Update: I saw the bus again 3 days later tooling down the freeway!
Another Update: Someone else spotted Obama's bus in Minnesota. It is a monster. See at the end...
I stayed a hotel last night and when I got up in the morning to go to my car I was greeted by Michele Bachmann's bus sleeping in the parking lot. If your are not familiar with her name (Michele, not the bus), she is running for President of the United States. And she is Purdy!
I did not see her at the hotel, but there were some security guys.
How much does a bus like this cost. $500,000 US?
Update: But that cost does not compare to Obama's bus spotted Minnesota in August. His bus has to be $10M+ $1.1M:
(Obama bus: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
They probably have one of these on the dashboard of the bus:
Don't ask why I was there and why I was taking pictures in the men's restroom!
I was in Mount Pleasant, Iowa in the old train station. I had to use the restroom, as if often the case. I sat down, looked up, and saw this wonderful graffiti on the wall!
There is a new sport taking over. Bunny Jumping! Officially called "Rabbit Hopping". This so cute and amazing, why have I not heard about this till now?
The sport started in Sweden in the 1980s. All you need to know about how to start jumping your bunny is located at this website: http://www.kaninhop.dk/uk/. It is obviously very popular in Denmark.
You can order custom made bunny leashes. But you have to pay in danish Kroner. Interesting fact: The plural of krone is kroner. One US dollar = about 5.27kr.. On a website that sells leashes, the most expensive leash is only 75kr, or $15US.
Bunny Leash!
Take a look at the video below. Now I understand why no garden fence is a deterrent against bunnies. Can they jump a 12 foot fence? Cute and amazing!
Note to reader: Don't fall asleep! This is an article about Power Point presentations - but hold on - this is interesting (at least I think so!).
Update: 3 hours later I received a reply to my inquiry. See the end of this post.
Switzerland has a new political party trying to gain momentum. It is called the APPP - the Anti Power Point Party. They intend to become the 4th largest political party in Switzerland. See their website at http://www.anti-powerpoint-party.com/.
The main point of this movement is that whenever a presentation has to be made, people will most likely use Microsoft's PowerPoint software, or something like it. The result is that there are A LOT of really boring presentations being given out there. The presenter relies too much on the software and not the content and presentation technique. The result is that A LOT of people waste A LOT of time attending really boring presentations. If you have ever been to a boring presentation with a lot of PowerPoint slides being presented, you are familiar with the sickening feeling of your eyelids forcing themselves closed and your desperate attempts to keep your eyeballs regressing into your head showing only the white parts. It is terrible!
But PowerPoint presentations are not only boring. They are BIG money wasters. The PowerPoint software is very expensive. And time spent boring people is productivity lost for all those people. The APPP estimates that in Switzerland US$2.5 Billion dollars is wasted every year. Worse yet, they estimate that Europe wastes US$160 Billion a year on bad and useless presentations.
If I lived in Switzerland, I'd think about joining this party. Here is a video on their site where the founder Matthias Poehm explains the APPP's concept:
>
One question remains that I did not see on their website (I may have just not seen it). If you HAVE to make a presentation, what are your alternatives? Mime? I'll send Matthias and email and ask him. I'll post the answer here if I receive a reply.
Update: I just received a reply to my inquiry (3 hours later). This guy is on top of things!
Dear Gello
I just saw that you already discovered the site with “the solution”.
But here is the answer to your question anyway:
The best proven alternative to PPt ist the „Flip-chart“. You’ll get a multiple effect compared to a presentation with powerpoint.
It’s because of two reasons:
First: People convince and not technical aids. This always have been and always will be.
Second: It’s not the result that creates the effect – but it is the CREATION OF THE result. Therein lies the effect and not in the result itself. That’s why PowerPoint as a principle can’t work.
Please watch this two-minutes video to see a demonstration of it: http://www.anti-powerpoint-party.com/the-cause/the-solution/
You can also introduce this video to your blog. (it’s also on youtube)
In this site you will also find a lot of tipps how to use the flipchart professionally.
Regards
Matthias
P.S. Please become a proponent of our movement. You stay anonymous, you have no fees to pay, no obligations. It’s only by having a lot of members that the medias will report widely, and thus people in everywhere start talking about it, and thus things are going to change. So one minute for a big change: http://www.anti-powerpoint-party.com/participate/become-a-member
Warning: If you did not already know, injecting snake venom is is not something you should actually do.
Bill Haast - snake venom expert extraordinaire - died on June 15, 2011 - 100 years old. He was an expert in snakes and snake venom. He was an expert at "milking" the venom from poisonous snakes and supplying the venom to medical facilities around the world so they could make anti-venom. An amazing fellow.
In the course of his career he was bitten by poisonous snakes 173 times! I guess if you are in his field you keep accurate bite counts for posterity. Here is a 1962 interview of him recovering in the hospital after one of his bites. Pay attention to the doctor at the end - he is funny...
Bill was in the habit of injecting himself every day with a cocktail of many different snake poisons to help build up his immunity to snake venom. He claimed that the venom shots were healthy for him. Look at the following video - filmed when he was 88 years old. You have to admit that he looks pretty good for his age. Maybe he was on to something.
Luckily you can not buy snake venom anywhere. At least not easily. If you could, there would be homeopathic medicine aficionados we would all have to worry about.
