Lovely photo

I went to brunch with sister J--- today (happy birthday T-- and J--). Afterwards the lot of us went over to Adams Morgan where they were having the Adams Morgan street fair festival. Just as J--'s friend D-- and I were talking about how to know when and how much you should pay for art, I saw a photograph I really like.

I asked the guy how much it was and haggled him down a little - thanks Dad for teaching me how. Now I'm the proud owner of this great photo.

By Val Proudkii

What I really liked about his work was how he manages to use peoples' gazes to draw you into the picture and tell stories. I know that may sound unusually pointy-headed even for me, but take a look at the rest of the pictures on the site. One of my favorites is this one with a cat and a baby looking with different interest at a fish.

Oh, by the way, the way you decide whether or not to buy art is by figuring out how much you like it. Avoid seeing it as an investment. If it'll bring you $100 of enjoyment when you look at it over the course of your ownership, pay $100 or less. I thought this one would be a lot more than I paid for it, so I feel like I got a deal.

My kung fu is . . . inadvertently dangerous.

I punched a guy in the nose today. Very gently, thank God. That'll teach him to whack me in the thumb with a stick though. Actually, there's no excuse for popping a training partner in the schnoz, so if you believe in a god (only non-vengeful ones need apply thanks), say a little word of benediction towards John. I think I frightened him a little because it was all camaraderie and funtimes before I grazed his nose, but a little stiffer afterwards. Can't blame him really.

I finally got to check out the local dojo today. I started with the Kali class. Kali, not the Hindu goddess of death, but a Filipino martial art segued later into a Krav Maga class. Krav Maga is what the Israelis teach their special forces and focuses a lot, apparently, on me gasping for breath. However, I know all about getting out of a headlock now. Go ahead, put me in a headlock, I dare you.

I could totally take these guys . . . at like, statistics. Maybe.

I'm definitely going back for the kali. I'm less sure about the Krav Maga.

cats and management

by this guy

I heard a lovely management adage about cats the other day. We're trying to think about how we structure for the long term at work and some of our ideas have been better than others. An abiding concern is that people shouldn't have more than one manager.

As a result of the conversation, I heard a fantastic maxim that I'll probably never forget. Someone at Havard Business School apparently felt so strongly that one employee should have only one manager that he or she decided to coin a phrase foul and audacious enough to stick with anyone who heard it.

The saying is, "never have two people fucking the same cat, because the cat will get confused". Yeah, the cat part and the other obvious bit don't need to be included, but you'll never forget this most important bit of business wisdom will you?

Boring games

I thought you guys might get a kick out of this picture I found on somethingawful's photoshop phriday this week. This week's topic was boring games.

Have a gander at "Mean Time Between Failures", created by goon Aardmania.

Meantime, this is could be the seed of a great idea. Is there any way to turn testing into a game. It's worked for Google and their images after all.