However, I got invited to play on a team rated 2192 (thank you, Matt!). Can’t turn THAT down!

I don’t recall how many teams were over 2190 last year, but going back to a photo of the 2010 wall chart, 2192 would have seeded us 5th or 6th.

Will look forward to playing a game (or six) in the relative luxury behind the ropes. I may blog less this year and spend more time during the tournament drilling some new opening lines I have been waiting to spring on the unsuspecting.

And now, off to the laboratory…

{Writing, video, audio, graphics} – Brains = Crap

Brains + Data  = Analysis

Data – Brains = Counting

Brains + Search data + Interviews + Social = Audience analysis

Search data – Brains = Counting

Content + Audience analysis + UX/UI = Excellent content

UX/UI + Social + Clarity + Brains = Findability

Audience analysis + Findability = SEO

Findability – Excellent content = Crap

Goals + Content + Audience analysis + UX/UI + SEO + Social = Content strategy

Content strategy = Winning

Removing Brains at any stage = Crap

When I get a new one at the start of the new year, I don’t throw away the old one.

Originally this was pragmatic (in January it’s still useful to see stuff from the previous December). Then it became funny to have a stack of them.

And then suddenly a decade went by.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—

[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—

[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]

Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all;

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

This is by no means the strangest thing in the liquor store. Have you tried ChocoVine? “The taste of Dutch chocolate and fine red wine” it says, right there on the bottle. Looks indistinguishable from YooHoo.

Marketing these things must be an interesting challenge. Since “even cheaper than Red Truck” isn’t a compelling slogan, even the lowest-end products are marketing based on alleged quality.

“Pruning, weeding, cultivating…that’s hard work, but that’s why our wines taste different,” says Carlo in large type on the company website. (Think about that for just a sec.)

And my favorite: ChocoVine touts its status as “still to this day the #1 selling Chocolate Wine in America.”