Don’t Waste Your 15 Minutes of Fame

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[Heath] Ledger’s ex-fiancée Michelle Williams and their two year old daughter Matilda flew from a film set in Sweden to their home in Brooklyn following the tragedy. . . .

Her father Larry Williams said: “It has just broken everybody’s heart in my family. I think Tennyson got it right in the poem he described someone as having died at a young age but burning the candles at both ends. And oh what a beautiful flame he made. That was Heath.

“The saddest thing is his daughter whom he just loved dearly. The Tennyson poem is just so true. His years were few but he left a beautiful legacy.”

— Daily Mail

Okay . . . Tennyson?!

Tennyson did write In Memoriam A.H.H. about a friend who died young, but the candle poem was written by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends –
It gives a lovely light!

He mentions Tennyson twice, in case you missed it the first time. I’m quotin’ Tennyson here! The first and last time anyone will be interested in anything this man has to say and instead of going down in history as a Tennyson scholar, he’ll be remembered as a puffed-up phony . . .

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Can You Die Too Soon?

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Some media outlets are using the occasion of Heath Ledger‘s demise to publish lists of stars who died “too soon.”

Does anyone really die too soon? Maybe everyone dies at exactly the right time. Maybe some people die too late.

[James] Dean died before he could fail, before he lost his hair or his boyish figure, before he grew up.

— Donald Spoto, Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean

James Dean died at age 24. Did he die too soon? Would he have been remembered as fondly if he’d lived to an old age?

Better to be a delicious fruit snatched away in mid-bite than something one finds in the back of the refrigerator and says, “My god, we should have thrown this out a long time ago.”

It’s never a bad career move to check out in your prime . . .

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Fruit Pickers

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“Look at those guys,” my son says. “They’re all wearing ponchos and it’s not even raining.”

“Well, it was raining,” I say, “and it may rain again. There’s an old saying in the fruit picking business: It’s better to have a poncho and not need it than to need a poncho and not have it. Think about it.”

“Why do I need to think about it?”

“Because it didn’t seem to make much of an impact on you. Want me to say it again?”

“No.”

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Heath Ledger, 1979-2008

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Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams

NEW YORK — Actor Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday of a possible drug overdose in a Lower Manhattan apartment, the New York Police Department said.

— CNN.com

Possible drug overdose, possible suicide! Oh dear . . . another blow to the theory that being rich and/or famous is the ticket to happiness.

I think most famous actors — not all, obviously — are convinced that they can do things that nobody else can do, that they’re not cardboard people who are adored for no reason.

Tom Cruise, for example, I don’t think will ever commit suicide.

Oh well . . .

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Another Difference Between Dogs and Cats

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Murph & Turbo

Originally uploaded by Somerslea.

One of my co-workers keeps calling another co-worker Misty, although her name is actually Mitzi.

“I’m sorry,” she explains. “Misty is my roommate’s cat and I mix up the names in my mind.”

“Do you ever call the cat Mitzi?” I ask.

“Sometimes, but not as often as I call Mitzi Misty.”

“Does the cat respond when you call her Mitzi?”

“No, but she doesn’t respond when I call her Misty either.”

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Bobby Fischer, 1943-2008

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Bobby Fischer

Americans like a winner. If you lose, you’re nothing. I’m going to win, though. It’s good for the match that Spassky has a plus score against me. We’ve met five times. He’s won three times and we’ve drawn twice. But I’m a stronger player and a long match favors me.

— Bobby Fischer

Bobby Fischer died last week in Reykjavik, Iceland, the site of his greatest triumph — the 1972 World Chess Championship. He was 64 years old, one year for each square on a chessboard.

For the first half of his life, his brilliance as a chess player mostly outweighed his irrational judgment and paranoia. For the second half of his life, it was the other way around.

In the middle of the Cold War, he beat the Soviets at their own game. He became as famous as a rock star while playing a game that absolutely no one in this country cares about. I’d bet a dollar to a doughnut that most Americans can’t name one other chess grandmaster, living or dead, such is our apathy for chess and the people who play it — but by god, we do love a winner!

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James Bach on Software Testing

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Jerry Weinberg has suggested that “it works” may mean “We haven’t tried very hard to make it fail, and we haven’t been running it very long or under very diverse conditions, but so far we haven’t seen any failures, though we haven’t been looking too closely, either.” In this pessimistic view, you have to be on guard for people who say it works without checking even once to see if it could work.

 

“No user would do that” really means “No user I can think of, who I like, would do that on purpose.”

Who aren’t you thinking of?

Who don’t you like who might really use this product? What might good users do by accident?

 

In general it can vastly simplify testing if we focus on whether the product has a problem that matters, rather than whether the product merely satisfies all relevant standards. . . . Instead of thinking pass vs. fail, consider thinking problem vs. no problem.

