OMFG.

Margaret. Cho. WINS.

No, they didn’t appear together (or even met that I know of), but they were both in Atlanta this past weekend. My wonderful, loving, handsome, and most-awesomest-ever partner got us tickets to see Eartha Kitt and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on Saturday evening, and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama at the First Emory Summit on Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding on Sunday afternoon.

I’ll blog about each of these amazing events separately, because I don’t think it would do either justice to blog them together. Each in its own way was a stunning moment for me, and I’m sure that with a little thought I can find some commonality. I feel like it was karma that allowed me to see both these events this weekend, and I’m wondering if there might be something that both might be working together to teach.

Watch this space for the articles on both. It was an amazing weekend I want to share.

It’s on the news and all over the blogosphere: Ellen DeGeneres adopted a little puppy, but when she found that it was not getting along with her other pets, she found a home with her hairdresser’s family. The pet agency where she adopted the dog called Ellen, who explained the situation and that she had found another home for the dog. The agency got mad and took the dog from the little kids. Here’s the video from Ellen’s show:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9IeL8lx9lg]

The woman that took the dog, identified as “Vanessa” on a video shown on TMZ, is just a bitch. (Actually, I’m thinking of a much stronger word that starts with “C”, but I don’t like to say that word.) The people that run Mutts and Moms must be stupid, ignorant asshats. It seems that lots of other people think so too. It appears that their agency’s site was hosted on Petfinder.com, but their pages have been removed from the site — all I get is a “404 Not Found” message when I go to the page. The site was probably being slammed by people very angry at what they did to Ellen, and more importantly, to the hairdresser’s children.

I’m angry, too. I only rarely watch Ellen’s show, but she is one of my favorite people on TV. She always seems to be a nice, humble, caring person. Her tears are no doubt genuine. There’s also no doubt that every person in her audience, and most people on the internet, are disgusted with Mutts and Moms. I know I am. Blogs and comments are calling for people in Pasadena to boycott Mutts and Moms. If I lived in the area I definitely would.

I think the people at Mutts and Moms are trying to hide from the firestorm they’ve ignited by taking down their page, but the Google cache does reveal their email address. I bet they’re not even checking it anymore. If you do try to email, don’t be an asshat yourself by sending death threats or anything dumb like that.

I think I’m going to start blogging “business speak” words and phrases that annoy me. I really, really dislike business speak. It seems like ineffectual middle managers (and marketers) make up words so that it at least sounds like they’re doing something important.

Note, however, that tech jargon is sacred to me. It’s really not the same thing, either, because there’s humor and a joy of word-play expressed in tech jargon that users of business speak simply do not grok. I do think, though, that tech jargon is useful only with other geeks. I hate to see tech jargon slipped into regular conversation as much as I do business speak.

I have to point out the current ad campaign from IBM. I love it, because it makes fun of how business speak is more about talking than doing. One word that seems singled out is “ideate”, but a search of IBM’s site reveals that they use it themselves!

takeaway

Supposed to be a distillation of what you get from a meeting or document. It seems however, to be an excuse to ignore the details. Seems dangerous, because one who relies on just the “takeaway” might miss something important.

speak to

The first time I heard this in a conference call, my skin crawled. It was used in a way like this: “Joe, can you speak to this new policy and how it affects sales?” As I sat there, I wanted Joe to speak to us about the new policy, rather than mumble in the general direction of a piece of paper.

utilize

The KFC nearby has a sign that says they “utilize the freshest ingredients.” Utilize sounds cold and detached, and I don’t like cold chicken, thanks. Besides, why write a word with seven letters when “use” is only three? I think this is a classic example of a word used to make the writer or speaker sound important.

leverage

Every time I read or hear this word used as a verb, I think of someone with a big piece of lumber trying to get their stuck car out of mud. “Take advantage of” works great, and really describes what is being done.

That’s it for now. I’m sure I can come up with more. Post your (least) favorite examples of business speak in the comments!

So, there have been these sightings of drone UFOs around Lake Taho this year. I guess they call them that because it doesn’t look like there’s any place for the aliens, unless they’re really small. Here’s a pic, snarfed from Earthfiles:

Ooo lookie! Here’s this from a 2006 article in New Scientist titled “Invisible Drone”:

Interesting similarity, huh? Discuss.(For the record, I don’t buy this “Drone UFO” crap. It’s CGI. Like the Haiti UFO clips that had YouTube all abuzz and certain UFO people, too.)

NAACP Atlanta chapter leader R. L. White says we shouldn’t shun Michael Vick now that he has pled guilty to charges in his dog-fighting case. ”We further ask the NFL, Falcons, and the sponsors not to permanently ban Mr. Vick from his ability to bring hours of enjoyment to fans all over this country.”

No, what we’d get is hours of realizing that this man making millions of dollars thought it was okay to abuse and kill animals for sport. We’d get hours of remembering his cocky attitude about the whole ordeal.

White also said, “At this point, you’re not looking at guilt or innocence. You’re thinking, ‘What I better do is cut my losses and take a plea.’ But if he saw this as the best thing to do at this point for his future, then I think he made the correct choice.”

No, the correct choice is to never fight dogs to begin with. The correct choice is to own up to committing a crime, which Vick pnly partly did by pleading guilty. I don’t know if he did, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Vick’s decision was indeed “cutting his losses.”

Vick should be banned forever from the NFL. He is not a role-model for anyone, and he should not be allowed to be in a position to be seen as one. He’s a common, convicted criminal, and deserves being shunned by the NFL, sponsors, and most importantly, football fans. And to me, R. L. White’s pleading on Vick’s behalf is offensive, not to mention completely irrelevant to what I understand the NAACP to be about.