快乐的屎--记蓝精灵 The Smurfs

声明：这是一个带有工作审查性质的博客，杂文以中文记；并且‘屎’这类的词我的英语老师没有教过我，很多情况下表意不清。
刚从影院看完蓝精灵（The Smurfs）回来坐定，桌上有半瓶昨晚喝剩的罗姆，所以顺便码点字也不费脑。
今晚原先不打算出门的，因为说实话到这儿近一个月，早九晚7的上班轧脑汁，除周末在外旅游，每周要看一次电影，去一次酒吧，剩下的时间天天都有大大小小的派对，难得有机会坐下来看看肥皂剧挺好（Stanley师兄推荐的Coupling,棒极了！），本来态度坚决地拒绝了Max，但后来43区的埃及法国乌克兰女生过来了，穿的跟去走红毯似的.....我可耻的屈服了。一行人11人出发，由上图可以看出，我们确实占据了一般的上座率。

期初打算看的是Delhi Belly，但是没有英文字幕，于是转而看蓝精灵（The Smurfs）.
我觉得这是个相当明智的选择，相对于前两部--变形金刚3同哈利波特X，至少观看全程中我没有睡着...当然这样比较没有意义，因为前两部实在是太烂了，变3没有故事主线，打斗毫无诚意，一如既往的把黄种人角色设定为变态神经质，浑浑噩噩的填塞了2个钟的时间，虽然女主的臀部真的很美，但是我还是比较喜欢梅根福克斯。而哈X，我几乎昏睡了1个小时，而且这个‘一晃10年过去了的’结尾...真的，不要这样好么？


看完蓝精灵之后，大家的评语基本是‘屎’，‘有趣’.这两者并不冲突。作为一部暑期喜剧动画片，里面的包袱抖得还是差强人意的（我的标准就是会不会睡着）。说它‘屎’，也不无道理，故事情节太单薄，整个叙事量同一集动画片无异，当然最失望的还是我们亲爱的‘巴尼.斯蒂僧’的表现了，凭借‘老爸老妈恋爱史’的历练，他不但吸引了大量忠实影迷，还在第三季开始拍摄之际成功出柜...整部戏巴尼同志实在是没什么出彩的机会，除了展示了一下衬衫+无袖马甲+米黄色外套的经典‘suit up’造型外，可谓乏善可陈，唯一可以提供点亮点的一场戏--2分钟同蓝精灵玩吉他英雄飙歌，完全没有过去两届主持托尼奖时候的即兴RAP的惊艳感。

有一个有趣的现象也揭示了‘屎’与‘有趣’的组合，我们看一下两大影评网站的评分：

IMDB的评分比较符合MAX的想法：‘什么破电影，屎屎屎’，4.2分不是友好的数字，要知道，建党伟业都高达2.1分呢；而时光网的评分就很乡土，‘就图个乐嘛，给个吉利的数字’。


其实大家今晚普遍还是比较开心的，看看karina同志随后在脸书上的感叹：

蓝精灵动画片确实是风靡全球的很火。大家在一起回忆起过往看动画片的日子，分明有几分陶醉。写到这儿我不想写了，明天要早起锻炼。明晚收拾行李，周末去泰姬陵 ：）。分享一张我很喜欢的海报：

这张《蓝精灵》新款海报是在致敬《老友记》的一张经典“集体亮相”

二者的源头都出自这张拍摄于1932年的著名照片《Lunch Atop a Skyscraper》 

The Secret to Making Connections that Work ---staying in touch after getting in touch

You see, I have been in Chandigarh and worked for Netgains for almost one month, the number of friends I’ve met here is approximately equal to that of my 3-year-university life. One of the numerous of similar situations here: last night, there was a farewell party for one of my best friend- Chris,an awesome mother-fucker guy from Ningbo Nottingham University, there are around 30 people sitting in a gorgeous Chinese restaurant from different countries with all strange-pronounced names, after dinner, we chatted with each other and took pictures together, exchange the facebook accounts, we became friends.

But, do I really know these people a lot? Of course not, I know more about the sanitation worker who collects the rubbish accumulated in my house garden than these people. Nevertheless, these are really nice people that I do want to know more and establish further friendships. How? Social Networks, of course!

Meeting and friending people has become fairly easy with social networks, live events, and a gazillion ways to locate, like, and follow peers.

