Creative commentary plus crafty composition

Posts tagged ‘Humour’

What about other special days which coincide?

This weekend we see the unusual calendar coincidence of Easter Sunday and April Fool’s Day falling on the same day.

Thus, whether one is religious or a trickster, there will likely be synergistic opportunity for some celebration and/or mischief.  One can get away with being both good and bad (within reason) on the same day. (more…)

A Wider Range of Employee Benefits

To what extent might we see the landscape expand in what are deemed to be ‘employee benefits’, in relation to being potentially taxable?

Take the case of the electric automobile. (more…)

Top 10 Contemporary Signs of St. Patrick’s Day

Remember when holidays pretty much were celebrated on the actual day?

Now, no doubt in part for commercial purposes, promotion has largely turned them into multi-day, if not multi-week, events. (more…)

Life Lessons from the Winter Olympics

We’ve just had the latest round of the Olympic Winter Games play out in Korea in the latter part of February.

Some nations, particularly the three highest medal count countries – namely, Norway, Germany, and Canada – found relative success after their long journeys to southeast Asia. Other countries didn’t have their usually expected triumphs (U.S.A.), and one wasn’t even able to compete under its national flag (Russia) – so, bigger is not always better. (more…)

Travel Tips

Open any travel related periodical or insert, and chances are that, in addition to glowing enticements to visit sites far or near, there will be some degree of tips from supposed experts. Sometimes the expertise is limited to lessons learned by the author about specific destinations; sometimes it’s more general ‘rules of thumb’ (not the green kind).

Case in point: the spring edition of CAA (Canadian Automobile Association) Magazine devotes several pages to recommending travel locations for 2018, with brief comments from CAA travel specialists. Some remarks are more insightful than others. (more…)

Adding Value

The proposition of ‘adding value’ has been an underlying foundation for success in service-oriented businesses for many years.

If one wants to generate a positive, lasting and loyal, relationship with customers, providing those extra ingredients of value is vital. This could be indirectly related to business, i.e. taking clients to lunch, paying for tickets to events, etc., or more directly, such as keeping in regular contact, or going the extra mile in solving problems quickly, or obtaining more helpful data for decision making. (more…)

You Know It’s Time to Move On

I have a friend who is being compelled to move from her longstanding residence shortly, due to a very unfortunate set of circumstances. She is quite unhappy, having to give up the apartment, albeit in a creaky old house, given its scenic, multidirectional view, but the environment has become untenable.

One of the constants of life is change – but some changes are much earlier to adapt to than others. (more…)

TOP 10 New Year’s Resolutions for 2018

It may be a new year, but there’s still baggage on the horizon…

  1. Lose weight by trimming your bling or dysfunctional cosmetic implants, whichever is heavier
  2. Get brochures or postcards of travel destinations you would have gone to if they were more affordable
  3. Set up a dart board with images of individuals or businesses which would benefit from getting the point
  4. Post a list of resolutions in declining font size and brightness so the later ones can be overlooked more easily
  5. Use a business card with a chip which allows for it to be remotely dissolved if the cardholder proves unworthy
  6. Invent a new species and become its trusted advisor in bilateral negotiations
  7. Memorize the first and last lines of book chapters so you sound like you are well read
  8. Develop a new social networking site which functions strictly to vote and comment on other social networking sites
  9. Eliminate any references to ‘trumped-up’, since that expression now has an inescapably deflating political connection
  10. Take back-to-back courses on empathy and callousness, then have a point-counterpoint debate with yourself

(more…)

TOP Craft Show Products of the Future

The year-end holiday season is the ripest time of the year for most retailers, providing more customers the chance to satisfy their gift buying goals.

While the ‘bricks-and-mortar’ version of the typical retail establishment has become increasingly usurped by on-line alternatives, there remains an important factor in favour of the former: the tactile experience of checking out items in the flesh. There are times you need to feel or examine a potential purchase before being truly satisfied the cost/benefit analysis works in your favour. (more…)

The Untapped Insurance Market

The year-end issue of The Insurance & Investment Journal continues its core mandate of covering the inexorable evolution of these integral aspects of personal financial planning.

No matter what the product or service being offered, WIIFM (What’s in it for me?) is always paramount for the prospective buyer, or, put another way, the cost/benefit analysis needs to favour the latter part of the equation.

But what of products or services appealing to limited, niche markets? (more…)