4 reasons that it is going to be a great week

In a desperate attempt to revive my blog after almost comical atrophy, I have decided to simply steal other people's ideas and present them as my own. This week I have decided to steal Laura Greave's idea of writing some reasons about why it is going to be a great week.

While I'm not a clairvoyant, I'll predict that it probably will be a good week. Mostly because all the others have been pretty good and one of Newton's laws of motion predicts that the trend will probably continue.

So to get on with the job, here are my 4 reasons that it is going to be a great week:

1) My legs can only feel better

After having lived in San Francisco for nearly a year, my brothers and I have finally found a place to play ice hockey near San Francisco. The competition has a great policy whereby if a team doesn't have enough players you can fill in for that team, as well as playing your scheduled game. 

This meant that last night I played two games, something which my legs were thoroughly unprepared for. Walking up all these hills in San Francisco, I thought my legs would be well adjusted to high pressure situations, but 2 hours of hard skating have made short work of that theory and now all I can do is whinge/brag about how sore my legs are, because I finally played some sport.

2) Classical Music

I've developed a hatred for the music I have in iTunes somewhere close on the scale to where I place people who drive in the overtaking lane when not overtaking. Normally there I would have said the right lane, but since Americans insist on driving on the wrong side of the road, I chose to be agnostic and say overtaking. 

So I gave classical music a go. I've always liked piano music the best, so I started with a bunch of music by Mozart. That little dude could entertain courtiers all over Europe, so I was certain that his cutesy and loveable music would appeal to me too!

So far my favourites are:

• Piano Sonata No.8 in A minor, K.310 (Andante cantabile con espressione)
  

• Piano Sonata No.11 in A, K.331 - "Alla Turca" (Allegretto)
  

• Piano Sonata No.12 in F, K.332 (Allegro) 
  

Something that I have learned about Mozart is that he was a great piano player and composer but his ability to name songs was bordering on awful. Nevertheless, I have developed a great liking for his and other classical music. I've even listened to Sergei "I just bash whatever keys I want but it still sounds good" Rachmaninoff, and I like that too.

I'm almost certain that I am listening to classical music on an unsophisticated level, but I'm ok with that.

3) Cooking

Nicole and I have developed an unforgivable passion for watching My Kitchen Rules. It started off casual: an episode here, episode there. Then we got addicted to the thing, to the point where we wouldn't look at Facebook or news website in case some Australian revealed the winner of a particular round to us too early.

The final was tonight and I was pretty happy with the winners. It was an unusual competition in the sense that pretty much all of the contestants liked each other and seemed genuinely happy for the teams which surpassed them in the race for the title. Also, they were all ostensibly home cooks, but seemed to possess the skills of professional chefs, whose depth and range of skills became more apparent as the competition progressed.

It was almost the opposite of Australian Idol where contestants are completely deluded about their abilities and have unecessary and dangerous levels of self-esteem, compared to a competition where extremely skilful and passionate people are talked down to by people who are seemingly products of circumstance and tv production, e.g. an unknown chef who loves sauce, or a cranky Irish chef to whom no cooking is work more than a 7/10.

Either way, I liked it, and so this week my goal is to cook something so complicated that you can't pronounce it, and so fancy that it needs to be served in tower form and have a praline next to it. However you spell that. 

4) BislrPRO

We now have a new and significant component to Bislr which allows web designers and businesses to produce their own responsive (i.e. mobile compatible) websites and landing pages to use with Bislr. This means that web designers are able to grow their business by offering their clients all of the features of Bislr to them, as well as being able to deliver on client websites much faster, and hence make more profit. In addition to what they charge their client, they also earn a generous commission on the Bislr license fee.

It is our way of allowing people to be as creative as possible in terms of the design of their website, or to maintain an existing brand identity, whilst also having access to the most modern web intelligence tools available. We've already got some people using the system, and feedback so far has been great!

This weekend, my brother Mike and our chief designer Christian will be heading to New York Creative Week to present a workshop on BislrPRO, entitled "A NEW ERA FOR AGENCY WEB DESIGN". There is (a little) more information here: http://creativeweek.com/calendar/-a-new-era-for-agency-web-design-2013-05-08-1100

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So, loyal reader(s), use the Facebook comments to tell me why YOUR week is going to be great! 

Why Coca Cola is better for you than water

From time to time I like to use my blog to keep you informed about the products and services which go into making me me. I can say "me me" in real life a lot better than I can write it. But you know what I mean. Today for my review I have chosen Coca Cola, a well-known soft drink. 

Let me start by saying: this drink is fantastic! As well as tasting good, Coke is a versatile drink. It can be had on its own, with ice for a more refreshing drink,  as an alcoholic mixer, or to clean rare and old coins overnight through corrosion. 

The availability of Coke is astounding. There are few places in modern cultures where it is not available and it is served in a variety of packagings and sizes. If high-quality blue cheese was available in such abundance, I think it would be a lot more popular than it is today.

Coca Cola is sold in over 200 countries and their logo has been written in 80 languages. It's clearly popular. But how does it stack up against other liquids?      

Coca Cola vs Unleaded Petrol, a SWOT analysis

Petrol:

STRENGTHS: 

Has uses other thank drinking (Coke-powered cars are wildly impractical!).

Available in large quantities.

WEAKNESSES:

Absolutely devastating for your body's health. You will almost certainly die if you drink it. 

OPPORTUNITIES:

With the growing emphasis on biofuels, petrol is likely to become a lot more appealing to vegetarians and your cost-conscious drink lover!

THREATS:

Coke-fuelled cars.

Coke:

STRENGTHS:

Taste.

At roughly $1.16/litre it is cheaper than unleaded petrol.

WEAKNESSES:

Not good as a combustable fuel for vehicle propulsion.

OPPORTUNITIES:

Promotion of heath benefits of Coke vs Petrol would be great advertising for Coke.

Electric cars eliminate the need for wide-spread petrol use thus increasing market share.

THREATS:

Bio-fuels.

Coke vs Water

I suppose it is easy to pick on something like petrol and make wild claims like "it will never make it as a popular drink" or "the market is already saturated". But first of all, I bet that Coke is better at saturating things than petrol is. Petrol is oil-based so probably doesn't wet things as much as Coke does.

"Coke. It's wetter than petrol"

But what about water? How does coke compare to that? First of all: water has caused more floods in the last two years in Australia than Coke has, by order of magnitude. The Queensland floods last year and the NSW floods this year were almost entirely brought on by rain (water). Coke has never led to cases of meningococcal or widespread illness in the community the way that water has. And between 2002 to 2012 The Coca Cola Company gave a total of $690 million to charity (Source: http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/citizenship/foundation.html) compared to the $0 that water gave. Some drink.

Some things you didn't know about water:

1) Roughly 70% of an adult's body is made up of water

We already have ENOUGH, drink Coke instead!

2) A healthy person can drink about 48 cups of water per day

GREEDY, wasteful.

3) Drinking too much water too quickly can lead to water intoxication

It's dangerous

4) Water plays a big role in controlling the Eath's temperature

Don't drink water and contribute to global warming!

(Source: http://www.allaboutwater.org/water-facts.html)

Final Thought

I'll leave you with one final thought when you think about Coke as a drink. No one is out there burning coke to power their vehicles. No one flushes Coke down the toilet. Coke is a liquid which is designed to be consumed and enjoyed, specifically for your enjoyment. Not something that floods Queensland or snubs charities.

You need to think about the choices you make in life and my recommendation this time is simple: drink Coke. It's fantastic!