What does the camera eye have against Hillary Clinton?

Far be it to talk about something as superficial as looks with most professions, but the President of the United States needs charisma and polish. An important part of the President’s job — even more so after the mess made by our current Commander in Chief — will be cleaning up America’s reputation diplomatically. As human beings, wrong or right, we’re drawn to looks at least on a subconscious level. Even if you personally aren’t wired that way, a lot of other human beings are and good looks help grease the wheels.

Bill Clinton has plenty of charisma and George Bush has way too little. You’d think that the camera eye would be kinder to Hillary Clinton, but I repeatedly see photos taken of her with these bug-eyed, terrible expressions.

Are photographers trying to catch Hillary and paint her as an ugly duckling on purpose? I think Hillary is a pretty good looking woman. No she’s not hot, definitely not smoking hot, but a lot of the pictures I see on an almost daily basis make her look very dark and sinister. Conversely, Barack Obama seems to get shots that make him look a lot younger and dynamic and less freaked out.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney is leading the pack in the photogenic department. I’m not going to vote for a candidate solely on looks and neither should anybody else but the last thing I want is our President to walk into a room and turn everybody to stone.

Note to the photogs of the world: start taking some better pictures of Hillary. She might not be leading in delegates as of this writing, but for awful photos it’s a landslide. Why?

Smart marketing: in issue #80 of the official Xbox Magazine a disc contains three exclusive Rock Band songs.

Songs by Bang Camaro, Count Zero and Freezepop. We picked up issue #80 with disc at the local Safeway today ($9.99+tax), so if you hurry you might find it out there.

Wouldn’t be surprised if we see a bunch more exclusive Rock Band song deals. Bands should look to releasing their newest albums with a bonus exclusive Rock Band songs or codes for a redeemable new downloadable song inside Xbox Live.

We exchanged our broken Rock Band package at the local Best Buy today. Hoping this one makes it more than a month before breaking down. Rock Band still has major replay value, especially with the addition of new songs you can buy each week or find through deals like the magazine above.

Seen any other good Rock Band exclusive song deals? Share them below or trackback in from your blog with the info.

For a limited time only, iTunes is offering the pilot episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is being offered free at iTunes (will launch iTunes).

The series focuses on Sara Connor protecting her son John in Los Angeles from the threats of the future and rise of the machines. Despite my F review of T3 Rise of the Machines this is one of the few TV shows I’ve been looking forward to watching.

If you miss the free download window from iTunes, it’s also available for 160 Microsoft Points per episode on Xbox Live. Available on Hulu? Not yet. Hat tip to Free iTunes Store Downloads that tracks freebies at iTunes.

Picture taken January 15, 2008 inside the PT Cruiser passenger side window. Mother nature’s winter magic.

Winter Windshield
1280×1024
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Why do people blow off appointments? In our offline business we literally waste hours every week preparing for appointments that never show. The percentage of appointments that do show is high, but there is still a significant amount of appointments that never show.

I realize unexpected things come up in life. Hey, we’ve all had to reschedule an appointment but when does your life become so important that you can’t even call for a scheduled appointment and say you won’t make it? Emergencies are acceptable reasons not to call. There are times when calling for a scheduled appointment is either difficult or impossible, I’m not really talking about these blown off appointments.

My work day started a little after 1am yesterday and I agreed to stay late in the office after normal closing time for a potential new customer. This put my work day at an abnormally long 17 hours yesterday. Not looking for or expecting somebody to cry for my long day, but I’m still annoyed today that this prospective customer never showed and never called. You think I’ll stay late for this same prospective customer again? Unless the excuse for why the appointment was a no show is really good, probably not.

We could have spent that wasted time on somebody else. Existing or possibly new customers who do care about our time as much as we care about theirs.

I’d like to think most readers of this blog are conscientious people so this paragraph probably doesn’t apply to you. The next appointment you might ever think of blowing off, here’s a tip: call and let them know. Almost everybody has cell phones or VoIP these days. Just call your appointment and say: I can’t make it. Don’t even have to explain why. This frees the people on the other side of the appointment to use their time in other ways and for other people. It’s the right thing to do.

The world would be a better place if more people thought how their decisions impacted others.

Last night we signed up (again) for the unlimited Hollywood Video DVD rental plan 3 DVDs out at a time which runs $19.99 for the first 30 days and $29.99/mo. thereafter, but I’m feeling buyer’s remorse after reading Netflix has expanded their streaming option.