— James Bach

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Managing Teams

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Instead of “managing” the process in the traditional sense, management can help a lot more by:

  • realizing that it is the teams that will discover and make the improvements, not management,
  • giving teams the responsibility to manage and improve their own process as well as the freedom and authority to do so,
  • establishing an environment that actively encourages teams to be totally honest about their problems and impediments,
  • listening to what the teams say they need and respond to those needs,
  • observing teams in action instead of just collecting numbers,
  • providing useful feedback to teams instead of instructions or pressure.
— Steven Gordon

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EppsNet’s Greatest Love Songs: I Can’t Explain

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Why it’s great: Love makes you hot, cold, dizzy, happy, mad . . . I can’t explain it . . .

Got a feeling inside (Can’t explain)
It’s a certain kind (Can’t explain)
I feel hot and cold (Can’t explain)
Yeah, down in my soul, yeah (Can’t explain)

I said … (Can’t explain)
I’m feeling good now, yeah, but (Can’t explain)

Dizzy in the head and I’m feeling blue
The things you’ve said, well, maybe they’re true
I’m gettin’ funny dreams again and again
I know what it means, but …

Can’t explain
I think it’s love
Try to say it to you
When I feel blue

But I can’t explain (Can’t explain)
Yeah, hear what I’m saying, girl (Can’t explain)

Dizzy in the head and I’m feeling bad
The things you’ve said have got me real mad
I’m gettin’ funny dreams again and again
I know what it means but

Can’t explain
I think it’s love
Try to say it to you
When I feel blue

But I can’t explain (Can’t explain)
Forgive me one more time, now (Can’t explain)

I said I can’t explain, yeah
You drive me out of my mind
Yeah, I’m the worrying kind, babe
I said I can’t explain

— The Who

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Why TV Shows Are So Stupid

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Welcome to EppsNet, where the writers are not on strike!

Striking writers are stupid. Pretend you’re a TV executive and your writers are on strike.

Man watching static

Oh dear! What will I do? I’ll have to show reruns and only get 90 percent of the dimbulb audience I’d get showing new episodes. Boo hoo hoo! Crying smiley

Television is the opiate of the masses, man! People will watch it no matter what’s on. They can’t live without it.

We’ve got TVs in restaurants, health clubs, cars, you name it. They’re ubiquitous!

The number of people like me — who think that if you want to eat dinner in front of a TV set you should stay the hell at home — is very small compared to the number of people who will not leave their homes if it means being separated from a television.

Hey scribes! People are going to turn off their flat-panel LCD high-def TVs — and do what? Read a book? Interact with their families?

Fat fucking chance!

Writers can stay on strike forever for all anybody cares.

That’s why TV shows are so stupid. They’re written by stupid people.

This just in

Red carpet, empty theater

Stars Won’t Attend Golden Globe Awards

Golden Globe-nominated actors and presenters won’t attend the televised award show Jan. 13 because of the writers’ strike, the Screen Actors Guild announced Friday.

— People

Well then . . . that casts things in a whole new light! Actors will not attend the Golden Globes because they’d have to cross a picket line of angry wordsmiths and ink slingers.

OMG! I hope the earth doesn’t stop revolving on its axis and fling us all into space because actors are boycotting the Golden Globes telecast!

What are the Golden Globes anyway? Another excuse for actors to get together and suck each other’s dicks?

Rot in hell, thespians!

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Remembrance of Things Past

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Here’s an email that went out to everyone in the office this morning:

Good Morning Everyone!

There was a clip on earring turned in to the receptionists desk this morning. Please come and claim it if it is yours! :o)

Happy Friday….

A clip-on earring!!! I thought those went out with hula hoops and pay phones. Who will claim it, I wonder? Is Marion Davies in the building? Gloria Swanson?

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Rick Neuheisel

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USC Trojans

UCLA has hired Rick Neuheisel as its new football coach, replacing Karl Dorrell.

UCLA people love this guy. They’ve been blowing Neuheisel’s meat whistle ever since the announcement.

As a USC man, I say this: Great hire!

Neuheisel will fail for all of the reasons listed here. Excerpt: “Neuheisel’s one great genius turns out to be his ability to make people think he’s a genius.”

FIGHT ON!

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Rose Bowl 2008: USC 49, Illinois 17

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Kaluka Maiava and Juice Williams

The conventional wisdom in recent years has been that USC has trouble defending spread offenses and mobile quarterbacks, like Illinois’ Juice Williams.

I’m not sure that’s true. They’ve had trouble defending some mobile quarterbacks — Vince Young, Dennis Dixon — but so has every other team in the country.

We took it to a real personal nature because we wanted to figure the spread-thing out, defend it really well and take the mystery out of it. We practiced so beautifully that it had to work out well. That’s a big deal. A really big deal.

— Pete Carroll

A total systematic beatdown.

FIGHT ON!

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