Top 10 Quotes from Airplane!

Posted by junger | May 8th, 2008

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10
Hanging Lady: Nervous?
Ted Striker: Yes.
Hanging Lady: First time?
Ted Striker: No, I've been nervous lots of times.

9
Elaine Dickinson: There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?

8
Ted Striker: I flew single engine fighters in the Air Force, but this plane has four engines. It's an entirely different kind of flying altogether.
Rumack, Randy: [together] It's an entirely different kind of flying.

7
Rumack: What was it we had for dinner tonight?
Elaine Dickinson: Well, we had a choice of steak or fish.
Rumack: Yes, yes, I remember, I had lasagna.

6
Elaine Dickinson: Would you like something to read?
Hanging Lady: Do you have anything light?
Elaine Dickinson: How about this leaflet, "Famous Jewish Sports Legends?"

5
Captain Oveur: You ever been in a cockpit before?
Joey: No sir, I've never been up in a plane before.
Captain Oveur: You ever seen a grown man naked?

4
Joey: Wait a minute. I know you. You're Kareem Abdul-Jabar. You play basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Roger Murdock: I'm sorry son, but you must have me confused with someone else. My name is Roger Murdock. I'm the co-pilot.
Joey: You are Kareem. I've seen you play. My dad's got season tickets.
Roger Murdock: I think you should go back to your seat now Joey. Right Clarence?
Captain Oveur: Nahhhhhh, he's not bothering anyone, let him stay here.
Roger Murdock: But just remember, my name is ROGER MURDOCK. I'm an airline pilot.
Joey: I think you're the greatest, but my dad says you don't work hard enough on defense. And he says that lots of times, you don't even run down court. And that you don't really try… except during the playoffs.
Roger Murdock: The hell I don't. LISTEN KID. I've been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA. I'm out there busting my buns every night. Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes.

3
Steve McCroskey: Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking.
Steve McCroskey: Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.
Steve McCroskey: Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
Steve McCroskey: Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines

2
Rumack: You'd better tell the Captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.
Elaine Dickinson: A hospital? What is it?
Rumack: It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now.

1
Ted Striker: Surely you can't be serious.
Rumack: I am serious… and don't call me Shirley.

BONUS
Man in Taxi: Well, I'll give him another twenty minutes; but that's it!

(via IMDB)

Do You Create, Compete, Control or Collaborate?

Posted by junger | April 15th, 2008

We ran a fascinating piece in CE Pro a couple of weeks ago, "The 4 Personalities That Lead to Innovation," that I've been meaning to highlight here.

It covers Jeff DeGraff's Competing Values, which looks at the different types of people and personalities required to make change and innovate in a work environment.

Considering that we're all entrepreneurs, understanding the different types of people one will deal with during a lifetime is crucial.

In short, here are the four personality types and what defines them:

Compete Types are intensely competitive. They are totally focused on performance and goals.

Collaborate Types are the "people" leaders who believe in something greater than the business itself and run their companies to reflect shared values.

Control Types represent incremental innovation by taking something that already exists and modifying it to make it better.

Create Types are all about creativity, innovation and growth. This is the profile associated with radical breaks from the past and breakthrough ideas.

Normally, I hate when people are put into a box. I never like to consider myself as an in-the-box person, but then again, that's exactly what my Predictive Index test said about me.

Jason will most strongly express the following behaviors:

- Flexible approach to 'the book;' often bends the rules and does things his own way. An innovative, out-of-the-box thinker who is undaunted by failure.

(I'm going to post my predictive index results in a future blog — look for it later this week.)

In any case, the article highly suggests that, when forming a team or a workgroup, you need one of each personality. And that's not easy to do, especially because we kind of like being around people similar to us.

So what are you? Do you create, compete, control or collaborate?

In New York For Usability Week 2008

Posted by junger | April 10th, 2008

cab.jpgI'm gonna make it there. Well, actually I'm already here. In New York, that is.

I'm spending Thursday at the Writing for the Web seminar of Usability Week 2008.

Put on by the Nielsen Norman Group — yes, as in Jakob Nielsen, the guy who provides a ton of super-informative content in his Alertbox postings — Usability Week has four stops throughout the world. Well, it's silly for me to talk about it — find out more about it here.

While I can't credit all of my Web knowledge to the stuff Nielsen teaches, I've always found a way to improve my delivery with his research.

I'm hoping to get a little more "formal" education on content presentation and publishing, considering pretty much everything I know I've garnered through experience doing it … not formally learning about it.

Even though I only graduated from college 3+ years ago, it's not like there was a Web journalism path. The only Web publishing class I ever took consisted of people learning Microsoft FrontPage.

Yeah, exactly. The name of that program just shows how little Microsoft (and many still today) understand about how online publishing.

PS. To my friends in New York who I may not have told I was coming in to the city, I apologize — but I'm only here for the day and driving back home when I'm done tonight.

The Orioles: Party Like It's 1997

Posted by junger | April 9th, 2008

Camden YardsI didn't blog about our trip to Orioles Opening Day this year because, well, I kind of assumed it just didn't matter.

It's the first game of the year, expectations are low, you lose to Tampa Bay 6-2 … it doesn't seem like there's anywhere to go — you're already at the bottom.

One week later, and you've rattled off a bunch of consecutive wins and sit at the top of the American League East … but is it for real?

In all honesty, I kind of stopped following the O's when we moved to Boston. After 1997, their fall to mediocrity was pretty quick. And it didn't help that the Red Sox won 2 World Series during my 7 years in Beantown after that whole 86-year mess.

I would love to recapture that excitement from the winning days, but I'm not sure if I have the time to invest in it.

Maybe it helps that I'm playing fantasy baseball this year — too bad I'm currently bringing up the rear.

I'm not much of a half-asser, so either I'm living and breathing Orioles baseball, or I'm only casually caring.

I want it to be the first, but I don't know if it will be.

(PS - MASN, get your act together and broadcast all of the games in HD. It's really second-tier of you to do otherwise.)

iPhone Earbuds Come in Strawberry, Apple Flavors

Posted by junger | April 9th, 2008

fruitabu1.jpgSo I received a package from a public relations company on Tuesday with the expectation of getting a pair of AirDrives for iPhone earbuds to review online.

With a $99 price tag, it's $70 more than the standard Apple offering. (You can't use a normal headphone/microphone combo because of the iPhone's recessed jack– unless you go the Patrick Norton route).

Much to my surprise, it wasn't the AirDrives inside the FedEx box … it was two boxes of FruitaBu organic smooshed fruit twirls.

Yup, somehow I ended up getting strawberry and apple fruit snacks instead of iPhone earbuds. Oops.

So what's a FruitaBu? Here's what the included press release says:

FruitaBu was designed to evoke wonder and excitement in children while enabling them to enjoy organic fruit anytime and anywhere.

Yeah … okay.

So in order to provide you with expert coverage, we're getting experts to weigh in on the FruitaBus. Debbie is taking them into her preschool, where 15 3-year-olds will have the chance to taste the snacks and share their thoughts.

FruitaBu: Join the Fruitolution!