Airlines are rushing to implement their newest “revenue enhancement,” a $45.00 Volcano Flight Interruption Fee.

A spokesman claimed, “We see this as a benefit for our travelers. This way only the passengers who wish to continue their trip will have to pay for it. Some travelers may decide to seek alternate transportation to their destination and they will not be charged this fee. Of course, they will incur a $50.00 Seeking Alternate Transportation Fee, and the $20.00 vacant seat fee.”

When asked what an airline ticket actually purchased, the spokes person replied, “People are under the mistaken impression they are buying transportation, but there is no way we can actually get them anywhere for what we charge, so essentially the price of a ticket buys passengers the right to be charged for all the things it takes to actually run an airline.”

“And how is this working out for you?” we asked.

“I am proud to report, that by implementing these fees and with the concessions we have received from the pilots, mechanics, and flight attendants unions, we were able to keep our executive compensation right where it needs to be.”

More later.

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Courtesy of Apollo Ideas

My friend and Home office expert Lisa Kanarek asks,

“Where Do You Work Naked?”

Is your home office located in a tree house, playhouse or refurbished warehouse? Do you work in a funky, functional or fabulous spare bedroom, basement or attic home office? If so, you and your home office could win the “Where Do You Work Naked?” Contest sponsored by workingnaked.net between March 15-April 15, 2010.

Whether you work from home full-time, part-time or to occupy time, the place where you work naked—without the support of the corporate workplace—could earn you these prizes:

Courtesy of Apollo Ideas

Elfa products from The Container Store ($250 value)

Fellowes PS-79Ci Cross-Cut 100% Jam Proof Shredder

Epson WorkForce 610

Library edition binders from Russell + Hazel

Home Office Solutions: Creating a Space that Works for You book by Lisa Kanarek

One-year subscription to Flexjobs

Official “I’m working naked…are you?” t-shirt

To enter:

Expose yourself: E-mail a photo of your home office to contest@workingnaked.net. We’re looking for photos of offices, not people.

Share the naked truth: In 50-words-or-less, describe your home office.  We want to know why your home office is the perfect place for working naked.

The winner will be announced on April 30, 2010. For more details visit  www.workingnaked.net.

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The safest target for humor is always yourself, and the best material reflects your personality.

So it’s time to start digging.

I have not had much success just sitting down and looking in my past for funny stuff. I have however, nearly always been able to come up with pertinent examples of past behavior when faced with a new humorous situation.

You can’t use what you don’t remember, so today start remembering.

Write it down.

It it’s funny, write it down.

If it strikes you as odd, write it down.

If it doesn’t make sense, write it down.

All of these notes become a foundation for future material. The idea that a major comic just riffs on their childhood is crazy. A good routine, with an absolutely natural delivery, that sounds like it’s the first time it came to mind, may take months to put together.

So start a journal, or notes on your iPhone, Blackberry, or computer. As you note present day events and thoughts, related thoughts will start to appear. Maybe not right away, maybe not for every item, and not all the time, but the thoughts will come.

So write them down.

We’ll cover what to do with all this stuff in a later post.

Meanwhile, comments are open, and if you want a unique speaker or MC for your next event… contact me! There are still good dates open for 2010. (2011 is still pretty much wide-open too. And 2012 may mark the end of the world, but I can still take your deposit.)

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Image via CrunchBase

All Binged! out.

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a web page these days without…

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popping…

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open.

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and obnoxious, qualify as good advertising?

BING! Advertise with Bing!

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Cover of 'American Gigolo'

If you immediately thought of the Giogio Moroder song popularized by Blondie on the soundtrack to American Gigolo… that was 29 years ago! You need to get out more.

I want to talk about voicemail.

And how bad messages drive me crazy.

The scenario goes like this:

Phone rings. I can’t answer in time, but I see on the Caller ID who called. I wonder… What did they want? and about that time the voicemail message comes through, “Ah ha!” I think, I can now find out what they want. So I push the playback button and hear that I have one new message, that if I want to playback the messages I need to push the same buttons I have been pushing for years. I hear that the message  came in at some o’clock on some date and finally I get to the message… “Dan this is (blank) Call me.”

Call you? Call you what? About what? How about a little detail?

Sometimes the caller will even tell you what time it is when they called, although this seems more to cover their butt than for any useful purpose, since their stated time is never even close to the time the message actually came in.

How hard is it to say “it’s about the fifty bucks,” or, “can we meet tomorrow at 9:00 am my office?” or, “I vote NO on the proposal.” or, “I saw your wife with Jimmy at the bar last night,” something, anything, other than “call me.” I even used to ask people to leave a detailed message, so they would say, “Call me, at home, after 5:00.” Not to mention how stupid you feel when you call and get their voicemail and your message has to be, “You said to call, so…” So what? What can we say?

And how long have answering machines and voicemail been around? Is there anyone on the planet that has trouble with this? But still, just about every cell carrier tacks instructions for how to leave a voicemail onto your greeting.

Recently David Pogue in the New York Times estimated: “I’m using, as an example, Verizon’s $60-a-month plan. You get 900 minutes for that, which comes out to 6.67 cents a minute.Verizon has 70 million customers. If each one leaves a message or checks voicemail twice a day, that’s 70 million * 6.67 cents * .5 (half a minute listening to two 15-second instruction recordings) * 365 days = $852,092,500. And that’s just Verizon!”

To be fair, ATT recently eliminated the phrase “To page this person please press 5 now.” If you have ever “paged this person” Let me know in comments.

I have to admit I tried it once.

The automatic paging text went out, with my phone number, (to the phone of the person who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, answer my call to begin with.)

I think the message said “Call me.”

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