With Monday’s change, virtually all Netflix subscribers will be able to stream as many movies and TV shows as they want from a library containing more than 6,000 titles. There will be no additional charge for the unlimited access.

So essentially we paid $3 more + gas and travel time to/from to be able to cycle through the Hollywood Video inventory of movies we haven’t seen. I’m certain the quality of the DVD streaming will be less than watching DVDs, but will it be worth the extra $$? We’ll be canceling at the end of the month and going back to Netflix to try the streaming option.

Netflix move looks intended as a spoiler to Apple’s expected announcement that they will be offering movie rentals for $3.99 a movie at their annual MacWorld event which kicks off today. This pricing is similar to the Xbox Live movie service which our family has enjoyed, renting over a dozen movies. Good quality and convenient. Getting in the car to go back and forth to the video store might be exercise of sorts, but it gets old. That’s why we only do the unlimited Hollywood Video in one month surges once a year or so.

Another downside of Netflix deal is selection. 6,000 titles available for streaming versus 90,000 DVDs. On Xbox Live the selection of movies is even smaller. No idea yet how many movies will be available from Apple. Selection and video streaming quality will ultimately decide how long we stay subscribed to Netflix.

From the photo at the top of this movie you can see our first three movie picks at Hollywood: Epic Movie, Ball’s Fury and Hot Rod. Epic Movie was one of the stupidest movies I’ve ever seen. Ball’s Fury was medicore, but had some funny parts. Will be watching Hot Rod later today but it won’t be difficult to be better than the other two.

I captured some HD video of our sons completing the hardest and longest set of songs on Rock Band for the Xbox 360 on the expert difficulty setting.

The Endless Setlist which contains 58 songs took them 3+ hours to complete and out of a possible 290 stars (5 stars possible on each song) they had 275. A few songs they achieved gold star status on. Our youngest teen played bass and our middle teen played guitar.

Click To Play

Hmmcast #180 downloads
Windows .wmv (1480×1080 HD) PSP .mp4 (480×272) iPod .mp4 (640×480)

The Zecco UI and account screens continue to be unclear. I didn’t see anywhere in the trade section where these $4.50 trade commissions are being applied which prompted this post. In the account activity area it shows “principal amount” and then the “net amount” shows $4.50 less, so this must be where we are supposed to see the commission fees reflected (?). If you know of a better place to track the commissions than this, please reply in the comments.

How to locate the commission fees in Zecco
STEP 1. inside the Trading area choose “Account Records” along the left column.
STEP 2. choose “all activity” beneath the section.
STEP 3. select the “From Date” and “To Date” and click on “go” button in the account table cell.
STEP 4. you should see something like the snipped screenshot pictured above.

Why not just have a commission column that shows the amount charged for each buy/sell? Maybe Zecco will add that going forward. That would make more sense.

Recognizing a stock loss
As you can also see above, I just took my first stock loss trade at Zecco by selling Zarlink (ZL) which I bought 60 shares back on July 20 at $1.69 and sold today at a dismal $0.64/share. To add insult to injury, I paid my first $4.50 commission for the trade bringing the grand total of the loss to $66.90. Like buying a video game that is played once and shelved. Like filling up somebody else’s tank of gas.

I lost money.

Why did I take this loss instead of waiting for it (hopefully) to bounce back? I’d waited nearly six months already for ZL to do something besides go down and there is a looming threat of them being delisted. I’d rather suck up the loss and move onto something else. I turned right around and bought 6 shares of Shortel (SHOR) paying a second Zecco $4.50 commission. I already own SHOR shares through Sharebuilder (and paid $15.95 commission there, ouch!), so this adds to my holdings, only at a different online broker.

The impact of commissions in 2008 versus 2007
We’ve known the Zecco free ride on trades for those with balances under $2,500 was going to end in 2008 so this doesn’t come as a surprise.

I added a “fees” section to our stock competition Google Finance shared spreadsheet to reflect these $4.50 commissions per trade throughout the year. Even with the ZL loss and $9 in commissions, overall my stock competition portfolio is still +2.96%. I sold seven stocks in 2007 at a profit (GMO, BQI, ATAR, RSTO, MCZ, SIRI and SAPE) and 0 stocks at a loss, but I could (and time will tell if I should) have taken the ZL loss in 2007.

