Tonight Shoresh celebrated their 25th anniversary. While that in itself, combined with the incredible results they've seen is amazing that is not what has my head spinning here at 2 AM. In honor of the event they had Marc Salem perform. If you haven't heard of him or seen his act it is worth the time to head out to NY to catch him on Broadway. He bills himself as a "mentalist" - one who studies non-verbal communication and small subtle signs in human interaction to pick up on things. Honestly, even while accepting that nuances in voices and small facial expressions can tell a lot about a person, there were still things he did tonight that I am just totally shocked by. A couple of examples:
1. Had someone pull out a $20 bill and without asking for any hints had someone else put his finger on each digit of the serial number and Marc succesfully named each number.
2. While blindfolded identified 6 different randomly selected objects from the audience members and gave some facts about each one (where purchased, if it was a gift, colors, etc...)
3. Again while blindfolded had someone draw a random picture of whatever they wanted in whatever color marker they wanted, and then picked the same color and drew the same exact picture!
There were a bunch more and all were equally freaky. I really have absolutely no idea how he manages it. I know the people were not plants in the audience. Also, I saw him do this act about 10 years ago and his results were equally amazing (although his stage presence has definitely improved dramatically). If anyone has any insights I would love to hear them!
I've had a couple of questions lately as to what I do so I figured I would just put it out here and who knows - maybe someone will see it and send some business my way!
I am currently employed by a great company called RLS that is based in Houston, TX. I am the Senior Litigation Technology Consultant for them. My job has 3 major aspects to it:
1. Sales Training - working with the sales team to develop their skills and help them understand what their clients goals are.
2. Internal technology - Determine the appropriate technology solutions that will enable us to provide the best service for our clients.
3. Client consultations - this includes project management, technology seminars, software training, and litigation workflow development.
The legal industry has always been on the slower end of adopting new technology, but in the past few years they have been pushed harder into dealing with what is out there. Issues such as Electronic Evidence, Forensics, Document Management Software, and Case Management are challenging attorneys from the smallest to the largest firms. My technology backgound added to the understanding of the legal process has helped me in my consultations with everyone from a paralegal up to managing partners.
If you happen to know anyone who would be interested in talking about various solutions please send them my way!
In Part 2 of my Ashlee Simpson on SNL bashing we discuss the basic rules of PR and Disaster Recovery:
1. Assess the damage: Well it looks like the damage is pretty bad (anything that manages to get me over 1200 hits in a day has got to be considered pretty bad!)
2. Deny or Admit: Denial seems pretty impossible here - it was national live TV and there is little doubt over what really happened. So why not just live up to the mistake and lay low for a while?
3. Don't make up unbelievable stories: "Acid Reflux"??? "Never used a recording before"??? The American people are not stupid - we know when we are being duped and we know when someone is trying to pull a fast one on us. This is kind of like John Kerry trying to say that he stands for something - we all know the truth and his record clearly indicates that he doesn't have true beliefs - don't try and pull the wool over our eyes.
Bottom line is that she, her dad, and the engineers at SNL messed up. Accept the facts and don't try to put remarkable spin on it because we aint buying into it.
There is nothing quite like the first time sitting in front of the fireplace for the beginning of the season. If there was only some way to skip over the whole cold outside thing and jump staright to May thereby avoiding the need for the fire in the first place. I guess until Baltimore gets a Miami-like climate (without the hurricanes please) having a fireplace will have to do!
How many people caught the major mess up last night on Saturday Night (Live)? For those who missed it - Ashlee Simpson was the musical guest. When she first sang I told the people I was watching that I had 3 comments:
1. She isn't really singing
2. She can't dance
3. She has a big nose
Based on those 3 factors we decided the only smart move was to switch to the baseball game for a few minutes. Luckily by the time she came on for her second "set" the game was over (GO RED SOX!) and we were able to catch this SNL gem:
She is about to start singing and all of a sudden the words from her first song start coming through over the speakers! She gets all flustered and the band just starts to appear to go with it and play the song that is coming over the speakers. She stands there looking stupid for a moment or two and then finally walks off the stage.
Ok- so she was lipsynching the whole time, not the biggest deal in the world, after all many great artists have been known to do it such as Milli Vanilli, but the fact is that the show IS called Saturday Night LIVE. Still, I can accept that if one doesn't really have the talent to go and sing live and is just being placed on stage by her father than she may need to have some pre-recorded help (I can't see how that nose can allow her to sing anytime, but that's a different question). The real problem comes at the end of the show when she goes ahead and apologizes - not for messing up, not by admitting that she was faking it, but rather by blaming it on the band "they started playing the wrong song and I didn't know what to do so I just did a Hoedown" ???????? I think she owes a major apology to her band members for trying to shift the blame on them. Sometimes one had to step up and accept responsibility for their own actions.
(If anyone finds a link to the video of this please send it to me!)
Anyone have two extra tix to Grease for either Saturday night or Sunday that they may want to give or sell to me? It'll make my wife very happy!
Anyone know where to pick up a nifty lawn sign that I can proudly display in my front yard countering my neighbors attempts to convert me to the dark side?
My Hotmail account was finally upgraded to 250 MB yesterday like they had said they were going to do like two months ago! I wonder if there are any stats on how much storage space Microsoft and Google are using for their email services and the growth patterns of said storage?
Has anyone else been seeing a major increase in the amount of comment spam coming through on Baltiblogs?