Category Archives: Uncategorized

 

Best Experienced With:    The Talking Heads;      Nothing But Flowers

(please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music in a new browser window.   If I ran today’s Tony Hayward Congressional testimony, all members of Congress involved would conga line dance into the hearing to this song.   This song played really, really loudly.  That would be fun.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt-lzUvH_j8

 

 

 

 

The Song of The Beauteous Flower (Goethe)

I know a flower of beauty rare,

Ah, how I hold it dear!
To seek it I would fain repair,

Were I not prison’d here.
My sorrow sore oppresses me,
For when I was at liberty,

I had it close beside me.

Though from this castle’s walls so steep

I cast mine eyes around,
And gaze oft from the lofty keep,

The flower can not be found.
Whoe’er would bring it to my sight,
Whether a vassal he, or knight,

My dearest friend I’d deem him.

The rose.

I blossom fair,–thy tale of woes

I hear from ‘neath thy grate.
Thou doubtless meanest me, the rose.

Poor knight of high estate!
Thou hast in truth a lofty mind;
The queen of flowers is then enshrin’d,

I doubt not, in thy bosom.

Count.

Thy red, in dress of green array’d,

As worth all praise I hold;
And so thou’rt treasured by each maid

Like precious stones or gold.
Thy wreath adorns the fairest face
But still thou’rt not the flower whose grace

I honour here in silence.

The Lily.

The rose is wont with pride to swell,

And ever seeks to rise;
But gentle sweethearts love full well

The lily’s charms to prize,
The heart that fills a bosom true,
That is, like me, unsullied too,

My merit values duly.

Count.

In truth, I hope myself unstain’d,

And free from grievous crime;
Yet I am here a prisoner chain’d,

And pass in grief my time,
To me thou art an image sure
Of many a maiden, mild and pure,

And yet I know a dearer.

The pink.

That must be me, the pink, who scent

The warder’s garden here;
Or wherefore is he so intent

My charms with care to rear?
My petals stand in beauteous ring,
Sweet incense all around I fling,

And boast a thousand colours.

Count.

The pink in truth we should not slight,

It is the gardener’s pride
It now must stand exposed to light,

Now in the shade abide.
Yet what can make the Count’s heart glow
Is no mere pomp of outward show;

It is a silent flower.

The violet.

Here stand I, modestly half hid,

And fain would silence keep;
Yet since to speak I now am bid,

I’ll break my silence deep.
If, worthy Knight, I am that flower,
It grieves me that I have not power

To breathe forth all my sweetness.

Count.

The violet’s charms I prize indeed,

So modest ’tis, and fair,
And smells so sweet; yet more I need

To ease my heavy care.
The truth I’ll whisper in thine ear:
Upon these rocky heights so drear,

I cannot find the loved one.

The truest maiden ‘neath the sky

Roams near the stream below,
And breathes forth many a gentle sigh,

Till I from hence can go.
And when she plucks a flow’ret blue,
And says “Forget-me-not!”–I, too,

Though far away, can feel it.

Ay, distance only swells love’s might,

When fondly love a pair;
Though prison’d in the dungeon’s night,

In life I linger there
And when my heart is breaking nigh,
“Forget-me-not!” is all I cry,

And straightway life returneth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mind of Mully

Standing tall

By the side of the road

I fell in love

With the beautiful highway

 

 

 

 

 

(This one is dedicated to Tony Hayward and the tens of thousands of lives lost in the 1984 gas disaster in Bhopal, India.   Bet India wishes they would have thought of getting $20B from Union Carbide’s United States money back then.   Glass houses and rocks:  pot, kettle, black.  Guess nobody paid too much attention…………you got it, you got it)

 

Thanks for visiting.                        Anthurium:  accept no substitutes.

 

 Anthurium.

 

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:       Dire Straits;             Romeo and Juliet

(please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music for this evening’s treatise)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGRtHd7UdYA

 

 

Smith Versus Shroot

 

Dwight Shroot is not a new character.   Dwight Shroot is the reincarnation or some sort of new age clone of the evil Zachary Smith, MD from the hit TV series Lost in Space.

 

In a Smith/Shroot wrestling match, odds are that Shroot wins every time if the rule is no tap out.  These odds are drastically different if Dr. Smith is able to surreptitiously reprogram the Robinson family’s robot.

 

James Joyce

In a Yeats/Joyce wrestling match, odds are that Yeats wins every time if the rule is no tap out.  There are no poets like Irish poets because The Irish are God’s chosen people.

Odds are that James Joyce wrote the following poem about Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits, well in advance of Mark Knopfler learning to play the guitar.  Mark Knopfler:   accept no substitute.