Before we start the discussion focused on this topic, think this over ’what do you value?’ When you start making more decisions based upon what's really important and figure out a way to measure that, the return is easier to spot.

Being connected helps us put what we learn to good use. This is true for businesses as it is for individuals. Connections are also situational, just like influence can be. There is tons of great information out there for becoming technically savvy.

The challenge is that there are no best practices in being human. And ‘making the connection’ is not the hardest part. ‘Keeping it ‘is. So how do you go about finding ways for it to be mutually beneficial and memorable? Here is some tips I wanna share with you from Valeria Maltoni :

• make some notes in the back of the card about where you met that person and what you talked about, then enter them in your electronic database with their contact information
• it's a good idea to follow up with people right after an event, while the energy from the experience is still high, and it's likely they'd remember it if not you
• if you have resources like articles, posts, links, or connections to people, you can share and make in your follow up, that gets you started on a good and memorable footing
• after the initial contact, that's when things tend to drop off, especially as time goes by
• so it's a good idea to develop a system to keep track of when you contact people similar to the one you may have learned about when you were looking for your first job or the next gig
• that was you can revisit it periodically to touch base with people you may not have heard from or talked to in a while
• make it a habit to share with that person special content, leads, helpful things as you come across them
• this means you will need to navigate the fine line between inundating people with stuff and being useful
• being useful could even be sending short messages on Twitter when appropriate -- it's scalable on social networks, and you can make it meaningful by personalizing the comment

Connections are a gift. When you put a little bit of effort in maintaining them, you'll be surprised at the developments and possibilities they bring into your work, and life. Often it's the connections of the people you meet that end up making a difference.

So, this can be the initial move of strengthen your social network, but then, comes the bigger puzzle: ’How to be a highly connective person?’ Here is some tips given by Anil Dash:

 (1.) Believe you can make a difference

In case you were wondering if this is only touchy-feely, look at how Dana White built a UFC empire out of his desire to connect with fans.

(2.) Think knowledge as a service

It's an overused expression, it really does apply. We live in a remix culture, where individuals, industries, and media will thrive by allowing the exchange of ideas. That's where new connections are made.

(3.) Take risks

They can be small ones. This was one of my points when I talked about passion as well. Creating new habits involves exploring new territory.

(4.) Have a point with your view

In other words, put substance behind the approach. Do your homework, be prepared to defend and discuss a topic intelligently and willingly.

(5.) Keep your promises

This is valid at individual and organizational level. Coming through, following up helps you maintain integrity of purpose and build credibility..

Whether you use social networks, email, even snail, staying in touch after getting in touch is the secret to making connections that work.

OK, that’s all I can figure out now, if you have any creative thought or ideas wanted to be shared and discussed, leave a comment below. ;0

References:

http://mashable.com/2010/06/08/dana-white-ufc-social-media/

http://www.conversationagent.com/2009/11/my-take-on-passion.html

http://www.conversationagent.com/2011/07/12-habits-of-highly-connective-people.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ConversationAgent+%28Conversation+Agent%29

Why Your Girlfriend Won’t Use Google+ (⊙o⊙)

It seems that Facebook vs. Google Plus is becoming an endless topic. I know, I've written too many  'chirp, chirps' about this in my blog, but, you will never be tired quarrelling with some friends about a battle between Manu Awesome & Liverpool Sucks. ╮(╯_╰)╭ 

OK, I’ve been putting many hours into Google+. In just the few days, wrote many dozens of posts there, and have thoroughly used the product.  I’ve also tried to get some normal users into the product,after sharing this experiences with other friends in my training house,  who have done the same this as silly as a toad, I’ve come to some conclusions. Here’s the biggie:

your girlfriend won’t use Google+! \(^o^)/

How can I state that so clearly? Easy. Most “average users” are locked into Facebook and aren’t willing to consider a new social tool until they hear about it from their friends. Since most of the people who are on Google+ so far are geeks, insiders, social media stars, journalists,since Google admitted 'they are only accepting people who have strong social graphs so that they can both make sure everyone has a good first experience as well as test out some of the technology before opening it up to a wider audience'. the chances normal people won’t hear about Google+ from normal users for quite a while. =_=

By then I’m sure Facebook will react Google+’s best features, Facebook already has called 'a press conference for next week where they are going to announce something “awesome”'. This will mean that normal users, who aren’t really going to get involved at this point in Google+’s life, won’t feel the need to switch.

