All MN fans knew he would arrive with a big helping of  flair, drama, obnoxiousness but hey, Randy, just keep your nose clean and act somewhat Norwegian (see Garrison Keillor), and we will love you.  He lasted a month.

At the end of Vikings’ practices on Fridays, the team invites a local restaurant to come into the locker room and serve a buffet style meal.  Cool idea, community building and all that.

Last Friday, a local “eatery” showed up with pasta, chicken, ribs and put on quite the spread for our young men in purple.  The restaurant has been in our area for over fifty years and many Viking players have eaten there.  Anyway.

At this “spread” young Randy went up and down the serving line complaining and berating the food and servers, “I won’t eat this crap,” and other such language that your young children should not hear.  Even his teammates were appalled at his boorish behavior.  Well let me tell you, sports fans, you can complain about our weather up here in scenic Minnesota, you can call us “bandwagon fans,” but we like our sports heroes to be nice and humble as well as good, see Joe Mauer, Kent Hrbek, Alan Page.  And don’t complain about the food.  We eat lutefisk.

So, Tinucci’s Restaurant had some bad PR on its hands….52 years here and Randy Moss ( THE Randy Moss)…was calling their food crap.  How would you feel if every morning, like almost 365 mornings every year, you got up and poured your life into trying your best for your customers and one spoiled football player railed on YOUR FOOD.  A PR disaster.  Yikes, Vikes.

So, they did what locally owned businesses have been doing for years.  They reacted with good humor.  And they came up with a plan that did not need corporate approval.

The plan:  Tomorrow, from noon to 2 pm, they will be serving the very same food that was served on the fateful day one week ago, to anyone who stops by.

The buffet is FREE.  All you have to do is donate your Randy Moss #84 Jersey.  Clever, this Tinucci Family.

I’m thinking crowd control issues.  The restaurant is in Newport, MN, just down the road from Lake Wobegon.

By Scott Adams,  THE ULTIMATE CASE STUDY

By now you’ve probably heard the news about the prankster who gave his “friend” a huge penis tattoo on his back.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/27/australian-artist-charged_n_774608.html

My immediate reaction was that this story could be turned into the greatest case study of all time. It contains most of what I learned in business school and half of what I learned from my parents. It is the ultimate parable. Let’s open the valve and see what valuable lessons spill out.

Don’t make decisions while drunk. The story doesn’t say alcohol was involved. But did I mention that one guy tattooed a giant penis on the other guy’s back?

Stay in school and get good grades. Again, the story was silent on the academic achievements of the people involved, but did I mention that one guy tattooed a penis on the other guy’s back?

Test first. Start with something small, such as a leprechaun on an ankle, just to see how the business relationship works out.

Supervision matters. If an employee unexpectedly volunteers for a project that can only be performed behind your back, something bad is going to happen.

Capitalism never sleeps. If someone offers you a free service, you should be suspicious of what he expects to get in return.  It might involve, for example, your friend laughing himself into a near coma.

Jerks never change. The tattoo artist didn’t suddenly become a jerk when he started drawing a penis on his friend’s back. I’m going to say the signals were there.

Credentials matter. If you’re in the market for a brain surgeon, don’t stop when you find a guy who owns a saw.

Network smartly. If there is even the slightest chance that your friend will misspell a gay insult that he secretly tattoos on your back, it’s time to broaden your network of friends.

Don’t believe product reviews. An accomplice of the prankster praised the artwork as it was being drawn.

Solicit opinions from others. Before you decide to get any sort of permanent marking on your back from an unlicensed tattoo artist, find out what other people think of the idea.

I could go on. I think you could build an entire law school curriculum around this case. And I’m pretty sure it would replace a bachelor’s degree in marketing and advertising, unless you think you’ll ever forget the story of the penis tattoo prank.