Strings in the Earth and Air

Strings in the earth and air
Make music sweet;
Strings by the river where
The willows meet.
 
There’s music along the river
For Love wanders there,
Pale flowers on his mantle,
Dark leaves on his hair.
 
All softly playing,
With head to the music bent,
And fingers straying
Upon an instrument.

 

Odds are that James Joyce wrote the following poem about Romeo and Juliet, well after Christopher Marlowe wrote Romeo and Juliet.    

 

I Hear An Army

I hear an army charging upon the land,
And the thunder of horses plunging; foam about their knees:
Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,
Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the Charioteers.

They cry into the night their battle name:
I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.
They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,
Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.

They come shaking in triumph their long grey hair:
They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.
My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?
My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?

 

 

 

 

The Mind of Mully

 I can’t do everything

But I’ll do anything

For

You

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“So I’ve spent every day since then chasing Amy”.  (Silent Bob inhales from cigarette and pauses)

 
“So to speak”.

 

Odds are that James Joyce could have written Silent Bob’s speech.

Night.

 

 

Best Experienced With:     Ludacris;           Get Back

(please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music to this evening’s treatise involving the new Mind of Mully board game, market penetration strategy, and a single paragraph on the wisdom of negotiating in groups)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMDgAevEJds&feature=related

 

 

Welcome to the instruction manual for the Mind of Mully board game, Negotiation (trademark and patent pending).      Enjoy

First, choose one of the seven board game pieces.   Please choose the one that best suits your personality and mood at game time.

The leprechaun from Lucky Charms

 

A Dwight Schrute bobblehead

 

A medieval mace

 

The emblem ripped from the front of an Escalade

 

A Care Bear (Funshine Bear to be precise)

 

An AK 47

The dog game piece from Monopoly

 

The goal of the game is to reach the sanctuary of the Promised Land.    Ireland.

 

There is one conch shell in the game box.  The player with the conch shell has the most power.   When you are holding the conch shell, everyone must call you “Ralph”.   When you are holding the conch shell, you must address all players as “Piggy”.    The person holding the conch shell may at any time move other players away from Ireland by standing, doing the “lawn sprinkler” dance and singing:

 

“Get back……..you don’t know me like that….I ain’t playing around……yeep, yeep, whoop, whoop…….make one false move and I’ll take you right down….get back, you don’t know me like that.”

 

Upon hearing these lyrics, the player pointed at by the Ralph game character moves their game piece back exactly two (2) squares.

 

To gain control of the conch during the game, simply yell “BATTLE”.   Ralph and whichever Piggy player calls “BATTLE” line up for a three minute match of Indian leg wrestling.   Winner owns the conch.  Players may yell “BATTLE” as many times per game as they like.

Once per game, a player may yell “SUPER MEGA IRISH BATTLE”.  Same rules as “BATTLE” except the player yelling “SUPER MEGA IRISH BATTLE” is allowed to don the holy Irish hand mitts (shown below).   The “SUPER MEGA IRISH BATTLE” will last eleven minutes.  No tap out.    Winner owns the conch.

 

Players choosing to call “BATTLE” or “SUPER MEGA IRISH BATTLE” must stand and speak like the Mr. Chow character in the 2009 movie “The Hangover”.    Right hand in reverse position on back of right hip.   Left hand in the air with index finger extended.   To gain two additional spaces in addition to the spaces earned when rolling the dice, player calling “BATTLE” may prepend the “BATTLE” call by saying “you mess with the wrong guy” in their best Mr. Chow voice.

There are thirty-two die in the game box.   Each player receives four dice and rolls all four of her/his dice when it is their turn.   Each dice looks like the die below.  Thus, each player will always roll a twenty-four.  This makes the strategy far more challenging because you must use maff.   Calculus and such.   Please show all your work.

 

Game board looks like this:

 

The winner is the first person to either reach the space marked “winner, winner, chicken dinner” on the game board.   Players also have two other chances to win by landing on the two math problem squares and completing the math problems.   Should a player choose to solve the math problems, they must show all their work.

This is zero sum game.   Second place is the first loser.  Each player may play once every eleven years.

Market Penetration Plan Summary

Assumptions:

• Pursue domestic market years 1-3
• Sales growth that looks exactly like a hockey stick.  Imagine that.
• We only need 2% market penetration because the market is HUGE.
• We grab market share from both current board game market participants as well as the toy market in general
• Our growth rate outpaces the market because we have a magical unicorn in the break room

 

United States toy sales:  $21.6B

Growth rate:  2%

United States board game sales:  $1.2B

Growth rate:  12%

Estimated Mind of Mully board game CAGR:      1,254%

Estimated market share penetration by year three:  2%

Estimated Mind of Mully board game revenue in year three:  $432.1M

…………..which is, as most business plan market penetration plans are, completely ludicrous. 

