How to Win At Facebook.

Once upon a time, in the land of commercial advertising, 30 seconds of persuasion, art, and/or deception was the recipe in trying to win over a prospective customer’s business.   In television and radio’s infancy stages, this proved to be an excellent return on investment.  At the time, when the concept of motion picture was still a novelty, consumers were not only willing to sit through Pepsi’s elevator pitch on why you should drink their cola, but they were actively engaged, even seeking entertainment.

Throughout the years, however, advertising went from a novel byproduct of entertainment to a virus that consumed it.  As the relative cost of advertising decreased, the percentage of businesses who bought into it increased.  As the number of channels and shows available increased, the percentage of time dedicated to non-sponsored programming decreased.  As the consumers attention span during a commercial decreased, the prevalence of unethical brainwashing tactics increased. Eventually the lines between advertising and entertainment completely evaporated with the use of product placement and brand sponsoring.

Those who weren’t entirely immune, had at least grown skeptical.  Those who were neither, were children.

Read the rest of the post at TECH Cocktail

Some choose not to let the laws of physics slow them down on their quest of ultimate worldly domination.  This brave young hero, a cat, a kitty cat at that, demonstrates a bravado that hasn’t been seen by a feline since the days of a matured Simba.

Ultimately in the end of this tragic quest to defy the constraining laws laid out by Sir Isaac Newton, our kitty hero and friend, proves that not even determination is enough to overcome pure stupidity.

Whiskers: 2010 – 2010.  RIP

To be fair, I took this photo with my iPhone after spending the afternoon on my Macbook.

Once every couple of years, I voluntarily subject myself to an act of controlled starvation, more commonly referred to as fasting.  Many fast to lose weight (even though science says it’s counterproductive).   Some do it to cleanse their systems – eliminating deep seeded toxins in hopes of establishing a fresh sense of vitality.  Others do it for religious purposes.

For me, it’s none of the above.

I fast when I sense myself slipping into a system of routines.  Most days, I have zero conscious thoughts or real observations by the time lunch rolls around.  I’ve programmed myself to work off a checklist, something we all do to different extents, but I can sense mine approaching robot.  As a result, the creative portions of my brain begin to fade.  Personally, I’ve found fasting to be the most effective method to shake off that layer of brain dust.

In prior fasts, I’ve felt as though my clarity of thought was as clear as ever.  However, I never set aside time to document anything.  Leaving retrospection out of the equation, it’s very possible that sense of clarity was purely a mistaken hallucination.  This time, I will block off some time to write.  If anything seems relevant enough to share, you can find it here.

Starting Friday (tomorrow) morning to Monday morning, food will not be happening to me.

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Post Fast Summary

I decided  not to dedicate a separate post to the aftermath of the fast because there’s nothing particularly interesting enough to share other than a few notes on my physical experience with it.  Proceed at your own risk (esp with the last bullet).

If I had to draw a theme out of what transpired over the last three days I’d call it, “What I’d Do Differently”

And the list would include:

• DO NOT fast when scheduled to work. Forcing your mind to remain active when attempting a restful process is a pretty miserable combination.  Not to mention, eating is in large part a byproduct of stress (at least for me).    Listening to your co-workers talk about food all afternoon is enough to make cardboard look like a filet mignon.
• DO NOT put yourself in social situations.  Both at work and away, people often thought I was in a bad mood.  They were right, but that perception was intensified because in the midst of a fast, not only does social interaction require energy that you probably don’t have, but it’s much more pleasant to observe than to participate.  My lack of communication gave the impression that I was a hatestorm with legs.  Not true guys, but I could see why it would seem that way.  Next time (if there is a next time) I will practice my fast where no one goes (i.e. the mountains or a Marlins game).
• DO expect copious amounts of pain.  I have no idea why, but the last 6 hours of the fast through all of today, my legs feel like they’re constantly being strangled.  Honestly the discomfort is so bad I can now say with a straight face that I know what it feels like to birth a child.    After a little research, the only plausible explanation is that the pain is a concentration of toxins trapped inside of my body.  To paint the picture a little more bluntly, my legs are basically giant go-gurt tubes of poison.  I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing but it certainly is a disgusting thing.  Sorry to anyone who was planning on eating in the next hour or so.

