While in Mexico this past week, my friends and I had the pleasure of meeting Diego – our resort’s resident DJ and entertainment staff extraordinaire.
Whenever we saw Diego around the resort and asked, “How are you?” – he’d respond, “How do I looks?”
It was pretty adorable and borderline condescending, which as you may know, are two of my favorite things.
As such, I’ve decided that if anyone says anything remotely similar to, ”SWINE FLU! How are you?”over the next few days, I’m to take a note from Diego and say, “How do I looks?”
Filed under: Mousetraps | Tags: Japan, just-in-case inventory, just-in-time manufacturing, Mousesnaps, Mousetraps, my brother, Oprah.com, painting, product manufacturing
Several months ago, when a woman in Singapore placed an order for our entire Mousesnaps inventory of hand-painted designer mousetraps, I wrote an email to my brother announcing our first bulk order.
He responded, “Congratulations. I would advise sending the order right away and increasing your inventory.”
To which I replied, “No kidding.”
I’m not sure if he thought I was going to spend the next few days ignoring the order and basking in my own success, but when I saw him and my parents for dinner the following Sunday, he again asked me, “Did you increase your inventory?!”
Technically, we had not. The other half of the Mousesnaps team and I had spent the entire weekend duplicating our mousetrap inventory to send it to Singapore, but at the end of the day, our current inventory was precisely the same as when we started.
“I really didn’t have time to,” I told my brother.
And it was the truth. We painted mousetraps for 16 hours that Saturday, and we stopped only briefly to have what was quite possibly the worst Cuban sandwich of all time at Bahama Breeze, of all places. And then – as if that wasn’t enough – we spent several hours the next day doing the exact same thing – minus the terrible sandwich.
My brother was unimpressed. “Well you better make more! What if you get another big order?”
I told him, “Listen. My fingers hurt, I accidentally sprayed one of my shoes and I have paint in my hair. I’ll increase the inventory next week.”
But I didn’t actually do that. Not out of spite – but just because there was no reason to duplicate what we have when my time could be better spent doing any number of things, like creating new designs, or working on the Web site, or trying to remove the paint from my sneakers.
I thought that was just common sense. Turns out, there’s a name for it. And Japan’s been making it hip since 1946.
(Not to be outdone, a reporter at Oprah.com has been making questionable applications about it to every day life since about yesterday.)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Mousesnaps, Mousetraps, SBA, small business, starting a business
According to the SBA, more than 50% of small businesses fail within the first five years.
That sounds devastating – until you consider this: anyone with a half-baked idea, an Internet connection and 120 bucks can create a business.
Congratulations to me – Mousesnaps happens to have all three.
Let’s just hope we last longer than 5 years.
Filed under: dating | Tags: communication, LOST, Miles Straume, secret admirer, tulips, valentines day
This past week’s episode of LOST was all about Miles Straume.
First of all, the actor who plays Miles is adorable.
Second – and perhaps more importantly – you may remember back in February that someone sent me a bouquet of tulips and signed the card with only that character’s name. And since I never found out who the real-life Miles Straume is, I’d like to remind him – whoever he is – that the episode was all about the importance of communication.
Miles learned a lesson last week. Will you?
Filed under: Mousetraps, Uncategorized | Tags: Mousesnaps, Mousetraps, new product, new product promotion, pest control technology, public relations
A few days ago, I saw a really awesome band called April Smith and The Great Picture Show.
She was cute and really talented and entertaining and I ended up admitting all of this to her after the show when I was buying her CD. But she totally didn’t need to hear all that from me - she already knew it.
On my walk home, I decided two things:
- I wouldn’t have liked her half as much if she wasn’t brimming with confidence
- It’s perfectly acceptable to be kind of full of yourself so long as you’re good at what you do
So to rein it in: the very next day, I decided that I might benefit from a little dose of confidence myself and I sent a few pitch letters about Mousesnaps, the little hand-painted designer mousetraps that could. Within an hour, the managing editor from Pest Control Technology (I know – there’s a whole magazine dedicated to mice and bug control!) called and said he wanted to do a story on us.
The interview is Monday morning. It’s pretty cool – and I know it.
Filed under: dating
The easiest way to save $100 in this economy?
Don’t listen to this nonsense. Skip the online dating and meet people in real life.
I’m fairly confident the results will be similar.
And as an aside, I like how eHarmony is claiming that there’s some correlation between the economy and their increase in registrants. Because, you know, that 20% jump can’t be attributed to anything else – like say, their $93 million advertising budget.
Filed under: Mousetraps | Tags: co-workers, grammar, I have mice, mice, Mousesnaps, Mousetraps, possessive case
At least once a week, I have a conversation with one of my co-workers about whether the possessive form of “business” is “business’s” or “business’.”
The long and the short of it is that I have no idea, Google is of no help and the conversation usually ends with me being exasperated and yelling, “Whatever. I’ll just rewrite the sentence!”
Given that this happens on the weekly, you’d think I wouldn’t pick a name like “Mousesnaps” for the mousetrap line. I mean, it’s adorable and all, but it’s a real struggle to figure out the possessive form. And it bothers me.
I’ve been rewriting a lot of sentences to accommodate for the grammatical ambiguity – until today when I realized I made that word up. So whatever I say, goes.
And you know what else? I’m going to add ”Mousesnaps” to my online dictionary – because I’m sick of Microsoft telling me that I’m misspelling things.
Mousesnaps isn’t a mistake. It’s so so right.
Filed under: Mousetraps | Tags: arts and crafts, crafts, Etsy, I have mice, inhumane, mice, Mousesnaps, Mousetraps, painting
Some people seem to think that mousetraps are inhumane.
That’s true. By design, mousetraps kill mice.
But I don’t see what all the fuss is about. They’re mice. They’re in my house, they’re eating my peanuts and they’re sleeping in my cookware.
And try as they may to make mice look adorable in cartoons - they’re not exactly lovable in real life. For instance, they’re not singing and dancing while helping with my household chores or sewing me a dress. They’re just making a mess all over my kitchen and ruining my food.
So I suspect that anyone who thinks that a mousetrap is an abomination has probably never had the pleasure of hosting mice in their home.
And they also probably don’t realize how cute hand-painted mousetraps got.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: coffee, Houston Chronicle, running, soreness, working out
Like I needed another reason to drink coffee…
According to a new study, caffiene may help reduce muscle pain during workouts.
Filed under: Fitness | Tags: Broad Street Run, co-worker, New York, Philadelphia, running, work
While on the elevator at work the other day, someone from Accounting asked me if I was ready for “the big run.”
I can only assume he called it that because earlier in the day, my coworker incorrectly referred to it as a marathon for what seemed like the tenth time and I shouted “TEN MILES IS NOT A MARATHON!” loud enough for the entire office to hear.
Regardless, training for The Big Run is going well.
I told him, “I went for a long run last night and did OK. I imagine I looked pretty good too because strangers on the street kept yelling at me.”
He – and the rest of the elevator – seemed to think this was very funny.
I didn’t really see why, but I didn’t make a big thing about it.
I already yelled once that day.