 

 

The Mind of Mully

I came

I saw

I hit them right dead

In the jaw

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lord of The Flies Negotiating Lesson

At some point here in the last few years we discussed how negotiating in groups is as effective as fighting a land war in Southeast Asia, with similar success rates.  Negotiating, like most business activities, is best done one on one.  In person.  Have you seen Lord of the Flies?   If so, then you know why negotiating should be done one on one and in person.   If not, please go rent the original and we can all discuss it as a group later on this summer.   In the mean time, please bring me a root beer float made with soft serve ice cream.   80% soft serve ice cream with a splash of root beer.

 

Thanks for visiting and thanks, in advance, for the root beer float.     Yeep yeep.

CAUTION:  The Mind of Mully board game, Negotiation, is not designed for Darwinian Targetted Persons.   If you truly do have a DTP pendant at the end of your chain, please accept this free copy of Chutes and Ladders.

 

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:     Street Sweeper Social Club;    Fight, Smash, Win

(please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music for this evening’s treatise.   Thanks for joining.   How glad are we that our name is not Tony Hayward?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw_hAsFtcHo

 

 

Years ago, Mohandas Gandhi identified the seven sins, cautioning their danger to the spirituality of our collective humanity.   Clearly, they are also perilous to whooping cranes and the long term careers of BP executives.

• Wealth without Work
 
 
 
 
 
 
• Pleasure without Conscience
 
 
 
 
 
 
• Science without Humanity
 
 
 
 
 
 
• Knowledge without Character
 
 
 
 
 
 
• Politics without Principle
 
 
 
 
 
 
• Commerce without Morality
 
 
 
 
 
 
• Worship without Sacrifice

 

 

Shall we begin?

 

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”   (MG)

 

“What the hell did we do to deserve this?” (TH)

“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after truth” (MG)

 

“The oil is on the surface.  There aren’t any plumes.” (TH)

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”  (MG)

“I am sure they were genuinely ill, but whether it was anything to do with dispersants and oil, whether it was food poisoning or some other reason for them being ill, you know, there’s a—food poisoning is surely a big issue when you’ve got a concentration of this number of people in temporary camps, temporary accommodations.” (TH)

“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”  (MG)

“I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest.” (TH)

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”  (MG)

“The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.” (TH)

 

“Savoir-Faire is everywhere!”  (French Canadian mouse, Savior-Faire) 

 

‘We had too many people that were working to save the world’  (TH)

 

 

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”  (MG)

 

“We will only win this if we can win the hearts and minds of the local community. It’s a big challenge.’ (TH)

 

 

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”  (MG)

 

 

 

 

“Whoopsie”  (TH)

 

“The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”  (MG)

 

 

“We’re sorry for the massive disruption it has caused to their lives. There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do, I’d like my life back” (TH)

 

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won.   There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall.”  (MG)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mind of Mully

Your Honor may it please the court

Swear me in on a book full of Tupac quotes

After what I say you may noose my throat

Reporter..…please scribble down a few hot notes

 

 

 

 

 

“Words build bridges into unexplored regions.”  (AH)

(Editor’s Note 1:   Mr. Hayward did not really say “whoopsie”.   That was a bald faced fib.   Sorry about that.)

(Editor’s Note 2:   If you’d like to see Steven Covey’s take on Mr. Gandhi’s seven sins, you can find a good summary here:  http://www.mkgandhi.org/mgmnt.htm)

(Editor’s Note 3:   “Whoopsie”  seemed like something that Mr. Hayward would really say.   This is not an excuse for the fib.   Still sorry about the fib.    Mr. Hayward says a lot of stupid things for someone who defended his Doctorate in Geology at the very young age of 22.   That Street Sweeper Social Club combo of Tommy Morello and Boots Riley is now officially three times better than the combo of chocolate and peanut butter up here in The Attic. )

(Editor’s Note 4: ” See the hungry mob pulse and throb.   If you got a black list, I want to be on it.   If we’re gonna attack this, then we need to run it”)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:       Third Eye Blind;       Semi Charmed Kind of Life

(please right click on the link to open the suggested background music for this evening’s gathering.  Not only is it an excellent song and a  fantastic example of what a combo of euphony and cacophony can make people feel, it is also the only Top 10 hit to ever truly feature crystal meth.    )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC1NR7AL_9s&feature=related