So, what is Google+ for then?

It’s for us!

let’s just be honest here. There are pieces of Google+ that are mighty geeky.

Let’s start with how to bold and italicize text. Do you have a pretty editing window like, say, exists on Quora? No way.

To bold text you surround that text with asterisks. *Like this* GEEKY ALERT! Italicize? Put underscores around the text. Strikeout? 

And that’s just the little thing. Let’s talk about the big thing. Circles. Now, heavy and passionate users of social media, like myself, really love things like lists and groups. Why? Because we want to spend hundreds of hours making sure our social graphs are really organized.

Normal people do NOT do this. They just want to friend their 20 real-life friends and 30 family folks and be done with it. Average/normal users want the system just to bring them fun stuff without doing any work.

See, if you put the average Silicon Valley geek in front of a TV and tell him to sit on the couch and watch TV for four hours they won’t know what to do. They will start building databases of their favorite shows, start figuring out how to optimize their DVRs so they can fast-forward through commercials faster, and stuff like that.

Normal/average users? They just want to watch TV and drink beer.

So, you getting where I’m going with this? Google+ is for the passionate users of tech. If you just want to sit back and have the system do all the work, then Facebook is gonna be where you stay, especially since your friends are gonna lock you in for quite some time. But if you want to really be able to choose who you listen to, then Google+ is much better.

Oh, and that’s not even considering the new “Hangout” videochat feature. Damn that thing is cool. You can have 10 people call into a room and it lets you all talk to each other. I haven’t used Skype since that shipped.

Anyway, it’s clear Google has turned a corner. They have now proven to everyone that they can do social and get on the playing field.

But they haven’t yet proven that they can convince your grilfriend to use it and that’s just fine with me.

5 conversions you can apply for your blog

I didn’t know Bnonn, author of Attention Thievery, but I’ve trusted James’s unassuming nature and practical advice on trying to attract more visitors and increase freelance income for several days. 


As I listened to Bnonn’s friendly, savvy delivery of each point.I kept switching screens to my own website and noting the things I could do myself right that moment–or any moment. Some things I started doing immediately, and in all there were five changes I think you can also make immediately. So I changed up the title a bit and here they are.

Images. “If your images are not supporting your copy, then they’re distracting your reader from your copy,” says Bnonn. Make people want to find out what’s going on when they see the image. And the only way to do that is to read what you wrote. So make the connection clear. Also, try to place them to the right side of the screen so they don’t push the margin uncomfortably over (insert high-speed video of me frenetically shifting photos on blog posts).

Navigation. Please don’t make people guess what’s behind the door marked “Campfire” and what’s behind the door marked “Matchbook” on your indie film site. They won’t. They will run screaming (I have). Use conventional nomenclature like “Home,” “About,” “Products,” etc. for the main pages. You can get cute on the “extra” pages where people go to really get to know you.

Headlines. Most people have far more confidence in the effectiveness of their content than that of their headlines. Introduce elements of specificity, helpfulness, immediacy, newsworthiness, or entertainment. Try tweaking a headline on a page or blog post, adding one of these attention-getting elements, and share it. See what happens.

Call to action. I ranted about the lack of calls to action on websites last week, and Laura Click wrote the answer to the question I begged this week. A few tips Bnonn added: remember that people don’t come to your site wanting to buy, so gradualize your call to action. Try asking them to learn more about your offer, with specific benefits. Incidentally, large orange “Click Here” buttons test best. I thought, I’m good, mine are red, right next to orange–“red tests badly.” Ohhhhh… They’re silver now.

Footer. You know how you scroll down to the bottom of a site when you can’t seem to find the customer service page or address at the top? I thought it was just me, but apparently not. Put your entire navigation and contact information in your footer. It gives people confidence in your existence as a “real” establishment. Formatting all the links in this theme just didn’t go well for me so I took out everything but my contact info. I’ll be trying it again soon.

Bonus: On the typography front, Bnonn confirms my triumphant post that sans-serif is not “more readable” than serif font, contrary to popular belief. So go nuts. But not with Courier, he says, because it looks uneven since the letters are all the same width.