In conclusion: fast only if you have time off, you’re capable to take a few days away from society, and don’t mind the feeling of an invisible leg boa constrictor.

LeBron James is a Chicago Bull butthole

They say perception is reality. If we get enough people to perceive LeBron James in a Chicago Bulls uniform, time is the only obstacle in between us and the King.

Find something very wooden to knock on because I’m calling it now – LeBron James is a member of the Chicago Bulls. If this turns out not to be the case, you can find me deep inside of a glass case of emotion.  Forever…

LeBron James to the Chicago Bulls from zach davis on Vimeo.

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Update 7/9/10

So, I’ve turned my copy of “The Secret” into a pineada. 

Yesterday evening, LeBron James announced that he will sign with the Miami Heat.  This is partially because he likes their beaches, but mostly because he’s a coward.  I’ve asked my good friend, and Cavs Owner, to sum up the sentiment with LeBron’s “Decision”.  Thanks Dan. 

And to everyone in Cleveland….sorry.  At least you’re not Detroit!

In my previous post, I laid out the “how to“ portion of my “moving to San Diego” series.  The following will serve as the “why”. The previous post also included a sense of humility and an understanding that San Diego is not a one-size-fit-all city.  This post will be having none of that.

If forced to describe the Good Badger in 3 words, the general consensus would undoubtedly arrive at: noble, nimble, and ninjitsu (click that).  I bring this up simply to point out that “embellishing” is not one of those terms.  I pride myself in being a fact-spewing truthbot. So, when I make a claim such as, “San Diego makes every other city in the Universe look like Detroit”, you know that it’s as good as encyclopedic.

Likely you’re already aware that San Diego has great weather, nice beaches, good looking people, etc.  I’m not here to restate the obvious.  Instead the below will serve as 3 (and a half)  “outside the box” reasons

Why You Need To Move To San Diego

Reason # 1 – Cost of Living

Yes, I just used cost of living as the top reason in selling you on San Diego.  No, I do not smoke crack (very often).

Everything you know about Southern California says that the cost of living is just short of being a wallet vacuum.  Gas is an extra 20%, and mass transit leaves a lot to be desired.  A beach-side shack will likely do more damage to your bank account than a house with two car garage in many Midwestern suburbs.  Paying $6 for a Miller Lite for most is nauseating, to San Diegons, it’s the norm.

And this is all absolutely true.  Commodities cost more out here than most of the country.

What many don’t consider, however, is what you aren’t paying for.

In 1995, more than 600 people died in Chicago due to extreme heat conditions.  Nearly all of these victims were either very poor, very old, or even more likely, both.  Most people in the area, however, were largely unaffected thanks to air conditioning, a luxury found in nearly every home.

A San Diegon is likely dumbfounded by two of the above facts: 1) the concept of “extreme heat” and 2) air conditioning inside of a house.

A home with A.C. in Southern California is the exception, not the rule.  Money, as you may have guessed, is not the issue.  Instead it’s a lack of necessity.  Three hundred and fifty five days out of the year, a gentle ocean breeze provides all the conditioned air anyone would require.  That leaves 10 afternoons where it’s legitimately uncomfortable during the day.  That’s when the beach instinct kicks in.

Not surprisingly the same situation occurs at the other end of the year as well.  More houses have heat than air conditioning, but its use is on par with that of a VCR in Silicon Valley.

Now, do me a favor…take a look at your wardrobe and tell me how many winter jackets, fur coats, gloves, hats, scarves, thermals, rain-proof anything, and snuggies you possess.  When you’re done ignoring this request, consider that these items (for the most part) aren’t even sold out here.  Not only only are you shopping for a total of 1.5 seasons (semi-summer & summer), but you’re eliminating the most expensive (not to mention crappiest) seasons altogether.

