Sucky keynote: a spoof

I was feeling pretty good about my lambaste of one of the worst all-time keynote addresses. But then I received this spoof of the speech from an unfortunate attendee, which puts my piece to shame:

The Institute for Self-Promotion and Gratification presents,

“Be All That You Can Be”

or

“I can’t believe the Army ripped that off of me, but I’m afraid to Challenge, because they have guns…and know the IRS”

Welcome, everyone, I’d just like you to know that I am very successful, and am almost definitely worth more than any of you in this room, but I try to be as humble as possible normally; just like Sting told me when we were backpacking together in Nepal, along with Brad, Angelina, and their kids. They love me.

First, nothing you can learn from comes from a cliché; they are useless, shallow, and usually completely irrelevant. At the end of the day, I believe you have to have your game face on, bring the right tools to the party, put your best foot forward, and shoot for the sky. Reach high, because every journey starts with a single step, but it’s not really the destination, but what kind of upgrade you’re going to get when you get there. I am usually upgraded because of my friends, the Rockefellers, the Hiltons, and the Lohans. Gosh, they’re fun to hang out with.

So anyway, remember, while you can’t be as successful as me, we are essentially the same person, only I’m better than you. We’re in the same business. Show business. And I’m the star of the show; and you little people are my stagehands; doing you little job too, is equally as important. Except that it’s not.

Nice young policeman takes mother-in-law to church

Nothing can keep my 89-year-old mother-in-law Jewell and her boyfriend Bob from church. Bob's car was sideswiped the other day -- no one was injured, thankfully -- and Jewell sent us this report:

Jewell playing dress-up

The fellow driving was probably in his 60's and when we got out of the cars, he said "I didn't see you. I'm blind in my right eye." Bob said the guy told him he had just come from the hospital where he had a treatment of some sort -- Bob thought he said dialysis. ... 


I called the Police Dept. on my cell and a nice young man arrived. It took quite a while to gather all the information. ...

The policeman gave us a ride to church in the patrol car, which was quite funny.  Bars on the windows, people gawking to see who was being hauled in.  I wouldn't want to ride far in it. No cushions in the back, just sitting on bare hard plastic.

Tomorrow I have a 10 AM appointment at Cemtra Care by hospital to get my ears "dewaxed".

Publishing letters to creditors is 'slanderous at best'

From the INSULTS file: response to a "story" I posted that did little more than quote a letter to creditors:

Dear Julia [sic],

I can’t tell you how pathetic your story of our Asset Purchase of ### was. There was so little fact in this article.

I would suggest talking to all parties before printing something that our attorneys believe to be slanderous at best. If you had bothered to do any research you would have found that this all cash purchase also hired all sales and technical staff as well as took over the responsibility of all jobs in progress and service of all past jobs. It also created a new company with revenues well in excess of 11 Million Dollars.

I expect this article to removed and a full retraction within 24 hours before we move ahead with any damage claims against you.

Follow-up: No damage claims were filed.

I told you the motivational speaker would suck

Granted, I don't like most keynote speakers, particularly those of the "motivational" variety.

The good news is that I can pick the potentially bearable presenters from their bios alone. Those that lead with "guru" or "world-renowned" I can safely assume will not impart anything useful for me to share with my colleagues back home.

So when I read the bio of this "innovative" speaker (below), I said to the other conferees: I don't like this guy. He is going to talk about his books and his rich clients. I'm going to give it a miss.

Needless to say, I was right. I found this out during the presentation while Skyping back and forth with an attendee who gave me the blow-by-blow.

Here's an excerpt:

[5:27:36 PM] me: how's the keynote?

[5:28:19 PM] him: Sucks. I hate him already.

[5:28:44 PM] me: seriously? You'll have to do a shot every time he mentions a client.

[5:29:15 PM] him: Or everytime he mentions his latest book!

[5:29:30 PM] me: OK, that!

[5:34:37 PM] him: Now he's trying to tell jokes...

[5:36:02 PM] me: are they jokes about his books and clients?

[5:38:51 PM] him: He's now talking about [famous client]

[5:49:44 PM] him: Now telling [another famous person] stories

.....

[6:01:26 PM] him: It turns out that u should exceed expectations...
[6:01:26 PM] me: Well, @!$# me. I should've been there!
[6:04:08 PM] him: He will give us a free poster of himself!  Seriously!!
[6:07:21 PM] me: no frickin' way. What are you supposed to do with that?
[6:13:58 PM] him: He's reading to us from his poster...
[6:15:02 PM] me: Ask him how much you would have to pay for it otherwise?
[6:16:55 PM] him: He will even sign it for you!!!
[6:17:15 PM] me: is that free too?
[6:18:25 PM] him: Be the miracle!
[6:18:48 PM] me: NO, YOU be the miracle! You can do it!

The Bio
You should have seen the warning signs!

###### is a speaker, author, entrepreneur, business owner and one of the most innovative guitarists in the world. With over 2,000 presentations to his name, his expertise on leadership and customer service comes from 30 hard-won years in the trenches as an entrepreneur.

For the past 13 of those years, he has led his company, [company name], to set the gold standard for customer service and excellence in the recording industry and is home to [famous people] to name a few.

He has had ten albums released and four books published, including [book name] which has become required reading for many high schools and universities [interestingly, no name dropping here].

###### has been a contributor on CNN and Canada AM, and has made over 55 other national and major market television appearances. He is also a featured speaker for [agent representing motivational speakers and their cheesy books].

