Top Albums of 2008

In my struggle to compose my top five beer list (it’s looking an awful lot like last year’s) I’m taking a break to write another list – the top albums of 2008.

The criteria? Well, it was easy, really. I just went off of what albums I couldn’t stop listening to. Here they are, debate away:

10. Guns & Roses, Chinese Democrscy – seriously, I was in 10th grade when their last album hit; don’t they deserve a spot here?

No?

Ok.

10. The Raconteurs, Consolers of the Lonely (Download: Top yourself)

9. T.I., Paper Trail (Download: Live your life)

8. Panic at the Disco, Pretty. Odd. (Download: That green gentleman [Things have changed])

7. The Roots, Rising Down (Download: 75 Bars)

6. Santogold, Santogold (Download: Creator)

5. The Killers, Day & Age (Download: I can’t stay)

4. The Black Keys, Attack and Release (Download: I got mine)

3. N*E*R*D, Seeing Sounds (Download: Anti matter)

2. Kanye West, 808s & Heartbreak (Download: Robocop)

1. Coldplay, Viva la Vida (Download: Death and all of his friends)

For another perspective, check here

Or, just check Rolling Stone’s top 30.

Congratulations on doing something right!

It’s so rare these days when people do something right, i.e. the way they’re supposed to.

Take Michelle Wie for example. The next tournament she enters she will have earned her way in. See, she got her tour card the way everyone else is supposed to if they want to play in tournaments. No more skating by on sponsor’s exemptions (see: John Daly) or on the publicity potential that comes with being a woman playing in a men’s tournament.

No, Michelle Wie has done something truly amazing – dodged the shortcuts and chose the road most traveled. In honor of this, I would like to take a minute and acknowledge a few other people:

My dad, for not beating me growing up.

The bagger at Acme #1 for not shoving my eggs into an already crowded bag.

The McDonald’s worker for not filling my coffee with cream and sugar after I requested it black.

Myself, for not letting the garbage pile up and taking it out on the morning it’s supposed to be picked up.

The bank attendant, for not giving me any large bills after I asked for nothing over a $20.

See how nice it is when you do things the way you’re supposed to? Now, if someone could send this blog to one or all of the big three so they are motivated to not waste the $15B almost certain to come their way in the next few weeks.

Photo source: ESPN.com/Scott A. Miller/US Presswire

Anyone else uncomfortable with this picture?

I don’t know the full story here, but this picture accompanied MSNBC.com’s coverage of the automotive buyout. I get the relevance, but still, am a little uncomfortable with objects being placed on the stage during a prayer/worship service.

Source: MSNBC.com/AP

Good samaritans abound

With the state of the economy coinciding with the end of the year, there is a heightened amount of attention being paid to the bottom line and the impact overhead and employees have on it.

I have read a lot of articles and overheard a lot of comments about how any cuts will be a result of ones that already need to be made – you know, give them a chance to ‘trim the fat’. 

This has really caused me to think – why do we wait until we have to to trim the fat? Deep down are we good people that believe in employing the underqualified that are a drag on the company’s resources and contribute very little to accomplishing its objectives?

Or are we scared of the conflict that comes with correcting someone, or worse yet, firing them?

I really don’t understand this. All you hear in business is operating with lean efficiency, reducing cost, eliminating resources that drag on the bottom line, yet, we look at situations where people are directly preventing any of that and decide to do nothing.

Some people might say ‘hey, let them earn their living and you earn yours’. My problem isn’t with the person doing nothing, it’s with the person that allows them to do nothing. Why do they allow this is what I’m really trying to discover.

I guess one of the major reasons this troubles me is because I feel we as a society have accepted ‘waste’ in any form, even in human resources, then, when we’re at a breaking point, cry foul and wonder why we are in the position we’re in. The mentality of ‘this person isn’t contributing, but the amount we pay them is worth avoiding uncomfortable situations’ is one that scares me. In what other ways are we throwing money and resources away? And why, in times of trouble, is it the person who decides to be wasteful is left untouched?

