Wednesday, May 6, 2009

How to get people to do the stuff you don't want to do


When I was 7 my Dad asked me if I wanted to learn how to scramble eggs. I was like, Hellz to the Bellz Yeah! I get to play with fire and things.

He propped up a step stool so that my little eyes could just peer over the top of the pan and handed me a spatula.
"Keep the flame low and constantly scrape the bottom of the pan to make sure nothing burns," he said from the couch as he watched the Sunday football game and read the paper.

I knew in that moment that I had reached a new level of respect in the eyes of my Father!


15 minutes later the milk and egg mixture turned to perfect clumps of scrambles that my Dad said were, "the best scrambled eggs ever." The rest of the family agreed, "The Best Ever," they all said between bites.
From then on I became the Egg Scrambler of the House and took great pride in this title. You see, what happened here folks:
  • Offer "new" "special" access to a domain otherwise off limits to person (for example, offering women equal access to jobs like cole mining, sanitation department employment, or working at the DMV).
  • Train individual to perform undesirable procedure/obligation
  • Compliment them on their performance: "Wow, what a fast learner, are you sure you haven't done this before, No stop, I don't believe it! This can't be you're first time!"
  • Rave about results, "This was the best ever" "You're a godsend" "No one has ever done this like you." God-related compliments are seriously helpful, people sort of step back for a minute and are like, "wow, you really mean it don't you."
Results:
The individual now takes pride in their ability to perform the undesired obligation and does it with a sense of self satisfaction.


When my Father, a lumberjack, took my younger sister at the age of 5 to work with him, and asked if she wanted to learn how to use a chain saw, "I didn't even ask your older sister to do this" he had said with his arm around her impish shoulders as they stood staring out at a vast expanse of trees, I couldn't help but feel a little bad when I walked away and finished my Sudoku.


**Disclaimer, if any of my former or current girlfriends are readings this, I swear I meant it when I said it was the best ever.

What this Blog Isn't.

Before I get to the point, I want to say that in no way is this blog a place for me to try to be funny. After a quarter century on this planet of finding out just how not funny I am, I have no interest in attempting that here. These are just my thoughts and beliefs about the world and the people in it. In fact, if you want to know how not funny I am, feel free to contact any of the people in the following family photo, circa 2002:

My mother (upper right) I assure you will openly and loudly in large groups or at special occasions like, say my high school graduation, testify to my complete and utter inability to be, even in the remotest way, funny.

My little sister Betsy (purple dress, big smile, bottom right) at the age of 3 told me if I didn’t shut up she would shank me with the shiv she made from her crib post while on lockdown after she was found war painting her face with her own excrement. Betsy is also responsible for creating the nearly 1 million membered website: IReallyReallyHateMySister.com. Google is a sponsor.


You may have noticed, too, that I am not featured in this photo.

You see my family was very quick to support my interest in photography (also just as quick to refute my interest in a camera with a timer) as this prevents anyone from ever having to know that I existed as I was always taking the photos and not in them. In fact, up until I was 8 I was convinced I was a Chinese orphan.


It was once said, that fantasy and fiction are most fertile in seasons of great depression. This blog is just another outlet for me to demonstrate the general meaninglessness of my own words, self and existence as a make believe person on a make believe planet which can sometimes be funny.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

What's in a name?


Why the name, Donkeys Fly Far for your blog? The answer, my friend, is because it is just not true. In fact, it is a blatant lie. Just ask these kindly fellows, Hamel and Jerome who gave it a shot.

Notice how the Donkey in the photo is no where near flight. In actuality, the Donkey is nearly perpendicular to the ground and probably really uncomfortable. In fact on a scale from 1 to Flight, this Donkey is in Jersey. Contrary to popular beliefs held when under the influence of LSD, shrooms or opium, I can assure you that none of the 44 million donkeys on the planet Fly at all. Not even a little bit. Not even a baby flight. Not even a fall out of the nest for the first time and try to fly while falling kind of flight. Nothing. When asked what the closest thing to the ground is, 9 out of 10 English speaking Evangelical Christians will say, Donkeys.

More than that, the phrase Donkeys Fly Far sounds like something a baby would say. Take some of the most powerful IT and Web companies in the world's names: Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Bebo, Fonolo, Meebo, YouNoodle, Squido or Dimdim. These company names sound suspiciously similar to the Vietnamese menu I just looked at online, but more than that, they have an eerie semblance to the GooGoo GaGas of babies. Is this a coincidence? Have the most powerful companies in the world been named by babies? Or is this just sheer marketing genius?

People’s attraction to names like Google and Yahoo, seem to be an extension of our culture's simultaneous love of youth and fear of death. What better symbol for youth than that of a baby?

Studies have been done for centuries on people's opinions of Babies. As you can see via the following clickable graph, BabyMade and BabyProduced, almost 90% of people absolutely LOVE babies:

While only a measly 10% Hate them. Of the ten percent of baby haters, 9.6 % can

be found on the “We Hate Babies, We Really Do” blog and the other .4% can be found reading the "Unemployment Makes me Hate babies (and probably other small, cute things)" blog and all have mysteriously contracted Swine Flu recently.

Fortunately, I do not cater my marketing techniques to soulless baby hating bastards and instead rely on following the soulless money grubbing tycoons of Capitalism that would just as soon kill my baby in order to make a profit. It was once said that, killing an Instinct is like killing a baby. What if you're instinct is to kill a baby?

Take a look at the old man in the photo below. Look at his wrinkled brow. His squinty eyes. All terrifying reminders of death. Forget about the fact that he is chewing on my kitten.

Thus, Donkeys Fly Far is adhering to the standard that this man is just another reminder of death and babies are better.