Montreal Simon

Amplifier has just posted my newest article for them and I invite everyone over to check it out. Andrei Konchalovsky’s Maria’s Lovers from 1985 would mark the Russian directors first English language film and it remains a work that I am very fond of. The subject matter of the film, which stars Nastassja Kinski and Robert Mitchum, seems very relevant right now which is one reason I chose to highlight at the Amplifier.

Speaking of Kinski, I have just given Nostalgia Kinky a visual override and I think it is looking quite striking. I am extremely thankful to my girlfriend’s good taste in color schemes as my design skills are severely lacking.

Author : John Watson
Bill Shankly, the successful and even legendary Scottish manager of Liverpool United Football Club, died in 1981 but he left behind memories of his energy, wisdom and passionate determination to win.He also left a legacy of powerful sayings which can point the way to the kind of spectacular success he enjoyed with his club.At the first soccer match after Shankly's funeral, a fan unfurled a banner which read:"Shankly Lives Forever".The fan was right. Shankly's legend and his famous sayings do live on.He knew how to see the best in his players. When someone commented that his centre forward Roger Hunt missed a lot of goal scoring opportunities, he defended his player:"Aye, Roger Hunt misses a few, but he gets in the right place to miss them."This sounds daft but Shankly was right. Some players avoid getting in the right place in case they miss a shot and are publicly embarrassed.Roger Hunt, however, had the bottle to get in the right place and have a go even if he might miss and might have to suffer humiliation in front of thousands and, sometimes, millions of fans.Hunt missed plenty of times just as Babe Ruth missed hitting a home run many times. But he also scored many significant goals just as Babe Ruth scored many home runs.Hunt was brave enough to get in the right place and try to score. If he missed, he kept trying till he succeeded in achieving a goal for his club.We need to be willing to risk failure and, if we do fail, have the courage to get over our failures and keep trying until we succeed.Recently the England goalkeeper, Paul Robinson, tried to kick the ball away as it was rolling towards him. It hit a piece of displaced turf and bounced over his foot and into the goal. The score was now Croatia 2 England 0.Paul could have retired into his shell and stopped playing. He didn't. He glared at the offending piece of turf and then got on with his job of preventing goals.He played on brilliantly after a massive failure seen by millions and saved his team and himself from further humiliation.Shankly knew how to celebrate and enjoy his victories and the victories of his nation. Such victory celebrations are among the simple pleasures which make life worth living.He gleefully commented on the result of a wartime England v Scotland match:"We absolutely annihilated England. It was a massacre. We beat them 5-4."Visualization experts teach us that, if we can visualize our victories vividly in advance, we are much more likely to realize them. The only way to find out if the experts are right is to give this theory a try.Shankly knew the importance of loving his work and of bringing happiness to others. He had a life mission to do both:"I was only in the game for the love of football - and I wanted to bring back happiness to the people of Liverpool."One way to bring immense happiness to the fans of Liverpool is to beat their local rivals Everton. After beating Everton in the 1971 FA Cup semi-final, Shankly commented:"Sickness would not have kept me away from this one. If I'd been dead, I would have had them bring the casket to the ground, prop it up in the stands, and cut a hole in the lid."There is passion and commitment for you! One way to bring happiness to people we know and those we don't is to find out their deepest desires and then help them to fulfill them. Their happiness will also become our own.Shankly once came up with a very famous but controversial saying:"Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."Possibly, Shankly did not mean that football is literally more important than life and death. What he may well have meant is that life is meaningless without some kind of passion for something whether it is football or something else.People need something or someone to believe in which inspires them. For some this is God; for others it is football. For some it might be both.A recognition of the importance of passion can be found in many areas of life. Mary Lou Retton, the Olympic Gymnast, writes:"Each one of us has a fire in our heart for something. It's our goal in life to find it and to keep it lit."It is no accident that Shankly revered enthusiasm and felt that natural enthusiasm is the greatest thing in the world. Enthusiasm is all about passion and excitement.You will find both in abundance at Anfield, the home of Liverpool Football Club. In fact you will find it in most football clubs throughout the UK and many other parts of the football world.The historian Arnold Toynbee, who died in 1975 a few years before Shankly, described the power of enthusiasm and the way it could be inspired:"Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can be aroused by two things: first, an idea which takes the imagination by storm; and second, a definite, intelligible plan for carrying that idea into action."Like most great coaches and managers, Shankly believed in the power of hard work:"What we want is hard work and no football club is successful without hard work."The great coach of American Football who died eleven years before Shankly in 1970, Vince Lombardi, felt the same:"The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. You can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price."Shankly demanded hard work from his players throughout an entire match. He wanted his players to play till the referee's whistle ended the game:"That's what the game is all about - being able to play for 90 minutes both individually and as a team."It is no use beginning something with great enthusiasm and hard work and then failing to finish it. Being one goal up at half time is useless if you are 2-1 down at full time.What, then, can we learn about success from Bill Shankly?He believed in seeing the best in his players. If you can see the best instead of the worst in people, you will retain a lot more friends and encounter more of Dr. Jekyll and less of Mr. Hyde.He believed you should be willing to risk failure and humiliation in order to achieve your goals.He worked to bring happiness to others - probably the best way to bring happiness to your self.He taught that passion and enthusiasm are immensely important in life. As Mary Lou suggested, we all need to find our passion and maintain it for as long as we can.We can create our own enthusiasm by having a great goal or dream and by drawing up and following an intelligent plan of action which will realize our dream.Bill Shankly believed in the power of hard work. Whichever way you cut it, hard work is usually necessary somewhere along the line.Hopefully, when we are gone, someone will unfurl a banner which declares to the world that we still live on in the minds and memories of other human beings.If we follow Shankly's example and advice, such a banner or the equivalent might become a reality for some of us at least.John Watson is an award winning teacher and 5th degree blackbelt martial arts instructor. He has written several ebooks on motivation and success topics. One of these can be found at http://www.motivationtoday.com/36_laws.phpYou can also find motivational ebooks by authors like Stuart Goldsmith. Check out http://www.motivationtoday.com/the_midas_method.phpFeel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site but please include the resource box above
Keyword : success tips,goal achievement,liverpool club,bill shankly,vince lombardi,mary lou retton,enthusiasm,

Australia’s grape glut is creating some amazing marketing efforts, including this one by Hardy Wine Company, Australia’s biggest wine producer.

