This video is making its way around the net and I found it quite funny.

Merry Christmas from all of us at Select Metrix and The Hire Sense.

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This Forbes story is probably more therapeutic than anything else – the gist of it is that celebrities make colossal business mistakes.  One thing I have always wondered about, where is the anger towards celebrity pay?  I hear of the anger regarding CEO compensation, but never so much as a whisper of discontent regarding celebrity compensation.

At any rate, I had completely forgotten about this stunning blunder:

The award for biggest entrepreneurial swing-and-miss might go to actress Kim Basinger. Smoldering in films such as 9 1/2 Weeks, Batman, L.A. Confidential and I Dreamed Of Africa, Basinger bombed on a grand scale in 1990 when she sunk $20 million into buying the entire town of Braselton, Ga.

Basinger’s vision: to turn the small town of 500 residents, 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, into a tourist attraction, with a movie studio and a film festival. In one fell swoop, the blonde bombshell became landlady of Braselton’s bank, post office, supermarket, a number of retail stores, historic structures, more than two dozen homes and an industrial park–nearly 1,800 acres in all.

Three years later Basinger filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after losing an $8.1 million lawsuit to Main Line Pictures for backing out of a verbal agreement to star in the film dud Boxing Helena. As for Braselton, she ended up selling it–for a mere $1 million.

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My apologies to Bob Dylan, but the chapter 11 bankruptcy of one of our local papers, the StarTribune, has been a slow train coming.  Clearly this is one of the worst dailies in the entire US.  Mismanaged, cash-strapped and unbelievably biased, this newspaper has been on the edge of inevitability for 2 years.  Yesterday they finally filed.

I am certain they will cut costs and restructure their debt before coming out of bankruptcy, but in the end I don’t think it will matter.  The game has changed; day-old news printed on paper is a thing of the past.  The world is steadily moving towards instant, on-demand.

Clearly reporting will continue…it needs to, but I think the only sustainable media for newspapers is online.  Develop the website, draw in the visitors and charge advertisers for those pages.

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It is already looking like Thanksgiving here at Select Metrix so it seems like an appropriate time to say thank you to all of our customers, our associates, our friends and our readers.  Many of you span more than one of those categories.  Thank you for your support through this year of change.

May all of you have a happy, safe and blessed Thanksgiving!

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If you are technical geek of sorts you already know about T-Mobile’s G1 and the Blackberry Thunder as a few of the first phones to try to compete with the iPhone 3G.  According to a post on US News & World Report, Blackberry is introducing a new competitor, called the Storm that will offer 2 virtual keyboards.  The Storm will be available exclusively to Verizon customers and features a unique clickable screen.  They do not have an actual release date yet, just stating that it will be available sometime later this fall.

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This topic is one I can really get behind since this is one of the toughest callings you can have in life, especially if you are a single mom.  Kudos to General Mills for being a local company (local to us) that is a perennial resident on this list.

The story is from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal:

General Mills Inc. is among the nation’s top employers for working mothers, according to a 2008 list compiled by Working Mother magazine.

It is the 13th consecutive year that Golden Valley-based General Mills (NYSE: GIS) has made the magazine’s top ranking.

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The recent murder at the Olympics hit home for me this past weekend.  The family is from my hometown of Lakeville, MN.  I was in Lakeville this weekend for my 20th anniversary high school class reunion.  Needless to say, this tragedy was the topic of the weekend.

I think most people are aware of the story, but you can get the details here.

Suffice to say, I am still stunned by the senselessness of it all.

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The Sales Machine blog on BNet features one of those posts I wish I had authored.  The title – Why Office Coffee Tastes So Bad.  A great topic for a Monday morning.  This post contains some of the most detailed information I have read about bad coffee.  Basically, it all comes down to tannins.

Contrary to popular belief, coffee is not bitter. It is supposed to be a naturally sweet beverage. However, the way it is usually prepared tends to concentrate the tanins (sic) in the coffee, which makes it unnaturally bitter. Remove these tannins and you get a good cup of coffee. Tannins come from five sources:

• Exposure to air. The more the beans are exposed to air and light, the more they begin to break down, turning the natural sweetness into tannins. If coffee is already ground, that process is accelerated.
• Brewing residue. Most brewing methods cause tannins to be deposited on the brewing mechanism where they’re transferred into the coffee. Plastic and metal is porous, so even if you scrub it, there’s always residue.
• The brewing process. If the water is not hot enough, the coffee flavor is lessened while the tannins are transferred into the water. Most coffee makers don’t heat up the water sufficiently to make a good cup.
• The filtering process. If the filter is the wrong porousness and not designed to absorb tannins, it will pass them through into the coffee. Many filters just filter out particulate matter and don’t absorb the tannins.
• Time after brewing. If there are tannins in the coffee, they’ll spread throughout the coffee, making it increasingly bitter over time. That’s why reheated coffee — or coffee that’s been sitting in the pot for an hour or more — usually tastes so wretched.

True story – first few months Lee and I worked together at a company with one of those old Bunn coffee makers.  The company supplied some of the worst coffee you have ever tasted.  Folgers tasted better.  Anyway, Lee would get to the office early some mornings to get some work done.  If the coffee pot contained coffee – FROM THE PREVIOUS DAY – he would put it in his cup, nuke it and then drink it.  All without brewing a fresh pot of coffee.

I’m still disgusted 6 years later.

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232 years!

Have a happy and safe holiday weekend from all of us at Select Metrix.

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Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.

-Oscar Wilde

We have made it through another year of posting and pontificating.  Today, The Hire Sense turns two.  Thanks to all of you for allowing us the chance to share our thoughts, opinions, anecdotes and suggestions in this format.

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