 

 

 

 

Euphonic

 

However

Smile

Ohio

Holding

Through

Resonance

Leaf

Harmony

Symphony

Something

Else

Lingual

Semi

Charmed

Life

Philosophy

Always

Love

Inside you

Polish

Rose

Plush

Rhyme

Melodious

Susquehanna concerto in A Major

Hello

 

Cacophonic

 

 

 

Crack

But

Steep

Ridiculous

Incarnadine

Kind

Pittsburgh

Steel

Can’t

Back

Plane

Crashing

Block

Ecstasy

Freakshow

Dark

Tackle

Byzantine

Arsenics

Kaleidoscope

Chocking

Turban

Don’t

Bumped

Guttering

Basketball

Blunt

Goodbye

(any word used as a descriptor when Batman put the smack down on a criminal in the 1970’s TV series)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mind of Mully

When the plane came in

She said she was crashing

The velvet it rips

In the city we tripped on the urge to feel….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:          The New Radicals                   Hope I Didn’t Just Give Away The Ending

(please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music to this evening’s musings on sunk costs and risk analysis in a new browser window)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7nAHyB1x8I

 

 

 

Many of the fostered cat moms that have made their way through Chez Mully over the years have been abused.   Makes sense because loving pet owners tend not to dump pregnant female cats in cardboard boxes at animal shelters.  You can tell the ones that have been abused because they shy away from food when you put it in their bowl.  Abused fosters will not eat with a human in the room for weeks.   Abusers will use food to get their pet within reach and then they abuse.   This is easily overcome with the proper mix of love and smelly cat food delivered three times a day.

The current foster mom, Shirley hid for two weeks and got comfortable eating around me right around week two.   Allowed me to pet her without growling right about the same time.  Five weeks in, when she got her purr back, we would have long conversations about the permanent adopted home she would get by June 15.  I’d regale Shirley with tales of the loving family that would surely adopt her on June 15.  There would be all the smelly cat food she could handle, buckets full of catnip at the ready, and cats toys littering the floor of every room.  Shirley enjoyed these conversations:  she was very much looking forward to getting adopted in a loving home.

One of the keys to any successful product launch is a thorough risk analysis created before the project begins and iterated upon throughout the project’s life.   A risk analysis examines threats to success, the probability of their occurrence, and the impact each occurrence has on the success of the project.  The best risk analysis methods use both quantitative and qualitative measurements and use statistical inference to compare results based upon different inputs.   One of the most common mistakes in product launches is checking the risk analysis box at the end of the first phase and choosing to not recalibrate as the project goes forward.  This leads to failure.

Another key to any successful product launch is the ability to say the following line aloud with conviction:  “sunk costs don’t matter”. The best planning in the world cannot control for The Random and The Random likes to play with its food.  Emotion, invested time and emotion, and ego veer most folks away from the “sunk costs don’t matter” path, most often with disastrous results.  When all signs point to disaster, stick a fork in it and walk away.   Sunk costs don’t matter and when sunk costs are held as tightly to one’s chest as your first teddy bear when you were three years old, the odds of failure increase.

Back to Shirley.     Three weeks ago Shirley and the kittens made a vet visit for the little morons first shots.   Always entertaining to watch foster kittens get that thermometer in their butt for the first time.   It’s always fun and games until someone shoves a thermometer up your butt.

We had no medical history on Shirley so she got a physical after Ruben, Keith, Danny, Tracy, Laurie, and Chris got their anal probe.  Vet noticed it was hard to hear Shirley’s heart so they shot film and saw her intestines shoved up near her heart.  “Up near the heart” is a very improper place for intestines.    Great place for lungs and such, but a poor location for intestines.   Not only was she abused before getting dumped, preggo, in a cardboard box at the shelter….Shirley had also been hit by a car at some point and has a ruptured diaphragm.   Bore, fed, and raised these little morons with her intestines virtually wrapped around her heart.   Tough cat:   she must be Irish.

The group for whom I foster, Friends of County Animal Shelters (FOCAS) has a shoestring  budget, financed through donations and run as a virtual organization with folks that donate their time to foster, run the adoptions at Pet Smart, etc.   California is a euthanizing state at the shelters and there has been a significant uptick in abandoned animals over the past two years as the economy did its tailspin thing.  Absent foster homes, preggo mom cats dumped at shelters in cardboard boxes are euthanized.   The euthanizing sessions happen each Friday afternoon like clockwork, 52 weeks a year.