Of those stocks sold, 2 of 7 are currently showing higher than the amount sold: GMO which is at $11.50 and was sold at $8.05 and BQI which is at $4.19 and was sold at $3.67. On a percentage basis (5 of 7 = 71.4%), I’m happy to have sold when I did. This is a real world example of the uncertainty in the market that everybody is trying to time; buy low, sell high.

The last six months on the market have been rocky, so I’m not disappointed with the performance. If $4.50 commissions would have to have been paid on all of the 2007 trades, I’d be looking at an overall portfolio loss, so this will continue adding an additional wrinkle in 2008.

I covered some of this in my 2007 stock competition recap post, but at the time hadn’t done the following:

1. paid any commissions to Zecco
2. taken any losses on trades

Now I can clear both those off the table. Let’s hope #2 doesn’t happen very often in 2008. As I’m about to publish this, SHOR has lost 27 cents from what I paid for it already (dropping from $6.17 to $5.90). Argh, isn’t the stock market fun?

One of my favorite Sega Saturn games was NiGHTS. It came with a special controller with a tiny joystick that you used to make some circles with a flying character. As far as 3D games go, it was also one of the first 3D games that I really got into. There was a short-lived Christmas version of NiGHTS that I never played.

NiGHTS is a game I’ve been hoping Sega would update for some time for the Xbox 360 or PS3 who both have solid analog sticks which could control the game. But instead Sega chose to make ‘Nights Journey of Dreams’ exclusively (?) for the Wii and something where you have to make the movements with motion controls or use the separate nunchuck with Wiimote.

When I saw the game on the shelves I was curious how well the Wii controls would work out?

Motion controls aren’t responsive. Actions as simple as a loop require you to slowly move the Wii remote in a circle, which isn’t helpful when battling against a clock. You can add the nunchuk to control NiGHTS with a joystick, but it only helps slightly. I had to resort to using Wii’s Classic Controller to make the experience more palatable.

If you don’t want to read just one review and base your game buying decision (me neither), check out Joystiq’s NiGHTS roundup. The best score? 80 out of 100 by Games Radar. More complaints about controls in the Joystiq comment section as well as non-controls complaints about the game.

Despite the negative reviews, I’ll probably still pick this title up for the Wii — likely when it reaches bargain bin pricing — because I’m so fond of the original title and some (very few though) games that are broadly panned, I still enjoy. Not sure the latter will be the case here though. If it blows, oh well, won’t be the first or last game I buy that disappoints.

Wii Motion controlitis
This raises an excellent point about the Wii: motion control is great for physical exercise but doesn’t apply well to all types of games and holding two different controllers, the Wiimote in one hand and the nunchuck in the other is awkward for some games. I’d rather have both my hands focusing on a single controller. You?

I appreciate that Nintendo is trying to do something creative with the Wii controls but their revolutionary controller setup is not right for every game and could ruin some otherwise good programmed games. Why Sega didn’t figure this out in the game testing phase and offer NiGHTS for the Xbox 360 or PS3 is puzzling.

Actually, it’s not, Sega’s NiGHTS producer, Takashi Iizuka responded in a CBS News interview with the following:

Initially, when I thought about the game concept of “NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams,” I really didn’t consider what platform I wanted the game to run on. It wasn’t until I started the actual game design that I discovered that the Wii was the most appropriate platform because it had the right features to fit the game I was designing.

Maybe Takashi is right and the reviewers are wrong?

Since I haven’t actually played the game yet, the controls might not be as bad as reviewers are saying. If anybody reading has played NiGHTS Journey of Dreams on the Wii or has a comment on other games that you feel have been ruined by the Wii control scheme, let’s discuss in the comments section.

I like the Wii controls for games like Wii Sports bowling, tennis, boxing and golf. They work pretty good for Zelda Twilight Princess too and other some other titles. I didn’t care as much for the controller setup for Brunswick Bowling on the Wii. I wonder if the Gamecube controller would work for NiGHTS Journey? The Gamecube controller can be used to play Gamecube games on the Wii. Anybody reading try this with NiGHTS Journey?

For the better part of 21 years I’ve been in either ownership or management. Something big I’ve learned along the way s when you have a problem or issue, it’s better to address the issue by asking questions versus making statements.

For example, let’s say you have a problem with dishes being broken on an evening shift and you’ve narrowed the list of possibilities down to one or two people that always work the evening shift in the dishroom.

