The shouting is amusing, but it’s the makeup that bothers the hell out of me

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This video is terrible. I realize it’s only curling, but it’s an Olympic sport.

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These are Olympic athletes.

And some of them are wearing more eye and face makeup than an actress on the red carpet. It's ridiculous.

It’s a terrible message to send you little girls everywhere.

It’s a terrible image for female athletics.

It’s a terrible image for women.

At least it’s only curling, and only a few Canadians are watching.

More airlines embracing the Spiderman Principle of Meetings and Presentations

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Last week I complimented Delta airlines for their willingness to be creative in their in-flight safety video.

Here are two more. Neither is as outstanding as Delta’s (both seem to try a little too hard), but they’re still very good. And a hell of a lot better than the standard, unimpressive safety video.

More importantly, it’s refreshing to see that more people and organizations are embracing the The Spiderman Principle of Meetings and Presentations.

Some day we may find ourselves in a world where meetings are either entertaining and informative or (a boy can dream) nonexistent.

Self love is a battlefield. In Idaho, at least.

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Brigham Young University’s satellite campus in Idaho released a motivational video encouraging students to report friends, roommates or themselves if they suspect that they are masturbating too much.

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This would be bad enough, but the World War I battlefield imagery used in the video is completely insane.

Twas the Night Before Christmas

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As our holiday season draws to a close, I wanted to point this out to you. It’s a Christmas special that I watched and loved as a child and adored entitled Twas The Night Before Christmas.

I showed it to my daughter a couple days before Christmas, and she’s watched it at least half a dozen times since.

She loves it as much as I still do.

The story is clever, the music is great (and highly addictive) and for a daughter who can barely get through the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Christmas special because of the Abominable Snow Monster of the North and had to bail entirely on Santa Claus is Coming to Town because of the Winter Warlock, this special is decidedly free of angry, toothy monsters.

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I would love to play the role of Gandalf the Grey and stop trains. Just not at this moment.

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I see this kind of hilarious brilliance (make sure you watch until the very end), and I think three things:

  1. I wish I had thought of that first.
  2. With my luck, I would’ve been arrested on suspicious of terrorism.
  3. Despite how much I love and admire this, I’m not sure that I would want to invest the amount of time and energy required to produce a single minute of video that will likely be forgotten in a month (even one as amazing and daring as this).

I’m kind of glad that someone else is doing this for me, even though part of me desperately wants to try something like this myself.

Maybe when my kids are older and can do it with me…

Apple’s “Misunderstood” is brilliant and completely unrealistic

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Even though I saw the ending coming a mile away, I thought this commercial was incredibly clever. Sweet, even.

Also completely unrealistic.

Every time I see someone with their head buried in their phone, they are texting or playing that stupid Candy Crush game.

Sadly, no one is ever creating. 

Admittedly, I have never played Candy Crush, but I think stupid is a more than safe assumption.

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Cell phone crashing: Beyond even me

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I have a lot of nerve. I say things that perhaps shouldn’t be said.

On Saturday morning, while waiting in line, a overheard a woman tell a McDonald's manager that the parking lot wasn’t plowed yet.

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In response, I told her that she had forgotten to wear her Captain Obvious cape today.

I’m very defensive of McDonald’s employees.

She stared at me, confused.

The manager didn’t charge me for breakfast.

I’ve done even more nervy thing in the past, but even I don’t think I could pull off this stunt.

My YouTube channel

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A friend suggested that I separate the videos of my adorable children from the videos of my storytelling or speaking performances.

I believe he said something like:

“I’d subscribe to your channel because I’d love to see your storytelling updates, but I really can’t watch another video of your son and daughter hugging each other. Enough already.”

Fair enough. Smart, even.

And a little mean.

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So I’ve separated things out. If you’d like to follow my storytelling and speaking exploits, you can subscribe to my professional, child-free YouTube channel here. It contains many of the stories that I have told for The Moth over the past two years, with more content to follow.

Enjoy.

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My TED Talk (if you listen closely)

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On Saturday, I gave a TED Talk on Creativity and Compassion at Western Connecticut State University. It was an interesting conference that was sponsored by the school’s Center for Compassion, which was launched earlier this year after the Dalia Lama visited the school.

Once the video has been edited and published, I will post it here.

Back in August of this year, I gave another TED Talk on Education and Innovation at the AT&T Conference Center in conjunction with Center for 21st Century Skills. Unfortunately (and incredibly frustratingly), the sound on the recording was poor.

I can’t tell you how annoyed I am.

I hope to give this talk again at another TED conference, but until now, this is all I have, poor sound and all.

I did not like Doris Lessing’s response to winning the Nobel Prize

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I was saddened to hear about the death of Doris Lessing. I read a lot of her work while in college and some of her short stories since then.

I like her work a lot.

That said, I wasn’t a fan of her response to winning to Nobel Prize back in 2007. While nonchalance can be charming and a disinterest in competition can seem noble, this is the Nobel Prize. Out of respect for all those who came before her and all those who toil for a lifetime in hopes of achieving this level of recognition, I thought it was disrespectful to dismiss the news of her win so offhandedly and follow it up by stating that “I’ve won all the prizes in Europe. Every bloody one,” as if none of them matter anymore.

I felt like the reporter understood the importance of this win better than she did.

Also, and perhaps more importantly, what the hell is hanging on the neck of the person who was in the car with her? And what is in his hands?   

6 things you should never talk about, plus 2 of my own

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This American Life’s producer Sarah Koenig's mother lives by a set of rules about conversation, including an actual list of off-limits topics.

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I want to go on record as supporting this list wholeheartedly.

The list:

  1. Diet
  2. Health
  3. Your period
  4. Sleep
  5. Dreams
  6. Route talk, which is discussion of the route you took to arrive at your destination.

Of all the items on the list, I find route talk and dreams tied for the most egregious of offenses, but they are all admittedly dreadful. 

She actually has a seventh item on the list, money, which This American Life excludes from the show, and I agree. Discussions about the stock market, the health of certain businesses and even recommendations on how to lower insurance costs or where to buy the cheapest cantaloupe are all fair game.

But I’d like to add two items to the list:

  • Weather
  • Sales pitches

While there are occasionally reasons to talk about the weather when it is most extreme, those times are few and far between. Err on the side of caution and find something else to discuss. 

And the last thing I ever want to hear is a sales pitch for the products that you sell or for products that you want me to sell for you as part of some pyramid scheme. While there is nothing wrong with these businesses (except for this), the friends of such salespeople should be awarded a permanent zone of protection from any and all such sales pitches. Otherwise we feel like we are being taken advantage of, ALWAYS, regardless of what assurances we offer that we are do not.