###### lives in [city] and serves on the boards of several organizations. He loves spending time enjoying some of his greatest passions – hanging out with his four children, throwing large barbecues for his [famous] clients and friends…

Smart thermostats can thwart wars, save U.S. jobs

This is one of the more amusing letters to the editor I have received for CE Pro magazine. This woman is responding to an article in which I pooh pooh energy monitoring, but tout energy management. 

Forget that she totally missed the point of the article. I appreciated her insights that home automation and energy management can thwart wars. More importantly, such technology could have saved her job at a law firm where she "didn’t speak their slang Spanish!"

I could have indulged readers by dividing up this letter into a neat arrangement of paragraphs, but ... if I struggled, so can you.

I have not put reading my CEPro off due to the volume in my work schedule this afternoon I read your article on “Energy Usage” believe it or not there is a scale for rating homes “green” I personally live in the Austin Metro Area and sell these energy management systems our system is programmed to virtually adjust or shut off things such as a water heaters, we have humidity control thermostats so that the fan runs and not both the fan and compressor we control the home from anywhere in the world from our phones.  Let me explain the A/C humidity control so you fully understand it’s not the heat that makes you hot or cold it’s the humidity.  You can survive in the Dessert for days with no water yes it’s 110 but there’s no humidity come on down here to Texas when it’s 110 we had record days in that range this year and find out how fast you are hot and dead at that heat! One of the greatest features is the energy consumption due to the raise in rates and the current economy a family can see a large savings. I personally gave a reporter a tour of my home this morning she was doing a piece on energy management integrated into the home automation she was in disbelieve at what my home was capable of to include closing the garage door at 8:30 pm or if opened after 8:30 pm it closes automatically in 10 minutes it is not only a safety issue but how much energy do you think we save in a year by not constantly opening and closing that door on a weekend?  Austin, Texas is in a record drought and my system can detect that we finally got rain this past week and did not water the lawn saving our water supply.  If my home is pulling a large load my subzero can be reduced. I can go on and on about the energy management I have by utilizing HAI’s Omni Pro II. I have kept copies of our utility bills pre home automation and post automation and then I proved the date we changed the thermostats and showed the savings and then I sat down the proof of when we added the module to the water heater and then set down electric bills. We went from an average of $450 a month and yes we have changed out our dish washer, oven and fridge to the latest greatest energy star units and we now have an electric bill that averages $130 a month now add that up over a year now or add that up over the life of the home and tell me what you think about energy management now. I can retire at an earlier age if I’m generation x who is demanding this product or have a better quality of life than my next door neighbor without it and I promise you that is happening at my home they scratch their heads and wonder how we own a big boat and utilize it every weekend while they sit home….your answer is energy management and we eat out once a week. We here in Austin are very green. The City offers tax incentives to builders to build green. Everyone focuses on the gas for cars, but who is focusing on the energy this country uses for our true energy hogs our homes!

"Our homes need to be energy efficient so we can end wars, close our borders so when I walk on a job site I don’t have to be fluent in Spanish."

This system has existed and continued to evolve and it’s the one true electronic that has not been outdated, depreciated to $0 in value nor in the bottom of a landfill.  Your reference is “Microsoft” who cares they are not truly in this industry and they are so far behind every time they launch another system it fails. I got an invite for yet another run at iControl today and laughed when they have come up with a system that you are going to control the volume of your tv with your cell phone really when you get a call if your phone is your remote how are you going to mute the tv? If you are speaking on your phone how are you  going to set your alarm or turn off your lights oh and what happens when little Johnny flushes down the toilet and your budget doesn’t allow for a new phone and there’s no insurance for water damage…my laundry list is a mile long for these guys there’s a reason they invite me to their “War Table” I think more people should think about energy control and more reporting should be focused on this country’s dependence on oil and offer incentives huge tax breaks to big company’s of bring the manufacturing back and consumer service back to an English speaking country that understands what your saying when a tornado hit your home! Close that border so that people in Texas and California don’t have to be bilingual to have a job and the true Spanish speaking non-tax payers work for $8.00 an hour driving the pay rate in Texas and California next to nothing and for the honor of living in Austin I have the high costs and was laid off after 25 years of service to a law firm because I didn’t speak their slang Spanish! When looking for another job I went from $35 an hour which is billable at $75 to my firm to if I was lucky a contract job for $15 an hour with no benefits, no holidays so let’s get to the bottom line it’s abusive. Our homes need to be energy efficient so we can end wars, close our borders so when I walk on a job site I don’t have to be fluent in Spanish. I am 25% Cherokee Indian and I had to conform because this country is accommodating the border. Honestly just bringing business back to the US will bring jobs you have to renovate and repair the factories not spend money on our roads that we subcontract out to companies in Mexico that can now hire illegal aliens that pay no taxes how do you refill the bank if you pay out and no one is subject to the taxes to put it back? My married name is ##### my in-laws are off the boat from Italy and did it the right way and pay taxes they speak English. I promise you when I bring this up at the Home Builder’s Association lunch tomorrow here in Austin they will just shake their heads and agree with me we need to save our energy resources and become less dependent on other countries bottom line. So when you write a story take an objective view of who your target audience truly is. Believe it or not this is the first time I’ve responded to an article. As you say “That, and Zune.

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Microsoft Hohm Still Silly Even with Actual Product - CE Pro Blog