the scene, documents the damage, and offers some possible solutions.

Until something changes, i'm not watching any more games. At this rate, the Orlando Magic will win the championship, and i'm just not ready for that.

Green Day, Music, and Corporate America

Digby has a typically eloquent post up about A) how good the new Green Day album is, B) how admirable it is that Green Day continues to be one of the few popular liberal musical groups that actually put their politics in their songs and C) ties all this into the sad state of the recording industry, namely that Warner Bros. used the popularity of 21st Century Breakdown to sell bonds that sold like hotcakes. Actually, she pulls mainly from this post, that contain the following great quotes:

U.S. Treasury bonds, for the same time span, are offering a modest 3.4% return while the Warner Music bonds are offering a juicy 9.5% annually. Some people never learn but unless Green Day puts out an album like 21st Century Breakdown every year between now and 2016, my guess is that the suckers who bought the bonds-- or, more likely, the poor saps they get unloaded on-- will wish they had stuck with the Treasuries... or invested their retirement funds in autographed Green Day memorabilia.

And this, on the sorry state of selling physical CDs (if anyone actually buys them anymore):

The American record industry allowed itself to be bamboozled into giving WalMart and similar operations a near monopoly over their music. It was a catastrophe for them and their artists, especially emerging artists who now have no place to sell their CDs. But it should be no problem for a superstar act like Green Day, right? Well, no. Green Day won't self-censor their songs, which WalMart demands of artists, even platinum-selling ones.

Thank god all those WalMart shoppers are protected from Billy Joe's evil shits and fucks.

Read to the end of Digby's post to read her optimistic take on what's fueling the liberal political resurgence and how you can help.