A true Halloween horror story...

So last night after the Trick or Treating and quite a haul by the boys, I'm laying down and watching a movie on the couch at about 11:00 when I notice something fly by out the corner of my eye. "That's an awfully big moth or butterfly," I thought. Then it flew by again. It was no moth...

I jumped off the couch, realizing that there was A BAT FLYING AROUND IN MY HOUSE!!! It was circling around the family room and kitchen, near the ceiling, so I did what any normal person would do: came completely unglued.

I've been using Remember the Milk (RTM) for a couple years to manage all sorts of work and personal tasks with varying degrees of success. And lately, I've also been digging a bit more deeply into the Getting Things Done (GTD) "action management" methodology/philosophy, working on applying its principles to gain control over the myriad tasks that swirl around at work and at home each day.

It was five years ago last night that the Cubs were leading the Florida Marlins 3-0 with one out in the eighth inning of game six of the National League Championship Series; five outs away from their first NL pennant and World Series appearance since 1945. Then the Bartman Incident happened.

But it was two innings earlier when I learned something about Perspective. Something I guess I'd always known, but a profound reinforcement of What Really Matters.

Those spammy chain emails from ten years ago have come true!

Simple: just don't write anything for two weeks!

It's not like I have a lack of material. I have an "Ideas" tab in my Remember The Milk task list, and in there are several items tagged "blog". There are 31 pages saved in my "Read It Later" list and even more "starred" articles in Google Reader.

While it doesn't rival the buzz around Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's introduction as John McCain's running mate, KickApps is getting some action in the blogosphere after the re-launch of McCainSpace.com.

Today was a day of firsts: Andy's first day of Kindergarten, Carol's first day as the new broadcast journalism teacher at Frisco Centennial High School, and - two outta three ain't bad - Mitch's first sick day of the year. :(

"What you can find out now on the Internet - it's remarkable."

John McCain might be on to something. With the launch of Google Insights for Search on August 6, you can not not only find a running mate, you can see where he or she is a hot search term.

Despite some valid concerns with the data in the early going - some tests conducted on different days with the same criteria returned markedly different results - the potential for Insights to become a game-changing tool for for SEM/SEO strategists is clear.

But wait! There's more!

Social Media is Core to Dell's Marketing Strategy

The video is from an Uberpulse interview conducted at a Dell event in San Francisco. Another blog called Open (minds, finds, conversations) highlighted a quote from Andy underscoring the enormous opportunity social media represents for marketers:

The social media stuff is probably the most important thing we do today, from a marketing standpoint. A lot of the other elements of our marketing mix has sort of become more and more transactional and more and more tactical in nature. The social media stuff is much more strategic... It's about how to use social media to power the fundamentals of the business. That’s what we’re focused on.

America's Finest News Source sums up the essence of social media: Local Idiot To Post Comment On Internet.