Shirley’s surgery to repair the diaphragm has a very low probability of success.  Moreover, even with the discounts the program vets give FOCAS, the opportunity cost of spending that money on Shirley’s surgery would take away the chance for dozens of dogs and cats to find new happy homes.  FOCAS called this afternoon to explain their risk analysis for Shirley.  She leaves Chez Mulligan at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow to go join Martin, Abraham and John.

Clearly, Shirley will be canonized when she hits heaven tomorrow because she is either has super powers or God had His eye on her.   According to the vet, she should not have been able to have the kittens and raise the kittens with such a severe injury.  Thus, each of the six kittens must also have a super power and I look forward to seeing what that super power is over the next three weeks.

Please encourage your friends to spay and neuter your pets.    Always look both ways before you cross the street.   Remember that sunk costs don’t matter and when you run that risk analysis, pay very close attention to what it tells you.   Hope is not a strategy and sometimes what “is” simply “is”.

The Mind of Mully

She wanted to be a nun

Until that fateful day we met

I beat the crucifix

In a game of Russian roulette

For more detailed information on risk analysis, feel free to visit the following web site:

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_07.htm

For proof that sunk costs do not matter, go here:

http://litemind.com/sunk-cost-bias/

Night……….thanks for having super powers, Shirley.   Your kittens will find womderful, interesting homes next month.   Give my best to Gandhi.

 

Best Experienced With:      Naughty By Nature;     OPP

(please right click on the link below to open the suggested music to this evening’s treatise in a new browser window.  Ah yes, army with harmony up in The Attic.  “Dave…..drop a load on them”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJgFU3U4X_Y

 

Have been fortunate to sit on both sides of the table in various business adventures, both as the seller and the buyer.   Would strongly suggest to all those new to the business world to wear both sets of shoes as you meander through your own business adventures.   Have lots and lots of tools in your toolbox as you roll through the business world. 

As a lifelong avoider of most things long term, am a firm believer in long term business agreements.  Have heard the arguments from random purchasing folks on my team for years.  “We have to keep that company honest.”   “What if they go out of business?”  “Why would you want to put all the eggs in one basket?”   Blah, blah, blah.  If you choose your strategic partners (seller or buyer) correctly, you never have to worry about any of those questions.   Just like marriage.  If you feel the need to check your spouse’s cell phone while they are asleep, you chose the wrong spouse.  If you feel the need to compare your strategic partner’s price against everyone else every two months, you chose the wrong strategic partner.

Regardless of your table side, it is always easier to row out into the middle the lake, throw both oars into the lake and figure out the business relationship together as a team.      Just like marriage. 

 

LTA’s

 

You and I own a marsupial farm in West Virginia and have been recently approached by the senior management team at Harrods, Ltd in the United Kingdom.  The Harrods there on Brompton Road in London.  It seems that Harrods marketing department has determined that from 2011 through 2016, most of the women in the United Kingdom will forsake their purses and handbags and choose to instead purchase a hopping marsupial to carry all their purse and handbag stuff.     High fashion is sometimes like that.

We meet with Harrods and qualify the opportunity (e.g. price is not in their “top five” decision making factors, they pay their bills on time, they are the type of people we will enjoy doing business with) properly.   They choose to sample a few of our wallabies to rave reviews and we start developing a great relationship with Marketing and R&D.    The investigation period comes to a close after ninety days and we eagerly await Harrods’ decision, swilling moonshine and playing banjos.

 

Fortunately, our marsupial line has some of the highest quality wallabies on earth and we are Harrods’ first choice.  The true decision makers (Marketing and R&D) tell us that we are the marsupial company of choice for Harrods.   Their purchasing department then gets into the mix and tells us “you are too expensive” and “three hundred other marsupial companies quoted and we like them just as well as we like you” and  “did you know that the human head weighs eight pounds”.  Harrods’ Marketing and R&D departments tell the purchasing department that their title is not “making the decision and purchasing” it is restricted to “purchasing” and instruct the purchasing folks to place their first order with our marsupial company.  West Virginia is thrilled and we get a key to the state and front row seats at all Marshall football games.  

Offering a long term agreement at the beginning of our Harrods relationship would be as unseemly as meeting someone attractive near the fruits and vegetables section of the grocery store and immediately proposing marriage.  We must chill and allow the relationship to evolve naturally.  Build trust and relationships on both sides.  All dating lessons are business lessons and all business lessons are dating lessons.   Right around day number 126, we are going to have a serious argument with Harrods.  

