Whenever someone says, “Scott, you’re a winner” I don’t get overly excited, as the context of “winner” usually turns out to be derogatory.

The act of “winning” involves a victory of some sorts. Whether cashing in on a large prize from that one-dollar scratch-off ticket, or winning $35k from that slip-and-fall lawsuit you settled with Walmart, these victories deserve some sort of celebration.

Luck plays a lot into the act of “winning.” Luck is never on my side when I walk into a casino. I have been lucky at times tho. I did win a free Big Mac during the last round of McDonald’s Monopoly game. I got lucky one Friday night…. but we’ll save that for another time.

I am about to break open the Colt 45 pounder I’ve been saving for a lucky, winning victory celebration after receiving notification that, “The prestigious Microsoft® Windows XP Corporations wishes to inform you that your e-mail address emerged as one of their online lucky Winners selected from our private computerized lottery drawn here in London United Kingdom and this selection process was carried out through a random selection in our Computerized Email Selection System (C.E.S.S.) from a database of over a million email addresses from the world wide web.”

Imagine this, me an “online lucky winner” chosen from the “Computerized Email Selection System” otherwise known as C.E.S.S. This must certainly be my lucky day. After all, my email address was selected from over “a million email addresses from the world wide web.” The odds were definitely in my favor this time around.

The email goes on to say, “This promotion was set-up to encourage the active users of the Internet Microsoft® Windows. Hence we do believe that with your winning prize, you will continue to be
active and patronage to the Microsoft® Windows XP Corporations. Therefore you have won the sum of £500,000.00 pounds {Five Hundred Thousand Great British Pounds}. A winning cheque will be issued in your name by the Microsoft® Windows XP Corporation and also a certificate of prize claims will be sent to you along side with your winnings cheque. You are to make contact with your designated agent who shall by duty, guide you through the process of facilitating the release of your Prize.”

Bad English and poor grammar aside, we’re talking about “Five Hundred Thousand Great British Pounds” here.  I wonder who this mysterious “Microsoft Windows XP Corporation” is. Wait, there is a contact person listed in the email:

Zentec Security
Mr Astrid Pedersen
Email:zenteclitd@execs.com
Direct Tel.Line;+44(0)702-404-4595

I guess I could spare the couple bucks it’s going to cost me in long distance charges to call the UK and chat with Mr. Pedersen. After all, a half-million pounds is going to be heading my way, I should be able to afford it. But alas, I must resign myself to giving up on this pittance of a half-million pounds, I just received another email from Mr. Loni Negroni a political prisoner from Nigeria. He wants to give me $12 million.

Boy am I a winner today.

I spend a lot of time pondering.

Not about important things, but about little things.

Like, what if there were no cell phones. It would be like 1978 all over again. When we need to reach out and touch someone we head home to our Princess phone and “dial” that person. Or visit a public pay phone and drop a dime to connect. There would be no need to put “cell phone etiquette appreciated” on the bottom of restaurant menus. The lack of cell phones would certainly restore manners on people who talk via the “ear appendage” as they walk through the grocery store, wait in line at the bank, or sit next to you on the plane during a tarmac delay.

I like to ponder what life would be like without touch tones. It would eliminate the need to press 1 for Spanish, press 2 for English. Would put people back to work as businesses would once again find the need for someone to actually answer a phone and greet you with a friendly “hello” instead of a recording.

The existence of voice mail is something I ponder a lot. I hate it. Think back to the invention of the “Code A Phone” in the 80′s where cassette tape answering machines took messages for you at your home. Now there’s voice mail on your home phone, cell phone, office phone, Skype, Yahoo! Messenger, and God only knows what else. I don’t leave messages on voice mail, because nobody returns them anyway. It’s definitely something we can live without.

Email. Where would we be without email. We actually may become productive again. Now we can work without distractions, go through the day without getting chain emails full of cute puppy photos, and end the day without someone selling you Viagra at 98% off.