Next, tell me if you fit this description….You pay $40 a month for your gym membership and spend 80% of the time sweating bullets on a stationary machine between an anorexic mom and some guy whose aroma can only be compared to a dead man’s fart.  Believe it or not, but San Diego includes a complimentary gym membership.  It’s open 24 hours a day and comes with free tanning.  I’m sure you’ve heard of it – Outside. A flat screen TV and 360 degrees of mirrors  simply can’t compete with the Pacific Ocean and a palm tree studded park.  Not only will you avoid the dead man’s fart but your free membership also includes a lifetime’s supply of serenity.  Act now!

Lastly, for those of you living in an urban setting, estimate how much you spend on transportation simply to avoid exposure to sub-optimal conditions.  Whether it’s too hot, too cold, too rainy, too snowy, too hail-y, too lightning-y, too (insert angry act of nature), etc.,  taking a cab even 6 blocks away becomes easy to justify.  Nature will very seldomly force you into a cab out here.

The list could go on, but for the sake of excess, it won’t.   The point is not that San Diego is a place to live frugally.  The point is that the price of gas doesn’t always paint the whole picture.

Reason # 1.5 – Cost of Happiness

I’ve lived through 20+ Midwest winters, I know firsthand that there’s only so many hours in a day that you can be cooped up in the same household before you start to go a little Gary Busey.

"Who wants to play another game of Scrabble?"

Separate from the cost of living, although still related, is the “cost of happiness”.  The cost of happiness factor is the amount of cash you spend in order to maintain a minimum threshold of joy in life.  It’s the money spent at the movie theater, sushi restaurant, vacation to San Diego, trips to the mall, season tickets to the Pacers, etc.

Of course people out here still go to the movies and eat sushi (fresher/cheaper sushi), but, there are a plethora of free options to replace each of these.  If money is an issue, the cost of happiness in San Diego is dirt cheap.

What’s your alternative to a day at the beach in September, a beach-side fire in January, frisbee golf in November, or the reduced urge to vacation year-round?  (I recently helped a guy at work who was on vacation…his home…Maui.)

The best things in life are free, you just have to head Southwest to find them…

Reason # 2 – So Social SoCal

Social activity: San Diego , Vuvuzelas: World Cup 2010

There is no city more socially active than San Diego, California.

And keep in mind, this is coming from someone whose previous residence was considered a top 3 party school by Playboy.  The major difference between Madison, Wisconsin and San Diego is that Madisonians consider consumption to be their higher calling.  A byproduct of binging, however, is mandatory periods of downtime (typically Sunday & non-football Mondays).

Granted, San Diego doesn’t attack the bottle with the same tenacity as Badger Nation, but their frequency cannot be bested.  Most of the country uses Sunday as a time to do chores, read the newspaper, go to church, or whatever avenue leads to relaxation. Not here.  San Diego has invented the “Sunday Funday”, which basically amounts to afternoon drinking complimented with sports.  It’s justified because it rhymes (reason enough for me).  Using the local watering hole as your basis of measurement, you’d be clueless as to what day of the week it was.  Unlike baseball, San Diego takes no off-days (but participates in many double headers).

Also, the approachability of a San Diegon is uncanny.  This goes for non-native Southern California’ers as well as the indigenous.  Several times I’ve been in the situation where someone went from total stranger to revealing intimate details of their existence within minutes (not just the transients).  The only viable theory I can arrive at is that the sun cooks one’s brain into a permanent state of holistic comfort .  I’m confident science will confirm this soon.

And all of this is coming from someone who requires regular intervals of isolation.  Too much social activity causes the Good Badger to break out in involuntary fist flailing, crying, and rashes.  With that said, it’s nice not to let the calendar determine your social activity.  Whenever you want it, it’s available to you.

Reason # 3 – From Restless to Stressless

In all reality reasons 2 and 3 are two sides of the same coin (only this is invaluable).