Perhaps one of our wallabies acted up at the opera and maimed a theater patron.   Perhaps Harrods was late on an invoice or returned a dozen perfectly good wallabies because they needed to make a quarterly earnings call to “the street” and needed to reduce inventory.   Getting along is easy, especially at the beginning when each half of the relationship is rolling around in the salad days like a dog rolling around in seaweed at the beach.   When we can figure out how to disagree with Harrods, resolve the conflict, and hug it out rapidly, then we can start talking LTA.

After we have delivered a few hundred wallabies, have the process down relatively well, and have learned to argue properly, we choose to offer a long term wallaby supply agreement (LTWSA) to Harrods.    We discuss Harrods’ five year wallaby forecast, their quarterly delivery expectations, and how much incremental revenue each of us can earn if we work together to drive down costs and market price.  We approach it like a true partnership because the more wallabies Harrods sells in the UK, the happier West Virginia is.  Because meth is illegal and cannot be counted as part of West Virginia’s GDP.

We sign a five year LTWSA with Harrods nine months into our relationship and each side wins.   Harrods has a guaranteed supply of wallabies for five years with a predictable cost structure and annual price increases linked to an agreed upon index.  Moreover, we have provided additional discounts when Harrods exceeds their forecast in a given twelve months.  You and I have mandatory minimum quarterly wallaby shipments and a five year contractual revenue stream.  This allows us to streamline our operation and drive our wallaby cost down.  As we drive our costs down and pass on some of the savings to Harrods, they are able to gobble up more market share.  

LTA’s between trusting partners with similar cultures allow each side to grow top line revenue more rapidly in any market space.  Life is easier and your business is more profitable with LTA’s and there is significant value in LTA’s for both the buyer and the seller.

 

 

NPV’s of DCF’s

If you really want to see what a potential LTA is truly worth to you and your company take off those slippers and put on a different pair.    As long as Warren Buffet is still breathing, every company out there is theoretically for sale.  Let’s take a look at what our venture with Harrods would look like to a potential suitor. 

 

We sign the contract and three months later Mr. Buffet’s plane makes an emergency landing in Charleston, WV.  While at dinner with the governor, Mr. Buffet asks if West Virginia has an exportable product other than meth and the governor tells him about our marsupial company.

We need to calculate the value of this five year contract and to be precise we want to discount the cash flows back to today’s dollars.  Since our product can die in shipment and might hop away rapidly during the warranty period, we have a high risk premium of 20%.   We run a model on the numbers and come up with this:

			2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2014
	# Wallabies			234	536	1,983	3,496	12,313
	Wallabie Price			6,238	5,999	4,732	3,981	3,209
	Wallabie Cost			2,900	2,800	2,600	2,500	2,300
	Revenue			1,459,692	3,215,464	9,383,556	13,917,576	39,512,417
	COGS		-450,000	678,600	1,500,800	5,155,800	8,740,000	28,319,900
	Gross Profit			781,092	1,714,664	4,227,756	5,177,576	11,192,517
	Blah, blah, balh		-500,000	300,000	350,000	500,000	700,000	900,000
	EBITDA		-950,000	481,092	1,364,664	3,727,756	4,477,576	10,292,517
	Discount  Rate	20%
	NPV		$7,376,263

 

 

 

The multiple on marsupial companies in the open market is two times cash flow.  Mr. Buffet loves the wallaby potential in the UK with Harrods and we are skillful negotiators.   We command a four times multiple and we sell the company immediately for $28,000,000.  Moreover, because our marsupial raising skills are beyond compare we each get a three year contract to stay on board to run the company properly.

That is how you and I roll.   We each buy a pony and donate the balance of the $28M to Street of Dreams in San Diego and Project Haiti in Aitken, MN.

 

OPP

There are four songs in the universe that no one should ever choose for karaoke.  One of these is OPP by Naughty by Nature.  No one should ever choose to sing this song during karaoke.  You will ruin this song and die on stage as people laugh like hyenas if you choose OPP for karaoke.   Do not choose OPP for karaoke.

Seriously.  Only Naughty by Nature can sing this song at karaoke.  You cannot sing OPP by Naughty by Nature.    None of us can.    You especially cannot even come close to the part that goes “It’s not a front….F to the R to the O to the N to the T”    Go ahead and recue up the song there above on You Tube and click on the 58^th second.  Now go ahead and please try to rhyme along with just this part: “It’s not a front….F to the R to the O to the N to the T”.   See?    Well beyond all of our talents.   Choose something from the Grease soundtrack instead.  You’d look good singing something from the Grease soundtrack.

You are welcome.  Thanks for joining this evening.  Nice shoes.