Fear one on one
You could call the employees in the office one at a time and rant about how you don’t want any more dishes broken and how most of them are happening on their shift. For a first meeting on the subject this is ill-advised and seldom works. As the boss you become the bad guy and on the outside chance you are fingering the wrong person, you could demotivate a good worker.

Group shame
Holding a dishwasher meeting and telling every dishwasher that there are too many dishes being broken on the evening shift won’t matter to employees who work in the morning or afternoon. This strategy is too random. You’re hoping that the person(s) breaking too many dishes will hear the message, while being negative to the rest of the group. Don’t do this.

Group participation
If you hold a general meeting and want to bring up the subject of broken dishes then show the dishwashers numbers. Here is how many dishes we bought last quarter in the business, any guesses how much this cost? Then offer a prize of some sort for the answer closest. Make this is a regular theme at these meetings so that the dishwashers begin to understand the cost of each dish. I’ve had some success gluing each dish to a board in the dishroom above where the dishes come out and writing in green marker the cost of each dish.

Follow the leader
In every group of employees I’ve ever managed there is at least one leader, even if not designated with an official title. And sometimes the leader with the title isn’t the real leader. You could approach the leader of the evening dish crew and ask for their help: “we are noticing an increase in the amount of dishes being broken and would like your help in finding ways we can reduce the number of dishes broken. We’d like to pass along some of this savings to you. Would you be interested in this arrangement?”

What if the leader is the one breaking the dishes? S/he will be less likely to want to break into their bonus and the dish breakage in the evening will be less likely to happen. If the amount of dishes broken increases, you can return to the leader and have a different conversation that focuses on how the employee thinks the dish breakage should impact the dishroom: “since getting your help in this issue, even more dishes appear to be broken, what do you recommend we do to put this back on a positive track?”

The rat out
The situation you want to work toward is having the employees, peers, managing each other. When a dish breaks, you want the other dishwashers to put pressure on their co-workers, not you. But what if the leader(s) come back to you and finger specific dishwashers which are breaking dishes? Time to have a meeting with the leader and the employee and encourage the leader to ask questions. Let’s say the employee’s name is John: “Hi John, thanks for meeting with us. We’re having a problem with an unusual amount of dishes being broken in the dishroom. Do you have any ideas how we could improve the situation?”

As the manager, you’re there for support of the dishroom leader, encouraging, mentoring for how to deal positively with the problem. I’ve seen this situation turn negative where the leader fingers the one breaking the dishes and that allows you as the manager to step in and correct the leader, that it’s better to ask questions instead of use accusing statements (periods). It’s important that in advance you talk to the leader privately that you want the issue to be brought up using questions and not statements so if you do have to jump in, the leader isn’t demoralized.

Sometimes the person responsible will admit to you that they have some sort of problem breaking dishes. That’s when you’ve struck gold and can begin to work with them on improving the situation. You want the employee to admit they’ve made a mistake and seek guidance for how they can fix the problem. You can’t mold stone, but can work with putty.

Varying management styles based on individuals
Some employees won’t like or respond to the question approach. They’d rather have you call them into the office and lay the facts on the line. You can still do this in a way that asks questions: “You appear to be one of the people breaking more dishes than others, can you shed any light on how we can either change this perception or reality?”

People are different and to manage everybody with one style is flawed. Some people you can’t raise your voice at ever, other people won’t think you’re serious unless you raise your voice. One rule of thumb in effective management that doesn’t change is we all appreciate questions more than statements. So the next time you have to work through a problem with one or more employees remember to try and frame the initial process as a series of questions rather than statements.

Punitive actions, maybe
Eventually, and there should be a timeline in mind, you might have to move to a progressive punitive phase (write-up, termination), but first start with a discussion and try to fix things by Q&A and getting participation in the solution. Human beings respond better to being part of fixing things than being the subject of an inquisition or interrogation.

Applying this to your business
This doesn’t only work with dishwashers in a restaurant, it’s applicable to managing people in other industries. Let’s say you are the leader in a group of bloggers. I’m in one of them now. See if you can apply the leader among peers suggestions above to your group.

The tech space is boring me a bit lately, including CES which didn’t come out with anything that exciting from what I’ve seen so far, so I’m going to share some other tips. If you have some good tips to share about working with and managing other people, please leave them in the comments below and let’s discuss.