Maybe we should add a ‘recession economics’ class to business schools that teach students how to manage companies/departments as if they were in a time of crisis. Or maybe we messed things up so much that we don’t have to worry about managing any other way.

Take heed.

Don’t be another number, even if it means writing about the Real Housewives series

I recently had lunch with my old Kent State professor, Bill Sledzik. We were talking about the relevancy of blogs and the fact that only roughly 7% are active.

Do you realize how many dead end blogs that leaves out there, talking about everything from car repair to swinging Christian singles in your area? Well, I refuse to be another number. So tonight, after a long day which has left me with nothing important to say, I would like to write about a hopeless addiction to these Real Housewives series on Bravo.

I thought I had escaped the Atlanta version, but my wife DVRd the marathon last week. I have to say it is entertaining, problem is I just don’t like any of them. However, I dislike DeShawn the most. That would be DeShawn Snow, as in Eric Snow’s wife. Maybe that’s why I dislike her so much, because I see her living it up on the money Eric Snow has stolen from Cleveland (no, I’m not bitter). Or maybe it’s her annoying voice and complete inability to plan a fundraiser. Either way, she is my least favorite. I dislike her even more than Kim, who lies (about everything from her age to her singing ability) and would be working the register at Forever 29, er Forever 21, without money.

But I save my real adoration for the original – the Orange County girls. This is a great show. I think in times of economic depression, we like to see these kinds of shows as an escape – our generation’s version of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Me? I watch because of Tamra Barney, my favorite of all the Housewives. This season it seems she has a little competiton to her self-proclaimed throne of hottest housewife as 30-year-old Gretchen Rossi arrives. Gretchen is dating a man 24 years older than her, but hold the jokes seeing as he just passed away from Leukemia in September. And while I do feel bad for her loss, she is no more 30 than Kim is 29.

This season just lauched and it’s looking pretty good. It really puts a crimp in my Tuesday night productivity, especially now that it’s void of my least favorite housewife, Tammy Knickerbocker. She is gone, finally, along with her two daughters. We were supposed to feel sorry for them last year as they slummed it, moving from their house, one of the largest in the county, to a rented $1.3m proparty.

So there you have it. My secret addiction to the Real Housewives. Hopefully something more exciting happens to me tomorrow or else I will have to subject you to my infatuation with Antique Roadshow (I’m kind of kidding).

If you’re in marketing, you better read this.

I’m writing this to warn you of a slowly building plot to deprive you of making a living. The movement is being led by the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-free Childhood, which claims to have 1,400 parents who have contacted 24 toy manufacturers regarding ads they feel unfairly target their kids. The parents are concerned because they ‘just won’t be able to afford all the gifts their kids want’ during these hard economic times.

I’m serious. See for yourself

Do people really have nothing better to do than complain about commercials? Hey parents, turn the TV off. Tell your kids they can’t have everything they want. Maybe if you spent time teaching children about life than blaming others you wouldn’t have to worry about how they feel – they would have some grip on life and know that mommy and daddy can only buy  you a few presents this year.

Parents’ ignorance is just the secondary point here, in my mind. The main point I’d like to address is who do these people think they are that they can just decide to randomly attack an industry, especially in an economic downturn when people are trying to hold on to every piece of business they can? To the 1,400 parents who decided it was their responsibility to act as the moral police on behalf the world - have you thought of the marketing people whose jobs you might be affecting? Or people who work at TV networks who rely on ad revenue or comission?

What right do you have to determine if someone should make a living? This has to be the most careless act of selfishness I’ve seen, mainly because you gain nothing from it. What, your kids see less commercials so they’ll be less likely to ask for toys? Do you plan on depriving them of radio, books, magazines or just simple trips to the store? Are you going to keep them home from school so they don’t see any of their friends’ toys and want them? Or prohibit them from going over their friends house?

What’s wrong with you people? Can’t you find something better to do with your time? How about donating some of it to a shelter? Regardless of what you do with it, don’t dedicate another minute of it to potentially depriving someone of making a living so you can feel better about yourself. You don’t see me lobbying Congress about dangers of fast food and endangering your job.