 

 

The Mind of Mully

Yeah, you know me

Yeah, you know me

Yeah, you know me

All the homies

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:     Sex Pistols;      Anarchy in The UK

(please right click the link below to open up the suggested music for this evening’s get together in a new browser window)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQkActP-isE&feature=related 

 

 

 

Johnny Lydon ( aka J. Rotten of Sex Pistols fame) and Public Image Limited finished up their reunion tour this week in New York City.  The final episode of Lost is next week.  The anarchists are still running amok in Greece and will become even more silly when Greece declares bankruptcy in the next few weeks.  Coincidence?

There is no such thing as coincidence.  Let’s pull all three of those sentences together, put them in a different context, and wrap them in a big  ball of Franz Kafka quotes, Gilligan’s Island characters and Sex Pistols music.   Plus, let’s start and end our time together with two of my favorite calculus comics.     That’s a good Saturday evening right there.   A big old murdering smoke monster would have made Gilligan’s Island far more palatable back in the day.    Shall we begin?

 

“All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers is contained in the dog”

 

“”Everything you say is boring and incomprehensible,” she said, “but that alone doesn’t make it true”

 

“By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.” 

 

“I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding in the world beyond.”

“In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.”

 

 

“Altogether, I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book does not shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it can make us happy, as you put it? Good God, we’d be just as happy if we had no books at all; books that make us happy we could, in a pinch, also write ourselves. What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like a suicide. A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us. That is what I believe.”

 

 

The Mind of Mully

Many ways to get what you want

I use the best

I use the rest

I use the enemy

 

 

 

I use bunny ears.

 

Best Experienced With:     Cracker;         Useless Stuff

(Editor’s note:  65.7% of the current posts on Mind of Mully Biz Haus Shoppe remain business based, fulfilling the “Biz” requirement in the upper panel there.  This MLOG is sociopolitical and does not fulfill the “Biz” requirement; however, I wear the superhero cape and will continue to make the swooshing sounds.  Those of you visiting for business reasons, stop back soon.  We will have something on constrained dynamics, BPR, and unusual fruits and vegetables)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFDwcHiRJoY

 

 

These days, it infinitely entertaining to be a white, male, upper middle class person in these United States.  After all these years, white, male, upper middle class persons are finally the underdog.  As a white, male upper middle class person and a fan of the disenfranchised and dispossessed for years, I can finally root for myself guilt free.  Clearly (according to the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, and many others), we white men are being held down by The Man!

Last time I felt like this was 1989 covering a sales territory in Boston that included Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, and Mattapan.  The Harlem of Boston.  Had two choices when calling on those clinics in Roxbury, Mattapan, and Jamaica Plain.  First choice was leave Dover, NH at 5:00 a.m., arrive in that portion of Boston by 6:30 a.m. (before the crack houses got rolling), sprint through sales calls, and be back over in Salem by 8:07 a.m.   Second choice involved modified semiautomatic weapons and galvanizing the black on black saltpeteresque Bonneville sedan.  Ever conscious of my expense account, choice one ruled the day.

Back in 1989, I was the only white male being kept down by The System and The Man.  Since January, 2009 there are hundreds millions of us dispossessed and disenfranchised white, upper middle class male persons.  Am fortunate to have my brethren lined up side by side, yelling from the tops of our collective lungs that we are mad as hell.  We white, upper middle class males are not going to take it any longer.  Heck no.  

My first political experience was in 1978 when my father, Glove Man, ran for the Westlake, OH city council as an Independent.  For the most part, Glove Man leans pretty far to the right and mom leans well to the left.  Mom and dad vote for the person and how that candidate’s moral and ethical compass lines up with theirs.    Great place to incubate and learn to respectfully disagree.    Glove Man allowed me to pound “Mulligan for City Council” signs in people’s front yards, an interesting form of torture given the October Land of Cleve temperatures and the vast quantities of clay under the grass.

In high school we had a mock Congress.  To this day, am certain that the idea of that exercise was to dissuade all Westlake High students from checking the box reading “Do Congresslike Things” on our career adventure list.  To this day, I fall fast asleep whenever someone says “Robert’s Rules of Order” .   While words like “fillbuster” and “gerrymander” are fun to say, they are quite boring in actual practice.    I was Alan Cranston, Senate Minority Whip and Crypt Keeper look alike.   I wanted to be Teddy Kennedy because, even back then, that seemed a better fit.

Kenneth Blackwell has a new book out with a fascinating title.  It is an exceptionally long title.  It is also an exceptionally incendiary title.  It is the type of title that will make you stop at an airport book store and gawk, even if you are late for your plane.  The book title is The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency and the Keys to Getting It All Overturned.  That’s one heck of a title for a book!