My point is that every school should build its curriculum around the story of the penis tattoo.  In grade school the kids could learn about the importance of good spelling, resisting peer pressure, and staying in school.  In graduate school, students could learn the legal, economic, and psychological implications of the story. It’s all there, like some sort of fabulous gift from God.

But I’m a little bit suspicious why we got it for free.

Here’s my take:

1.  If this is indeed a time traveler, why go back in time as a frumpy old lady?  Why not go back a few years first, say, to your 20′s when your knees don’t hurt and you are less, er, bitchy curmudgeonly.

2.  Or, time travelers will not be holding a cell phone to their ear like we did in the 1990′s.  Communication devices will be implants by then.  Didn’t George Clark read Scott Adams’ post on this earlier?

3.  Plus, she didn’t look anything like Steve Jobs in drag.  We all KNOW Steve will be the first to go back in time.  He’s working on this device right now.  In partnership with Dean Kamen.

What do you think?

[youtube DF8WF3vGUn8]

But earlier this week, I was in a meeting and everyone was talking about “The Double Rainbow Guy.” Who?  They rolled their eyes at me the way you do at Uncle Curly when he stands on his head at Thanksgiving Dinner because I had no idea who the DR guy was.  ”Google it,” they told me.

Turns out the DR Guy’s YouTube thing has almost 16 million views.  (Pres. Obama’s Inauguration speech has 4.5 million.)

I admit it, I watched the Double Rainbow video, and still don’t quite get it.  I get the dancing babies and all, but this? I am now officially my own dad, I am so out of it.

Which goes to show you that if you are in marketing (Hurry-239 open ‘viral marketing’ jobs at LINKUP.com) and are spending ANY of your time on ways to “GO VIRAL,” you will never-ever succeed at it.  It is too random.

Here is the Double Rainbow Video.  Will someone please explain this to me?

[youtube OQSNhk5ICTI]

Ed. note. The following is today’s Seth Godin, found over at his blog here.  He refers to Clay Shirky, whose blog can found here.  (He is also a must-read, although he doesn’t write much. Brag point:  I know someone who recently had coffee with Clay, yah me!)  I am repeating  Seth’s post here cuz I know how hard it can be to jump all around the internets.

(He also guest wrote a post for me which has received blog acclaim called “Don’t Try To Get a Job.”

by Seth Godin

There are two recessions going on.

One is gradually ending. This is the cyclical recession, we have them all the time, they come and they go. Not fun, but not permanent.

The other one, I fear, is here forever. This is the recession of the industrial age, the receding wave of bounty that workers and businesses got as a result of rising productivity but imperfect market communication.

In short: if you’re local, we need to buy from you. If you work in town, we need to hire you. If you can do a craft, we can’t replace you with a machine.

No longer.

The lowest price for any good worth pricing is now available to anyone, anywhere. Which makes the market for boring stuff a lot more perfect than it used to be.

Since the ‘factory’ work we did is now being mechanized, outsourced or eliminated, it’s hard to pay extra for it. And since buyers have so many choices (and much more perfect information about pricing and availability) it’s hard to charge extra.

Thus, middle class jobs that existed because companies had no choice are now gone.

Protectionism isn’t going to fix this problem. Neither is stimulus of old factories or yelling in frustration and anger. No, the only useful response is to view this as an opportunity. To poorly paraphrase Clay Shirky, every revolution destroys the last thing before it turns a profit on a new thing.

The networked revolution is creating huge profits, significant opportunities and a lot of change. What it’s not doing is providing millions of brain-dead, corner office, follow-the-manual middle class jobs. And it’s not going to.

Fast, smart and flexible are embraced by the network. Linchpin behavior. People and companies we can’t live without (because if I can live without you, I’m sure going to try if the alternative is to save money).

The sad irony is that everything we do to prop up the last economy (more obedience, more compliance, cheaper yet average) gets in the way of profiting from this one.

Yeah.

Here’s the deal, for you men.  A week or so ago, the Citibank memo for young women entering the workforce hit the internets.  I have not seen one for men, yet.  Here it is.