Email wouldn’t exist without the Internet, and just try to ponder life without the net. Yeah, go on. Try it. How would we shop? Would we actually have to drive to a store? UPS and FedEx wouldn’t be as busy as they are. Without the Internet we would have to actually buy a newspaper, pay for porn and use a lawyer for legal advice instead of relying on the 12 year old kid dispensing law on some website. Without the Internet I’d be poor, destitute and probably living in a cardboard box down by the river. Lets stop pondering this one right now.

Pondering can be fun. I use it as a way to wipe the stress of a bad day away. Often times pondering the simple things in life can be fun and insightful. Look around you and imagine what life would be like without some of the things we take for granted every day and ponder them for a minute or too.

Like the toilet.

Imagine life without the commode.

Without it, the chamber pot business would be flourishing.

Usually you hear about flight attendants who are disgruntled because of their latest union contract, or so ticked off at a passenger that they grab a can of beer and deploy the emergency exit slide only to get their own reality show.  It’s not too often you hear about the good things these diplomats of the sky do everyday to keep passengers safe, entertained and well hydrated.  So, I thought I’d share an incident that happened to me just moments ago and how a flight attendant went above and beyond for a passenger.

I was on US Airways flight 990 from Fort Lauderdale, FL to Charlotte, NC.  I settled in, whipped out the iPad and watched the season seven finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm (which was great by the way – Seinfeld fans must see it).  When it was over, I pulled my ear buds out only to see that the rubber nub from the one in my right ear was missing.  I checked the seat and the area around me and couldn’t find it.  I stupidly stuck my finger in my ear to see if it was there, and bingo…. it was.  And now I pushed it farther down into my ear canal and the pressure and pain started to build.

I popped into the lavatory to see if I could see anything in the mirror and to relieve myself from the three pomegranite martinis I had during the flight.  My attempts at sticking my fat fingers in my ear to remove this small piece of rubber proved fruitless and only made matters worse.  I exited and sheepishly asked Darlene, the flight attendant, if she would look in my ear and see if she could see this thing.  Her comment was, “wow that’s really in there.”

“I have a pair of tweezers and a flashlight,” she said.  “Go for it,” was my response.

With the skill of a trained surgeon she put the flashlight in her mouth, grabbed my ear and tweezed the rubber nub out of my ear much to my relief.  We had a good laugh as a fellow passenger stared at us and said, “did you just pull that from his ear?“  We joked about US Airways sending my HMO a bill and had a good laugh about this crazy situation.

Thanks to Darlene for going above and beyond to help out.  I’m heaving over to my friend Flavio’s eCommerce store, earphonesolutions.com, to buy a new pair of ear buds.

How many times has this happened to you.  You’re typing in the url for your favorite website and low and behold you leave off the “m” in the “.com” and you go nowhere fast.

Until now.

The new “.co” domain is available for registration and businesses all over the world are jumping on the band wagon to claim their company’s name or trademark. But something else is happening too, and if you’re doing business on the net, you need to be aware of it.

Domain hijacking.

During a meeting last week, somehow we got on the discussion of domain names and the new “.co” domain.  While we were chatting, I decided to punch in a few domains ending in “.co” to see if businesses registered them.  I typed in a friends business domain and I was shocked to see that her “.co” domain was being re-directed to a competitors website.  I then looked into her competitors and saw that this same company bought all her competitor’s “.co” domains and redirected them as well.  A very cheap attempt at trying to steal a customer.

I immediately went and registered the “.co” version of all my e-commerce stores domains just to be safe and that’s something I recommend all e-commerce store owners do.  For my friend, the legal battle now begins.  Will she be able to force the scallywag to give up the domain and the deceitful practice?  Will it be easy to do or will it be a fight that lasts for months with an unfavorable outcome?  Only time will tell.

In the mean time, take a moment and spend the money to register the “.co” domain for your business.  The money you spend today can save you a lot more down the road in legal fees and lost business.