 

Kenneth Blackwell is not a white, upper middle class male:  he is a black, upper middle class male and was once Cincinnati’s mayor.   Not certain if he is qualified to be lined up with the rest of us being held down and disenfranchised by The Man these days.   Perhaps we will let him join because he was mayor of the whitest, most conservative city in America.  Perhaps we will let him join because he was part and parcel of the group that prevented that evil photographer Robert Mapplethorpe from showing his nasty photos at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center back in 1990. 

An exhibit that those heathens in New York, California, Oklahoma, Kentucky, ad infinitum misguidedly allowed to enter their states.   Not sure how Mr. Blackwell fits into our repressed white, upper middle class male cause, I only know that he is driving our bus and The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency and the Keys to Getting It All Overturned is soon to be our instruction manual and biblical text.  We are going to borrow a bus for Mr. Blackwell to drive all of us repressed white, upper middle class males to our rallies and such.   A colorful bus in which we can all c’mon and get happy.  

 

Flipped through The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency and the Keys to Getting It All Overturned the other day and agree wholeheartedly with most of the economic principles.  Am going to read it over the weekend because it has one heck of a title.   Each time the government has meddled too deeply in the United States economy, the results are generally awful.   We saw this after the 1929 depression:  the second dip was because the government interfered too much and accepted incorrect Keynesian principles.  The same principles applied in 2009.   The wrong principles and exceptionally wrong for we repressed white, upper middle class males.   Drive our bus more rapidly, Mr. Blackwell!   Pedal to the metal.

 

Am very much looking forward to remainder of President Obama’s current term.  There’s nothing more satisfying than playing the martyr and I look fantastic standing atop the grape jelly covered bully pulpit with a crown of concertina wire on my head and a bloodied, leather self flagellation device in my left hand.   Moreover, am looking forward to the hundreds of thousands in reparations each of us white, male upper class men will be able to sue The Man for in 2014.           I’m going to buy a pony. 

 

What are you going to buy?

 

 

The Mind of Mully

Everybody wants to be our friend

So we act real Zen

And hang around

With movie stars

 

 

   

 

 

 

 (Editor’s note and correction:  The statement in the second to last paragraph regarding martyrdom is incorrect.  Hostess Ho Ho’s are more satisfying than martyrdom.  In fact, were these tasty snack cakes freely available throughout the world, terrorist attacks would go down by at least 1,286%)

 

 

 

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, you are such a wonderful crowd, we’d like to play a little tune for you. It’s one of my personal favorites and I’d like to dedicate it to a young man who doesn’t think he’s seen anything good today……..Matt M, this one’s for you.”

 

 Best Experienced With:      Wilco;      Via Chicago

(please right click on the link below to open the suggested musical background selection for this evening’s treatise in a new browser window)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEFN_14aElU

 

 

On Love (I):  Kahlil Gibran

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

 

On Love (II):  Eddie Munch

 

 

 

 

On Love (III):  Jeff Tweedy and Wilco

 

I dreamed about killing you again last night
And it felt alright to me
Dying on the banks of Embarcadero skies
I sat and watched you bleed
Buried you alive in a fireworks display
Raining down on me
You cold, hot blood ran away from me
To the sea

Printed my name on the back of a leaf
And I watched it float away
The hope I had in a notebook full of white, dry pages
Was all I tried to save
But the wind blew me back via Chicago
In the middle of the night
And all without fight
At the crush of veils and starlight

I know I’ll make it back
One of these days and turn on your TV
To watch a man with a face like mine
Being chased down a busy street
When he gets caught, I won’t get up
And I wont go to sleep
I’m coming home, I’m coming home
Via Chicago

Where the cups are cracked and hooked
Above the sink
They make me think
Crumbling ladder tears don’t fall
They shine down your shoulders
And crawling is screw faster lash
I blow it with kisses
I rest my head on a pillowy star
And a cracked door moon
That says I haven’t gone too far

I’m coming home
I’m coming home
Via Chicago

Searching for a home
Searching for a home
Searching for a home
Via Chicago

I’m coming home

 

 

 

˙ɐʎ ooq   ˙sɹǝɥʇoɯ puɐ sǝʌıʍ ƃuıʌoן ǝq ǝǝɹɥʇ noʎ ƃuıɥɔʇɐʍ ǝʌoן  ˙sɹǝʇsıs ǝǝɹɥʇ ʎɯ oʇ pǝʇɐɔıpǝp sı ǝuo sıɥʇ   ˙ǝʌoן ‘ɥɐ