1.  Never ever comment on a female’s body.  No Matter What.  I don’t care if she is wearing hot pants and a halter top.  It DOES not matter.  That might be her only clean outfit.  It is not a signal of ANY TYPE.  Do not make a comment, however well intentioned.

2.  Do not leer.  You know what I mean.  You think you are being clever and all secretive with your eyes.  You are NOT.

3.  Here is the ONE WORD to remember.  Respect.  R. E. S. P. E. C. T.

4.  Just cuz the popular culture is one way, does NOT give  you any special liberties.  You can laugh all you want at Charlie Sheen in his TV Show, but adapting his behavior at your work, is boorish and at worst, illegal.  Know the difference.  What would Mom think, or Grandma, should be top of mind, not some David Spader character.

5.  ”She should know better than to wear clothes like that around men,” is a stupid thing to say or think.  I cannot even think of a way to sugarcoat it.  Are you a caveman?  Good. Grief.

6.  Never ever talk about your dating or married life at work.  Others do not really care.  And, it can turn south in a hurry.

7.  Corollary:  Never asked for dating or married advice.  Watch Dr. Phil.

8.  When with other men, walk away when the topic turns to youknowwhat.  The walls have ears.  Real men don’t talk that way.

9.  Don’t be all unnatural around women, either.  Just remember point 3. Respect.

10.  You know how to act.  Do that.

Did you hear that the Department of Labor just started their very own job board?  Evidently, the nation’s 75,000 job boards are not doing the job.  So someone thought, “Hey, why don’t we get into the job board business, too?  Plus this will be an evergreen type program, no one will want to kill a government job board.”  It is called permanent civil service.

Think I am over-reacting?  Well, here in Minnesota, we have our very own state run job board.  Faced with mounting deficits, do you think this ineffective, redundant job board would be axed?  Nope.

Reminds me of the story about the visitor to the Department of Agriculture, who noticed a worker crying at his desk, and when he was asked what was wrong, he said, “My farmer died.”

I am all for government.  I mean social security sounds pretty good, and I know we need a national defense, the SEC, the FDA and a few more.  Mostly, I just need the white lines in the road painted every year.  And, oh yeah, the post office.

I don’t think you need a government job board.  And yes, I am IN the job board business, actually the job search engine business, so it hits a bit close to home.  But why don’t you substitute your own business and see how YOU like it.  You run a clothing store?  Well, sometimes I cannot find my exact size at my local clothing store, that ever happen to you?

Next up, then, the Government Clothing Store.   Every size, every style.

Talking about un-intended consequences, I was talking to an Iowa farmer over the weekend and the subject of the tainted eggs came up.  People in Iowa know this guy, and want nothing to do with him, runs a bad operation.  But did  you know that the state of Iowa is in the top 3 chicken producing states now in the union?  California used to be high on the list, until they passed a law saying that an individual chicken has to be able to flap its wings in its cage.  The whole industry up and moved out of state.

I see today that Nike has filed a patent for self-lacing shoes.

I just keep missing these revolutionary breakthrough ideas.  But to keep it in perspective, I also said no one would ever buy high priced coffee.  And I thought the Mall of America was a gigantic waste of space and money.  (My grandfather famously said that sliced bread wouldn’t make it either, it would dry out too fast, he said.)

But self-lacing shoes?  I guess anything that saves time could be a winner these days.

Still, I would have loved to be in THAT product development meeting at Nike.  ”Phil, seriously man, we can LACE THE SHOES UP for them!!”

“But why?”

“Well, some of the kids are too fat to bend over.

2. There appears to be an inconsistency of shoe-tying ability out there, sometimes our shoes become UN-TIED and ‘we’ get blamed for it,

3.  We think there is a dumb-as-rocks market, yet untapped,

4. Much easier training program for our spokesmen, and

5. Four words:   New Spokesman–The Situation.