A characteristic inherent to human beings is the ability to lose perspective.  We tend to stress ourselves out because our smart phones take too long to stream a video of a cat playing with an iPad.  We’ll sabotage our night because our boss used a less than favorable tone toward us at work (a manifestation of their own stress).  Then when the BBC runs a story about genocide in Africa, we quickly change the channel because we’d prefer to think that getting mustard on our pants is a bad day.

I’m not pointing any fingers here.  I am guilty of this to the greatest extreme.  I sweat the small stuff so often I own stock in Under Armour.

That is until I step outside.

A palm tree and ocean horizon have the ability to evaporate stress in such a way that cannot be properly placed into words.  When my work starts to feel like a chore instead of a passion, I relocate my office.

Skin cancer + writing = multitasking

San Diego’s culture is widely regarded as being slow paced or laid-back.  To a Type-A, this is a cause for perpetual unease.  These are the very people who need to adopt some San Diego into their lives the most.  Ocean and sunshine are cheaper than Prozac and have none of its side effects, aside from being habit forming.

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I hope that I was able to shed some new light on the brightest city in America.  Come sample a Costco size portion of San Diego, you’ll leave with a lifetime’s supply.

I’ll let the video do the talking…

Good Badger Facebook Page

This is a post inspired by pure frustration.

I write it because there are at least a dozen in my immediate circle who’ve wanted to make a transition out of their present situation but have fallen victim to the path of least resistance.  I’ve also learned that for every problem I know of first hand, there are thousands who share the same troubles.  If I can reroute the routine of at least one person hesitant to change, my time has been well spent.

But first, let me clarify a couple things:

1. I don’t write this post out of any sense of personal superiority.  This isn’t about me.  This is about situations.  One situation is living life as a victim, constantly fearing what could possibly going wrong, and drowning in regret.  The other situation is taking chances, allowing yourself the opportunity to fail, setting and striving for goals, and turning the less than ideal scenarios into learning situations.  I’ve lived on both sides.  I know first hand that the latter is superior.
2. Although I use San Diego as the subject of this post, I’m not trying to say that it’s objectively better either.  I know plenty of people who would truthfully not enjoy it here (see: Gingers) (yes, that’s coming from a semi-ginger).  I genuinely get bummed out if I go long periods without the sun, am exposed to temperatures below 20 F, or have to spend my weekends inside because a monsoon won’t let me play basketball.  But, that’s just me.

Enough beating around the bush…I now present to you the Good Badger guide of

How To Move to San Diego

If while reading this, you hesitate and wonder, “wait, is he talking about me?”, the answer is yes.  This is about you.

The bad news is I’m calling you out.  I’m getting on your case.  I’m done taking your crap.

The good news is I want to help.  Making you happy makes me happy.  You complete me.  You had me at hello.  (Jerry McGuire was on TBS last night)

But certainly a project as large as moving out to a vacation city like San Diego couldn’t be broken down into concrete steps meant for the masses.  Actually, it can.

1. Set a Goal

Sorry to get so Tony Robbins (aka the multi-millionare motivational speaker who resides in San Diego) on you, but the importance of goal setting can’t be overstated.  You need to both write your goal down on paper (or blog) and tell as many people as you can.  Make your goal a throbbing sense of pride for you.  Don’t worry about how you’ll be perceived by others.  Those who matter will support you and those who don’t envy your ambition.

Make sure that when setting your goal, you are both very clear in what it is that you want (i.e. “move to San Diego” versus “get out of current town X”) and you give yourself a realistic time frame for when it needs to be accomplished.  I’m convinced there is some sort of supernatural force that helps create a desired reality if you’re serious enough about setting goals and assigning them deadlines.

2. Stop Making Excuses

I know all of the reasons you can’t move to San Diego.  You don’t have a job lined up.  You have no idea what you’ll do for a living situation.  You haven’t saved enough money.  You want to pay off your debt before moving.  You [insert generic problem] + [implied sense of self-defeat].

