Driving into work today, I caught the tail end of a NPR story on March Madness, AKA the 2015 NCAA Basketball Tournament, and the negative impact on worker productivity it brings to companies each year. (I can't find a link to it just yet, I'll circle back and link it up when I do.)
A company CEO interviewed in the piece says they are turning those lemons into lemonade by making the first Friday of the tournament a vacation day and inviting all staff and clients to party at a local bar and enjoy "all the madness" together.
He says insights his people gain from observing customer's tournament picks and the way they react to and with the game gives them valuable information on how to better work with and serve those customers.
While binge-watching television last weekend, I got the chance to see a pretty varied cross-section of female characters on television. A lot of what I saw made me cringe. Nurse Chapel of the original Star Trek went on a dangerous mission in a micro-skirted uniform and Wonder Woman chased bad guys in a bustier. In nearly every episode, the supporting actresses / damsels in distress on MacGyver let him do all the rescuing and, of course, kissed him for his trouble and Laura of The Dick Van Dyke Show made it clear that her husband called the shots.
I spent a lot of time explaining to my daughter that attitudes about how women should act and dress and what roles they play in the world have changed over the years, and that those changes are reflected on TV. I know it’s not perfect – on cop shows, they still chase criminals in ridiculously high heels, but increasingly, women on television are portrayed as smart and capable - masters of their own fate.
A lot of the tough, independent female characters that have kicked serious butt across our television screens helped make that happen by giving generations of girls some pretty spectacular role models to live up to.
On Scandal, Kerry Washington’s Olivia Pope defines power.
A new baby has joined our family. My brother and his wife welcomed their first daughter into the world at 7 pm on Tuesday March 3rd. She's a little bit of a miracle child and to say everyone is ecstatic would be an understatement.
Eight films are up for the Best Picture award at the 87th Academy Awards on February 22. (Check out the full list of nominees here.) A few of them, like The Grand Budapest Hotel and Boyhood, are already available on DVD/Blu-ray for checkout at the library. But if you enjoyed any of the nominated films and want to see more like them, here are some recommendations for further viewing.
(By the way, we chatted about this very topic last night for Pint & Click, a monthly meetup group for culture-lovers that congregates at Tap House Grill in Des Plaines. Check out the group on Meetup.com or Facebook to hear about future shindigs!)
For someone who dresses in black every day of the week, I sure love me some bright color and print.
I can't really explain the dichotomy, other than I just really like the color black. It looks good on me. And it always matches. And it's really easy to get dressed in a decent outfit in five minutes or less.
