Okay, so first off, I don't do Marketing. I did, for a short time, and realized that I really hated it. But I learned several things about Marketing that have stuck with me and have influenced my purchasing decisions and how I promote my events.
First, I strongly differentiate between PROMOTION and MARKETING. I will explain as I go.
So a preacher has predicted that the Rapture will take place at 6:00pm on May 21 (which is tomorrow) - at each time zone. He has made this prediction based on a couple of things:
There is a mystical meaning to the numbers 5, 10, and 17. 5 is supposed to represent atonement; 10, completeness, and 17, heaven. He doesn't give any reference to why these numbers represent something. They do line up (somewhat) with traditional numerological symbology, but not exactly and I think they are a bit of a stretch.
Now, he multiplies 5 * 7 * 10 to get 722,500 which is also the square of the supposed number of days from April 1, 33 to April 1 2011 which is supposedly the exact number of days from when Christ was crucified and . . . April fool's day in 2011.
Laminin - Did God really hide a mystical symbol in all of us?
Written by Mike Malsed
Sunday, 09 May 2010 19:40
I was forwarded an email regarding a sermon about Laminin. Laminin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminin) is real, and is pretty much what was described (a foundational protein that helps knit us together, essentially), but this sermon used this protein as proof that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" - which is true, we are fearfully and wonderfully made, but this is proof?
No. Sorry. And this irritates me to no end. Here's why:
Woohoo! After several years brewing with my buddy Fid, I borrowed his pots, carboys, and all that and, along with Cyndi, I did a solo brew. I used Fid's Allegedly Amber recipe, which has turned out awesome for him and I figured it would be a nice opening act for my brewing career (if you will).
We brewed on Sunday and it went quite smoothly overall. Mash went nicely, although we did peak the temps at one point and I had to toss some more water in to cool it down quickly. The sparge went well, no big deal there. Boil went off with no hitch, and the cooling cooled the brew AND watered the lawn (I hooked the output of the cooling coil up to the sprinkler. . . dual duty! heh)
After that it was just sticking it in the carboy with the air-lock and let it ferment for a week and then transfer it to the 5 gallon carboy for another week of secondary (which we're in now).
Only problem is that I don't think I used enough sparge water so I don't have 5g - more like 4 1/2. Oh well. . . next time! :D
Now, when my kegerator kit comes in, we'll set it up and get the Amber kegged up for our enjoyment!
Plan is to hit either an Irish Red or a Scottish next.
Last Updated on Monday, 14 March 2011 19:05
Quality? What? Where???
Written by Mike Malsed
Tuesday, 16 March 2010 19:38
Okay, I'm officially irked. Why do we equate "quality" merely with "lack of manufacturing defect"?
This comes from the Toyota problems, as you might surmise. This entire issue of the throttle sticking open (aside from the floor mat issue) is not actually one of quality of manufacture, but of quality of design and shows our misconceptions regarding what quality actually means. Which frustrates me - we're smarter than that, supposedly.
