I could provide some motivational words this Christmas, but maybe I should leave that to the experts…

Photo credit: Wikipedia

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Check out the book spotlight and enter to win by clicking here! Good luck!

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How about on Cyber Monday?

If you have any money left, I would encourage you to be a part of GivingTuesday.

GivingTuesday is a new movement to create a national day of giving on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Created by New York’s 92nd Street Y, GivingTuesday has partnered with The United Nations Foundation to help spread the word on this awesome idea.

Today marks the 4th annual GivingTuesday.

According to GivingTuesday.org, the launch in 2012 saw more than 2,500 recognized GivingTuesday partners from all 50 states of the United States. “The collective efforts of partners, donors and advocates helped fuel a marked increase in charitable giving on GivingTuesday. Blackbaud processed over $10 million in online donations on 11/27/12 – a 53% increase when compared to the Tuesday after Thanksgiving the previous year. DonorPerfect recorded a 46% increase in online donations and the average gift increased 25%. More than 50 million people worldwide spread the word about GivingTuesday – resulting in milestone trending on Twitter.- from GivingTuesday.org“

I think GivingTuesday is an awesome idea!

So awesome in fact, that I am running a special Maury C. Moose Buy 1 Give 1 Sale! For every Maury C. Moose book sold through Amazon between Nov. 30th and Dec. 6th, I will be donating a matching copy to a child who can really use the book.

You buy a book and I’ll give a book. It is just that simple. You get your book just as you would from any other Amazon purchase you would make, only this time, a child in need is also a given a book thanks to your generosity.

My goal is to donate 100 copies. That means I am going to need your help. Knock out your Christmas shopping early and together we can reach the goal of giving the gift of reading to many kids who otherwise would not have access to a book of their own!

Learn more about my sale at www.MauryCMoose.com/Buy1Give1.

And if you want to learn more about this idea and how you can get involved, visit www.GivingTuesday.org.

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I didn’t actually have any jokes, and I didn’t even know how to submit the joke — I probably thought it was enough to write “Saturday Night Live” on an envelope and the mailman would take care of the rest — but I always just assumed it would be easy to come up with one killer joke.

Turns out it might not be so easy to get a joke on TV…shocking, I know.

On Marc Maron’s podcast, comedian Anthony Jeselnik told a story about when he was a writer for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Each day, in preparation for the show, Jeselnik said he would write 70 jokes a day.

Hardly any of them were used,” Jeselnik said. “But I had to write 70 jokes a day.”

70 jokes a day! That sounds impossible. And what’s even more, knowing that 99% of them probably will just be thrown away and never seen on the show, that has to be intimidating.

Jeselnik didn’t say it, but I doubt Jimmy Fallon gave him an assignment of writing 70 jokes a day. More likely, Jeselnik knew that was what it took to improve at his craft and stay competitive at work.

According to IMDB, he was a writer for Jimmy Fallon for 145 shows. That is about 10,150 jokes that Jeselnik came up with, roughly 10,000 jokes that never saw the light of day.

After a stint as the host of Last Comic Standing, and the release of his second Netfix comedy special, it is clear that Jelselnik’s hard work has paid off.

Want to get good at writing jokes? Try writing more than 10,000 jokes in half a year. You won’t help but become a  better writer

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I think her second wish might be to have her sons be less sarcastic. My brothers and I have always had a sarcastic sense of humor. I think we got it from our dad along with a genetic grab-bag that included hairy arms, bad knees, and appreciation of a good coupon.

My mom, however, hasn’t always loved our sarcasm. She is more of what you might call, not a jerk. So our biting comments to one another didn’t always go over well with her.

But it turns out, the thing that drives my mom crazy might just be the thing that makes me super duper smart.

A study out of Harvard Business School found that sarcasm is the “highest form of intelligence.” People who are sarcastic demonstrated “enhanced creativity” in the form of abstract thinking

And if that is not enough, another study has shown that my sarcasm might just be making my mom smarter.

According to The Smithsonian:

Studies have shown that exposure to sarcasm enhances creative problem solving.”

Researchers found that the brain works even better when it gets sarcasm:

Scientists who have monitored the electrical activity of the brains of test subjects exposed to sarcastic statements have found that brains have to work harder to understand sarcasm.”

So mom, if you ever do come across a magic genie, you might just want to forget about trying to get rid of my sarcasm. Save that wish for something more important, like getting rid of your awful case of Osgood-Schlatter

Love you mom!

Photo credit: Veeboy2

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In December 2010, one of Johnny Cash’s to-do list sold at auction for $6,250.

