coolest thing

just stumbled upon bag, borrow, or steal. it’s like netflix… for monthly fee you have rent dvds via the post… but with handbags. very cool idea. they’re promoting the designer bags which i don’t really care about but if they have funky interesting ones (and ship to AU), i could be into this.

secrets of the face

ok, it’s 11pm and i have 20 pages of a case study to read and then need to write something about it but instead here i am posting and watching a tv show. it’s called secrets of the face with liz hurley and john cleese.

it’s about how important body language, and especially facial expression, is to communication. an interesting topic considering i’m working on virtual teams for my thesis.

they’re talking about how you can improve your relationship by changing your facial expressions. this guy Gottman, specialises in this. they videotaped this couple arguing and showed how there was a lot of contempt and disgust on their faces. signs of hopelessness and being tired. apparently contempt and disgust are the major signs of an approaching divorce.

and the intensity of a smile in a college yearbook photo relates to their self reported level of happiness. they’ve done research! and yes it has to do with positivity (at least my reading… they didn’t give a hell of a lot of detail on the research).

a company in japan found a 30-50% increase in sales by smiling at customers. they have to have smiling classes in order to teach their sales reps to smile! imagine!

there is even a mention of people using emoticons because its common to misunderstand email because there is no facial expression connected to it. and then cleese gives this big rant about how it’s all technologies fault… how we sit in front of a computer, how even when we are out with people with on the phone & not paying attn to the people around us. he starts bashing computer screens going on about how we’re listening to gates and other big nerds about how we’re prehistoric if we really want to be with other humans. and then liz hurley throws water on him.

there are over 600 laughter clubs in india. groups of people that get together in the morning to laugh. just laugh. the guy sez laughing enhances your immune system and brings oxygen to your system.

ok. the show is over so i guess ill write that case study now. midnite.

footy

last nite i went to my first AFL game. that’s australian rules footy. not soccer. not american football. not rugby.

it was at the mcg, melbourne cricket ground, which is of historical significant. or something. the main difference between it and the other possible location (the telstra dome) is that telstra has a retractable roof. mcg doesn’t.

as we were going thru security, the woman searching asks if i have beer in my bag. it’s a fairly small bag. a purse, not a backpack. when i say no, she sez ‘well that’s a disappointmentl. you could fit a fair bit of beer in that bag.’

um. okaaay.

we walk upstairs to our seats and in the probably 5 minutes that took, it went from no rain to pissing down rain. it was amazing how much and how fast the rain was coming down. i tried to capture it on camera but there was no way you could see it. it was just so fine.

and it kept going. we were just barely under cover. we were in the 2nd row and the first row wasn’t covered. the guys in front of us were pretty wet. at one point i realised the guy in front of me had ice on his shirt. it must have been hailing. the rain lasted for probably 15 minutes or a little more. during that time, the game never stopped.

the whole thing lasted 2 1/2 hours and i still don’t know shit about aussie rules. we talked for most of the game. i noticed the guys can certainly kick. the rules don’t really make sense. the refs have all sorts of funny arm movements and ways to toss the ball back when it’s out of bounds.

the crowd was pretty interesting. collingwood and the lions were playing and collingwood is supposedly the most ferel (aka rowdiest) fans. they certainly were loud and interesting. i’ve got some pix ill put online later.