This past weekend Alex Montoya, a good friend of mine and fellow employee of the San Diego Padres, ran his first marathon.  True he was only one segment of a relay team who completed the race.  That’s one aspect he had going in his favor.  But there were a couple aspects working against him.  Actually, to be precise there were 3 things working against him.  Limbs.  Born a triple amputee out of Columbia, South America, Alex can now add a marathon to his long list of accomplishments.  This list also includes, graduating with a full scholarship from Notre Dame, carrying the Olympic torch, working his dream job as the head of Latino marketing for his favorite baseball team, and being a published author amongst many other things (I left off the ability to memorize every phone number ever created).

Sorry, what was your reason for not being able to move to a new city again…..?

Instead of making excuses, allocate that energy to finding answers.

3.  Utilize Your Resources

One reason making a big life transition seems so daunting is because a lot of people fall under the false assumption that they have to do everything themselves.  Don’t let your pride impede your dreams.

I was lucky enough to have a job lined up prior to moving into paradise, but to take full credit for the position would be somewhere between ignorance and delusion.  While at the University of Wisconsin there were two things I was felt strongly about: 1) I needed to be in San Diego and 2) I wanted to be in sports.  The first was a necessity, therefore it was going to happen regardless.  The second was a hope.  Although I’m a passionate sports maniac, I wasn’t going to let it get in the way of my escaping Ice Hell.

But I figured, as long as society was going to force me to get a job, I might as well find one that I actually enjoy.  Although UW didn’t offer any sports specific degrees, there were still plenty of valuable resources freely available to me.  I joined a Sports Business Club, attended one of their seminars, introduced myself to the presenter (the general manager on behalf of the presenting company), and got an internship with said company.  Once on the job, I was repeatedly audible (some may say “annoying”) about the fact that I wanted to be in San Diego.  Turns out that my boss used to work with one of the higher-ups for the Padres.

Here I am.

The point is, without the sports business club, or its seminar, or the presenter who made himself available to questions afterward, or the internship which was benevolent enough to help set up an interview, I would still be fighting upstream to get a job as awesome as working inside of a baseball stadium.  I didn’t get the job because I was the best at what I do (whatever it is that I do), I got the job because I was good at using my resources.

Find your resources.  Use them.

4.  Be Flexible

I don’t mean in terms of staying the course with your goal.  Stay strong to your vision.

However, you do need to stay flexible in your approach.

Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing and expecting different results. If you had a nickle for every time you’ve heard that cliche (not an actual definition) you’d have enough money to fund the first few months in your new vacation homeland.  As much as I hate cliches, this one is worth its weight in gold (bonus irony points).

If money is a problem, maybe your routine of unsatisfying work and stress blowing sessions at the bar on the weekend is stunting your progress?  If needing a job secured before moving (which I don’t believe) is what you’re holding out for, perhaps monster.com isn’t going to be your get out of jail free card.  If wanting to see how your dying relationship with your significant other plays out, maybe rehashing the same arguments and following the same procedures isn’t going to get you to a more solid ground?

Serious change in your life can’t occur until you start implementing change in the more common situations.  If your weeks start to blend together, clearly you’re following the same routines.  Take a second to see where this routine train is headed, and ask yourself, do you like the destination?  If you don’t, pull a Christian Slater and blow that train up.

5.  Soak in Accomplishment

If you really follow through with the previous four steps, #5 is an inevitability.  Don’t let set-backs derail you (I love train metaphors).  Take a second to consider the alternative of not following through with your dream and find what will motivate you to move in that direction.

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The above serves more as a rough blue print for accomplishment than a road map to the Pacific.  You probably have no interest in to moving to San Diego.  That wasn’t the goal of this post (it’s actually an upcoming post).

However, in the off chance you’re reading this, and a change of pace is something you’ve been desiring, please stop punishing yourself.  You only live once.  Come learn what it feels like to say “70 degrees”, “outside”, and “December” in the same sentence.