It is fun to see the things he had on his list. Some are funny, like “pee.” Some are surprising, like “practice piano.” I guess even the great ones need to be reminded to practice their craft (and go to the bathroom).

What stood out to me was #8 “worry.”

I can’t be sure why Cash put worry on his list of things to do, so I am going to speculate for a minute. Perhaps Johnny Cash agreed with Max Lucado’s sentiment from my recent post (found here). Suppose Cash knew that in the course of his day it would be inevitable that he would worry about something. By adding “worry” to his to do list, he may have been creating a preemptive strike.

He wasn’t going to let worry creep up on him. He was going to schedule it into his day and then be done. Maybe he thought that if he had it on his to do list, it would be easier to check it off and move on to something more important, like visiting his mother.

Again, I don’t know why “worry” was on his list, anymore than I know why “cough” was on the list. But maybe, just maybe, Cash was telling himself to worry about today, today and save tomorrow’s worries for tomorrow.

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I could provide some motivational words this Halloween, but maybe I should leave that to the experts…

Photo credit: Wikipedia

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After watching the trailer, people were wondering many things: where is Luke, what’s up with Han and Leia, and what planet is being blown up?

I too started wondering after watching the trailer, but my question had nothing to do with The Force or lightsabers. Here’s what I was wondering…

What Was The First Movie Trailer Ever?

Movie trailers are big business these days, but that wasn’t always the case. In fact, most of the early trailers were not even seen by moviegoers.

Trailers got their name because they were initially played after the movie. They “trailed” the feature film. However, this practice was not effective because most audiences left right after the movie and ignored the trailer all together. To fix this, the trailers were moved to be shown before the movie, where they remain to this day.

The first trailer shown in a theater in the United Stated took place in November 1913. The Marcus Loew theater chain’s advertising manager, Nils Granlund, created a short promo for the musical The Pleasure Seekers which was opening at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway. When the promo was shown, the Daily Star in Lincoln, Nebraska described the event as “an entirely new and unique stunt”, and that “moving pictures of the rehearsals and other incidents connected with the production will be sent out in advance of the show, to be presented to the Loew’s picture houses and will take the place of much of the bill board advertising”.

With this new and unique stunt, trailers were born.

Granlund is also credited with creating the first trailer to promote an upcoming motion picture when he used a slide technique to promote an upcoming film featuring Charlie Chaplin at Loew’s Seventh Avenue Theatre in Harlem in 1914.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Source: Wikipedia

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Let’s find out…

What Was The First Ever TV Commercial?

On July 1, 1941, the Brooklyn Dodgers were taking on the Philadelphia Phillies at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. The game was televised on NBC affiliate WNBT-TV. Before the game began, history was made when TV viewers saw the following 10-second advertisement for Bulova clocks and watches.

Technically TV broadcasting started in the U.S. in 1928, but the FCC didn’t grant commercial licenses to TV stations until May 2, 1941. On July 1st, those licenses went into effect and at 2:29 p.m the Bulova commercial aired.

Roughly 4,000 people saw the birth of commercialized television, which cost Bulova all of $9: $4 for airtime and $5 for station charges.

Source: Mashable

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Too say he overestimated his level of responsibility, is to say that ESPN likes sports.

His first job as an assistant was to get the head coach a Diet Coke. His role had little to do with offense or defense and more to do with making sure coach Gary Blair didn’t get thirsty at practice and at games.

Neighbors could have sulked. His friends were giving him a hard time. He could have thought that task was beneath him and quit.

He choose a different route. He decided to take his job head on.

“If that’s on me, I am going to be the head coach of that.” Neighbors said. “I found out if he wanted it in a can, in a cup, or if he wanted his ice cubed or crushed, or Sonic-style.”

He always wanted to be a head coach and he decided that the best way to work toward that is to be the head coach of whatever he was asked to do. He took whatever duty the coach gave him and he performed to the best of his ability. This led to the coach developing a trust in Neighbors which led to more responsibilities.

Many times we expect big things right away. We write a book and we want to be treated like John Grisham. He start a restaurant and we want lines like Chipotle. We want to be number 1 from day 1.

But that is not how it works. When we are hit with reality we can choose to sulk or we can chose to be the head coach of any task we are given.

When we become the head coach of whatever, and perform to the best of our abilities, our role will grow and grow.

However, that doesn’t mean it will come quickly. Just ask Neighbors. He spent 14 years as an assistant, and was passed up for head coaching jobs numerous times.

But it eventually paid off.

Neighbors is now the head coach of being a head coach for the University of Washington.

And it will eventually pay off for us.

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