“The Shuttle” is a single serving of wine that comes with it’s own plastic cup attached to it, making it easy to take with you just about anywhere, though I have a feeling that the big money here is selling it to the airlines. The concept was initially designed for the Australian season of Cirque de Soleil so that they could make sure that no glass containers were in the crowd.

When you twist the top it opens the bottle and releases the glass at the same time. The easy-to-use wine comes in Shiraz and Chardonnay and is only available in Australia right now with a launch in the UK later in 2007.

Firm combines wine bottle with glass

Wacoal launched a men’s girdle that touts its stomach-flattening ability. In January, it expects to start selling a version that goes a step further. The stretchy underwear, called the “ex walker,” is made of specially woven nylon and polyurethane that the company says is designed to actually tone the thighs and hips, not just hold them in shape temporarily.

Wonder if they will have matching fishnet stockings and spike heels as well?

Wacoal won’t disclose its advertising budget or the price of the ex walker, saying it is negotiating with the health-insurance groups.

Fat chance.

Jesus’ General managed to get his Bush/Cheney ‘04 party listed on the campaign’s website. It would be great if the campaign sent a representative to speak to the General’s ‘Little Soldier’.

Former Texas Governor Ann Richards died tonight and this is truly a sad day for all folks who call themselves Texans. Whether a person is a Republican or Democrat, Ann Richards had a way of getting people excited either for or against her politics. Most people in the United States didn’t even know who Ann Richards was until her fiery Democratic Convention Speech where she accused President Bush (41) of being born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Many rank and file Republicans here in Texas believe that her making that one statement caused George W. Bush to run for and defeat Ann Richards as the Governor of Texas.

Of course we all know where George W. Bush went from the Governors Mansion in Texas a few years later. I have mostly trended Republican in my voting record over the years and while I never voted for Ann Richards, she did have a style that was very much Texan. From her rugged faces to gravely voice, Ann Richards could have just as easily been the owner of a saloon in the 1800’s as the governor of one of the United States largest states. One thing is for sure about Ann Richards, she was one tough lady and what made her so appealing to regular folks was the way she took a political position and never backed down. In that respect she is more like her old enemy, George W. Bush than he or his political supporters might like to acknowledge.

In a world where politicians are more concerned with their looks than their politics, Ann Richards was in a league of her own. She never tried to change her appearance and look better so more people would vote for her. I have always thought of Richards as the “Anti Botox” candidate for real world people who want substance over beauty and hype. In addition to Ann Richards tough looks, that gravely voice of hers was very recognizable on TV, even if a person wasn’t in the same room as the television set. I remember watching Ann on the Larry King Live show on CNN many times and she was a very entertaining guest and while I disagreed with most of her political aims, I did enjoy watching her plead her case.

I am going to miss Ann Richards a great deal and I think other folks within and outside of Texas are going to miss her too. This one lady knew how to speak to the American people in a way that was straightforward without political spin and in this day in age that is a truly unique quality in a politician.

Big Bubba is in the process of setting up the Big Bubba Blog & Mindless Twit Magnet. Formerly I used to go to David Horowitz’s Front Page Magazine for my favorite indoor sport of antagonizing mindless twits. Alas, David Horowitz has decided that perhaps free speech is not all that it is cracked up to be so he has installed a hall monitor. I believe that somehow I have deeply offended the hall monitor by using inflammatory words like “feckless,” “mindless twit,” “imbecile” and “moron.” OK, I confess. I also repeatedly posted the same post, again, every time the hall monitor deleted it. I was just trying to understand the mind set that would take offense at the word “feckless.” Perhaps there is some intrepid blogger out there in the blogosphere who knows the answer. I am more than certain that there are mindless twits who know the answer. I will post more about my being barred for life from FPM in the future.

Over at GigaOm, Mr. Malik has again written an interesting post that successfully started a re-examination of priorities within myself. I call these types of discussions and posts as conundrums for ‘things that really matter’. As it is, these types of things just keep coming at you from all sides, online, offline and even in dream state.

And there lies my ‘working’ answer to that ‘moral’ question, that it is always and will be a personal battle that we all will continually wage upon ourselves. As they say, the greatest of victories is self-conquest!

So what then constitutes immoral? Not sure what it is but it is often tied up to ‘money, riches or commerce’ when given priority over things (which made me realize how the word ‘sell-out‘ is indeed, an appropriate term. Go figure.)

But hey, it might just be me. Care to challenge or better yet, share your own insight, please …

Side Notes:
A Payne in the Ask: Internet is built Wrong! and Twitter is Right?

Holy New Testament! The end justifies the means working here.

Arise ye Global Cloud! (from the Economist … yep, economy, err, money, there goes morality again. Woot.)

10 Impressive Rails Apps: I still have to check them out but by the looks of it, smells like cash, nothing wrong with that!

Managing IT during a downturn? Careful about the word - counterproductive!